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formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3588) to coordinate Federal research and development efforts focused on modernizing mathematics in STEM education through mathematical and statistical modeling, including data-driven and computational thinking, problem, project, and performance-based learning and assessment, interdisciplinary exploration, and career connections, and for other purposes, as amended, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgH7143 | null | 4,800 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7180) to authorize the Director of the National Science Foundation to award grants to support research on the disruption of regular cognitive processes associated with COVID-19 infection, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgH7144 | null | 4,801 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Newman). Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 8454) to expand research on cannabidiol and marijuana, and for other purposes, as amended, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Newman) | House | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgH7145 | null | 4,802 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on additional motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered, or votes objected to under clause 6 of rule XX. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at later time. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgH7146-3 | null | 4,803 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7734) to amend title 31, United States Code, to require the timely production of reports to Congress under the Bank Secrecy Act, and for other purposes, as amended, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgH7146 | null | 4,804 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4590) to require the Federal banking regulators to jointly conduct a study and develop a strategic plan to address challenges faced by proposed depository institutions seeking de novo depository institution charters; and for other purposes, as amended. | 2020-01-06 | Ms. WATERS | House | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgH7150 | null | 4,805 |
formal | Federal Reserve | null | antisemitic | The following petitions and memorials were laid before the Senate and were referred or ordered to lie on the table as indicated: POM-165. A resolution adopted by the Senate of Louisiana urging and requesting the Federal Reserve Board, the office of the comptroller of the currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration, and the office of financial institutions to refrain from enacting or adopting laws, rules, regulations, or guidance that restricts the ability of banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks, credit unions, trust companies, or payment processors from offering products or services to the fossil fuel industry; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Senate Resolution No. 203 Whereas, the fossil fuel industry contributes to the economy of the state and to the prosperity of its citizens; and Whereas, the fossil fuel industry produces consumer-ready resources, continues to create thousands of jobs for our workforce, and remains committed to the safety of our communities and the preservation of the environment; and Whereas, in recent years the fossil fuel industry has been unfairly denied financing by large lenders; and Whereas, four of the six largest United States banks, Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo and Company, have pledged over the past year to end funding for new drilling and exploration projects; and Whereas, in order to be successful in the fossil fuel industry, businesses rely on banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions for funding. Therefore, be it. Resolved that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana memorializes the Congress of the United States and urges and requests the Federal Reserve Board, the office of the comptroller of the currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration, and the office of financial institutions to refrain from enacting rules or regulations that restrict the ability of banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks, credit unions, trust companies, or payment processors from offering products or services to the fossil fuel industry; and be it further. Resolved that a copy of this Resolution shall be transmitted to the secretary of the United States Senate and the clerk of the United States House of Representatives, each member of the Louisiana delegation to the United States Congress, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the acting comptroller of the currency of the office of the comptroller of the currency, the chairman of the board of directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration Board, and the commissioner of the office of financial institutions. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgS3690-4 | null | 4,806 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following petitions and memorials were laid before the Senate and were referred or ordered to lie on the table as indicated: POM-165. A resolution adopted by the Senate of Louisiana urging and requesting the Federal Reserve Board, the office of the comptroller of the currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration, and the office of financial institutions to refrain from enacting or adopting laws, rules, regulations, or guidance that restricts the ability of banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks, credit unions, trust companies, or payment processors from offering products or services to the fossil fuel industry; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Senate Resolution No. 203 Whereas, the fossil fuel industry contributes to the economy of the state and to the prosperity of its citizens; and Whereas, the fossil fuel industry produces consumer-ready resources, continues to create thousands of jobs for our workforce, and remains committed to the safety of our communities and the preservation of the environment; and Whereas, in recent years the fossil fuel industry has been unfairly denied financing by large lenders; and Whereas, four of the six largest United States banks, Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo and Company, have pledged over the past year to end funding for new drilling and exploration projects; and Whereas, in order to be successful in the fossil fuel industry, businesses rely on banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions for funding. Therefore, be it. Resolved that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana memorializes the Congress of the United States and urges and requests the Federal Reserve Board, the office of the comptroller of the currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration, and the office of financial institutions to refrain from enacting rules or regulations that restrict the ability of banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks, credit unions, trust companies, or payment processors from offering products or services to the fossil fuel industry; and be it further. Resolved that a copy of this Resolution shall be transmitted to the secretary of the United States Senate and the clerk of the United States House of Representatives, each member of the Louisiana delegation to the United States Congress, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the acting comptroller of the currency of the office of the comptroller of the currency, the chairman of the board of directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration Board, and the commissioner of the office of financial institutions. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgS3690-4 | null | 4,807 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | By Mr. THUNE (for himself, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Braun, Mr. Crapo, Mr. Daines, Ms. Ernst, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Hagerty, Mr. Hoeven, Ms. Lummis, Mr. Risch, and Mr. Rounds): S. 4610. A bill to provide reliable and evidence-based food and energy security; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | Senate | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgS3696-2 | null | 4,808 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | By Mr. THUNE (for himself, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Braun, Mr. Crapo, Mr. Daines, Ms. Ernst, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Hagerty, Mr. Hoeven, Ms. Lummis, Mr. Risch, and Mr. Rounds): S. 4610. A bill to provide reliable and evidence-based food and energy security; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | Senate | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgS3696 | null | 4,809 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself, Mr. Wyden, Ms. Ernst, Ms. Hirono, Ms. Collins, Mr. Peters, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Carper, Mr. Moran, Mr. Markey, Mr. Boozman, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Tillis, Ms. Hassan, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Wicker, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Lankford, Ms. Sinema, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Warnock) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to: S. Res. 723 Whereas, in 1777, before the passage of the Bill of Rights, 10 sailors and Marines blew the whistle on fraud and misconduct that was harmful to the United States; Whereas the Founding Fathers unanimously supported the whistleblowers in words and deeds, including by releasing government records and providing monetary assistance for the reasonable legal expenses necessary to prevent retaliation against the whistleblowers; Whereas, on July 30, 1778, in demonstration of their full support for whistleblowers, the members of the Continental Congress unanimously passed the first whistleblower legislation in the United States that read: ``Resolved, That it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other the inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge'' (legislation of July 30, 1778, reprinted in Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, ed. Worthington C. Ford et al. (Washington, DC, 1904-37), 11:732); Whereas whistleblowers risk their careers, jobs, and reputations by reporting waste, fraud, and abuse to the proper authorities; Whereas, in providing the proper authorities with lawful disclosures, whistleblowers save the taxpayers of the United States billions of dollars each year and serve the public interest by ensuring that the United States remains an ethical and safe place; and Whereas it is the public policy of the United States to encourage, in accordance with Federal law (including the Constitution of the United States, rules, and regulations) and consistent with the protection of classified information (including sources and methods of detection of classified information), honest and good faith reporting of misconduct, fraud, misdemeanors, and other crimes to the appropriate authority at the earliest time possible: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate-- (1) designates July 30, 2022, as ``National Whistleblower Appreciation Day''; and (2) ensures that the Federal Government implements the intent of the Founding Fathers, as reflected in the legislation passed on July 30, 1778 (relating to whistleblowers), by encouraging each executive agency to recognize National Whistleblower Appreciation Day by-- (A) informing employees, contractors working on behalf of the taxpayers of the United States, and members of the public about the legal right of a United States citizen to ``blow the whistle'' to the appropriate authority by honest and good faith reporting of misconduct, fraud, misdemeanors, or other crimes; and (B) acknowledging the contributions of whistleblowers to combating waste, fraud, abuse, and violations of laws and regulations of the United States. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-26-pt1-PgS3698-3 | null | 4,810 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Kuster). Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on the motions to suspend the rules if a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered, or if the vote is objected to under clause 6 of rule XX. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Kuster) | House | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgH7182 | null | 4,811 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ryan). Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to recommit on the bill (H.R. 3771) to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for research and improvement of cardiovascular health among the South Asian population of the United States, and for other purposes, offered by the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks), on which the yeas and nays were ordered. The Clerk will redesignate the motion. The Clerk redesignated the motion. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ryan) | House | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgH7220 | null | 4,812 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to recommit on the bill (H.R. 4040) to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to extend telehealth flexibilities under the Medicare program, and for other purposes, offered by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), on which the yeas and nays were ordered. The Clerk will redesignate the motion. The Clerk redesignated the motion. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgH7221 | null | 4,813 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) to suspend the rules and pass the following bills: H.R. 623, H.R. 3952, H.R. 3962, H.R. 4551, H.R. 5313, H.R. 6933, H.R. 7132, H.R. 7361, H.R. 7569, H.R. 7624, H.R. 7733, and H.R. 7981, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgH7223 | null | 4,814 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Under clause 2 of rule XIV, executive communications were taken from the Speaker's table and referred as follows: EC-4942. A letter from the Under Secretary, Acquisition and Sustainment, Department of Defense, transmitting the Department's report titled ``Fiscal Year 2021 Purchases From Foreign Entities'', pursuant to 41 U.S.C. 8305; Public Law 104-201, Sec. 827 (as amended by Public Law 111-350, Sec. 3); (124 Stat. 3833) and 41 U.S.C. 8304 note; Public Law 116-260, div. C, title VIII, Sec. 8030(b); (134 Stat. 1310); to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4943. A letter from the Secretary, Department of Commerce, transmitting a notification of the President's approval for federal recognition of the international exposition ``Expo 2027 Minnesota -- Healthy People, Healthy Planet: Wellness and Well-Being for all'', pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 2802(c); Public Law 91-269, Sec. 2(c); (84 Stat. 271); to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. EC-4944. A letter from the Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting a memorandum of justification for a drawdown under section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. EC-4945. A letter from the Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting a transmittal of a determination to Congress under Section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to Provide Military Assistance to Ukraine; to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. EC-4946. A letter from the Deputy General Counsel for Operations, Department of Housing and Urban Development, transmitting a notice of an action on nomination, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 3349(a); Public Law 105-277, Sec. 151(b); (112 Stat. 2681-614); to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. EC-4947. A letter from the Attorney-Advisor, Office of the General Counsel, Department of Transportation, transmitting a notice of a vacancy, and a designation of acting officer, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 3349(a); Public Law 105-277, Sec. 151(b); (112 Stat. 2681-614); to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. EC-4948. A letter from the President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis, transmitting the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis 2021 management report and financial statements, pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 9106(a)(1); Public Law 97-258 (as amended by Public Law 101- 576, Sec. 306(a)); (104 Stat. 2854); to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. EC-4949. A letter from the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, transmitting the 2021 management report of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York including financial statements, pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 9106(a)(1); Public Law 97-258 (as amended by Public Law 101-576, Sec. 306(a)); (104 Stat. 2854); to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. EC-4950. A letter from the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, transmitting the 2021 management report of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco including financial statements, pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 9106(a)(1); Public Law 97- 258 (as amended by Public Law 101-576, Sec. 306(a)); (104 Stat. 2854); to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. EC-4951. A letter from the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, transmitting a letter from the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, transmitting the annual compilation of financial disclosure statements filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives by members of the board of the Office of Congressional Ethics (H. Doc. No. 117--135); to the Committee on Ethics and ordered to be printed. EC-4952. A letter from the Acting Commissioner, Social Security Administration, transmitting the 2022 Annual Report of the Supplemental Security Income Program, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1383f(a); Aug. 14, 1935, ch. 531, title XVIII, Sec. 1875 (as amended by Public Law 104-193, Sec. 231); (110 Stat. 2197); to the Committee on Ways and Means. EC-4953. A letter from the Assistant Secretary for Legislation, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting a report to Congress on Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) in Medicaid, 2018-2020; jointly to the Committees on Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgH7253-3 | null | 4,815 |
formal | Chicago | null | racist | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, at long last, it is official. Buck O'Neil and Minnie Minoso are finally where they deserve to be: in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. These two remarkable men, who were friends for decades, both started their careers in baseball's storied Negro Leagues. They went on to make history again in the Major Leagues--in the city of Chicago--and they stayed involved with baseball all their lives. And they were both known, as one writer said, ``as much for their grace and spirit of generosity as for their immense achievements in the game.'' I never had the good fortune to meet Buck O'Neil, but I have a baseball that he signed, and I keep it as a treasure. I did meet Minnie Minoso. He and Satchel Paige came to a Springfield Redbirds game many years ago, and I summoned the courage to shake their hands between innings. What a thrill that was. But meeting Minnie Minoso was an honor shared by so many Chicagoans. As his widow, Sharon Rice-Minoso, recalled at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, ``Baseball was his life. He was proud to wear his uniform and come to the ballpark every day to greet fans with a smile and sign autograph and after autograph. Some people believe that Minnie signed an autograph for every man, woman, and child in the Windy City.'' ``The Cuban Comet'' and ``Mr. White Sox.'' That is what the fans called him. His full name was Saturnino Orestes Armas Minoso Arrieta. He was born on a sugarcane ranch in Cuba in 1923--or maybe it was 1924 or `25. He was a little fuzzy on his age. He was a two-time All-Star in the Negro Leagues before becoming the first Black player for the Chicago White Sox in 1951 and the first Latino star in Major League Baseball, the Jackie Robinson of Latino ballplayers. He was one of the best hitters in the American League in the 1950s, a seven-time All-Star while with the White Sox and Cleveland Indians. He hit over .300 eight times, led the American League in stolen bases three times, hammered double-digit home runs almost every season, and won three Gold Gloves in left field. He retired in 1964--or so it seemed. Twelve years later, when Minnie was 50, the White Sox called him back for three games. He hit a line drive to left field, making him one of the oldest players in MLB history to score a base hit. The White Sox retired his No. 9 in 1983, and he remained close to the organization and its players until he died in 2015. Baseball analysts have long considered his omission from Cooperstown a glaring error. Now, finally, it has been set right. Buck O'Neil was a two-time All-Star first baseman with the Negro Leagues Kansas City Monarchs. He went on to be a scout for the Chicago Cubs, the first Black coach in Major League Baseball, and one of the most beloved ambassadors for baseball in the sport's history. He was born John Jordan O'Neil, Jr., in Florida in 1911, the grandson son of an enslaved man. He joined the Monarchs in 1938 and was a star player in the 1940s and `50s. As a first baseman, he was known for his smooth glove work, but he could also handle a bat. He was a three-time All-Star and became a Negro World Series champion in 1942. In 1943, at the height of World War II, he enlisted in the Navy and served for 2 years, including time in the Pacific. He returned to the Monarchs after the war and was the Negro League's batting champ his first year out of the service. In 1948, the Monarchs promoted him to player-manager. Among the many players whose careers he helped shape was a shy young shortstop who would go on to become the first African-American player for the Chicago Cubs, ``Mr. Cub,'' Ernie Banks. After the Monarchs were sold in 1955, Buck found work as a scout for the Cubs. Players he signed as a scout with Chicago--and later, the Kansas City Royals--included Lou Brock, Oscar Gamble, Lee Smith, and Joe Carter. He made history when the Cubs hired him as a coach in 1962, making him the first Black coach in the American or National League. In 1990, Buck O'Neil began what would become perhaps his greatest contribution to baseball. With a handful of others, he founded the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, just blocks from where he had played with the Monarchs and where Rube Foster had founded the Negro Leagues in 1920. He devoted the rest of his life to baseball and especially keeping alive the memories of the Negro Leagues. He helped build the Negro Leagues Museum from one room to a 10,000-square-foot showplace. He traveled widely, using his grace and wit to tell the stories of Negro League stars such as Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston, and his old Monarchs teammate, Satchel Paige. In 1994, not long after the World Series was canceled because of a labor dispute, Ken Burns' nine-part PBS series ``Baseball'' introduced Buck O'Neil to an even larger audience. He became the beloved Bard of Baseball. Also inducted into Cooperstown last weekend were: David Ortiz, ``Big Papi,'' the slugger who led the Boston Red Sox to three World Series Championships; Gil Hodges, All-Star first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers and manager of the 1969 ``Miracle Mets;'' Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat, two teammates from the1965 pennant-winning Minnesota Twins; and Bud Fowler, born in 1858 and often regarded as the first Black professional baseball player. Minnie Minoso and Buck O'Neil were voted in under new rules that officially designated the Negro Leagues as a major league in 2020. Buck had been nominated once before--in 2006--but to the surprise of nearly everyone, fell one vote short. He accepted the verdict with his usual grace, even agreeing to speak on behalf of the 17 players who made it into Cooperstown that year. With this typical optimism, he told the crowd gathered at Cooperstown that day, ``I've done a lot of things I liked doing, but I'd rather be right here, right now, representing these people who helped build a bridge across the chasm of prejudice.'' Minnie Minoso and Buck O'Neil helped build that bridge, too. And now, they are finally where they deserve to be, among baseball's immortals. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3738-2 | null | 4,816 |
formal | Cleveland | null | racist | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, at long last, it is official. Buck O'Neil and Minnie Minoso are finally where they deserve to be: in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. These two remarkable men, who were friends for decades, both started their careers in baseball's storied Negro Leagues. They went on to make history again in the Major Leagues--in the city of Chicago--and they stayed involved with baseball all their lives. And they were both known, as one writer said, ``as much for their grace and spirit of generosity as for their immense achievements in the game.'' I never had the good fortune to meet Buck O'Neil, but I have a baseball that he signed, and I keep it as a treasure. I did meet Minnie Minoso. He and Satchel Paige came to a Springfield Redbirds game many years ago, and I summoned the courage to shake their hands between innings. What a thrill that was. But meeting Minnie Minoso was an honor shared by so many Chicagoans. As his widow, Sharon Rice-Minoso, recalled at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, ``Baseball was his life. He was proud to wear his uniform and come to the ballpark every day to greet fans with a smile and sign autograph and after autograph. Some people believe that Minnie signed an autograph for every man, woman, and child in the Windy City.'' ``The Cuban Comet'' and ``Mr. White Sox.'' That is what the fans called him. His full name was Saturnino Orestes Armas Minoso Arrieta. He was born on a sugarcane ranch in Cuba in 1923--or maybe it was 1924 or `25. He was a little fuzzy on his age. He was a two-time All-Star in the Negro Leagues before becoming the first Black player for the Chicago White Sox in 1951 and the first Latino star in Major League Baseball, the Jackie Robinson of Latino ballplayers. He was one of the best hitters in the American League in the 1950s, a seven-time All-Star while with the White Sox and Cleveland Indians. He hit over .300 eight times, led the American League in stolen bases three times, hammered double-digit home runs almost every season, and won three Gold Gloves in left field. He retired in 1964--or so it seemed. Twelve years later, when Minnie was 50, the White Sox called him back for three games. He hit a line drive to left field, making him one of the oldest players in MLB history to score a base hit. The White Sox retired his No. 9 in 1983, and he remained close to the organization and its players until he died in 2015. Baseball analysts have long considered his omission from Cooperstown a glaring error. Now, finally, it has been set right. Buck O'Neil was a two-time All-Star first baseman with the Negro Leagues Kansas City Monarchs. He went on to be a scout for the Chicago Cubs, the first Black coach in Major League Baseball, and one of the most beloved ambassadors for baseball in the sport's history. He was born John Jordan O'Neil, Jr., in Florida in 1911, the grandson son of an enslaved man. He joined the Monarchs in 1938 and was a star player in the 1940s and `50s. As a first baseman, he was known for his smooth glove work, but he could also handle a bat. He was a three-time All-Star and became a Negro World Series champion in 1942. In 1943, at the height of World War II, he enlisted in the Navy and served for 2 years, including time in the Pacific. He returned to the Monarchs after the war and was the Negro League's batting champ his first year out of the service. In 1948, the Monarchs promoted him to player-manager. Among the many players whose careers he helped shape was a shy young shortstop who would go on to become the first African-American player for the Chicago Cubs, ``Mr. Cub,'' Ernie Banks. After the Monarchs were sold in 1955, Buck found work as a scout for the Cubs. Players he signed as a scout with Chicago--and later, the Kansas City Royals--included Lou Brock, Oscar Gamble, Lee Smith, and Joe Carter. He made history when the Cubs hired him as a coach in 1962, making him the first Black coach in the American or National League. In 1990, Buck O'Neil began what would become perhaps his greatest contribution to baseball. With a handful of others, he founded the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, just blocks from where he had played with the Monarchs and where Rube Foster had founded the Negro Leagues in 1920. He devoted the rest of his life to baseball and especially keeping alive the memories of the Negro Leagues. He helped build the Negro Leagues Museum from one room to a 10,000-square-foot showplace. He traveled widely, using his grace and wit to tell the stories of Negro League stars such as Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston, and his old Monarchs teammate, Satchel Paige. In 1994, not long after the World Series was canceled because of a labor dispute, Ken Burns' nine-part PBS series ``Baseball'' introduced Buck O'Neil to an even larger audience. He became the beloved Bard of Baseball. Also inducted into Cooperstown last weekend were: David Ortiz, ``Big Papi,'' the slugger who led the Boston Red Sox to three World Series Championships; Gil Hodges, All-Star first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers and manager of the 1969 ``Miracle Mets;'' Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat, two teammates from the1965 pennant-winning Minnesota Twins; and Bud Fowler, born in 1858 and often regarded as the first Black professional baseball player. Minnie Minoso and Buck O'Neil were voted in under new rules that officially designated the Negro Leagues as a major league in 2020. Buck had been nominated once before--in 2006--but to the surprise of nearly everyone, fell one vote short. He accepted the verdict with his usual grace, even agreeing to speak on behalf of the 17 players who made it into Cooperstown that year. With this typical optimism, he told the crowd gathered at Cooperstown that day, ``I've done a lot of things I liked doing, but I'd rather be right here, right now, representing these people who helped build a bridge across the chasm of prejudice.'' Minnie Minoso and Buck O'Neil helped build that bridge, too. And now, they are finally where they deserve to be, among baseball's immortals. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3738-2 | null | 4,817 |
formal | back the blue | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past two decades, one man has revolutionized law enforcement in Kentucky's Oldham County and built a reputation as one of the Commonwealth's best sheriffs. Steve Sparrow has served as Oldham County's sheriff since 1999 and, in his time leading the county's police force, has brought professionalism, dedication, and, above all, devotion to the rule of law to his community. This year, Sheriff Sparrow is retiring from his post. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring his career and the lasting legacy he built in Oldham County. Sheriff Sparrow began his career in law enforcement nearly 50 years ago, at a time when Oldham County's population was less than a quarter of its current size. As this burgeoning community expanded into one of Kentucky's fastest growing counties, Sheriff Sparrow's leadership helped Oldham County maintain its reputation for safety and neighborliness. Under his purview, the area remains one of the most desirable places to live in the Commonwealth. Sheriff Sparrow didn't achieve this high level of law enforcement efficacy by accident. As sheriff, he dedicated himself to furthering professional training for both himself and his department. He is the only sheriff in Oldham County history to have trained at a certified law enforcement academy and the only Oldham County sheriff to have graduated from the National Sheriff's Institute. He brought similar high levels of training to his department, making Oldham County Sheriff's Office the fifth in the Commonwealth to achieve accreditation standards. In recognition of Sheriff Sparrow's hard work to improve Oldham County's police department, the Kentucky Sheriff's Association named Sheriff Sparrow their president in both 2005 and 2012. He received additional praise and leadership roles from Kentucky's Governor, the Kentucky Law Enforcement Board of Directors, and the National Sheriff's Association Board of Directors. Oldham County voters also strongly approved of Sheriff Sparrow's performance, reelecting him to his office six times in a row. Leaders around the Commonwealth will be sad to see Sheriff Sparrow leave his role. He has been one of my closest partners in the law enforcement community, and I have been proud to lean on his expertise to back the blue at the Federal level. Though we will all miss Sheriff Sparrow's leadership, I know he will put his retirement to good use, spending more time with his wife Dotty and their children and grandchildren. On behalf of the Senate, I share our congratulations with Sheriff Sparrow for achieving this milestone and wish him the best in this next chapter of his life. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3739 | null | 4,818 |
formal | blue | null | antisemitic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past two decades, one man has revolutionized law enforcement in Kentucky's Oldham County and built a reputation as one of the Commonwealth's best sheriffs. Steve Sparrow has served as Oldham County's sheriff since 1999 and, in his time leading the county's police force, has brought professionalism, dedication, and, above all, devotion to the rule of law to his community. This year, Sheriff Sparrow is retiring from his post. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring his career and the lasting legacy he built in Oldham County. Sheriff Sparrow began his career in law enforcement nearly 50 years ago, at a time when Oldham County's population was less than a quarter of its current size. As this burgeoning community expanded into one of Kentucky's fastest growing counties, Sheriff Sparrow's leadership helped Oldham County maintain its reputation for safety and neighborliness. Under his purview, the area remains one of the most desirable places to live in the Commonwealth. Sheriff Sparrow didn't achieve this high level of law enforcement efficacy by accident. As sheriff, he dedicated himself to furthering professional training for both himself and his department. He is the only sheriff in Oldham County history to have trained at a certified law enforcement academy and the only Oldham County sheriff to have graduated from the National Sheriff's Institute. He brought similar high levels of training to his department, making Oldham County Sheriff's Office the fifth in the Commonwealth to achieve accreditation standards. In recognition of Sheriff Sparrow's hard work to improve Oldham County's police department, the Kentucky Sheriff's Association named Sheriff Sparrow their president in both 2005 and 2012. He received additional praise and leadership roles from Kentucky's Governor, the Kentucky Law Enforcement Board of Directors, and the National Sheriff's Association Board of Directors. Oldham County voters also strongly approved of Sheriff Sparrow's performance, reelecting him to his office six times in a row. Leaders around the Commonwealth will be sad to see Sheriff Sparrow leave his role. He has been one of my closest partners in the law enforcement community, and I have been proud to lean on his expertise to back the blue at the Federal level. Though we will all miss Sheriff Sparrow's leadership, I know he will put his retirement to good use, spending more time with his wife Dotty and their children and grandchildren. On behalf of the Senate, I share our congratulations with Sheriff Sparrow for achieving this milestone and wish him the best in this next chapter of his life. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3739 | null | 4,819 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past two decades, one man has revolutionized law enforcement in Kentucky's Oldham County and built a reputation as one of the Commonwealth's best sheriffs. Steve Sparrow has served as Oldham County's sheriff since 1999 and, in his time leading the county's police force, has brought professionalism, dedication, and, above all, devotion to the rule of law to his community. This year, Sheriff Sparrow is retiring from his post. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring his career and the lasting legacy he built in Oldham County. Sheriff Sparrow began his career in law enforcement nearly 50 years ago, at a time when Oldham County's population was less than a quarter of its current size. As this burgeoning community expanded into one of Kentucky's fastest growing counties, Sheriff Sparrow's leadership helped Oldham County maintain its reputation for safety and neighborliness. Under his purview, the area remains one of the most desirable places to live in the Commonwealth. Sheriff Sparrow didn't achieve this high level of law enforcement efficacy by accident. As sheriff, he dedicated himself to furthering professional training for both himself and his department. He is the only sheriff in Oldham County history to have trained at a certified law enforcement academy and the only Oldham County sheriff to have graduated from the National Sheriff's Institute. He brought similar high levels of training to his department, making Oldham County Sheriff's Office the fifth in the Commonwealth to achieve accreditation standards. In recognition of Sheriff Sparrow's hard work to improve Oldham County's police department, the Kentucky Sheriff's Association named Sheriff Sparrow their president in both 2005 and 2012. He received additional praise and leadership roles from Kentucky's Governor, the Kentucky Law Enforcement Board of Directors, and the National Sheriff's Association Board of Directors. Oldham County voters also strongly approved of Sheriff Sparrow's performance, reelecting him to his office six times in a row. Leaders around the Commonwealth will be sad to see Sheriff Sparrow leave his role. He has been one of my closest partners in the law enforcement community, and I have been proud to lean on his expertise to back the blue at the Federal level. Though we will all miss Sheriff Sparrow's leadership, I know he will put his retirement to good use, spending more time with his wife Dotty and their children and grandchildren. On behalf of the Senate, I share our congratulations with Sheriff Sparrow for achieving this milestone and wish him the best in this next chapter of his life. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3739 | null | 4,820 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | At 11:08 a.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House has passed the following bills, in which it requests the concurrence of the Senate: H.R. 310. An act to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, J. Christopher Stevens, and Sean Smith, in recognition of their contributions to the Nation. H.R. 1057. An act to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, and for other purposes. H.R. 1842. An act to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint commemorative coins in recognition of the Bicentennial of Harriet Tubman's birth. H.R. 3588. An act to coordinate Federal research and development efforts focused on modernizing mathematics in STEM education through mathematical and. statistical modeling, including data-driven and computational thinking, problem, project, and performance-based learning and assessment, interdisciplinary exploration, and career connections, and for other purposes. H.R. 4227. An act to require the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise the definition of a qualifying investment to include an equity security issued by a qualifying portfolio company, whether acquired directly from the company or in a secondary acquisition, for purposes of the exemption from registration for venture capital fund advisers under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and for other purposes. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3742-4 | null | 4,821 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | The following bills were read the first and the second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated: H.R. 310. An act to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, J. Christopher Stevens, and Sean Smith, in recognition of their contributions to the Nation; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 3588. An act to coordinate Federal research and development efforts focused on modernizing mathematics in STEM education through mathematical and statistical modeling, including data-driven and computational thinking, problem, project, and performance-based learning and assessment, interdisciplinary exploration, and career connections, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. H.R. 4227. An act to require the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise the definition of a qualifying investment to include an equity security issued by a qualifying portfolio company, whether acquired directly from the company or in a secondary acquisition, for purposes of the exemption from registration for venture capital fund advisers under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 4586. An act to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 with respect to risk-based examinations of Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 4590. An act to require the Federal banking regulators to jointly conduct a study and develop a strategic plan to address challenges faced by proposed depository institutions seeking de novo depository institution charters; and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 5128. An act to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to expand access to capital for rural-area small businesses, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 6528. An act to require owners of covered federally assisted rental dwelling units to install temperature sensors in such units, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 6552. An act to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Foreign Relations. H.R. 6845. An act to provide for transparent licensing of commercial remote sensing systems; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. H.R. 7180. An act to authorize the Director of the National Science Foundation to award grants to support research on the disruption of regular cognitive processes associated with COVID-19 infection, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. H.R. 7289. An act to provide for the National Academies to study and report on a Federal research agenda to advance the understanding of PFAS, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. H.R. 7734. An act to amend title 31, United States Code, to require the timely production of reports to Congress under the Bank Secrecy Act, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3742-5 | null | 4,822 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following bills were read the first and the second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated: H.R. 310. An act to posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, J. Christopher Stevens, and Sean Smith, in recognition of their contributions to the Nation; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 3588. An act to coordinate Federal research and development efforts focused on modernizing mathematics in STEM education through mathematical and statistical modeling, including data-driven and computational thinking, problem, project, and performance-based learning and assessment, interdisciplinary exploration, and career connections, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. H.R. 4227. An act to require the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise the definition of a qualifying investment to include an equity security issued by a qualifying portfolio company, whether acquired directly from the company or in a secondary acquisition, for purposes of the exemption from registration for venture capital fund advisers under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 4586. An act to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 with respect to risk-based examinations of Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 4590. An act to require the Federal banking regulators to jointly conduct a study and develop a strategic plan to address challenges faced by proposed depository institutions seeking de novo depository institution charters; and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 5128. An act to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to expand access to capital for rural-area small businesses, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 6528. An act to require owners of covered federally assisted rental dwelling units to install temperature sensors in such units, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 6552. An act to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Foreign Relations. H.R. 6845. An act to provide for transparent licensing of commercial remote sensing systems; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. H.R. 7180. An act to authorize the Director of the National Science Foundation to award grants to support research on the disruption of regular cognitive processes associated with COVID-19 infection, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. H.R. 7289. An act to provide for the National Academies to study and report on a Federal research agenda to advance the understanding of PFAS, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. H.R. 7734. An act to amend title 31, United States Code, to require the timely production of reports to Congress under the Bank Secrecy Act, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-27-pt1-PgS3742-5 | null | 4,823 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which the yeas and nays are ordered. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgH7395-2 | null | 4,824 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3451) to include certain computer-related projects in the Federal permitting program under title XLI of the FAST Act, and for other purposes. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. COSTA | House | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgH7400 | null | 4,825 |
formal | religious freedom | null | homophobic | Under clause 3 of rule XII, memorials were presented and referred as follows: ML-218. The SPEAKER presented a memorial of the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, relative to House Resolution No. 194, urging the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to take whatever action is necessary to address and rectify the situation described in this resolution, and consider adding Canada to the Special Watch List of countries where the government engages in violations of religious freedom; to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. ML-219. Also, a memorial of the Senate of the State of Michigan, relative to Senate Resolution No. 154, urging the Congress of the United States to permanently extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 with commensurate spending cuts to avoid increasing the federal tax burden; to the Committee on Ways and Means. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgH7405 | null | 4,826 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | PACT Act Madam President, now on a completely different matter, yesterday, the Senate should have been able to clear bipartisan legislation expanding VA benefits for millions of men and women who have served bravely in our Armed Forces. I appreciate the work our colleagues on Veterans' Affairs have done on the PACT Act. I support the substance of the bill. But even on legislation this major and this costly, the Democratic leader tried to block the Senate from any semblance of a fair amendment process. Specifically, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania has an amendment that would ensure we do not just apply a financial bandaid to the problem but actually fix the underlying accounting issue. As written, the legislation would not just help America's veterans as designed. It would also allow Democrats to effectively spend the same money twice and enable hundreds of billions in new, unrelated spending on the discretionary side of the Federal budget. There is no excuse why the Democratic leader should continue to block Senator Toomey's commonsense amendment. A bill this important and this bipartisan deserves for us to fix the accounting gimmick, and then it deserves to become law. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3750 | null | 4,827 |
formal | urban | null | racist | Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise, along with Senator Capito, today to say a few words on behalf of S. 3742, Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act of 2022, and S. 3743, the Recycling Composting Accountability Act. Senator Capito and I have the pleasure of leading the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. With the legislation that we are about to discuss here, along with Senator Boozman--Senator Boozman is on his way. We are all a part of the Recycling Caucus in the U.S. Senate. We work with ourstaffs and others outside of this body in order to make possible this legislation, to debate it, to report it. And if I am not mistaken, Senator Capito reported it unanimously out of our committee, as we do with so much legislation. These bills were introduced by Senator Capito and myself and Senator Boozman. As an avid recycler and composter, for a long time I have long believed in environmental stewardship. After all, we have a moral duty to leave behind a cleaner, healthier planet for our children. Senator Capito and I are both born in West Virginia. My sister and I grew up along Beaver Creek, right outside of Beckley. My dad used to take me and my grandfather fishing and hunting, even at a young age, along the New River and other parts of Raleigh County. One of the things that my dad and my grandfather always made clear to me was that if we are out in a boat and there was trash or something in the water or there was something that could be recycled, to pull it out of the water and to put it in something we were carrying and take it home. The idea was to try to leave our State--West Virginia then--better, better than we found it. So from a very early age in West Virginia, I really had those values instilled in me. And they still are. We instilled them in our sons too. But we have a moral obligation to leave behind a cleaner, healthier planet for our children. There are many ways to meet that moral obligation. One of those is to make sure that the products that can be recycled, we recycle them. We don't have to landfill them. We can actually address the climate change in a very positive way but especially with respect to aluminum cans and things like that that we recycle. I wish I could stand here today to say our recycling rate in Delaware is 100 percent, West Virginia is 100 percent, or the country is 100 percent; it is not. The recycling rate in our country is something like 35 percent. It is like getting a grade in school. If you get a 35 on a paper or test, that is a failing grade. With respect to recycling, unfortunately, we are racking up failing grades year after year after year, and we ought to do something about it. As it turns out, we can. Part of that doing something about it is the legislation before us today. We have to do more when it comes to improving our Nation's recycling and our composting efforts. These bills would take action to address several of the challenges facing America's recycling efforts. One of the challenges that we face is the availability of good data. That might sound strange, but it is true. This past November, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency, though, released its first-ever National Recycling Strategy. Now, that is kind of late to the game, but it is better to be late to the game than not to be there at all. It turns out it is a good document. It is a document that reflects input that we provided, our staffs provided, others on our committee, and across the country provided. And to the EPA's credit, they accepted that input, and they actually did something with it. So it is reflected in the National Recycling Strategy that was promulgated. The document offers a transformative vision for shrinking our Nation's waste management efforts, and it also highlights the need for greater standardization around data collection. To address this, Senator Boozman and I developed the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act. Senator Boozman, myself, Senator Capito, and others are part of the Recycling Caucus here in the Senate, a bipartisan group that focuses on how do we promote and encourage recycling, not just on Capitol Hill, not just in the District of Columbia, not just on the east coast, not just in West Virginia but across the country from coast to coast. Our legislation, the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act, would improve EPA's ability to gather data on our Nation's recycling systems and explore opportunities for implementing a national composting strategy. Another area where we can improve is by increasing access to recycling. Many Americans in disadvantaged communities want to recycle, they want to compost, but they are unable to do so. That is because they live in neighborhoods that lack curbside pickup, bottle return, and other necessary recycling infrastructure. Senator Capito's Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act would help address this by creating a pilot program at EPA to improve recycling services in underserved areas. This legislation would bring many communities into the recycling world, including those in urban and suburban areas, while also protecting our environment. I commend Senator Capito for her work and her leadership on this bill. I want to commend her staff and my staff, led by Mary Frances Repko, who is our staff director, and Adam on the other side of the aisle. Members don't do this by themselves, as we know, and we are really blessed with terrific staff who help us put these provisions together. I commend Senator Capito heartily for her work and her leadership on this legislation, her support of the legislation Senator Boozman and I have offered. I want to work with her to make sure that this bill helps jump-start recycling in communities with the greatest need, especially those who have been historically left behind, and there are too many of those. Both of these bills that we will have an opportunity to consider here today are the result of a true collaboration and reflect a substantial amount of bipartisan efforts dedicated to explore our Nation's recycling and composting challenges. I know a lot of people, if you watch the news, whether it is the television or on the radio, newspapers, you read online, they think all we do here is fight with one another; that we never find anything like common ground on important issues like the one we are talking about right now. The committee that Senator Capito and I are privileged to lead actually reports out important legislation, including bipartisan infrastructure legislation, all kinds of issues that enjoy bipartisan support, unanimous bipartisan support. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CARPER | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3752 | null | 4,828 |
formal | blue | null | antisemitic | Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I rise today, colleagues, to urge the Senate to proceed quickly--quickly--to the consideration of the accession protocols for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Once again the Senate has been given the responsibility of offering advice and consent to ratifying the accession of two new members to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We have been advising aggressively for quite some time, and it is time now to move to the consent portion of getting this done. NATO is the most successful political-military alliance in history. It helped bring down the Soviet Union, and it united Europe so it could rebuild economically. The Senate has the opportunity to expand NATO and bring both Finland and Sweden into the alliance. Over the years, these countries never sought membership. They were content to just partner with NATO, but they did not join. However, Putin's attempt to rewrite the security landscape in Europe with his invasion of Ukraine convinced the people of Finland and Sweden that they should become formal members of NATO. Why wouldn't they? After the past 2 weeks--and really the entire summer--the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has carefully considered and discussed the prospective membership of our longtime partners, Finland and Sweden. The Senate has already shown bipartisan support for Finland and Sweden joining NATO. As my colleagues and I have laid out in a resolution of support in public statements at Senate Foreign Relations Committee meetings and hearings in June and in the committee report submitted to the floor along with the protocols, Finland and Sweden will make model members of the NATO alliance. Once approved by all 30 current members of NATO, these two nations will become integral members of the alliance. Both have strong and capable militaries and are already net contributors to the security alliance. Although militarily unaligned for decades, Finland and Sweden have long defended Europe's high north--a region becoming even more important with the competition from Russia and China in the Arctic. Both have already demonstrated the interoperability and commitment necessary to join the alliance. Finland already spends more than 2 percent of its GDP on defense, and Sweden laid out its plan to reach that mark shortly--both requirements for joining NATO. These countries also bring additional capabilities to NATO. Both are intimately familiar with the north and east flank of Europe. Finland also trains U.S. forces in cold weather operations and the Finnish Navy is especially suited to operate and defend the Baltic Sea, where some Navy ships have less maneuverability, being a blue-water Navy. They have both participated in NATO missions in Afghanistan, the Balkans, and Iraq. In fact, these countries operated with less restrictions on their militaries in these missions than other NATO members. Finland and Sweden also share our democratic values, have strong military and defense industries, and extensive experience in Russian matters. One only has to take a look at a map to see the benefits of adding Finland and Sweden to NATO. With their proximity to the Baltic States--the Baltic States, which are small--they are well-positioned to provide support, if needed, to our current Baltic NATO allies, just as the rest of NATO would if the Baltic States have a problem with Russia. Adding these two nations as full members to our alliance will further deter any temptation by Russia to engage in military adventurism in the Baltic area or the Arctic regions. Although my sense is Russia has already learned this year of the ineptitude, clumsiness, and just plain inabilities of its way-overrated military, which can't even win against a small, substantially less-equipped adversary, even when Russia used barbaric medieval tactics. Russia's efforts have been pitiful and, at the same time, despicable. Many Senators have already given firm statements of support for this succession, and we deserve the timely chance to make our support known through a vote. Let's get on with it. There are few things more important than voting on accession for Finland and Sweden to NATO. This accession process is an important chance for the United States to demonstrate leadership in NATO and commitment to its modernization and, very importantly, NATO's future. When the shooting is over in Ukraine, it won't be over. There is no doubt that NATO is going to take a long, hard look at what it is doing, what its priorities are, and, very importantly, hardening the eastern and northern flanks. Since this wave of NATO enlargement was first announced, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has carefully consulted and coordinated with our NATO allies, the governments of Sweden and Finland, with the administration, and within the Senate itself to ensure this process can move as efficiently and quickly as possible. I can't count the number of meetings and conversations we have had in this regard. We now have only one step left until ratification, and it makes no sense to dillydally at this stage. There should be no issue with moving this treaty as quickly as possible. The Senate's quick ratification of Finland and Sweden as new members of NATO will both send a strong message of transatlantic unity to a now foundering Russia and will strengthen NATO against Russia's growing threat. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. RISCH | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3768 | null | 4,829 |
formal | blue | null | antisemitic | Madam President, today, actually, I want to talk about the Americans of the century, the Americans of the century. This is an iconic, iconic picture of the men--and, of course, women--who built our great Nation: the working families, the union members who built our great Nation, won World War II. This is, by the way, the Empire State Building. Some of our workers built that. I want to talk about that here in a minute. They are having a little bit of lunch. But these are the workers who built America, certainly helped us win World War II: the machinists, electricians, welders, builders. And, Madam President, next week, my colleagues are going to be put to the test, and it is going to be a simple test. It is a question that is a really important one right now: Where do you stand? Do you stand with the working men and women of this great Nation, the ones who built our country and their incredible heritage of building America, or do you stand with the coastal elites--represented by this individual--who are actually focused on not building the country but in many ways shutting it down? Well, I will tell you where I stand. I stand right here with the men and women who have built this great Nation. Here is what is going to happen next week. I am bringing together a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, what we call a CRA, that will be a simple vote to nullify a recent Biden administration regulation that clearly is going to make it harder in America to build infrastructure projects--to build buildings, to build energy projects. These regulations will waste taxpayer dollars, but the biggest thing they will do is they will prevent workers from working and building the country. So that is it. We are going to have a simple vote on whether you stand with the people who take a shower before work or the people who take a shower after work, the people who spend their day holding tools to build things or holding lattes--the people with dirt under their fingernails. The vote will answer the question posed by the late folk singer Pete Seeger: Which side are you on? Now, right now, there are 50 Republican Senators who are on the side of the working men and women. They cosponsored my resolution. So let's talk a little bit about the background of what we are going to vote on next week. This is a very famous structure in America, the Hoover Dam, and it is part of a great American tradition that we are all proud of--every single American--that we used to build big things: our roads, our dams, our ports, our bridges, our pipelines. We built engineering marvels in the world, a source of immense pride for all Americans. The Hoover Dam--look at that--5 years--actually, less than 5 years--to build that dam. The Empire State Building, you just saw a picture of men and women building that. It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world: 16 months. Let me talk a little bit closer to home. The 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain: 11 months. We did that. America did that. Workers did that. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--think of this: 70,000 sections of 48-inch-wide pipe, joined and laid--70,000 sections--across three mountain ranges, 800 riverbeds, tundra, forests, lakes, from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--800 miles--3 years. Incredible. The American worker can build anything, can build anything. And then the engineering. We put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years. We used to do big things, big infrastructure. And the men and women of America have always been the best, most productive workers in the country. Well, that is no longer, unfortunately, the legacy of America. And here is part of what is going to happen next week. Let me talk a little bit of a background issue here. And I know some of my colleagues aren't going to like to hear it, but the Democratic Party was once home to these great American workers. That is true. My family was part of this tradition--Irish-Catholic immigrants, Democrats. My great-grandfather Frank J. Sullivan was one of the founding members of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He passed on the values of hard work throughout his family. And the Democratic Party long supported the union members, the workers who built not just America but the middle class. And I think that is a proud tradition. I think that is a proud tradition--certainly something that my family was part of. But that has been abandoned. Right now, the focus is much more on coastal, progressive elites and what they want versus what these men and women want. That was yesterday's Democratic Party. You are seeing headlines more like this: ``The Democrats' Working Class Voter Problem.'' That is a headline from the Democratic ally blog titled ``The Liberal Patriot.'' Newsweek: ``Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class.'' Here is a doozy from the Economist recently: Democrats in America are realizing they must moderate or die. Now, some attribute this problem to cultural issues. As James Carville said ``Wokeness is a problem.'' Cultural issues, wokeness, and all that implies are certainly issues driving the working class away from the Democratic Party. But I believe the problems that the Democrats are having with the working class run much deeper than wokeness. I believe they are structural. And at the end of the day, they are pocketbook issues. One issue that impacts everybody, but especially America's workers, is the regulatory system--the permitting system that we have in America. It hurt so much of our country. But I will tell you who it really hurts: the men and women who build things. They are on the ground. They see their projects being delayed when they are killed. They are the ones who get the pink slips when there is endless litigation on a resource development project in Alaska. They are the ones worrying about feeding their families because they don't have good work because they can't build things anymore. They are the ones who are attacked by the far left because they produce things like American energy, which we all need. We live in a nation now that is increasingly divided into two countries: one of builders and doers, of working men and women, of working families, and the other side that soaks up the spoils of those workers and then figures out ways to make their job even harder, oftentimes resulting in putting them out of work altogether. And I have seen this time and time again in my State--in my State. Whenthese men and women try to build things--and there is a choice with my Democratic colleagues between the coastal elites who want to shut things down and the men and women in America who want to build things--unfortunately, the default position for them is the coastal elites, forsaking the working men and women of our country. So why am I so animated by this? It is because our great Nation that built so many great things is now caught up in redtape. It is now caught up in redtape. So I want to talk a little bit more about my resolution and the vote we are going to have next Wednesday, or next Tuesday. The National Environmental Policy Act was a good idea when it passed in late 1969. It required environmental impact statements when things were being built so the public could be engaged. That act, called NEPA, resulted in people participating in the permitting process but not overburdening it. So normally, a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement--an EIS--at the beginning, when it was first passed, would take less than a year, a couple hundred pages. That was it. Now you look at the system in America. To try to build things, the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to just complete--4 to 6 years to just complete. And it usually costs several million dollars just to build anything in this country. That wasn't the purpose of NEPA. We are killing ourselves as a nation with our inability to build infrastructure because we are tangled up in redtape. In his recent reporting, the progressive New York Times writer Ezra Klein looks at the cost of building things in America relative to other industrialized countries. Klein writes that Japan, Canada, and Germany build a kilometer of rail for $170 million, $254 million, and $287 million, respectively. That seems like a lot, until you get to the United States. One kilometer costs $538 million, way more than any other industrialized country. Delays are costs. Of course, we know that. According to the GAO--and this is a study several years ago; I am sure it is much worse--a new U.S. highway construction project, just to build a highway normally takes 9 to 19 years. Come on, America. We built the Alcan Highway, 1,100 miles, in 11 months. This is a topic that I am very passionate about. It sounds kind of geeky. Permitting, rules, regulations--it is the core of our economy, and it is the core of what is keeping so many working families down. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The new--not new now--recently expanded runway at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport took about 3 years to build. We had a hearing on the Commerce Committee. I asked the head of the Sea-Tac Airport, ``How long did it take you to get the permits before you could build that?'' New runway, Sea-Tac needs it. He looked at me, and he said ``Senator, 15 years.'' Fifteen years to get permits to do a runway expansion at Sea-Tac Airport. He actually said: By the time we got the permits and the construction time, almost 20 years. I think that the ancient Egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. This is what we are talking about. Every State, every city, every community sees this problem. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to all the people of Colorado, has taken two decades--20 years--to get this project permitted. California's bullet train that they are still working on--approved in the late 1990s--is still not built because of permitting delays. The costs have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, trying to transport natural gas--litigation is stopping that. Of course, in Alaska, we are ground zero for a lot of this. The Kensington Mine right now is producing gold for our country. Hundreds of people are working there. The average wage is $110,000. Those are good jobs. Twenty years to permit that line, if you include the litigation--20 years. Here is how James Callahan, great American worker, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers--the men and women who really build America, the operating engineers--put it in a letter supporting my resolution next week. You can see it right here. He nails it: Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project-- Destroying, not helping-- job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy. He goes on: Dilatory strategies employed by project opponents frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply walk away. By the way, when I talk about the coastal elites--the radical environmental groups--that is their goal, to use NEPA to just kill projects. And they are really, really good at that. So what happens, as James Callahan says--when that happens, when the applicants simply walk away--well, we know what happens. Work dries up. Layoffs happen. The dignity of work and hope that can lift entire communities dissipates. Families struggle. Communities struggle. When we talk about good-paying jobs in our country, we are talking about so much more than men and women punching a clock. We are talking about the health of families, the pride in communities, the pride in our country. Look at the pride of those men and women who built the Empire State Building, the pride of men and women who built the Alaska pipeline. We see it over and over again that communities without hope, without an economic future, without good-paying jobs, who get crushed by these burdensome regulations and groups that want to shut them down, are much more prone to experiencing violence, crime, succumbing to kinds of huge challenges like the opioid crisis. And so these issues matter across the country. But, again, they matter to working families more than anyone. So what are we going to do next week? Well, a surprise to me--and I must admit, it was a surprise; I came down here and talked about this a while ago--was that during the negotiations for the infrastructure bill that many of us voted on--I voted for it last year, in part because it had really good provisions--not as good as I would have wanted--but on permitting reform. These built on what I worked on with the Trump administration when they put out regulations as it related to building infrastructure that, by the way, was supported by millions and millions of Americans for the reasons I just talked about: streamlining permitting, getting projects online, not so costly. So some of the NEPA reforms that we got in the infrastructure bill were things that we had built on during the Trump administration. Let me give you a couple of examples: one Federal agency in charge of all regulatory decisions, timelines on NEPA, limitations on the pages required by NEPA. These were commonsense reforms that we worked on with the Trump administration and some of which we got into the infrastructure bill. So imagine, this is supposedly Joe Biden's top legislative achievement--4 months ago, kind of under the radar, the White House, the Biden White House--counts on environmental quality--put out new regulations. And here is the Wall Street Journal's editorial on what these new regulations were meant to do. And anyone who has read them--and I encourage all Americans to read them--these regulations have one goal in mind: slowing down the ability to build American infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure. The new NEPA regulations from the Biden White House make it harder to build our country, when the President supposedly supported the infrastructure bill. I truly wonder if the President has any clue that his White House issued regs to undermine what we all viewed as a very important bipartisan achievement. Now, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying: How did this happen? How are we killing infrastructure on the sly through these regulations when, supposedly, this administration wants to build infrastructure, wants to support the working men and women of our country? My view is like a lot of things. John Kerry, Gina McCarthy were probably behind it, but who the heck knows. But here is what I do know. The only people who like these rules--the rules thatare meant to slow down the building of American infrastructure--are certainly not the working men and women of America; it is the radical environmental groups, probably the trial lawyers. And I will give you another group that loves it when we do this to ourselves: the Chinese Communist Party. They look at us and go: Holy cow, these Americans can't get out of their own way. Nine years to permit a bridge. This is killing us in terms of competitiveness. Mayors don't like these rules. So what we are going to do next week, my Congressional Review Act resolution is very simple. It says, we are going to rescind this Biden rule that is going to make it harder to build American infrastructure. And here is the thing: Right now, we have a very big list of groups that are supporting my resolution. We got all the building trades of America; the operating engineers; the AFL-CIO of Alaska; the Laborers' International, LIUNA--the biggest construction union in America; and so many groups--farmers, independent business men and women. Dozens of groups are supporting our resolution to say we are not going to allow that. We want to build things. We want to build things. President Biden likes to talk about his supposed blue collar roots. Well, I wonder where the President is going to be on my resolution because all the unions in America that build stuff are supporting it. Again, maybe he didn't even know his White House put it out there. Maybe he wants to support my Congressional Review Act resolution. But I will tell you who this resolution is going to be really good for. It is going to be good for these men and women in America who built this country, who built this country. I will end where I began. Next week, there is going to be a big vote here, a simple vote. I have 50 Republicans who cosponsored my resolution to get rid of the Biden administration regulation that is going to kill infrastructure. If you support the building trades and the labor unions who built America, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support infrastructure for America and building it in a timely fashion, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support American energy that we need so much in our country, that we have right here, that we don't need to import from Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran or Venezuela, you are going to support my resolution. If you support the men and women who actually build this country, all of whom who are supporting my resolution, you are going to support my resolution. But if you stand with the coastal environmental elites who want to shut down this country, shut down my State, shut down the economy, maybe you will vote the other way. Like I said in the beginning, it is going to be a test next week. Whose side are you on? Are you with these men and women and their heritage and their heroism who built this country, or are you going to be standing with this individual, the epitome of arrogant coastal elite, smugly telling Americans that they shouldn't build energy projects? I know where I am standing next week. I am standing with the great men and women who built this country, the great men and women who continue to build this country, the great men and women who are supporting my resolution. And I sure hope all my colleagues vote the same way. This is an easy vote for America. This should be 100 to 0. That is the reason why. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3770 | null | 4,830 |
formal | coastal elite | null | antisemitic | Madam President, today, actually, I want to talk about the Americans of the century, the Americans of the century. This is an iconic, iconic picture of the men--and, of course, women--who built our great Nation: the working families, the union members who built our great Nation, won World War II. This is, by the way, the Empire State Building. Some of our workers built that. I want to talk about that here in a minute. They are having a little bit of lunch. But these are the workers who built America, certainly helped us win World War II: the machinists, electricians, welders, builders. And, Madam President, next week, my colleagues are going to be put to the test, and it is going to be a simple test. It is a question that is a really important one right now: Where do you stand? Do you stand with the working men and women of this great Nation, the ones who built our country and their incredible heritage of building America, or do you stand with the coastal elites--represented by this individual--who are actually focused on not building the country but in many ways shutting it down? Well, I will tell you where I stand. I stand right here with the men and women who have built this great Nation. Here is what is going to happen next week. I am bringing together a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, what we call a CRA, that will be a simple vote to nullify a recent Biden administration regulation that clearly is going to make it harder in America to build infrastructure projects--to build buildings, to build energy projects. These regulations will waste taxpayer dollars, but the biggest thing they will do is they will prevent workers from working and building the country. So that is it. We are going to have a simple vote on whether you stand with the people who take a shower before work or the people who take a shower after work, the people who spend their day holding tools to build things or holding lattes--the people with dirt under their fingernails. The vote will answer the question posed by the late folk singer Pete Seeger: Which side are you on? Now, right now, there are 50 Republican Senators who are on the side of the working men and women. They cosponsored my resolution. So let's talk a little bit about the background of what we are going to vote on next week. This is a very famous structure in America, the Hoover Dam, and it is part of a great American tradition that we are all proud of--every single American--that we used to build big things: our roads, our dams, our ports, our bridges, our pipelines. We built engineering marvels in the world, a source of immense pride for all Americans. The Hoover Dam--look at that--5 years--actually, less than 5 years--to build that dam. The Empire State Building, you just saw a picture of men and women building that. It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world: 16 months. Let me talk a little bit closer to home. The 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain: 11 months. We did that. America did that. Workers did that. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--think of this: 70,000 sections of 48-inch-wide pipe, joined and laid--70,000 sections--across three mountain ranges, 800 riverbeds, tundra, forests, lakes, from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--800 miles--3 years. Incredible. The American worker can build anything, can build anything. And then the engineering. We put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years. We used to do big things, big infrastructure. And the men and women of America have always been the best, most productive workers in the country. Well, that is no longer, unfortunately, the legacy of America. And here is part of what is going to happen next week. Let me talk a little bit of a background issue here. And I know some of my colleagues aren't going to like to hear it, but the Democratic Party was once home to these great American workers. That is true. My family was part of this tradition--Irish-Catholic immigrants, Democrats. My great-grandfather Frank J. Sullivan was one of the founding members of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He passed on the values of hard work throughout his family. And the Democratic Party long supported the union members, the workers who built not just America but the middle class. And I think that is a proud tradition. I think that is a proud tradition--certainly something that my family was part of. But that has been abandoned. Right now, the focus is much more on coastal, progressive elites and what they want versus what these men and women want. That was yesterday's Democratic Party. You are seeing headlines more like this: ``The Democrats' Working Class Voter Problem.'' That is a headline from the Democratic ally blog titled ``The Liberal Patriot.'' Newsweek: ``Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class.'' Here is a doozy from the Economist recently: Democrats in America are realizing they must moderate or die. Now, some attribute this problem to cultural issues. As James Carville said ``Wokeness is a problem.'' Cultural issues, wokeness, and all that implies are certainly issues driving the working class away from the Democratic Party. But I believe the problems that the Democrats are having with the working class run much deeper than wokeness. I believe they are structural. And at the end of the day, they are pocketbook issues. One issue that impacts everybody, but especially America's workers, is the regulatory system--the permitting system that we have in America. It hurt so much of our country. But I will tell you who it really hurts: the men and women who build things. They are on the ground. They see their projects being delayed when they are killed. They are the ones who get the pink slips when there is endless litigation on a resource development project in Alaska. They are the ones worrying about feeding their families because they don't have good work because they can't build things anymore. They are the ones who are attacked by the far left because they produce things like American energy, which we all need. We live in a nation now that is increasingly divided into two countries: one of builders and doers, of working men and women, of working families, and the other side that soaks up the spoils of those workers and then figures out ways to make their job even harder, oftentimes resulting in putting them out of work altogether. And I have seen this time and time again in my State--in my State. Whenthese men and women try to build things--and there is a choice with my Democratic colleagues between the coastal elites who want to shut things down and the men and women in America who want to build things--unfortunately, the default position for them is the coastal elites, forsaking the working men and women of our country. So why am I so animated by this? It is because our great Nation that built so many great things is now caught up in redtape. It is now caught up in redtape. So I want to talk a little bit more about my resolution and the vote we are going to have next Wednesday, or next Tuesday. The National Environmental Policy Act was a good idea when it passed in late 1969. It required environmental impact statements when things were being built so the public could be engaged. That act, called NEPA, resulted in people participating in the permitting process but not overburdening it. So normally, a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement--an EIS--at the beginning, when it was first passed, would take less than a year, a couple hundred pages. That was it. Now you look at the system in America. To try to build things, the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to just complete--4 to 6 years to just complete. And it usually costs several million dollars just to build anything in this country. That wasn't the purpose of NEPA. We are killing ourselves as a nation with our inability to build infrastructure because we are tangled up in redtape. In his recent reporting, the progressive New York Times writer Ezra Klein looks at the cost of building things in America relative to other industrialized countries. Klein writes that Japan, Canada, and Germany build a kilometer of rail for $170 million, $254 million, and $287 million, respectively. That seems like a lot, until you get to the United States. One kilometer costs $538 million, way more than any other industrialized country. Delays are costs. Of course, we know that. According to the GAO--and this is a study several years ago; I am sure it is much worse--a new U.S. highway construction project, just to build a highway normally takes 9 to 19 years. Come on, America. We built the Alcan Highway, 1,100 miles, in 11 months. This is a topic that I am very passionate about. It sounds kind of geeky. Permitting, rules, regulations--it is the core of our economy, and it is the core of what is keeping so many working families down. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The new--not new now--recently expanded runway at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport took about 3 years to build. We had a hearing on the Commerce Committee. I asked the head of the Sea-Tac Airport, ``How long did it take you to get the permits before you could build that?'' New runway, Sea-Tac needs it. He looked at me, and he said ``Senator, 15 years.'' Fifteen years to get permits to do a runway expansion at Sea-Tac Airport. He actually said: By the time we got the permits and the construction time, almost 20 years. I think that the ancient Egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. This is what we are talking about. Every State, every city, every community sees this problem. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to all the people of Colorado, has taken two decades--20 years--to get this project permitted. California's bullet train that they are still working on--approved in the late 1990s--is still not built because of permitting delays. The costs have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, trying to transport natural gas--litigation is stopping that. Of course, in Alaska, we are ground zero for a lot of this. The Kensington Mine right now is producing gold for our country. Hundreds of people are working there. The average wage is $110,000. Those are good jobs. Twenty years to permit that line, if you include the litigation--20 years. Here is how James Callahan, great American worker, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers--the men and women who really build America, the operating engineers--put it in a letter supporting my resolution next week. You can see it right here. He nails it: Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project-- Destroying, not helping-- job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy. He goes on: Dilatory strategies employed by project opponents frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply walk away. By the way, when I talk about the coastal elites--the radical environmental groups--that is their goal, to use NEPA to just kill projects. And they are really, really good at that. So what happens, as James Callahan says--when that happens, when the applicants simply walk away--well, we know what happens. Work dries up. Layoffs happen. The dignity of work and hope that can lift entire communities dissipates. Families struggle. Communities struggle. When we talk about good-paying jobs in our country, we are talking about so much more than men and women punching a clock. We are talking about the health of families, the pride in communities, the pride in our country. Look at the pride of those men and women who built the Empire State Building, the pride of men and women who built the Alaska pipeline. We see it over and over again that communities without hope, without an economic future, without good-paying jobs, who get crushed by these burdensome regulations and groups that want to shut them down, are much more prone to experiencing violence, crime, succumbing to kinds of huge challenges like the opioid crisis. And so these issues matter across the country. But, again, they matter to working families more than anyone. So what are we going to do next week? Well, a surprise to me--and I must admit, it was a surprise; I came down here and talked about this a while ago--was that during the negotiations for the infrastructure bill that many of us voted on--I voted for it last year, in part because it had really good provisions--not as good as I would have wanted--but on permitting reform. These built on what I worked on with the Trump administration when they put out regulations as it related to building infrastructure that, by the way, was supported by millions and millions of Americans for the reasons I just talked about: streamlining permitting, getting projects online, not so costly. So some of the NEPA reforms that we got in the infrastructure bill were things that we had built on during the Trump administration. Let me give you a couple of examples: one Federal agency in charge of all regulatory decisions, timelines on NEPA, limitations on the pages required by NEPA. These were commonsense reforms that we worked on with the Trump administration and some of which we got into the infrastructure bill. So imagine, this is supposedly Joe Biden's top legislative achievement--4 months ago, kind of under the radar, the White House, the Biden White House--counts on environmental quality--put out new regulations. And here is the Wall Street Journal's editorial on what these new regulations were meant to do. And anyone who has read them--and I encourage all Americans to read them--these regulations have one goal in mind: slowing down the ability to build American infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure. The new NEPA regulations from the Biden White House make it harder to build our country, when the President supposedly supported the infrastructure bill. I truly wonder if the President has any clue that his White House issued regs to undermine what we all viewed as a very important bipartisan achievement. Now, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying: How did this happen? How are we killing infrastructure on the sly through these regulations when, supposedly, this administration wants to build infrastructure, wants to support the working men and women of our country? My view is like a lot of things. John Kerry, Gina McCarthy were probably behind it, but who the heck knows. But here is what I do know. The only people who like these rules--the rules thatare meant to slow down the building of American infrastructure--are certainly not the working men and women of America; it is the radical environmental groups, probably the trial lawyers. And I will give you another group that loves it when we do this to ourselves: the Chinese Communist Party. They look at us and go: Holy cow, these Americans can't get out of their own way. Nine years to permit a bridge. This is killing us in terms of competitiveness. Mayors don't like these rules. So what we are going to do next week, my Congressional Review Act resolution is very simple. It says, we are going to rescind this Biden rule that is going to make it harder to build American infrastructure. And here is the thing: Right now, we have a very big list of groups that are supporting my resolution. We got all the building trades of America; the operating engineers; the AFL-CIO of Alaska; the Laborers' International, LIUNA--the biggest construction union in America; and so many groups--farmers, independent business men and women. Dozens of groups are supporting our resolution to say we are not going to allow that. We want to build things. We want to build things. President Biden likes to talk about his supposed blue collar roots. Well, I wonder where the President is going to be on my resolution because all the unions in America that build stuff are supporting it. Again, maybe he didn't even know his White House put it out there. Maybe he wants to support my Congressional Review Act resolution. But I will tell you who this resolution is going to be really good for. It is going to be good for these men and women in America who built this country, who built this country. I will end where I began. Next week, there is going to be a big vote here, a simple vote. I have 50 Republicans who cosponsored my resolution to get rid of the Biden administration regulation that is going to kill infrastructure. If you support the building trades and the labor unions who built America, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support infrastructure for America and building it in a timely fashion, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support American energy that we need so much in our country, that we have right here, that we don't need to import from Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran or Venezuela, you are going to support my resolution. If you support the men and women who actually build this country, all of whom who are supporting my resolution, you are going to support my resolution. But if you stand with the coastal environmental elites who want to shut down this country, shut down my State, shut down the economy, maybe you will vote the other way. Like I said in the beginning, it is going to be a test next week. Whose side are you on? Are you with these men and women and their heritage and their heroism who built this country, or are you going to be standing with this individual, the epitome of arrogant coastal elite, smugly telling Americans that they shouldn't build energy projects? I know where I am standing next week. I am standing with the great men and women who built this country, the great men and women who continue to build this country, the great men and women who are supporting my resolution. And I sure hope all my colleagues vote the same way. This is an easy vote for America. This should be 100 to 0. That is the reason why. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3770 | null | 4,831 |
formal | coastal elites | null | antisemitic | Madam President, today, actually, I want to talk about the Americans of the century, the Americans of the century. This is an iconic, iconic picture of the men--and, of course, women--who built our great Nation: the working families, the union members who built our great Nation, won World War II. This is, by the way, the Empire State Building. Some of our workers built that. I want to talk about that here in a minute. They are having a little bit of lunch. But these are the workers who built America, certainly helped us win World War II: the machinists, electricians, welders, builders. And, Madam President, next week, my colleagues are going to be put to the test, and it is going to be a simple test. It is a question that is a really important one right now: Where do you stand? Do you stand with the working men and women of this great Nation, the ones who built our country and their incredible heritage of building America, or do you stand with the coastal elites--represented by this individual--who are actually focused on not building the country but in many ways shutting it down? Well, I will tell you where I stand. I stand right here with the men and women who have built this great Nation. Here is what is going to happen next week. I am bringing together a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, what we call a CRA, that will be a simple vote to nullify a recent Biden administration regulation that clearly is going to make it harder in America to build infrastructure projects--to build buildings, to build energy projects. These regulations will waste taxpayer dollars, but the biggest thing they will do is they will prevent workers from working and building the country. So that is it. We are going to have a simple vote on whether you stand with the people who take a shower before work or the people who take a shower after work, the people who spend their day holding tools to build things or holding lattes--the people with dirt under their fingernails. The vote will answer the question posed by the late folk singer Pete Seeger: Which side are you on? Now, right now, there are 50 Republican Senators who are on the side of the working men and women. They cosponsored my resolution. So let's talk a little bit about the background of what we are going to vote on next week. This is a very famous structure in America, the Hoover Dam, and it is part of a great American tradition that we are all proud of--every single American--that we used to build big things: our roads, our dams, our ports, our bridges, our pipelines. We built engineering marvels in the world, a source of immense pride for all Americans. The Hoover Dam--look at that--5 years--actually, less than 5 years--to build that dam. The Empire State Building, you just saw a picture of men and women building that. It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world: 16 months. Let me talk a little bit closer to home. The 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain: 11 months. We did that. America did that. Workers did that. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--think of this: 70,000 sections of 48-inch-wide pipe, joined and laid--70,000 sections--across three mountain ranges, 800 riverbeds, tundra, forests, lakes, from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--800 miles--3 years. Incredible. The American worker can build anything, can build anything. And then the engineering. We put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years. We used to do big things, big infrastructure. And the men and women of America have always been the best, most productive workers in the country. Well, that is no longer, unfortunately, the legacy of America. And here is part of what is going to happen next week. Let me talk a little bit of a background issue here. And I know some of my colleagues aren't going to like to hear it, but the Democratic Party was once home to these great American workers. That is true. My family was part of this tradition--Irish-Catholic immigrants, Democrats. My great-grandfather Frank J. Sullivan was one of the founding members of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He passed on the values of hard work throughout his family. And the Democratic Party long supported the union members, the workers who built not just America but the middle class. And I think that is a proud tradition. I think that is a proud tradition--certainly something that my family was part of. But that has been abandoned. Right now, the focus is much more on coastal, progressive elites and what they want versus what these men and women want. That was yesterday's Democratic Party. You are seeing headlines more like this: ``The Democrats' Working Class Voter Problem.'' That is a headline from the Democratic ally blog titled ``The Liberal Patriot.'' Newsweek: ``Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class.'' Here is a doozy from the Economist recently: Democrats in America are realizing they must moderate or die. Now, some attribute this problem to cultural issues. As James Carville said ``Wokeness is a problem.'' Cultural issues, wokeness, and all that implies are certainly issues driving the working class away from the Democratic Party. But I believe the problems that the Democrats are having with the working class run much deeper than wokeness. I believe they are structural. And at the end of the day, they are pocketbook issues. One issue that impacts everybody, but especially America's workers, is the regulatory system--the permitting system that we have in America. It hurt so much of our country. But I will tell you who it really hurts: the men and women who build things. They are on the ground. They see their projects being delayed when they are killed. They are the ones who get the pink slips when there is endless litigation on a resource development project in Alaska. They are the ones worrying about feeding their families because they don't have good work because they can't build things anymore. They are the ones who are attacked by the far left because they produce things like American energy, which we all need. We live in a nation now that is increasingly divided into two countries: one of builders and doers, of working men and women, of working families, and the other side that soaks up the spoils of those workers and then figures out ways to make their job even harder, oftentimes resulting in putting them out of work altogether. And I have seen this time and time again in my State--in my State. Whenthese men and women try to build things--and there is a choice with my Democratic colleagues between the coastal elites who want to shut things down and the men and women in America who want to build things--unfortunately, the default position for them is the coastal elites, forsaking the working men and women of our country. So why am I so animated by this? It is because our great Nation that built so many great things is now caught up in redtape. It is now caught up in redtape. So I want to talk a little bit more about my resolution and the vote we are going to have next Wednesday, or next Tuesday. The National Environmental Policy Act was a good idea when it passed in late 1969. It required environmental impact statements when things were being built so the public could be engaged. That act, called NEPA, resulted in people participating in the permitting process but not overburdening it. So normally, a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement--an EIS--at the beginning, when it was first passed, would take less than a year, a couple hundred pages. That was it. Now you look at the system in America. To try to build things, the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to just complete--4 to 6 years to just complete. And it usually costs several million dollars just to build anything in this country. That wasn't the purpose of NEPA. We are killing ourselves as a nation with our inability to build infrastructure because we are tangled up in redtape. In his recent reporting, the progressive New York Times writer Ezra Klein looks at the cost of building things in America relative to other industrialized countries. Klein writes that Japan, Canada, and Germany build a kilometer of rail for $170 million, $254 million, and $287 million, respectively. That seems like a lot, until you get to the United States. One kilometer costs $538 million, way more than any other industrialized country. Delays are costs. Of course, we know that. According to the GAO--and this is a study several years ago; I am sure it is much worse--a new U.S. highway construction project, just to build a highway normally takes 9 to 19 years. Come on, America. We built the Alcan Highway, 1,100 miles, in 11 months. This is a topic that I am very passionate about. It sounds kind of geeky. Permitting, rules, regulations--it is the core of our economy, and it is the core of what is keeping so many working families down. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The new--not new now--recently expanded runway at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport took about 3 years to build. We had a hearing on the Commerce Committee. I asked the head of the Sea-Tac Airport, ``How long did it take you to get the permits before you could build that?'' New runway, Sea-Tac needs it. He looked at me, and he said ``Senator, 15 years.'' Fifteen years to get permits to do a runway expansion at Sea-Tac Airport. He actually said: By the time we got the permits and the construction time, almost 20 years. I think that the ancient Egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. This is what we are talking about. Every State, every city, every community sees this problem. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to all the people of Colorado, has taken two decades--20 years--to get this project permitted. California's bullet train that they are still working on--approved in the late 1990s--is still not built because of permitting delays. The costs have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, trying to transport natural gas--litigation is stopping that. Of course, in Alaska, we are ground zero for a lot of this. The Kensington Mine right now is producing gold for our country. Hundreds of people are working there. The average wage is $110,000. Those are good jobs. Twenty years to permit that line, if you include the litigation--20 years. Here is how James Callahan, great American worker, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers--the men and women who really build America, the operating engineers--put it in a letter supporting my resolution next week. You can see it right here. He nails it: Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project-- Destroying, not helping-- job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy. He goes on: Dilatory strategies employed by project opponents frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply walk away. By the way, when I talk about the coastal elites--the radical environmental groups--that is their goal, to use NEPA to just kill projects. And they are really, really good at that. So what happens, as James Callahan says--when that happens, when the applicants simply walk away--well, we know what happens. Work dries up. Layoffs happen. The dignity of work and hope that can lift entire communities dissipates. Families struggle. Communities struggle. When we talk about good-paying jobs in our country, we are talking about so much more than men and women punching a clock. We are talking about the health of families, the pride in communities, the pride in our country. Look at the pride of those men and women who built the Empire State Building, the pride of men and women who built the Alaska pipeline. We see it over and over again that communities without hope, without an economic future, without good-paying jobs, who get crushed by these burdensome regulations and groups that want to shut them down, are much more prone to experiencing violence, crime, succumbing to kinds of huge challenges like the opioid crisis. And so these issues matter across the country. But, again, they matter to working families more than anyone. So what are we going to do next week? Well, a surprise to me--and I must admit, it was a surprise; I came down here and talked about this a while ago--was that during the negotiations for the infrastructure bill that many of us voted on--I voted for it last year, in part because it had really good provisions--not as good as I would have wanted--but on permitting reform. These built on what I worked on with the Trump administration when they put out regulations as it related to building infrastructure that, by the way, was supported by millions and millions of Americans for the reasons I just talked about: streamlining permitting, getting projects online, not so costly. So some of the NEPA reforms that we got in the infrastructure bill were things that we had built on during the Trump administration. Let me give you a couple of examples: one Federal agency in charge of all regulatory decisions, timelines on NEPA, limitations on the pages required by NEPA. These were commonsense reforms that we worked on with the Trump administration and some of which we got into the infrastructure bill. So imagine, this is supposedly Joe Biden's top legislative achievement--4 months ago, kind of under the radar, the White House, the Biden White House--counts on environmental quality--put out new regulations. And here is the Wall Street Journal's editorial on what these new regulations were meant to do. And anyone who has read them--and I encourage all Americans to read them--these regulations have one goal in mind: slowing down the ability to build American infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure. The new NEPA regulations from the Biden White House make it harder to build our country, when the President supposedly supported the infrastructure bill. I truly wonder if the President has any clue that his White House issued regs to undermine what we all viewed as a very important bipartisan achievement. Now, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying: How did this happen? How are we killing infrastructure on the sly through these regulations when, supposedly, this administration wants to build infrastructure, wants to support the working men and women of our country? My view is like a lot of things. John Kerry, Gina McCarthy were probably behind it, but who the heck knows. But here is what I do know. The only people who like these rules--the rules thatare meant to slow down the building of American infrastructure--are certainly not the working men and women of America; it is the radical environmental groups, probably the trial lawyers. And I will give you another group that loves it when we do this to ourselves: the Chinese Communist Party. They look at us and go: Holy cow, these Americans can't get out of their own way. Nine years to permit a bridge. This is killing us in terms of competitiveness. Mayors don't like these rules. So what we are going to do next week, my Congressional Review Act resolution is very simple. It says, we are going to rescind this Biden rule that is going to make it harder to build American infrastructure. And here is the thing: Right now, we have a very big list of groups that are supporting my resolution. We got all the building trades of America; the operating engineers; the AFL-CIO of Alaska; the Laborers' International, LIUNA--the biggest construction union in America; and so many groups--farmers, independent business men and women. Dozens of groups are supporting our resolution to say we are not going to allow that. We want to build things. We want to build things. President Biden likes to talk about his supposed blue collar roots. Well, I wonder where the President is going to be on my resolution because all the unions in America that build stuff are supporting it. Again, maybe he didn't even know his White House put it out there. Maybe he wants to support my Congressional Review Act resolution. But I will tell you who this resolution is going to be really good for. It is going to be good for these men and women in America who built this country, who built this country. I will end where I began. Next week, there is going to be a big vote here, a simple vote. I have 50 Republicans who cosponsored my resolution to get rid of the Biden administration regulation that is going to kill infrastructure. If you support the building trades and the labor unions who built America, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support infrastructure for America and building it in a timely fashion, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support American energy that we need so much in our country, that we have right here, that we don't need to import from Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran or Venezuela, you are going to support my resolution. If you support the men and women who actually build this country, all of whom who are supporting my resolution, you are going to support my resolution. But if you stand with the coastal environmental elites who want to shut down this country, shut down my State, shut down the economy, maybe you will vote the other way. Like I said in the beginning, it is going to be a test next week. Whose side are you on? Are you with these men and women and their heritage and their heroism who built this country, or are you going to be standing with this individual, the epitome of arrogant coastal elite, smugly telling Americans that they shouldn't build energy projects? I know where I am standing next week. I am standing with the great men and women who built this country, the great men and women who continue to build this country, the great men and women who are supporting my resolution. And I sure hope all my colleagues vote the same way. This is an easy vote for America. This should be 100 to 0. That is the reason why. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3770 | null | 4,832 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Madam President, today, actually, I want to talk about the Americans of the century, the Americans of the century. This is an iconic, iconic picture of the men--and, of course, women--who built our great Nation: the working families, the union members who built our great Nation, won World War II. This is, by the way, the Empire State Building. Some of our workers built that. I want to talk about that here in a minute. They are having a little bit of lunch. But these are the workers who built America, certainly helped us win World War II: the machinists, electricians, welders, builders. And, Madam President, next week, my colleagues are going to be put to the test, and it is going to be a simple test. It is a question that is a really important one right now: Where do you stand? Do you stand with the working men and women of this great Nation, the ones who built our country and their incredible heritage of building America, or do you stand with the coastal elites--represented by this individual--who are actually focused on not building the country but in many ways shutting it down? Well, I will tell you where I stand. I stand right here with the men and women who have built this great Nation. Here is what is going to happen next week. I am bringing together a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, what we call a CRA, that will be a simple vote to nullify a recent Biden administration regulation that clearly is going to make it harder in America to build infrastructure projects--to build buildings, to build energy projects. These regulations will waste taxpayer dollars, but the biggest thing they will do is they will prevent workers from working and building the country. So that is it. We are going to have a simple vote on whether you stand with the people who take a shower before work or the people who take a shower after work, the people who spend their day holding tools to build things or holding lattes--the people with dirt under their fingernails. The vote will answer the question posed by the late folk singer Pete Seeger: Which side are you on? Now, right now, there are 50 Republican Senators who are on the side of the working men and women. They cosponsored my resolution. So let's talk a little bit about the background of what we are going to vote on next week. This is a very famous structure in America, the Hoover Dam, and it is part of a great American tradition that we are all proud of--every single American--that we used to build big things: our roads, our dams, our ports, our bridges, our pipelines. We built engineering marvels in the world, a source of immense pride for all Americans. The Hoover Dam--look at that--5 years--actually, less than 5 years--to build that dam. The Empire State Building, you just saw a picture of men and women building that. It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world: 16 months. Let me talk a little bit closer to home. The 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain: 11 months. We did that. America did that. Workers did that. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--think of this: 70,000 sections of 48-inch-wide pipe, joined and laid--70,000 sections--across three mountain ranges, 800 riverbeds, tundra, forests, lakes, from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--800 miles--3 years. Incredible. The American worker can build anything, can build anything. And then the engineering. We put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years. We used to do big things, big infrastructure. And the men and women of America have always been the best, most productive workers in the country. Well, that is no longer, unfortunately, the legacy of America. And here is part of what is going to happen next week. Let me talk a little bit of a background issue here. And I know some of my colleagues aren't going to like to hear it, but the Democratic Party was once home to these great American workers. That is true. My family was part of this tradition--Irish-Catholic immigrants, Democrats. My great-grandfather Frank J. Sullivan was one of the founding members of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He passed on the values of hard work throughout his family. And the Democratic Party long supported the union members, the workers who built not just America but the middle class. And I think that is a proud tradition. I think that is a proud tradition--certainly something that my family was part of. But that has been abandoned. Right now, the focus is much more on coastal, progressive elites and what they want versus what these men and women want. That was yesterday's Democratic Party. You are seeing headlines more like this: ``The Democrats' Working Class Voter Problem.'' That is a headline from the Democratic ally blog titled ``The Liberal Patriot.'' Newsweek: ``Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class.'' Here is a doozy from the Economist recently: Democrats in America are realizing they must moderate or die. Now, some attribute this problem to cultural issues. As James Carville said ``Wokeness is a problem.'' Cultural issues, wokeness, and all that implies are certainly issues driving the working class away from the Democratic Party. But I believe the problems that the Democrats are having with the working class run much deeper than wokeness. I believe they are structural. And at the end of the day, they are pocketbook issues. One issue that impacts everybody, but especially America's workers, is the regulatory system--the permitting system that we have in America. It hurt so much of our country. But I will tell you who it really hurts: the men and women who build things. They are on the ground. They see their projects being delayed when they are killed. They are the ones who get the pink slips when there is endless litigation on a resource development project in Alaska. They are the ones worrying about feeding their families because they don't have good work because they can't build things anymore. They are the ones who are attacked by the far left because they produce things like American energy, which we all need. We live in a nation now that is increasingly divided into two countries: one of builders and doers, of working men and women, of working families, and the other side that soaks up the spoils of those workers and then figures out ways to make their job even harder, oftentimes resulting in putting them out of work altogether. And I have seen this time and time again in my State--in my State. Whenthese men and women try to build things--and there is a choice with my Democratic colleagues between the coastal elites who want to shut things down and the men and women in America who want to build things--unfortunately, the default position for them is the coastal elites, forsaking the working men and women of our country. So why am I so animated by this? It is because our great Nation that built so many great things is now caught up in redtape. It is now caught up in redtape. So I want to talk a little bit more about my resolution and the vote we are going to have next Wednesday, or next Tuesday. The National Environmental Policy Act was a good idea when it passed in late 1969. It required environmental impact statements when things were being built so the public could be engaged. That act, called NEPA, resulted in people participating in the permitting process but not overburdening it. So normally, a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement--an EIS--at the beginning, when it was first passed, would take less than a year, a couple hundred pages. That was it. Now you look at the system in America. To try to build things, the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to just complete--4 to 6 years to just complete. And it usually costs several million dollars just to build anything in this country. That wasn't the purpose of NEPA. We are killing ourselves as a nation with our inability to build infrastructure because we are tangled up in redtape. In his recent reporting, the progressive New York Times writer Ezra Klein looks at the cost of building things in America relative to other industrialized countries. Klein writes that Japan, Canada, and Germany build a kilometer of rail for $170 million, $254 million, and $287 million, respectively. That seems like a lot, until you get to the United States. One kilometer costs $538 million, way more than any other industrialized country. Delays are costs. Of course, we know that. According to the GAO--and this is a study several years ago; I am sure it is much worse--a new U.S. highway construction project, just to build a highway normally takes 9 to 19 years. Come on, America. We built the Alcan Highway, 1,100 miles, in 11 months. This is a topic that I am very passionate about. It sounds kind of geeky. Permitting, rules, regulations--it is the core of our economy, and it is the core of what is keeping so many working families down. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The new--not new now--recently expanded runway at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport took about 3 years to build. We had a hearing on the Commerce Committee. I asked the head of the Sea-Tac Airport, ``How long did it take you to get the permits before you could build that?'' New runway, Sea-Tac needs it. He looked at me, and he said ``Senator, 15 years.'' Fifteen years to get permits to do a runway expansion at Sea-Tac Airport. He actually said: By the time we got the permits and the construction time, almost 20 years. I think that the ancient Egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. This is what we are talking about. Every State, every city, every community sees this problem. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to all the people of Colorado, has taken two decades--20 years--to get this project permitted. California's bullet train that they are still working on--approved in the late 1990s--is still not built because of permitting delays. The costs have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, trying to transport natural gas--litigation is stopping that. Of course, in Alaska, we are ground zero for a lot of this. The Kensington Mine right now is producing gold for our country. Hundreds of people are working there. The average wage is $110,000. Those are good jobs. Twenty years to permit that line, if you include the litigation--20 years. Here is how James Callahan, great American worker, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers--the men and women who really build America, the operating engineers--put it in a letter supporting my resolution next week. You can see it right here. He nails it: Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project-- Destroying, not helping-- job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy. He goes on: Dilatory strategies employed by project opponents frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply walk away. By the way, when I talk about the coastal elites--the radical environmental groups--that is their goal, to use NEPA to just kill projects. And they are really, really good at that. So what happens, as James Callahan says--when that happens, when the applicants simply walk away--well, we know what happens. Work dries up. Layoffs happen. The dignity of work and hope that can lift entire communities dissipates. Families struggle. Communities struggle. When we talk about good-paying jobs in our country, we are talking about so much more than men and women punching a clock. We are talking about the health of families, the pride in communities, the pride in our country. Look at the pride of those men and women who built the Empire State Building, the pride of men and women who built the Alaska pipeline. We see it over and over again that communities without hope, without an economic future, without good-paying jobs, who get crushed by these burdensome regulations and groups that want to shut them down, are much more prone to experiencing violence, crime, succumbing to kinds of huge challenges like the opioid crisis. And so these issues matter across the country. But, again, they matter to working families more than anyone. So what are we going to do next week? Well, a surprise to me--and I must admit, it was a surprise; I came down here and talked about this a while ago--was that during the negotiations for the infrastructure bill that many of us voted on--I voted for it last year, in part because it had really good provisions--not as good as I would have wanted--but on permitting reform. These built on what I worked on with the Trump administration when they put out regulations as it related to building infrastructure that, by the way, was supported by millions and millions of Americans for the reasons I just talked about: streamlining permitting, getting projects online, not so costly. So some of the NEPA reforms that we got in the infrastructure bill were things that we had built on during the Trump administration. Let me give you a couple of examples: one Federal agency in charge of all regulatory decisions, timelines on NEPA, limitations on the pages required by NEPA. These were commonsense reforms that we worked on with the Trump administration and some of which we got into the infrastructure bill. So imagine, this is supposedly Joe Biden's top legislative achievement--4 months ago, kind of under the radar, the White House, the Biden White House--counts on environmental quality--put out new regulations. And here is the Wall Street Journal's editorial on what these new regulations were meant to do. And anyone who has read them--and I encourage all Americans to read them--these regulations have one goal in mind: slowing down the ability to build American infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure. The new NEPA regulations from the Biden White House make it harder to build our country, when the President supposedly supported the infrastructure bill. I truly wonder if the President has any clue that his White House issued regs to undermine what we all viewed as a very important bipartisan achievement. Now, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying: How did this happen? How are we killing infrastructure on the sly through these regulations when, supposedly, this administration wants to build infrastructure, wants to support the working men and women of our country? My view is like a lot of things. John Kerry, Gina McCarthy were probably behind it, but who the heck knows. But here is what I do know. The only people who like these rules--the rules thatare meant to slow down the building of American infrastructure--are certainly not the working men and women of America; it is the radical environmental groups, probably the trial lawyers. And I will give you another group that loves it when we do this to ourselves: the Chinese Communist Party. They look at us and go: Holy cow, these Americans can't get out of their own way. Nine years to permit a bridge. This is killing us in terms of competitiveness. Mayors don't like these rules. So what we are going to do next week, my Congressional Review Act resolution is very simple. It says, we are going to rescind this Biden rule that is going to make it harder to build American infrastructure. And here is the thing: Right now, we have a very big list of groups that are supporting my resolution. We got all the building trades of America; the operating engineers; the AFL-CIO of Alaska; the Laborers' International, LIUNA--the biggest construction union in America; and so many groups--farmers, independent business men and women. Dozens of groups are supporting our resolution to say we are not going to allow that. We want to build things. We want to build things. President Biden likes to talk about his supposed blue collar roots. Well, I wonder where the President is going to be on my resolution because all the unions in America that build stuff are supporting it. Again, maybe he didn't even know his White House put it out there. Maybe he wants to support my Congressional Review Act resolution. But I will tell you who this resolution is going to be really good for. It is going to be good for these men and women in America who built this country, who built this country. I will end where I began. Next week, there is going to be a big vote here, a simple vote. I have 50 Republicans who cosponsored my resolution to get rid of the Biden administration regulation that is going to kill infrastructure. If you support the building trades and the labor unions who built America, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support infrastructure for America and building it in a timely fashion, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support American energy that we need so much in our country, that we have right here, that we don't need to import from Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran or Venezuela, you are going to support my resolution. If you support the men and women who actually build this country, all of whom who are supporting my resolution, you are going to support my resolution. But if you stand with the coastal environmental elites who want to shut down this country, shut down my State, shut down the economy, maybe you will vote the other way. Like I said in the beginning, it is going to be a test next week. Whose side are you on? Are you with these men and women and their heritage and their heroism who built this country, or are you going to be standing with this individual, the epitome of arrogant coastal elite, smugly telling Americans that they shouldn't build energy projects? I know where I am standing next week. I am standing with the great men and women who built this country, the great men and women who continue to build this country, the great men and women who are supporting my resolution. And I sure hope all my colleagues vote the same way. This is an easy vote for America. This should be 100 to 0. That is the reason why. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3770 | null | 4,833 |
formal | middle class | null | racist | Madam President, today, actually, I want to talk about the Americans of the century, the Americans of the century. This is an iconic, iconic picture of the men--and, of course, women--who built our great Nation: the working families, the union members who built our great Nation, won World War II. This is, by the way, the Empire State Building. Some of our workers built that. I want to talk about that here in a minute. They are having a little bit of lunch. But these are the workers who built America, certainly helped us win World War II: the machinists, electricians, welders, builders. And, Madam President, next week, my colleagues are going to be put to the test, and it is going to be a simple test. It is a question that is a really important one right now: Where do you stand? Do you stand with the working men and women of this great Nation, the ones who built our country and their incredible heritage of building America, or do you stand with the coastal elites--represented by this individual--who are actually focused on not building the country but in many ways shutting it down? Well, I will tell you where I stand. I stand right here with the men and women who have built this great Nation. Here is what is going to happen next week. I am bringing together a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, what we call a CRA, that will be a simple vote to nullify a recent Biden administration regulation that clearly is going to make it harder in America to build infrastructure projects--to build buildings, to build energy projects. These regulations will waste taxpayer dollars, but the biggest thing they will do is they will prevent workers from working and building the country. So that is it. We are going to have a simple vote on whether you stand with the people who take a shower before work or the people who take a shower after work, the people who spend their day holding tools to build things or holding lattes--the people with dirt under their fingernails. The vote will answer the question posed by the late folk singer Pete Seeger: Which side are you on? Now, right now, there are 50 Republican Senators who are on the side of the working men and women. They cosponsored my resolution. So let's talk a little bit about the background of what we are going to vote on next week. This is a very famous structure in America, the Hoover Dam, and it is part of a great American tradition that we are all proud of--every single American--that we used to build big things: our roads, our dams, our ports, our bridges, our pipelines. We built engineering marvels in the world, a source of immense pride for all Americans. The Hoover Dam--look at that--5 years--actually, less than 5 years--to build that dam. The Empire State Building, you just saw a picture of men and women building that. It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world: 16 months. Let me talk a little bit closer to home. The 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain: 11 months. We did that. America did that. Workers did that. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--think of this: 70,000 sections of 48-inch-wide pipe, joined and laid--70,000 sections--across three mountain ranges, 800 riverbeds, tundra, forests, lakes, from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--800 miles--3 years. Incredible. The American worker can build anything, can build anything. And then the engineering. We put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years. We used to do big things, big infrastructure. And the men and women of America have always been the best, most productive workers in the country. Well, that is no longer, unfortunately, the legacy of America. And here is part of what is going to happen next week. Let me talk a little bit of a background issue here. And I know some of my colleagues aren't going to like to hear it, but the Democratic Party was once home to these great American workers. That is true. My family was part of this tradition--Irish-Catholic immigrants, Democrats. My great-grandfather Frank J. Sullivan was one of the founding members of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He passed on the values of hard work throughout his family. And the Democratic Party long supported the union members, the workers who built not just America but the middle class. And I think that is a proud tradition. I think that is a proud tradition--certainly something that my family was part of. But that has been abandoned. Right now, the focus is much more on coastal, progressive elites and what they want versus what these men and women want. That was yesterday's Democratic Party. You are seeing headlines more like this: ``The Democrats' Working Class Voter Problem.'' That is a headline from the Democratic ally blog titled ``The Liberal Patriot.'' Newsweek: ``Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class.'' Here is a doozy from the Economist recently: Democrats in America are realizing they must moderate or die. Now, some attribute this problem to cultural issues. As James Carville said ``Wokeness is a problem.'' Cultural issues, wokeness, and all that implies are certainly issues driving the working class away from the Democratic Party. But I believe the problems that the Democrats are having with the working class run much deeper than wokeness. I believe they are structural. And at the end of the day, they are pocketbook issues. One issue that impacts everybody, but especially America's workers, is the regulatory system--the permitting system that we have in America. It hurt so much of our country. But I will tell you who it really hurts: the men and women who build things. They are on the ground. They see their projects being delayed when they are killed. They are the ones who get the pink slips when there is endless litigation on a resource development project in Alaska. They are the ones worrying about feeding their families because they don't have good work because they can't build things anymore. They are the ones who are attacked by the far left because they produce things like American energy, which we all need. We live in a nation now that is increasingly divided into two countries: one of builders and doers, of working men and women, of working families, and the other side that soaks up the spoils of those workers and then figures out ways to make their job even harder, oftentimes resulting in putting them out of work altogether. And I have seen this time and time again in my State--in my State. Whenthese men and women try to build things--and there is a choice with my Democratic colleagues between the coastal elites who want to shut things down and the men and women in America who want to build things--unfortunately, the default position for them is the coastal elites, forsaking the working men and women of our country. So why am I so animated by this? It is because our great Nation that built so many great things is now caught up in redtape. It is now caught up in redtape. So I want to talk a little bit more about my resolution and the vote we are going to have next Wednesday, or next Tuesday. The National Environmental Policy Act was a good idea when it passed in late 1969. It required environmental impact statements when things were being built so the public could be engaged. That act, called NEPA, resulted in people participating in the permitting process but not overburdening it. So normally, a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement--an EIS--at the beginning, when it was first passed, would take less than a year, a couple hundred pages. That was it. Now you look at the system in America. To try to build things, the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to just complete--4 to 6 years to just complete. And it usually costs several million dollars just to build anything in this country. That wasn't the purpose of NEPA. We are killing ourselves as a nation with our inability to build infrastructure because we are tangled up in redtape. In his recent reporting, the progressive New York Times writer Ezra Klein looks at the cost of building things in America relative to other industrialized countries. Klein writes that Japan, Canada, and Germany build a kilometer of rail for $170 million, $254 million, and $287 million, respectively. That seems like a lot, until you get to the United States. One kilometer costs $538 million, way more than any other industrialized country. Delays are costs. Of course, we know that. According to the GAO--and this is a study several years ago; I am sure it is much worse--a new U.S. highway construction project, just to build a highway normally takes 9 to 19 years. Come on, America. We built the Alcan Highway, 1,100 miles, in 11 months. This is a topic that I am very passionate about. It sounds kind of geeky. Permitting, rules, regulations--it is the core of our economy, and it is the core of what is keeping so many working families down. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The new--not new now--recently expanded runway at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport took about 3 years to build. We had a hearing on the Commerce Committee. I asked the head of the Sea-Tac Airport, ``How long did it take you to get the permits before you could build that?'' New runway, Sea-Tac needs it. He looked at me, and he said ``Senator, 15 years.'' Fifteen years to get permits to do a runway expansion at Sea-Tac Airport. He actually said: By the time we got the permits and the construction time, almost 20 years. I think that the ancient Egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. This is what we are talking about. Every State, every city, every community sees this problem. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to all the people of Colorado, has taken two decades--20 years--to get this project permitted. California's bullet train that they are still working on--approved in the late 1990s--is still not built because of permitting delays. The costs have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, trying to transport natural gas--litigation is stopping that. Of course, in Alaska, we are ground zero for a lot of this. The Kensington Mine right now is producing gold for our country. Hundreds of people are working there. The average wage is $110,000. Those are good jobs. Twenty years to permit that line, if you include the litigation--20 years. Here is how James Callahan, great American worker, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers--the men and women who really build America, the operating engineers--put it in a letter supporting my resolution next week. You can see it right here. He nails it: Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project-- Destroying, not helping-- job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy. He goes on: Dilatory strategies employed by project opponents frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply walk away. By the way, when I talk about the coastal elites--the radical environmental groups--that is their goal, to use NEPA to just kill projects. And they are really, really good at that. So what happens, as James Callahan says--when that happens, when the applicants simply walk away--well, we know what happens. Work dries up. Layoffs happen. The dignity of work and hope that can lift entire communities dissipates. Families struggle. Communities struggle. When we talk about good-paying jobs in our country, we are talking about so much more than men and women punching a clock. We are talking about the health of families, the pride in communities, the pride in our country. Look at the pride of those men and women who built the Empire State Building, the pride of men and women who built the Alaska pipeline. We see it over and over again that communities without hope, without an economic future, without good-paying jobs, who get crushed by these burdensome regulations and groups that want to shut them down, are much more prone to experiencing violence, crime, succumbing to kinds of huge challenges like the opioid crisis. And so these issues matter across the country. But, again, they matter to working families more than anyone. So what are we going to do next week? Well, a surprise to me--and I must admit, it was a surprise; I came down here and talked about this a while ago--was that during the negotiations for the infrastructure bill that many of us voted on--I voted for it last year, in part because it had really good provisions--not as good as I would have wanted--but on permitting reform. These built on what I worked on with the Trump administration when they put out regulations as it related to building infrastructure that, by the way, was supported by millions and millions of Americans for the reasons I just talked about: streamlining permitting, getting projects online, not so costly. So some of the NEPA reforms that we got in the infrastructure bill were things that we had built on during the Trump administration. Let me give you a couple of examples: one Federal agency in charge of all regulatory decisions, timelines on NEPA, limitations on the pages required by NEPA. These were commonsense reforms that we worked on with the Trump administration and some of which we got into the infrastructure bill. So imagine, this is supposedly Joe Biden's top legislative achievement--4 months ago, kind of under the radar, the White House, the Biden White House--counts on environmental quality--put out new regulations. And here is the Wall Street Journal's editorial on what these new regulations were meant to do. And anyone who has read them--and I encourage all Americans to read them--these regulations have one goal in mind: slowing down the ability to build American infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure. The new NEPA regulations from the Biden White House make it harder to build our country, when the President supposedly supported the infrastructure bill. I truly wonder if the President has any clue that his White House issued regs to undermine what we all viewed as a very important bipartisan achievement. Now, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying: How did this happen? How are we killing infrastructure on the sly through these regulations when, supposedly, this administration wants to build infrastructure, wants to support the working men and women of our country? My view is like a lot of things. John Kerry, Gina McCarthy were probably behind it, but who the heck knows. But here is what I do know. The only people who like these rules--the rules thatare meant to slow down the building of American infrastructure--are certainly not the working men and women of America; it is the radical environmental groups, probably the trial lawyers. And I will give you another group that loves it when we do this to ourselves: the Chinese Communist Party. They look at us and go: Holy cow, these Americans can't get out of their own way. Nine years to permit a bridge. This is killing us in terms of competitiveness. Mayors don't like these rules. So what we are going to do next week, my Congressional Review Act resolution is very simple. It says, we are going to rescind this Biden rule that is going to make it harder to build American infrastructure. And here is the thing: Right now, we have a very big list of groups that are supporting my resolution. We got all the building trades of America; the operating engineers; the AFL-CIO of Alaska; the Laborers' International, LIUNA--the biggest construction union in America; and so many groups--farmers, independent business men and women. Dozens of groups are supporting our resolution to say we are not going to allow that. We want to build things. We want to build things. President Biden likes to talk about his supposed blue collar roots. Well, I wonder where the President is going to be on my resolution because all the unions in America that build stuff are supporting it. Again, maybe he didn't even know his White House put it out there. Maybe he wants to support my Congressional Review Act resolution. But I will tell you who this resolution is going to be really good for. It is going to be good for these men and women in America who built this country, who built this country. I will end where I began. Next week, there is going to be a big vote here, a simple vote. I have 50 Republicans who cosponsored my resolution to get rid of the Biden administration regulation that is going to kill infrastructure. If you support the building trades and the labor unions who built America, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support infrastructure for America and building it in a timely fashion, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support American energy that we need so much in our country, that we have right here, that we don't need to import from Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran or Venezuela, you are going to support my resolution. If you support the men and women who actually build this country, all of whom who are supporting my resolution, you are going to support my resolution. But if you stand with the coastal environmental elites who want to shut down this country, shut down my State, shut down the economy, maybe you will vote the other way. Like I said in the beginning, it is going to be a test next week. Whose side are you on? Are you with these men and women and their heritage and their heroism who built this country, or are you going to be standing with this individual, the epitome of arrogant coastal elite, smugly telling Americans that they shouldn't build energy projects? I know where I am standing next week. I am standing with the great men and women who built this country, the great men and women who continue to build this country, the great men and women who are supporting my resolution. And I sure hope all my colleagues vote the same way. This is an easy vote for America. This should be 100 to 0. That is the reason why. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3770 | null | 4,834 |
formal | working families | null | racist | Madam President, today, actually, I want to talk about the Americans of the century, the Americans of the century. This is an iconic, iconic picture of the men--and, of course, women--who built our great Nation: the working families, the union members who built our great Nation, won World War II. This is, by the way, the Empire State Building. Some of our workers built that. I want to talk about that here in a minute. They are having a little bit of lunch. But these are the workers who built America, certainly helped us win World War II: the machinists, electricians, welders, builders. And, Madam President, next week, my colleagues are going to be put to the test, and it is going to be a simple test. It is a question that is a really important one right now: Where do you stand? Do you stand with the working men and women of this great Nation, the ones who built our country and their incredible heritage of building America, or do you stand with the coastal elites--represented by this individual--who are actually focused on not building the country but in many ways shutting it down? Well, I will tell you where I stand. I stand right here with the men and women who have built this great Nation. Here is what is going to happen next week. I am bringing together a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, what we call a CRA, that will be a simple vote to nullify a recent Biden administration regulation that clearly is going to make it harder in America to build infrastructure projects--to build buildings, to build energy projects. These regulations will waste taxpayer dollars, but the biggest thing they will do is they will prevent workers from working and building the country. So that is it. We are going to have a simple vote on whether you stand with the people who take a shower before work or the people who take a shower after work, the people who spend their day holding tools to build things or holding lattes--the people with dirt under their fingernails. The vote will answer the question posed by the late folk singer Pete Seeger: Which side are you on? Now, right now, there are 50 Republican Senators who are on the side of the working men and women. They cosponsored my resolution. So let's talk a little bit about the background of what we are going to vote on next week. This is a very famous structure in America, the Hoover Dam, and it is part of a great American tradition that we are all proud of--every single American--that we used to build big things: our roads, our dams, our ports, our bridges, our pipelines. We built engineering marvels in the world, a source of immense pride for all Americans. The Hoover Dam--look at that--5 years--actually, less than 5 years--to build that dam. The Empire State Building, you just saw a picture of men and women building that. It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world: 16 months. Let me talk a little bit closer to home. The 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain: 11 months. We did that. America did that. Workers did that. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--think of this: 70,000 sections of 48-inch-wide pipe, joined and laid--70,000 sections--across three mountain ranges, 800 riverbeds, tundra, forests, lakes, from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--800 miles--3 years. Incredible. The American worker can build anything, can build anything. And then the engineering. We put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years. We used to do big things, big infrastructure. And the men and women of America have always been the best, most productive workers in the country. Well, that is no longer, unfortunately, the legacy of America. And here is part of what is going to happen next week. Let me talk a little bit of a background issue here. And I know some of my colleagues aren't going to like to hear it, but the Democratic Party was once home to these great American workers. That is true. My family was part of this tradition--Irish-Catholic immigrants, Democrats. My great-grandfather Frank J. Sullivan was one of the founding members of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He passed on the values of hard work throughout his family. And the Democratic Party long supported the union members, the workers who built not just America but the middle class. And I think that is a proud tradition. I think that is a proud tradition--certainly something that my family was part of. But that has been abandoned. Right now, the focus is much more on coastal, progressive elites and what they want versus what these men and women want. That was yesterday's Democratic Party. You are seeing headlines more like this: ``The Democrats' Working Class Voter Problem.'' That is a headline from the Democratic ally blog titled ``The Liberal Patriot.'' Newsweek: ``Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class.'' Here is a doozy from the Economist recently: Democrats in America are realizing they must moderate or die. Now, some attribute this problem to cultural issues. As James Carville said ``Wokeness is a problem.'' Cultural issues, wokeness, and all that implies are certainly issues driving the working class away from the Democratic Party. But I believe the problems that the Democrats are having with the working class run much deeper than wokeness. I believe they are structural. And at the end of the day, they are pocketbook issues. One issue that impacts everybody, but especially America's workers, is the regulatory system--the permitting system that we have in America. It hurt so much of our country. But I will tell you who it really hurts: the men and women who build things. They are on the ground. They see their projects being delayed when they are killed. They are the ones who get the pink slips when there is endless litigation on a resource development project in Alaska. They are the ones worrying about feeding their families because they don't have good work because they can't build things anymore. They are the ones who are attacked by the far left because they produce things like American energy, which we all need. We live in a nation now that is increasingly divided into two countries: one of builders and doers, of working men and women, of working families, and the other side that soaks up the spoils of those workers and then figures out ways to make their job even harder, oftentimes resulting in putting them out of work altogether. And I have seen this time and time again in my State--in my State. Whenthese men and women try to build things--and there is a choice with my Democratic colleagues between the coastal elites who want to shut things down and the men and women in America who want to build things--unfortunately, the default position for them is the coastal elites, forsaking the working men and women of our country. So why am I so animated by this? It is because our great Nation that built so many great things is now caught up in redtape. It is now caught up in redtape. So I want to talk a little bit more about my resolution and the vote we are going to have next Wednesday, or next Tuesday. The National Environmental Policy Act was a good idea when it passed in late 1969. It required environmental impact statements when things were being built so the public could be engaged. That act, called NEPA, resulted in people participating in the permitting process but not overburdening it. So normally, a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement--an EIS--at the beginning, when it was first passed, would take less than a year, a couple hundred pages. That was it. Now you look at the system in America. To try to build things, the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to just complete--4 to 6 years to just complete. And it usually costs several million dollars just to build anything in this country. That wasn't the purpose of NEPA. We are killing ourselves as a nation with our inability to build infrastructure because we are tangled up in redtape. In his recent reporting, the progressive New York Times writer Ezra Klein looks at the cost of building things in America relative to other industrialized countries. Klein writes that Japan, Canada, and Germany build a kilometer of rail for $170 million, $254 million, and $287 million, respectively. That seems like a lot, until you get to the United States. One kilometer costs $538 million, way more than any other industrialized country. Delays are costs. Of course, we know that. According to the GAO--and this is a study several years ago; I am sure it is much worse--a new U.S. highway construction project, just to build a highway normally takes 9 to 19 years. Come on, America. We built the Alcan Highway, 1,100 miles, in 11 months. This is a topic that I am very passionate about. It sounds kind of geeky. Permitting, rules, regulations--it is the core of our economy, and it is the core of what is keeping so many working families down. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The new--not new now--recently expanded runway at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport took about 3 years to build. We had a hearing on the Commerce Committee. I asked the head of the Sea-Tac Airport, ``How long did it take you to get the permits before you could build that?'' New runway, Sea-Tac needs it. He looked at me, and he said ``Senator, 15 years.'' Fifteen years to get permits to do a runway expansion at Sea-Tac Airport. He actually said: By the time we got the permits and the construction time, almost 20 years. I think that the ancient Egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. This is what we are talking about. Every State, every city, every community sees this problem. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to all the people of Colorado, has taken two decades--20 years--to get this project permitted. California's bullet train that they are still working on--approved in the late 1990s--is still not built because of permitting delays. The costs have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, trying to transport natural gas--litigation is stopping that. Of course, in Alaska, we are ground zero for a lot of this. The Kensington Mine right now is producing gold for our country. Hundreds of people are working there. The average wage is $110,000. Those are good jobs. Twenty years to permit that line, if you include the litigation--20 years. Here is how James Callahan, great American worker, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers--the men and women who really build America, the operating engineers--put it in a letter supporting my resolution next week. You can see it right here. He nails it: Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project-- Destroying, not helping-- job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy. He goes on: Dilatory strategies employed by project opponents frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply walk away. By the way, when I talk about the coastal elites--the radical environmental groups--that is their goal, to use NEPA to just kill projects. And they are really, really good at that. So what happens, as James Callahan says--when that happens, when the applicants simply walk away--well, we know what happens. Work dries up. Layoffs happen. The dignity of work and hope that can lift entire communities dissipates. Families struggle. Communities struggle. When we talk about good-paying jobs in our country, we are talking about so much more than men and women punching a clock. We are talking about the health of families, the pride in communities, the pride in our country. Look at the pride of those men and women who built the Empire State Building, the pride of men and women who built the Alaska pipeline. We see it over and over again that communities without hope, without an economic future, without good-paying jobs, who get crushed by these burdensome regulations and groups that want to shut them down, are much more prone to experiencing violence, crime, succumbing to kinds of huge challenges like the opioid crisis. And so these issues matter across the country. But, again, they matter to working families more than anyone. So what are we going to do next week? Well, a surprise to me--and I must admit, it was a surprise; I came down here and talked about this a while ago--was that during the negotiations for the infrastructure bill that many of us voted on--I voted for it last year, in part because it had really good provisions--not as good as I would have wanted--but on permitting reform. These built on what I worked on with the Trump administration when they put out regulations as it related to building infrastructure that, by the way, was supported by millions and millions of Americans for the reasons I just talked about: streamlining permitting, getting projects online, not so costly. So some of the NEPA reforms that we got in the infrastructure bill were things that we had built on during the Trump administration. Let me give you a couple of examples: one Federal agency in charge of all regulatory decisions, timelines on NEPA, limitations on the pages required by NEPA. These were commonsense reforms that we worked on with the Trump administration and some of which we got into the infrastructure bill. So imagine, this is supposedly Joe Biden's top legislative achievement--4 months ago, kind of under the radar, the White House, the Biden White House--counts on environmental quality--put out new regulations. And here is the Wall Street Journal's editorial on what these new regulations were meant to do. And anyone who has read them--and I encourage all Americans to read them--these regulations have one goal in mind: slowing down the ability to build American infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure. The new NEPA regulations from the Biden White House make it harder to build our country, when the President supposedly supported the infrastructure bill. I truly wonder if the President has any clue that his White House issued regs to undermine what we all viewed as a very important bipartisan achievement. Now, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying: How did this happen? How are we killing infrastructure on the sly through these regulations when, supposedly, this administration wants to build infrastructure, wants to support the working men and women of our country? My view is like a lot of things. John Kerry, Gina McCarthy were probably behind it, but who the heck knows. But here is what I do know. The only people who like these rules--the rules thatare meant to slow down the building of American infrastructure--are certainly not the working men and women of America; it is the radical environmental groups, probably the trial lawyers. And I will give you another group that loves it when we do this to ourselves: the Chinese Communist Party. They look at us and go: Holy cow, these Americans can't get out of their own way. Nine years to permit a bridge. This is killing us in terms of competitiveness. Mayors don't like these rules. So what we are going to do next week, my Congressional Review Act resolution is very simple. It says, we are going to rescind this Biden rule that is going to make it harder to build American infrastructure. And here is the thing: Right now, we have a very big list of groups that are supporting my resolution. We got all the building trades of America; the operating engineers; the AFL-CIO of Alaska; the Laborers' International, LIUNA--the biggest construction union in America; and so many groups--farmers, independent business men and women. Dozens of groups are supporting our resolution to say we are not going to allow that. We want to build things. We want to build things. President Biden likes to talk about his supposed blue collar roots. Well, I wonder where the President is going to be on my resolution because all the unions in America that build stuff are supporting it. Again, maybe he didn't even know his White House put it out there. Maybe he wants to support my Congressional Review Act resolution. But I will tell you who this resolution is going to be really good for. It is going to be good for these men and women in America who built this country, who built this country. I will end where I began. Next week, there is going to be a big vote here, a simple vote. I have 50 Republicans who cosponsored my resolution to get rid of the Biden administration regulation that is going to kill infrastructure. If you support the building trades and the labor unions who built America, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support infrastructure for America and building it in a timely fashion, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support American energy that we need so much in our country, that we have right here, that we don't need to import from Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran or Venezuela, you are going to support my resolution. If you support the men and women who actually build this country, all of whom who are supporting my resolution, you are going to support my resolution. But if you stand with the coastal environmental elites who want to shut down this country, shut down my State, shut down the economy, maybe you will vote the other way. Like I said in the beginning, it is going to be a test next week. Whose side are you on? Are you with these men and women and their heritage and their heroism who built this country, or are you going to be standing with this individual, the epitome of arrogant coastal elite, smugly telling Americans that they shouldn't build energy projects? I know where I am standing next week. I am standing with the great men and women who built this country, the great men and women who continue to build this country, the great men and women who are supporting my resolution. And I sure hope all my colleagues vote the same way. This is an easy vote for America. This should be 100 to 0. That is the reason why. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3770 | null | 4,835 |
formal | working class | null | racist | Madam President, today, actually, I want to talk about the Americans of the century, the Americans of the century. This is an iconic, iconic picture of the men--and, of course, women--who built our great Nation: the working families, the union members who built our great Nation, won World War II. This is, by the way, the Empire State Building. Some of our workers built that. I want to talk about that here in a minute. They are having a little bit of lunch. But these are the workers who built America, certainly helped us win World War II: the machinists, electricians, welders, builders. And, Madam President, next week, my colleagues are going to be put to the test, and it is going to be a simple test. It is a question that is a really important one right now: Where do you stand? Do you stand with the working men and women of this great Nation, the ones who built our country and their incredible heritage of building America, or do you stand with the coastal elites--represented by this individual--who are actually focused on not building the country but in many ways shutting it down? Well, I will tell you where I stand. I stand right here with the men and women who have built this great Nation. Here is what is going to happen next week. I am bringing together a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, what we call a CRA, that will be a simple vote to nullify a recent Biden administration regulation that clearly is going to make it harder in America to build infrastructure projects--to build buildings, to build energy projects. These regulations will waste taxpayer dollars, but the biggest thing they will do is they will prevent workers from working and building the country. So that is it. We are going to have a simple vote on whether you stand with the people who take a shower before work or the people who take a shower after work, the people who spend their day holding tools to build things or holding lattes--the people with dirt under their fingernails. The vote will answer the question posed by the late folk singer Pete Seeger: Which side are you on? Now, right now, there are 50 Republican Senators who are on the side of the working men and women. They cosponsored my resolution. So let's talk a little bit about the background of what we are going to vote on next week. This is a very famous structure in America, the Hoover Dam, and it is part of a great American tradition that we are all proud of--every single American--that we used to build big things: our roads, our dams, our ports, our bridges, our pipelines. We built engineering marvels in the world, a source of immense pride for all Americans. The Hoover Dam--look at that--5 years--actually, less than 5 years--to build that dam. The Empire State Building, you just saw a picture of men and women building that. It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world: 16 months. Let me talk a little bit closer to home. The 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain: 11 months. We did that. America did that. Workers did that. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--think of this: 70,000 sections of 48-inch-wide pipe, joined and laid--70,000 sections--across three mountain ranges, 800 riverbeds, tundra, forests, lakes, from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--800 miles--3 years. Incredible. The American worker can build anything, can build anything. And then the engineering. We put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years. We used to do big things, big infrastructure. And the men and women of America have always been the best, most productive workers in the country. Well, that is no longer, unfortunately, the legacy of America. And here is part of what is going to happen next week. Let me talk a little bit of a background issue here. And I know some of my colleagues aren't going to like to hear it, but the Democratic Party was once home to these great American workers. That is true. My family was part of this tradition--Irish-Catholic immigrants, Democrats. My great-grandfather Frank J. Sullivan was one of the founding members of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He passed on the values of hard work throughout his family. And the Democratic Party long supported the union members, the workers who built not just America but the middle class. And I think that is a proud tradition. I think that is a proud tradition--certainly something that my family was part of. But that has been abandoned. Right now, the focus is much more on coastal, progressive elites and what they want versus what these men and women want. That was yesterday's Democratic Party. You are seeing headlines more like this: ``The Democrats' Working Class Voter Problem.'' That is a headline from the Democratic ally blog titled ``The Liberal Patriot.'' Newsweek: ``Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class.'' Here is a doozy from the Economist recently: Democrats in America are realizing they must moderate or die. Now, some attribute this problem to cultural issues. As James Carville said ``Wokeness is a problem.'' Cultural issues, wokeness, and all that implies are certainly issues driving the working class away from the Democratic Party. But I believe the problems that the Democrats are having with the working class run much deeper than wokeness. I believe they are structural. And at the end of the day, they are pocketbook issues. One issue that impacts everybody, but especially America's workers, is the regulatory system--the permitting system that we have in America. It hurt so much of our country. But I will tell you who it really hurts: the men and women who build things. They are on the ground. They see their projects being delayed when they are killed. They are the ones who get the pink slips when there is endless litigation on a resource development project in Alaska. They are the ones worrying about feeding their families because they don't have good work because they can't build things anymore. They are the ones who are attacked by the far left because they produce things like American energy, which we all need. We live in a nation now that is increasingly divided into two countries: one of builders and doers, of working men and women, of working families, and the other side that soaks up the spoils of those workers and then figures out ways to make their job even harder, oftentimes resulting in putting them out of work altogether. And I have seen this time and time again in my State--in my State. Whenthese men and women try to build things--and there is a choice with my Democratic colleagues between the coastal elites who want to shut things down and the men and women in America who want to build things--unfortunately, the default position for them is the coastal elites, forsaking the working men and women of our country. So why am I so animated by this? It is because our great Nation that built so many great things is now caught up in redtape. It is now caught up in redtape. So I want to talk a little bit more about my resolution and the vote we are going to have next Wednesday, or next Tuesday. The National Environmental Policy Act was a good idea when it passed in late 1969. It required environmental impact statements when things were being built so the public could be engaged. That act, called NEPA, resulted in people participating in the permitting process but not overburdening it. So normally, a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement--an EIS--at the beginning, when it was first passed, would take less than a year, a couple hundred pages. That was it. Now you look at the system in America. To try to build things, the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to just complete--4 to 6 years to just complete. And it usually costs several million dollars just to build anything in this country. That wasn't the purpose of NEPA. We are killing ourselves as a nation with our inability to build infrastructure because we are tangled up in redtape. In his recent reporting, the progressive New York Times writer Ezra Klein looks at the cost of building things in America relative to other industrialized countries. Klein writes that Japan, Canada, and Germany build a kilometer of rail for $170 million, $254 million, and $287 million, respectively. That seems like a lot, until you get to the United States. One kilometer costs $538 million, way more than any other industrialized country. Delays are costs. Of course, we know that. According to the GAO--and this is a study several years ago; I am sure it is much worse--a new U.S. highway construction project, just to build a highway normally takes 9 to 19 years. Come on, America. We built the Alcan Highway, 1,100 miles, in 11 months. This is a topic that I am very passionate about. It sounds kind of geeky. Permitting, rules, regulations--it is the core of our economy, and it is the core of what is keeping so many working families down. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The new--not new now--recently expanded runway at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport took about 3 years to build. We had a hearing on the Commerce Committee. I asked the head of the Sea-Tac Airport, ``How long did it take you to get the permits before you could build that?'' New runway, Sea-Tac needs it. He looked at me, and he said ``Senator, 15 years.'' Fifteen years to get permits to do a runway expansion at Sea-Tac Airport. He actually said: By the time we got the permits and the construction time, almost 20 years. I think that the ancient Egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. This is what we are talking about. Every State, every city, every community sees this problem. Let me give you a couple of other examples. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to all the people of Colorado, has taken two decades--20 years--to get this project permitted. California's bullet train that they are still working on--approved in the late 1990s--is still not built because of permitting delays. The costs have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia, trying to transport natural gas--litigation is stopping that. Of course, in Alaska, we are ground zero for a lot of this. The Kensington Mine right now is producing gold for our country. Hundreds of people are working there. The average wage is $110,000. Those are good jobs. Twenty years to permit that line, if you include the litigation--20 years. Here is how James Callahan, great American worker, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers--the men and women who really build America, the operating engineers--put it in a letter supporting my resolution next week. You can see it right here. He nails it: Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project-- Destroying, not helping-- job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy. He goes on: Dilatory strategies employed by project opponents frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply walk away. By the way, when I talk about the coastal elites--the radical environmental groups--that is their goal, to use NEPA to just kill projects. And they are really, really good at that. So what happens, as James Callahan says--when that happens, when the applicants simply walk away--well, we know what happens. Work dries up. Layoffs happen. The dignity of work and hope that can lift entire communities dissipates. Families struggle. Communities struggle. When we talk about good-paying jobs in our country, we are talking about so much more than men and women punching a clock. We are talking about the health of families, the pride in communities, the pride in our country. Look at the pride of those men and women who built the Empire State Building, the pride of men and women who built the Alaska pipeline. We see it over and over again that communities without hope, without an economic future, without good-paying jobs, who get crushed by these burdensome regulations and groups that want to shut them down, are much more prone to experiencing violence, crime, succumbing to kinds of huge challenges like the opioid crisis. And so these issues matter across the country. But, again, they matter to working families more than anyone. So what are we going to do next week? Well, a surprise to me--and I must admit, it was a surprise; I came down here and talked about this a while ago--was that during the negotiations for the infrastructure bill that many of us voted on--I voted for it last year, in part because it had really good provisions--not as good as I would have wanted--but on permitting reform. These built on what I worked on with the Trump administration when they put out regulations as it related to building infrastructure that, by the way, was supported by millions and millions of Americans for the reasons I just talked about: streamlining permitting, getting projects online, not so costly. So some of the NEPA reforms that we got in the infrastructure bill were things that we had built on during the Trump administration. Let me give you a couple of examples: one Federal agency in charge of all regulatory decisions, timelines on NEPA, limitations on the pages required by NEPA. These were commonsense reforms that we worked on with the Trump administration and some of which we got into the infrastructure bill. So imagine, this is supposedly Joe Biden's top legislative achievement--4 months ago, kind of under the radar, the White House, the Biden White House--counts on environmental quality--put out new regulations. And here is the Wall Street Journal's editorial on what these new regulations were meant to do. And anyone who has read them--and I encourage all Americans to read them--these regulations have one goal in mind: slowing down the ability to build American infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure. The new NEPA regulations from the Biden White House make it harder to build our country, when the President supposedly supported the infrastructure bill. I truly wonder if the President has any clue that his White House issued regs to undermine what we all viewed as a very important bipartisan achievement. Now, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying: How did this happen? How are we killing infrastructure on the sly through these regulations when, supposedly, this administration wants to build infrastructure, wants to support the working men and women of our country? My view is like a lot of things. John Kerry, Gina McCarthy were probably behind it, but who the heck knows. But here is what I do know. The only people who like these rules--the rules thatare meant to slow down the building of American infrastructure--are certainly not the working men and women of America; it is the radical environmental groups, probably the trial lawyers. And I will give you another group that loves it when we do this to ourselves: the Chinese Communist Party. They look at us and go: Holy cow, these Americans can't get out of their own way. Nine years to permit a bridge. This is killing us in terms of competitiveness. Mayors don't like these rules. So what we are going to do next week, my Congressional Review Act resolution is very simple. It says, we are going to rescind this Biden rule that is going to make it harder to build American infrastructure. And here is the thing: Right now, we have a very big list of groups that are supporting my resolution. We got all the building trades of America; the operating engineers; the AFL-CIO of Alaska; the Laborers' International, LIUNA--the biggest construction union in America; and so many groups--farmers, independent business men and women. Dozens of groups are supporting our resolution to say we are not going to allow that. We want to build things. We want to build things. President Biden likes to talk about his supposed blue collar roots. Well, I wonder where the President is going to be on my resolution because all the unions in America that build stuff are supporting it. Again, maybe he didn't even know his White House put it out there. Maybe he wants to support my Congressional Review Act resolution. But I will tell you who this resolution is going to be really good for. It is going to be good for these men and women in America who built this country, who built this country. I will end where I began. Next week, there is going to be a big vote here, a simple vote. I have 50 Republicans who cosponsored my resolution to get rid of the Biden administration regulation that is going to kill infrastructure. If you support the building trades and the labor unions who built America, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support infrastructure for America and building it in a timely fashion, you are going to vote yes on my resolution. If you support American energy that we need so much in our country, that we have right here, that we don't need to import from Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran or Venezuela, you are going to support my resolution. If you support the men and women who actually build this country, all of whom who are supporting my resolution, you are going to support my resolution. But if you stand with the coastal environmental elites who want to shut down this country, shut down my State, shut down the economy, maybe you will vote the other way. Like I said in the beginning, it is going to be a test next week. Whose side are you on? Are you with these men and women and their heritage and their heroism who built this country, or are you going to be standing with this individual, the epitome of arrogant coastal elite, smugly telling Americans that they shouldn't build energy projects? I know where I am standing next week. I am standing with the great men and women who built this country, the great men and women who continue to build this country, the great men and women who are supporting my resolution. And I sure hope all my colleagues vote the same way. This is an easy vote for America. This should be 100 to 0. That is the reason why. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3770 | null | 4,836 |
formal | rigged election | null | racist | Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, today is a very important date for the relations between the United States and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Today marks 100 years of continuous, uninterrupted diplomatic relations between our country and each of the Baltic countries. Let me explain why I emphasize continuous, uninterrupted diplomatic relations. Last Saturday marked 82 years since Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles issued a declaration that is remembered to this day in each of the Baltic countries. Soviet troops had entered the Baltic states, arrested leaders, and organized rigged elections to create pro-Soviet government. The Welles Declaration decried the ``devious processes whereunder the political independence and territorial integrity of the three small Baltic Republics--Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania--were to be deliberately annihilated by one of their more powerful neighbors.'' It was a clear, principled statement that the United States would not recognize Soviet control over these countries as legitimate. During the 50 years the Soviet Union forcibly occupied Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, diplomats from each of the Baltic states continued their work in the United States, and we continued to recognize them as independent, sovereign countries under foreign occupation. The Soviet Union justified sending troops to the Baltics on the basis of the threat from Nazi Germany. However, just a year before, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Nazis and Soviets contained a secret protocol whereby Hitler and Stalin agreed to carve up their neighbors into ``spheres of influence.'' Under this agreement, the Baltics, Finland, eastern Poland, and what is now Moldova would be controlled by the Soviet Union, and the rest of Poland would go to Germany. Finland was able to fight back in the Winter War, retaining its sovereignty, but losing significant territory to Russia. The rest of the pact played out just as Stalin and Hitler agreed. This isn't just history. This is directly relevant to Vladimir Putin's rhetoric, attitude, and actions in Ukraine. He believes he has a right to a sphere of influence over his neighbors just like Stalin and Hitler thought. To this day, Putin maintains that the three Baltics joined the Soviet Union in 1940 and ceased to exist as countries until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Russian Duma has even threatened to repeal a Soviet law recognizing Lithuania's independence from the USSR--what a joke. Let's be clear: The Baltic states are not former Soviet republics. They have been independent countries for over a century. Following in Stalin's footsteps, Putin justifies attacking Ukraine, at least to audiences outside of Russia, as a reaction to NATO encroaching on Russia. Putin casts NATO as a threat, even making up a claim that NATO was planning to put missiles in Ukraine targeting Russia. The fact is, even our eastern flank allies in NATO do not currently have the kinds of defensive missiles they would need to repel a Russian invasion, which is unfortunate. Currently, we have meager ``tripwire'' forces that are insufficient to stop the kind of invasion we saw in Ukraine in February. Russia's military leaders know that NATO cannot begin to threaten Russian territory. There were no allied reinforcements in any NATO country bordering Russia until the invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine was militarily neutral then, but seeking economic ties with the European Union, thus slipping away from economic dependency on Russia. The fact that NATO has become attractive to Ukraine since Russia seized Crimea and part of the Donbas is a threat not to the territory of the Russian Federation, but to Russia's imperial desire for a sphere of influence. Putin blames Ukraine's westward turn on provocations by western intelligence agencies, failing to recognize that Ukrainians are making their own choices. Just like in 1940, the United States has refused to recognize another Russian occupation of a sovereign country as legitimate. We were once a small collection of colonies seeking to chart our own, independent course free from European empires. That is why the Welles Declaration expressed admiration for the Baltic countries as they pursued self-government and democracy. That is why the Welles Declaration made clear that the people of the United States oppose intervention or the use of force by large or powerful countries on smaller, weaker ones. That principle applies today to Ukraine. No one should decide Ukraine's fate except the Ukrainian people. True to our principles, the United States can never, directly or tacitly, consign Ukraine to Russia's sphere of influence. As we celebrate 100 years of excellent diplomatic relations with our Baltic allies, there is no doubt in retrospect that we were right to stand up for their sovereignty, even when that seemed hopeless, even foolish. Fifty years of Russian occupation could not turn them into Russians, just as centuries of Russification policies have not convinced Ukrainians to accept the Russian view that they are just ``little Russians.'' The Baltic countries are thriving democracies with strong Western values and some of our closest allies. Thank God they regained their independence and are now in NATO. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. GRASSLEY | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3773-3 | null | 4,837 |
formal | Federal Reserve | null | antisemitic | The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-4695. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Spiropidion; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 9839- 01-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 19, 2022; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4696. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Methylorubrum extorquens strain NLS0042; Exemption from the Requirement of a Tolerance'' (FRL No. 9964-01-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4697. A communication from the Secretary of Defense, transmitting a report on the approved retirement of Lieutenant General James M. Richardson, United States Army, and his advancement to the grade of lieutenant general on the retired list; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4698. A communication from the President of the United States, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report of the continuation of the national emergency with respect to the situation in Mali that was declared in Executive Order 13882 of July 26, 2019; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4699. A communication from the Congressional Assistant, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Collection of Checks and Other Items by Federal Reserve Banks and Funds Transfers Through Fedwire'' ((RIN7100-AG16) (Docket No. R-1750)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4700. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Commercial Prerinse Spray Valves'' (RIN1904-AE56) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4701. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program for Appliance Standards: Certification for Ceiling Fan Light Kits, General Service Incandescent Lamps, Incandescent Reflector Lamps, Ceiling Fans, Consumer Furnaces and Boilers, Consumer Water Heaters, Dishwashers, and Commercial Clothes Washers, Battery Chargers, and Dedicated-Purpose Pool Pumps'' (RIN1904-AE90) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4702. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program: Final Determination of Air Cleaners as a Covered Consumer Product'' (RIN1904-AF25) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4703. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program: Test Procedure for Metal Halide Lamp Fixtures'' (RIN1904-AE17) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4704. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants; Delegation of Authority to Oklahoma'' (FRL No. 8847-02-R6) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 19, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4705. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Improvements for Heavy-Duty Engine and Vehicle Test Procedures'' ((RIN2060-AV21) (FRL No. 7423.1-01-OAR)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4706. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Major Sources: Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters: Amendments'' ((RIN2060-AU20) (FRL No. 6312-01-OAR)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4707. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``State of Michigan Underground Injection Control (UIC) Class II Program; Primacy Approval'' (FRL No. 8378-04- OW) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4708. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Oklahoma; Volatile Organic Compound Emissions in Nonattainment Areas and Former Nonattainment Areas'' (FRL No. 8698-02-R6) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4709. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Arizona, California, Nevada; Emissions Statements Requirements'' (FRL No. 8997-02-R9) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4710. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; California; Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District; Reasonably Available Control Technology'' (FRL No. 9264-02-R9) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4711. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Missouri; Removal of Control of Emissions from Bakery Ovens'' (FRL No. 9767-02-R7) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4712. A communication from the Chief of the Division of Bird Conservation, Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Migratory Bird Permits; Administrative Updates to 50 CFR Parts 21 and 22'' (RIN1018-BF59) received on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4713. A communication from the Regulations Writer, Office of Regulations and Reports Clearance, Social Security Administration, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Extension of Expiration Dates for Three Body System Listings'' (RIN0960-AI73) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4714. A communication from the Chief of the Trade and Commercial Regulations Branch, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Extension and Amendment of Import Restrictions on Archaeological and Ethnological Material from Cyprus'' ((RIN1515-AE74) (CBP Dec. 22-15)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4715. A communication from the Assistant Secretary, Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report entitled ``Determination Under Sections 506(a)(1) and 614(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to Provide Military Assistance to Ukraine''; to the Committee on Foreign Relations. EC-4716. A communication from the Director, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report and the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the report on other U.S. contributions to the United Nations and its affiliated agencies during fiscal year 2020; to the Committee on Foreign Relations. EC-4717. A communication from the Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a vacancy in the position of Director of the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. EC-4718. A communication from the Board Members, Railroad Retirement Board, transmitting, pursuant to law, an annual report relative to the Board's compliance with the Government in the Sunshine Act during calendar year 2021; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4719. A communication from the Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a vacancy in the position of Commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans, Department of Health and Human Services, received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Indian Affairs. EC-4720. A communication from the Branch Chief of the Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Summer Flounder Fishery; Retroactive Quota Transfer from NC to MA'' (RIN0648-XA843) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4721. A communication from the Attorney Advisor, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Hazardous Materials: Harmonization with International Standards'' (RIN2137-AF46) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4722. A communication from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Petition for Rulemaking of Sprint Corporation, Report and Order'' ((FCC 22-48) (CG Docket No. 03-123)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4723. A communication from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Structure and Practices of the Video Relay Service Program; Misuse of Internet Protocol Relay Service'' ((FCC 22-49) (CG Docket No. 03-123) (CG Docket No. 10-51) (CG Docket No. 12-38)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4724. A communication from the Program Analyst, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services'' (WC Docket No. 12-375) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4725. A communication from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Structure and Practices of the Video Relay Service Program; Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Petition for Rulemaking and Interim Waiver of Convo Communications, LLC, Report and Order'' ((FCC 22-49) (CG Docket No. 03-123) (CG Docket No. 10-51) (CG Docket No. 13-24)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3779-3 | null | 4,838 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-4695. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Spiropidion; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 9839- 01-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 19, 2022; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4696. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Methylorubrum extorquens strain NLS0042; Exemption from the Requirement of a Tolerance'' (FRL No. 9964-01-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4697. A communication from the Secretary of Defense, transmitting a report on the approved retirement of Lieutenant General James M. Richardson, United States Army, and his advancement to the grade of lieutenant general on the retired list; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4698. A communication from the President of the United States, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report of the continuation of the national emergency with respect to the situation in Mali that was declared in Executive Order 13882 of July 26, 2019; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4699. A communication from the Congressional Assistant, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Collection of Checks and Other Items by Federal Reserve Banks and Funds Transfers Through Fedwire'' ((RIN7100-AG16) (Docket No. R-1750)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4700. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Commercial Prerinse Spray Valves'' (RIN1904-AE56) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4701. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program for Appliance Standards: Certification for Ceiling Fan Light Kits, General Service Incandescent Lamps, Incandescent Reflector Lamps, Ceiling Fans, Consumer Furnaces and Boilers, Consumer Water Heaters, Dishwashers, and Commercial Clothes Washers, Battery Chargers, and Dedicated-Purpose Pool Pumps'' (RIN1904-AE90) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4702. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program: Final Determination of Air Cleaners as a Covered Consumer Product'' (RIN1904-AF25) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4703. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Conservation Program: Test Procedure for Metal Halide Lamp Fixtures'' (RIN1904-AE17) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4704. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants; Delegation of Authority to Oklahoma'' (FRL No. 8847-02-R6) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 19, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4705. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Improvements for Heavy-Duty Engine and Vehicle Test Procedures'' ((RIN2060-AV21) (FRL No. 7423.1-01-OAR)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4706. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Major Sources: Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters: Amendments'' ((RIN2060-AU20) (FRL No. 6312-01-OAR)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4707. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``State of Michigan Underground Injection Control (UIC) Class II Program; Primacy Approval'' (FRL No. 8378-04- OW) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4708. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Oklahoma; Volatile Organic Compound Emissions in Nonattainment Areas and Former Nonattainment Areas'' (FRL No. 8698-02-R6) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4709. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Arizona, California, Nevada; Emissions Statements Requirements'' (FRL No. 8997-02-R9) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4710. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; California; Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District; Reasonably Available Control Technology'' (FRL No. 9264-02-R9) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4711. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Missouri; Removal of Control of Emissions from Bakery Ovens'' (FRL No. 9767-02-R7) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4712. A communication from the Chief of the Division of Bird Conservation, Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Migratory Bird Permits; Administrative Updates to 50 CFR Parts 21 and 22'' (RIN1018-BF59) received on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4713. A communication from the Regulations Writer, Office of Regulations and Reports Clearance, Social Security Administration, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Extension of Expiration Dates for Three Body System Listings'' (RIN0960-AI73) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4714. A communication from the Chief of the Trade and Commercial Regulations Branch, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Extension and Amendment of Import Restrictions on Archaeological and Ethnological Material from Cyprus'' ((RIN1515-AE74) (CBP Dec. 22-15)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4715. A communication from the Assistant Secretary, Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report entitled ``Determination Under Sections 506(a)(1) and 614(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to Provide Military Assistance to Ukraine''; to the Committee on Foreign Relations. EC-4716. A communication from the Director, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report and the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the report on other U.S. contributions to the United Nations and its affiliated agencies during fiscal year 2020; to the Committee on Foreign Relations. EC-4717. A communication from the Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a vacancy in the position of Director of the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. EC-4718. A communication from the Board Members, Railroad Retirement Board, transmitting, pursuant to law, an annual report relative to the Board's compliance with the Government in the Sunshine Act during calendar year 2021; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4719. A communication from the Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a vacancy in the position of Commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans, Department of Health and Human Services, received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Indian Affairs. EC-4720. A communication from the Branch Chief of the Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Summer Flounder Fishery; Retroactive Quota Transfer from NC to MA'' (RIN0648-XA843) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4721. A communication from the Attorney Advisor, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Hazardous Materials: Harmonization with International Standards'' (RIN2137-AF46) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 25, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4722. A communication from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Petition for Rulemaking of Sprint Corporation, Report and Order'' ((FCC 22-48) (CG Docket No. 03-123)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4723. A communication from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Structure and Practices of the Video Relay Service Program; Misuse of Internet Protocol Relay Service'' ((FCC 22-49) (CG Docket No. 03-123) (CG Docket No. 10-51) (CG Docket No. 12-38)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4724. A communication from the Program Analyst, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services'' (WC Docket No. 12-375) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-4725. A communication from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Structure and Practices of the Video Relay Service Program; Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Petition for Rulemaking and Interim Waiver of Convo Communications, LLC, Report and Order'' ((FCC 22-49) (CG Docket No. 03-123) (CG Docket No. 10-51) (CG Docket No. 13-24)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 20, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3779-3 | null | 4,839 |
formal | right to know | null | anti-GMO | The following petitions and memorials were laid before the Senate and were referred or ordered to lie on the table as indicated: POM-173. A resolution adopted by the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana urging the United States Congress to enact federal legislation requiring food service establishments to notify patrons if they are serving imported shrimp; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. House Resolution No. 253 Whereas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 2019 the United States imported six billion pounds of edible seafood products, including one and one half billion pounds of shrimp, an increase of nearly six and one half million pounds more than the shrimp imported in 2018; and Whereas, the 2019 shrimp imports alone, valued at six billion dollars, accounted for twenty-seven percent of the total value of imported seafood that year, which reached twenty-two billion dollars; and Whereas, it is estimated that over half of the imported seafood consumed in the United States is from aquaculture, or seafood farming, rather than wild-caught; and Whereas, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the safety of all fish and fishery products entering the United States and sold in Louisiana; and Whereas, the FDA's seafood safety program is governed by its Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point regulations, which address food safety management through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement and handling, to manufacturing, distribution, and consumption of the finished product; and Whereas, FDA regulations are supposed to measure compliance for imported seafood with inspections of foreign processing facilities, sampling of seafood offered for import into the United States, domestic surveillance sampling of imported products, inspections of seafood importers, foreign country program assessments, and the use of information from foreign partners and FDA overseas offices; and Whereas, in 2011 the FDA was only inspecting two percent of the seafood imported into the United States; and Whereas, unfortunately 2011 is the last year for which data regarding the percentage of imports inspected is available due to a lack of transparency and inadequate assessment measures; and Whereas, in 2011 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that the FDA's assessments of foreign aquaculture operations was limited by the FDA's lack of procedures, criteria, and standards; and ten years later, a 2021 GAO report found that the agency was failing to monitor the effectiveness of its own enforcement policies and procedures; and Whereas, in contrast, the European Union regularly conducts physical checks of approximately twenty percent of all imported fish products that are fresh, frozen, dry, salted, or hermetically sealed, and for certain fishery products, physical checks are conducted on approximately fifty percent of imports; and Whereas, the Louisiana State University School of Renewable Natural Resources published a 2020 paper titled ``Determination of Sulfite and Antimicrobial Residue in Imported Shrimp to the USA'', which presented findings from a study of shrimp imported from India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Bangladesh, and Ecuador and purchased from retail stores in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Whereas, a screening of these shrimp for sulfites and residues from antimicrobial drugs found the following: (1) five percent of the shrimp contained malachite green, (2) seven percent contained oxytetracycline, (3) seventeen percent contained fluoroquinolone, and (4) seventy percent contained nitrofurantoin, all of which have been banned by the FDA in domestic aquaculture operations; and Whereas, although the FDA requires that food products exposed to sulfites must include a label with a statement about the presence of sulfites, of the forty-three percent of these locally purchased shrimp found to contain sulfites, not one package complied with this labeling requirement; and Whereas the drug and sulfite residues included in this screening, can be harmful to human health during both handling and consumption and have been known to cause all of the following: liver damage and tumors, reproductive abnormalities, cardiac arrhythmia, renal failure, hemolysis, asthma attacks, and allergic reactions; and Whereas, the results of this study confirm that existing screening and enforcement measures for imported seafood are insufficient; whatever the percentage of imports inspected may be, seafood is currently being imported that contains unsafe substances that put American consumers at risk; and Whereas, because imported seafood is not held to the same standards as domestic seafood, domestic fishing industries are put at a distinct and significant disadvantage commercially; and Whereas, according to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the average value of Louisiana shrimp fell from three dollars eighty cents per pound in 1980 to one dollar fifty cents per pound in 2017; and Whereas, this unfair competition allows foreign competitors to flood the United States market with shrimp harvested under intensive farming practices using antimicrobial drugs, while devastating local industries and the coastal communities built around them; and Whereas, Louisiana passed a law in 2019 requiring food service establishments to provide notice to patrons that they are serving shrimp imported from, a foreign country; and Whereas, Louisiana Revised Statute 40:5.5.4 requires any food service establishment that sells or provides cooked or prepared shrimp originating outside the United States to display the country of origin of such shrimp, or denote that it is imported, on all menus in the same font as the rest of the menu, or if no menu is used, to display such information on a sign at least eighteen inches tall and wide, located in a conspicuous place, with lettering at least one inch in size; and Whereas, like Louisiana consumers, consumers across the United States deserve to be protected from harmful chemicals and residues found in imported shrimp; and Whereas, consumers across the United States likewise have the right to know whether the shrimp prepared and served to them in food service establishments are imported; therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives of the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby memorialize the United States Congress to enact federal legislation requiring food service establishments to provide notice to patrons if they are serving imported shrimp; and be it further Resolved, That a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives of Congress and to each member of the Louisiana congressional delegation. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3780 | null | 4,840 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | By Mr. PADILLA (for himself and Mr. Cramer): S. 4672. A bill to modify the authority of the Secretary of Defense to transfer excess aircraft to other departments of the Federal Government and to authorize the Secretary to transfer excess aircraft to the Governor of a State, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Armed Services. Mr. PADILLA, Mr. President, I rise to introduce the bipartisan Emergency Aircraft Act of 2022. Currently, DOD has a program to transfer excess aircraft to Federal Agencies for wildfire suppression purposes. However, under current law, DOD is limited to providing only seven aircraft total to each Agency. After years of increasingly catastrophic wildfires, it has become clear that the Federal Government must do more to support suppression efforts to get fires under control quickly, as well as support search and rescue to keep communities safe. If there are excess aircraft available, they should be put to use suppressing fires and protecting communities. Furthermore, as fire activity has exploded in the past few years, States have stepped up and greatly increased their own suppression efforts. They should also be allowed to utilize these excess aircraft to increase suppression capabilities and put fires out faster. However, under current law, States do not have access to these excess aircraft. This bill would remove the arbitrary cap on how many excess aircraft DOD can transfer to Federal Agencies for wildfire suppression efforts; allow States to receive excess aircraft; expand the purposes for which these aircraft could be used from just ``wildfire suppression purposes'' to include purposes of ``wildfire suppression, search and rescue, or emergency operations pertaining to wildfires''; and mandate an annual report from DOD to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives on aircraft transferred during the previous fiscal year. This bill represents a commonsense step forward to expand fire suppression and search and rescue operations across the Federal Government and State governments. I want to thank Senator Cramer for joining me in this bipartisan effort, and I urge my colleagues to join us in working to pass this bill as quickly as possible in light of the extreme wildfire danger facing States across the country. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3785 | null | 4,841 |
formal | urban | null | racist | Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have eight requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: committee on armed services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. committee on energy and natural resources The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. committee on finance The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. committee on foreign relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. committee on foreign relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. committee on the judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 9 a.m., to conduct a business meeting. special committee on aging The Special Committee on Aging is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 28, 2022, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CARPER | Senate | CREC-2022-07-28-pt1-PgS3789 | null | 4,842 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Aguilar). Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the bill (H.R. 263) to amend the Lacey Act Amendments of 1981 to clarify provisions enacted by the Captive Wildlife Safety Act, to further the conservation of certain wildlife species, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Aguilar) | House | CREC-2022-07-29-pt1-PgH7531 | null | 4,843 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3451) to include certain computer-related projects in the Federal permitting program under title XLI of the FAST Act, and for other purposes on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-29-pt1-PgH7533 | null | 4,844 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3451) to include certain computer-related projects in the Federal permitting program under title XLI of the FAST Act, and for other purposes on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2022-07-29-pt1-PgH7533 | null | 4,845 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | The Economy Madam President, now on a completely different matter, when it comes to our economy, American families do not trust this Democratic Party government one bit. Nearly 90 percent of Americans are feeling anxious about inflation. Twenty-eight percent approve of how President Biden is handling it--just a 28 percent approval rating. Only 22 percent think things will get any better after another year on his watch. Americans' distrust of Democrats stands to reason. A year and a half ago, every single Senate Democrat provided the deciding vote for a $1.9 trillion reckless spending spree that has caused the worst inflation in 40 years. The Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, said back then ``I do not think the dangers of inflation, at least in the near term, are very real.'' He went on to lead every single Democrat to cast the deciding vote for the party-line spending spree that has destroyed families' purchasing power through inflation. Now, the very same people want to deal our economy another body blow on a party-line vote. The same Democrats who said that a $1.9 trillion spending spree would not cause inflation are now saying--listen to this--it is a good idea to raise taxes, kill jobs, attack American energy, and hammer American manufacturing, all--all--in the middle of the apparent recession, which they have already created. Everyone knows that raising taxes in a recession kills jobs, but that is precisely what Democrats are desperate to do. So here is what they are proposing: a huge new tax hike on American jobs, more than $300 billion in new taxes. The Joint Committee on Taxation says a whopping 50 percent of that burden would fall directly on our Nation's manufacturing sector. So in the middle of a supply chain crisis, Democrats want huge, job-killing tax hikes that will disproportionately crush American manufacturing and manufacturing jobs. Oh, and Democrats also want a huge new tax hike on American natural gas. Natural gas is the single largest source of electricity generation in our entire country. A plurality of all the power in America comes from--you guessed it--natural gas. It is also how countless families heat their homes. And it is a linchpin of our domestic energy independence and our ability to export to our allies in Europe. But the Green New Deal Democrats are coming straight after American natural gas with huge new tax hikes. The result will be higher electricity bills, higher heating costs, less exporting to our European allies just as Putin is trying to cut them off, and 90,000 workers in the oil and gas industry--listen to this--out of work, eliminating 90,000 workers in the oil and gas industry in the process. Democrats' tax hikes on American energy don't stop there. With gas prices still sky-high, our colleagues are also proposing to resurrect a defunct tax that would take direct aim at American oil refining, and they want it pegged to inflation so the tax hike will automatically climb up and up exactly when the country can least afford it. So on top of all this, the Democrats also want to pour new funding into the IRS so they can more easily come after small business. IRS agents get new cars and new computers; small businesses get more audits. Add it all up, these tax hikes and others, and Democrats want to drop an anvil--an anvil--on our economy at the worst possible time. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has demonstrated the Democrats' plan would shatter--shatter--President Biden's promise not to raise taxes on households earning less than $400,000. Households making less than half that amount--less than $200,000--would see a $16.7 billion tax hike in year 2023 alone. This is people making under $200,000 would see a $16.7 billion tax hike next year alone. Amazingly, the very lowest earning Americans who make less than $10,000 per year would see the largest percentage tax hike of any group in the entire bill. So it hits people who make below $10,000, on a percentage basis, harder than any other group in the entire bill. So Democrats are labeling all these tax hikes the ``Inflation Reduction Act,'' but nonpartisan experts have already proven that is flat-out false. The budget experts at Penn Wharton show this bill would slightly--slightly--increase inflation in the near term and do nothing to meaningfully reduce it in the long term. So it is not about inflation. When you raise taxes on something, you get less of it. That is the way it works. In the middle of a recession, Democrats want to raise taxes on American jobs. In the middle of an energy crisis, Democrats want to raise taxes on American energy. In the middle of a middle-class inflation crisis, Democrats want to raise taxes on households way, way below the President's $400,000 threshold. All of this economic genius--all of this economic genius--is brought to you by the same people who called a $1.9 trillion inflation time bomb the ``American Rescue Plan'' and promised it wouldn't cause inflation right before it did. We know what it looks like when Democrats say they will help the economy, and American families can't take much more of it. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-01-pt1-PgS3794 | null | 4,846 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, Oregonians will soon gather to honor an American hero, Ethyle O'Neal. Ethyle will be posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal next month in McMinnville, OR. When the Senate voted to award the medal to Ethyle and her fellow Civil Air Patrol volunteers from WWII, it was with the heroism and devotion to service she embodied in mind. Since I won't be able to attend the ceremony, I want to spend a few minutes today to honor her outstanding legacy, her service, the communities she bettered, and the family she has left behind. Born and raised in my hometown, Portland, 14-year-old Ethyle E. Kremers was the first from her high school to volunteer for the Civil Air Patrol, or CAP. With the U.S. military tied up in WWII, the CAP was tasked with patrolling America's borders to detect threats, deter submarine attacks, and protect vital shipping lanes. Ethyle trained as a radio-communicator and support person, as well as taking on the responsibilities of cadet training at dozens of CAP camps across the country. Six years after joining the CAP, Ethyle used her training to single-handedly save the life of a young child and assist in the rescue of four more during the Vanport Flood disaster. For the rescues, she became the first CAP cadet to receive the program's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award. Soon after, Ethyle joined the U.S. Air Force and trained as a medical laboratory assistant at Edwards Air Force Base, where she met her future husband Theodore O'Neal. The two went on to have four wonderful children: Timothy, Ken, Kathy, and Susie. After years traveling with her family to Air Force bases around the world, Ethyle returned to Portland. She shortly resumed work with the CAP as commander of the Milwaukie and then Beaverton Cadet Squadrons. Tasked with training new recruits, Ethyle's dedication to the role was matched only by the compassion she showed to her cadets. Her family still remembers Ethyle inviting cadets over to her house to study and practice maneuvers around the dining room. For her service, Ethyle was awarded the CAP's highest award for adult officers, the Gill Robb Wilson Award, and the grade of lieutenant colonel. In addition to training new cadets, Ethyle began flying search and rescue sorties as a mission observer, took the role of director of cadet programs, earning numerous commendations for her work. Ethyle was also an active member of her community outside of the CAP. For 13 years, she worked as a bus driver for children with special needs, ensuring education remained accessible for the most vulnerable in society. She also loved teaching local children to fly model rockets. A model of selflessness, Ethyle's accomplishments survive her, reminding us that the efforts of a determined few can raise, or even save, the lives of many. Ethyle's success as a woman in the Armed Forces and work with children with special needs inspire me to continue my own work for these underrepresented groups. It is an honor to remember her achievements, and I can think of nobody more deserving of the Congressional Gold Medal. It is my sincere hope that her story continues to inspire the best in all who hear it, in Oregon and across the Nation. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. WYDEN | Senate | CREC-2022-08-01-pt1-PgS3803-2 | null | 4,847 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | At 3:02 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House has passed the following bill, without amendment: S. 3451. An act to include certain computer-related projects in the Federal permitting program under title XLI of the FAST Act, and for other purposes. The message also announced that the House has passed the following bills, in which it requests the concurrence of the Senate: H.R. 263. An act to amend the Lacey Act Amendments of 1981 to clarify provisions enacted by the Captive Wildlife Safety Act, to further the conservation of certain wildlife species, and for other purposes. H.R. 1808. An act to regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes. H.R. 7283. An act to amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to make certain activities eligible for grants from the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund, and for other purposes. The message further announced that pursuant to 29 U.S.C. 780, the Speaker appoints the following member to the National Council on Disability: Mr. Shawn Kennemer of Bakersfield, California. Enrolled Bills Signed The message also announced that the Speaker has signed the following enrolled bills: H.R. 1057. An act to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, and for other purposes. H.R. 1842. An act to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint commemorative coins in recognition of the Bicentennial of Harriet Tubman's birth. H.R. 3359. An act to provide for a system for reviewing the case files of cold case murders at the instance of certain persons, and for other purposes. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-01-pt1-PgS3804-5 | null | 4,848 |
formal | welfare | null | racist | The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the following prayer: With the psalmist, we give thanks to You, O Lord, for You are good. Your love endures forever. As we consider the 80th anniversary of the WAVES, the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, signed into law July 30, 1942, remind us again of the long-lasting and vital impact decisions made in these Chambers truly have in defense of this country and for the welfare of its future. Celebrating the innumerable contributions these first women made on intelligence, communications, and cryptology, to name a few, we give You our gratitude that You have put before this body critical opportunities to leverage the gifts and graces of all our fellow Americans for the common good. May their experience of fortitude and resilience, faith and devotion to our country, in war and in peace, serve as a testimony of how You respond in times of trouble, how You deliver us from distress. Even now, You still the storms that rage to a whisper and bring the waves that roar to a hush. Lord, we have seen the works of Your hands and Your wonderful deeds. Let those who are wise heed the history of Your faithfulness, and may we ponder Your loving deeds. We offer ourselves and our prayers for Your service. Amen. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgH7543-3 | null | 4,849 |
formal | middle class | null | racist | Inflation Reduction Act Mr. President, on a different subject, the Democrats have had a tough fewdays rolling out their latest reckless taxing-and-spending spree. It turns out that proposing huge, job-killing tax hikes and more runaway spending during inflation and a recession doesn't go over very well. Here are a few of the things nonpartisan--nonpartisan--experts have already proven about the Democrats' proposal. No. 1, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act would actually increase inflation in the short term and do nothing to tackle the problem in the long term. That is from the University of Pennsylvania. No. 2, their tax hikes would shatter President Biden's promise not to impact households earning below $400,000. Many billions of dollars of the new tax hikes would fall--listen to this--directly on the working class and the middle class. That, of course, is not from Republicans but from the Joint Committee on Taxation. No. 3, also from the Joint Committee on Taxation, fully half of the Democrats' $300-plus billion--billion--new tax on American jobs would come crashing down on American manufacturers in particular--manufacturers in particular. Now, those groups that I cited are neutral and nonpartisan. But, just for fun, let's take a look at the most favorable numbers--most favorable numbers--for Democrats. Let's look at their own spin. One of the Biden administration's favorite outside economists, somebody who has consistently been overoptimistic about inflation and Democrats' policies, claims their bill will reduce the Consumer Price Index by a grand total--listen to this--of one-third of 1 percent--one-third of 1 percent--between now and the end of the year 2031--wow--0.33 percent over 9 years. That is one twenty-eighth of the inflation Democrats have caused in just the last 12 months. For goodness' sake, Democrats added four times that much inflation just in the month of June alone. So, listen, the friendliest estimate for Democrats says their taxing-and-spending spree would take 9 years--9 years--to unwind literally 1 week's worth of recent inflation. Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes, hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending, and it would take 9 years to remove 1 week's worth of Democrats' inflation--goodness. So let me repeat it one more time. This is the most generous estimate for Democrats. Neutral experts like the University of Pennsylvania say even this is too optimistic, and their bill would actually make inflation even worse in the coming months. So, look, this isn't an Inflation Reduction Act--not even close. It is just a catalog of tax hikes and green boondoggles that Democrats have wanted, literally, for years with a false new label slapped on the front. The Inflation Reduction Act won't reduce inflation any more than the American Rescue Plan actually rescued America. The Inflation Reduction Act won't reduce inflation any more than the American Rescue Plan actually rescued America. The only thing the so-called rescue plan rescued the country from was stable prices and a functioning economy. And the only thing their inflation reduction plan will reduce is American jobs, wages, after-tax incomes, energy affordability, and new lifesaving medicines. Wow. What an accomplishment. So the Democrats say they need to pass another massive economic failure because their first huge economic failure has made it necessary. Well, the American people see things quite differently. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3837-10 | null | 4,850 |
formal | extremists | null | Islamophobic | Ayman Al-Zawahiri Madam President, at 6:18 a.m. this past Sunday morning, in a wealthy neighborhood in Kabul, Afghanistan, two U.S. Hellfire missiles delivered justice--at last--to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri is dead, and the world is better for it. He was a terrible man who brought horrific suffering to countless numbers of people, innocent people, throughout the world. He was second in command to Osama bin Laden during 9/11, which claimed nearly 3,000 innocent American lives. He was the mastermind behind the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and behind the bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port in 2000. He claimed to act on behalf of Islam; yet his hands were stained with the blood of innocence, including of countless Muslims. Since the death of bin Laden 11 years ago, Zawahiri has been the leader of al-Qaida. He has been rumored variously to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was finally discovered living with his family in a wealthy neighborhood in the center of Kabul. The U.S. intelligence community and the CIA deserve great credit for their careful, professional work over months to verify Zawahiri's location and identity. President Biden also deserves credit. At least three U.S. Presidents hunted down this man. Joe Biden's administration finally succeeded in ridding the world of this terrible person. The war in Afghanistan was America's longest war by far--20 bloody years. Donald Trump, before he left office, set the deadline to end that war--a decision that Joe Biden inherited and America completed 1 year ago this month. I supported that decision to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan. At the same time, President Biden and military leaders warned extremists not to confuse the withdrawal of American boots on the ground with any reduction of our commitment to the fight against terrorism. The death of Zawahiri is proof that those who harm U.S. citizens, U.S. troops, and U.S. interests will find no safe quarter in this world. PACT Act of 2022 Madam President, you don't have to go to Ground Zero in New York or to the Pentagon or to the field in Shanksville, PA, to see the reminders of the terrible suffering that came out of 9/11; you can walk outside of the Senate Chamber and see Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families, who still bear the scars of war. For years, they and many others have urged the Veterans Health Administration to finally provide healthcare for the veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits and other forms of deadly toxic pollution during their service. Last Thursday, many of these veterans traveled to Washington. They came here to see a celebration--the passage of the PACT Act--and President Biden promised to sign it. It is a critical bill designed to provide VA health services for 3.5 million toxic-exposed veterans. Instead of a celebration, they witnessed a betrayal. At the last minute, 25 Republican Senators, who had just voted for the PACT Act 6 weeks earlier, voted against it. They voted against giving toxic-exposed military veterans the VA healthcare they deserved. Since then, these veterans, their family members, and supporters have been holding a vigil--what they call a fire watch--on the steps of the Capitol. They have remained there through rain and steaming heat to remind us of our duty to help them. Veterans across this Nation and some out on the steps are sick and dying with cancer and other disorders because they were exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other chemical poisons. These are wounds of war, and they should be treated that way. Veterans who have risked their lives for our freedom must not be treated as collateral damage in a political skirmish. Jon Tester, the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, has shown real leadership on this. Jon states it ever so simply, and I think we should all remember: We have to face the real costs of war. We talk about our annual budgets. We talk about the body counts. We talk about all of the issues that face us, but we face the reality that those who served in our wars come home many times with physical but often invisible scars that haunt them for a lifetime. Those are the real costs of war. This bill, the PACT Act, which Jon Tester and Senator Moran of Kansas brought to this floor, addressed those costs. It is time for us to get it right in the U.S. Senate. There is a rumor on the floor that there may be an agreement that even today we are going to vote on this. None too soon. Those veterans who are waiting on the steps deserve it. Millions at home are watching this--and their families and others who love them--in the hopes that what we do on the floor of the Senate will finally give them some comfort in their lives. The Senate must hold another vote on the PACT Act, and I hope it will be today. That is the rumor on the floor. Let's get it right this time. Let's reassemble that bipartisan coalition that passed the bill originally. Let's restore the faith of the veterans community and many Americans in the U.S. Senate. On a bipartisan basis, we can stand up for those who stood up and served our Nation. January 6 On another matter, Madam President, the last several days have brought a stream of troubling revelations about the disappearance of Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security text messages from around the time of the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection on this Capitol. The missing texts could provide critical evidence about one of the worst crimes and greatest threats to our Constitution ever perpetrated on America. The disappearance of this critical information could jeopardize the efforts to learn the full truth of January 6 and hold responsible anyone who planned and participated in that attack. I don't know whether the failure to preserve these critical government texts of January 6 is a result of bad faith or stunning incompetence, but I do know that the man who has overseen this fiasco is not the right person to investigate it. This man has lost whatever credibility he may have once had on this matter. That is why I have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to step in and take control of this investigation into the missing texts. This is what we know so far: Joseph Cuffari was nominated to be inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security by former President Donald Trump. He remains in that position today. The Department of Homeland Security includes the Secret Service and many other critical government Agencies. Inspectors general are supposed to be independent watchdogs for their Departments and make sure that the people working in that Department don't engage in waste, fraud, or abuse. If there is any problem, the inspector general is required by law to report it to Congress. In recent weeks, we learned belatedly from Mr. Cuffari, this inspector general, that, No. 1, his office asked the Secret Service last February for text messages, emails, and other records that could shed light on January 6, and he was met with months--months--of delay and stonewalling. Mr. Cuffari has known since at least February of this year that the Secret Service texts from January 6 had been erased in supposedly routine resets of the Agency's phones. Imagine that--Agencies entrusted with the security of the United States and when there is a handoff of official phones, they are erased at that time. Mr. Cuffari did not share that information with Congress for 5 months--5 months. Mr. Cuffari also belatedly informed Congress that texts from the cell phones of the top two leaders in the Department of Homeland Security during the insurrection, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, were apparently lost during another reset after they turned in their government phones. Imagine the fumbling of critical information about an event as historic as the January 6 Trump insurrectionist mob who invaded this Capitol. According to public reports, Department staff actually came up with a plan to retrieve the deleted emails when they first learned about them. Listen to this: Mr. Cuffari's office inexplicably killed the plan. This isn't just another government Agency we are talking about, as important as that would be; the Department of Homeland Security has some of the most sophisticated intelligence and investigative capabilities not just in the United States but in the world. It is hard to believe that this Department accidentally deleted texts that could shed light on one of the greatest constitutional events and crimes ever committed in the history of the United States, but it would be just as problematic if they did. Either way, we need to get to the bottom of this. This month, after news of the missing texts became public and his office came under criticism, Mr. Cuffari belatedly opened a criminal investigation into the Secret Service's missing text messages. It was the right thing to do, but he is the wrong person to do it. Mr. Cuffari has lost his credibility. The same law that allows Mr. Cuffari to conduct this criminal investigation, the Inspector General Act, gives to the Attorney General of the United States the power to take control of it. It is time for Attorney General Garland to step in and oversee this investigation with impartial professionalism that justice and history demand. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3840-4 | null | 4,851 |
formal | terrorism | null | Islamophobic | Ayman Al-Zawahiri Madam President, at 6:18 a.m. this past Sunday morning, in a wealthy neighborhood in Kabul, Afghanistan, two U.S. Hellfire missiles delivered justice--at last--to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri is dead, and the world is better for it. He was a terrible man who brought horrific suffering to countless numbers of people, innocent people, throughout the world. He was second in command to Osama bin Laden during 9/11, which claimed nearly 3,000 innocent American lives. He was the mastermind behind the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and behind the bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port in 2000. He claimed to act on behalf of Islam; yet his hands were stained with the blood of innocence, including of countless Muslims. Since the death of bin Laden 11 years ago, Zawahiri has been the leader of al-Qaida. He has been rumored variously to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was finally discovered living with his family in a wealthy neighborhood in the center of Kabul. The U.S. intelligence community and the CIA deserve great credit for their careful, professional work over months to verify Zawahiri's location and identity. President Biden also deserves credit. At least three U.S. Presidents hunted down this man. Joe Biden's administration finally succeeded in ridding the world of this terrible person. The war in Afghanistan was America's longest war by far--20 bloody years. Donald Trump, before he left office, set the deadline to end that war--a decision that Joe Biden inherited and America completed 1 year ago this month. I supported that decision to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan. At the same time, President Biden and military leaders warned extremists not to confuse the withdrawal of American boots on the ground with any reduction of our commitment to the fight against terrorism. The death of Zawahiri is proof that those who harm U.S. citizens, U.S. troops, and U.S. interests will find no safe quarter in this world. PACT Act of 2022 Madam President, you don't have to go to Ground Zero in New York or to the Pentagon or to the field in Shanksville, PA, to see the reminders of the terrible suffering that came out of 9/11; you can walk outside of the Senate Chamber and see Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families, who still bear the scars of war. For years, they and many others have urged the Veterans Health Administration to finally provide healthcare for the veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits and other forms of deadly toxic pollution during their service. Last Thursday, many of these veterans traveled to Washington. They came here to see a celebration--the passage of the PACT Act--and President Biden promised to sign it. It is a critical bill designed to provide VA health services for 3.5 million toxic-exposed veterans. Instead of a celebration, they witnessed a betrayal. At the last minute, 25 Republican Senators, who had just voted for the PACT Act 6 weeks earlier, voted against it. They voted against giving toxic-exposed military veterans the VA healthcare they deserved. Since then, these veterans, their family members, and supporters have been holding a vigil--what they call a fire watch--on the steps of the Capitol. They have remained there through rain and steaming heat to remind us of our duty to help them. Veterans across this Nation and some out on the steps are sick and dying with cancer and other disorders because they were exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other chemical poisons. These are wounds of war, and they should be treated that way. Veterans who have risked their lives for our freedom must not be treated as collateral damage in a political skirmish. Jon Tester, the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, has shown real leadership on this. Jon states it ever so simply, and I think we should all remember: We have to face the real costs of war. We talk about our annual budgets. We talk about the body counts. We talk about all of the issues that face us, but we face the reality that those who served in our wars come home many times with physical but often invisible scars that haunt them for a lifetime. Those are the real costs of war. This bill, the PACT Act, which Jon Tester and Senator Moran of Kansas brought to this floor, addressed those costs. It is time for us to get it right in the U.S. Senate. There is a rumor on the floor that there may be an agreement that even today we are going to vote on this. None too soon. Those veterans who are waiting on the steps deserve it. Millions at home are watching this--and their families and others who love them--in the hopes that what we do on the floor of the Senate will finally give them some comfort in their lives. The Senate must hold another vote on the PACT Act, and I hope it will be today. That is the rumor on the floor. Let's get it right this time. Let's reassemble that bipartisan coalition that passed the bill originally. Let's restore the faith of the veterans community and many Americans in the U.S. Senate. On a bipartisan basis, we can stand up for those who stood up and served our Nation. January 6 On another matter, Madam President, the last several days have brought a stream of troubling revelations about the disappearance of Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security text messages from around the time of the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection on this Capitol. The missing texts could provide critical evidence about one of the worst crimes and greatest threats to our Constitution ever perpetrated on America. The disappearance of this critical information could jeopardize the efforts to learn the full truth of January 6 and hold responsible anyone who planned and participated in that attack. I don't know whether the failure to preserve these critical government texts of January 6 is a result of bad faith or stunning incompetence, but I do know that the man who has overseen this fiasco is not the right person to investigate it. This man has lost whatever credibility he may have once had on this matter. That is why I have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to step in and take control of this investigation into the missing texts. This is what we know so far: Joseph Cuffari was nominated to be inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security by former President Donald Trump. He remains in that position today. The Department of Homeland Security includes the Secret Service and many other critical government Agencies. Inspectors general are supposed to be independent watchdogs for their Departments and make sure that the people working in that Department don't engage in waste, fraud, or abuse. If there is any problem, the inspector general is required by law to report it to Congress. In recent weeks, we learned belatedly from Mr. Cuffari, this inspector general, that, No. 1, his office asked the Secret Service last February for text messages, emails, and other records that could shed light on January 6, and he was met with months--months--of delay and stonewalling. Mr. Cuffari has known since at least February of this year that the Secret Service texts from January 6 had been erased in supposedly routine resets of the Agency's phones. Imagine that--Agencies entrusted with the security of the United States and when there is a handoff of official phones, they are erased at that time. Mr. Cuffari did not share that information with Congress for 5 months--5 months. Mr. Cuffari also belatedly informed Congress that texts from the cell phones of the top two leaders in the Department of Homeland Security during the insurrection, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, were apparently lost during another reset after they turned in their government phones. Imagine the fumbling of critical information about an event as historic as the January 6 Trump insurrectionist mob who invaded this Capitol. According to public reports, Department staff actually came up with a plan to retrieve the deleted emails when they first learned about them. Listen to this: Mr. Cuffari's office inexplicably killed the plan. This isn't just another government Agency we are talking about, as important as that would be; the Department of Homeland Security has some of the most sophisticated intelligence and investigative capabilities not just in the United States but in the world. It is hard to believe that this Department accidentally deleted texts that could shed light on one of the greatest constitutional events and crimes ever committed in the history of the United States, but it would be just as problematic if they did. Either way, we need to get to the bottom of this. This month, after news of the missing texts became public and his office came under criticism, Mr. Cuffari belatedly opened a criminal investigation into the Secret Service's missing text messages. It was the right thing to do, but he is the wrong person to do it. Mr. Cuffari has lost his credibility. The same law that allows Mr. Cuffari to conduct this criminal investigation, the Inspector General Act, gives to the Attorney General of the United States the power to take control of it. It is time for Attorney General Garland to step in and oversee this investigation with impartial professionalism that justice and history demand. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3840-4 | null | 4,852 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Cryptocurrency Madam President, it was February when I was watching the Super Bowl with my family at home. I noticed something that was odd. There was LeBron James on TV. In a commercial, he tells a younger version of himself: ``If you want to make history, you gotta call your own shots.'' He was promoting crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Singapore. Soon after, one of my favorite comedians appeared on the screen, Larry David. His ad had a similar note. He warned viewers not to ``miss out on crypto.'' That ad was sponsored by a different crypto exchange that was headquartered in the Bahamas. I saw these ads and thought to myself, What is going on here? This is a football game. Both companies were just a few years old, and 30-second ads cost millions of dollars--$7 million, I understand. I can't imagine enlisting LeBron James and Larry David for that purpose. So how exactly can these exchanges that most Americans have never heard of afford to shell out tens of millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads? Better yet, why? Last week, National Public Radio ran a story that helped answer my question. You see, these crypto companies weren't simply promoting their products; they were trying to create a veneer of credibility. These Super Bowl ads were high-stakes attempts to convince hard-working Americans into investing in a volatile, unwieldy, and poorly regulated asset class called cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, it seems to be working. Let me tell you about Michelle Milkowski. She lives in Washington State. She watched the same ads I did during the Super Bowl. She shared her story with National Public Radio. When Michelle saw celebrities promoting crypto products, she said it convinced her that ``[it's] not just scammers [that] are using [them]. . . . [I] felt safe . . . to put my money in there.'' So how did Michelle's crypto investment pan out? Well, 3 months after the Super Bowl, she was down $8,000. She was another victim of the crypto market meltdown that began in May. For the record, in the course of 24 hours, more than $200 billion of value in the crypto industry vanished. And, just last week, the industry lost more than 5 percent of its value--again, in 1 day. These rapid losses convinced Michelle to cash out. How does she feel about her crypto experience today? She said: There's definitely peace that comes with . . . selling off such a volatile asset . . . I don't have to worry [every day] am I losing . . . [another] thousand dollars . . . Michelle was lucky she was able to wash her hands and cut her losses, but, Madam President, for the majority of Americans who cannot afford even a $1,000 emergency, losing $8,000 in 3 months is a disaster. That is the difference between paying your rent and living on the street. Look, if you are a retail investor with money to invest and you want to try your hand at the crypto casino, by all means, grab your chips and head to the tables--within reason. But when we are talking about an industry that has reached more than a trillion dollars in value, that has shed hundreds of billions of dollars in the past few months, it is time for caution. As I mentioned, cryptocurrencies--even the most well-known like Bitcoin--are poorly regulated, if they are regulated at all. And Bitcoin has seen wild swings. Bitcoin has lost roughly two-thirds of its value sincelast November. The cost of one Bitcoin fell from $68,000 to under $21,000. And these assets are not only volatile, they are virtually untraceable. Compare that to an investment like a share of stock--and, yes, there is risk in the stock market--or an exchange-traded fund. If you are a retail investor and you buy a couple hundred dollars' worth of shares in a company, you know you are assuming some risk. That is the nature of investment. But here is the difference. When you buy a stock, under the law, you can find out important information about the company: How many products are they selling? How much are they paying their executives? What risk does the company foresee? You have significantly more information and transparency about where your investment is going. Many ETFs even disclose their holdings every day. After all, they have to. They are required by law. They are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. With cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, there is no such transparency. They are decentralized, illiquid, and highly speculative. Where are the disclosures? Where are the consumer protections? In many cases, there are none. Instead of encouraging working families to risk their hard-earned cash into remarkably unstable investments, let's pump the brakes on the rocket to the Moon. Last Tuesday, I sent a letter, along with my colleagues Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity Investments. They are one of the biggest 401(k) providers in the world. In April, they made a decision that surprised me and, frankly, concerned me. Fidelity says they will soon allow 401(k) plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Here is the issue. A 401(k) account is a nest egg. It is a vehicle that tens of millions of Americans rely on so that, many years from now, they can retire in dignity. And during this period of economic uncertainty, I can't think of any reason to expose retirement savers to new risk. As we all saw on Super Bowl Sunday--whether it is Matt Damon, LeBron James, or Larry David--there is no shortage of options for people who want to invest in crypto. But retirement accounts must be held to a higher standard, and my hope is that Fidelity will live up to its name and meet that standard by reversing this decision. It is also important to recognize that, even if you don't invest in a single cryptocurrency, we all have a stake in this industry. Why? Because the process for the so-called mining of these digital assets consumes jaw-dropping amounts of energy. As of May, according to the Public Broadcasting System: The world's . . . Bitcoin mining operations had an annual energy budget nearly equal to the entire country of Argentina . . . or all the tea kettles in England boiling water for 26 years. And seven of the largest Bitcoin mining companies consume enough energy alone to power every single home in Houston. That is just Bitcoin. That calculation doesn't even account for the fossil fuels being burned to produce other coins, like Dogecoin. When companies like Fidelity and celebrities like Larry David are hawking an asset class that is unstable, untraceable, and pumping untold tons of carbon into our atmosphere, we should all have the good sense to step back and wrap our heads around this trillion-dollar industry that is not even old enough today to drive a car. Madam President, I have been in several meetings with my colleagues on this cryptocurrency. I am by no means an expert. I have tried to learn as much as I can, but it is an extremely complicated operation. I will tell you this. I fear that we will do something but not enough. I fear that just a limited amount of regulation by the Federal Government may convince people that we really have a grip on what is happening in this industry. There is risk associated with it that is major. I have had some well-known and very successful individuals in my office, and I have asked them--they have made millions of dollars--What about crypto? Most of them have said: I wouldn't touch it. Yet we have got to tell the American people, when it is advertised, when it is available, you have got to be careful--particularly when it comes to people with limited assets, people with an adverse situation when it comes to risk, and people who are putting, literally, their savings and their retirement on the line on these investments. That is why I joined my colleagues in writing to Fidelity and asking them to rationalize how this can be part of any 401(k) plan. We owe it to the American people to provide them the protection in this industry, as we have in so many other areas of investment. It is fundamental, it is fair, and it is the only way to guarantee them that they have some grip on making investments that could be in their best interest and might not be as well. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3841 | null | 4,853 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Cryptocurrency Madam President, it was February when I was watching the Super Bowl with my family at home. I noticed something that was odd. There was LeBron James on TV. In a commercial, he tells a younger version of himself: ``If you want to make history, you gotta call your own shots.'' He was promoting crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Singapore. Soon after, one of my favorite comedians appeared on the screen, Larry David. His ad had a similar note. He warned viewers not to ``miss out on crypto.'' That ad was sponsored by a different crypto exchange that was headquartered in the Bahamas. I saw these ads and thought to myself, What is going on here? This is a football game. Both companies were just a few years old, and 30-second ads cost millions of dollars--$7 million, I understand. I can't imagine enlisting LeBron James and Larry David for that purpose. So how exactly can these exchanges that most Americans have never heard of afford to shell out tens of millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads? Better yet, why? Last week, National Public Radio ran a story that helped answer my question. You see, these crypto companies weren't simply promoting their products; they were trying to create a veneer of credibility. These Super Bowl ads were high-stakes attempts to convince hard-working Americans into investing in a volatile, unwieldy, and poorly regulated asset class called cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, it seems to be working. Let me tell you about Michelle Milkowski. She lives in Washington State. She watched the same ads I did during the Super Bowl. She shared her story with National Public Radio. When Michelle saw celebrities promoting crypto products, she said it convinced her that ``[it's] not just scammers [that] are using [them]. . . . [I] felt safe . . . to put my money in there.'' So how did Michelle's crypto investment pan out? Well, 3 months after the Super Bowl, she was down $8,000. She was another victim of the crypto market meltdown that began in May. For the record, in the course of 24 hours, more than $200 billion of value in the crypto industry vanished. And, just last week, the industry lost more than 5 percent of its value--again, in 1 day. These rapid losses convinced Michelle to cash out. How does she feel about her crypto experience today? She said: There's definitely peace that comes with . . . selling off such a volatile asset . . . I don't have to worry [every day] am I losing . . . [another] thousand dollars . . . Michelle was lucky she was able to wash her hands and cut her losses, but, Madam President, for the majority of Americans who cannot afford even a $1,000 emergency, losing $8,000 in 3 months is a disaster. That is the difference between paying your rent and living on the street. Look, if you are a retail investor with money to invest and you want to try your hand at the crypto casino, by all means, grab your chips and head to the tables--within reason. But when we are talking about an industry that has reached more than a trillion dollars in value, that has shed hundreds of billions of dollars in the past few months, it is time for caution. As I mentioned, cryptocurrencies--even the most well-known like Bitcoin--are poorly regulated, if they are regulated at all. And Bitcoin has seen wild swings. Bitcoin has lost roughly two-thirds of its value sincelast November. The cost of one Bitcoin fell from $68,000 to under $21,000. And these assets are not only volatile, they are virtually untraceable. Compare that to an investment like a share of stock--and, yes, there is risk in the stock market--or an exchange-traded fund. If you are a retail investor and you buy a couple hundred dollars' worth of shares in a company, you know you are assuming some risk. That is the nature of investment. But here is the difference. When you buy a stock, under the law, you can find out important information about the company: How many products are they selling? How much are they paying their executives? What risk does the company foresee? You have significantly more information and transparency about where your investment is going. Many ETFs even disclose their holdings every day. After all, they have to. They are required by law. They are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. With cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, there is no such transparency. They are decentralized, illiquid, and highly speculative. Where are the disclosures? Where are the consumer protections? In many cases, there are none. Instead of encouraging working families to risk their hard-earned cash into remarkably unstable investments, let's pump the brakes on the rocket to the Moon. Last Tuesday, I sent a letter, along with my colleagues Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity Investments. They are one of the biggest 401(k) providers in the world. In April, they made a decision that surprised me and, frankly, concerned me. Fidelity says they will soon allow 401(k) plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Here is the issue. A 401(k) account is a nest egg. It is a vehicle that tens of millions of Americans rely on so that, many years from now, they can retire in dignity. And during this period of economic uncertainty, I can't think of any reason to expose retirement savers to new risk. As we all saw on Super Bowl Sunday--whether it is Matt Damon, LeBron James, or Larry David--there is no shortage of options for people who want to invest in crypto. But retirement accounts must be held to a higher standard, and my hope is that Fidelity will live up to its name and meet that standard by reversing this decision. It is also important to recognize that, even if you don't invest in a single cryptocurrency, we all have a stake in this industry. Why? Because the process for the so-called mining of these digital assets consumes jaw-dropping amounts of energy. As of May, according to the Public Broadcasting System: The world's . . . Bitcoin mining operations had an annual energy budget nearly equal to the entire country of Argentina . . . or all the tea kettles in England boiling water for 26 years. And seven of the largest Bitcoin mining companies consume enough energy alone to power every single home in Houston. That is just Bitcoin. That calculation doesn't even account for the fossil fuels being burned to produce other coins, like Dogecoin. When companies like Fidelity and celebrities like Larry David are hawking an asset class that is unstable, untraceable, and pumping untold tons of carbon into our atmosphere, we should all have the good sense to step back and wrap our heads around this trillion-dollar industry that is not even old enough today to drive a car. Madam President, I have been in several meetings with my colleagues on this cryptocurrency. I am by no means an expert. I have tried to learn as much as I can, but it is an extremely complicated operation. I will tell you this. I fear that we will do something but not enough. I fear that just a limited amount of regulation by the Federal Government may convince people that we really have a grip on what is happening in this industry. There is risk associated with it that is major. I have had some well-known and very successful individuals in my office, and I have asked them--they have made millions of dollars--What about crypto? Most of them have said: I wouldn't touch it. Yet we have got to tell the American people, when it is advertised, when it is available, you have got to be careful--particularly when it comes to people with limited assets, people with an adverse situation when it comes to risk, and people who are putting, literally, their savings and their retirement on the line on these investments. That is why I joined my colleagues in writing to Fidelity and asking them to rationalize how this can be part of any 401(k) plan. We owe it to the American people to provide them the protection in this industry, as we have in so many other areas of investment. It is fundamental, it is fair, and it is the only way to guarantee them that they have some grip on making investments that could be in their best interest and might not be as well. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3841 | null | 4,854 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Cryptocurrency Madam President, it was February when I was watching the Super Bowl with my family at home. I noticed something that was odd. There was LeBron James on TV. In a commercial, he tells a younger version of himself: ``If you want to make history, you gotta call your own shots.'' He was promoting crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Singapore. Soon after, one of my favorite comedians appeared on the screen, Larry David. His ad had a similar note. He warned viewers not to ``miss out on crypto.'' That ad was sponsored by a different crypto exchange that was headquartered in the Bahamas. I saw these ads and thought to myself, What is going on here? This is a football game. Both companies were just a few years old, and 30-second ads cost millions of dollars--$7 million, I understand. I can't imagine enlisting LeBron James and Larry David for that purpose. So how exactly can these exchanges that most Americans have never heard of afford to shell out tens of millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads? Better yet, why? Last week, National Public Radio ran a story that helped answer my question. You see, these crypto companies weren't simply promoting their products; they were trying to create a veneer of credibility. These Super Bowl ads were high-stakes attempts to convince hard-working Americans into investing in a volatile, unwieldy, and poorly regulated asset class called cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, it seems to be working. Let me tell you about Michelle Milkowski. She lives in Washington State. She watched the same ads I did during the Super Bowl. She shared her story with National Public Radio. When Michelle saw celebrities promoting crypto products, she said it convinced her that ``[it's] not just scammers [that] are using [them]. . . . [I] felt safe . . . to put my money in there.'' So how did Michelle's crypto investment pan out? Well, 3 months after the Super Bowl, she was down $8,000. She was another victim of the crypto market meltdown that began in May. For the record, in the course of 24 hours, more than $200 billion of value in the crypto industry vanished. And, just last week, the industry lost more than 5 percent of its value--again, in 1 day. These rapid losses convinced Michelle to cash out. How does she feel about her crypto experience today? She said: There's definitely peace that comes with . . . selling off such a volatile asset . . . I don't have to worry [every day] am I losing . . . [another] thousand dollars . . . Michelle was lucky she was able to wash her hands and cut her losses, but, Madam President, for the majority of Americans who cannot afford even a $1,000 emergency, losing $8,000 in 3 months is a disaster. That is the difference between paying your rent and living on the street. Look, if you are a retail investor with money to invest and you want to try your hand at the crypto casino, by all means, grab your chips and head to the tables--within reason. But when we are talking about an industry that has reached more than a trillion dollars in value, that has shed hundreds of billions of dollars in the past few months, it is time for caution. As I mentioned, cryptocurrencies--even the most well-known like Bitcoin--are poorly regulated, if they are regulated at all. And Bitcoin has seen wild swings. Bitcoin has lost roughly two-thirds of its value sincelast November. The cost of one Bitcoin fell from $68,000 to under $21,000. And these assets are not only volatile, they are virtually untraceable. Compare that to an investment like a share of stock--and, yes, there is risk in the stock market--or an exchange-traded fund. If you are a retail investor and you buy a couple hundred dollars' worth of shares in a company, you know you are assuming some risk. That is the nature of investment. But here is the difference. When you buy a stock, under the law, you can find out important information about the company: How many products are they selling? How much are they paying their executives? What risk does the company foresee? You have significantly more information and transparency about where your investment is going. Many ETFs even disclose their holdings every day. After all, they have to. They are required by law. They are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. With cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, there is no such transparency. They are decentralized, illiquid, and highly speculative. Where are the disclosures? Where are the consumer protections? In many cases, there are none. Instead of encouraging working families to risk their hard-earned cash into remarkably unstable investments, let's pump the brakes on the rocket to the Moon. Last Tuesday, I sent a letter, along with my colleagues Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity Investments. They are one of the biggest 401(k) providers in the world. In April, they made a decision that surprised me and, frankly, concerned me. Fidelity says they will soon allow 401(k) plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Here is the issue. A 401(k) account is a nest egg. It is a vehicle that tens of millions of Americans rely on so that, many years from now, they can retire in dignity. And during this period of economic uncertainty, I can't think of any reason to expose retirement savers to new risk. As we all saw on Super Bowl Sunday--whether it is Matt Damon, LeBron James, or Larry David--there is no shortage of options for people who want to invest in crypto. But retirement accounts must be held to a higher standard, and my hope is that Fidelity will live up to its name and meet that standard by reversing this decision. It is also important to recognize that, even if you don't invest in a single cryptocurrency, we all have a stake in this industry. Why? Because the process for the so-called mining of these digital assets consumes jaw-dropping amounts of energy. As of May, according to the Public Broadcasting System: The world's . . . Bitcoin mining operations had an annual energy budget nearly equal to the entire country of Argentina . . . or all the tea kettles in England boiling water for 26 years. And seven of the largest Bitcoin mining companies consume enough energy alone to power every single home in Houston. That is just Bitcoin. That calculation doesn't even account for the fossil fuels being burned to produce other coins, like Dogecoin. When companies like Fidelity and celebrities like Larry David are hawking an asset class that is unstable, untraceable, and pumping untold tons of carbon into our atmosphere, we should all have the good sense to step back and wrap our heads around this trillion-dollar industry that is not even old enough today to drive a car. Madam President, I have been in several meetings with my colleagues on this cryptocurrency. I am by no means an expert. I have tried to learn as much as I can, but it is an extremely complicated operation. I will tell you this. I fear that we will do something but not enough. I fear that just a limited amount of regulation by the Federal Government may convince people that we really have a grip on what is happening in this industry. There is risk associated with it that is major. I have had some well-known and very successful individuals in my office, and I have asked them--they have made millions of dollars--What about crypto? Most of them have said: I wouldn't touch it. Yet we have got to tell the American people, when it is advertised, when it is available, you have got to be careful--particularly when it comes to people with limited assets, people with an adverse situation when it comes to risk, and people who are putting, literally, their savings and their retirement on the line on these investments. That is why I joined my colleagues in writing to Fidelity and asking them to rationalize how this can be part of any 401(k) plan. We owe it to the American people to provide them the protection in this industry, as we have in so many other areas of investment. It is fundamental, it is fair, and it is the only way to guarantee them that they have some grip on making investments that could be in their best interest and might not be as well. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3841 | null | 4,855 |
formal | working families | null | racist | Cryptocurrency Madam President, it was February when I was watching the Super Bowl with my family at home. I noticed something that was odd. There was LeBron James on TV. In a commercial, he tells a younger version of himself: ``If you want to make history, you gotta call your own shots.'' He was promoting crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Singapore. Soon after, one of my favorite comedians appeared on the screen, Larry David. His ad had a similar note. He warned viewers not to ``miss out on crypto.'' That ad was sponsored by a different crypto exchange that was headquartered in the Bahamas. I saw these ads and thought to myself, What is going on here? This is a football game. Both companies were just a few years old, and 30-second ads cost millions of dollars--$7 million, I understand. I can't imagine enlisting LeBron James and Larry David for that purpose. So how exactly can these exchanges that most Americans have never heard of afford to shell out tens of millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads? Better yet, why? Last week, National Public Radio ran a story that helped answer my question. You see, these crypto companies weren't simply promoting their products; they were trying to create a veneer of credibility. These Super Bowl ads were high-stakes attempts to convince hard-working Americans into investing in a volatile, unwieldy, and poorly regulated asset class called cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, it seems to be working. Let me tell you about Michelle Milkowski. She lives in Washington State. She watched the same ads I did during the Super Bowl. She shared her story with National Public Radio. When Michelle saw celebrities promoting crypto products, she said it convinced her that ``[it's] not just scammers [that] are using [them]. . . . [I] felt safe . . . to put my money in there.'' So how did Michelle's crypto investment pan out? Well, 3 months after the Super Bowl, she was down $8,000. She was another victim of the crypto market meltdown that began in May. For the record, in the course of 24 hours, more than $200 billion of value in the crypto industry vanished. And, just last week, the industry lost more than 5 percent of its value--again, in 1 day. These rapid losses convinced Michelle to cash out. How does she feel about her crypto experience today? She said: There's definitely peace that comes with . . . selling off such a volatile asset . . . I don't have to worry [every day] am I losing . . . [another] thousand dollars . . . Michelle was lucky she was able to wash her hands and cut her losses, but, Madam President, for the majority of Americans who cannot afford even a $1,000 emergency, losing $8,000 in 3 months is a disaster. That is the difference between paying your rent and living on the street. Look, if you are a retail investor with money to invest and you want to try your hand at the crypto casino, by all means, grab your chips and head to the tables--within reason. But when we are talking about an industry that has reached more than a trillion dollars in value, that has shed hundreds of billions of dollars in the past few months, it is time for caution. As I mentioned, cryptocurrencies--even the most well-known like Bitcoin--are poorly regulated, if they are regulated at all. And Bitcoin has seen wild swings. Bitcoin has lost roughly two-thirds of its value sincelast November. The cost of one Bitcoin fell from $68,000 to under $21,000. And these assets are not only volatile, they are virtually untraceable. Compare that to an investment like a share of stock--and, yes, there is risk in the stock market--or an exchange-traded fund. If you are a retail investor and you buy a couple hundred dollars' worth of shares in a company, you know you are assuming some risk. That is the nature of investment. But here is the difference. When you buy a stock, under the law, you can find out important information about the company: How many products are they selling? How much are they paying their executives? What risk does the company foresee? You have significantly more information and transparency about where your investment is going. Many ETFs even disclose their holdings every day. After all, they have to. They are required by law. They are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. With cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, there is no such transparency. They are decentralized, illiquid, and highly speculative. Where are the disclosures? Where are the consumer protections? In many cases, there are none. Instead of encouraging working families to risk their hard-earned cash into remarkably unstable investments, let's pump the brakes on the rocket to the Moon. Last Tuesday, I sent a letter, along with my colleagues Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity Investments. They are one of the biggest 401(k) providers in the world. In April, they made a decision that surprised me and, frankly, concerned me. Fidelity says they will soon allow 401(k) plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Here is the issue. A 401(k) account is a nest egg. It is a vehicle that tens of millions of Americans rely on so that, many years from now, they can retire in dignity. And during this period of economic uncertainty, I can't think of any reason to expose retirement savers to new risk. As we all saw on Super Bowl Sunday--whether it is Matt Damon, LeBron James, or Larry David--there is no shortage of options for people who want to invest in crypto. But retirement accounts must be held to a higher standard, and my hope is that Fidelity will live up to its name and meet that standard by reversing this decision. It is also important to recognize that, even if you don't invest in a single cryptocurrency, we all have a stake in this industry. Why? Because the process for the so-called mining of these digital assets consumes jaw-dropping amounts of energy. As of May, according to the Public Broadcasting System: The world's . . . Bitcoin mining operations had an annual energy budget nearly equal to the entire country of Argentina . . . or all the tea kettles in England boiling water for 26 years. And seven of the largest Bitcoin mining companies consume enough energy alone to power every single home in Houston. That is just Bitcoin. That calculation doesn't even account for the fossil fuels being burned to produce other coins, like Dogecoin. When companies like Fidelity and celebrities like Larry David are hawking an asset class that is unstable, untraceable, and pumping untold tons of carbon into our atmosphere, we should all have the good sense to step back and wrap our heads around this trillion-dollar industry that is not even old enough today to drive a car. Madam President, I have been in several meetings with my colleagues on this cryptocurrency. I am by no means an expert. I have tried to learn as much as I can, but it is an extremely complicated operation. I will tell you this. I fear that we will do something but not enough. I fear that just a limited amount of regulation by the Federal Government may convince people that we really have a grip on what is happening in this industry. There is risk associated with it that is major. I have had some well-known and very successful individuals in my office, and I have asked them--they have made millions of dollars--What about crypto? Most of them have said: I wouldn't touch it. Yet we have got to tell the American people, when it is advertised, when it is available, you have got to be careful--particularly when it comes to people with limited assets, people with an adverse situation when it comes to risk, and people who are putting, literally, their savings and their retirement on the line on these investments. That is why I joined my colleagues in writing to Fidelity and asking them to rationalize how this can be part of any 401(k) plan. We owe it to the American people to provide them the protection in this industry, as we have in so many other areas of investment. It is fundamental, it is fair, and it is the only way to guarantee them that they have some grip on making investments that could be in their best interest and might not be as well. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3841 | null | 4,856 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which may be coming to the floor this week. But before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation from a political perspective. And where we are is not a good place to be. According to the most recent Gallup poll, the approval rate for Congress is at 16 percent with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here. Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is ``corrupt and rigged against me.'' That is how people perceive the government. Further, according to a recent USA TODAY poll, a very strong majority no longer believe that the Democratic or Republican Parties are responding to their needs, and we have to move away from a two-party system to a multiparty system. And most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who actually believe that they have to take up arms--literally become violent--against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done. And, of course, we saw an example of that on January 6 of last year, with the terrible violence and deaths that occurred. All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and in some ways resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which eventually led to fascism and totalitarianism. And I should mention that, as we speak right now, while working families and the middle class are falling further and further behind economically, the billionaires in this country, through their super PACs, are doing everything that they can to elect Members of Congress who will support the wealthy and powerful against the needs of average Americans. In both parties, huge amounts of money from billionaires are coming into campaigns to elect the candidates who will represent the 1 percent. The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the wealthy and powerful and that we have a rigged economy, in which large corporations are seeing massive increases in their profits while the middle class and working families of the country continue to see a decline in their standard of living. We don't talk about it much here in the Senate or in the corporate media, but at this moment in American history, we have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 100 years. Now, I know we are not allowed to talk about it. It is not fashionable. We might offend some wealthy campaign contributors. But today, obscenely, you have got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent; you have 45 percent of all new income going to the 1 percent; and you have got CEOs of major corporations making 350 times more than average workers. In other words, the people in the middle, working people, struggling; people on top doing phenomenally well, and the people on the top have enough money to elect candidates who represent their interests. And that is the overall context, in my view, in which this reconciliation bill is coming to the floor. Now, I have heard from some of my colleagues that the Build Back Better legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by some 48 out of 50 Members of the Senate Democratic caucus and by the President of the United States is dead; it is not going anywhere; can't get the 50 notes that are needed. Now, I don't know if that is absolutely true or not, but I do know that if it is true, it would be a disaster for the working families of our country who, today, are desperately trying to survive economically. So let me briefly review what was in the original Build Back Better plan and contrast it with what is in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. And I should mention that every one of the provisions that I will briefly be discussing has overwhelming support from the American people according to poll after poll after poll. In other words, that is what the American people want. At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty, shamefully, of almost any major nation on Earth, this reconciliation bill that will soon be coming to the floor does not extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that working parents of this country had last year. That is gone. That is not in this bill. If you are a parent today, paying $15,000 a year for childcare--which is what it costs in Vermont and is about the average cost all over America, $15,000 a year to have a kid in childcare--this bill completely ignores that crisis and does absolutely nothing for you. And, of course, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, this bill does not provide free and universal pre-K. So if you are a working parent right now, struggling to pay for childcare, this bill turns its back on you. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright, young people every year are unable to afford to go to college and get a higher education, this bill ignores that reality and does nothing for these young people. The original Build Back Better plan did not go as far as I wanted it to, but it would have provided 2 years of free education at a community college. That is a big deal for millions of young people, but that is no longer going to happen. If you are an elderly American--one of the millions of elderly people trying to survive on your Social Security benefits--and you cannot afford to go to a dentist and your teeth are rotting in your mouth or you have no teeth so that you can digest your food or you can't afford to get a hearing aid to communicate with your kids or grandchildren or you can't afford the eyeglasses that you need, this bill does nothing, zero, to expand Medicare to cover these very basic healthcare needs that the American people want to see covered. As a result, millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack of dentures, lack of hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve. Further, at a time when millions of elderly and disabled Americans would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, this bill does absolutely nothing to address the very, very serious home healthcare crisis in our country. We will continue to lack the decent-paid, decent-trained staffing that we need to address the home healthcare crisis. This bill ignores that issue completely. I think there is no disagreement on the part of anybody that we have a major housing crisis in this country. Some 600,000 people are homeless in America, sleeping out on the streets all across this country, including a few blocks away from the Capitol. In addition to that, some 18 million households in our country are spending an incredible 50 percent of their incomes for housing. Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that exists in State after State after State all across the country. We are ignoring that major issue as well. One of the criticisms made against the original Build Back Better plan is that it would be inflationary because itwould increase Federal spending. That criticism is untrue. Every nickel spent on that bill would have been fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Unlike the recently passed microchip corporate welfare bill that adds $79 billion to the Federal deficit, unlike the proposed military budget that came out of the Senate Armed Forces Committee recently, which would increase defense spending by 45 billion more than the Pentagon even requested, the Build Back Better plan would not have increased the deficit at all. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which, in my view, has some good features but also has some very bad features. One of the issues that it deals with is prescription drugs, and the good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to lower the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. According to the most recent data, if we do nothing, Medicare will spend about 1.8 trillion over the next decade on prescription drugs, and our Nation as a whole will spend $5 trillion. And that is not only outrageous, but it is unsustainable. But here is the bad news: The prescription drug provisions in this bill are extremely weak, and it is hard to deny that. They are extremely complex; they take too long to go into effect; and they go nowhere near as far as they should to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, whose actions are literally killing Americans. One out of five Americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed, and some of them will die. Under this legislation, Medicare--for the first time in history--would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices, and that is the good news. The bad news is that the negotiated prices would not go into effect until 2026, 4 years from now. So you are not going to see any changes over the next 4 years. Further, in 2026, only 10 drugs--10 drugs--would be negotiated, with more to come in later years. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin, this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when the pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I recently--not recently. A couple of years ago, I took a trip with some midwesterners over the border into Canada where they purchased insulin for one-tenth of the price that was being charged in the United States because in Canada, like virtually every other country on Earth, they negotiate prices with the industry. If we are really serious about reducing the price of prescription drugs, something that the American people desperately want us to do, it is no secret as to how we can achieve that goal. For over 30 years, the Veterans' Administration--and I am very proud of the legislation that we just passed a moment ago for the VA--but the VA has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. They have been doing it for 30 years--not a new idea. Moreover, for decades, virtually every other major country on Earth has been doing exactly the same thing, which is why the price of prescription drugs in Canada, Mexico, all over Europe is far less expensive than in the United States. The result of where we are today is that Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, may pay 10 times more for a particular drug as the people of any major country on Earth. So you have the absurd situation where one government Agency, the VA, because they have been negotiating drugs--all drugs--for 30 years, pays half of what Medicare is paying today. In other words, if we are going to solve this problem when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel; we could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA. If we did that, we could literally cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. We could cut the price in half in a matter of months, not years. In February, I introduced legislation with Senator Klobuchar that would do exactly that. Under that legislation, we could save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provisions in this bill. By the way, with those enormous savings, we could expand Medicare to provide comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America. It could be used, furthermore, to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60, and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is what we could do with those savings that we are not achieving under this proposed bill. What are the other prescription drug provisions in the reconciliation bill? Well, under this legislation, pharmaceutical companies would essentially be prohibited from increasing prescription drug prices above inflation pegged to the year 2021. Should we be making sure that pharmaceutical companies cannot increase their prices above general inflation? Yes. But let us be clear. This provision would lock in all of the extraordinary price increases the pharmaceutical industry has made in recent years and would do nothing to lower those outrageously high prices. It would control costs in the future, limiting what the industry could charge, but it would not lower prices. Under this legislation, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors would be capped at $2,000 a year, and that is a good benefit which will benefit up to 2 million seniors who currently pay over $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, often people who are dealing with cancer and with other very serious illnesses that require expensive drugs. But the $25 billion cost of that provision will not be paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, which is making recordbreaking profits. In other words, we are going to cap the price. Guess who is paying for it. You got it. It will be paid for by increased premiums on virtually every senior citizen in America, although there is a provision to smooth out those premium increases. The current reconciliation bill that we are looking at would also provide free vaccines for seniors--the only population for which vaccines are not already free--and this is a good thing, something we should have done a long time ago. Finally, in terms of prescription drugs, it looks like the reconciliation bill will cap copays for insulin at $35 a month, which is a good step forward for people with health insurance but will do nothing to lower the cost of insulin for the 1.6 million diabetics who are currently uninsured and, in fact, need our help the most. So the bill does some things in terms of prescription drugs but nowhere near enough given the crisis that we face. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and they will be extended over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their healthcare altogether. So this is a good provision, but let us not fool ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profits last year and paid their executives exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans today who are uninsured or underinsured. There are the estimates out there now that some 60,000 people in our country die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should because they are uninsured or underinsured. So this bill does nothing--absolutely nothing--to reform a dysfunctional, broken healthcare system which is based on the greed of the insurance industry. It does nothing to address the fundamental crisis of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for healthcare, let alone the 70 million of us who are uninsured or underinsured. It doesn't even touch that. Madam President, let me say a word about climate change and what this bill does and does not do. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that if this legislation were to be signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested by the government before. That is the good news. This is, however, substantially lower than the $555 billion in the original Build Back Better plan, which understood that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, and it must be addressed in an extremely bold way if we are going to leave a country and world in which our kids and grandchildren can thrive. But this legislation does provide serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. But the very bad news that very few people in the media or in Congress want to talk about is that this proposed legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, both in the reconciliation bill itself and the side deal that was just made public yesterday. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare they are already receiving. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet. Think about it. At a time when the scientists all over the world tell us that we have to break our dependence on fossil fuel, this legislation provides billions in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. In my view, instead of giving them more tax breaks, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put that into perspective, 60 million acres is the size of the State of Michigan. That is a lot of territory. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill ``a step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with a comprehensive set of solutions included in this proposed legislation. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that has done as much as any entity to destroy this planet--is ``pleased'' with this bill, then I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any new energy development on public lands. In total, this bill would offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters, going to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in the reconciliation bill; a deal has also been reached to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to those released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. It seems to be a very strange way to combat climate change. Let me quote a statement from 350.org, one of the leading environmental groups in the country on this subject. They say: This latest bill has a few good pieces: lengthening the tax credits for green energy projects from two to ten years to ensure steady growth in the wind and solar industry; providing incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles; and installing heat pumps to make green energy use more widespread. However, the amount of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry . . . is so wide in scope, that it turns all the gains in addressing the climate crisis into a moot point. That is from 350.org. Here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill: This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. That is from the Center for Biological Diversity. In my view, we have to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry whose emissions are causing massive damage today and will only make this situation worse in the future. In the reconciliation bill, there is a provision regarding tax reform. Let me say a word on that. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time of soaring corporate profits, at a time in which we have a broken tax system, riddled with all kinds of loopholes for the rich and the powerful, this bill makes a few modest changes to reform the Tax Code. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is the good news. The American people are sick and tired of companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike making billions of dollars in profit in a given year and paying nothing--zero--in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise over $300 billion over the next decade. Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources and the staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill begins to change that. This bill would also make a very modest change to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, teacher, or firefighter. But the bad news is that, while there are some positive aspects for the tax provisions in this bill, this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations. In fact, 83 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax law are going to the top 1 percent--83 percent of the benefits--and this bill repeals none of those benefits. They remain in existence. Let us not forget that it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so-called tax extenders bill at the end of the year that could provide corporations with up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill. So that is where we are today. We have legislation which, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, ignores the needs of the working families of our country in childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, and many, many other desperate needs that families all across this country are facing. This is legislation which, at a time of massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry--and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--takes some very modest steps to lower or control the price of medicine. This is legislation which has some good and important provisions pertaining to energy efficiency and sustainable energy but, at the same time,provides massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are destroying the planet. This is legislation which appropriately ends the absurdity of large, profitable corporations paying nothing in Federal income tax but, at the same time, leaves intact virtually all of Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations. This more than 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. A 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, was made public last week. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it. I look forward to being part of that process and working with my colleagues to make that happen. With that, I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3853 | null | 4,857 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which may be coming to the floor this week. But before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation from a political perspective. And where we are is not a good place to be. According to the most recent Gallup poll, the approval rate for Congress is at 16 percent with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here. Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is ``corrupt and rigged against me.'' That is how people perceive the government. Further, according to a recent USA TODAY poll, a very strong majority no longer believe that the Democratic or Republican Parties are responding to their needs, and we have to move away from a two-party system to a multiparty system. And most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who actually believe that they have to take up arms--literally become violent--against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done. And, of course, we saw an example of that on January 6 of last year, with the terrible violence and deaths that occurred. All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and in some ways resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which eventually led to fascism and totalitarianism. And I should mention that, as we speak right now, while working families and the middle class are falling further and further behind economically, the billionaires in this country, through their super PACs, are doing everything that they can to elect Members of Congress who will support the wealthy and powerful against the needs of average Americans. In both parties, huge amounts of money from billionaires are coming into campaigns to elect the candidates who will represent the 1 percent. The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the wealthy and powerful and that we have a rigged economy, in which large corporations are seeing massive increases in their profits while the middle class and working families of the country continue to see a decline in their standard of living. We don't talk about it much here in the Senate or in the corporate media, but at this moment in American history, we have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 100 years. Now, I know we are not allowed to talk about it. It is not fashionable. We might offend some wealthy campaign contributors. But today, obscenely, you have got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent; you have 45 percent of all new income going to the 1 percent; and you have got CEOs of major corporations making 350 times more than average workers. In other words, the people in the middle, working people, struggling; people on top doing phenomenally well, and the people on the top have enough money to elect candidates who represent their interests. And that is the overall context, in my view, in which this reconciliation bill is coming to the floor. Now, I have heard from some of my colleagues that the Build Back Better legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by some 48 out of 50 Members of the Senate Democratic caucus and by the President of the United States is dead; it is not going anywhere; can't get the 50 notes that are needed. Now, I don't know if that is absolutely true or not, but I do know that if it is true, it would be a disaster for the working families of our country who, today, are desperately trying to survive economically. So let me briefly review what was in the original Build Back Better plan and contrast it with what is in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. And I should mention that every one of the provisions that I will briefly be discussing has overwhelming support from the American people according to poll after poll after poll. In other words, that is what the American people want. At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty, shamefully, of almost any major nation on Earth, this reconciliation bill that will soon be coming to the floor does not extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that working parents of this country had last year. That is gone. That is not in this bill. If you are a parent today, paying $15,000 a year for childcare--which is what it costs in Vermont and is about the average cost all over America, $15,000 a year to have a kid in childcare--this bill completely ignores that crisis and does absolutely nothing for you. And, of course, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, this bill does not provide free and universal pre-K. So if you are a working parent right now, struggling to pay for childcare, this bill turns its back on you. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright, young people every year are unable to afford to go to college and get a higher education, this bill ignores that reality and does nothing for these young people. The original Build Back Better plan did not go as far as I wanted it to, but it would have provided 2 years of free education at a community college. That is a big deal for millions of young people, but that is no longer going to happen. If you are an elderly American--one of the millions of elderly people trying to survive on your Social Security benefits--and you cannot afford to go to a dentist and your teeth are rotting in your mouth or you have no teeth so that you can digest your food or you can't afford to get a hearing aid to communicate with your kids or grandchildren or you can't afford the eyeglasses that you need, this bill does nothing, zero, to expand Medicare to cover these very basic healthcare needs that the American people want to see covered. As a result, millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack of dentures, lack of hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve. Further, at a time when millions of elderly and disabled Americans would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, this bill does absolutely nothing to address the very, very serious home healthcare crisis in our country. We will continue to lack the decent-paid, decent-trained staffing that we need to address the home healthcare crisis. This bill ignores that issue completely. I think there is no disagreement on the part of anybody that we have a major housing crisis in this country. Some 600,000 people are homeless in America, sleeping out on the streets all across this country, including a few blocks away from the Capitol. In addition to that, some 18 million households in our country are spending an incredible 50 percent of their incomes for housing. Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that exists in State after State after State all across the country. We are ignoring that major issue as well. One of the criticisms made against the original Build Back Better plan is that it would be inflationary because itwould increase Federal spending. That criticism is untrue. Every nickel spent on that bill would have been fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Unlike the recently passed microchip corporate welfare bill that adds $79 billion to the Federal deficit, unlike the proposed military budget that came out of the Senate Armed Forces Committee recently, which would increase defense spending by 45 billion more than the Pentagon even requested, the Build Back Better plan would not have increased the deficit at all. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which, in my view, has some good features but also has some very bad features. One of the issues that it deals with is prescription drugs, and the good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to lower the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. According to the most recent data, if we do nothing, Medicare will spend about 1.8 trillion over the next decade on prescription drugs, and our Nation as a whole will spend $5 trillion. And that is not only outrageous, but it is unsustainable. But here is the bad news: The prescription drug provisions in this bill are extremely weak, and it is hard to deny that. They are extremely complex; they take too long to go into effect; and they go nowhere near as far as they should to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, whose actions are literally killing Americans. One out of five Americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed, and some of them will die. Under this legislation, Medicare--for the first time in history--would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices, and that is the good news. The bad news is that the negotiated prices would not go into effect until 2026, 4 years from now. So you are not going to see any changes over the next 4 years. Further, in 2026, only 10 drugs--10 drugs--would be negotiated, with more to come in later years. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin, this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when the pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I recently--not recently. A couple of years ago, I took a trip with some midwesterners over the border into Canada where they purchased insulin for one-tenth of the price that was being charged in the United States because in Canada, like virtually every other country on Earth, they negotiate prices with the industry. If we are really serious about reducing the price of prescription drugs, something that the American people desperately want us to do, it is no secret as to how we can achieve that goal. For over 30 years, the Veterans' Administration--and I am very proud of the legislation that we just passed a moment ago for the VA--but the VA has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. They have been doing it for 30 years--not a new idea. Moreover, for decades, virtually every other major country on Earth has been doing exactly the same thing, which is why the price of prescription drugs in Canada, Mexico, all over Europe is far less expensive than in the United States. The result of where we are today is that Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, may pay 10 times more for a particular drug as the people of any major country on Earth. So you have the absurd situation where one government Agency, the VA, because they have been negotiating drugs--all drugs--for 30 years, pays half of what Medicare is paying today. In other words, if we are going to solve this problem when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel; we could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA. If we did that, we could literally cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. We could cut the price in half in a matter of months, not years. In February, I introduced legislation with Senator Klobuchar that would do exactly that. Under that legislation, we could save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provisions in this bill. By the way, with those enormous savings, we could expand Medicare to provide comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America. It could be used, furthermore, to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60, and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is what we could do with those savings that we are not achieving under this proposed bill. What are the other prescription drug provisions in the reconciliation bill? Well, under this legislation, pharmaceutical companies would essentially be prohibited from increasing prescription drug prices above inflation pegged to the year 2021. Should we be making sure that pharmaceutical companies cannot increase their prices above general inflation? Yes. But let us be clear. This provision would lock in all of the extraordinary price increases the pharmaceutical industry has made in recent years and would do nothing to lower those outrageously high prices. It would control costs in the future, limiting what the industry could charge, but it would not lower prices. Under this legislation, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors would be capped at $2,000 a year, and that is a good benefit which will benefit up to 2 million seniors who currently pay over $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, often people who are dealing with cancer and with other very serious illnesses that require expensive drugs. But the $25 billion cost of that provision will not be paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, which is making recordbreaking profits. In other words, we are going to cap the price. Guess who is paying for it. You got it. It will be paid for by increased premiums on virtually every senior citizen in America, although there is a provision to smooth out those premium increases. The current reconciliation bill that we are looking at would also provide free vaccines for seniors--the only population for which vaccines are not already free--and this is a good thing, something we should have done a long time ago. Finally, in terms of prescription drugs, it looks like the reconciliation bill will cap copays for insulin at $35 a month, which is a good step forward for people with health insurance but will do nothing to lower the cost of insulin for the 1.6 million diabetics who are currently uninsured and, in fact, need our help the most. So the bill does some things in terms of prescription drugs but nowhere near enough given the crisis that we face. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and they will be extended over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their healthcare altogether. So this is a good provision, but let us not fool ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profits last year and paid their executives exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans today who are uninsured or underinsured. There are the estimates out there now that some 60,000 people in our country die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should because they are uninsured or underinsured. So this bill does nothing--absolutely nothing--to reform a dysfunctional, broken healthcare system which is based on the greed of the insurance industry. It does nothing to address the fundamental crisis of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for healthcare, let alone the 70 million of us who are uninsured or underinsured. It doesn't even touch that. Madam President, let me say a word about climate change and what this bill does and does not do. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that if this legislation were to be signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested by the government before. That is the good news. This is, however, substantially lower than the $555 billion in the original Build Back Better plan, which understood that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, and it must be addressed in an extremely bold way if we are going to leave a country and world in which our kids and grandchildren can thrive. But this legislation does provide serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. But the very bad news that very few people in the media or in Congress want to talk about is that this proposed legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, both in the reconciliation bill itself and the side deal that was just made public yesterday. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare they are already receiving. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet. Think about it. At a time when the scientists all over the world tell us that we have to break our dependence on fossil fuel, this legislation provides billions in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. In my view, instead of giving them more tax breaks, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put that into perspective, 60 million acres is the size of the State of Michigan. That is a lot of territory. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill ``a step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with a comprehensive set of solutions included in this proposed legislation. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that has done as much as any entity to destroy this planet--is ``pleased'' with this bill, then I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any new energy development on public lands. In total, this bill would offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters, going to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in the reconciliation bill; a deal has also been reached to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to those released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. It seems to be a very strange way to combat climate change. Let me quote a statement from 350.org, one of the leading environmental groups in the country on this subject. They say: This latest bill has a few good pieces: lengthening the tax credits for green energy projects from two to ten years to ensure steady growth in the wind and solar industry; providing incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles; and installing heat pumps to make green energy use more widespread. However, the amount of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry . . . is so wide in scope, that it turns all the gains in addressing the climate crisis into a moot point. That is from 350.org. Here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill: This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. That is from the Center for Biological Diversity. In my view, we have to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry whose emissions are causing massive damage today and will only make this situation worse in the future. In the reconciliation bill, there is a provision regarding tax reform. Let me say a word on that. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time of soaring corporate profits, at a time in which we have a broken tax system, riddled with all kinds of loopholes for the rich and the powerful, this bill makes a few modest changes to reform the Tax Code. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is the good news. The American people are sick and tired of companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike making billions of dollars in profit in a given year and paying nothing--zero--in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise over $300 billion over the next decade. Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources and the staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill begins to change that. This bill would also make a very modest change to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, teacher, or firefighter. But the bad news is that, while there are some positive aspects for the tax provisions in this bill, this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations. In fact, 83 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax law are going to the top 1 percent--83 percent of the benefits--and this bill repeals none of those benefits. They remain in existence. Let us not forget that it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so-called tax extenders bill at the end of the year that could provide corporations with up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill. So that is where we are today. We have legislation which, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, ignores the needs of the working families of our country in childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, and many, many other desperate needs that families all across this country are facing. This is legislation which, at a time of massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry--and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--takes some very modest steps to lower or control the price of medicine. This is legislation which has some good and important provisions pertaining to energy efficiency and sustainable energy but, at the same time,provides massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are destroying the planet. This is legislation which appropriately ends the absurdity of large, profitable corporations paying nothing in Federal income tax but, at the same time, leaves intact virtually all of Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations. This more than 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. A 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, was made public last week. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it. I look forward to being part of that process and working with my colleagues to make that happen. With that, I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3853 | null | 4,858 |
formal | middle class | null | racist | Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which may be coming to the floor this week. But before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation from a political perspective. And where we are is not a good place to be. According to the most recent Gallup poll, the approval rate for Congress is at 16 percent with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here. Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is ``corrupt and rigged against me.'' That is how people perceive the government. Further, according to a recent USA TODAY poll, a very strong majority no longer believe that the Democratic or Republican Parties are responding to their needs, and we have to move away from a two-party system to a multiparty system. And most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who actually believe that they have to take up arms--literally become violent--against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done. And, of course, we saw an example of that on January 6 of last year, with the terrible violence and deaths that occurred. All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and in some ways resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which eventually led to fascism and totalitarianism. And I should mention that, as we speak right now, while working families and the middle class are falling further and further behind economically, the billionaires in this country, through their super PACs, are doing everything that they can to elect Members of Congress who will support the wealthy and powerful against the needs of average Americans. In both parties, huge amounts of money from billionaires are coming into campaigns to elect the candidates who will represent the 1 percent. The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the wealthy and powerful and that we have a rigged economy, in which large corporations are seeing massive increases in their profits while the middle class and working families of the country continue to see a decline in their standard of living. We don't talk about it much here in the Senate or in the corporate media, but at this moment in American history, we have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 100 years. Now, I know we are not allowed to talk about it. It is not fashionable. We might offend some wealthy campaign contributors. But today, obscenely, you have got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent; you have 45 percent of all new income going to the 1 percent; and you have got CEOs of major corporations making 350 times more than average workers. In other words, the people in the middle, working people, struggling; people on top doing phenomenally well, and the people on the top have enough money to elect candidates who represent their interests. And that is the overall context, in my view, in which this reconciliation bill is coming to the floor. Now, I have heard from some of my colleagues that the Build Back Better legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by some 48 out of 50 Members of the Senate Democratic caucus and by the President of the United States is dead; it is not going anywhere; can't get the 50 notes that are needed. Now, I don't know if that is absolutely true or not, but I do know that if it is true, it would be a disaster for the working families of our country who, today, are desperately trying to survive economically. So let me briefly review what was in the original Build Back Better plan and contrast it with what is in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. And I should mention that every one of the provisions that I will briefly be discussing has overwhelming support from the American people according to poll after poll after poll. In other words, that is what the American people want. At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty, shamefully, of almost any major nation on Earth, this reconciliation bill that will soon be coming to the floor does not extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that working parents of this country had last year. That is gone. That is not in this bill. If you are a parent today, paying $15,000 a year for childcare--which is what it costs in Vermont and is about the average cost all over America, $15,000 a year to have a kid in childcare--this bill completely ignores that crisis and does absolutely nothing for you. And, of course, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, this bill does not provide free and universal pre-K. So if you are a working parent right now, struggling to pay for childcare, this bill turns its back on you. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright, young people every year are unable to afford to go to college and get a higher education, this bill ignores that reality and does nothing for these young people. The original Build Back Better plan did not go as far as I wanted it to, but it would have provided 2 years of free education at a community college. That is a big deal for millions of young people, but that is no longer going to happen. If you are an elderly American--one of the millions of elderly people trying to survive on your Social Security benefits--and you cannot afford to go to a dentist and your teeth are rotting in your mouth or you have no teeth so that you can digest your food or you can't afford to get a hearing aid to communicate with your kids or grandchildren or you can't afford the eyeglasses that you need, this bill does nothing, zero, to expand Medicare to cover these very basic healthcare needs that the American people want to see covered. As a result, millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack of dentures, lack of hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve. Further, at a time when millions of elderly and disabled Americans would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, this bill does absolutely nothing to address the very, very serious home healthcare crisis in our country. We will continue to lack the decent-paid, decent-trained staffing that we need to address the home healthcare crisis. This bill ignores that issue completely. I think there is no disagreement on the part of anybody that we have a major housing crisis in this country. Some 600,000 people are homeless in America, sleeping out on the streets all across this country, including a few blocks away from the Capitol. In addition to that, some 18 million households in our country are spending an incredible 50 percent of their incomes for housing. Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that exists in State after State after State all across the country. We are ignoring that major issue as well. One of the criticisms made against the original Build Back Better plan is that it would be inflationary because itwould increase Federal spending. That criticism is untrue. Every nickel spent on that bill would have been fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Unlike the recently passed microchip corporate welfare bill that adds $79 billion to the Federal deficit, unlike the proposed military budget that came out of the Senate Armed Forces Committee recently, which would increase defense spending by 45 billion more than the Pentagon even requested, the Build Back Better plan would not have increased the deficit at all. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which, in my view, has some good features but also has some very bad features. One of the issues that it deals with is prescription drugs, and the good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to lower the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. According to the most recent data, if we do nothing, Medicare will spend about 1.8 trillion over the next decade on prescription drugs, and our Nation as a whole will spend $5 trillion. And that is not only outrageous, but it is unsustainable. But here is the bad news: The prescription drug provisions in this bill are extremely weak, and it is hard to deny that. They are extremely complex; they take too long to go into effect; and they go nowhere near as far as they should to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, whose actions are literally killing Americans. One out of five Americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed, and some of them will die. Under this legislation, Medicare--for the first time in history--would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices, and that is the good news. The bad news is that the negotiated prices would not go into effect until 2026, 4 years from now. So you are not going to see any changes over the next 4 years. Further, in 2026, only 10 drugs--10 drugs--would be negotiated, with more to come in later years. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin, this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when the pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I recently--not recently. A couple of years ago, I took a trip with some midwesterners over the border into Canada where they purchased insulin for one-tenth of the price that was being charged in the United States because in Canada, like virtually every other country on Earth, they negotiate prices with the industry. If we are really serious about reducing the price of prescription drugs, something that the American people desperately want us to do, it is no secret as to how we can achieve that goal. For over 30 years, the Veterans' Administration--and I am very proud of the legislation that we just passed a moment ago for the VA--but the VA has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. They have been doing it for 30 years--not a new idea. Moreover, for decades, virtually every other major country on Earth has been doing exactly the same thing, which is why the price of prescription drugs in Canada, Mexico, all over Europe is far less expensive than in the United States. The result of where we are today is that Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, may pay 10 times more for a particular drug as the people of any major country on Earth. So you have the absurd situation where one government Agency, the VA, because they have been negotiating drugs--all drugs--for 30 years, pays half of what Medicare is paying today. In other words, if we are going to solve this problem when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel; we could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA. If we did that, we could literally cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. We could cut the price in half in a matter of months, not years. In February, I introduced legislation with Senator Klobuchar that would do exactly that. Under that legislation, we could save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provisions in this bill. By the way, with those enormous savings, we could expand Medicare to provide comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America. It could be used, furthermore, to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60, and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is what we could do with those savings that we are not achieving under this proposed bill. What are the other prescription drug provisions in the reconciliation bill? Well, under this legislation, pharmaceutical companies would essentially be prohibited from increasing prescription drug prices above inflation pegged to the year 2021. Should we be making sure that pharmaceutical companies cannot increase their prices above general inflation? Yes. But let us be clear. This provision would lock in all of the extraordinary price increases the pharmaceutical industry has made in recent years and would do nothing to lower those outrageously high prices. It would control costs in the future, limiting what the industry could charge, but it would not lower prices. Under this legislation, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors would be capped at $2,000 a year, and that is a good benefit which will benefit up to 2 million seniors who currently pay over $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, often people who are dealing with cancer and with other very serious illnesses that require expensive drugs. But the $25 billion cost of that provision will not be paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, which is making recordbreaking profits. In other words, we are going to cap the price. Guess who is paying for it. You got it. It will be paid for by increased premiums on virtually every senior citizen in America, although there is a provision to smooth out those premium increases. The current reconciliation bill that we are looking at would also provide free vaccines for seniors--the only population for which vaccines are not already free--and this is a good thing, something we should have done a long time ago. Finally, in terms of prescription drugs, it looks like the reconciliation bill will cap copays for insulin at $35 a month, which is a good step forward for people with health insurance but will do nothing to lower the cost of insulin for the 1.6 million diabetics who are currently uninsured and, in fact, need our help the most. So the bill does some things in terms of prescription drugs but nowhere near enough given the crisis that we face. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and they will be extended over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their healthcare altogether. So this is a good provision, but let us not fool ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profits last year and paid their executives exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans today who are uninsured or underinsured. There are the estimates out there now that some 60,000 people in our country die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should because they are uninsured or underinsured. So this bill does nothing--absolutely nothing--to reform a dysfunctional, broken healthcare system which is based on the greed of the insurance industry. It does nothing to address the fundamental crisis of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for healthcare, let alone the 70 million of us who are uninsured or underinsured. It doesn't even touch that. Madam President, let me say a word about climate change and what this bill does and does not do. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that if this legislation were to be signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested by the government before. That is the good news. This is, however, substantially lower than the $555 billion in the original Build Back Better plan, which understood that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, and it must be addressed in an extremely bold way if we are going to leave a country and world in which our kids and grandchildren can thrive. But this legislation does provide serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. But the very bad news that very few people in the media or in Congress want to talk about is that this proposed legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, both in the reconciliation bill itself and the side deal that was just made public yesterday. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare they are already receiving. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet. Think about it. At a time when the scientists all over the world tell us that we have to break our dependence on fossil fuel, this legislation provides billions in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. In my view, instead of giving them more tax breaks, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put that into perspective, 60 million acres is the size of the State of Michigan. That is a lot of territory. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill ``a step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with a comprehensive set of solutions included in this proposed legislation. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that has done as much as any entity to destroy this planet--is ``pleased'' with this bill, then I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any new energy development on public lands. In total, this bill would offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters, going to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in the reconciliation bill; a deal has also been reached to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to those released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. It seems to be a very strange way to combat climate change. Let me quote a statement from 350.org, one of the leading environmental groups in the country on this subject. They say: This latest bill has a few good pieces: lengthening the tax credits for green energy projects from two to ten years to ensure steady growth in the wind and solar industry; providing incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles; and installing heat pumps to make green energy use more widespread. However, the amount of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry . . . is so wide in scope, that it turns all the gains in addressing the climate crisis into a moot point. That is from 350.org. Here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill: This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. That is from the Center for Biological Diversity. In my view, we have to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry whose emissions are causing massive damage today and will only make this situation worse in the future. In the reconciliation bill, there is a provision regarding tax reform. Let me say a word on that. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time of soaring corporate profits, at a time in which we have a broken tax system, riddled with all kinds of loopholes for the rich and the powerful, this bill makes a few modest changes to reform the Tax Code. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is the good news. The American people are sick and tired of companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike making billions of dollars in profit in a given year and paying nothing--zero--in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise over $300 billion over the next decade. Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources and the staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill begins to change that. This bill would also make a very modest change to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, teacher, or firefighter. But the bad news is that, while there are some positive aspects for the tax provisions in this bill, this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations. In fact, 83 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax law are going to the top 1 percent--83 percent of the benefits--and this bill repeals none of those benefits. They remain in existence. Let us not forget that it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so-called tax extenders bill at the end of the year that could provide corporations with up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill. So that is where we are today. We have legislation which, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, ignores the needs of the working families of our country in childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, and many, many other desperate needs that families all across this country are facing. This is legislation which, at a time of massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry--and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--takes some very modest steps to lower or control the price of medicine. This is legislation which has some good and important provisions pertaining to energy efficiency and sustainable energy but, at the same time,provides massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are destroying the planet. This is legislation which appropriately ends the absurdity of large, profitable corporations paying nothing in Federal income tax but, at the same time, leaves intact virtually all of Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations. This more than 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. A 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, was made public last week. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it. I look forward to being part of that process and working with my colleagues to make that happen. With that, I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3853 | null | 4,859 |
formal | Chicago | null | racist | Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which may be coming to the floor this week. But before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation from a political perspective. And where we are is not a good place to be. According to the most recent Gallup poll, the approval rate for Congress is at 16 percent with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here. Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is ``corrupt and rigged against me.'' That is how people perceive the government. Further, according to a recent USA TODAY poll, a very strong majority no longer believe that the Democratic or Republican Parties are responding to their needs, and we have to move away from a two-party system to a multiparty system. And most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who actually believe that they have to take up arms--literally become violent--against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done. And, of course, we saw an example of that on January 6 of last year, with the terrible violence and deaths that occurred. All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and in some ways resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which eventually led to fascism and totalitarianism. And I should mention that, as we speak right now, while working families and the middle class are falling further and further behind economically, the billionaires in this country, through their super PACs, are doing everything that they can to elect Members of Congress who will support the wealthy and powerful against the needs of average Americans. In both parties, huge amounts of money from billionaires are coming into campaigns to elect the candidates who will represent the 1 percent. The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the wealthy and powerful and that we have a rigged economy, in which large corporations are seeing massive increases in their profits while the middle class and working families of the country continue to see a decline in their standard of living. We don't talk about it much here in the Senate or in the corporate media, but at this moment in American history, we have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 100 years. Now, I know we are not allowed to talk about it. It is not fashionable. We might offend some wealthy campaign contributors. But today, obscenely, you have got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent; you have 45 percent of all new income going to the 1 percent; and you have got CEOs of major corporations making 350 times more than average workers. In other words, the people in the middle, working people, struggling; people on top doing phenomenally well, and the people on the top have enough money to elect candidates who represent their interests. And that is the overall context, in my view, in which this reconciliation bill is coming to the floor. Now, I have heard from some of my colleagues that the Build Back Better legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by some 48 out of 50 Members of the Senate Democratic caucus and by the President of the United States is dead; it is not going anywhere; can't get the 50 notes that are needed. Now, I don't know if that is absolutely true or not, but I do know that if it is true, it would be a disaster for the working families of our country who, today, are desperately trying to survive economically. So let me briefly review what was in the original Build Back Better plan and contrast it with what is in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. And I should mention that every one of the provisions that I will briefly be discussing has overwhelming support from the American people according to poll after poll after poll. In other words, that is what the American people want. At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty, shamefully, of almost any major nation on Earth, this reconciliation bill that will soon be coming to the floor does not extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that working parents of this country had last year. That is gone. That is not in this bill. If you are a parent today, paying $15,000 a year for childcare--which is what it costs in Vermont and is about the average cost all over America, $15,000 a year to have a kid in childcare--this bill completely ignores that crisis and does absolutely nothing for you. And, of course, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, this bill does not provide free and universal pre-K. So if you are a working parent right now, struggling to pay for childcare, this bill turns its back on you. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright, young people every year are unable to afford to go to college and get a higher education, this bill ignores that reality and does nothing for these young people. The original Build Back Better plan did not go as far as I wanted it to, but it would have provided 2 years of free education at a community college. That is a big deal for millions of young people, but that is no longer going to happen. If you are an elderly American--one of the millions of elderly people trying to survive on your Social Security benefits--and you cannot afford to go to a dentist and your teeth are rotting in your mouth or you have no teeth so that you can digest your food or you can't afford to get a hearing aid to communicate with your kids or grandchildren or you can't afford the eyeglasses that you need, this bill does nothing, zero, to expand Medicare to cover these very basic healthcare needs that the American people want to see covered. As a result, millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack of dentures, lack of hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve. Further, at a time when millions of elderly and disabled Americans would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, this bill does absolutely nothing to address the very, very serious home healthcare crisis in our country. We will continue to lack the decent-paid, decent-trained staffing that we need to address the home healthcare crisis. This bill ignores that issue completely. I think there is no disagreement on the part of anybody that we have a major housing crisis in this country. Some 600,000 people are homeless in America, sleeping out on the streets all across this country, including a few blocks away from the Capitol. In addition to that, some 18 million households in our country are spending an incredible 50 percent of their incomes for housing. Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that exists in State after State after State all across the country. We are ignoring that major issue as well. One of the criticisms made against the original Build Back Better plan is that it would be inflationary because itwould increase Federal spending. That criticism is untrue. Every nickel spent on that bill would have been fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Unlike the recently passed microchip corporate welfare bill that adds $79 billion to the Federal deficit, unlike the proposed military budget that came out of the Senate Armed Forces Committee recently, which would increase defense spending by 45 billion more than the Pentagon even requested, the Build Back Better plan would not have increased the deficit at all. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which, in my view, has some good features but also has some very bad features. One of the issues that it deals with is prescription drugs, and the good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to lower the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. According to the most recent data, if we do nothing, Medicare will spend about 1.8 trillion over the next decade on prescription drugs, and our Nation as a whole will spend $5 trillion. And that is not only outrageous, but it is unsustainable. But here is the bad news: The prescription drug provisions in this bill are extremely weak, and it is hard to deny that. They are extremely complex; they take too long to go into effect; and they go nowhere near as far as they should to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, whose actions are literally killing Americans. One out of five Americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed, and some of them will die. Under this legislation, Medicare--for the first time in history--would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices, and that is the good news. The bad news is that the negotiated prices would not go into effect until 2026, 4 years from now. So you are not going to see any changes over the next 4 years. Further, in 2026, only 10 drugs--10 drugs--would be negotiated, with more to come in later years. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin, this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when the pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I recently--not recently. A couple of years ago, I took a trip with some midwesterners over the border into Canada where they purchased insulin for one-tenth of the price that was being charged in the United States because in Canada, like virtually every other country on Earth, they negotiate prices with the industry. If we are really serious about reducing the price of prescription drugs, something that the American people desperately want us to do, it is no secret as to how we can achieve that goal. For over 30 years, the Veterans' Administration--and I am very proud of the legislation that we just passed a moment ago for the VA--but the VA has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. They have been doing it for 30 years--not a new idea. Moreover, for decades, virtually every other major country on Earth has been doing exactly the same thing, which is why the price of prescription drugs in Canada, Mexico, all over Europe is far less expensive than in the United States. The result of where we are today is that Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, may pay 10 times more for a particular drug as the people of any major country on Earth. So you have the absurd situation where one government Agency, the VA, because they have been negotiating drugs--all drugs--for 30 years, pays half of what Medicare is paying today. In other words, if we are going to solve this problem when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel; we could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA. If we did that, we could literally cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. We could cut the price in half in a matter of months, not years. In February, I introduced legislation with Senator Klobuchar that would do exactly that. Under that legislation, we could save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provisions in this bill. By the way, with those enormous savings, we could expand Medicare to provide comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America. It could be used, furthermore, to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60, and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is what we could do with those savings that we are not achieving under this proposed bill. What are the other prescription drug provisions in the reconciliation bill? Well, under this legislation, pharmaceutical companies would essentially be prohibited from increasing prescription drug prices above inflation pegged to the year 2021. Should we be making sure that pharmaceutical companies cannot increase their prices above general inflation? Yes. But let us be clear. This provision would lock in all of the extraordinary price increases the pharmaceutical industry has made in recent years and would do nothing to lower those outrageously high prices. It would control costs in the future, limiting what the industry could charge, but it would not lower prices. Under this legislation, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors would be capped at $2,000 a year, and that is a good benefit which will benefit up to 2 million seniors who currently pay over $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, often people who are dealing with cancer and with other very serious illnesses that require expensive drugs. But the $25 billion cost of that provision will not be paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, which is making recordbreaking profits. In other words, we are going to cap the price. Guess who is paying for it. You got it. It will be paid for by increased premiums on virtually every senior citizen in America, although there is a provision to smooth out those premium increases. The current reconciliation bill that we are looking at would also provide free vaccines for seniors--the only population for which vaccines are not already free--and this is a good thing, something we should have done a long time ago. Finally, in terms of prescription drugs, it looks like the reconciliation bill will cap copays for insulin at $35 a month, which is a good step forward for people with health insurance but will do nothing to lower the cost of insulin for the 1.6 million diabetics who are currently uninsured and, in fact, need our help the most. So the bill does some things in terms of prescription drugs but nowhere near enough given the crisis that we face. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and they will be extended over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their healthcare altogether. So this is a good provision, but let us not fool ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profits last year and paid their executives exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans today who are uninsured or underinsured. There are the estimates out there now that some 60,000 people in our country die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should because they are uninsured or underinsured. So this bill does nothing--absolutely nothing--to reform a dysfunctional, broken healthcare system which is based on the greed of the insurance industry. It does nothing to address the fundamental crisis of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for healthcare, let alone the 70 million of us who are uninsured or underinsured. It doesn't even touch that. Madam President, let me say a word about climate change and what this bill does and does not do. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that if this legislation were to be signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested by the government before. That is the good news. This is, however, substantially lower than the $555 billion in the original Build Back Better plan, which understood that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, and it must be addressed in an extremely bold way if we are going to leave a country and world in which our kids and grandchildren can thrive. But this legislation does provide serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. But the very bad news that very few people in the media or in Congress want to talk about is that this proposed legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, both in the reconciliation bill itself and the side deal that was just made public yesterday. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare they are already receiving. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet. Think about it. At a time when the scientists all over the world tell us that we have to break our dependence on fossil fuel, this legislation provides billions in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. In my view, instead of giving them more tax breaks, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put that into perspective, 60 million acres is the size of the State of Michigan. That is a lot of territory. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill ``a step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with a comprehensive set of solutions included in this proposed legislation. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that has done as much as any entity to destroy this planet--is ``pleased'' with this bill, then I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any new energy development on public lands. In total, this bill would offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters, going to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in the reconciliation bill; a deal has also been reached to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to those released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. It seems to be a very strange way to combat climate change. Let me quote a statement from 350.org, one of the leading environmental groups in the country on this subject. They say: This latest bill has a few good pieces: lengthening the tax credits for green energy projects from two to ten years to ensure steady growth in the wind and solar industry; providing incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles; and installing heat pumps to make green energy use more widespread. However, the amount of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry . . . is so wide in scope, that it turns all the gains in addressing the climate crisis into a moot point. That is from 350.org. Here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill: This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. That is from the Center for Biological Diversity. In my view, we have to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry whose emissions are causing massive damage today and will only make this situation worse in the future. In the reconciliation bill, there is a provision regarding tax reform. Let me say a word on that. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time of soaring corporate profits, at a time in which we have a broken tax system, riddled with all kinds of loopholes for the rich and the powerful, this bill makes a few modest changes to reform the Tax Code. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is the good news. The American people are sick and tired of companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike making billions of dollars in profit in a given year and paying nothing--zero--in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise over $300 billion over the next decade. Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources and the staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill begins to change that. This bill would also make a very modest change to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, teacher, or firefighter. But the bad news is that, while there are some positive aspects for the tax provisions in this bill, this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations. In fact, 83 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax law are going to the top 1 percent--83 percent of the benefits--and this bill repeals none of those benefits. They remain in existence. Let us not forget that it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so-called tax extenders bill at the end of the year that could provide corporations with up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill. So that is where we are today. We have legislation which, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, ignores the needs of the working families of our country in childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, and many, many other desperate needs that families all across this country are facing. This is legislation which, at a time of massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry--and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--takes some very modest steps to lower or control the price of medicine. This is legislation which has some good and important provisions pertaining to energy efficiency and sustainable energy but, at the same time,provides massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are destroying the planet. This is legislation which appropriately ends the absurdity of large, profitable corporations paying nothing in Federal income tax but, at the same time, leaves intact virtually all of Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations. This more than 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. A 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, was made public last week. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it. I look forward to being part of that process and working with my colleagues to make that happen. With that, I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3853 | null | 4,860 |
formal | welfare | null | racist | Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which may be coming to the floor this week. But before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation from a political perspective. And where we are is not a good place to be. According to the most recent Gallup poll, the approval rate for Congress is at 16 percent with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here. Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is ``corrupt and rigged against me.'' That is how people perceive the government. Further, according to a recent USA TODAY poll, a very strong majority no longer believe that the Democratic or Republican Parties are responding to their needs, and we have to move away from a two-party system to a multiparty system. And most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who actually believe that they have to take up arms--literally become violent--against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done. And, of course, we saw an example of that on January 6 of last year, with the terrible violence and deaths that occurred. All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and in some ways resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which eventually led to fascism and totalitarianism. And I should mention that, as we speak right now, while working families and the middle class are falling further and further behind economically, the billionaires in this country, through their super PACs, are doing everything that they can to elect Members of Congress who will support the wealthy and powerful against the needs of average Americans. In both parties, huge amounts of money from billionaires are coming into campaigns to elect the candidates who will represent the 1 percent. The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the wealthy and powerful and that we have a rigged economy, in which large corporations are seeing massive increases in their profits while the middle class and working families of the country continue to see a decline in their standard of living. We don't talk about it much here in the Senate or in the corporate media, but at this moment in American history, we have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 100 years. Now, I know we are not allowed to talk about it. It is not fashionable. We might offend some wealthy campaign contributors. But today, obscenely, you have got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent; you have 45 percent of all new income going to the 1 percent; and you have got CEOs of major corporations making 350 times more than average workers. In other words, the people in the middle, working people, struggling; people on top doing phenomenally well, and the people on the top have enough money to elect candidates who represent their interests. And that is the overall context, in my view, in which this reconciliation bill is coming to the floor. Now, I have heard from some of my colleagues that the Build Back Better legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by some 48 out of 50 Members of the Senate Democratic caucus and by the President of the United States is dead; it is not going anywhere; can't get the 50 notes that are needed. Now, I don't know if that is absolutely true or not, but I do know that if it is true, it would be a disaster for the working families of our country who, today, are desperately trying to survive economically. So let me briefly review what was in the original Build Back Better plan and contrast it with what is in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. And I should mention that every one of the provisions that I will briefly be discussing has overwhelming support from the American people according to poll after poll after poll. In other words, that is what the American people want. At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty, shamefully, of almost any major nation on Earth, this reconciliation bill that will soon be coming to the floor does not extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that working parents of this country had last year. That is gone. That is not in this bill. If you are a parent today, paying $15,000 a year for childcare--which is what it costs in Vermont and is about the average cost all over America, $15,000 a year to have a kid in childcare--this bill completely ignores that crisis and does absolutely nothing for you. And, of course, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, this bill does not provide free and universal pre-K. So if you are a working parent right now, struggling to pay for childcare, this bill turns its back on you. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright, young people every year are unable to afford to go to college and get a higher education, this bill ignores that reality and does nothing for these young people. The original Build Back Better plan did not go as far as I wanted it to, but it would have provided 2 years of free education at a community college. That is a big deal for millions of young people, but that is no longer going to happen. If you are an elderly American--one of the millions of elderly people trying to survive on your Social Security benefits--and you cannot afford to go to a dentist and your teeth are rotting in your mouth or you have no teeth so that you can digest your food or you can't afford to get a hearing aid to communicate with your kids or grandchildren or you can't afford the eyeglasses that you need, this bill does nothing, zero, to expand Medicare to cover these very basic healthcare needs that the American people want to see covered. As a result, millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack of dentures, lack of hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve. Further, at a time when millions of elderly and disabled Americans would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, this bill does absolutely nothing to address the very, very serious home healthcare crisis in our country. We will continue to lack the decent-paid, decent-trained staffing that we need to address the home healthcare crisis. This bill ignores that issue completely. I think there is no disagreement on the part of anybody that we have a major housing crisis in this country. Some 600,000 people are homeless in America, sleeping out on the streets all across this country, including a few blocks away from the Capitol. In addition to that, some 18 million households in our country are spending an incredible 50 percent of their incomes for housing. Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that exists in State after State after State all across the country. We are ignoring that major issue as well. One of the criticisms made against the original Build Back Better plan is that it would be inflationary because itwould increase Federal spending. That criticism is untrue. Every nickel spent on that bill would have been fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Unlike the recently passed microchip corporate welfare bill that adds $79 billion to the Federal deficit, unlike the proposed military budget that came out of the Senate Armed Forces Committee recently, which would increase defense spending by 45 billion more than the Pentagon even requested, the Build Back Better plan would not have increased the deficit at all. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which, in my view, has some good features but also has some very bad features. One of the issues that it deals with is prescription drugs, and the good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to lower the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. According to the most recent data, if we do nothing, Medicare will spend about 1.8 trillion over the next decade on prescription drugs, and our Nation as a whole will spend $5 trillion. And that is not only outrageous, but it is unsustainable. But here is the bad news: The prescription drug provisions in this bill are extremely weak, and it is hard to deny that. They are extremely complex; they take too long to go into effect; and they go nowhere near as far as they should to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, whose actions are literally killing Americans. One out of five Americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed, and some of them will die. Under this legislation, Medicare--for the first time in history--would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices, and that is the good news. The bad news is that the negotiated prices would not go into effect until 2026, 4 years from now. So you are not going to see any changes over the next 4 years. Further, in 2026, only 10 drugs--10 drugs--would be negotiated, with more to come in later years. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin, this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when the pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I recently--not recently. A couple of years ago, I took a trip with some midwesterners over the border into Canada where they purchased insulin for one-tenth of the price that was being charged in the United States because in Canada, like virtually every other country on Earth, they negotiate prices with the industry. If we are really serious about reducing the price of prescription drugs, something that the American people desperately want us to do, it is no secret as to how we can achieve that goal. For over 30 years, the Veterans' Administration--and I am very proud of the legislation that we just passed a moment ago for the VA--but the VA has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. They have been doing it for 30 years--not a new idea. Moreover, for decades, virtually every other major country on Earth has been doing exactly the same thing, which is why the price of prescription drugs in Canada, Mexico, all over Europe is far less expensive than in the United States. The result of where we are today is that Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, may pay 10 times more for a particular drug as the people of any major country on Earth. So you have the absurd situation where one government Agency, the VA, because they have been negotiating drugs--all drugs--for 30 years, pays half of what Medicare is paying today. In other words, if we are going to solve this problem when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel; we could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA. If we did that, we could literally cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. We could cut the price in half in a matter of months, not years. In February, I introduced legislation with Senator Klobuchar that would do exactly that. Under that legislation, we could save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provisions in this bill. By the way, with those enormous savings, we could expand Medicare to provide comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America. It could be used, furthermore, to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60, and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is what we could do with those savings that we are not achieving under this proposed bill. What are the other prescription drug provisions in the reconciliation bill? Well, under this legislation, pharmaceutical companies would essentially be prohibited from increasing prescription drug prices above inflation pegged to the year 2021. Should we be making sure that pharmaceutical companies cannot increase their prices above general inflation? Yes. But let us be clear. This provision would lock in all of the extraordinary price increases the pharmaceutical industry has made in recent years and would do nothing to lower those outrageously high prices. It would control costs in the future, limiting what the industry could charge, but it would not lower prices. Under this legislation, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors would be capped at $2,000 a year, and that is a good benefit which will benefit up to 2 million seniors who currently pay over $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, often people who are dealing with cancer and with other very serious illnesses that require expensive drugs. But the $25 billion cost of that provision will not be paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, which is making recordbreaking profits. In other words, we are going to cap the price. Guess who is paying for it. You got it. It will be paid for by increased premiums on virtually every senior citizen in America, although there is a provision to smooth out those premium increases. The current reconciliation bill that we are looking at would also provide free vaccines for seniors--the only population for which vaccines are not already free--and this is a good thing, something we should have done a long time ago. Finally, in terms of prescription drugs, it looks like the reconciliation bill will cap copays for insulin at $35 a month, which is a good step forward for people with health insurance but will do nothing to lower the cost of insulin for the 1.6 million diabetics who are currently uninsured and, in fact, need our help the most. So the bill does some things in terms of prescription drugs but nowhere near enough given the crisis that we face. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and they will be extended over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their healthcare altogether. So this is a good provision, but let us not fool ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profits last year and paid their executives exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans today who are uninsured or underinsured. There are the estimates out there now that some 60,000 people in our country die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should because they are uninsured or underinsured. So this bill does nothing--absolutely nothing--to reform a dysfunctional, broken healthcare system which is based on the greed of the insurance industry. It does nothing to address the fundamental crisis of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for healthcare, let alone the 70 million of us who are uninsured or underinsured. It doesn't even touch that. Madam President, let me say a word about climate change and what this bill does and does not do. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that if this legislation were to be signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested by the government before. That is the good news. This is, however, substantially lower than the $555 billion in the original Build Back Better plan, which understood that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, and it must be addressed in an extremely bold way if we are going to leave a country and world in which our kids and grandchildren can thrive. But this legislation does provide serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. But the very bad news that very few people in the media or in Congress want to talk about is that this proposed legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, both in the reconciliation bill itself and the side deal that was just made public yesterday. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare they are already receiving. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet. Think about it. At a time when the scientists all over the world tell us that we have to break our dependence on fossil fuel, this legislation provides billions in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. In my view, instead of giving them more tax breaks, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put that into perspective, 60 million acres is the size of the State of Michigan. That is a lot of territory. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill ``a step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with a comprehensive set of solutions included in this proposed legislation. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that has done as much as any entity to destroy this planet--is ``pleased'' with this bill, then I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any new energy development on public lands. In total, this bill would offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters, going to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in the reconciliation bill; a deal has also been reached to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to those released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. It seems to be a very strange way to combat climate change. Let me quote a statement from 350.org, one of the leading environmental groups in the country on this subject. They say: This latest bill has a few good pieces: lengthening the tax credits for green energy projects from two to ten years to ensure steady growth in the wind and solar industry; providing incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles; and installing heat pumps to make green energy use more widespread. However, the amount of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry . . . is so wide in scope, that it turns all the gains in addressing the climate crisis into a moot point. That is from 350.org. Here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill: This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. That is from the Center for Biological Diversity. In my view, we have to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry whose emissions are causing massive damage today and will only make this situation worse in the future. In the reconciliation bill, there is a provision regarding tax reform. Let me say a word on that. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time of soaring corporate profits, at a time in which we have a broken tax system, riddled with all kinds of loopholes for the rich and the powerful, this bill makes a few modest changes to reform the Tax Code. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is the good news. The American people are sick and tired of companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike making billions of dollars in profit in a given year and paying nothing--zero--in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise over $300 billion over the next decade. Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources and the staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill begins to change that. This bill would also make a very modest change to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, teacher, or firefighter. But the bad news is that, while there are some positive aspects for the tax provisions in this bill, this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations. In fact, 83 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax law are going to the top 1 percent--83 percent of the benefits--and this bill repeals none of those benefits. They remain in existence. Let us not forget that it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so-called tax extenders bill at the end of the year that could provide corporations with up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill. So that is where we are today. We have legislation which, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, ignores the needs of the working families of our country in childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, and many, many other desperate needs that families all across this country are facing. This is legislation which, at a time of massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry--and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--takes some very modest steps to lower or control the price of medicine. This is legislation which has some good and important provisions pertaining to energy efficiency and sustainable energy but, at the same time,provides massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are destroying the planet. This is legislation which appropriately ends the absurdity of large, profitable corporations paying nothing in Federal income tax but, at the same time, leaves intact virtually all of Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations. This more than 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. A 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, was made public last week. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it. I look forward to being part of that process and working with my colleagues to make that happen. With that, I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3853 | null | 4,861 |
formal | working families | null | racist | Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which may be coming to the floor this week. But before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation from a political perspective. And where we are is not a good place to be. According to the most recent Gallup poll, the approval rate for Congress is at 16 percent with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here. Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is ``corrupt and rigged against me.'' That is how people perceive the government. Further, according to a recent USA TODAY poll, a very strong majority no longer believe that the Democratic or Republican Parties are responding to their needs, and we have to move away from a two-party system to a multiparty system. And most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who actually believe that they have to take up arms--literally become violent--against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done. And, of course, we saw an example of that on January 6 of last year, with the terrible violence and deaths that occurred. All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and in some ways resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which eventually led to fascism and totalitarianism. And I should mention that, as we speak right now, while working families and the middle class are falling further and further behind economically, the billionaires in this country, through their super PACs, are doing everything that they can to elect Members of Congress who will support the wealthy and powerful against the needs of average Americans. In both parties, huge amounts of money from billionaires are coming into campaigns to elect the candidates who will represent the 1 percent. The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the wealthy and powerful and that we have a rigged economy, in which large corporations are seeing massive increases in their profits while the middle class and working families of the country continue to see a decline in their standard of living. We don't talk about it much here in the Senate or in the corporate media, but at this moment in American history, we have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last 100 years. Now, I know we are not allowed to talk about it. It is not fashionable. We might offend some wealthy campaign contributors. But today, obscenely, you have got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You have the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 92 percent; you have 45 percent of all new income going to the 1 percent; and you have got CEOs of major corporations making 350 times more than average workers. In other words, the people in the middle, working people, struggling; people on top doing phenomenally well, and the people on the top have enough money to elect candidates who represent their interests. And that is the overall context, in my view, in which this reconciliation bill is coming to the floor. Now, I have heard from some of my colleagues that the Build Back Better legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and supported by some 48 out of 50 Members of the Senate Democratic caucus and by the President of the United States is dead; it is not going anywhere; can't get the 50 notes that are needed. Now, I don't know if that is absolutely true or not, but I do know that if it is true, it would be a disaster for the working families of our country who, today, are desperately trying to survive economically. So let me briefly review what was in the original Build Back Better plan and contrast it with what is in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. And I should mention that every one of the provisions that I will briefly be discussing has overwhelming support from the American people according to poll after poll after poll. In other words, that is what the American people want. At a time when the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty, shamefully, of almost any major nation on Earth, this reconciliation bill that will soon be coming to the floor does not extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that working parents of this country had last year. That is gone. That is not in this bill. If you are a parent today, paying $15,000 a year for childcare--which is what it costs in Vermont and is about the average cost all over America, $15,000 a year to have a kid in childcare--this bill completely ignores that crisis and does absolutely nothing for you. And, of course, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, this bill does not provide free and universal pre-K. So if you are a working parent right now, struggling to pay for childcare, this bill turns its back on you. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright, young people every year are unable to afford to go to college and get a higher education, this bill ignores that reality and does nothing for these young people. The original Build Back Better plan did not go as far as I wanted it to, but it would have provided 2 years of free education at a community college. That is a big deal for millions of young people, but that is no longer going to happen. If you are an elderly American--one of the millions of elderly people trying to survive on your Social Security benefits--and you cannot afford to go to a dentist and your teeth are rotting in your mouth or you have no teeth so that you can digest your food or you can't afford to get a hearing aid to communicate with your kids or grandchildren or you can't afford the eyeglasses that you need, this bill does nothing, zero, to expand Medicare to cover these very basic healthcare needs that the American people want to see covered. As a result, millions of seniors will continue to have rotten teeth and lack of dentures, lack of hearing aids or eyeglasses that they deserve. Further, at a time when millions of elderly and disabled Americans would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, this bill does absolutely nothing to address the very, very serious home healthcare crisis in our country. We will continue to lack the decent-paid, decent-trained staffing that we need to address the home healthcare crisis. This bill ignores that issue completely. I think there is no disagreement on the part of anybody that we have a major housing crisis in this country. Some 600,000 people are homeless in America, sleeping out on the streets all across this country, including a few blocks away from the Capitol. In addition to that, some 18 million households in our country are spending an incredible 50 percent of their incomes for housing. Yep, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that exists in State after State after State all across the country. We are ignoring that major issue as well. One of the criticisms made against the original Build Back Better plan is that it would be inflationary because itwould increase Federal spending. That criticism is untrue. Every nickel spent on that bill would have been fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Unlike the recently passed microchip corporate welfare bill that adds $79 billion to the Federal deficit, unlike the proposed military budget that came out of the Senate Armed Forces Committee recently, which would increase defense spending by 45 billion more than the Pentagon even requested, the Build Back Better plan would not have increased the deficit at all. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which, in my view, has some good features but also has some very bad features. One of the issues that it deals with is prescription drugs, and the good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to lower the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. According to the most recent data, if we do nothing, Medicare will spend about 1.8 trillion over the next decade on prescription drugs, and our Nation as a whole will spend $5 trillion. And that is not only outrageous, but it is unsustainable. But here is the bad news: The prescription drug provisions in this bill are extremely weak, and it is hard to deny that. They are extremely complex; they take too long to go into effect; and they go nowhere near as far as they should to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, whose actions are literally killing Americans. One out of five Americans today cannot afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed, and some of them will die. Under this legislation, Medicare--for the first time in history--would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices, and that is the good news. The bad news is that the negotiated prices would not go into effect until 2026, 4 years from now. So you are not going to see any changes over the next 4 years. Further, in 2026, only 10 drugs--10 drugs--would be negotiated, with more to come in later years. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin, this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when the pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I recently--not recently. A couple of years ago, I took a trip with some midwesterners over the border into Canada where they purchased insulin for one-tenth of the price that was being charged in the United States because in Canada, like virtually every other country on Earth, they negotiate prices with the industry. If we are really serious about reducing the price of prescription drugs, something that the American people desperately want us to do, it is no secret as to how we can achieve that goal. For over 30 years, the Veterans' Administration--and I am very proud of the legislation that we just passed a moment ago for the VA--but the VA has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. They have been doing it for 30 years--not a new idea. Moreover, for decades, virtually every other major country on Earth has been doing exactly the same thing, which is why the price of prescription drugs in Canada, Mexico, all over Europe is far less expensive than in the United States. The result of where we are today is that Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, may pay 10 times more for a particular drug as the people of any major country on Earth. So you have the absurd situation where one government Agency, the VA, because they have been negotiating drugs--all drugs--for 30 years, pays half of what Medicare is paying today. In other words, if we are going to solve this problem when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel; we could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA. If we did that, we could literally cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. We could cut the price in half in a matter of months, not years. In February, I introduced legislation with Senator Klobuchar that would do exactly that. Under that legislation, we could save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provisions in this bill. By the way, with those enormous savings, we could expand Medicare to provide comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America. It could be used, furthermore, to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60, and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is what we could do with those savings that we are not achieving under this proposed bill. What are the other prescription drug provisions in the reconciliation bill? Well, under this legislation, pharmaceutical companies would essentially be prohibited from increasing prescription drug prices above inflation pegged to the year 2021. Should we be making sure that pharmaceutical companies cannot increase their prices above general inflation? Yes. But let us be clear. This provision would lock in all of the extraordinary price increases the pharmaceutical industry has made in recent years and would do nothing to lower those outrageously high prices. It would control costs in the future, limiting what the industry could charge, but it would not lower prices. Under this legislation, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors would be capped at $2,000 a year, and that is a good benefit which will benefit up to 2 million seniors who currently pay over $2,000 a year for prescription drugs, often people who are dealing with cancer and with other very serious illnesses that require expensive drugs. But the $25 billion cost of that provision will not be paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, which is making recordbreaking profits. In other words, we are going to cap the price. Guess who is paying for it. You got it. It will be paid for by increased premiums on virtually every senior citizen in America, although there is a provision to smooth out those premium increases. The current reconciliation bill that we are looking at would also provide free vaccines for seniors--the only population for which vaccines are not already free--and this is a good thing, something we should have done a long time ago. Finally, in terms of prescription drugs, it looks like the reconciliation bill will cap copays for insulin at $35 a month, which is a good step forward for people with health insurance but will do nothing to lower the cost of insulin for the 1.6 million diabetics who are currently uninsured and, in fact, need our help the most. So the bill does some things in terms of prescription drugs but nowhere near enough given the crisis that we face. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and they will be extended over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiums skyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their healthcare altogether. So this is a good provision, but let us not fool ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profits last year and paid their executives exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans today who are uninsured or underinsured. There are the estimates out there now that some 60,000 people in our country die every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should because they are uninsured or underinsured. So this bill does nothing--absolutely nothing--to reform a dysfunctional, broken healthcare system which is based on the greed of the insurance industry. It does nothing to address the fundamental crisis of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for healthcare, let alone the 70 million of us who are uninsured or underinsured. It doesn't even touch that. Madam President, let me say a word about climate change and what this bill does and does not do. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that if this legislation were to be signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested by the government before. That is the good news. This is, however, substantially lower than the $555 billion in the original Build Back Better plan, which understood that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, and it must be addressed in an extremely bold way if we are going to leave a country and world in which our kids and grandchildren can thrive. But this legislation does provide serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. But the very bad news that very few people in the media or in Congress want to talk about is that this proposed legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, both in the reconciliation bill itself and the side deal that was just made public yesterday. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare they are already receiving. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet. Think about it. At a time when the scientists all over the world tell us that we have to break our dependence on fossil fuel, this legislation provides billions in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies. In my view, instead of giving them more tax breaks, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put that into perspective, 60 million acres is the size of the State of Michigan. That is a lot of territory. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill ``a step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with a comprehensive set of solutions included in this proposed legislation. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that has done as much as any entity to destroy this planet--is ``pleased'' with this bill, then I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any new energy development on public lands. In total, this bill would offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters, going to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in the reconciliation bill; a deal has also been reached to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to those released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. It seems to be a very strange way to combat climate change. Let me quote a statement from 350.org, one of the leading environmental groups in the country on this subject. They say: This latest bill has a few good pieces: lengthening the tax credits for green energy projects from two to ten years to ensure steady growth in the wind and solar industry; providing incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles; and installing heat pumps to make green energy use more widespread. However, the amount of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry . . . is so wide in scope, that it turns all the gains in addressing the climate crisis into a moot point. That is from 350.org. Here is what the Center for Biological Diversity had to say on this bill: This is a climate suicide pact. It's self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it's a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels. That is from the Center for Biological Diversity. In my view, we have to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, not give billions of dollars in corporate welfare to an industry whose emissions are causing massive damage today and will only make this situation worse in the future. In the reconciliation bill, there is a provision regarding tax reform. Let me say a word on that. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, at a time of soaring corporate profits, at a time in which we have a broken tax system, riddled with all kinds of loopholes for the rich and the powerful, this bill makes a few modest changes to reform the Tax Code. Under this bill, corporations will be required to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent. That is the good news. The American people are sick and tired of companies like AT&T, Federal Express, and Nike making billions of dollars in profit in a given year and paying nothing--zero--in Federal income tax. This provision has been estimated to raise over $300 billion over the next decade. Further, under this bill, the IRS will finally begin to receive the funding that it needs to audit wealthy tax cheats. Each and every year, the top 1 percent are able to avoid paying $160 billion in taxes that they legally owe because the IRS does not have the resources and the staffing they need to conduct audits of the extremely wealthy. This bill begins to change that. This bill would also make a very modest change to the so-called carried interest loophole that has allowed billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse, teacher, or firefighter. But the bad news is that, while there are some positive aspects for the tax provisions in this bill, this bill does nothing to repeal the Trump tax breaks that went to the very wealthy and large corporations. Trump's 2017 tax bill provided over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations. In fact, 83 percent of the benefits of the Trump tax law are going to the top 1 percent--83 percent of the benefits--and this bill repeals none of those benefits. They remain in existence. Let us not forget that it is very likely that Congress will be doing a so-called tax extenders bill at the end of the year that could provide corporations with up to $400 billion over the next decade in new tax breaks. If that occurs, that would more than offset the $313 billion in corporate revenue included in this bill. So that is where we are today. We have legislation which, unlike the original Build Back Better plan, ignores the needs of the working families of our country in childcare, pre-K, the expansion of Medicare, affordable housing, home healthcare, higher education, and many, many other desperate needs that families all across this country are facing. This is legislation which, at a time of massive profits for the pharmaceutical industry--and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--takes some very modest steps to lower or control the price of medicine. This is legislation which has some good and important provisions pertaining to energy efficiency and sustainable energy but, at the same time,provides massive giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are destroying the planet. This is legislation which appropriately ends the absurdity of large, profitable corporations paying nothing in Federal income tax but, at the same time, leaves intact virtually all of Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations. This more than 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. A 700-page bill, after months of secret negotiations, was made public last week. In my view, now is the time for every Member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it. I look forward to being part of that process and working with my colleagues to make that happen. With that, I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3853 | null | 4,862 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, every once in a while, life gives you a wonderful coincidence. The wonderful coincidence this evening is that I have had the pleasure of listening to Senator Sanders describe what happens to a country when billionaires are able to secretly exert immense political power and drive democracy away from its foundations and into the service of the billionaires. The remarks I am here to give are about how they do it--the technique for infiltration and influence of our democracy by the billionaires. This is part of my series of ``Scheme'' speeches, which is about how they have taken over the Supreme Court--captured it--in the same way that, in the 1800s, big railroads captured the railroad commissions that were supposed to set their rates. They just had their people set the rules for them, and it worked great. We are seeing this with the Supreme Court right now. This is not a conservative Supreme Court. This is a captive Supreme Court--captive to special interests--and the technique that they use for getting there is to hide who they are through an array of front groups. There are dozens of front groups that were involved in the Court-capture scheme. The Washington Post did a very good review of them several years ago and calculated, based on information they could get at the time, that this was a quarter-billion-dollar project--$250 million. Well, the research continued, and folks kept digging. When I held a hearing about this in my Judiciary court subcommittee, the number had climbed to $400 million spent on the Court-capture enterprise. They have kept digging and kept digging, and now it turns out the number is over $580 million. Over a half a billion dollars was spent in this effort to capture and control the U.S. Supreme Court. I don't think you spend over $580 million unless you have a purpose, and very often, the purpose is to make that much money back and more. There is a web of front groups that are used to deploy all of that money, and this is just a part of that web. This is just one sort of combined creature in that web. So let me take a few minutes and just go through the different organs and limbs of this creature. The center of it is a pair of organizations, the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund. The way that extremely wealthy people play in politics these days is to put two organizations together that they establish under the Tax Code. One is called a 501(c)(3), which is named after the section of the Tax Code under which it is established. The 501(c)(3) gives you two wonderful things if you are fiddling in politics. One, it gives us anonymity, wherein you don't have to disclose your donors; and, two, it gives you a tax deduction. You get to write off the money that you give to manipulate the American public. But you can't do something very important with a 501(c)(3): You can't go out and manipulate public opinion. You can't participate in elections. So, when you do that, you need to have something else called a 501(c)(4), the very next provision in the IRS Code. So you take your 501(c)(3), and you take your 501(c)(4), and you set them both up. In my view, there is usually no real distinction between the two. There is a doctrine in law called piercing the corporate veil that separates separate corporate entities, that allows people who are trying to pursue usually damages to show that this is a fake corporate division. You pierce the corporate veil. The 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s are a corporate veil that you could probably pierce with a banana. They have the same locations; they have the same mailing addresses; they have the same staff; they have the same board members; they have the same funders. It is essentially the same organization, but it just operates under two legal structures. So that is what you have for starters. You have got your twinned front groups. The 85 Fund is your 501(c)(3), and the Concord Fund is your 501(c)(4). They are essentially the same creature, but in this case, this organism has other limbs. So what you can do under Virginia corporate law is, if you are the 85 Fund or the Concord Fund, you could file with the corporate registry in the State of Virginia permission to operate under what is called a fictitious name. You can operate under your own name, the 85 Fund, or you can file, with permission, a fictitious name. I am not making that up. That is actually the word in Virginia law--a ``fictitious name.'' Well, the 85 Fund filed for permission to operate under the fictitious name of the Judicial Education Project--the 501(c)(3) that takes in money, and ``tax deductibly,'' to work on the capture of the Court. On the other side, over here, the Concord Fund, your twinned 501(c)(4), has its own twinned fictitious name. So the Judicial Education Project has its own little twin in the Judicial Crisis Network. Well, what do we know about the Judicial Crisis Network? We know that it took checks for as much as $15, $17 million from secret donors. Imagine writing a $15 million check to an organization like this. It took that money, and it first ran campaigns to attack Merrick Garland, to round up Republican support for opposing him as a Supreme Court Justice. Then, when that was successful and they brought on Judge Gorsuch, in came other big checks. Then, when Gorsuch was on the Court and it was time for Kavanaugh--other big checks. Then, when it was time for Amy Coney Barrett--other big checks. We have counted four checks over $15 million. They could be from four separate individuals, but it was happening so regularly you would think you would probably go back to the same source. Somebody spent, probably, $60 million to control who got on the U.S. Supreme Court. We don't know what business that $60 million donor had before the Court, but it is not unusual for cases before the Court to have outcomes that will shift way more than $60 million. Just the climate change cases move hundreds of billions of dollars around in protecting fossil fuels' enormous subsidy. So you have your 85 Fund and Concord Fund ``pierce the corporate veil with a banana'' pair, and then you have their fictitious twins, the Judicial Education Project and the Judicial Crisis Network, with big money flowing in. But it is not enough just to pack the Court. You also want to make sure that you are suppressing voters. Voter suppression is a very big deal, so you set up your Honest Elections Project to do voter suppression because, in this weird, billionaire-funded parallel universe, everything has the opposite name of what it is. Over here, you have, on the 501(c)(4) side, your Honest Elections Project Action because there you can spend some of the money politically. So you have got a whole separate set of twins--this time, completely fictitious twins, fictitious names--no different from the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund--designed to go out in the world and suppress voting: bring lawsuits, write challenge letters, argue for new laws. Then, as we saw in Virginia recently, you can really whip people up about what is going on in schools--critical race theory. So you set up your Free to Learn fictitious name with its little twin, Free to Learn Action, to do the 501(c)(4) political work. So now what you have is a total of eight organizations that are really the same. Who does this? Who in real life does this, sets up eight organizations, six of which are mere fictitious names, to run the same money from the same donors out in the world to make it look as ifsomething real is happening, when, in fact, the whole thing is a phony front? And then you have, up at the head of the critter--you have how the people behind it get themselves paid. So you have advisers who advise these various entities. You have got the CRC Advisors as the name of the group. It has its public relations antenna here, and it has its strategic advice antenna here, and the money flows usually this way so that the people who run this scheme for the big donors can take their cut. They get paid here. These are all for-profit. These are all the not-for-profits that are set up because they allow you to hide who your donors are. So that is the rig that was set up, and this is not the entirety of the front group scheme that was funded by the $580 million. This is just one coordinated corporate critter that was set up in order to perform all of these different several functions. Think back to the Founding Fathers and their desire to set up a democracy where people made choices about their governments, where popular democracy would be the way in which society went forward. Do you think they had in mind something as creepy and complex as this? And do you think all that effort to build all this scheming, all the lawyers to file all the papers, to cook up all the funny, fictitious names to create all of these bogus organizations--what is the point of all that? Could there be a legitimate point to that? Why all the shells? Why all the hiding if you are not up to no good? Well, the bottom line is, they are up to no good. And the ``no good'' is to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and turn it from a proper Court into a captive political entity that will do what the people who are behind all this money tell it to do. And there are many ways they do it, and I will go into those many ways on other occasions. But on this one occasion, I wanted just to focus on this multifaced corporate creature that hides its donors, that does all of this different work through fake, fictitious name organizations and through which money gets extracted by those who run it so they can pay themselves for this vast disservice to democracy. To be continued. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. WHITEHOUSE | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3856 | null | 4,863 |
formal | coincidence | null | antisemitic | Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, every once in a while, life gives you a wonderful coincidence. The wonderful coincidence this evening is that I have had the pleasure of listening to Senator Sanders describe what happens to a country when billionaires are able to secretly exert immense political power and drive democracy away from its foundations and into the service of the billionaires. The remarks I am here to give are about how they do it--the technique for infiltration and influence of our democracy by the billionaires. This is part of my series of ``Scheme'' speeches, which is about how they have taken over the Supreme Court--captured it--in the same way that, in the 1800s, big railroads captured the railroad commissions that were supposed to set their rates. They just had their people set the rules for them, and it worked great. We are seeing this with the Supreme Court right now. This is not a conservative Supreme Court. This is a captive Supreme Court--captive to special interests--and the technique that they use for getting there is to hide who they are through an array of front groups. There are dozens of front groups that were involved in the Court-capture scheme. The Washington Post did a very good review of them several years ago and calculated, based on information they could get at the time, that this was a quarter-billion-dollar project--$250 million. Well, the research continued, and folks kept digging. When I held a hearing about this in my Judiciary court subcommittee, the number had climbed to $400 million spent on the Court-capture enterprise. They have kept digging and kept digging, and now it turns out the number is over $580 million. Over a half a billion dollars was spent in this effort to capture and control the U.S. Supreme Court. I don't think you spend over $580 million unless you have a purpose, and very often, the purpose is to make that much money back and more. There is a web of front groups that are used to deploy all of that money, and this is just a part of that web. This is just one sort of combined creature in that web. So let me take a few minutes and just go through the different organs and limbs of this creature. The center of it is a pair of organizations, the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund. The way that extremely wealthy people play in politics these days is to put two organizations together that they establish under the Tax Code. One is called a 501(c)(3), which is named after the section of the Tax Code under which it is established. The 501(c)(3) gives you two wonderful things if you are fiddling in politics. One, it gives us anonymity, wherein you don't have to disclose your donors; and, two, it gives you a tax deduction. You get to write off the money that you give to manipulate the American public. But you can't do something very important with a 501(c)(3): You can't go out and manipulate public opinion. You can't participate in elections. So, when you do that, you need to have something else called a 501(c)(4), the very next provision in the IRS Code. So you take your 501(c)(3), and you take your 501(c)(4), and you set them both up. In my view, there is usually no real distinction between the two. There is a doctrine in law called piercing the corporate veil that separates separate corporate entities, that allows people who are trying to pursue usually damages to show that this is a fake corporate division. You pierce the corporate veil. The 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s are a corporate veil that you could probably pierce with a banana. They have the same locations; they have the same mailing addresses; they have the same staff; they have the same board members; they have the same funders. It is essentially the same organization, but it just operates under two legal structures. So that is what you have for starters. You have got your twinned front groups. The 85 Fund is your 501(c)(3), and the Concord Fund is your 501(c)(4). They are essentially the same creature, but in this case, this organism has other limbs. So what you can do under Virginia corporate law is, if you are the 85 Fund or the Concord Fund, you could file with the corporate registry in the State of Virginia permission to operate under what is called a fictitious name. You can operate under your own name, the 85 Fund, or you can file, with permission, a fictitious name. I am not making that up. That is actually the word in Virginia law--a ``fictitious name.'' Well, the 85 Fund filed for permission to operate under the fictitious name of the Judicial Education Project--the 501(c)(3) that takes in money, and ``tax deductibly,'' to work on the capture of the Court. On the other side, over here, the Concord Fund, your twinned 501(c)(4), has its own twinned fictitious name. So the Judicial Education Project has its own little twin in the Judicial Crisis Network. Well, what do we know about the Judicial Crisis Network? We know that it took checks for as much as $15, $17 million from secret donors. Imagine writing a $15 million check to an organization like this. It took that money, and it first ran campaigns to attack Merrick Garland, to round up Republican support for opposing him as a Supreme Court Justice. Then, when that was successful and they brought on Judge Gorsuch, in came other big checks. Then, when Gorsuch was on the Court and it was time for Kavanaugh--other big checks. Then, when it was time for Amy Coney Barrett--other big checks. We have counted four checks over $15 million. They could be from four separate individuals, but it was happening so regularly you would think you would probably go back to the same source. Somebody spent, probably, $60 million to control who got on the U.S. Supreme Court. We don't know what business that $60 million donor had before the Court, but it is not unusual for cases before the Court to have outcomes that will shift way more than $60 million. Just the climate change cases move hundreds of billions of dollars around in protecting fossil fuels' enormous subsidy. So you have your 85 Fund and Concord Fund ``pierce the corporate veil with a banana'' pair, and then you have their fictitious twins, the Judicial Education Project and the Judicial Crisis Network, with big money flowing in. But it is not enough just to pack the Court. You also want to make sure that you are suppressing voters. Voter suppression is a very big deal, so you set up your Honest Elections Project to do voter suppression because, in this weird, billionaire-funded parallel universe, everything has the opposite name of what it is. Over here, you have, on the 501(c)(4) side, your Honest Elections Project Action because there you can spend some of the money politically. So you have got a whole separate set of twins--this time, completely fictitious twins, fictitious names--no different from the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund--designed to go out in the world and suppress voting: bring lawsuits, write challenge letters, argue for new laws. Then, as we saw in Virginia recently, you can really whip people up about what is going on in schools--critical race theory. So you set up your Free to Learn fictitious name with its little twin, Free to Learn Action, to do the 501(c)(4) political work. So now what you have is a total of eight organizations that are really the same. Who does this? Who in real life does this, sets up eight organizations, six of which are mere fictitious names, to run the same money from the same donors out in the world to make it look as ifsomething real is happening, when, in fact, the whole thing is a phony front? And then you have, up at the head of the critter--you have how the people behind it get themselves paid. So you have advisers who advise these various entities. You have got the CRC Advisors as the name of the group. It has its public relations antenna here, and it has its strategic advice antenna here, and the money flows usually this way so that the people who run this scheme for the big donors can take their cut. They get paid here. These are all for-profit. These are all the not-for-profits that are set up because they allow you to hide who your donors are. So that is the rig that was set up, and this is not the entirety of the front group scheme that was funded by the $580 million. This is just one coordinated corporate critter that was set up in order to perform all of these different several functions. Think back to the Founding Fathers and their desire to set up a democracy where people made choices about their governments, where popular democracy would be the way in which society went forward. Do you think they had in mind something as creepy and complex as this? And do you think all that effort to build all this scheming, all the lawyers to file all the papers, to cook up all the funny, fictitious names to create all of these bogus organizations--what is the point of all that? Could there be a legitimate point to that? Why all the shells? Why all the hiding if you are not up to no good? Well, the bottom line is, they are up to no good. And the ``no good'' is to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and turn it from a proper Court into a captive political entity that will do what the people who are behind all this money tell it to do. And there are many ways they do it, and I will go into those many ways on other occasions. But on this one occasion, I wanted just to focus on this multifaced corporate creature that hides its donors, that does all of this different work through fake, fictitious name organizations and through which money gets extracted by those who run it so they can pay themselves for this vast disservice to democracy. To be continued. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. WHITEHOUSE | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3856 | null | 4,864 |
formal | critical race theory | null | racist | Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, every once in a while, life gives you a wonderful coincidence. The wonderful coincidence this evening is that I have had the pleasure of listening to Senator Sanders describe what happens to a country when billionaires are able to secretly exert immense political power and drive democracy away from its foundations and into the service of the billionaires. The remarks I am here to give are about how they do it--the technique for infiltration and influence of our democracy by the billionaires. This is part of my series of ``Scheme'' speeches, which is about how they have taken over the Supreme Court--captured it--in the same way that, in the 1800s, big railroads captured the railroad commissions that were supposed to set their rates. They just had their people set the rules for them, and it worked great. We are seeing this with the Supreme Court right now. This is not a conservative Supreme Court. This is a captive Supreme Court--captive to special interests--and the technique that they use for getting there is to hide who they are through an array of front groups. There are dozens of front groups that were involved in the Court-capture scheme. The Washington Post did a very good review of them several years ago and calculated, based on information they could get at the time, that this was a quarter-billion-dollar project--$250 million. Well, the research continued, and folks kept digging. When I held a hearing about this in my Judiciary court subcommittee, the number had climbed to $400 million spent on the Court-capture enterprise. They have kept digging and kept digging, and now it turns out the number is over $580 million. Over a half a billion dollars was spent in this effort to capture and control the U.S. Supreme Court. I don't think you spend over $580 million unless you have a purpose, and very often, the purpose is to make that much money back and more. There is a web of front groups that are used to deploy all of that money, and this is just a part of that web. This is just one sort of combined creature in that web. So let me take a few minutes and just go through the different organs and limbs of this creature. The center of it is a pair of organizations, the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund. The way that extremely wealthy people play in politics these days is to put two organizations together that they establish under the Tax Code. One is called a 501(c)(3), which is named after the section of the Tax Code under which it is established. The 501(c)(3) gives you two wonderful things if you are fiddling in politics. One, it gives us anonymity, wherein you don't have to disclose your donors; and, two, it gives you a tax deduction. You get to write off the money that you give to manipulate the American public. But you can't do something very important with a 501(c)(3): You can't go out and manipulate public opinion. You can't participate in elections. So, when you do that, you need to have something else called a 501(c)(4), the very next provision in the IRS Code. So you take your 501(c)(3), and you take your 501(c)(4), and you set them both up. In my view, there is usually no real distinction between the two. There is a doctrine in law called piercing the corporate veil that separates separate corporate entities, that allows people who are trying to pursue usually damages to show that this is a fake corporate division. You pierce the corporate veil. The 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s are a corporate veil that you could probably pierce with a banana. They have the same locations; they have the same mailing addresses; they have the same staff; they have the same board members; they have the same funders. It is essentially the same organization, but it just operates under two legal structures. So that is what you have for starters. You have got your twinned front groups. The 85 Fund is your 501(c)(3), and the Concord Fund is your 501(c)(4). They are essentially the same creature, but in this case, this organism has other limbs. So what you can do under Virginia corporate law is, if you are the 85 Fund or the Concord Fund, you could file with the corporate registry in the State of Virginia permission to operate under what is called a fictitious name. You can operate under your own name, the 85 Fund, or you can file, with permission, a fictitious name. I am not making that up. That is actually the word in Virginia law--a ``fictitious name.'' Well, the 85 Fund filed for permission to operate under the fictitious name of the Judicial Education Project--the 501(c)(3) that takes in money, and ``tax deductibly,'' to work on the capture of the Court. On the other side, over here, the Concord Fund, your twinned 501(c)(4), has its own twinned fictitious name. So the Judicial Education Project has its own little twin in the Judicial Crisis Network. Well, what do we know about the Judicial Crisis Network? We know that it took checks for as much as $15, $17 million from secret donors. Imagine writing a $15 million check to an organization like this. It took that money, and it first ran campaigns to attack Merrick Garland, to round up Republican support for opposing him as a Supreme Court Justice. Then, when that was successful and they brought on Judge Gorsuch, in came other big checks. Then, when Gorsuch was on the Court and it was time for Kavanaugh--other big checks. Then, when it was time for Amy Coney Barrett--other big checks. We have counted four checks over $15 million. They could be from four separate individuals, but it was happening so regularly you would think you would probably go back to the same source. Somebody spent, probably, $60 million to control who got on the U.S. Supreme Court. We don't know what business that $60 million donor had before the Court, but it is not unusual for cases before the Court to have outcomes that will shift way more than $60 million. Just the climate change cases move hundreds of billions of dollars around in protecting fossil fuels' enormous subsidy. So you have your 85 Fund and Concord Fund ``pierce the corporate veil with a banana'' pair, and then you have their fictitious twins, the Judicial Education Project and the Judicial Crisis Network, with big money flowing in. But it is not enough just to pack the Court. You also want to make sure that you are suppressing voters. Voter suppression is a very big deal, so you set up your Honest Elections Project to do voter suppression because, in this weird, billionaire-funded parallel universe, everything has the opposite name of what it is. Over here, you have, on the 501(c)(4) side, your Honest Elections Project Action because there you can spend some of the money politically. So you have got a whole separate set of twins--this time, completely fictitious twins, fictitious names--no different from the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund--designed to go out in the world and suppress voting: bring lawsuits, write challenge letters, argue for new laws. Then, as we saw in Virginia recently, you can really whip people up about what is going on in schools--critical race theory. So you set up your Free to Learn fictitious name with its little twin, Free to Learn Action, to do the 501(c)(4) political work. So now what you have is a total of eight organizations that are really the same. Who does this? Who in real life does this, sets up eight organizations, six of which are mere fictitious names, to run the same money from the same donors out in the world to make it look as ifsomething real is happening, when, in fact, the whole thing is a phony front? And then you have, up at the head of the critter--you have how the people behind it get themselves paid. So you have advisers who advise these various entities. You have got the CRC Advisors as the name of the group. It has its public relations antenna here, and it has its strategic advice antenna here, and the money flows usually this way so that the people who run this scheme for the big donors can take their cut. They get paid here. These are all for-profit. These are all the not-for-profits that are set up because they allow you to hide who your donors are. So that is the rig that was set up, and this is not the entirety of the front group scheme that was funded by the $580 million. This is just one coordinated corporate critter that was set up in order to perform all of these different several functions. Think back to the Founding Fathers and their desire to set up a democracy where people made choices about their governments, where popular democracy would be the way in which society went forward. Do you think they had in mind something as creepy and complex as this? And do you think all that effort to build all this scheming, all the lawyers to file all the papers, to cook up all the funny, fictitious names to create all of these bogus organizations--what is the point of all that? Could there be a legitimate point to that? Why all the shells? Why all the hiding if you are not up to no good? Well, the bottom line is, they are up to no good. And the ``no good'' is to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and turn it from a proper Court into a captive political entity that will do what the people who are behind all this money tell it to do. And there are many ways they do it, and I will go into those many ways on other occasions. But on this one occasion, I wanted just to focus on this multifaced corporate creature that hides its donors, that does all of this different work through fake, fictitious name organizations and through which money gets extracted by those who run it so they can pay themselves for this vast disservice to democracy. To be continued. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. WHITEHOUSE | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3856 | null | 4,865 |
formal | special interest | null | antisemitic | Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, every once in a while, life gives you a wonderful coincidence. The wonderful coincidence this evening is that I have had the pleasure of listening to Senator Sanders describe what happens to a country when billionaires are able to secretly exert immense political power and drive democracy away from its foundations and into the service of the billionaires. The remarks I am here to give are about how they do it--the technique for infiltration and influence of our democracy by the billionaires. This is part of my series of ``Scheme'' speeches, which is about how they have taken over the Supreme Court--captured it--in the same way that, in the 1800s, big railroads captured the railroad commissions that were supposed to set their rates. They just had their people set the rules for them, and it worked great. We are seeing this with the Supreme Court right now. This is not a conservative Supreme Court. This is a captive Supreme Court--captive to special interests--and the technique that they use for getting there is to hide who they are through an array of front groups. There are dozens of front groups that were involved in the Court-capture scheme. The Washington Post did a very good review of them several years ago and calculated, based on information they could get at the time, that this was a quarter-billion-dollar project--$250 million. Well, the research continued, and folks kept digging. When I held a hearing about this in my Judiciary court subcommittee, the number had climbed to $400 million spent on the Court-capture enterprise. They have kept digging and kept digging, and now it turns out the number is over $580 million. Over a half a billion dollars was spent in this effort to capture and control the U.S. Supreme Court. I don't think you spend over $580 million unless you have a purpose, and very often, the purpose is to make that much money back and more. There is a web of front groups that are used to deploy all of that money, and this is just a part of that web. This is just one sort of combined creature in that web. So let me take a few minutes and just go through the different organs and limbs of this creature. The center of it is a pair of organizations, the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund. The way that extremely wealthy people play in politics these days is to put two organizations together that they establish under the Tax Code. One is called a 501(c)(3), which is named after the section of the Tax Code under which it is established. The 501(c)(3) gives you two wonderful things if you are fiddling in politics. One, it gives us anonymity, wherein you don't have to disclose your donors; and, two, it gives you a tax deduction. You get to write off the money that you give to manipulate the American public. But you can't do something very important with a 501(c)(3): You can't go out and manipulate public opinion. You can't participate in elections. So, when you do that, you need to have something else called a 501(c)(4), the very next provision in the IRS Code. So you take your 501(c)(3), and you take your 501(c)(4), and you set them both up. In my view, there is usually no real distinction between the two. There is a doctrine in law called piercing the corporate veil that separates separate corporate entities, that allows people who are trying to pursue usually damages to show that this is a fake corporate division. You pierce the corporate veil. The 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s are a corporate veil that you could probably pierce with a banana. They have the same locations; they have the same mailing addresses; they have the same staff; they have the same board members; they have the same funders. It is essentially the same organization, but it just operates under two legal structures. So that is what you have for starters. You have got your twinned front groups. The 85 Fund is your 501(c)(3), and the Concord Fund is your 501(c)(4). They are essentially the same creature, but in this case, this organism has other limbs. So what you can do under Virginia corporate law is, if you are the 85 Fund or the Concord Fund, you could file with the corporate registry in the State of Virginia permission to operate under what is called a fictitious name. You can operate under your own name, the 85 Fund, or you can file, with permission, a fictitious name. I am not making that up. That is actually the word in Virginia law--a ``fictitious name.'' Well, the 85 Fund filed for permission to operate under the fictitious name of the Judicial Education Project--the 501(c)(3) that takes in money, and ``tax deductibly,'' to work on the capture of the Court. On the other side, over here, the Concord Fund, your twinned 501(c)(4), has its own twinned fictitious name. So the Judicial Education Project has its own little twin in the Judicial Crisis Network. Well, what do we know about the Judicial Crisis Network? We know that it took checks for as much as $15, $17 million from secret donors. Imagine writing a $15 million check to an organization like this. It took that money, and it first ran campaigns to attack Merrick Garland, to round up Republican support for opposing him as a Supreme Court Justice. Then, when that was successful and they brought on Judge Gorsuch, in came other big checks. Then, when Gorsuch was on the Court and it was time for Kavanaugh--other big checks. Then, when it was time for Amy Coney Barrett--other big checks. We have counted four checks over $15 million. They could be from four separate individuals, but it was happening so regularly you would think you would probably go back to the same source. Somebody spent, probably, $60 million to control who got on the U.S. Supreme Court. We don't know what business that $60 million donor had before the Court, but it is not unusual for cases before the Court to have outcomes that will shift way more than $60 million. Just the climate change cases move hundreds of billions of dollars around in protecting fossil fuels' enormous subsidy. So you have your 85 Fund and Concord Fund ``pierce the corporate veil with a banana'' pair, and then you have their fictitious twins, the Judicial Education Project and the Judicial Crisis Network, with big money flowing in. But it is not enough just to pack the Court. You also want to make sure that you are suppressing voters. Voter suppression is a very big deal, so you set up your Honest Elections Project to do voter suppression because, in this weird, billionaire-funded parallel universe, everything has the opposite name of what it is. Over here, you have, on the 501(c)(4) side, your Honest Elections Project Action because there you can spend some of the money politically. So you have got a whole separate set of twins--this time, completely fictitious twins, fictitious names--no different from the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund--designed to go out in the world and suppress voting: bring lawsuits, write challenge letters, argue for new laws. Then, as we saw in Virginia recently, you can really whip people up about what is going on in schools--critical race theory. So you set up your Free to Learn fictitious name with its little twin, Free to Learn Action, to do the 501(c)(4) political work. So now what you have is a total of eight organizations that are really the same. Who does this? Who in real life does this, sets up eight organizations, six of which are mere fictitious names, to run the same money from the same donors out in the world to make it look as ifsomething real is happening, when, in fact, the whole thing is a phony front? And then you have, up at the head of the critter--you have how the people behind it get themselves paid. So you have advisers who advise these various entities. You have got the CRC Advisors as the name of the group. It has its public relations antenna here, and it has its strategic advice antenna here, and the money flows usually this way so that the people who run this scheme for the big donors can take their cut. They get paid here. These are all for-profit. These are all the not-for-profits that are set up because they allow you to hide who your donors are. So that is the rig that was set up, and this is not the entirety of the front group scheme that was funded by the $580 million. This is just one coordinated corporate critter that was set up in order to perform all of these different several functions. Think back to the Founding Fathers and their desire to set up a democracy where people made choices about their governments, where popular democracy would be the way in which society went forward. Do you think they had in mind something as creepy and complex as this? And do you think all that effort to build all this scheming, all the lawyers to file all the papers, to cook up all the funny, fictitious names to create all of these bogus organizations--what is the point of all that? Could there be a legitimate point to that? Why all the shells? Why all the hiding if you are not up to no good? Well, the bottom line is, they are up to no good. And the ``no good'' is to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and turn it from a proper Court into a captive political entity that will do what the people who are behind all this money tell it to do. And there are many ways they do it, and I will go into those many ways on other occasions. But on this one occasion, I wanted just to focus on this multifaced corporate creature that hides its donors, that does all of this different work through fake, fictitious name organizations and through which money gets extracted by those who run it so they can pay themselves for this vast disservice to democracy. To be continued. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. WHITEHOUSE | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3856 | null | 4,866 |
formal | special interests | null | antisemitic | Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, every once in a while, life gives you a wonderful coincidence. The wonderful coincidence this evening is that I have had the pleasure of listening to Senator Sanders describe what happens to a country when billionaires are able to secretly exert immense political power and drive democracy away from its foundations and into the service of the billionaires. The remarks I am here to give are about how they do it--the technique for infiltration and influence of our democracy by the billionaires. This is part of my series of ``Scheme'' speeches, which is about how they have taken over the Supreme Court--captured it--in the same way that, in the 1800s, big railroads captured the railroad commissions that were supposed to set their rates. They just had their people set the rules for them, and it worked great. We are seeing this with the Supreme Court right now. This is not a conservative Supreme Court. This is a captive Supreme Court--captive to special interests--and the technique that they use for getting there is to hide who they are through an array of front groups. There are dozens of front groups that were involved in the Court-capture scheme. The Washington Post did a very good review of them several years ago and calculated, based on information they could get at the time, that this was a quarter-billion-dollar project--$250 million. Well, the research continued, and folks kept digging. When I held a hearing about this in my Judiciary court subcommittee, the number had climbed to $400 million spent on the Court-capture enterprise. They have kept digging and kept digging, and now it turns out the number is over $580 million. Over a half a billion dollars was spent in this effort to capture and control the U.S. Supreme Court. I don't think you spend over $580 million unless you have a purpose, and very often, the purpose is to make that much money back and more. There is a web of front groups that are used to deploy all of that money, and this is just a part of that web. This is just one sort of combined creature in that web. So let me take a few minutes and just go through the different organs and limbs of this creature. The center of it is a pair of organizations, the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund. The way that extremely wealthy people play in politics these days is to put two organizations together that they establish under the Tax Code. One is called a 501(c)(3), which is named after the section of the Tax Code under which it is established. The 501(c)(3) gives you two wonderful things if you are fiddling in politics. One, it gives us anonymity, wherein you don't have to disclose your donors; and, two, it gives you a tax deduction. You get to write off the money that you give to manipulate the American public. But you can't do something very important with a 501(c)(3): You can't go out and manipulate public opinion. You can't participate in elections. So, when you do that, you need to have something else called a 501(c)(4), the very next provision in the IRS Code. So you take your 501(c)(3), and you take your 501(c)(4), and you set them both up. In my view, there is usually no real distinction between the two. There is a doctrine in law called piercing the corporate veil that separates separate corporate entities, that allows people who are trying to pursue usually damages to show that this is a fake corporate division. You pierce the corporate veil. The 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s are a corporate veil that you could probably pierce with a banana. They have the same locations; they have the same mailing addresses; they have the same staff; they have the same board members; they have the same funders. It is essentially the same organization, but it just operates under two legal structures. So that is what you have for starters. You have got your twinned front groups. The 85 Fund is your 501(c)(3), and the Concord Fund is your 501(c)(4). They are essentially the same creature, but in this case, this organism has other limbs. So what you can do under Virginia corporate law is, if you are the 85 Fund or the Concord Fund, you could file with the corporate registry in the State of Virginia permission to operate under what is called a fictitious name. You can operate under your own name, the 85 Fund, or you can file, with permission, a fictitious name. I am not making that up. That is actually the word in Virginia law--a ``fictitious name.'' Well, the 85 Fund filed for permission to operate under the fictitious name of the Judicial Education Project--the 501(c)(3) that takes in money, and ``tax deductibly,'' to work on the capture of the Court. On the other side, over here, the Concord Fund, your twinned 501(c)(4), has its own twinned fictitious name. So the Judicial Education Project has its own little twin in the Judicial Crisis Network. Well, what do we know about the Judicial Crisis Network? We know that it took checks for as much as $15, $17 million from secret donors. Imagine writing a $15 million check to an organization like this. It took that money, and it first ran campaigns to attack Merrick Garland, to round up Republican support for opposing him as a Supreme Court Justice. Then, when that was successful and they brought on Judge Gorsuch, in came other big checks. Then, when Gorsuch was on the Court and it was time for Kavanaugh--other big checks. Then, when it was time for Amy Coney Barrett--other big checks. We have counted four checks over $15 million. They could be from four separate individuals, but it was happening so regularly you would think you would probably go back to the same source. Somebody spent, probably, $60 million to control who got on the U.S. Supreme Court. We don't know what business that $60 million donor had before the Court, but it is not unusual for cases before the Court to have outcomes that will shift way more than $60 million. Just the climate change cases move hundreds of billions of dollars around in protecting fossil fuels' enormous subsidy. So you have your 85 Fund and Concord Fund ``pierce the corporate veil with a banana'' pair, and then you have their fictitious twins, the Judicial Education Project and the Judicial Crisis Network, with big money flowing in. But it is not enough just to pack the Court. You also want to make sure that you are suppressing voters. Voter suppression is a very big deal, so you set up your Honest Elections Project to do voter suppression because, in this weird, billionaire-funded parallel universe, everything has the opposite name of what it is. Over here, you have, on the 501(c)(4) side, your Honest Elections Project Action because there you can spend some of the money politically. So you have got a whole separate set of twins--this time, completely fictitious twins, fictitious names--no different from the 85 Fund and the Concord Fund--designed to go out in the world and suppress voting: bring lawsuits, write challenge letters, argue for new laws. Then, as we saw in Virginia recently, you can really whip people up about what is going on in schools--critical race theory. So you set up your Free to Learn fictitious name with its little twin, Free to Learn Action, to do the 501(c)(4) political work. So now what you have is a total of eight organizations that are really the same. Who does this? Who in real life does this, sets up eight organizations, six of which are mere fictitious names, to run the same money from the same donors out in the world to make it look as ifsomething real is happening, when, in fact, the whole thing is a phony front? And then you have, up at the head of the critter--you have how the people behind it get themselves paid. So you have advisers who advise these various entities. You have got the CRC Advisors as the name of the group. It has its public relations antenna here, and it has its strategic advice antenna here, and the money flows usually this way so that the people who run this scheme for the big donors can take their cut. They get paid here. These are all for-profit. These are all the not-for-profits that are set up because they allow you to hide who your donors are. So that is the rig that was set up, and this is not the entirety of the front group scheme that was funded by the $580 million. This is just one coordinated corporate critter that was set up in order to perform all of these different several functions. Think back to the Founding Fathers and their desire to set up a democracy where people made choices about their governments, where popular democracy would be the way in which society went forward. Do you think they had in mind something as creepy and complex as this? And do you think all that effort to build all this scheming, all the lawyers to file all the papers, to cook up all the funny, fictitious names to create all of these bogus organizations--what is the point of all that? Could there be a legitimate point to that? Why all the shells? Why all the hiding if you are not up to no good? Well, the bottom line is, they are up to no good. And the ``no good'' is to capture the U.S. Supreme Court and turn it from a proper Court into a captive political entity that will do what the people who are behind all this money tell it to do. And there are many ways they do it, and I will go into those many ways on other occasions. But on this one occasion, I wanted just to focus on this multifaced corporate creature that hides its donors, that does all of this different work through fake, fictitious name organizations and through which money gets extracted by those who run it so they can pay themselves for this vast disservice to democracy. To be continued. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. WHITEHOUSE | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3856 | null | 4,867 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. Cardin, and Mr. Van Hollen) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations: S. Res. 736 Whereas the Republic of Angola will hold a general election to elect its President and National Assembly on August 24, 2022; Whereas this year's election will be Angola's fifth multiparty election since 1992; Whereas Angola's 2 main political parties, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), were the principal belligerents in the country's 26-year civil war; Whereas Angola experienced its first presidential electoral transition in 2017, when President Joao Lourenco of the MPLA succeeded Jose Eduardo dos Santos, also of the MPLA, who ruled Angola for 38 years; Whereas, despite holding regular elections and having active political opposition parties, Angola is classified as ``Not Free'' by Freedom House due to the ruling MPLA's abuse of state institutions to control political processes and limit free expression; Whereas mass media in Angola is controlled or highly influenced by the state, independent journalists face harassment, opposition parties are subject to bureaucratic interference, and fewer than half of Angolans feel free to speak their mind, according to a 2019 poll by Afrobarometer; Whereas Angola is in a period of economic and social crisis, with widespread frustration over the poor state of the oil-based economy and persistently high rates of poverty, inequality, and public corruption; Whereas, since 2020, Angolans have expressed their dissatisfaction through frequent public protests, which have been met with arrests and police violence against protesters; and Whereas the failure to hold a credible election will dangerously exacerbate political tensions in Angola: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate-- (1) calls on the Government of Angola to hold free, fair, and peaceful elections on August 24, 2022; (2) urges the Government of Angola to ensure the credibility of elections by-- (A) allowing for all parties and candidates to campaign without undue restriction, harassment, or intimidation; (B) publishing and freely disseminating electoral information, including voter rolls and election results; (C) permitting the unrestricted participation of independent election monitors, including by inviting the European Union to send an election observation mission, as the European Union has stated it is prepared to do; (D) ceasing the use of state resources and institutions to support or promote particular political parties or candidates; and (E) reversing the ban on opinion polling during elections; (3) urges all political parties in Angola to pledge that they will not use violence during or after the election, will respect the outcome of the vote, and will investigate any disputes peacefully, using legal mechanisms; (4) urges the people of Angola to exercise their right to vote on election day; (5) calls on all parties to work together, whatever the outcome of the election, to develop and implement a broad- based reform agenda, undertaken in collaboration with civil society, that will address the most urgent issues facing Angola, including by pursuing policies that-- (A) reduce inequality and poverty including by increasing employment opportunities, especially for youth, women, and other marginalized groups; (B) diversify the economy, privatize state-owned enterprises in a fair and transparent manner, attract foreign investment, improve public financial management and oversight, and protect labor and property rights; (C) seek to eliminate public corruption at all levels, including by prosecuting corrupt actors without exception; and (D) enhance and improve civil liberties, human rights, and free expression for all Angolans; (6) calls on the United States Government to hold Angolan officials accountable for any attempts to subvert the electoral process; and (7) stands with the people of Angola and supports their aspirations for a free, democratic election. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3866 | null | 4,868 |
formal | property rights | null | racist | Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. Cardin, and Mr. Van Hollen) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations: S. Res. 736 Whereas the Republic of Angola will hold a general election to elect its President and National Assembly on August 24, 2022; Whereas this year's election will be Angola's fifth multiparty election since 1992; Whereas Angola's 2 main political parties, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), were the principal belligerents in the country's 26-year civil war; Whereas Angola experienced its first presidential electoral transition in 2017, when President Joao Lourenco of the MPLA succeeded Jose Eduardo dos Santos, also of the MPLA, who ruled Angola for 38 years; Whereas, despite holding regular elections and having active political opposition parties, Angola is classified as ``Not Free'' by Freedom House due to the ruling MPLA's abuse of state institutions to control political processes and limit free expression; Whereas mass media in Angola is controlled or highly influenced by the state, independent journalists face harassment, opposition parties are subject to bureaucratic interference, and fewer than half of Angolans feel free to speak their mind, according to a 2019 poll by Afrobarometer; Whereas Angola is in a period of economic and social crisis, with widespread frustration over the poor state of the oil-based economy and persistently high rates of poverty, inequality, and public corruption; Whereas, since 2020, Angolans have expressed their dissatisfaction through frequent public protests, which have been met with arrests and police violence against protesters; and Whereas the failure to hold a credible election will dangerously exacerbate political tensions in Angola: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate-- (1) calls on the Government of Angola to hold free, fair, and peaceful elections on August 24, 2022; (2) urges the Government of Angola to ensure the credibility of elections by-- (A) allowing for all parties and candidates to campaign without undue restriction, harassment, or intimidation; (B) publishing and freely disseminating electoral information, including voter rolls and election results; (C) permitting the unrestricted participation of independent election monitors, including by inviting the European Union to send an election observation mission, as the European Union has stated it is prepared to do; (D) ceasing the use of state resources and institutions to support or promote particular political parties or candidates; and (E) reversing the ban on opinion polling during elections; (3) urges all political parties in Angola to pledge that they will not use violence during or after the election, will respect the outcome of the vote, and will investigate any disputes peacefully, using legal mechanisms; (4) urges the people of Angola to exercise their right to vote on election day; (5) calls on all parties to work together, whatever the outcome of the election, to develop and implement a broad- based reform agenda, undertaken in collaboration with civil society, that will address the most urgent issues facing Angola, including by pursuing policies that-- (A) reduce inequality and poverty including by increasing employment opportunities, especially for youth, women, and other marginalized groups; (B) diversify the economy, privatize state-owned enterprises in a fair and transparent manner, attract foreign investment, improve public financial management and oversight, and protect labor and property rights; (C) seek to eliminate public corruption at all levels, including by prosecuting corrupt actors without exception; and (D) enhance and improve civil liberties, human rights, and free expression for all Angolans; (6) calls on the United States Government to hold Angolan officials accountable for any attempts to subvert the electoral process; and (7) stands with the people of Angola and supports their aspirations for a free, democratic election. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3866 | null | 4,869 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about the Democrats' latest reconciliation proposal. This is the tax-and-spend legislation you have probably heard about. It is called the Inflation Reduction Act, but don't be fooled by the name. It doesn't actually decrease the inflationary pressure we all feel at the gas pump, at the grocery store, clothes shopping. It actually makes it worse. Sadly, we have been down this road before. Early last year, the Democrats passed a massive $1.9 trillion package that was supposedly focused on COVID, but most of it had nothing to with COVID but provided a lot of stimulus. It was the largest spending package ever in the history of Congress, and, at the time it passed, a lot of us said: Wow, the economy coming out of that first stage of COVID is already picking up steam. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was telling us that, by midyear last year, we would be back to where we were prepandemic--pretty strong economic growth--and yet the Democrats were insisting on another $1.9 trillion, almost $2 trillion, of spending. Remember, we had just passed a $900 billion spending bill to help with COVID, which was bipartisan, by the way. I was part of putting that together. And so when it came to this new one, we said: Whoa, don't do this. It is going to overheat the economy, overstimulate the economy--particularly because inflation is about demand mismatching supply. And this is exactly what was happening. You had demand growing and supply constricted, partly because of COVID, partly because of policy decisions that were being made. So we warned that this much stimulus in the economy was going to lead to inflation, and very sadly, we were right. By the way, it wasn't just Republicans who said that. Some prominent Democrat officials said that, including some who had been senior economic advisers in the Obama administration, in the Clinton administration, including Larry Summers, who was quite prescient when he said: Gosh, we shouldn't do this because this is going to heat up the economy and cause a lot of inflation. Democrats didn't pay any attention to those concerns then. They went ahead and passed that legislation. Remember, today, we are looking at inflation that is the highest it has been in 40 years, and here we are today about to do some of the same exact things: more spending, more taxes. It is $700 billion more in spending and about $326 billion in taxes--new taxes on the economy. It will not reduce inflation. In fact, the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts it will actually increase inflation over the next 2 years and that, over time, it will be about even. But it won't decrease inflation. In fact, over the first couple of years, they say it will increase it. And the burden of the $326 billion in the tax increases is not just going to companies. It never does. It gets passed along. In this case, it falls, of course, to workers and to consumers. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that we have to rely on up here--it is a nonpartisan group that gives us the analyses of these tax bills--it will hurt Americans in nearly every income bracket. In fact, they say more than half of the $300 million in new taxes will fall on folks making less than $400,000 a year. Why? Because, again, you are taxing a company, but the company passes that along to its workers and to its customers. And they are saying that more than half of that burden will fall on taxpayers who make less than $400,000 a year. Why do I say that? Because that is the cutoff that President Biden has always put in place, saying that no tax increases will affect anybody who makes less than 400,000 bucks a year. This one does. Again, it is based on the Joint Committee on Taxation. As part of these tax hikes, manufacturing is hit particularly hard. The Joint Committee says that about 50 percent of the impact of this tax increase is going to be on manufacturing businesses. Now, this is interesting to me because we just passed a big bill. Some call it the CHIPS bill. Some call it the China bill. Some call it the Competition bill. But it was a bill to focus on what? Making our American companies more competitive, particularly our manufacturing companies. And we are spending a lot of money--hundreds of billions of dollars--to do that. And here we are turning around and saying: No. Do you know what? We are actually going to increase taxes on these manufacturing businesses. This proposed tax is very different from the existing corporate income tax, which is based on income that these businesses actually report to the Internal Revenue Service when they file their taxes. That income has been defined by Congress over the years. It doesn't use that as the measure of income. Instead, it looks at a company's financial statements and comes up with a new definition of income called the adjusted financial statement income. This type of financial reporting is far broader because these statements were designed for very different reasons. Taxable income that the IRS is in charge of, as opposed to financial income, is meant to raise revenue and provides in our Tax Code all kinds of tax preferences, incentives, disincentives for certain activity--like being able to deduct the cost of new equipment. That is something we want to encourage. So we allow companies to do that. Like being able to take a tax credit, let's say, for energy efficiency--we want to encourage companies to do that. So that is in the tax part as opposed to the book income part. The financial statement income is not determined by elected representatives. In other words, Congress doesn't determine how you calculate that tax. The financial statement income is actually determined by something called the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is a private nonprofit recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as the accounting standard setter for public companies. Now, that works fine for determining accounting standards, but this change effectively puts these people in control of what the corporate tax base is, even though they are not elected Representatives. They are not even working for the government. They are a nonprofit. Because corporate income taxes and this book minimum tax are calculated using these very different types of information, the 15-percent minimum tax, which is a book-tax minimum tax, can actually end up being larger for companies than the 21-percent income tax--again, because it calculates it differently. It is an example of Congress avoiding its responsibility, frankly. If we think that we should charge companies more taxation, let's look at the Tax Code and let's get rid of some of these tax preferences that people think don't work. Let's change the Tax Code. Let's not come up with another way to calculate what the tax ought to be--determined, again, by accounting standards that are done by this nonprofit group called the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Instead of examining the Tax Code we created and the deductions and credits that exist, it simply hands the reins over to this board. Most accountants and tax experts recognize this isreally a dangerous path. This is why, when it was proposed last year, 264 accounting academics wrote to Congress to warn us not to do it. They warned of the dangers of politicizing this accounting board, how that would lower the quality of financial accounting. They warned that this would change company decision making to make companies less efficient because companies are now going to manage toward the financial statement, not toward the income tax. They also warned that it would add needless and significant complexity to the Tax Code. Well, of course, you are going to calculate, now, income on two bases, with very, very different measurement and factors considered. To their credit, actually, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, who actually stand to benefit from complexity, separately also wrote us just recently a letter saying: Please don't do this. This is the CPA organization in the whole country--again, people who would benefit from complexity--but they are saying this is just bad policy. Why would you determine a company's taxation based on the book income? That is not what that is for. We should listen to these warnings, and we should also learn from history. We tried this type of tax in the form of the 1986 tax reform. We actually tried this as a country. And do you know what? It lasted 2 or 3 years, and then it was repealed. Why? Because it didn't work. The exact warnings that we just talked about ended up being true. The Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Tax Policy told the House Ways and Means Committee when it was repealed that the book tax they had then was ``having a detrimental effect on the quality of financial reporting.'' The complexity was complained about and the fact that this was not fair and was not an appropriate way to measure a company's income. Now, more than 30 years later, Democrats seem to have forgotten history and are about to repeat the same mistake. The line you are likely to hear from some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle is that this tax is just designed to make big companies pay their fair share of taxes because it only applies to companies who have more than a billion dollars in net income. Well, that is fine. But guess who pays this tax. It is not corporations that bear the brunt of it. In reality, taxes on corporate income, such as this new book minimum tax, falls on workers and it falls on consumers. And there are lots of workers and consumers who are connected with these companies. Last year, there were over 200 companies listed in the Fortune 500 as having a billion dollars in profits or more, and, by the way, they employed more than 18 million Americans. You are talking about 18 million people out there who will be affected by this, and these big companies also have a lot of consumers well beyond those 18 million. So it is the millions of people who are employees and who are customers in these businesses who bear the brunt of these tax increases as they are passed down to them in the form of lower wages, lower benefits, and higher prices for goods and services--exactly the wrong thing in this inflationary spiral we are living in now where everything costs more. Why would we want to add additional costs by saying we are going to tax these companies that are going to pass it along to their workers and to the consumers with higher prices? It doesn't matter whether you are taxing income or income on financial statements; the corporate income tax falls on these workers. Don't take my word for it. Again, the Joint Committee on Taxation just last year said that they expect about 25 percent of corporate taxes to fall on workers. This means lower wages, again, as this recession looms and as inflation hits the highest levels since 1981, 40-plus years. By the way, we just went through our second quarter of negative economic growth. Traditionally, that means a recession. That is how we define one. The administration refuses to call it a recession. I will just tell you, for people who live in my home State of Ohio--particularly people on fixed income, lower and middle-income workers--they are feeling it. For them, it is a recession. In addition to the Joint Committee saying that the corporate taxes fall on workers, the Congressional Budget Office--again, a nonpartisan group up here in Congress--has said that employees and workers bear more like 70 percent--70 percent--of the burden of corporate income taxes. There is a long list of analyses in between. In 2017, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, reviewed many of the available economic studies around the world that have been done and found that the best studies fall within this range of about 30 to 70 percent. Let me say that again. Overwhelmingly, economic studies support the idea that workers bear between 30 and 70 percent of the corporate tax hikes. So going after workers' wages is one heck of a strategy to bring down inflation. People are already hurting because wages are here and inflation is here. So wages haven't kept up with inflation. This will make it worse. Germany, by the way, did an analysis of corporate taxes recently and found that the burden fell hardest on low-skilled, young, and female employees, not the highest earners. The most important of these tax law changes is limiting what is called bonus depreciation. That is something that you would get as a company if you are in the regular income tax system but not under this new book tax calculation. What is bonus depreciation? Well, it allows companies to deduct the costs of investments, of new equipment in the year they are made. Under the book tax, they spread that deduction over the lifetime of the investment. In both cases, they are deducting the cost of it, but whether they can do it immediately under bonus depreciation or whether they have to do it over the course of many years matters a lot for investment decisions. Being able to deduct the cost of these investments immediately provides a big incentive for people to invest, and that is what has happened. This is not a loophole. I have heard this word: It is a loophole; we are just closing loopholes. This is not a loophole. This is a deliberate tax policy that we have put in place to help encourage companies to invest more in equipment and plan and therefore help the workers, therefore make America more competitive, and, actually, over time, it increases the tax revenue that comes in to our coffers. It is really important to encourage investment and economic growth but particularly important for manufacturers. That is why the Joint Committee on Taxation found that half of the burden of this new tax will fall on manufacturers because bonus depreciation is so important to them. This isn't unique to us. Every single developed country in the world offers a policy like bonus depreciation. Why? Because it works, because if they don't and other countries do, they can't compete. The United Kingdom is far more generous than ours, for example, for purchase of equipment. Across the assets that use this sort of what is called cost recovery, we are actually well below the average in the OECD, which is the group of about 40 highly developed countries like ours. We rank 21st now out of 38 for these types of incentives. This will make us even less competitive, meaning it is going to be better for manufacturers to invest in other countries that have better incentives rather than here in the USA. We want them to invest here. Again, we just passed legislation to provide more incentives to invest here, and now we are doing just the opposite through this book tax increase. Bonus depreciations traditionally had bipartisan support, and this sudden shift to call this bonus depreciation a loophole is a misrepresentation of what bonus depreciation does, why we have it, and how important it is for our manufacturers to compete. We expanded bonus depreciation in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And then in 2018, the next year, and 2019, the next year after that, we had two of the best years ever for manufacturing investment, growing by 4.5 percent and then 5.7 percent, respectively. A lot of that growth was going on, prior to that time, overseas, particularly in China. And we brought investment back to the United States. This is why, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the manufacturing industry is so hit hard by this. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, in 2023, this tax increase would shrink GDP--that is our economic growth--by about $68 billion, would result in 218,000 fewer jobs, and it would have a labor decrease of about $17 billion. This is the National Association of Manufacturers telling us this week: Please don't do this. This is going to result in a job loss to over 200,000 jobs. We want to have more manufacturing jobs, not less. The workers hit hardest are those who work in manufacturing because this tax hike on physical assets will disproportionately hit manufacturing jobs. My home State of Ohio has a lot of manufacturing jobs. We are a big manufacturer. We are proud of that. We have a lot of factories. We like to make things. So it will particularly hit States like mine. But, remember, it is not just wages we are talking about. No. Workers get hit at both ends. They get hit as workers--wages and benefits--but also as consumers when they get paid and when they try to spend their money. Families facing record inflation today are facing higher prices as cost of corporate taxes get passed down to the consumer. Again, I am not going on gut feeling; although, it makes sense, doesn't it? If you tax an entity, it gets passed along in terms of the cost of the goods. I am talking about what economists are saying is going to happen when we increase taxes on American businesses. In a key study last year performed by economists at the business schools of the University of Chicago and Northwestern, they found that about 31 percent of corporate taxes fall on consumers through higher retail prices, and they warn that policymakers have been underestimating significantly how much of these taxes fall on consumers, on the people that buy these products that these companies make. Democrats are ignoring this evidence, pushing ahead with partisan legislation, without any Republican support, that will make inflation worse; that will hurt workers; that will raise prices. Again, it doesn't stop there. I can talk about how corporate taxes discourage investment, both domestic and foreign, in the United States, according to economists from the World Bank and from Harvard. I can talk about how, contrary everything the Democrats claim, corporate taxes make income inequality actually worse, increasing the income of the top earners and lowering the income of the low- and middle-income workers. This is based on a 2020 study by an economist at the University of Michigan. I can talk about the opposite side of the equation, how lowering taxes for businesses of all sizes, as we did in 2017, supports economic growth. Going into the pandemic, we had 19 straight months of wage gains of 3 percent or more. Most of that wage gain was going to lower- and middle-income workers. We had the lowest poverty rate in the history of the country. We had good things going on because you had this economic growth. You had companies paying higher wages. In the years between the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the coronavirus pandemic, again, we not only saw just an end to these corporate inversions with companies going overseas, we saw jobs and investment coming back to the United States, and we kept inflation very low. That is a far cry from the estimate that was out last week from the National Association of Manufacturers, which, again, predicts that this book tax will result in a $68 billion hit to our economy with over 200,000 fewer jobs. Prior to the pandemic, pro-growth policies led to a really strong economy with steady growth, low inflation, and real wage increases of 3 percent or higher. Instead of spending and tax hikes that are only going to add to this inflation, let's have a true Inflation Reduction Act that lowers costs to consumers by increasing supply to regulatory relief and other pro-growth policies that were working so well before the pandemic. Let's do what we know we have to do to get inflation down. It is a mismatch between demand and supply. We can, through positive pro-growth policies, increase that supply and get inflation down and ensure that American families have a better shot at their American dream. Instead, here we go again with the Inflation Reduction Act that will actually be the ``Inflation Increase Act.'' | 2020-01-06 | Mr. PORTMAN | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3869-2 | null | 4,870 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about the Democrats' latest reconciliation proposal. This is the tax-and-spend legislation you have probably heard about. It is called the Inflation Reduction Act, but don't be fooled by the name. It doesn't actually decrease the inflationary pressure we all feel at the gas pump, at the grocery store, clothes shopping. It actually makes it worse. Sadly, we have been down this road before. Early last year, the Democrats passed a massive $1.9 trillion package that was supposedly focused on COVID, but most of it had nothing to with COVID but provided a lot of stimulus. It was the largest spending package ever in the history of Congress, and, at the time it passed, a lot of us said: Wow, the economy coming out of that first stage of COVID is already picking up steam. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was telling us that, by midyear last year, we would be back to where we were prepandemic--pretty strong economic growth--and yet the Democrats were insisting on another $1.9 trillion, almost $2 trillion, of spending. Remember, we had just passed a $900 billion spending bill to help with COVID, which was bipartisan, by the way. I was part of putting that together. And so when it came to this new one, we said: Whoa, don't do this. It is going to overheat the economy, overstimulate the economy--particularly because inflation is about demand mismatching supply. And this is exactly what was happening. You had demand growing and supply constricted, partly because of COVID, partly because of policy decisions that were being made. So we warned that this much stimulus in the economy was going to lead to inflation, and very sadly, we were right. By the way, it wasn't just Republicans who said that. Some prominent Democrat officials said that, including some who had been senior economic advisers in the Obama administration, in the Clinton administration, including Larry Summers, who was quite prescient when he said: Gosh, we shouldn't do this because this is going to heat up the economy and cause a lot of inflation. Democrats didn't pay any attention to those concerns then. They went ahead and passed that legislation. Remember, today, we are looking at inflation that is the highest it has been in 40 years, and here we are today about to do some of the same exact things: more spending, more taxes. It is $700 billion more in spending and about $326 billion in taxes--new taxes on the economy. It will not reduce inflation. In fact, the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts it will actually increase inflation over the next 2 years and that, over time, it will be about even. But it won't decrease inflation. In fact, over the first couple of years, they say it will increase it. And the burden of the $326 billion in the tax increases is not just going to companies. It never does. It gets passed along. In this case, it falls, of course, to workers and to consumers. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that we have to rely on up here--it is a nonpartisan group that gives us the analyses of these tax bills--it will hurt Americans in nearly every income bracket. In fact, they say more than half of the $300 million in new taxes will fall on folks making less than $400,000 a year. Why? Because, again, you are taxing a company, but the company passes that along to its workers and to its customers. And they are saying that more than half of that burden will fall on taxpayers who make less than $400,000 a year. Why do I say that? Because that is the cutoff that President Biden has always put in place, saying that no tax increases will affect anybody who makes less than 400,000 bucks a year. This one does. Again, it is based on the Joint Committee on Taxation. As part of these tax hikes, manufacturing is hit particularly hard. The Joint Committee says that about 50 percent of the impact of this tax increase is going to be on manufacturing businesses. Now, this is interesting to me because we just passed a big bill. Some call it the CHIPS bill. Some call it the China bill. Some call it the Competition bill. But it was a bill to focus on what? Making our American companies more competitive, particularly our manufacturing companies. And we are spending a lot of money--hundreds of billions of dollars--to do that. And here we are turning around and saying: No. Do you know what? We are actually going to increase taxes on these manufacturing businesses. This proposed tax is very different from the existing corporate income tax, which is based on income that these businesses actually report to the Internal Revenue Service when they file their taxes. That income has been defined by Congress over the years. It doesn't use that as the measure of income. Instead, it looks at a company's financial statements and comes up with a new definition of income called the adjusted financial statement income. This type of financial reporting is far broader because these statements were designed for very different reasons. Taxable income that the IRS is in charge of, as opposed to financial income, is meant to raise revenue and provides in our Tax Code all kinds of tax preferences, incentives, disincentives for certain activity--like being able to deduct the cost of new equipment. That is something we want to encourage. So we allow companies to do that. Like being able to take a tax credit, let's say, for energy efficiency--we want to encourage companies to do that. So that is in the tax part as opposed to the book income part. The financial statement income is not determined by elected representatives. In other words, Congress doesn't determine how you calculate that tax. The financial statement income is actually determined by something called the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is a private nonprofit recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as the accounting standard setter for public companies. Now, that works fine for determining accounting standards, but this change effectively puts these people in control of what the corporate tax base is, even though they are not elected Representatives. They are not even working for the government. They are a nonprofit. Because corporate income taxes and this book minimum tax are calculated using these very different types of information, the 15-percent minimum tax, which is a book-tax minimum tax, can actually end up being larger for companies than the 21-percent income tax--again, because it calculates it differently. It is an example of Congress avoiding its responsibility, frankly. If we think that we should charge companies more taxation, let's look at the Tax Code and let's get rid of some of these tax preferences that people think don't work. Let's change the Tax Code. Let's not come up with another way to calculate what the tax ought to be--determined, again, by accounting standards that are done by this nonprofit group called the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Instead of examining the Tax Code we created and the deductions and credits that exist, it simply hands the reins over to this board. Most accountants and tax experts recognize this isreally a dangerous path. This is why, when it was proposed last year, 264 accounting academics wrote to Congress to warn us not to do it. They warned of the dangers of politicizing this accounting board, how that would lower the quality of financial accounting. They warned that this would change company decision making to make companies less efficient because companies are now going to manage toward the financial statement, not toward the income tax. They also warned that it would add needless and significant complexity to the Tax Code. Well, of course, you are going to calculate, now, income on two bases, with very, very different measurement and factors considered. To their credit, actually, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, who actually stand to benefit from complexity, separately also wrote us just recently a letter saying: Please don't do this. This is the CPA organization in the whole country--again, people who would benefit from complexity--but they are saying this is just bad policy. Why would you determine a company's taxation based on the book income? That is not what that is for. We should listen to these warnings, and we should also learn from history. We tried this type of tax in the form of the 1986 tax reform. We actually tried this as a country. And do you know what? It lasted 2 or 3 years, and then it was repealed. Why? Because it didn't work. The exact warnings that we just talked about ended up being true. The Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Tax Policy told the House Ways and Means Committee when it was repealed that the book tax they had then was ``having a detrimental effect on the quality of financial reporting.'' The complexity was complained about and the fact that this was not fair and was not an appropriate way to measure a company's income. Now, more than 30 years later, Democrats seem to have forgotten history and are about to repeat the same mistake. The line you are likely to hear from some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle is that this tax is just designed to make big companies pay their fair share of taxes because it only applies to companies who have more than a billion dollars in net income. Well, that is fine. But guess who pays this tax. It is not corporations that bear the brunt of it. In reality, taxes on corporate income, such as this new book minimum tax, falls on workers and it falls on consumers. And there are lots of workers and consumers who are connected with these companies. Last year, there were over 200 companies listed in the Fortune 500 as having a billion dollars in profits or more, and, by the way, they employed more than 18 million Americans. You are talking about 18 million people out there who will be affected by this, and these big companies also have a lot of consumers well beyond those 18 million. So it is the millions of people who are employees and who are customers in these businesses who bear the brunt of these tax increases as they are passed down to them in the form of lower wages, lower benefits, and higher prices for goods and services--exactly the wrong thing in this inflationary spiral we are living in now where everything costs more. Why would we want to add additional costs by saying we are going to tax these companies that are going to pass it along to their workers and to the consumers with higher prices? It doesn't matter whether you are taxing income or income on financial statements; the corporate income tax falls on these workers. Don't take my word for it. Again, the Joint Committee on Taxation just last year said that they expect about 25 percent of corporate taxes to fall on workers. This means lower wages, again, as this recession looms and as inflation hits the highest levels since 1981, 40-plus years. By the way, we just went through our second quarter of negative economic growth. Traditionally, that means a recession. That is how we define one. The administration refuses to call it a recession. I will just tell you, for people who live in my home State of Ohio--particularly people on fixed income, lower and middle-income workers--they are feeling it. For them, it is a recession. In addition to the Joint Committee saying that the corporate taxes fall on workers, the Congressional Budget Office--again, a nonpartisan group up here in Congress--has said that employees and workers bear more like 70 percent--70 percent--of the burden of corporate income taxes. There is a long list of analyses in between. In 2017, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, reviewed many of the available economic studies around the world that have been done and found that the best studies fall within this range of about 30 to 70 percent. Let me say that again. Overwhelmingly, economic studies support the idea that workers bear between 30 and 70 percent of the corporate tax hikes. So going after workers' wages is one heck of a strategy to bring down inflation. People are already hurting because wages are here and inflation is here. So wages haven't kept up with inflation. This will make it worse. Germany, by the way, did an analysis of corporate taxes recently and found that the burden fell hardest on low-skilled, young, and female employees, not the highest earners. The most important of these tax law changes is limiting what is called bonus depreciation. That is something that you would get as a company if you are in the regular income tax system but not under this new book tax calculation. What is bonus depreciation? Well, it allows companies to deduct the costs of investments, of new equipment in the year they are made. Under the book tax, they spread that deduction over the lifetime of the investment. In both cases, they are deducting the cost of it, but whether they can do it immediately under bonus depreciation or whether they have to do it over the course of many years matters a lot for investment decisions. Being able to deduct the cost of these investments immediately provides a big incentive for people to invest, and that is what has happened. This is not a loophole. I have heard this word: It is a loophole; we are just closing loopholes. This is not a loophole. This is a deliberate tax policy that we have put in place to help encourage companies to invest more in equipment and plan and therefore help the workers, therefore make America more competitive, and, actually, over time, it increases the tax revenue that comes in to our coffers. It is really important to encourage investment and economic growth but particularly important for manufacturers. That is why the Joint Committee on Taxation found that half of the burden of this new tax will fall on manufacturers because bonus depreciation is so important to them. This isn't unique to us. Every single developed country in the world offers a policy like bonus depreciation. Why? Because it works, because if they don't and other countries do, they can't compete. The United Kingdom is far more generous than ours, for example, for purchase of equipment. Across the assets that use this sort of what is called cost recovery, we are actually well below the average in the OECD, which is the group of about 40 highly developed countries like ours. We rank 21st now out of 38 for these types of incentives. This will make us even less competitive, meaning it is going to be better for manufacturers to invest in other countries that have better incentives rather than here in the USA. We want them to invest here. Again, we just passed legislation to provide more incentives to invest here, and now we are doing just the opposite through this book tax increase. Bonus depreciations traditionally had bipartisan support, and this sudden shift to call this bonus depreciation a loophole is a misrepresentation of what bonus depreciation does, why we have it, and how important it is for our manufacturers to compete. We expanded bonus depreciation in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And then in 2018, the next year, and 2019, the next year after that, we had two of the best years ever for manufacturing investment, growing by 4.5 percent and then 5.7 percent, respectively. A lot of that growth was going on, prior to that time, overseas, particularly in China. And we brought investment back to the United States. This is why, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the manufacturing industry is so hit hard by this. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, in 2023, this tax increase would shrink GDP--that is our economic growth--by about $68 billion, would result in 218,000 fewer jobs, and it would have a labor decrease of about $17 billion. This is the National Association of Manufacturers telling us this week: Please don't do this. This is going to result in a job loss to over 200,000 jobs. We want to have more manufacturing jobs, not less. The workers hit hardest are those who work in manufacturing because this tax hike on physical assets will disproportionately hit manufacturing jobs. My home State of Ohio has a lot of manufacturing jobs. We are a big manufacturer. We are proud of that. We have a lot of factories. We like to make things. So it will particularly hit States like mine. But, remember, it is not just wages we are talking about. No. Workers get hit at both ends. They get hit as workers--wages and benefits--but also as consumers when they get paid and when they try to spend their money. Families facing record inflation today are facing higher prices as cost of corporate taxes get passed down to the consumer. Again, I am not going on gut feeling; although, it makes sense, doesn't it? If you tax an entity, it gets passed along in terms of the cost of the goods. I am talking about what economists are saying is going to happen when we increase taxes on American businesses. In a key study last year performed by economists at the business schools of the University of Chicago and Northwestern, they found that about 31 percent of corporate taxes fall on consumers through higher retail prices, and they warn that policymakers have been underestimating significantly how much of these taxes fall on consumers, on the people that buy these products that these companies make. Democrats are ignoring this evidence, pushing ahead with partisan legislation, without any Republican support, that will make inflation worse; that will hurt workers; that will raise prices. Again, it doesn't stop there. I can talk about how corporate taxes discourage investment, both domestic and foreign, in the United States, according to economists from the World Bank and from Harvard. I can talk about how, contrary everything the Democrats claim, corporate taxes make income inequality actually worse, increasing the income of the top earners and lowering the income of the low- and middle-income workers. This is based on a 2020 study by an economist at the University of Michigan. I can talk about the opposite side of the equation, how lowering taxes for businesses of all sizes, as we did in 2017, supports economic growth. Going into the pandemic, we had 19 straight months of wage gains of 3 percent or more. Most of that wage gain was going to lower- and middle-income workers. We had the lowest poverty rate in the history of the country. We had good things going on because you had this economic growth. You had companies paying higher wages. In the years between the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the coronavirus pandemic, again, we not only saw just an end to these corporate inversions with companies going overseas, we saw jobs and investment coming back to the United States, and we kept inflation very low. That is a far cry from the estimate that was out last week from the National Association of Manufacturers, which, again, predicts that this book tax will result in a $68 billion hit to our economy with over 200,000 fewer jobs. Prior to the pandemic, pro-growth policies led to a really strong economy with steady growth, low inflation, and real wage increases of 3 percent or higher. Instead of spending and tax hikes that are only going to add to this inflation, let's have a true Inflation Reduction Act that lowers costs to consumers by increasing supply to regulatory relief and other pro-growth policies that were working so well before the pandemic. Let's do what we know we have to do to get inflation down. It is a mismatch between demand and supply. We can, through positive pro-growth policies, increase that supply and get inflation down and ensure that American families have a better shot at their American dream. Instead, here we go again with the Inflation Reduction Act that will actually be the ``Inflation Increase Act.'' | 2020-01-06 | Mr. PORTMAN | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3869-2 | null | 4,871 |
formal | Chicago | null | racist | Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about the Democrats' latest reconciliation proposal. This is the tax-and-spend legislation you have probably heard about. It is called the Inflation Reduction Act, but don't be fooled by the name. It doesn't actually decrease the inflationary pressure we all feel at the gas pump, at the grocery store, clothes shopping. It actually makes it worse. Sadly, we have been down this road before. Early last year, the Democrats passed a massive $1.9 trillion package that was supposedly focused on COVID, but most of it had nothing to with COVID but provided a lot of stimulus. It was the largest spending package ever in the history of Congress, and, at the time it passed, a lot of us said: Wow, the economy coming out of that first stage of COVID is already picking up steam. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was telling us that, by midyear last year, we would be back to where we were prepandemic--pretty strong economic growth--and yet the Democrats were insisting on another $1.9 trillion, almost $2 trillion, of spending. Remember, we had just passed a $900 billion spending bill to help with COVID, which was bipartisan, by the way. I was part of putting that together. And so when it came to this new one, we said: Whoa, don't do this. It is going to overheat the economy, overstimulate the economy--particularly because inflation is about demand mismatching supply. And this is exactly what was happening. You had demand growing and supply constricted, partly because of COVID, partly because of policy decisions that were being made. So we warned that this much stimulus in the economy was going to lead to inflation, and very sadly, we were right. By the way, it wasn't just Republicans who said that. Some prominent Democrat officials said that, including some who had been senior economic advisers in the Obama administration, in the Clinton administration, including Larry Summers, who was quite prescient when he said: Gosh, we shouldn't do this because this is going to heat up the economy and cause a lot of inflation. Democrats didn't pay any attention to those concerns then. They went ahead and passed that legislation. Remember, today, we are looking at inflation that is the highest it has been in 40 years, and here we are today about to do some of the same exact things: more spending, more taxes. It is $700 billion more in spending and about $326 billion in taxes--new taxes on the economy. It will not reduce inflation. In fact, the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts it will actually increase inflation over the next 2 years and that, over time, it will be about even. But it won't decrease inflation. In fact, over the first couple of years, they say it will increase it. And the burden of the $326 billion in the tax increases is not just going to companies. It never does. It gets passed along. In this case, it falls, of course, to workers and to consumers. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that we have to rely on up here--it is a nonpartisan group that gives us the analyses of these tax bills--it will hurt Americans in nearly every income bracket. In fact, they say more than half of the $300 million in new taxes will fall on folks making less than $400,000 a year. Why? Because, again, you are taxing a company, but the company passes that along to its workers and to its customers. And they are saying that more than half of that burden will fall on taxpayers who make less than $400,000 a year. Why do I say that? Because that is the cutoff that President Biden has always put in place, saying that no tax increases will affect anybody who makes less than 400,000 bucks a year. This one does. Again, it is based on the Joint Committee on Taxation. As part of these tax hikes, manufacturing is hit particularly hard. The Joint Committee says that about 50 percent of the impact of this tax increase is going to be on manufacturing businesses. Now, this is interesting to me because we just passed a big bill. Some call it the CHIPS bill. Some call it the China bill. Some call it the Competition bill. But it was a bill to focus on what? Making our American companies more competitive, particularly our manufacturing companies. And we are spending a lot of money--hundreds of billions of dollars--to do that. And here we are turning around and saying: No. Do you know what? We are actually going to increase taxes on these manufacturing businesses. This proposed tax is very different from the existing corporate income tax, which is based on income that these businesses actually report to the Internal Revenue Service when they file their taxes. That income has been defined by Congress over the years. It doesn't use that as the measure of income. Instead, it looks at a company's financial statements and comes up with a new definition of income called the adjusted financial statement income. This type of financial reporting is far broader because these statements were designed for very different reasons. Taxable income that the IRS is in charge of, as opposed to financial income, is meant to raise revenue and provides in our Tax Code all kinds of tax preferences, incentives, disincentives for certain activity--like being able to deduct the cost of new equipment. That is something we want to encourage. So we allow companies to do that. Like being able to take a tax credit, let's say, for energy efficiency--we want to encourage companies to do that. So that is in the tax part as opposed to the book income part. The financial statement income is not determined by elected representatives. In other words, Congress doesn't determine how you calculate that tax. The financial statement income is actually determined by something called the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is a private nonprofit recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as the accounting standard setter for public companies. Now, that works fine for determining accounting standards, but this change effectively puts these people in control of what the corporate tax base is, even though they are not elected Representatives. They are not even working for the government. They are a nonprofit. Because corporate income taxes and this book minimum tax are calculated using these very different types of information, the 15-percent minimum tax, which is a book-tax minimum tax, can actually end up being larger for companies than the 21-percent income tax--again, because it calculates it differently. It is an example of Congress avoiding its responsibility, frankly. If we think that we should charge companies more taxation, let's look at the Tax Code and let's get rid of some of these tax preferences that people think don't work. Let's change the Tax Code. Let's not come up with another way to calculate what the tax ought to be--determined, again, by accounting standards that are done by this nonprofit group called the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Instead of examining the Tax Code we created and the deductions and credits that exist, it simply hands the reins over to this board. Most accountants and tax experts recognize this isreally a dangerous path. This is why, when it was proposed last year, 264 accounting academics wrote to Congress to warn us not to do it. They warned of the dangers of politicizing this accounting board, how that would lower the quality of financial accounting. They warned that this would change company decision making to make companies less efficient because companies are now going to manage toward the financial statement, not toward the income tax. They also warned that it would add needless and significant complexity to the Tax Code. Well, of course, you are going to calculate, now, income on two bases, with very, very different measurement and factors considered. To their credit, actually, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, who actually stand to benefit from complexity, separately also wrote us just recently a letter saying: Please don't do this. This is the CPA organization in the whole country--again, people who would benefit from complexity--but they are saying this is just bad policy. Why would you determine a company's taxation based on the book income? That is not what that is for. We should listen to these warnings, and we should also learn from history. We tried this type of tax in the form of the 1986 tax reform. We actually tried this as a country. And do you know what? It lasted 2 or 3 years, and then it was repealed. Why? Because it didn't work. The exact warnings that we just talked about ended up being true. The Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Tax Policy told the House Ways and Means Committee when it was repealed that the book tax they had then was ``having a detrimental effect on the quality of financial reporting.'' The complexity was complained about and the fact that this was not fair and was not an appropriate way to measure a company's income. Now, more than 30 years later, Democrats seem to have forgotten history and are about to repeat the same mistake. The line you are likely to hear from some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle is that this tax is just designed to make big companies pay their fair share of taxes because it only applies to companies who have more than a billion dollars in net income. Well, that is fine. But guess who pays this tax. It is not corporations that bear the brunt of it. In reality, taxes on corporate income, such as this new book minimum tax, falls on workers and it falls on consumers. And there are lots of workers and consumers who are connected with these companies. Last year, there were over 200 companies listed in the Fortune 500 as having a billion dollars in profits or more, and, by the way, they employed more than 18 million Americans. You are talking about 18 million people out there who will be affected by this, and these big companies also have a lot of consumers well beyond those 18 million. So it is the millions of people who are employees and who are customers in these businesses who bear the brunt of these tax increases as they are passed down to them in the form of lower wages, lower benefits, and higher prices for goods and services--exactly the wrong thing in this inflationary spiral we are living in now where everything costs more. Why would we want to add additional costs by saying we are going to tax these companies that are going to pass it along to their workers and to the consumers with higher prices? It doesn't matter whether you are taxing income or income on financial statements; the corporate income tax falls on these workers. Don't take my word for it. Again, the Joint Committee on Taxation just last year said that they expect about 25 percent of corporate taxes to fall on workers. This means lower wages, again, as this recession looms and as inflation hits the highest levels since 1981, 40-plus years. By the way, we just went through our second quarter of negative economic growth. Traditionally, that means a recession. That is how we define one. The administration refuses to call it a recession. I will just tell you, for people who live in my home State of Ohio--particularly people on fixed income, lower and middle-income workers--they are feeling it. For them, it is a recession. In addition to the Joint Committee saying that the corporate taxes fall on workers, the Congressional Budget Office--again, a nonpartisan group up here in Congress--has said that employees and workers bear more like 70 percent--70 percent--of the burden of corporate income taxes. There is a long list of analyses in between. In 2017, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, reviewed many of the available economic studies around the world that have been done and found that the best studies fall within this range of about 30 to 70 percent. Let me say that again. Overwhelmingly, economic studies support the idea that workers bear between 30 and 70 percent of the corporate tax hikes. So going after workers' wages is one heck of a strategy to bring down inflation. People are already hurting because wages are here and inflation is here. So wages haven't kept up with inflation. This will make it worse. Germany, by the way, did an analysis of corporate taxes recently and found that the burden fell hardest on low-skilled, young, and female employees, not the highest earners. The most important of these tax law changes is limiting what is called bonus depreciation. That is something that you would get as a company if you are in the regular income tax system but not under this new book tax calculation. What is bonus depreciation? Well, it allows companies to deduct the costs of investments, of new equipment in the year they are made. Under the book tax, they spread that deduction over the lifetime of the investment. In both cases, they are deducting the cost of it, but whether they can do it immediately under bonus depreciation or whether they have to do it over the course of many years matters a lot for investment decisions. Being able to deduct the cost of these investments immediately provides a big incentive for people to invest, and that is what has happened. This is not a loophole. I have heard this word: It is a loophole; we are just closing loopholes. This is not a loophole. This is a deliberate tax policy that we have put in place to help encourage companies to invest more in equipment and plan and therefore help the workers, therefore make America more competitive, and, actually, over time, it increases the tax revenue that comes in to our coffers. It is really important to encourage investment and economic growth but particularly important for manufacturers. That is why the Joint Committee on Taxation found that half of the burden of this new tax will fall on manufacturers because bonus depreciation is so important to them. This isn't unique to us. Every single developed country in the world offers a policy like bonus depreciation. Why? Because it works, because if they don't and other countries do, they can't compete. The United Kingdom is far more generous than ours, for example, for purchase of equipment. Across the assets that use this sort of what is called cost recovery, we are actually well below the average in the OECD, which is the group of about 40 highly developed countries like ours. We rank 21st now out of 38 for these types of incentives. This will make us even less competitive, meaning it is going to be better for manufacturers to invest in other countries that have better incentives rather than here in the USA. We want them to invest here. Again, we just passed legislation to provide more incentives to invest here, and now we are doing just the opposite through this book tax increase. Bonus depreciations traditionally had bipartisan support, and this sudden shift to call this bonus depreciation a loophole is a misrepresentation of what bonus depreciation does, why we have it, and how important it is for our manufacturers to compete. We expanded bonus depreciation in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And then in 2018, the next year, and 2019, the next year after that, we had two of the best years ever for manufacturing investment, growing by 4.5 percent and then 5.7 percent, respectively. A lot of that growth was going on, prior to that time, overseas, particularly in China. And we brought investment back to the United States. This is why, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the manufacturing industry is so hit hard by this. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, in 2023, this tax increase would shrink GDP--that is our economic growth--by about $68 billion, would result in 218,000 fewer jobs, and it would have a labor decrease of about $17 billion. This is the National Association of Manufacturers telling us this week: Please don't do this. This is going to result in a job loss to over 200,000 jobs. We want to have more manufacturing jobs, not less. The workers hit hardest are those who work in manufacturing because this tax hike on physical assets will disproportionately hit manufacturing jobs. My home State of Ohio has a lot of manufacturing jobs. We are a big manufacturer. We are proud of that. We have a lot of factories. We like to make things. So it will particularly hit States like mine. But, remember, it is not just wages we are talking about. No. Workers get hit at both ends. They get hit as workers--wages and benefits--but also as consumers when they get paid and when they try to spend their money. Families facing record inflation today are facing higher prices as cost of corporate taxes get passed down to the consumer. Again, I am not going on gut feeling; although, it makes sense, doesn't it? If you tax an entity, it gets passed along in terms of the cost of the goods. I am talking about what economists are saying is going to happen when we increase taxes on American businesses. In a key study last year performed by economists at the business schools of the University of Chicago and Northwestern, they found that about 31 percent of corporate taxes fall on consumers through higher retail prices, and they warn that policymakers have been underestimating significantly how much of these taxes fall on consumers, on the people that buy these products that these companies make. Democrats are ignoring this evidence, pushing ahead with partisan legislation, without any Republican support, that will make inflation worse; that will hurt workers; that will raise prices. Again, it doesn't stop there. I can talk about how corporate taxes discourage investment, both domestic and foreign, in the United States, according to economists from the World Bank and from Harvard. I can talk about how, contrary everything the Democrats claim, corporate taxes make income inequality actually worse, increasing the income of the top earners and lowering the income of the low- and middle-income workers. This is based on a 2020 study by an economist at the University of Michigan. I can talk about the opposite side of the equation, how lowering taxes for businesses of all sizes, as we did in 2017, supports economic growth. Going into the pandemic, we had 19 straight months of wage gains of 3 percent or more. Most of that wage gain was going to lower- and middle-income workers. We had the lowest poverty rate in the history of the country. We had good things going on because you had this economic growth. You had companies paying higher wages. In the years between the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the coronavirus pandemic, again, we not only saw just an end to these corporate inversions with companies going overseas, we saw jobs and investment coming back to the United States, and we kept inflation very low. That is a far cry from the estimate that was out last week from the National Association of Manufacturers, which, again, predicts that this book tax will result in a $68 billion hit to our economy with over 200,000 fewer jobs. Prior to the pandemic, pro-growth policies led to a really strong economy with steady growth, low inflation, and real wage increases of 3 percent or higher. Instead of spending and tax hikes that are only going to add to this inflation, let's have a true Inflation Reduction Act that lowers costs to consumers by increasing supply to regulatory relief and other pro-growth policies that were working so well before the pandemic. Let's do what we know we have to do to get inflation down. It is a mismatch between demand and supply. We can, through positive pro-growth policies, increase that supply and get inflation down and ensure that American families have a better shot at their American dream. Instead, here we go again with the Inflation Reduction Act that will actually be the ``Inflation Increase Act.'' | 2020-01-06 | Mr. PORTMAN | Senate | CREC-2022-08-02-pt1-PgS3869-2 | null | 4,872 |
formal | extremist | null | Islamophobic | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, two sets of numbers show the winds blowing in the Democratic direction: first, the numbers revealed by the vote last night in the State of Kansas and, second, new polling data that shows how overwhelmingly popular the Inflation Reduction Act is in the minds of the American people. These numbers show winds blowing in Democrats' direction on the issue of choice and on the issue of the Inflation Reduction Act. Today, I want to talk about both. So let me begin with last night's election in Kansas. Last night, in the American heartland, the people of Kansas sent an unmistakable message to MAGA Republican extremists: Back off women's fundamental rights. In the first vote on abortion rights since the MAGA Supreme Court's reprehensible decision to take away constitutional rights protected by Roe v. Wade--and which was cheered by many Republicans here in the Senate--voters in Kansas decided by a double-digit margin to preserve the freedom of choice in their State Constitution. What happened in red Kansas last night is a reflection of what is happening across the country and what will continue to occur through the November elections. Voters are revolting against the extreme MAGA Republican policies that ban abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest and send women and doctors to jail. Last night's election was also a dark reminder that MAGA Republicans are running the show within the GOP. Their views are spreading through the party like a cancer--views that are repugnant not only to most Americans but, as we saw last night, even to many Republican voters. And Kansas was just the start. If it is going to happen in Kansas, it is going to happen in a whole lot of States. The strong pro choice turnout we saw last night in Kansas will continue well into the fall, and Republicans who side with these extremist MAGA policies that attack women's rights do so at their own political risk. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3873-9 | null | 4,873 |
formal | extremists | null | Islamophobic | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, two sets of numbers show the winds blowing in the Democratic direction: first, the numbers revealed by the vote last night in the State of Kansas and, second, new polling data that shows how overwhelmingly popular the Inflation Reduction Act is in the minds of the American people. These numbers show winds blowing in Democrats' direction on the issue of choice and on the issue of the Inflation Reduction Act. Today, I want to talk about both. So let me begin with last night's election in Kansas. Last night, in the American heartland, the people of Kansas sent an unmistakable message to MAGA Republican extremists: Back off women's fundamental rights. In the first vote on abortion rights since the MAGA Supreme Court's reprehensible decision to take away constitutional rights protected by Roe v. Wade--and which was cheered by many Republicans here in the Senate--voters in Kansas decided by a double-digit margin to preserve the freedom of choice in their State Constitution. What happened in red Kansas last night is a reflection of what is happening across the country and what will continue to occur through the November elections. Voters are revolting against the extreme MAGA Republican policies that ban abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest and send women and doctors to jail. Last night's election was also a dark reminder that MAGA Republicans are running the show within the GOP. Their views are spreading through the party like a cancer--views that are repugnant not only to most Americans but, as we saw last night, even to many Republican voters. And Kansas was just the start. If it is going to happen in Kansas, it is going to happen in a whole lot of States. The strong pro choice turnout we saw last night in Kansas will continue well into the fall, and Republicans who side with these extremist MAGA policies that attack women's rights do so at their own political risk. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3873-9 | null | 4,874 |
formal | MAGA | null | white supremacist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, two sets of numbers show the winds blowing in the Democratic direction: first, the numbers revealed by the vote last night in the State of Kansas and, second, new polling data that shows how overwhelmingly popular the Inflation Reduction Act is in the minds of the American people. These numbers show winds blowing in Democrats' direction on the issue of choice and on the issue of the Inflation Reduction Act. Today, I want to talk about both. So let me begin with last night's election in Kansas. Last night, in the American heartland, the people of Kansas sent an unmistakable message to MAGA Republican extremists: Back off women's fundamental rights. In the first vote on abortion rights since the MAGA Supreme Court's reprehensible decision to take away constitutional rights protected by Roe v. Wade--and which was cheered by many Republicans here in the Senate--voters in Kansas decided by a double-digit margin to preserve the freedom of choice in their State Constitution. What happened in red Kansas last night is a reflection of what is happening across the country and what will continue to occur through the November elections. Voters are revolting against the extreme MAGA Republican policies that ban abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest and send women and doctors to jail. Last night's election was also a dark reminder that MAGA Republicans are running the show within the GOP. Their views are spreading through the party like a cancer--views that are repugnant not only to most Americans but, as we saw last night, even to many Republican voters. And Kansas was just the start. If it is going to happen in Kansas, it is going to happen in a whole lot of States. The strong pro choice turnout we saw last night in Kansas will continue well into the fall, and Republicans who side with these extremist MAGA policies that attack women's rights do so at their own political risk. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3873-9 | null | 4,875 |
formal | tax cut | null | racist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now, on the Inflation Reduction Act, this is the second place where the numbers that we read this morning show that the Democrats are on the move and that Republicans are in retreat. Today's news provides another bevy of reminders of why the Inflation Reduction Act is not only bold and commonsense but is extremely popular with the American people. This morning, five former Treasury Secretaries--including former Secretary Hank Paulson, who served under President George W. Bush--released a statement praising the Inflation Reduction Act and urging Congress to move quickly to secure its passage. The bipartisan group wrote that the Inflation Reduction Act ``will help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation--and should be passed immediately by Congress.'' The bipartisan group of Treasury Secretaries also affirmed what Democrats have been saying for days: The Inflation Reduction Act will not--no matter how much our Republican colleagues argue to the contrary--increase taxes for any family making less than $400,000 a year. Again, our proposals call for closing loopholes that have long enabled the biggest companies in America to avoid paying their fair share. And even former Republican Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now calling on Congress to pass the Democratic agenda. He is in very good company. This morning, a poll by Navigator also showed the Inflation Reduction Act as overwhelmingly popular--overwhelmingly popular--in the minds of the American people. According to this poll, 65 percent of Americans support the proposals in the bill, compared to only 24 percent who oppose. More than double the people support the act than oppose it. It includes 60 percent of Independent voters and even 40 percent of Republican voters. So America is on our side. They want us to pass this bill. Now, contrast the Democrats' agenda to what we have been hearing from the other side. While Democrats want to make healthcare more affordable, just yesterday the junior Senator from Wisconsin argued that instead of strengthening Medicare and Social Security, we should put them on the chopping block. Hear that, citizens of Wisconsin, citizens of America? The junior Senator from Wisconsin wants to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block. He has argued that the benefits, which millions of Americans rely on every day, shouldn't be guaranteed but should be subject to partisan infighting here in Washington. He would like to revoke the guarantee of Medicare and Social Security and make them discretionary. Well, you know what happens when we make things discretionary around here? All too often they get cut or even eliminated. We don't want to do that. But the Senator from Wisconsin said we should. So senior citizens of America, listen loud and clear: Senator Johnson called for making these programs discretionary. For decades, they have not been. They have been programs that when you become 65, you get it. It is not up to the whims of one Congress or another. So we will fight as hard as we can to prevent the Republicans, led by the Wisconsin junior Senator, from pulling out the rug from under seniors. We will fight the MAGA Republican politicians who want to gut these critical programs. It is comments like these that show how out of touch the other side has become. While Republicans were perfectly willing to blow a $2 trillion hole in our deficit in order to give tax cuts to the ultrarich and to the big corporations, now some of them are saying Medicare and Social Security should no longer be guaranteed. Of course, our Democratic proposal, the Inflation Reduction Act, is vastly different. We will protect healthcare. We will lower the price of prescription drugs and make energy cheaper while making the largest investment in clean energy ever. These are things that Americans support. These are things that our country needs. And these are things that we are going to get done when we pass the Inflation Reduction Act in the coming days. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3874-2 | null | 4,876 |
formal | tax cuts | null | racist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now, on the Inflation Reduction Act, this is the second place where the numbers that we read this morning show that the Democrats are on the move and that Republicans are in retreat. Today's news provides another bevy of reminders of why the Inflation Reduction Act is not only bold and commonsense but is extremely popular with the American people. This morning, five former Treasury Secretaries--including former Secretary Hank Paulson, who served under President George W. Bush--released a statement praising the Inflation Reduction Act and urging Congress to move quickly to secure its passage. The bipartisan group wrote that the Inflation Reduction Act ``will help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation--and should be passed immediately by Congress.'' The bipartisan group of Treasury Secretaries also affirmed what Democrats have been saying for days: The Inflation Reduction Act will not--no matter how much our Republican colleagues argue to the contrary--increase taxes for any family making less than $400,000 a year. Again, our proposals call for closing loopholes that have long enabled the biggest companies in America to avoid paying their fair share. And even former Republican Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now calling on Congress to pass the Democratic agenda. He is in very good company. This morning, a poll by Navigator also showed the Inflation Reduction Act as overwhelmingly popular--overwhelmingly popular--in the minds of the American people. According to this poll, 65 percent of Americans support the proposals in the bill, compared to only 24 percent who oppose. More than double the people support the act than oppose it. It includes 60 percent of Independent voters and even 40 percent of Republican voters. So America is on our side. They want us to pass this bill. Now, contrast the Democrats' agenda to what we have been hearing from the other side. While Democrats want to make healthcare more affordable, just yesterday the junior Senator from Wisconsin argued that instead of strengthening Medicare and Social Security, we should put them on the chopping block. Hear that, citizens of Wisconsin, citizens of America? The junior Senator from Wisconsin wants to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block. He has argued that the benefits, which millions of Americans rely on every day, shouldn't be guaranteed but should be subject to partisan infighting here in Washington. He would like to revoke the guarantee of Medicare and Social Security and make them discretionary. Well, you know what happens when we make things discretionary around here? All too often they get cut or even eliminated. We don't want to do that. But the Senator from Wisconsin said we should. So senior citizens of America, listen loud and clear: Senator Johnson called for making these programs discretionary. For decades, they have not been. They have been programs that when you become 65, you get it. It is not up to the whims of one Congress or another. So we will fight as hard as we can to prevent the Republicans, led by the Wisconsin junior Senator, from pulling out the rug from under seniors. We will fight the MAGA Republican politicians who want to gut these critical programs. It is comments like these that show how out of touch the other side has become. While Republicans were perfectly willing to blow a $2 trillion hole in our deficit in order to give tax cuts to the ultrarich and to the big corporations, now some of them are saying Medicare and Social Security should no longer be guaranteed. Of course, our Democratic proposal, the Inflation Reduction Act, is vastly different. We will protect healthcare. We will lower the price of prescription drugs and make energy cheaper while making the largest investment in clean energy ever. These are things that Americans support. These are things that our country needs. And these are things that we are going to get done when we pass the Inflation Reduction Act in the coming days. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3874-2 | null | 4,877 |
formal | MAGA | null | white supremacist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now, on the Inflation Reduction Act, this is the second place where the numbers that we read this morning show that the Democrats are on the move and that Republicans are in retreat. Today's news provides another bevy of reminders of why the Inflation Reduction Act is not only bold and commonsense but is extremely popular with the American people. This morning, five former Treasury Secretaries--including former Secretary Hank Paulson, who served under President George W. Bush--released a statement praising the Inflation Reduction Act and urging Congress to move quickly to secure its passage. The bipartisan group wrote that the Inflation Reduction Act ``will help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation--and should be passed immediately by Congress.'' The bipartisan group of Treasury Secretaries also affirmed what Democrats have been saying for days: The Inflation Reduction Act will not--no matter how much our Republican colleagues argue to the contrary--increase taxes for any family making less than $400,000 a year. Again, our proposals call for closing loopholes that have long enabled the biggest companies in America to avoid paying their fair share. And even former Republican Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now calling on Congress to pass the Democratic agenda. He is in very good company. This morning, a poll by Navigator also showed the Inflation Reduction Act as overwhelmingly popular--overwhelmingly popular--in the minds of the American people. According to this poll, 65 percent of Americans support the proposals in the bill, compared to only 24 percent who oppose. More than double the people support the act than oppose it. It includes 60 percent of Independent voters and even 40 percent of Republican voters. So America is on our side. They want us to pass this bill. Now, contrast the Democrats' agenda to what we have been hearing from the other side. While Democrats want to make healthcare more affordable, just yesterday the junior Senator from Wisconsin argued that instead of strengthening Medicare and Social Security, we should put them on the chopping block. Hear that, citizens of Wisconsin, citizens of America? The junior Senator from Wisconsin wants to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block. He has argued that the benefits, which millions of Americans rely on every day, shouldn't be guaranteed but should be subject to partisan infighting here in Washington. He would like to revoke the guarantee of Medicare and Social Security and make them discretionary. Well, you know what happens when we make things discretionary around here? All too often they get cut or even eliminated. We don't want to do that. But the Senator from Wisconsin said we should. So senior citizens of America, listen loud and clear: Senator Johnson called for making these programs discretionary. For decades, they have not been. They have been programs that when you become 65, you get it. It is not up to the whims of one Congress or another. So we will fight as hard as we can to prevent the Republicans, led by the Wisconsin junior Senator, from pulling out the rug from under seniors. We will fight the MAGA Republican politicians who want to gut these critical programs. It is comments like these that show how out of touch the other side has become. While Republicans were perfectly willing to blow a $2 trillion hole in our deficit in order to give tax cuts to the ultrarich and to the big corporations, now some of them are saying Medicare and Social Security should no longer be guaranteed. Of course, our Democratic proposal, the Inflation Reduction Act, is vastly different. We will protect healthcare. We will lower the price of prescription drugs and make energy cheaper while making the largest investment in clean energy ever. These are things that Americans support. These are things that our country needs. And these are things that we are going to get done when we pass the Inflation Reduction Act in the coming days. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3874-2 | null | 4,878 |
formal | middle class | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on one final matter, Democrats want to pass huge, job-killing tax hikes in the middle of a recession that they themselves created--hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on American jobs, American manufacturing, American electricity, and American investment. Nonpartisan experts have proven these tax hikes will break President Biden's promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. The working class and the middle class will shoulder huge--huge--new burdens. And all these tax hikes would buy American families no relief whatsoever from inflation. Nonpartisan experts say Democrats' bill would make inflation actually even worse until 2024 and then do basically nothing--nothing--to inflation thereafter. In the teeth of the inflation crisis, Democrats' bill would make inflation even worse over the next 2 years. Even the most optimistic estimate, the best figures for Democrats, say it would take their legislation--listen to this--9 years--9 years--to unwind as much inflation as the country added every week in the month of June--9 years of runaway taxing and spending in order to subtract 1 week's worth of inflation. And that is an optimistic projection. Obviously, the point of this bill is not to reduce inflation. Clearly, this taxing-and-spending spree has a different purpose. And when you look at the legislation, the real purpose is absolutely clear: This bill is a massive goodie bag of far-left environmental activists at the expense of working families. Democrats want to use their own inflation as a pretext to dump hundreds of billions of dollars into Green New Deal nonsense. This bill declares war on American energy independence and affordability. It will push working families' bills higher in order to send cash kickbacks to rich elites if they buy fancy cars and redo their kitchens. Democrats literally want to increase working families' gas bill, electricity bill, and heating bill so they can send rebates to rich people who buy $80,000 luxury electric cars. I am not making this up. They have come up with a huge new tax on American natural gas, which millions of Americans use to heat their homes, cook their food, and dry their clothes. On top of that, natural gas is the Nation's largest source of electricity. So Democrats want to add new taxes on top of two of the major bills that millions of American working families pay every month. That is not all. There is also a new per-barrel tax on American oil and new royalties and fees to drive up the cost of oil and gas production on Federal lands. With all the money they collect from shaking down American families, Democrats want to finance new credits for people who can afford to buy fancy new cars, stoves, and clothes dryers. Why? Because that is really ``green''--subsidizing retail therapy for liberal elites to rip out working appliances, throw them away, and replace them with the latest fashions. We have the worst inflation in 40 years right now. Working families can barely afford gas and groceries right now. And Democrats' answer is to offer them a mail-in rebate if they buy an $80,000 car or remodel their kitchen? A specific subsidy for electric car buyers that the senior Senator from West Virginia once called ludicrous is in this bill which he has now authored. Oh, and the bill tries to skirt a Supreme Court victory that West Virginia just won to stop Democrats' illegal regulations from crushing the State's economy. The legislation intentionally--intentionally--flouts the victory that people of West Virginia just won a few weeks ago at the Supreme Court. There are billions of dollars for environmental and climate justice block grants to directly enrich far-left nonprofits, including explicit language that would send taxpayer funding to political activism. Democrats literally want to raise your electric bill in order to pay off their own protesters. I guess the people who stand in the middle of highways during rush hour to make some protest gesture now want to receive taxpayer money for their trouble. Oh--oh--and their bill would send billions of dollars to the Secretary of Transportation to tear up highways instead of building more highways. If that is not enough, here is the kicker. All of this expensive nonsense adds up to no--no--meaningful impact whatsoever. All of these hundreds of billions of dollars to bankroll new appliances for rich people will not put so much as a dent--a dent--in worldwide emissions or temperatures. The Washington Post admitted on Monday this legislation ``can scarcely be expected to have an immediate, measurable impact on the warming planet.'' Huge developing countries like China and India are dramatically increasing their emissions every year. Even according to liberals' own modeling, this bill that is supposedly worth looting--looting--the American people would have basically no measurable impact on global warming whatsoever. Liberal waste, subsidies for the rich, and, according to their very own models, no meaningful impact on the climate--I guess Democrats think their 30 percent approval rating on the economy is actually still too high. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3875-2 | null | 4,879 |
formal | working families | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on one final matter, Democrats want to pass huge, job-killing tax hikes in the middle of a recession that they themselves created--hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on American jobs, American manufacturing, American electricity, and American investment. Nonpartisan experts have proven these tax hikes will break President Biden's promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. The working class and the middle class will shoulder huge--huge--new burdens. And all these tax hikes would buy American families no relief whatsoever from inflation. Nonpartisan experts say Democrats' bill would make inflation actually even worse until 2024 and then do basically nothing--nothing--to inflation thereafter. In the teeth of the inflation crisis, Democrats' bill would make inflation even worse over the next 2 years. Even the most optimistic estimate, the best figures for Democrats, say it would take their legislation--listen to this--9 years--9 years--to unwind as much inflation as the country added every week in the month of June--9 years of runaway taxing and spending in order to subtract 1 week's worth of inflation. And that is an optimistic projection. Obviously, the point of this bill is not to reduce inflation. Clearly, this taxing-and-spending spree has a different purpose. And when you look at the legislation, the real purpose is absolutely clear: This bill is a massive goodie bag of far-left environmental activists at the expense of working families. Democrats want to use their own inflation as a pretext to dump hundreds of billions of dollars into Green New Deal nonsense. This bill declares war on American energy independence and affordability. It will push working families' bills higher in order to send cash kickbacks to rich elites if they buy fancy cars and redo their kitchens. Democrats literally want to increase working families' gas bill, electricity bill, and heating bill so they can send rebates to rich people who buy $80,000 luxury electric cars. I am not making this up. They have come up with a huge new tax on American natural gas, which millions of Americans use to heat their homes, cook their food, and dry their clothes. On top of that, natural gas is the Nation's largest source of electricity. So Democrats want to add new taxes on top of two of the major bills that millions of American working families pay every month. That is not all. There is also a new per-barrel tax on American oil and new royalties and fees to drive up the cost of oil and gas production on Federal lands. With all the money they collect from shaking down American families, Democrats want to finance new credits for people who can afford to buy fancy new cars, stoves, and clothes dryers. Why? Because that is really ``green''--subsidizing retail therapy for liberal elites to rip out working appliances, throw them away, and replace them with the latest fashions. We have the worst inflation in 40 years right now. Working families can barely afford gas and groceries right now. And Democrats' answer is to offer them a mail-in rebate if they buy an $80,000 car or remodel their kitchen? A specific subsidy for electric car buyers that the senior Senator from West Virginia once called ludicrous is in this bill which he has now authored. Oh, and the bill tries to skirt a Supreme Court victory that West Virginia just won to stop Democrats' illegal regulations from crushing the State's economy. The legislation intentionally--intentionally--flouts the victory that people of West Virginia just won a few weeks ago at the Supreme Court. There are billions of dollars for environmental and climate justice block grants to directly enrich far-left nonprofits, including explicit language that would send taxpayer funding to political activism. Democrats literally want to raise your electric bill in order to pay off their own protesters. I guess the people who stand in the middle of highways during rush hour to make some protest gesture now want to receive taxpayer money for their trouble. Oh--oh--and their bill would send billions of dollars to the Secretary of Transportation to tear up highways instead of building more highways. If that is not enough, here is the kicker. All of this expensive nonsense adds up to no--no--meaningful impact whatsoever. All of these hundreds of billions of dollars to bankroll new appliances for rich people will not put so much as a dent--a dent--in worldwide emissions or temperatures. The Washington Post admitted on Monday this legislation ``can scarcely be expected to have an immediate, measurable impact on the warming planet.'' Huge developing countries like China and India are dramatically increasing their emissions every year. Even according to liberals' own modeling, this bill that is supposedly worth looting--looting--the American people would have basically no measurable impact on global warming whatsoever. Liberal waste, subsidies for the rich, and, according to their very own models, no meaningful impact on the climate--I guess Democrats think their 30 percent approval rating on the economy is actually still too high. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3875-2 | null | 4,880 |
formal | big government | null | conservative | Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, ``You don't want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.'' ``You don't want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.'' Those aren't my words. Those were the words of the current Democratic leader in 2008: ``You don't want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking.'' Well, apparently, it is a philosophy the Democratic leader no longer subscribes to because, last week, he introduced legislation to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking. The Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act--which is a misnomer if ever there was one, since the bill will do nothing to help alleviate our current inflation crisis--will take hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy in the form of new tax hikes and comes just as our economy posted a second quarter of negative growth. Notably, the bill imposes a $313 billion tax hike on American businesses, with roughly half of that increase falling on American manufacturers. I guess the President's commitment to boosting American manufacturing takes a backseat to raising revenue to fund Democrats' Green New Deal priorities. I don't think I need to tell anyone what happens when you raise taxes on businesses, particularly when the economy is shrinking. You get less growth, fewer jobs, and lower wages. According to an analysis from the National Association of Manufacturers, in 2023 alone, the Democrats' bill would reduce real gross domestic product by more than $68 billion and result in 218,108 fewer workers in the overall economy--a $68 billion reduction in GDP and more than 218,000 fewer workers. And ordinary Americans would bear a substantial part of the burden of this tax increase. According to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the Democrats' bill would increase the tax burden of Americans across every income bracket, with more than half of the increased tax burden falling on Americans making $400,000 or less. Next year alone, the Democrats' bill would increase the tax burden on Americans earning less than $200,000 by $16.7 billion. Democrats are brazenly attempting to sell this new tax as somehow closing a loophole instead of hiking taxes on American businesses, but that isn't even close to being the truth. When companies pay less than the current corporate tax rate, they are often simply taking advantage of tax credits that Republicans and Democrats put in place to encourage investment in things like research and development or the production of new technologies. Democrats aren't closing a loophole in the tax bill. Let's face it. They are raising taxes on American businesses at a time when our economy has posted two consecutive quarters of negative growth. They are raising taxes on businesses that are already struggling with historically high inflation. Democrats claim they will make large companies pay at least a 15-percent minimum tax, but that isn't true either because Democrats have created carve-outs to their own minimum tax. That is right. Not all companies will have to pay the new book minimum tax. For instance, green energy companies and companies that take green energy tax credits will be allowed to pay less than the Democrats' alternative minimum corporate tax rate. In other words, if you are a member of or invest in the Democrats' preferred industries, you get special tax treatment under their legislation. So much for ensuring that all companies--all companies--``pay their fair share.'' In addition to their $313 billion tax hike on American businesses, Democrats' legislation also raises taxes on investment--another bad idea at a time when our economy is already shrinking. Perhaps Democrats' real plan is to reduce inflation by slowing our economy and ensuring that we enter a recession or what is known as stagflation. Democrats' legislation also raises taxes on oil and gas production even as Americans continue to struggle with high energy prices, including a 75-percent increase in gas prices since President Biden took office. Taxes aren't the only way the Democrats raise revenue in this bill to pay for their Green New Deal measures. The Democrats' bill also attempts to raise revenue by increasing IRS audits and enforcement. The Democrats' legislation gives the IRS an additional $80 billion in funding over 10 years--$80 billion, about six times their annual budget. This would allow the IRS to hire an additional 87,000 employees, meaning that the IRS would have nearly--do you believe this?--three times as many personnel as U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Agency that is charged with overseeing security at our Nation's borders--87,000 new employees. The IRS's budget would also substantially exceed Customs and Border Protection's budget if this legislation is enacted. Now, you might think that given the raging crisis at our southern border, the Biden administration would be focused on beefing up funding and personnel for Customs and Border Protection instead of the IRS, but you would be wrong. Apparently, the need to find money for Democrats' Green New Deal trumps the need for a secure border. Of the additional $80 billion the Democrats' bill would hand to the IRS, 57 percent or more than $45 billion would go to enforcement and only 4 percent to taxpayer services. Think about that. Four percent for an Agency, as I said on the floor yesterday, that only succeeded in answering about 1 out of every 50 taxpayer phone calls during the 2021 tax season and has repeatedly, as we all know, mishandled sensitive taxpayer data. To name just one instance, confidential taxpayer information was either leaked or hacked from the IRS last year and shared with the left-leaning ProPublica in order to advance a partisan agenda. More than a year later, the IRS still hasn't provided meaningful followup to Congress or accountability to taxpayers for that leak. Yet Democrats' focus is not on improving the IRS responsiveness and accountability but on boosting the number of audits. Speaking of those audits, no one should think the IRS would be just auditing major corporations and billionaires. No, this bill would result in a lot of audits of small businesses and ordinary Americans. In fact, it is extremely unlikely the Democrats will beable to gather the revenue they are claiming they can get from increased IRS enforcement unless they audit Americans making less than $200,000 a year. Based on data, again, from the Joint Committee on Taxation, 78 to 90 percent of the revenue projected to be raised from underreported income would likely come from those making under $200,000. Only 4 to 9 percent would come from those making more than $500,000. That, again, is from the Joint Committee on Taxation. I just want to repeat that. Seventy-eight to ninety percent of the revenue projected to be raised from underreported income would likely come from those making under $200,000 a year. In other words, all this talk about audits and, you know, closing the tax gap and forcing people to pay taxes that are due that they are not paying today and implying that somehow that is all going to apply to high-income taxpayers or big corporations or big businesses is just flat inconsistent with the data and the facts as compiled by the Joint Committee on Taxation. Up to 90 percent of the revenue projected to be raised from underreported income would come from those making less than $200,000 a year. So, Mr. and Mrs. American Taxpayer, get ready. Get ready for the IRS enforcement auditor to come to your house and to start harassing you so that the Democrats can pay for their massive tax-and-spending spree. After more than a year of high inflation spurred by Democrats' reckless American Rescue Plan spending spree passed last year and with an economy that has shrunk for the past two quarters, it is hard to believe the Democrats are trying to pass hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes, but that is exactly what is happening. Once again, economic common sense is taking a back seat to Democrats' big spending and big government ideology. Democrats have already inflicted a lot of economic pain on the American people, and if this legislation passes, there is more to come. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. THUNE | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3876-3 | null | 4,881 |
formal | terrorism | null | Islamophobic | Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to urge President Biden to turn his attention to his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan 1 year ago. I want to direct the Commander in Chief to reflect on a series of commitments he made to the American people before and during his reckless exit. On August 19, 2021, President Biden promised U.S. troops would remain on the ground until every American who wanted to leave Afghanistan was evacuated. On August 26, 2021, President Biden promised to hunt down and avenge the deaths of 13 servicemembers killed in action by ISIS-K in Kabul. In a speech to the United Nations on September 21, 2021, the President promised his administration would hold the Taliban accountable to protect the rights of Afghan women. The Commander in Chief failed to uphold his word on all three fronts, and American security and prosperity have suffered as a result of his broken promises. Today in Afghanistan, Americans who want to come home remain left behind, and the administration's lack of transparency concerning both the number and desire of Americans trapped in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is alarming. The President and members of his Cabinet repeatedly claimed that the number of Americans who wanted out of Afghanistan was roughly 100. That number was spouted from September 2021 through the beginning of this year--the same number over and over again--even though we would hear reports on the television that 40 more Americans were out, 200 Americans were out, and yet the number remained the same. How many Americans remain in Afghanistan? The number they kept using was 100. There is no way around it: President Biden broke his promise to the Americans who remain and their families anxiously awaiting their return. Americans have lived and traveled abroad with assurances that the United States would come to their aid in the event of a conflict. No matter how far away, the United States is expected to have the backs of its citizens. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was a cut-and-run approach that greatly damaged that guarantee. If the world's greatest superpower cannot locate and extract its own citizens from the clutches of seventh-century thugs, then far greater tests of our sovereignty, security, and prosperity will only loom larger. As we approach the anniversary of the haphazard withdrawal, there is an open wound hurting our ability to deter the actions of our adversaries. President Biden promised vengeance on the terrorists who killed 13 Americans--including 1 from my hometown of Red Oak, IA--at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He told the American people: The United States will never rest. We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth, and we will--you will pay the ultimate price. Again, the Commander in Chief's rhetoric does not match his actions. The U.S. military has not targeted or conducted any counterterrorism strikes against ISIS-K in Afghanistan since America's withdrawal on August 31, 2021. Those who planned the cowardly act remain at large. It is not like ISIS-K is holed up in the Hindu Kush mountains, away from population centers. At least 26 terrorist attacks, many of which ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for, have struck the Afghan people in metropolitan Kabul since our withdrawal. Our enemies are not hiding, but far too often, America is. We are also stuck with a largely unrealized over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy that has not deterred the resurgence of terrorists or avenged our lost warriors. Our military and covert operators' recent strike was welcome and long overdue, but the strike demonstrates a capability rarely employed and a posture toward terrorism far too inexact. It was President Biden, after all, who said last August that al-Qaida was gone from Afghanistan. Folks, that is clearly not the case. Ensuring that al-Qaida leader al-Zawahiri will never harm an American again was a necessary action, but the strike has raised serious questions about the security situation we have in Afghanistan. The President's so-called and much-promised over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy has not been a deterrent, like it was promised to be. Instead, we are seeing a growing threat emanating from Afghanistan. This is the first U.S. military strike in Afghanistan since America left on August 31 of last year. In the meantime, ISIS-K fighters are flowing into the country at alarming rates while al-Qaida and the Taliban have clearly been working together for the past year. At the very least, the Taliban and Haqqani Network gave al-Zawahiri and his thugs safe haven, demonstrating ongoing Taliban collusion with terrorists. A lone strike does not demonstrate a developed capacity to prevent further coordination that threatens American security. Not only has the U.S. capacity to protect the homeland been greatly damaged, the President's intent to champion human rights as a centerpiece of this administration's foreign policy is also in shambles. Last fall, the President repeatedly claimed Afghan women were a linchpin of his foreign policy priorities in the region. Yet, today, after 20 years of constitutional democracy and advancement of civil rights, the Taliban has unraveled significant hard-won gains for the women of Afghanistan. The Taliban enforce a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, prohibit women from working, from attending secondary school, and from traveling any distance without being accompanied by a male member of their family. Most recently, the Taliban has required all women to cover themselves from head to toe in the burqa. Yet it is reported that the President's team continues to bargain with the Taliban concerning diplomatic recognition, potential coordination with the U.S. intelligence community, and access to $3.5 billion in held currency to the Taliban, despite these actions. Extending official diplomatic engagement and facilitating access to funding without guaranteed and meaningful liberties for women and girls will legitimize the Taliban rule and furthersubject women to a brutal regime. Any further effort to surrender leverage to the Taliban is a candid reflection of the Biden administration's failure to remedy its own hypocrisy regarding human rights. The administration's abandonment of Americans, inability to serve justice for our soldiers killed in action, impassive counterterrorism operations, and ignorance of the human rights disaster they precipitated in Afghanistan have substituted sound strategy for an ad hoc response of willful negligence. And they know it. The Department of State and Department of Defense under President Biden have refused to cooperate with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The President's neglect is most profoundly demonstrated through his administration's lack of controls on billions of dollars of taxpayer and frozen funds marked for humanitarian aid that have found their way into the Taliban's coffers. Since the Taliban and Haqqani Network--the two groups that are ruling Afghanistan--are Specially Designated Global Terrorists, existing law compels the administration to disclose the risk of taxpayer money slipping into the hands of these two terror groups. The licenses issued by the Treasury Department over the last year extend far beyond acute humanitarian aid for food and medicine. They expand the authorization of funding for activities from endangered species research to direct payments to support governing institutions controlled by the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. I led 15 other Senators in asking the Biden administration to detail the total financial support provided to Afghanistan and an honest assessment of the taxes, the fees, and the import duties syphoned off by the Taliban. More than 6 months later, we are still waiting for a comprehensive answer. This is completely unacceptable in light of recent reporting that Taliban authorities are interfering with the delivery of humanitarian aid, despite a pledge to the United Nations last fall that they would not. The people of Afghanistan continue to suffer from food insecurity while the Taliban are enjoying the spoils of America's generosity. Numerous requests for a detailed accounting have gone unanswered by the Treasury and State Departments. Leaving Americans behind, failing to avenge the death of 13 servicemembers, and abdicating your promises to Afghan women and girls do not deter threats from our shores. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on October 26, 2021, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy stated that ISIS-K and al-Qaida have the intent to conduct operations against the United States, and that ISIS-K could generate that capability in 6 to 12 months and al-Qaida within 1 to 2 years. Eight months have come and passed, and we have yet to learn how Team Biden will protect our citizens from this threat at home or abroad. In the absence of such a framework, threats to our national security grow every day, risking the lives of Americans at home and abroad. Folks, we are rapidly approaching that 1-year mark--the haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan--and we cannot forget. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Ms. ERNST | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3877 | null | 4,882 |
formal | terrorist | null | Islamophobic | Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to urge President Biden to turn his attention to his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan 1 year ago. I want to direct the Commander in Chief to reflect on a series of commitments he made to the American people before and during his reckless exit. On August 19, 2021, President Biden promised U.S. troops would remain on the ground until every American who wanted to leave Afghanistan was evacuated. On August 26, 2021, President Biden promised to hunt down and avenge the deaths of 13 servicemembers killed in action by ISIS-K in Kabul. In a speech to the United Nations on September 21, 2021, the President promised his administration would hold the Taliban accountable to protect the rights of Afghan women. The Commander in Chief failed to uphold his word on all three fronts, and American security and prosperity have suffered as a result of his broken promises. Today in Afghanistan, Americans who want to come home remain left behind, and the administration's lack of transparency concerning both the number and desire of Americans trapped in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is alarming. The President and members of his Cabinet repeatedly claimed that the number of Americans who wanted out of Afghanistan was roughly 100. That number was spouted from September 2021 through the beginning of this year--the same number over and over again--even though we would hear reports on the television that 40 more Americans were out, 200 Americans were out, and yet the number remained the same. How many Americans remain in Afghanistan? The number they kept using was 100. There is no way around it: President Biden broke his promise to the Americans who remain and their families anxiously awaiting their return. Americans have lived and traveled abroad with assurances that the United States would come to their aid in the event of a conflict. No matter how far away, the United States is expected to have the backs of its citizens. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was a cut-and-run approach that greatly damaged that guarantee. If the world's greatest superpower cannot locate and extract its own citizens from the clutches of seventh-century thugs, then far greater tests of our sovereignty, security, and prosperity will only loom larger. As we approach the anniversary of the haphazard withdrawal, there is an open wound hurting our ability to deter the actions of our adversaries. President Biden promised vengeance on the terrorists who killed 13 Americans--including 1 from my hometown of Red Oak, IA--at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He told the American people: The United States will never rest. We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth, and we will--you will pay the ultimate price. Again, the Commander in Chief's rhetoric does not match his actions. The U.S. military has not targeted or conducted any counterterrorism strikes against ISIS-K in Afghanistan since America's withdrawal on August 31, 2021. Those who planned the cowardly act remain at large. It is not like ISIS-K is holed up in the Hindu Kush mountains, away from population centers. At least 26 terrorist attacks, many of which ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for, have struck the Afghan people in metropolitan Kabul since our withdrawal. Our enemies are not hiding, but far too often, America is. We are also stuck with a largely unrealized over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy that has not deterred the resurgence of terrorists or avenged our lost warriors. Our military and covert operators' recent strike was welcome and long overdue, but the strike demonstrates a capability rarely employed and a posture toward terrorism far too inexact. It was President Biden, after all, who said last August that al-Qaida was gone from Afghanistan. Folks, that is clearly not the case. Ensuring that al-Qaida leader al-Zawahiri will never harm an American again was a necessary action, but the strike has raised serious questions about the security situation we have in Afghanistan. The President's so-called and much-promised over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy has not been a deterrent, like it was promised to be. Instead, we are seeing a growing threat emanating from Afghanistan. This is the first U.S. military strike in Afghanistan since America left on August 31 of last year. In the meantime, ISIS-K fighters are flowing into the country at alarming rates while al-Qaida and the Taliban have clearly been working together for the past year. At the very least, the Taliban and Haqqani Network gave al-Zawahiri and his thugs safe haven, demonstrating ongoing Taliban collusion with terrorists. A lone strike does not demonstrate a developed capacity to prevent further coordination that threatens American security. Not only has the U.S. capacity to protect the homeland been greatly damaged, the President's intent to champion human rights as a centerpiece of this administration's foreign policy is also in shambles. Last fall, the President repeatedly claimed Afghan women were a linchpin of his foreign policy priorities in the region. Yet, today, after 20 years of constitutional democracy and advancement of civil rights, the Taliban has unraveled significant hard-won gains for the women of Afghanistan. The Taliban enforce a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, prohibit women from working, from attending secondary school, and from traveling any distance without being accompanied by a male member of their family. Most recently, the Taliban has required all women to cover themselves from head to toe in the burqa. Yet it is reported that the President's team continues to bargain with the Taliban concerning diplomatic recognition, potential coordination with the U.S. intelligence community, and access to $3.5 billion in held currency to the Taliban, despite these actions. Extending official diplomatic engagement and facilitating access to funding without guaranteed and meaningful liberties for women and girls will legitimize the Taliban rule and furthersubject women to a brutal regime. Any further effort to surrender leverage to the Taliban is a candid reflection of the Biden administration's failure to remedy its own hypocrisy regarding human rights. The administration's abandonment of Americans, inability to serve justice for our soldiers killed in action, impassive counterterrorism operations, and ignorance of the human rights disaster they precipitated in Afghanistan have substituted sound strategy for an ad hoc response of willful negligence. And they know it. The Department of State and Department of Defense under President Biden have refused to cooperate with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The President's neglect is most profoundly demonstrated through his administration's lack of controls on billions of dollars of taxpayer and frozen funds marked for humanitarian aid that have found their way into the Taliban's coffers. Since the Taliban and Haqqani Network--the two groups that are ruling Afghanistan--are Specially Designated Global Terrorists, existing law compels the administration to disclose the risk of taxpayer money slipping into the hands of these two terror groups. The licenses issued by the Treasury Department over the last year extend far beyond acute humanitarian aid for food and medicine. They expand the authorization of funding for activities from endangered species research to direct payments to support governing institutions controlled by the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. I led 15 other Senators in asking the Biden administration to detail the total financial support provided to Afghanistan and an honest assessment of the taxes, the fees, and the import duties syphoned off by the Taliban. More than 6 months later, we are still waiting for a comprehensive answer. This is completely unacceptable in light of recent reporting that Taliban authorities are interfering with the delivery of humanitarian aid, despite a pledge to the United Nations last fall that they would not. The people of Afghanistan continue to suffer from food insecurity while the Taliban are enjoying the spoils of America's generosity. Numerous requests for a detailed accounting have gone unanswered by the Treasury and State Departments. Leaving Americans behind, failing to avenge the death of 13 servicemembers, and abdicating your promises to Afghan women and girls do not deter threats from our shores. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on October 26, 2021, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy stated that ISIS-K and al-Qaida have the intent to conduct operations against the United States, and that ISIS-K could generate that capability in 6 to 12 months and al-Qaida within 1 to 2 years. Eight months have come and passed, and we have yet to learn how Team Biden will protect our citizens from this threat at home or abroad. In the absence of such a framework, threats to our national security grow every day, risking the lives of Americans at home and abroad. Folks, we are rapidly approaching that 1-year mark--the haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan--and we cannot forget. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Ms. ERNST | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3877 | null | 4,883 |
formal | terrorists | null | Islamophobic | Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to urge President Biden to turn his attention to his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan 1 year ago. I want to direct the Commander in Chief to reflect on a series of commitments he made to the American people before and during his reckless exit. On August 19, 2021, President Biden promised U.S. troops would remain on the ground until every American who wanted to leave Afghanistan was evacuated. On August 26, 2021, President Biden promised to hunt down and avenge the deaths of 13 servicemembers killed in action by ISIS-K in Kabul. In a speech to the United Nations on September 21, 2021, the President promised his administration would hold the Taliban accountable to protect the rights of Afghan women. The Commander in Chief failed to uphold his word on all three fronts, and American security and prosperity have suffered as a result of his broken promises. Today in Afghanistan, Americans who want to come home remain left behind, and the administration's lack of transparency concerning both the number and desire of Americans trapped in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is alarming. The President and members of his Cabinet repeatedly claimed that the number of Americans who wanted out of Afghanistan was roughly 100. That number was spouted from September 2021 through the beginning of this year--the same number over and over again--even though we would hear reports on the television that 40 more Americans were out, 200 Americans were out, and yet the number remained the same. How many Americans remain in Afghanistan? The number they kept using was 100. There is no way around it: President Biden broke his promise to the Americans who remain and their families anxiously awaiting their return. Americans have lived and traveled abroad with assurances that the United States would come to their aid in the event of a conflict. No matter how far away, the United States is expected to have the backs of its citizens. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was a cut-and-run approach that greatly damaged that guarantee. If the world's greatest superpower cannot locate and extract its own citizens from the clutches of seventh-century thugs, then far greater tests of our sovereignty, security, and prosperity will only loom larger. As we approach the anniversary of the haphazard withdrawal, there is an open wound hurting our ability to deter the actions of our adversaries. President Biden promised vengeance on the terrorists who killed 13 Americans--including 1 from my hometown of Red Oak, IA--at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He told the American people: The United States will never rest. We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth, and we will--you will pay the ultimate price. Again, the Commander in Chief's rhetoric does not match his actions. The U.S. military has not targeted or conducted any counterterrorism strikes against ISIS-K in Afghanistan since America's withdrawal on August 31, 2021. Those who planned the cowardly act remain at large. It is not like ISIS-K is holed up in the Hindu Kush mountains, away from population centers. At least 26 terrorist attacks, many of which ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for, have struck the Afghan people in metropolitan Kabul since our withdrawal. Our enemies are not hiding, but far too often, America is. We are also stuck with a largely unrealized over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy that has not deterred the resurgence of terrorists or avenged our lost warriors. Our military and covert operators' recent strike was welcome and long overdue, but the strike demonstrates a capability rarely employed and a posture toward terrorism far too inexact. It was President Biden, after all, who said last August that al-Qaida was gone from Afghanistan. Folks, that is clearly not the case. Ensuring that al-Qaida leader al-Zawahiri will never harm an American again was a necessary action, but the strike has raised serious questions about the security situation we have in Afghanistan. The President's so-called and much-promised over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy has not been a deterrent, like it was promised to be. Instead, we are seeing a growing threat emanating from Afghanistan. This is the first U.S. military strike in Afghanistan since America left on August 31 of last year. In the meantime, ISIS-K fighters are flowing into the country at alarming rates while al-Qaida and the Taliban have clearly been working together for the past year. At the very least, the Taliban and Haqqani Network gave al-Zawahiri and his thugs safe haven, demonstrating ongoing Taliban collusion with terrorists. A lone strike does not demonstrate a developed capacity to prevent further coordination that threatens American security. Not only has the U.S. capacity to protect the homeland been greatly damaged, the President's intent to champion human rights as a centerpiece of this administration's foreign policy is also in shambles. Last fall, the President repeatedly claimed Afghan women were a linchpin of his foreign policy priorities in the region. Yet, today, after 20 years of constitutional democracy and advancement of civil rights, the Taliban has unraveled significant hard-won gains for the women of Afghanistan. The Taliban enforce a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, prohibit women from working, from attending secondary school, and from traveling any distance without being accompanied by a male member of their family. Most recently, the Taliban has required all women to cover themselves from head to toe in the burqa. Yet it is reported that the President's team continues to bargain with the Taliban concerning diplomatic recognition, potential coordination with the U.S. intelligence community, and access to $3.5 billion in held currency to the Taliban, despite these actions. Extending official diplomatic engagement and facilitating access to funding without guaranteed and meaningful liberties for women and girls will legitimize the Taliban rule and furthersubject women to a brutal regime. Any further effort to surrender leverage to the Taliban is a candid reflection of the Biden administration's failure to remedy its own hypocrisy regarding human rights. The administration's abandonment of Americans, inability to serve justice for our soldiers killed in action, impassive counterterrorism operations, and ignorance of the human rights disaster they precipitated in Afghanistan have substituted sound strategy for an ad hoc response of willful negligence. And they know it. The Department of State and Department of Defense under President Biden have refused to cooperate with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The President's neglect is most profoundly demonstrated through his administration's lack of controls on billions of dollars of taxpayer and frozen funds marked for humanitarian aid that have found their way into the Taliban's coffers. Since the Taliban and Haqqani Network--the two groups that are ruling Afghanistan--are Specially Designated Global Terrorists, existing law compels the administration to disclose the risk of taxpayer money slipping into the hands of these two terror groups. The licenses issued by the Treasury Department over the last year extend far beyond acute humanitarian aid for food and medicine. They expand the authorization of funding for activities from endangered species research to direct payments to support governing institutions controlled by the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. I led 15 other Senators in asking the Biden administration to detail the total financial support provided to Afghanistan and an honest assessment of the taxes, the fees, and the import duties syphoned off by the Taliban. More than 6 months later, we are still waiting for a comprehensive answer. This is completely unacceptable in light of recent reporting that Taliban authorities are interfering with the delivery of humanitarian aid, despite a pledge to the United Nations last fall that they would not. The people of Afghanistan continue to suffer from food insecurity while the Taliban are enjoying the spoils of America's generosity. Numerous requests for a detailed accounting have gone unanswered by the Treasury and State Departments. Leaving Americans behind, failing to avenge the death of 13 servicemembers, and abdicating your promises to Afghan women and girls do not deter threats from our shores. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on October 26, 2021, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy stated that ISIS-K and al-Qaida have the intent to conduct operations against the United States, and that ISIS-K could generate that capability in 6 to 12 months and al-Qaida within 1 to 2 years. Eight months have come and passed, and we have yet to learn how Team Biden will protect our citizens from this threat at home or abroad. In the absence of such a framework, threats to our national security grow every day, risking the lives of Americans at home and abroad. Folks, we are rapidly approaching that 1-year mark--the haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan--and we cannot forget. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Ms. ERNST | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3877 | null | 4,884 |
formal | thugs | null | racist | Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to urge President Biden to turn his attention to his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan 1 year ago. I want to direct the Commander in Chief to reflect on a series of commitments he made to the American people before and during his reckless exit. On August 19, 2021, President Biden promised U.S. troops would remain on the ground until every American who wanted to leave Afghanistan was evacuated. On August 26, 2021, President Biden promised to hunt down and avenge the deaths of 13 servicemembers killed in action by ISIS-K in Kabul. In a speech to the United Nations on September 21, 2021, the President promised his administration would hold the Taliban accountable to protect the rights of Afghan women. The Commander in Chief failed to uphold his word on all three fronts, and American security and prosperity have suffered as a result of his broken promises. Today in Afghanistan, Americans who want to come home remain left behind, and the administration's lack of transparency concerning both the number and desire of Americans trapped in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is alarming. The President and members of his Cabinet repeatedly claimed that the number of Americans who wanted out of Afghanistan was roughly 100. That number was spouted from September 2021 through the beginning of this year--the same number over and over again--even though we would hear reports on the television that 40 more Americans were out, 200 Americans were out, and yet the number remained the same. How many Americans remain in Afghanistan? The number they kept using was 100. There is no way around it: President Biden broke his promise to the Americans who remain and their families anxiously awaiting their return. Americans have lived and traveled abroad with assurances that the United States would come to their aid in the event of a conflict. No matter how far away, the United States is expected to have the backs of its citizens. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was a cut-and-run approach that greatly damaged that guarantee. If the world's greatest superpower cannot locate and extract its own citizens from the clutches of seventh-century thugs, then far greater tests of our sovereignty, security, and prosperity will only loom larger. As we approach the anniversary of the haphazard withdrawal, there is an open wound hurting our ability to deter the actions of our adversaries. President Biden promised vengeance on the terrorists who killed 13 Americans--including 1 from my hometown of Red Oak, IA--at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He told the American people: The United States will never rest. We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth, and we will--you will pay the ultimate price. Again, the Commander in Chief's rhetoric does not match his actions. The U.S. military has not targeted or conducted any counterterrorism strikes against ISIS-K in Afghanistan since America's withdrawal on August 31, 2021. Those who planned the cowardly act remain at large. It is not like ISIS-K is holed up in the Hindu Kush mountains, away from population centers. At least 26 terrorist attacks, many of which ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for, have struck the Afghan people in metropolitan Kabul since our withdrawal. Our enemies are not hiding, but far too often, America is. We are also stuck with a largely unrealized over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy that has not deterred the resurgence of terrorists or avenged our lost warriors. Our military and covert operators' recent strike was welcome and long overdue, but the strike demonstrates a capability rarely employed and a posture toward terrorism far too inexact. It was President Biden, after all, who said last August that al-Qaida was gone from Afghanistan. Folks, that is clearly not the case. Ensuring that al-Qaida leader al-Zawahiri will never harm an American again was a necessary action, but the strike has raised serious questions about the security situation we have in Afghanistan. The President's so-called and much-promised over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy has not been a deterrent, like it was promised to be. Instead, we are seeing a growing threat emanating from Afghanistan. This is the first U.S. military strike in Afghanistan since America left on August 31 of last year. In the meantime, ISIS-K fighters are flowing into the country at alarming rates while al-Qaida and the Taliban have clearly been working together for the past year. At the very least, the Taliban and Haqqani Network gave al-Zawahiri and his thugs safe haven, demonstrating ongoing Taliban collusion with terrorists. A lone strike does not demonstrate a developed capacity to prevent further coordination that threatens American security. Not only has the U.S. capacity to protect the homeland been greatly damaged, the President's intent to champion human rights as a centerpiece of this administration's foreign policy is also in shambles. Last fall, the President repeatedly claimed Afghan women were a linchpin of his foreign policy priorities in the region. Yet, today, after 20 years of constitutional democracy and advancement of civil rights, the Taliban has unraveled significant hard-won gains for the women of Afghanistan. The Taliban enforce a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, prohibit women from working, from attending secondary school, and from traveling any distance without being accompanied by a male member of their family. Most recently, the Taliban has required all women to cover themselves from head to toe in the burqa. Yet it is reported that the President's team continues to bargain with the Taliban concerning diplomatic recognition, potential coordination with the U.S. intelligence community, and access to $3.5 billion in held currency to the Taliban, despite these actions. Extending official diplomatic engagement and facilitating access to funding without guaranteed and meaningful liberties for women and girls will legitimize the Taliban rule and furthersubject women to a brutal regime. Any further effort to surrender leverage to the Taliban is a candid reflection of the Biden administration's failure to remedy its own hypocrisy regarding human rights. The administration's abandonment of Americans, inability to serve justice for our soldiers killed in action, impassive counterterrorism operations, and ignorance of the human rights disaster they precipitated in Afghanistan have substituted sound strategy for an ad hoc response of willful negligence. And they know it. The Department of State and Department of Defense under President Biden have refused to cooperate with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The President's neglect is most profoundly demonstrated through his administration's lack of controls on billions of dollars of taxpayer and frozen funds marked for humanitarian aid that have found their way into the Taliban's coffers. Since the Taliban and Haqqani Network--the two groups that are ruling Afghanistan--are Specially Designated Global Terrorists, existing law compels the administration to disclose the risk of taxpayer money slipping into the hands of these two terror groups. The licenses issued by the Treasury Department over the last year extend far beyond acute humanitarian aid for food and medicine. They expand the authorization of funding for activities from endangered species research to direct payments to support governing institutions controlled by the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. I led 15 other Senators in asking the Biden administration to detail the total financial support provided to Afghanistan and an honest assessment of the taxes, the fees, and the import duties syphoned off by the Taliban. More than 6 months later, we are still waiting for a comprehensive answer. This is completely unacceptable in light of recent reporting that Taliban authorities are interfering with the delivery of humanitarian aid, despite a pledge to the United Nations last fall that they would not. The people of Afghanistan continue to suffer from food insecurity while the Taliban are enjoying the spoils of America's generosity. Numerous requests for a detailed accounting have gone unanswered by the Treasury and State Departments. Leaving Americans behind, failing to avenge the death of 13 servicemembers, and abdicating your promises to Afghan women and girls do not deter threats from our shores. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on October 26, 2021, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy stated that ISIS-K and al-Qaida have the intent to conduct operations against the United States, and that ISIS-K could generate that capability in 6 to 12 months and al-Qaida within 1 to 2 years. Eight months have come and passed, and we have yet to learn how Team Biden will protect our citizens from this threat at home or abroad. In the absence of such a framework, threats to our national security grow every day, risking the lives of Americans at home and abroad. Folks, we are rapidly approaching that 1-year mark--the haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan--and we cannot forget. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Ms. ERNST | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3877 | null | 4,885 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the nomination of Robert Gordon. Earlier this year, Mr. Gordon had strong bipartisan support in the Finance Committee when his nomination came to a vote. Mr. Gordon is President Biden's nominee to serve as the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources, and he has a long history of dedication to public service. More recently, he served as director of the Department of Health and Human Services for the State of Michigan. He played a central role in the State's pandemic response and managed an agency of 14,000 employees and a multibillion-dollar budget. Before that, he held senior roles in the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget, where he championed evidence-based policymaking to use taxpayer dollars wisely. Earlier in his career, Mr. Gordon served as a senior official at the New York City Department of Education. He was a senior aide on Capitol Hill, a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a White House aide. In his time at the White House, he supported the development of the AmeriCorps program. In his long career in public service, he has worked to ensure that government programs work for those they serve and that they do so through responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Such experience is essential to the work of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources at the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS has responsibility for critical programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program, just to name a few. The Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources must ensure that these programs and many others under the umbrella of the Department remain strong for future generations. I ask unanimous consent that, as if in executive session, the Senate consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 762, Robert Michael Gordon, to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services; that the Senate vote on the nomination, without intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CASEY | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3901 | null | 4,886 |
formal | coincidence | null | antisemitic | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Wesley Davis, one of my able aides in my office. I would like to talk for a few minutes about crime. It is up. It is way up. The largest city in my State is New Orleans, and New Orleans is on track to becoming the murder capital of the world. In my State and in my city of New Orleans, we have seen a 136-percent rise in homicides, a 101-percent rise in shootings, and a 194-percent rise in carjackings. And this is not just a Louisiana and a New Orleans problem. Baton Rouge, LA--Baton Rouge, of course, is my capital city--and Shreveport are not much better. And violent crime is also on the rise in major cities from the west coast to the east coast. We hear a lot about Chicago, of course, and New York City, but from May of 2021 to May of 2022, crime was up 23 percent in Seattle. It was up 21 percent in Washington, DC. And I would respectfully suggest this is no coincidence. For almost 2 years now--2 years, long time--some people in positions of authority in our country have been calling to defund the police, to dismantle the police. And they have been disrespecting the police. Many of our public officials--not all of them, but some happen to be mayors in major cities--they believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They do. They believe that when a cop shoots a criminal, it is automatically the cop's fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it is the gun's fault. And we also have prosecutors, district attorneys--not all of them but too many of them who live by the motto: Hear no evil, see no evil, and prosecute no evil. And we can now see the result of that attitude. It is an anti-law enforcement attitude. Now, look, I know cops aren't perfect. I get it. Some of our police officers get out of line intentionally. And when they do, they should be punished. But do you know when a radical jihadist who happens to be a Muslim blows up a school full of school children, we are told don't blame all Muslims because of the acts of a few. And, gosh, I agree with that, and I know the Presiding Officer does too. How come the same rule doesn't apply to cops? I don't understand. This anti-law enforcement sentiment, understandably, has resulted in lower morale among cops. Duh. It has led to massive resignations. It has led to massive early retirements. It has in my State, and it has in most other States. It turns out that when you spend years vilifying police officers and making it harder for them to do their job, some of them no longer want to stay. That is not surprising. In the city of New Orleans, we have fewer than 1,000 police officers. We need 2,000. This year alone, more than 100 police officers have already quit. That is around the same number of police officers who resigned, retired, or were fired in 2020. And these statistics are nationwide; it is not just New Orleans. The Dallas Police Department is down 550 law enforcement officials. In Portland, OR, the department is looking to fill more than 100 positions for cops. A headline from last week said: As officers leave in droves, New Orleans PD's response times soar to 2.5 hours. That is not the way our country should work. Now, you can talk about defunding the police all day, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--not everyone does. But too many people do. But the reality is that defunding the police results in delayed responses to9-1-1 phone calls. It demoralizes cops. It causes a lack of good recruits, and it causes our communities to be less safe. I don't know why this is--if I make it to Heaven, I am going to ask--but there is some people in our society--not just in America but throughout the world--these people are not sick; they are not mixed up; they are not confused. It is not that their mother or their father did not love them enough. They are just antisocial. I don't know why, but they are. And they hurt other people. And they steal other people's stuff. And they can't live in society. And to protect us from them, we have to have law enforcement. It is just that simple. So here is, in my opinion, what we do, because it is hard not to notice that what we are doing right now is not working. I don't mean to be cruel, but a lot of Americans look around at the people who are disrespecting and defunding the police--or trying to--and the attitude of those Americans is, look, don't bother to send in the clowns; they are already here. The American people want and deserve better. What should we do? No. 1, we have to empower our cops. And when they make a mistake intentionally, when they intentionally violate their oath, they should be punished. But that is a small minority of our law enforcement officials. So we need to empower our cops. As I said, we have too many people in positions of authority who really think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. We have to pay our cops. We have got to hire more of them. We have got to stand behind them. When they make a split-second decision, they shouldn't be thinking, Oh, my God, I might lose my family and my home and my job. When they act in good faith and they have to make a split-second decision, we have to stand behind them. And we have to tell our police officers to enforce all laws--not just the big ones, the little ones. And we have to get rid of the ``hear no evil, see no evil, prosecute no evil'' prosecutors. It is also important that we ask ourselves another question: Why is it that so many young offenders--especially in our inner cities--why is it that so many of these young criminals are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married? Why is that? Because that is true, and that is an embarrassment. And I will give you one reason: Because their schools suck. They do. Too many of our schools are failure factories. We need to fix them. We need to find out which of our teachers can teach and pay them. We need to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work. I can't recite to you the first six Presidents of the United States in proper order, but I will never forget, ever, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. Teachers matter. We need to have no-excuses schools. I believe every child can learn; I do. It is tougher for some than others, but I believe that every child can learn. And I think we need a new rule: I don't care how old you are--I don't care--you are not going to get out of the third grade until you can read and write. No exceptions. None. And also, I think we have to give our public schools some competition. We need more charter schools. We need more school choice. We need to empower our parents. Give them vouchers. Give those public schools some competition. It will make all of our schools better. I want to end this way: Look, it is hard to be a cop. It is hard to be a cop. And cops are like all the rest of us; they are not perfect. They make mistakes. But only a small, small, small percentage intentionally violate their oath. We need to empower those that abide by their oath because they are the ones keeping our communities safe. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3903 | null | 4,887 |
formal | inner cities | null | racist | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Wesley Davis, one of my able aides in my office. I would like to talk for a few minutes about crime. It is up. It is way up. The largest city in my State is New Orleans, and New Orleans is on track to becoming the murder capital of the world. In my State and in my city of New Orleans, we have seen a 136-percent rise in homicides, a 101-percent rise in shootings, and a 194-percent rise in carjackings. And this is not just a Louisiana and a New Orleans problem. Baton Rouge, LA--Baton Rouge, of course, is my capital city--and Shreveport are not much better. And violent crime is also on the rise in major cities from the west coast to the east coast. We hear a lot about Chicago, of course, and New York City, but from May of 2021 to May of 2022, crime was up 23 percent in Seattle. It was up 21 percent in Washington, DC. And I would respectfully suggest this is no coincidence. For almost 2 years now--2 years, long time--some people in positions of authority in our country have been calling to defund the police, to dismantle the police. And they have been disrespecting the police. Many of our public officials--not all of them, but some happen to be mayors in major cities--they believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They do. They believe that when a cop shoots a criminal, it is automatically the cop's fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it is the gun's fault. And we also have prosecutors, district attorneys--not all of them but too many of them who live by the motto: Hear no evil, see no evil, and prosecute no evil. And we can now see the result of that attitude. It is an anti-law enforcement attitude. Now, look, I know cops aren't perfect. I get it. Some of our police officers get out of line intentionally. And when they do, they should be punished. But do you know when a radical jihadist who happens to be a Muslim blows up a school full of school children, we are told don't blame all Muslims because of the acts of a few. And, gosh, I agree with that, and I know the Presiding Officer does too. How come the same rule doesn't apply to cops? I don't understand. This anti-law enforcement sentiment, understandably, has resulted in lower morale among cops. Duh. It has led to massive resignations. It has led to massive early retirements. It has in my State, and it has in most other States. It turns out that when you spend years vilifying police officers and making it harder for them to do their job, some of them no longer want to stay. That is not surprising. In the city of New Orleans, we have fewer than 1,000 police officers. We need 2,000. This year alone, more than 100 police officers have already quit. That is around the same number of police officers who resigned, retired, or were fired in 2020. And these statistics are nationwide; it is not just New Orleans. The Dallas Police Department is down 550 law enforcement officials. In Portland, OR, the department is looking to fill more than 100 positions for cops. A headline from last week said: As officers leave in droves, New Orleans PD's response times soar to 2.5 hours. That is not the way our country should work. Now, you can talk about defunding the police all day, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--not everyone does. But too many people do. But the reality is that defunding the police results in delayed responses to9-1-1 phone calls. It demoralizes cops. It causes a lack of good recruits, and it causes our communities to be less safe. I don't know why this is--if I make it to Heaven, I am going to ask--but there is some people in our society--not just in America but throughout the world--these people are not sick; they are not mixed up; they are not confused. It is not that their mother or their father did not love them enough. They are just antisocial. I don't know why, but they are. And they hurt other people. And they steal other people's stuff. And they can't live in society. And to protect us from them, we have to have law enforcement. It is just that simple. So here is, in my opinion, what we do, because it is hard not to notice that what we are doing right now is not working. I don't mean to be cruel, but a lot of Americans look around at the people who are disrespecting and defunding the police--or trying to--and the attitude of those Americans is, look, don't bother to send in the clowns; they are already here. The American people want and deserve better. What should we do? No. 1, we have to empower our cops. And when they make a mistake intentionally, when they intentionally violate their oath, they should be punished. But that is a small minority of our law enforcement officials. So we need to empower our cops. As I said, we have too many people in positions of authority who really think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. We have to pay our cops. We have got to hire more of them. We have got to stand behind them. When they make a split-second decision, they shouldn't be thinking, Oh, my God, I might lose my family and my home and my job. When they act in good faith and they have to make a split-second decision, we have to stand behind them. And we have to tell our police officers to enforce all laws--not just the big ones, the little ones. And we have to get rid of the ``hear no evil, see no evil, prosecute no evil'' prosecutors. It is also important that we ask ourselves another question: Why is it that so many young offenders--especially in our inner cities--why is it that so many of these young criminals are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married? Why is that? Because that is true, and that is an embarrassment. And I will give you one reason: Because their schools suck. They do. Too many of our schools are failure factories. We need to fix them. We need to find out which of our teachers can teach and pay them. We need to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work. I can't recite to you the first six Presidents of the United States in proper order, but I will never forget, ever, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. Teachers matter. We need to have no-excuses schools. I believe every child can learn; I do. It is tougher for some than others, but I believe that every child can learn. And I think we need a new rule: I don't care how old you are--I don't care--you are not going to get out of the third grade until you can read and write. No exceptions. None. And also, I think we have to give our public schools some competition. We need more charter schools. We need more school choice. We need to empower our parents. Give them vouchers. Give those public schools some competition. It will make all of our schools better. I want to end this way: Look, it is hard to be a cop. It is hard to be a cop. And cops are like all the rest of us; they are not perfect. They make mistakes. But only a small, small, small percentage intentionally violate their oath. We need to empower those that abide by their oath because they are the ones keeping our communities safe. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3903 | null | 4,888 |
formal | public school | null | racist | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Wesley Davis, one of my able aides in my office. I would like to talk for a few minutes about crime. It is up. It is way up. The largest city in my State is New Orleans, and New Orleans is on track to becoming the murder capital of the world. In my State and in my city of New Orleans, we have seen a 136-percent rise in homicides, a 101-percent rise in shootings, and a 194-percent rise in carjackings. And this is not just a Louisiana and a New Orleans problem. Baton Rouge, LA--Baton Rouge, of course, is my capital city--and Shreveport are not much better. And violent crime is also on the rise in major cities from the west coast to the east coast. We hear a lot about Chicago, of course, and New York City, but from May of 2021 to May of 2022, crime was up 23 percent in Seattle. It was up 21 percent in Washington, DC. And I would respectfully suggest this is no coincidence. For almost 2 years now--2 years, long time--some people in positions of authority in our country have been calling to defund the police, to dismantle the police. And they have been disrespecting the police. Many of our public officials--not all of them, but some happen to be mayors in major cities--they believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They do. They believe that when a cop shoots a criminal, it is automatically the cop's fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it is the gun's fault. And we also have prosecutors, district attorneys--not all of them but too many of them who live by the motto: Hear no evil, see no evil, and prosecute no evil. And we can now see the result of that attitude. It is an anti-law enforcement attitude. Now, look, I know cops aren't perfect. I get it. Some of our police officers get out of line intentionally. And when they do, they should be punished. But do you know when a radical jihadist who happens to be a Muslim blows up a school full of school children, we are told don't blame all Muslims because of the acts of a few. And, gosh, I agree with that, and I know the Presiding Officer does too. How come the same rule doesn't apply to cops? I don't understand. This anti-law enforcement sentiment, understandably, has resulted in lower morale among cops. Duh. It has led to massive resignations. It has led to massive early retirements. It has in my State, and it has in most other States. It turns out that when you spend years vilifying police officers and making it harder for them to do their job, some of them no longer want to stay. That is not surprising. In the city of New Orleans, we have fewer than 1,000 police officers. We need 2,000. This year alone, more than 100 police officers have already quit. That is around the same number of police officers who resigned, retired, or were fired in 2020. And these statistics are nationwide; it is not just New Orleans. The Dallas Police Department is down 550 law enforcement officials. In Portland, OR, the department is looking to fill more than 100 positions for cops. A headline from last week said: As officers leave in droves, New Orleans PD's response times soar to 2.5 hours. That is not the way our country should work. Now, you can talk about defunding the police all day, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--not everyone does. But too many people do. But the reality is that defunding the police results in delayed responses to9-1-1 phone calls. It demoralizes cops. It causes a lack of good recruits, and it causes our communities to be less safe. I don't know why this is--if I make it to Heaven, I am going to ask--but there is some people in our society--not just in America but throughout the world--these people are not sick; they are not mixed up; they are not confused. It is not that their mother or their father did not love them enough. They are just antisocial. I don't know why, but they are. And they hurt other people. And they steal other people's stuff. And they can't live in society. And to protect us from them, we have to have law enforcement. It is just that simple. So here is, in my opinion, what we do, because it is hard not to notice that what we are doing right now is not working. I don't mean to be cruel, but a lot of Americans look around at the people who are disrespecting and defunding the police--or trying to--and the attitude of those Americans is, look, don't bother to send in the clowns; they are already here. The American people want and deserve better. What should we do? No. 1, we have to empower our cops. And when they make a mistake intentionally, when they intentionally violate their oath, they should be punished. But that is a small minority of our law enforcement officials. So we need to empower our cops. As I said, we have too many people in positions of authority who really think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. We have to pay our cops. We have got to hire more of them. We have got to stand behind them. When they make a split-second decision, they shouldn't be thinking, Oh, my God, I might lose my family and my home and my job. When they act in good faith and they have to make a split-second decision, we have to stand behind them. And we have to tell our police officers to enforce all laws--not just the big ones, the little ones. And we have to get rid of the ``hear no evil, see no evil, prosecute no evil'' prosecutors. It is also important that we ask ourselves another question: Why is it that so many young offenders--especially in our inner cities--why is it that so many of these young criminals are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married? Why is that? Because that is true, and that is an embarrassment. And I will give you one reason: Because their schools suck. They do. Too many of our schools are failure factories. We need to fix them. We need to find out which of our teachers can teach and pay them. We need to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work. I can't recite to you the first six Presidents of the United States in proper order, but I will never forget, ever, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. Teachers matter. We need to have no-excuses schools. I believe every child can learn; I do. It is tougher for some than others, but I believe that every child can learn. And I think we need a new rule: I don't care how old you are--I don't care--you are not going to get out of the third grade until you can read and write. No exceptions. None. And also, I think we have to give our public schools some competition. We need more charter schools. We need more school choice. We need to empower our parents. Give them vouchers. Give those public schools some competition. It will make all of our schools better. I want to end this way: Look, it is hard to be a cop. It is hard to be a cop. And cops are like all the rest of us; they are not perfect. They make mistakes. But only a small, small, small percentage intentionally violate their oath. We need to empower those that abide by their oath because they are the ones keeping our communities safe. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3903 | null | 4,889 |
formal | public schools | null | racist | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Wesley Davis, one of my able aides in my office. I would like to talk for a few minutes about crime. It is up. It is way up. The largest city in my State is New Orleans, and New Orleans is on track to becoming the murder capital of the world. In my State and in my city of New Orleans, we have seen a 136-percent rise in homicides, a 101-percent rise in shootings, and a 194-percent rise in carjackings. And this is not just a Louisiana and a New Orleans problem. Baton Rouge, LA--Baton Rouge, of course, is my capital city--and Shreveport are not much better. And violent crime is also on the rise in major cities from the west coast to the east coast. We hear a lot about Chicago, of course, and New York City, but from May of 2021 to May of 2022, crime was up 23 percent in Seattle. It was up 21 percent in Washington, DC. And I would respectfully suggest this is no coincidence. For almost 2 years now--2 years, long time--some people in positions of authority in our country have been calling to defund the police, to dismantle the police. And they have been disrespecting the police. Many of our public officials--not all of them, but some happen to be mayors in major cities--they believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They do. They believe that when a cop shoots a criminal, it is automatically the cop's fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it is the gun's fault. And we also have prosecutors, district attorneys--not all of them but too many of them who live by the motto: Hear no evil, see no evil, and prosecute no evil. And we can now see the result of that attitude. It is an anti-law enforcement attitude. Now, look, I know cops aren't perfect. I get it. Some of our police officers get out of line intentionally. And when they do, they should be punished. But do you know when a radical jihadist who happens to be a Muslim blows up a school full of school children, we are told don't blame all Muslims because of the acts of a few. And, gosh, I agree with that, and I know the Presiding Officer does too. How come the same rule doesn't apply to cops? I don't understand. This anti-law enforcement sentiment, understandably, has resulted in lower morale among cops. Duh. It has led to massive resignations. It has led to massive early retirements. It has in my State, and it has in most other States. It turns out that when you spend years vilifying police officers and making it harder for them to do their job, some of them no longer want to stay. That is not surprising. In the city of New Orleans, we have fewer than 1,000 police officers. We need 2,000. This year alone, more than 100 police officers have already quit. That is around the same number of police officers who resigned, retired, or were fired in 2020. And these statistics are nationwide; it is not just New Orleans. The Dallas Police Department is down 550 law enforcement officials. In Portland, OR, the department is looking to fill more than 100 positions for cops. A headline from last week said: As officers leave in droves, New Orleans PD's response times soar to 2.5 hours. That is not the way our country should work. Now, you can talk about defunding the police all day, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--not everyone does. But too many people do. But the reality is that defunding the police results in delayed responses to9-1-1 phone calls. It demoralizes cops. It causes a lack of good recruits, and it causes our communities to be less safe. I don't know why this is--if I make it to Heaven, I am going to ask--but there is some people in our society--not just in America but throughout the world--these people are not sick; they are not mixed up; they are not confused. It is not that their mother or their father did not love them enough. They are just antisocial. I don't know why, but they are. And they hurt other people. And they steal other people's stuff. And they can't live in society. And to protect us from them, we have to have law enforcement. It is just that simple. So here is, in my opinion, what we do, because it is hard not to notice that what we are doing right now is not working. I don't mean to be cruel, but a lot of Americans look around at the people who are disrespecting and defunding the police--or trying to--and the attitude of those Americans is, look, don't bother to send in the clowns; they are already here. The American people want and deserve better. What should we do? No. 1, we have to empower our cops. And when they make a mistake intentionally, when they intentionally violate their oath, they should be punished. But that is a small minority of our law enforcement officials. So we need to empower our cops. As I said, we have too many people in positions of authority who really think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. We have to pay our cops. We have got to hire more of them. We have got to stand behind them. When they make a split-second decision, they shouldn't be thinking, Oh, my God, I might lose my family and my home and my job. When they act in good faith and they have to make a split-second decision, we have to stand behind them. And we have to tell our police officers to enforce all laws--not just the big ones, the little ones. And we have to get rid of the ``hear no evil, see no evil, prosecute no evil'' prosecutors. It is also important that we ask ourselves another question: Why is it that so many young offenders--especially in our inner cities--why is it that so many of these young criminals are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married? Why is that? Because that is true, and that is an embarrassment. And I will give you one reason: Because their schools suck. They do. Too many of our schools are failure factories. We need to fix them. We need to find out which of our teachers can teach and pay them. We need to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work. I can't recite to you the first six Presidents of the United States in proper order, but I will never forget, ever, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. Teachers matter. We need to have no-excuses schools. I believe every child can learn; I do. It is tougher for some than others, but I believe that every child can learn. And I think we need a new rule: I don't care how old you are--I don't care--you are not going to get out of the third grade until you can read and write. No exceptions. None. And also, I think we have to give our public schools some competition. We need more charter schools. We need more school choice. We need to empower our parents. Give them vouchers. Give those public schools some competition. It will make all of our schools better. I want to end this way: Look, it is hard to be a cop. It is hard to be a cop. And cops are like all the rest of us; they are not perfect. They make mistakes. But only a small, small, small percentage intentionally violate their oath. We need to empower those that abide by their oath because they are the ones keeping our communities safe. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3903 | null | 4,890 |
formal | Chicago | null | racist | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Wesley Davis, one of my able aides in my office. I would like to talk for a few minutes about crime. It is up. It is way up. The largest city in my State is New Orleans, and New Orleans is on track to becoming the murder capital of the world. In my State and in my city of New Orleans, we have seen a 136-percent rise in homicides, a 101-percent rise in shootings, and a 194-percent rise in carjackings. And this is not just a Louisiana and a New Orleans problem. Baton Rouge, LA--Baton Rouge, of course, is my capital city--and Shreveport are not much better. And violent crime is also on the rise in major cities from the west coast to the east coast. We hear a lot about Chicago, of course, and New York City, but from May of 2021 to May of 2022, crime was up 23 percent in Seattle. It was up 21 percent in Washington, DC. And I would respectfully suggest this is no coincidence. For almost 2 years now--2 years, long time--some people in positions of authority in our country have been calling to defund the police, to dismantle the police. And they have been disrespecting the police. Many of our public officials--not all of them, but some happen to be mayors in major cities--they believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They do. They believe that when a cop shoots a criminal, it is automatically the cop's fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it is the gun's fault. And we also have prosecutors, district attorneys--not all of them but too many of them who live by the motto: Hear no evil, see no evil, and prosecute no evil. And we can now see the result of that attitude. It is an anti-law enforcement attitude. Now, look, I know cops aren't perfect. I get it. Some of our police officers get out of line intentionally. And when they do, they should be punished. But do you know when a radical jihadist who happens to be a Muslim blows up a school full of school children, we are told don't blame all Muslims because of the acts of a few. And, gosh, I agree with that, and I know the Presiding Officer does too. How come the same rule doesn't apply to cops? I don't understand. This anti-law enforcement sentiment, understandably, has resulted in lower morale among cops. Duh. It has led to massive resignations. It has led to massive early retirements. It has in my State, and it has in most other States. It turns out that when you spend years vilifying police officers and making it harder for them to do their job, some of them no longer want to stay. That is not surprising. In the city of New Orleans, we have fewer than 1,000 police officers. We need 2,000. This year alone, more than 100 police officers have already quit. That is around the same number of police officers who resigned, retired, or were fired in 2020. And these statistics are nationwide; it is not just New Orleans. The Dallas Police Department is down 550 law enforcement officials. In Portland, OR, the department is looking to fill more than 100 positions for cops. A headline from last week said: As officers leave in droves, New Orleans PD's response times soar to 2.5 hours. That is not the way our country should work. Now, you can talk about defunding the police all day, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--not everyone does. But too many people do. But the reality is that defunding the police results in delayed responses to9-1-1 phone calls. It demoralizes cops. It causes a lack of good recruits, and it causes our communities to be less safe. I don't know why this is--if I make it to Heaven, I am going to ask--but there is some people in our society--not just in America but throughout the world--these people are not sick; they are not mixed up; they are not confused. It is not that their mother or their father did not love them enough. They are just antisocial. I don't know why, but they are. And they hurt other people. And they steal other people's stuff. And they can't live in society. And to protect us from them, we have to have law enforcement. It is just that simple. So here is, in my opinion, what we do, because it is hard not to notice that what we are doing right now is not working. I don't mean to be cruel, but a lot of Americans look around at the people who are disrespecting and defunding the police--or trying to--and the attitude of those Americans is, look, don't bother to send in the clowns; they are already here. The American people want and deserve better. What should we do? No. 1, we have to empower our cops. And when they make a mistake intentionally, when they intentionally violate their oath, they should be punished. But that is a small minority of our law enforcement officials. So we need to empower our cops. As I said, we have too many people in positions of authority who really think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. We have to pay our cops. We have got to hire more of them. We have got to stand behind them. When they make a split-second decision, they shouldn't be thinking, Oh, my God, I might lose my family and my home and my job. When they act in good faith and they have to make a split-second decision, we have to stand behind them. And we have to tell our police officers to enforce all laws--not just the big ones, the little ones. And we have to get rid of the ``hear no evil, see no evil, prosecute no evil'' prosecutors. It is also important that we ask ourselves another question: Why is it that so many young offenders--especially in our inner cities--why is it that so many of these young criminals are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married? Why is that? Because that is true, and that is an embarrassment. And I will give you one reason: Because their schools suck. They do. Too many of our schools are failure factories. We need to fix them. We need to find out which of our teachers can teach and pay them. We need to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work. I can't recite to you the first six Presidents of the United States in proper order, but I will never forget, ever, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. Teachers matter. We need to have no-excuses schools. I believe every child can learn; I do. It is tougher for some than others, but I believe that every child can learn. And I think we need a new rule: I don't care how old you are--I don't care--you are not going to get out of the third grade until you can read and write. No exceptions. None. And also, I think we have to give our public schools some competition. We need more charter schools. We need more school choice. We need to empower our parents. Give them vouchers. Give those public schools some competition. It will make all of our schools better. I want to end this way: Look, it is hard to be a cop. It is hard to be a cop. And cops are like all the rest of us; they are not perfect. They make mistakes. But only a small, small, small percentage intentionally violate their oath. We need to empower those that abide by their oath because they are the ones keeping our communities safe. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3903 | null | 4,891 |
formal | school choice | null | racist | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Wesley Davis, one of my able aides in my office. I would like to talk for a few minutes about crime. It is up. It is way up. The largest city in my State is New Orleans, and New Orleans is on track to becoming the murder capital of the world. In my State and in my city of New Orleans, we have seen a 136-percent rise in homicides, a 101-percent rise in shootings, and a 194-percent rise in carjackings. And this is not just a Louisiana and a New Orleans problem. Baton Rouge, LA--Baton Rouge, of course, is my capital city--and Shreveport are not much better. And violent crime is also on the rise in major cities from the west coast to the east coast. We hear a lot about Chicago, of course, and New York City, but from May of 2021 to May of 2022, crime was up 23 percent in Seattle. It was up 21 percent in Washington, DC. And I would respectfully suggest this is no coincidence. For almost 2 years now--2 years, long time--some people in positions of authority in our country have been calling to defund the police, to dismantle the police. And they have been disrespecting the police. Many of our public officials--not all of them, but some happen to be mayors in major cities--they believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They do. They believe that when a cop shoots a criminal, it is automatically the cop's fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it is the gun's fault. And we also have prosecutors, district attorneys--not all of them but too many of them who live by the motto: Hear no evil, see no evil, and prosecute no evil. And we can now see the result of that attitude. It is an anti-law enforcement attitude. Now, look, I know cops aren't perfect. I get it. Some of our police officers get out of line intentionally. And when they do, they should be punished. But do you know when a radical jihadist who happens to be a Muslim blows up a school full of school children, we are told don't blame all Muslims because of the acts of a few. And, gosh, I agree with that, and I know the Presiding Officer does too. How come the same rule doesn't apply to cops? I don't understand. This anti-law enforcement sentiment, understandably, has resulted in lower morale among cops. Duh. It has led to massive resignations. It has led to massive early retirements. It has in my State, and it has in most other States. It turns out that when you spend years vilifying police officers and making it harder for them to do their job, some of them no longer want to stay. That is not surprising. In the city of New Orleans, we have fewer than 1,000 police officers. We need 2,000. This year alone, more than 100 police officers have already quit. That is around the same number of police officers who resigned, retired, or were fired in 2020. And these statistics are nationwide; it is not just New Orleans. The Dallas Police Department is down 550 law enforcement officials. In Portland, OR, the department is looking to fill more than 100 positions for cops. A headline from last week said: As officers leave in droves, New Orleans PD's response times soar to 2.5 hours. That is not the way our country should work. Now, you can talk about defunding the police all day, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--not everyone does. But too many people do. But the reality is that defunding the police results in delayed responses to9-1-1 phone calls. It demoralizes cops. It causes a lack of good recruits, and it causes our communities to be less safe. I don't know why this is--if I make it to Heaven, I am going to ask--but there is some people in our society--not just in America but throughout the world--these people are not sick; they are not mixed up; they are not confused. It is not that their mother or their father did not love them enough. They are just antisocial. I don't know why, but they are. And they hurt other people. And they steal other people's stuff. And they can't live in society. And to protect us from them, we have to have law enforcement. It is just that simple. So here is, in my opinion, what we do, because it is hard not to notice that what we are doing right now is not working. I don't mean to be cruel, but a lot of Americans look around at the people who are disrespecting and defunding the police--or trying to--and the attitude of those Americans is, look, don't bother to send in the clowns; they are already here. The American people want and deserve better. What should we do? No. 1, we have to empower our cops. And when they make a mistake intentionally, when they intentionally violate their oath, they should be punished. But that is a small minority of our law enforcement officials. So we need to empower our cops. As I said, we have too many people in positions of authority who really think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. We have to pay our cops. We have got to hire more of them. We have got to stand behind them. When they make a split-second decision, they shouldn't be thinking, Oh, my God, I might lose my family and my home and my job. When they act in good faith and they have to make a split-second decision, we have to stand behind them. And we have to tell our police officers to enforce all laws--not just the big ones, the little ones. And we have to get rid of the ``hear no evil, see no evil, prosecute no evil'' prosecutors. It is also important that we ask ourselves another question: Why is it that so many young offenders--especially in our inner cities--why is it that so many of these young criminals are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married? Why is that? Because that is true, and that is an embarrassment. And I will give you one reason: Because their schools suck. They do. Too many of our schools are failure factories. We need to fix them. We need to find out which of our teachers can teach and pay them. We need to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work. I can't recite to you the first six Presidents of the United States in proper order, but I will never forget, ever, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. Teachers matter. We need to have no-excuses schools. I believe every child can learn; I do. It is tougher for some than others, but I believe that every child can learn. And I think we need a new rule: I don't care how old you are--I don't care--you are not going to get out of the third grade until you can read and write. No exceptions. None. And also, I think we have to give our public schools some competition. We need more charter schools. We need more school choice. We need to empower our parents. Give them vouchers. Give those public schools some competition. It will make all of our schools better. I want to end this way: Look, it is hard to be a cop. It is hard to be a cop. And cops are like all the rest of us; they are not perfect. They make mistakes. But only a small, small, small percentage intentionally violate their oath. We need to empower those that abide by their oath because they are the ones keeping our communities safe. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3903 | null | 4,892 |
formal | safeguard | null | transphobic | Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to note that, during this coming recess, we will mark the somber occasion of the 1-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. I want to draw the attention of the Senate and the American people to one of our most urgent priorities in Afghanistan: providing immediate assistance for Afghan citizens that risked their lives to further U.S. interests and whose lives now stand in jeopardy should we not act soon. Nine days--in the short span of 9 days after seizing control of the first province to fall on August 6, 2021--Nimruz--a whirlwind of chaos ensued. The world watched as, one by one, all of the country's provinces fell to Taliban forces until finally reaching the capital Kabul on August 15. With little resistance from the Afghan forces we had trained and equipped over two decades, the Taliban simply entered and took control. In terrified desperation, many Afghans gathered what they could carry with them and fled. People left their whole lives behind--their houses, their jobs, their friends and family--risking their lives to flee the country in the wake of the Taliban takeover. Shocking images of Afghans clinging to U.S. evacuation flights as they took off could not have shown a clearer picture of the despair of so many Afghans. Amid this panic, the Biden administration acted swiftly to evacuate American personnel and most American citizens. We joined our international allies to call for a new Afghan Government that is united, inclusive, and representative, including with full participation of women. We joined international voices to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. And along with our NATO allies, we committed to evacuate at-risk Afghans. And make no mistake, we as Americans remain committed to all these priorities. We stand united with our allies to further these goals and ensure a stable and secure Afghanistan. Central to the Taliban's beliefs is the Pashtun code of ethics, ``Pashtunwaly,'' in which ``nang''--which means honor--stands as the central tenet. It is with ``nang'' in mind that we call on the Taliban to honor their commitment to provide an accountable and inclusive government. We urge them to honor their original and oft-repeated promise to uphold human rights and support education for women and girls--commitments that recent reporting suggests they are not fulfilling. We call on them to honor their commitment to provide a safe and secure Afghanistan for all Afghans. We join our allies in the international community in these calls for action. Yet in the aftermath of the fall of Afghanistan, there remains one priority for the U.S. alone to undertake: ensuring the well-being of Afghan citizens who put their lives on the line to serve our country. These are the Afghans who worked at our Embassy and other diplomatic facilities, served as our translators, helped us engage with the Afghan Government, and provided us information and assistance. They are the Afghans that served and studied in U.S.-affiliated centers and universities. They are the Afghans who worked tirelessly to promote our principles as journalists working for U.S.-affiliated outlets, like the Afghan services of RFE/RL, Radio Azadi, and Ghandara. Without their assistance, U.S. lives would have been lost. Without their support, we would have been unable to talk about our U.S. values and priorities to the Afghan people. Without them, we would not have been able to work with the Government of Afghanistan to promote our shared goal of regional stability and security. To these individuals and their families, we owe a great debt for their assistance. The 77,000 Afghans currently in the pipeline for special immigrant visas, the 44,000 that await processing for their P1/P2 visas, and yet another almost 5,000 that seek humanitarian parole, these individuals are all counting on us. So I call on the State Department to make renewed efforts to expedite these cases. I would like to recognize that, to date, our government has made enormous strides in this herculean effort; tens of thousands of these individuals were evacuated from Afghanistan following the collapse of the government. Yet tens of thousands more remain stranded in limbo, both in Afghanistan as well as in third countries--among others, in Pakistan, Qatar, UAE, Georgia, Albania, and the Kyrgyz Republic. They wait patiently, many of them running through their personal savings, many unable to work. We continue to support these individuals, oftentimes maintaining a delicate dialogue with the host countries about the long-term plans for these individuals. I would like to share with you the story of one such individual whose life hangs in the balance. It is with her permission that I share this story, and I will call her ``Arezo'' to safeguard her anonymity. Arezo is a bright young Afghan woman of Hazara heritage who studied at a U.S. university and later worked for an international human rights NGO. By all accounts, up until the collapse of Afghanistan, she was one of the many Afghans working to build a bright future for Afghanistan. When Kabul fell, like so many others, Arezo shred all the documents tying her in any way to the United States. She knew that if the Taliban discovered this connection, both her life and her family's lives could be at risk. While attempting to flee, Arezo and her brother were discovered by the Taliban and taken in for questioning about their reasons for wanting to leave the country. Arezo's brother was savagely beaten. Arezo was subjected to a humiliating virginity test. They were both taken into custody for several weeks, during which they endured brutal and inhumane treatment, often ridiculed by the Taliban guards for their Shi'a faith as ``untrue Muslims.'' While incarcerated, Arezo witnessed the brutal rape of a 12-year-old girl at the hands of the Taliban. The crime of this child? She had been imprisoned for riding in local transport without a male family member escort. Miraculously, after external pressure, Arezo was released, but not without the threat hanging over her head that the Taliban would keep tabs on her. Arezo now waits for the United States to process her visa. Hers is one of the over 44,000 cases that remain backlogged, while her life hangs in the balance. I tell you this: It is in our direct, immediate interest to dedicate and reallocate resources to resolve pending cases like those of Arezo. Until we resolve their cases, we continue to expend enormous U.S. resources to support them in third countries, with no clear end in sight. We continue to ask much of our bilateral partners that have generously agreed to take in these evacuees. Our Embassies and government Agencies will continue to struggle with the overload caused by the burden of managing these extra cases. But most importantly, we owe it to these individuals who put their own lives on the line for our county to process their cases quickly. It is no accident that I chose the name ``Arezo'' as a stand-in for the young Afghan woman who, like so many others, awaits our action. Arezo is a Hazara name that means ``hope'' or ``faith.'' And like so many others, she has taken it on faith that the U.S. Government will make good on its promise to take care of the Afghans like her that have served--and continue to serve--U.S. interests and who still believe in the American dream and still believe that America will fulfill her promises. I encourage that at all levels of government, we work to identify resources to reallocate towards this goal. We have the resources, but we must redirect these resources and make it a top priority. I call on our State Department and USCIS colleagues to elevate the task of processing cases to a high priority status. I propose that we convene in committee to discuss additional ways that Congress can support the successful resolution of their cases and permanent resettlement. On the eve of the 1-year anniversary of an ignominious American withdrawal from Afghanistan, after a two-decade effort, I urge that across all lines of government, we recognize this priority and work promptly to resolve the cases of the many Afghans who have put their lives on the line for our country. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CARDIN | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3910 | null | 4,893 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-4726. A communication from the Assistant General Counsel for Regulatory Services, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Department of Education, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Final Priorities, Requirements, Definitions, and Selection Criteria--Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP)--Grants to State Entities (State Entity Grants); Grants to Charter Management Organizations for the Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools (CMO Grants); and Grants to Charter School Developers for the Opening of New Charter Schools and for the Replication and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools (Developer Grants)'' received in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 27, 2022; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. EC-4727. A communication from the Regulations Coordinator, Office of the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Department of Health and Human Services Repeal of HHS Rules on Guidance, Enforcement, and Adjudication Procedures'' (RIN0991-AC29) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. EC-4728. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Isofetamid; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 10027- 01-OCSPP) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4729. A communication from the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense (Legislative Affairs), transmitting additional legislative proposals relative to the ``National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023''; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4730. A communication from the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), transmitting the report of an officer authorized to wear the insignia of the grade of vice admiral in accordance with title 10, United States Code, section 777; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4731. A communication from the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), transmitting the report of an officer authorized to wear the insignia of the grade of brigadier general in accordance with title 10, United States Code, section 777; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4732. A communication from the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), transmitting the report of an officer authorized to wear the insignia of the grade of major general in accordance with title 10, United States Code, section 777; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4733. A communication from the Senior Legal Advisor for Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Emergency Capital Investment Program-Restrictions on Executive Compensation, Share Buybacks, and Dividends'' (RIN1505-AC76) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on August 1, 2022; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4734. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Minnesota; Approval of Infrastructure SIP Requirements for the 2015 Ozone NAAQS'' (FRL No. 9654-02-R5) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4735. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Approval of Air Quality Implementation Plans; New Jersey; Removal of Excess Emissions Provision'' (FRL No. 9613-02-R2) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4736. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; North Dakota; Removal of Exemptions to Visible Air Emissions Restrictions'' (FRL No. 9886-02-R8) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4737. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Significant New Uses of Chemical Substances; Updates to the Hazard Communication Program and Regulatory Framework; Minor Amendments to Reporting Requirements for Premanufacture Notices; Correction'' ((RIN2070-AJ94) (FRL No. 5605-04-OCSPP)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4738. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Implementing Statutory Addition of Certain Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory Beginning with Reporting Years 2021 and 2022; Correction'' ((RIN2070-AL04) (FRL No. 9427-02-OCSPP)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4739. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Arizona; Maricopa County Air Quality Management Department'' (FRL No. 10024-02-R9) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4740. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Determination To Defer Sanctions; Arizona; Maricopa County; Reasonably Available Control Technology-- Combustion Sources'' (FRL No. 10025-02-R9) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4741. A communication from the Chief of the Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Modification of 2021 Cost-of-Living Adjustments to the Internal Revenue Code Due Statutory Changes Contained in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021'' (Rev. Proc. 2021-23) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on March 30, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4742. A communication from the Director of the Legal Processing Division, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``User Fees Relating to the Enrolled Agent Special Enrollment Examination and the Enrolled Retirement Plan Agent Special Enrollment Examination'' (RIN1545-BQ06) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on August 1, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4743. A communication from the Regulations Coordinator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``FY 2023 Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Prospective Payment System--Rate Update and Quality Reporting--Request for Information'' (RIN0938-AU80) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4744. A communication from the Regulations Coordinator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Prospective Payment System for Federal Fiscal Year 2023'' (RIN0938-AU78) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4745. A communication from the Regulations Coordinator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``FY 2023 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update and Hospice Quality Reporting Requirements'' (RIN0938-AU83) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on July 29, 2022; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4746. A communication from the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report entitled ``US-Mexico-Canada Agreement Section 821: Transboundary Wastewater Flows in the Tijuana River Watershed''; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4747. A communication from the Director, Office of Personnel Management, transmitting, nine legislative proposals relative to helping agencies recruit and retain a highly skilled federal workforce; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4748. A communication from the Director of Legal Affairs and Policy Division, Office of the Federal Register, Administrative Committee of the Federal Register, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Official Subscriptions to the Print Edition of the Federal Register'' (RIN3095-AC00) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on August 1, 2022; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4749. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on D.C. Act 24-481, ``Targeted Historic Preservation Assistance Temporary Amendment Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4750. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on D.C. Act 24-480, ``Fiscal Year 2022 Second Revised Local Budget Adjustment Temporary Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4751. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on D.C. Act 24-482, ``Engineering Licensure Temporary Amendment Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4752. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on D.C. Act 24-483, ``Cannabis Employment Protections Amendment Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4753. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on D.C. Act 24-484, ``900 55th Street N.E. and 2327- 2341 Skyland Terrace S.E. DC Habitat Real Property Tax Exemption Extension Amendment Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4754. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on D.C. Act 24-238, ``Fiscal Year 2023 Local Budget Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3913-7 | null | 4,894 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | By Mr. THUNE: S. 4755. A bill to amend the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 to ensure that ranchers who have grazing agreements on national grasslands are treated the same as permittees on other Federal land; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3920-2 | null | 4,895 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | By Mr. THUNE: S. 4755. A bill to amend the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 to ensure that ranchers who have grazing agreements on national grasslands are treated the same as permittees on other Federal land; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3920 | null | 4,896 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, my understanding is that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act may be coming to the floor in the coming days, and there are some people who think it is still worth supporting. There are others who think that it is not. But whatever your views on this bill may be, let us be clear. As currently written, this is an extremely modest piece of legislation that does virtually nothing to address the enormous crises that working families all across this country are facing today. This reconciliation bill falls far short of what the American people want, what they need, and what they are begging us to do. Given that this is the last reconciliation bill that we will be considering this year, it is the only opportunity that we have to do something significant for the American people that requires only 50 votes and that cannot be filibustered. In other words, this is the opportunity, because on anything significant, we are not going to get 60 votes. So this, in my view, is a moment that should not be squandered. Let us do what we too rarely do here in the Congress or in the corporate media, and that is to take a hard look at the reality of what is going on in our country today. Very often, we sit here, and we argue about this, we argue about that, but we don't take a look at what is going on in America today, especially among working people and low-income people who do not have paid lobbyists here trying to get us to pass legislation to benefit them. People back home are just too busy working 50, 60 hours a week, trying to make it on Social Security, trying to deal with their student debt. They don't have the lobbyists here that the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry has. What is going on in America today? For a start, in the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people live paycheck to paycheck, and because of inflation, a bad situation has been made worse. Millions of people today are wondering how they are going to pay their rent, how they are going to buy the food to feed their kids, how they are going to pay off their debt. That is what is going on for half of the people in our country. I know we don't talk about it. They have no representation here, no lobbyists, no nothing. But that is the reality. Does this reconciliation bill address their needs? Does it raise the minimum wage to a living wage or do we continue to allow so many workers to try to get by on 10, 12, 13 bucks an hour? Does this bill make it easier for workers who want to join a union to be able to do so or they continue to be attacked by their employers, making it hard to form a union? No, this bill does nothing to address that reality. At a time when, tragically, this country has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, does this bill extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that was so important to millions of families last year? Does it address that issue? Does it say that, maybe, there is something wrong when millions of children in this country are dealing with hunger and with other basic human needs? No, not a word in this bill addresses that. In my State of Vermont and around this country, families are paying on average about $15,000 a year for childcare, if they are lucky enough to find a slot. And $15,000 a year is one-third of the salary of a family making $45,000. I don't know how people can afford childcare. And, meanwhile, childcare workers earn horrifically low wages and have poor benefits. At a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth, does this bill address the dysfunctionality of our childcare system? No, not a word. And, again, this is a reconciliation bill, where we only need 50 votes to make these changes. At a time when over 70 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when we spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of almost any other major country while insurance companies make tens and tens of billions of dollars a year in profit, when 60 million people a year die because they can't afford to get to a doctor when they are sick because they are uninsured or underinsured, does this bill do anything to help us create a rational, cost-effective healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for all as a human right, something that every other major country on Earth does? No, the bill does nothing to address the extraordinary healthcare crisis that we face. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright young people every year are unable to fulfill their dreams, unable to get a higher education because they cannot afford the high cost of higher education in this country, does this bill do anything to make it easier for young people to get a higher education? No, it does not. It doesn't do a thing. It doesn't do a thing on student debt. Fifty-five percent of senior citizens in our country are trying to survive on incomes of $25,000 a year or less. It is just something hard for me to understand. It really is. Think about being 80, 90 years of age, trying to make it on $25,000 a year. Maybe your spouse has died. I don't know how you do it, but more than half of our people in our country who are seniors are trying to do that. Many of these seniors cannot afford to go to a dentist, and in Vermont--and, I suspect, in Arizona, as well--there are senior citizens walking around without teeth in their mouth or with teeth that are rotting. There are seniors all over this country who cannot communicate with their kids or grandchildren because they can't afford a hearing aid. They can't watch TV because they can't afford a decent pair of glasses. Is there anything in the currently written bill to expand Medicare to do what some 75 or 80 percent of the American people think we should do, and that is expand Medicare to cover dental care for seniors, hearing aids, and eyeglasses? No, the bill doesn't touch that at all. When we talk about our seniors and disabled Americans, does this legislation do anything to help the millions who would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced into nursing homes? It is an issue I hear quitefrequently in Vermont: We cannot find help for someone to come to my house to help my mother or my disabled father. Does this bill address the crisis of home healthcare, a very serious crisis? No, not a word. I think there is no disagreement that we have a major housing crisis in America. Some 600,000 Americans are homeless, and nearly 18 million households are spending an incredible 50 percent of their limited incomes for housing. Everybody acknowledges that we have a major housing crisis and that rents are soaring. Does this bill that supposedly represents the needs of the American people even deal with housing? In one word, no, it doesn't. I understand that in our politics today, super PACs and billionaires play an enormous role in what we do here and what we don't do. Just yesterday, we saw the power of billionaire super PACs selecting corporate candidates who represent their interests and defeating candidates who represent working families. That is the way the political system is, and it has been made worse since Citizens United. But right now, in our country--and I know we don't talk about it very much; I hear almost no discussion on the floor--we have more income wealth inequality than at any time in 100 years. How do the American people feel knowing that three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society? Does that sound like the America we believe in, the America we think we should be? We talk about Russia and Putin and the oligarchy over there. It is true. An oligarchy robs the country blind. We have an oligarchy here as well. Three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, and 45 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. And what we have seen during the pandemic is billionaires becoming much richer while working people by the thousands die because they have to go to work to make a living. Today, CEOs of large corporations make 350 times more than their average workers. That is what is going on in America. I know we don't want to talk about it because we don't want to offend the people who fund our campaigns. It makes them uncomfortable to talk about how much inequality we have in this country, but that is the reality. Not only do we have income and wealth inequality, but we have another issue we don't talk about much--or maybe a little bit. We have more concentration of ownership than at any time in the modern history of this country. In sector after sector after sector, we have a handful of giant multinational corporations, often engaging in price-fixing, that control what is produced and how much we pay for it. I think many Americans now notice that, at a time when we are paying increased costs at the gas pump, increased costs at grocery stores for food, surprise, surprise, surprise, these large corporations are making recordbreaking profits. Paying five bucks for a gallon of gas? Well, the good news is that ExxonMobil and these other corporations are making huge profits. Unbelievably, three Wall Street firms now control assets of over $20 trillion. That is the GDP of the United States of America being controlled by three Wall Street firms. Is that of concern to anybody? Think it might be something we might want to talk about in a reconciliation bill? Nah, can't do that. These are very powerful guys, and we are not supposed to offend the wealthy and the powerful. These three Wall Street firms are the major stockholders in 96 percent of S&P 500 companies. Check out the companies of the products that you buy. Find out who owns them. Find out who owns the companies that you are familiar with. Time and time and time again, you will find that the major stockholders are these three Wall Street firms: BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. Does this bill do anything to even begin addressing the enormous concentration of ownership in our country and make our economy more competitive? Not a word. So my point is that we are living in a moment of unprecedented crises. This bill does virtually nothing to address any of them, and this is the opportunity because, theoretically, it could be done with 50 votes here in the Senate. If all of the Democrats voted for it--if any Republicans voted for it, it would be great--plus the Vice President, we could do it. We could do it, but as currently written, it is not being done. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which has some good features. There are some good things in it, but it also has some very bad features. The good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to address the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. As you know, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for our prescription drugs, and for those under Medicare, this begins to address that issue. Under this legislation, Medicare, for the first time, would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices. That is the good news. The bad news is that we will not see the impact of these negotiated prices until 2026--4 years from now. Why? Got me. I don't know, but it will not go into effect until 4 years from now. By the way, the pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful entity here in DC, and if you think, during those 4 years, that whatever modest provisions are in this bill they will not attack and get out, you would be mistaken. They will certainly work hard to do that, and they have 4 years to do that--4 years to come up with an entire pricing structure--because if you are not covering all of the drugs, they can come up with me-too drugs that look alike, that sound alike, and that can evade these price controls. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin--and that is not clear yet--this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Now, if we had the courage to seriously address this issue, we would know exactly what to do. It is very, very simple. For over 30 years, the Veterans Health Administration has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. Moreover, for decades, virtually every major country on Earth has done exactly the same thing. That is why, in Canada, drug prices and, in Mexico, drug prices and, in Europe, drug prices are much lower than in the United States. The result of Medicare not negotiating prices has been that, today, Medicare pays twice as much for the same exact prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, pay 10 times more for a particular drug than the people in Canada or in other countries. How insane is it that you have one Federal Agency, called the VA, that pays 50 percent of what Medicare pays? I mean, how crazy is that? So, when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA pays--end of discussion. It is a rather simple solution. If we did that, we could save Medicare some $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provision in this bill--nine times more. They get $100 billion. We would save $900 billion. By the way, that money could be used to add comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America; it could be used to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60; and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is why I will be introducing an amendment to do just that and to make sure that Medicare pays no more for prescription drugs than the VA. It is not a very radical idea, and I would hope that that amendment gets widespread support. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans, as a result of the ACA, over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiumsskyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their health insurance altogether. This is a good provision, and I support it, but let us not kid ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profit last year and paid their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, and it would do nothing to reform a dysfunctional healthcare system that is not designed to make people well but is designed to make the stockholders of private health insurance companies even richer. Let me talk about the issue of climate change for a moment as it is dealt with in this bill. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that, if this legislation, as written, is signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested before. Given the existential crisis that we face--given the fact that we are fighting to make sure that this planet remains habitable and healthy for younger generations--this, clearly, is not enough of an investment, but it is a step forward. It provides serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. However, the bad news is that this legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry--the people who are causing the climate crisis. Now, it might seem a bit incongruous to people as to why we are rewarding the people whose emissions are driving the temperature of the Earth up and causing massive destruction, but that is, in fact, what this bill does. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare that they already receive every year. This is above and beyond what they currently get. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, which I would hope that every sane human being believes we should, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies that are destroying the planet. On the contrary, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters--60 million acres of public waters--must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put this in perspective, 60 million acres is the size of Michigan. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg called: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill a ``step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with the ``comprehensive set of solutions'' included in the reconciliation bill. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that would benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that, perhaps, has done more than any other entity on Earth to cause climate change--is ``pleased'' with this bill, I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any renewable energy development on public lands. In total, this bill will offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in this reconciliation bill. A deal has also been reached to make it easier for the industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve a $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to that released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. Well, to my mind, that is a heck of a way to address the climate crisis. Let me quote from a July 29 letter from over 350 environmental organizations, including the Sunrise Movement, Food & Water Watch, 350.org, and the Climate Justice Alliance, addressed to the President and the Senate majority leader, expressing concerns about this bill. This is what they say: Any approval of new fossil fuel projects or fast-tracking of fossil fuel permitting is incompatible with climate leadership. Oil, gas and coal production are the core drivers of the climate and extinction crises. There can be no new fossil fuel leases, exports, or infrastructure if we have any hope of preventing ever-worsening climate crises, catastrophic floods, deadly wildfires, and more--all of which are ripping across the country as we speak. We are out of time. Therefore, we're calling on you--the President and majority leader-- to fulfill your promise to lead on climate, starting with denying approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, rejecting all new federal fossil fuel leases onshore, in the Gulf of Mexico, in Alaska, and everywhere else, and preventing any fast-tracked permits for fossil fuel projects. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter by these 360 environmental groups written on July 29. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3994-3 | null | 4,897 |
formal | welfare | null | racist | Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, my understanding is that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act may be coming to the floor in the coming days, and there are some people who think it is still worth supporting. There are others who think that it is not. But whatever your views on this bill may be, let us be clear. As currently written, this is an extremely modest piece of legislation that does virtually nothing to address the enormous crises that working families all across this country are facing today. This reconciliation bill falls far short of what the American people want, what they need, and what they are begging us to do. Given that this is the last reconciliation bill that we will be considering this year, it is the only opportunity that we have to do something significant for the American people that requires only 50 votes and that cannot be filibustered. In other words, this is the opportunity, because on anything significant, we are not going to get 60 votes. So this, in my view, is a moment that should not be squandered. Let us do what we too rarely do here in the Congress or in the corporate media, and that is to take a hard look at the reality of what is going on in our country today. Very often, we sit here, and we argue about this, we argue about that, but we don't take a look at what is going on in America today, especially among working people and low-income people who do not have paid lobbyists here trying to get us to pass legislation to benefit them. People back home are just too busy working 50, 60 hours a week, trying to make it on Social Security, trying to deal with their student debt. They don't have the lobbyists here that the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry has. What is going on in America today? For a start, in the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people live paycheck to paycheck, and because of inflation, a bad situation has been made worse. Millions of people today are wondering how they are going to pay their rent, how they are going to buy the food to feed their kids, how they are going to pay off their debt. That is what is going on for half of the people in our country. I know we don't talk about it. They have no representation here, no lobbyists, no nothing. But that is the reality. Does this reconciliation bill address their needs? Does it raise the minimum wage to a living wage or do we continue to allow so many workers to try to get by on 10, 12, 13 bucks an hour? Does this bill make it easier for workers who want to join a union to be able to do so or they continue to be attacked by their employers, making it hard to form a union? No, this bill does nothing to address that reality. At a time when, tragically, this country has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, does this bill extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that was so important to millions of families last year? Does it address that issue? Does it say that, maybe, there is something wrong when millions of children in this country are dealing with hunger and with other basic human needs? No, not a word in this bill addresses that. In my State of Vermont and around this country, families are paying on average about $15,000 a year for childcare, if they are lucky enough to find a slot. And $15,000 a year is one-third of the salary of a family making $45,000. I don't know how people can afford childcare. And, meanwhile, childcare workers earn horrifically low wages and have poor benefits. At a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth, does this bill address the dysfunctionality of our childcare system? No, not a word. And, again, this is a reconciliation bill, where we only need 50 votes to make these changes. At a time when over 70 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when we spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of almost any other major country while insurance companies make tens and tens of billions of dollars a year in profit, when 60 million people a year die because they can't afford to get to a doctor when they are sick because they are uninsured or underinsured, does this bill do anything to help us create a rational, cost-effective healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for all as a human right, something that every other major country on Earth does? No, the bill does nothing to address the extraordinary healthcare crisis that we face. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright young people every year are unable to fulfill their dreams, unable to get a higher education because they cannot afford the high cost of higher education in this country, does this bill do anything to make it easier for young people to get a higher education? No, it does not. It doesn't do a thing. It doesn't do a thing on student debt. Fifty-five percent of senior citizens in our country are trying to survive on incomes of $25,000 a year or less. It is just something hard for me to understand. It really is. Think about being 80, 90 years of age, trying to make it on $25,000 a year. Maybe your spouse has died. I don't know how you do it, but more than half of our people in our country who are seniors are trying to do that. Many of these seniors cannot afford to go to a dentist, and in Vermont--and, I suspect, in Arizona, as well--there are senior citizens walking around without teeth in their mouth or with teeth that are rotting. There are seniors all over this country who cannot communicate with their kids or grandchildren because they can't afford a hearing aid. They can't watch TV because they can't afford a decent pair of glasses. Is there anything in the currently written bill to expand Medicare to do what some 75 or 80 percent of the American people think we should do, and that is expand Medicare to cover dental care for seniors, hearing aids, and eyeglasses? No, the bill doesn't touch that at all. When we talk about our seniors and disabled Americans, does this legislation do anything to help the millions who would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced into nursing homes? It is an issue I hear quitefrequently in Vermont: We cannot find help for someone to come to my house to help my mother or my disabled father. Does this bill address the crisis of home healthcare, a very serious crisis? No, not a word. I think there is no disagreement that we have a major housing crisis in America. Some 600,000 Americans are homeless, and nearly 18 million households are spending an incredible 50 percent of their limited incomes for housing. Everybody acknowledges that we have a major housing crisis and that rents are soaring. Does this bill that supposedly represents the needs of the American people even deal with housing? In one word, no, it doesn't. I understand that in our politics today, super PACs and billionaires play an enormous role in what we do here and what we don't do. Just yesterday, we saw the power of billionaire super PACs selecting corporate candidates who represent their interests and defeating candidates who represent working families. That is the way the political system is, and it has been made worse since Citizens United. But right now, in our country--and I know we don't talk about it very much; I hear almost no discussion on the floor--we have more income wealth inequality than at any time in 100 years. How do the American people feel knowing that three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society? Does that sound like the America we believe in, the America we think we should be? We talk about Russia and Putin and the oligarchy over there. It is true. An oligarchy robs the country blind. We have an oligarchy here as well. Three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, and 45 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. And what we have seen during the pandemic is billionaires becoming much richer while working people by the thousands die because they have to go to work to make a living. Today, CEOs of large corporations make 350 times more than their average workers. That is what is going on in America. I know we don't want to talk about it because we don't want to offend the people who fund our campaigns. It makes them uncomfortable to talk about how much inequality we have in this country, but that is the reality. Not only do we have income and wealth inequality, but we have another issue we don't talk about much--or maybe a little bit. We have more concentration of ownership than at any time in the modern history of this country. In sector after sector after sector, we have a handful of giant multinational corporations, often engaging in price-fixing, that control what is produced and how much we pay for it. I think many Americans now notice that, at a time when we are paying increased costs at the gas pump, increased costs at grocery stores for food, surprise, surprise, surprise, these large corporations are making recordbreaking profits. Paying five bucks for a gallon of gas? Well, the good news is that ExxonMobil and these other corporations are making huge profits. Unbelievably, three Wall Street firms now control assets of over $20 trillion. That is the GDP of the United States of America being controlled by three Wall Street firms. Is that of concern to anybody? Think it might be something we might want to talk about in a reconciliation bill? Nah, can't do that. These are very powerful guys, and we are not supposed to offend the wealthy and the powerful. These three Wall Street firms are the major stockholders in 96 percent of S&P 500 companies. Check out the companies of the products that you buy. Find out who owns them. Find out who owns the companies that you are familiar with. Time and time and time again, you will find that the major stockholders are these three Wall Street firms: BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. Does this bill do anything to even begin addressing the enormous concentration of ownership in our country and make our economy more competitive? Not a word. So my point is that we are living in a moment of unprecedented crises. This bill does virtually nothing to address any of them, and this is the opportunity because, theoretically, it could be done with 50 votes here in the Senate. If all of the Democrats voted for it--if any Republicans voted for it, it would be great--plus the Vice President, we could do it. We could do it, but as currently written, it is not being done. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which has some good features. There are some good things in it, but it also has some very bad features. The good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to address the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. As you know, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for our prescription drugs, and for those under Medicare, this begins to address that issue. Under this legislation, Medicare, for the first time, would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices. That is the good news. The bad news is that we will not see the impact of these negotiated prices until 2026--4 years from now. Why? Got me. I don't know, but it will not go into effect until 4 years from now. By the way, the pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful entity here in DC, and if you think, during those 4 years, that whatever modest provisions are in this bill they will not attack and get out, you would be mistaken. They will certainly work hard to do that, and they have 4 years to do that--4 years to come up with an entire pricing structure--because if you are not covering all of the drugs, they can come up with me-too drugs that look alike, that sound alike, and that can evade these price controls. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin--and that is not clear yet--this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Now, if we had the courage to seriously address this issue, we would know exactly what to do. It is very, very simple. For over 30 years, the Veterans Health Administration has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. Moreover, for decades, virtually every major country on Earth has done exactly the same thing. That is why, in Canada, drug prices and, in Mexico, drug prices and, in Europe, drug prices are much lower than in the United States. The result of Medicare not negotiating prices has been that, today, Medicare pays twice as much for the same exact prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, pay 10 times more for a particular drug than the people in Canada or in other countries. How insane is it that you have one Federal Agency, called the VA, that pays 50 percent of what Medicare pays? I mean, how crazy is that? So, when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA pays--end of discussion. It is a rather simple solution. If we did that, we could save Medicare some $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provision in this bill--nine times more. They get $100 billion. We would save $900 billion. By the way, that money could be used to add comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America; it could be used to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60; and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is why I will be introducing an amendment to do just that and to make sure that Medicare pays no more for prescription drugs than the VA. It is not a very radical idea, and I would hope that that amendment gets widespread support. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans, as a result of the ACA, over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiumsskyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their health insurance altogether. This is a good provision, and I support it, but let us not kid ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profit last year and paid their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, and it would do nothing to reform a dysfunctional healthcare system that is not designed to make people well but is designed to make the stockholders of private health insurance companies even richer. Let me talk about the issue of climate change for a moment as it is dealt with in this bill. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that, if this legislation, as written, is signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested before. Given the existential crisis that we face--given the fact that we are fighting to make sure that this planet remains habitable and healthy for younger generations--this, clearly, is not enough of an investment, but it is a step forward. It provides serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. However, the bad news is that this legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry--the people who are causing the climate crisis. Now, it might seem a bit incongruous to people as to why we are rewarding the people whose emissions are driving the temperature of the Earth up and causing massive destruction, but that is, in fact, what this bill does. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare that they already receive every year. This is above and beyond what they currently get. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, which I would hope that every sane human being believes we should, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies that are destroying the planet. On the contrary, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters--60 million acres of public waters--must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put this in perspective, 60 million acres is the size of Michigan. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg called: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill a ``step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with the ``comprehensive set of solutions'' included in the reconciliation bill. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that would benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that, perhaps, has done more than any other entity on Earth to cause climate change--is ``pleased'' with this bill, I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any renewable energy development on public lands. In total, this bill will offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in this reconciliation bill. A deal has also been reached to make it easier for the industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve a $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to that released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. Well, to my mind, that is a heck of a way to address the climate crisis. Let me quote from a July 29 letter from over 350 environmental organizations, including the Sunrise Movement, Food & Water Watch, 350.org, and the Climate Justice Alliance, addressed to the President and the Senate majority leader, expressing concerns about this bill. This is what they say: Any approval of new fossil fuel projects or fast-tracking of fossil fuel permitting is incompatible with climate leadership. Oil, gas and coal production are the core drivers of the climate and extinction crises. There can be no new fossil fuel leases, exports, or infrastructure if we have any hope of preventing ever-worsening climate crises, catastrophic floods, deadly wildfires, and more--all of which are ripping across the country as we speak. We are out of time. Therefore, we're calling on you--the President and majority leader-- to fulfill your promise to lead on climate, starting with denying approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, rejecting all new federal fossil fuel leases onshore, in the Gulf of Mexico, in Alaska, and everywhere else, and preventing any fast-tracked permits for fossil fuel projects. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter by these 360 environmental groups written on July 29. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3994-3 | null | 4,898 |
formal | working families | null | racist | Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, my understanding is that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act may be coming to the floor in the coming days, and there are some people who think it is still worth supporting. There are others who think that it is not. But whatever your views on this bill may be, let us be clear. As currently written, this is an extremely modest piece of legislation that does virtually nothing to address the enormous crises that working families all across this country are facing today. This reconciliation bill falls far short of what the American people want, what they need, and what they are begging us to do. Given that this is the last reconciliation bill that we will be considering this year, it is the only opportunity that we have to do something significant for the American people that requires only 50 votes and that cannot be filibustered. In other words, this is the opportunity, because on anything significant, we are not going to get 60 votes. So this, in my view, is a moment that should not be squandered. Let us do what we too rarely do here in the Congress or in the corporate media, and that is to take a hard look at the reality of what is going on in our country today. Very often, we sit here, and we argue about this, we argue about that, but we don't take a look at what is going on in America today, especially among working people and low-income people who do not have paid lobbyists here trying to get us to pass legislation to benefit them. People back home are just too busy working 50, 60 hours a week, trying to make it on Social Security, trying to deal with their student debt. They don't have the lobbyists here that the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry has. What is going on in America today? For a start, in the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people live paycheck to paycheck, and because of inflation, a bad situation has been made worse. Millions of people today are wondering how they are going to pay their rent, how they are going to buy the food to feed their kids, how they are going to pay off their debt. That is what is going on for half of the people in our country. I know we don't talk about it. They have no representation here, no lobbyists, no nothing. But that is the reality. Does this reconciliation bill address their needs? Does it raise the minimum wage to a living wage or do we continue to allow so many workers to try to get by on 10, 12, 13 bucks an hour? Does this bill make it easier for workers who want to join a union to be able to do so or they continue to be attacked by their employers, making it hard to form a union? No, this bill does nothing to address that reality. At a time when, tragically, this country has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, does this bill extend the $300-a-month-per-child tax credit that was so important to millions of families last year? Does it address that issue? Does it say that, maybe, there is something wrong when millions of children in this country are dealing with hunger and with other basic human needs? No, not a word in this bill addresses that. In my State of Vermont and around this country, families are paying on average about $15,000 a year for childcare, if they are lucky enough to find a slot. And $15,000 a year is one-third of the salary of a family making $45,000. I don't know how people can afford childcare. And, meanwhile, childcare workers earn horrifically low wages and have poor benefits. At a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth, does this bill address the dysfunctionality of our childcare system? No, not a word. And, again, this is a reconciliation bill, where we only need 50 votes to make these changes. At a time when over 70 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when we spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of almost any other major country while insurance companies make tens and tens of billions of dollars a year in profit, when 60 million people a year die because they can't afford to get to a doctor when they are sick because they are uninsured or underinsured, does this bill do anything to help us create a rational, cost-effective healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for all as a human right, something that every other major country on Earth does? No, the bill does nothing to address the extraordinary healthcare crisis that we face. At a time when 45 million Americans are struggling to pay student debt and when hundreds of thousands of bright young people every year are unable to fulfill their dreams, unable to get a higher education because they cannot afford the high cost of higher education in this country, does this bill do anything to make it easier for young people to get a higher education? No, it does not. It doesn't do a thing. It doesn't do a thing on student debt. Fifty-five percent of senior citizens in our country are trying to survive on incomes of $25,000 a year or less. It is just something hard for me to understand. It really is. Think about being 80, 90 years of age, trying to make it on $25,000 a year. Maybe your spouse has died. I don't know how you do it, but more than half of our people in our country who are seniors are trying to do that. Many of these seniors cannot afford to go to a dentist, and in Vermont--and, I suspect, in Arizona, as well--there are senior citizens walking around without teeth in their mouth or with teeth that are rotting. There are seniors all over this country who cannot communicate with their kids or grandchildren because they can't afford a hearing aid. They can't watch TV because they can't afford a decent pair of glasses. Is there anything in the currently written bill to expand Medicare to do what some 75 or 80 percent of the American people think we should do, and that is expand Medicare to cover dental care for seniors, hearing aids, and eyeglasses? No, the bill doesn't touch that at all. When we talk about our seniors and disabled Americans, does this legislation do anything to help the millions who would prefer to stay in their homes rather than be forced into nursing homes? It is an issue I hear quitefrequently in Vermont: We cannot find help for someone to come to my house to help my mother or my disabled father. Does this bill address the crisis of home healthcare, a very serious crisis? No, not a word. I think there is no disagreement that we have a major housing crisis in America. Some 600,000 Americans are homeless, and nearly 18 million households are spending an incredible 50 percent of their limited incomes for housing. Everybody acknowledges that we have a major housing crisis and that rents are soaring. Does this bill that supposedly represents the needs of the American people even deal with housing? In one word, no, it doesn't. I understand that in our politics today, super PACs and billionaires play an enormous role in what we do here and what we don't do. Just yesterday, we saw the power of billionaire super PACs selecting corporate candidates who represent their interests and defeating candidates who represent working families. That is the way the political system is, and it has been made worse since Citizens United. But right now, in our country--and I know we don't talk about it very much; I hear almost no discussion on the floor--we have more income wealth inequality than at any time in 100 years. How do the American people feel knowing that three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society? Does that sound like the America we believe in, the America we think we should be? We talk about Russia and Putin and the oligarchy over there. It is true. An oligarchy robs the country blind. We have an oligarchy here as well. Three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, and 45 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. And what we have seen during the pandemic is billionaires becoming much richer while working people by the thousands die because they have to go to work to make a living. Today, CEOs of large corporations make 350 times more than their average workers. That is what is going on in America. I know we don't want to talk about it because we don't want to offend the people who fund our campaigns. It makes them uncomfortable to talk about how much inequality we have in this country, but that is the reality. Not only do we have income and wealth inequality, but we have another issue we don't talk about much--or maybe a little bit. We have more concentration of ownership than at any time in the modern history of this country. In sector after sector after sector, we have a handful of giant multinational corporations, often engaging in price-fixing, that control what is produced and how much we pay for it. I think many Americans now notice that, at a time when we are paying increased costs at the gas pump, increased costs at grocery stores for food, surprise, surprise, surprise, these large corporations are making recordbreaking profits. Paying five bucks for a gallon of gas? Well, the good news is that ExxonMobil and these other corporations are making huge profits. Unbelievably, three Wall Street firms now control assets of over $20 trillion. That is the GDP of the United States of America being controlled by three Wall Street firms. Is that of concern to anybody? Think it might be something we might want to talk about in a reconciliation bill? Nah, can't do that. These are very powerful guys, and we are not supposed to offend the wealthy and the powerful. These three Wall Street firms are the major stockholders in 96 percent of S&P 500 companies. Check out the companies of the products that you buy. Find out who owns them. Find out who owns the companies that you are familiar with. Time and time and time again, you will find that the major stockholders are these three Wall Street firms: BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. Does this bill do anything to even begin addressing the enormous concentration of ownership in our country and make our economy more competitive? Not a word. So my point is that we are living in a moment of unprecedented crises. This bill does virtually nothing to address any of them, and this is the opportunity because, theoretically, it could be done with 50 votes here in the Senate. If all of the Democrats voted for it--if any Republicans voted for it, it would be great--plus the Vice President, we could do it. We could do it, but as currently written, it is not being done. Now, let me say a few words about what is in this legislation, a bill which has some good features. There are some good things in it, but it also has some very bad features. The good news is that the reconciliation bill finally begins to address the outrageous price of some of the most expensive prescription drugs under Medicare. As you know, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for our prescription drugs, and for those under Medicare, this begins to address that issue. Under this legislation, Medicare, for the first time, would be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices. That is the good news. The bad news is that we will not see the impact of these negotiated prices until 2026--4 years from now. Why? Got me. I don't know, but it will not go into effect until 4 years from now. By the way, the pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful entity here in DC, and if you think, during those 4 years, that whatever modest provisions are in this bill they will not attack and get out, you would be mistaken. They will certainly work hard to do that, and they have 4 years to do that--4 years to come up with an entire pricing structure--because if you are not covering all of the drugs, they can come up with me-too drugs that look alike, that sound alike, and that can evade these price controls. Moreover, with the possible exception of insulin--and that is not clear yet--this bill does nothing to lower prescription drug prices for anyone who is not on Medicare. Under this bill, at a time when pharmaceutical companies are making outrageous profits, the drug companies will still be allowed to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Now, if we had the courage to seriously address this issue, we would know exactly what to do. It is very, very simple. For over 30 years, the Veterans Health Administration has been negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the price of prescription drugs. Moreover, for decades, virtually every major country on Earth has done exactly the same thing. That is why, in Canada, drug prices and, in Mexico, drug prices and, in Europe, drug prices are much lower than in the United States. The result of Medicare not negotiating prices has been that, today, Medicare pays twice as much for the same exact prescription drugs as the VA, and Americans, in some cases, pay 10 times more for a particular drug than the people in Canada or in other countries. How insane is it that you have one Federal Agency, called the VA, that pays 50 percent of what Medicare pays? I mean, how crazy is that? So, when it comes to reducing the price of prescription drugs under Medicare, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We could simply require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the VA pays--end of discussion. It is a rather simple solution. If we did that, we could save Medicare some $900 billion over the next decade. That is nine times more savings than the rather weak negotiation provision in this bill--nine times more. They get $100 billion. We would save $900 billion. By the way, that money could be used to add comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing benefits to every senior in America; it could be used to lower the Medicare eligibility age to at least 60; and it could be used to extend the solvency of Medicare. That is why I will be introducing an amendment to do just that and to make sure that Medicare pays no more for prescription drugs than the VA. It is not a very radical idea, and I would hope that that amendment gets widespread support. In terms of the Affordable Care Act, this legislation will extend subsidies for some 13 million Americans who have private health insurance plans, as a result of the ACA, over the next 3 years. Without this provision, millions of Americans would see their premiumsskyrocket, and some 3 million Americans could lose their health insurance altogether. This is a good provision, and I support it, but let us not kid ourselves. The $64 billion cost of this provision will go directly into the pockets of private health insurance companies that made over $60 billion in profit last year and paid their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages. It would also do nothing to help the more than 70 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, and it would do nothing to reform a dysfunctional healthcare system that is not designed to make people well but is designed to make the stockholders of private health insurance companies even richer. Let me talk about the issue of climate change for a moment as it is dealt with in this bill. This legislation provides $370 billion over the next decade to combat climate change and to invest in so-called energy security programs. The good news is that, if this legislation, as written, is signed into law, it would provide far more funding for energy efficiency and sustainable energy than has ever been invested before. Given the existential crisis that we face--given the fact that we are fighting to make sure that this planet remains habitable and healthy for younger generations--this, clearly, is not enough of an investment, but it is a step forward. It provides serious funding for wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, and low-income communities that have borne the brunt of climate change. That is the good news. However, the bad news is that this legislation includes a huge giveaway to the fossil fuel industry--the people who are causing the climate crisis. Now, it might seem a bit incongruous to people as to why we are rewarding the people whose emissions are driving the temperature of the Earth up and causing massive destruction, but that is, in fact, what this bill does. Under this legislation, the fossil fuel industry will receive billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years on top of the $15 billion in tax breaks and corporate welfare that they already receive every year. This is above and beyond what they currently get. In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, which I would hope that every sane human being believes we should, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to fossil fuel companies that are destroying the planet. On the contrary, we should end all of the massive corporate welfare that the fossil fuel industry already enjoys. Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters--60 million acres of public waters--must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the Federal Government could approve any new offshore wind development. To put this in perspective, 60 million acres is the size of Michigan. Let me read to you the headline that appeared in a July 29 article in Bloomberg called: ``Exxon . . . Loves What Manchin Did for Big Oil in $370 Billion Deal.'' According to Bloomberg, the CEO of ExxonMobil called the reconciliation bill a ``step in the right direction'' and was ``pleased'' with the ``comprehensive set of solutions'' included in the reconciliation bill. Barron's recently reported that ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are just a few of the fossil fuel companies that would benefit the most under this bill. Now, if the CEO of ExxonMobil--a company that, perhaps, has done more than any other entity on Earth to cause climate change--is ``pleased'' with this bill, I think all of us should have some very deep concerns about what is in this legislation. Further, under this bill, up to 2 million acres of public lands must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before leases can move forward for any renewable energy development on public lands. In total, this bill will offer the fossil fuel industry up to 700 million acres of public lands and waters to oil and gas drilling over the next decade--far more than the oil and gas industry could possibly use. That is not all. The fossil fuel industry will not just benefit from the provisions in this reconciliation bill. A deal has also been reached to make it easier for the industry to receive permits for their oil and gas projects. This deal would approve a $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline--a fracked gas pipeline that would span 303 miles from West Virginia to Virginia and potentially on to North Carolina. This is a pipeline that would generate emissions equivalent to that released by 37 coal plants or by over 27 million cars each and every year. Well, to my mind, that is a heck of a way to address the climate crisis. Let me quote from a July 29 letter from over 350 environmental organizations, including the Sunrise Movement, Food & Water Watch, 350.org, and the Climate Justice Alliance, addressed to the President and the Senate majority leader, expressing concerns about this bill. This is what they say: Any approval of new fossil fuel projects or fast-tracking of fossil fuel permitting is incompatible with climate leadership. Oil, gas and coal production are the core drivers of the climate and extinction crises. There can be no new fossil fuel leases, exports, or infrastructure if we have any hope of preventing ever-worsening climate crises, catastrophic floods, deadly wildfires, and more--all of which are ripping across the country as we speak. We are out of time. Therefore, we're calling on you--the President and majority leader-- to fulfill your promise to lead on climate, starting with denying approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, rejecting all new federal fossil fuel leases onshore, in the Gulf of Mexico, in Alaska, and everywhere else, and preventing any fast-tracked permits for fossil fuel projects. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter by these 360 environmental groups written on July 29. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SANDERS | Senate | CREC-2022-08-03-pt1-PgS3994-3 | null | 4,899 |
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