[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 68 (Tuesday, April 20, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2058-S2061]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                  COVID-19 HATE CRIMES ACT--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will resume legislative session.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.


                             Defense Budget

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, last week--no, it wasn't last week; it was 
about 3 weeks ago, I guess, now, President Biden released his ``skinny 
budget,'' which gave us a top-line for defense of $715 billion. This is 
a reduction, and I want to make sure everyone understands this because 
the cut is actually below inflation, and that is not where we are 
supposed to be.
  You know, we have this document here that everyone agrees with. I 
don't know one person--and this was written by six Democrats, six 
Republicans, and this was in 2018. This has been used as our blueprint 
ever since that time, and it is just remarkable the way it has come 
out. The recommendations on this, as I said, were made by six 
Republicans, six Democrats. All of them were experts in the field of 
defense, and they came out with recommendations. In this year, the 
amount in the budget for our military is supposed to be between 3 and 5 
percent. This is in the document in front of us here. Of course, this 
is actually a reduction. So it is way below what has been prescribed.
  When it comes to China, there are two big reasons we need to make 
sure our budget matches our strategy. First of all, China is spending 
more on their military than ever before. As a result, they are getting 
more technologically advanced and starting to sway the military balance 
of power in their favor. There is no question about it, and I will 
document that in a minute.
  The threat the Chinese military poses is not a distant threat. It is 
not something that might happen in 2030, 2035, or sometime in the 
future. It is a problem we face today, right now, and it only gets 
worse over time.
  Admiral Davidson told the Armed Services Committee that he expects 
the threat to manifest ``this decade, in fact, in the next six years.'' 
That is the sense of urgency. That is when they become greater than we 
are in many areas of defense and aggression.
  So today I would like to spend some time dealing with the Chinese 
military and what they are doing. This is what we are up against. This 
is why it is so important that we get our defense budget right.
  Let's start with China's military budget. Since 2000, Beijing's 
spending on the People's Liberation Army has gone up 450 percent--450 
percent. Now, we knew that back during the Obama administration, that 
actually went up. Our reduction--it was a reduction in the last 5 
years--was 25 percent. At the same time, China went up by 83 percent. 
So this is what is going on in the world today. Beijing's budget for 
the military went up 450 percent.
  Now, you compare Beijing's buildup with the rest of East Asia. At the 
same time, our core allies and partners in the region--that is, Japan, 
Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan--have had basically flat defense 
budgets since 2000. Compare it with our own military spending. As I 
mentioned on the floor a couple of weeks ago, at the same time China 
was adding $200 billion to their defense budget, ours shrunk by $400 
billion.
  We are certainly not provoking them with defense investment, and we 
have barely touched our force posture in the Western Pacific over the 
past two decades. So, if anything, our lack of action, our lack of 
investment, is what is provoking China into thinking they can push 
around and threaten our friends in the region.
  The Biden administration says they want to take our allies and 
partners seriously. So we should listen when they say they are 
concerned about Chinese aggression. And they are, and the 
administration knows this. I have had visits with the President. He is 
fully aware of that.

  Another progressive talking point is that the United States spends 
more on defense than the next 10 or 12 countries combined. Now, that is 
not true. The reality is that any honest comparison of numbers shows 
that, combined, the Chinese and Russians almost certainly spend more 
than us in real terms.
  China's purchasing power is significantly greater than ours because 
they pay their workers next to nothing and have much lower material 
costs. They also focus their defense spending on hard power. I am 
talking about airplanes, tanks, ships, missiles, and the like. Why? 
Because they don't take care of their people.
  People don't understand this. At least 40 percent of our military 
budget goes to supporting our people. That is not true with any of the 
Communist countries that are out there. All they do, they give them the 
guns and say go out and kill people. We don't do that. And 40 percent 
is a conservative figure.
  You remember the housing issue that was such a big issue; that you 
were concerned with; I was concerned with; we were all concerned with. 
That is something that other countries don't have to worry about. China 
doesn't worry about that. Russia doesn't worry about that. These are 
things that--and yet that is almost half of our total budget goes to 
those things for our troops.
  We take care of our troops. The rest of them don't. That is the right 
thing to do. But that is just another reason you can't do a dollar-for-
dollar comparison between the Chinese and the defense spending. We need 
a better accounting.
  And incidentally, Senator Romney introduced an amendment to our last 
year's NDAA, military defense act, to get us a real comparison in 
spending. And the Pentagon owes us that report by October.
  Now, in October--we are going to talk about this. We are going to 
talk about this in our military because this is what the real spending 
is, not what a lot of people think that it is. All of this is to say, 
we don't have a good sense of China's true defense spending, but we do 
know it is going up.
  General McMaster called it ``the largest peacetime military buildup 
in history.'' That is what General McMaster said just the other day at 
one of our hearings. It is not just expanding their military; they are 
modernizing and professionalizing at the same time.
  Secretary Austin, our Secretary of Defense, rightfully, calls China 
our ``pacing threat.'' But here are a few of the ways that they have 
been outpacing us because they are investing where we are not 
investing. The American people think we are, but we are not.
  China has a 355-ship Navy. You know, we have been talking about that 
for a long period of time here--how we are going to grow to a 350-ship 
Navy, and we haven't done it. Well, China has done it. They have 
achieved that last year. And while we were just talking about it, they 
were on the attack to get 460 ships by 2030.
  By comparison, our Navy is around 300 ships, and it is likely to stay 
there if our defense budget doesn't grow.
  In the air, the combatant commanders assess that China will have more 
fifth-generation aircraft than we do in the Pacific by 2025, again, the 
fifth-generation aircraft. We are down right now to the F-35. There are 
not

[[Page S2059]]

any others. We had the F-22. The F-22 was our first fifth-generation 
fighter, and it was one that we were all very excited about. They 
started out wanting 700 of them, and we ended up with 187, just for 
fiscal reasons. Again, that is where China is right now. That gets 
worse if we have a flat or declining budget here.
  China is expanding its arsenal too. The Pentagon's missile experts 
tell us that China is now over 350 launchers for medium-range ballistic 
missiles, which are capable of hitting Guam and striking the U.S. 
warships in the Pacific.
  They have produced exact copies of our bases, our ships, and our 
aircraft to serve as targets. And they are out there right now shooting 
those targets. That is us. That is America, and they are shooting on 
the replicas of our equipment to show that they can down them. By the 
way, they hit those targets successfully, I might add. And that is 
going on today.
  They also have thousands of short-range missiles. Many of those are 
going right at Taiwan. China is also dubbing its nuclear stockpile and 
completing their own nuclear triad. That is something that we have 
criticism in this country, that we have a triad; that is, three ways of 
deflecting nuclear attacks on America.
  So that is what is going on right now. China's military is charging 
ahead in just about every area. But a lot of the people who don't think 
China is a problem--they say that none of the Chinese weapons are as 
good as ours. Well, that was true in 1990. That was true in the year 
2000. That is not true anymore.
  The Office of Naval Intelligence said in 2015 that China's latest 
surface warships were comparable in many ways to the mos modern Western 
ships. China has deployed thousands of ground-base missiles. We are 
still developing ours. They have fielded hypersonic strike weapons. We 
are still in the research and development.

  You might remember, because we saw that, the parade that was taking 
place in Beijing. They were demonstrating that they have these weapons 
that we don't have. And that was invested a year ago.
  Just last month, the National Security Commission on Artificial 
Intelligence assessed that the China rate of investment--they will soon 
dominate us in artificial intelligence unless we do something different 
than we are currently doing.
  And while the Chinese will spend almost $50 billion on tech 
infrastructure over the next few years, national security 
infrastructure is apparently the only thing that President Biden 
doesn't consider infrastructure.
  Not only is China spending more on its military, but it has the tools 
to beat us. Don't take my word for it. The bipartisan NDS--again, this 
is the document that we have been using, and it has been remarkably 
accurate, since 2018. That NDS Commission said, right in this book, the 
U.S. military might struggle to win or perhaps lose a war against China 
or Russia. That is what they said in 2018. And China has been going up 
ever since.
  Admiral Davidson told us the other week--only 2 weeks ago--that 
``there is no guarantee that the United States would win a future 
conflict with China.''
  China's military buildup isn't just investment for the sake of it; 
they are already flexing their new muscle to challenge America and 
American allies and American interests. And the PLA has deployed 
missiles, radars, stealth jet fighters, and bombers to islands in the 
South China Sea, claiming and militarizing islands in violation of 
international law.
  Just last year, the PLA fired anti-ship ballistic missiles into the 
South China Sea, clearly practicing to target U.S. Navy ships in the 
area. And that is what they are doing today. Those are Chinese troops 
walking on Woody Island in the South China Sea. And the PLA has been 
expanding its network of strategic ports and bases around the world 
from Djibouti to Pakistan and Cambodia and Sri Lanka and elsewhere.
  Last year, China started going after the territory of India, which 
has resulted in dozens of dead Indian soldiers. They have continually 
harassed Japan and Taiwan in the air and on the sea. Their fishing 
fleets have terrorized small Pacific island nations. Over 200 Chinese 
boats are staking out a reef in the South China Sea claimed by the 
Philippines.
  China has just completed a new satellite constellation over Taiwan 
that allows for almost constant coverage of the island, the highest 
known frequency of satellite coverage in the world.
  A few weeks ago, Taiwan reported the largest ever Chinese incursion 
when 25 combat aircraft flew into its airspace. And as the cochair of 
the Taiwan Caucus, this is of specific concern to me. Some people have 
forgotten that aggression by nation states is not a thing of the past. 
People have forgotten how costly it is when deterrence fails.
  That is why I am arguing for sustained real growth in the defense 
budget. We know it is necessary. We know that it is attainable because 
the burden of defense spending on the economy today is half what it was 
at the height of the Cold War.
  The Biden administration is trying to tell us that we can invest in 
economic and technological competition or the military competition. 
That is a false choice. We have to do the military.
  The reality is, the Chinese are engaged in every dimension of this 
competition, especially the military dimension, and they are not going 
to stop anytime soon.
  I would have to say, do we really want to be there for our allies or 
partners? Do we want our children and grandchildren to live in a world 
where our status of leader of the free world is in name only?
  You know, my wife and I have been married for 61 years. We have 20 
kids and grandkids so I have a stake in this thing. I have a real 
concern. Do we want them, these kids, to grow up in a world where 
China--the same country that is committing genocide against the 
Uighurs, silencing free speech, and jailing activists in Hong Kong--
gets to set the rules of international engagement?
  This isn't a hypothetical question. That is a question that we are 
answering each year when we set our military budget, and, frankly, I am 
disappointed in how the current administration is answering that call.
  We have to be prepared to take on China from all angles of national 
power. And this begins with adequate resourcing of our U.S. military 
with real growth in the defense budget.
  It is kind of a myth floating around. I know every time I give a 
speech someplace in the State of Oklahoma or elsewhere, there is a kind 
of an assumption that we in the United States have the best of 
everything. And following World War II, that was true, but that isn't 
true today. And if America chooses to sit on the sidelines in this 
competition, and we ask our allies and partners to face China alone, 
the failure of military deterrence becomes more likely. And that is an 
outcome that nobody there or here wants.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Election Integrity

  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, it wasn't enough for Democrats like Stacey 
Abrams and President Biden to lie about the new Georgia voting law. 
Now, today, Chuck Schumer is sending his lawyers to swarm Montana 
courtrooms and has taken to the Senate floor with more distortion.
  This time, it is about Montana's new voting laws.
  I have a message for Leader Schumer and the Democrats who are trying 
to distort the facts and the will of Montana voters: Please get your 
facts straight. In Montana we are putting in place some commonsense 
reforms that enjoy the strong support of Montanans. Why is the leader 
so determined to strike down commonsense efforts to provide integrity 
and transparency to our elections?
  Let's talk about voter ID. A majority of Americans support needing a 
photo ID to cast a ballot. According to the Honest Elections Project, 
77 percent of Americans support needing a photo ID

[[Page S2060]]

to vote--77 percent. Why? Because it is common sense and because you 
need a photo ID to do many tasks, some quite mundane. You need a photo 
ID to get a hunting or fishing license. You need a photo ID to rent a 
hotel room, to drive a car, to rent a car, to get on an airplane, to 
pick up tickets at will call. If these simple tasks require a valid ID, 
shouldn't protecting the integrity of America's election process 
require at least the same?
  This isn't the first time Leader Schumer and the Democrats have tried 
to stick their nose into Montana's business and tried to overturn the 
will of Montana voters. In fact, this past election, dark money groups 
backed by Chuck Schumer pushed to loosen election standards, such as 
ballot harvesting, in Montana, and they won. This is despite the fact 
that nearly two-thirds of Montana voters passed a law to prohibit 
ballot harvesting.
  How is this listening to Montanans? It is not.
  Montanans want election integrity. They want to trust their 
elections. Yet Leader Schumer continues to undermine their direct 
appeal to put commonsense practices in place.
  In Montana we want everyone legally allowed to vote to be able to, 
and we want there to be zero doubt that those votes should count. All 
Montanans--Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians--should 
have faith in our elections.
  Montana's legislature, Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, 
and Montana Governor Greg Gianforte wanted to strengthen this trust, 
and that is what they did with these commonsense bills.
  The distortion by Democrats in this country is eroding this trust. 
This must stop.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.


                       Nomination of Vanita Gupta

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor today to 
just say a brief word and maybe set the record straight a little bit 
about President Biden's nominee for Associate Attorney General of the 
United States, Vanita Gupta.
  Let's start with some facts about Ms. Gupta. She is the daughter of 
immigrants who worked hard to receive some of the best legal education 
this country has to offer. She spent 2 decades as a civil rights 
lawyer, where she has fought to defend Americans' individual rights and 
freedoms, often against abuses by the government, something you would 
think some of my colleagues on the other side would appreciate.
  When a small town in Texas wrongfully convicted 40 Americans of drug 
charges, based solely on the false testimony from an undercover police 
officer, she fought to have them exonerated, and she won them a $6 
million settlement for that miscarriage of justice.
  She defended 25 children who had been separated from their parents 
and thrown into prison-like conditions at a private detention center in 
Texas. Her success in that case forced the center to improve its 
conditions and prevented more kids from being held there.
  President Obama recognized her leadership by making her the top civil 
rights official at the Department of Justice, where she protected 
servicemembers from eviction, cracked down on human smugglers and sex 
traffickers, defended religious freedom, and protected Americans' 
fundamental right to vote.
  Over the past 4 years, Ms. Gupta has led the largest civil rights 
organization in America, where she has been at the forefront of efforts 
to reform our criminal justice system, strengthen our democracy, and 
make sure COVID relief reaches those who need it most.
  That is her record. It is an outstanding record. I think my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle know that it is an 
outstanding record because they don't want to contend with her record. 
They don't want to contest her record. They can't defeat her nomination 
with the truth. So they are just using talking points that aren't true.
  I heard the junior Senator from Texas say Ms. Gupta's record ``is 
that of an extreme partisan ideologue.'' He called her ``an extreme 
political activist,'' a ``radical,'' and a ``zealot,'' when all she has 
done her entire career is uphold the rule of law and defend our 
democracy, just like the 60 judges, many of them confirmed by 
Republican colleagues, who rejected President Trump's utterly 
unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 election; just like the 
election officials who stood up to conspiracy theories about the 
election at great risk to themselves and to their careers, who were all 
undermined by radical Members of Congress who sought to overturn the 
will of the voters for their own power.
  I also heard the junior Senator from Texas say Ms. Gupta's beliefs 
``don't align with the majority of the American people.'' I am willing 
to bet every single dollar in my pocket that most Americans are quite 
aligned with Ms. Gupta's views.
  Most Americans are very interested in having a Department of Justice 
that protects their right to vote, that keeps families together and 
kids out of prison-like conditions, to make sure that LGBT sons and 
daughters and neighbors can live free from discrimination.
  I will tell you one other thing. Unlike some people around this 
place, Ms. Gupta actually has a record of reaching across the aisle to 
get things done. She worked with Grover Norquist and the top lawyer for 
the Koch brothers to pass criminal justice reform. It is why they both 
endorsed her, along with President Bush's former Secretary of Homeland 
Security, and virtually every major law enforcement organization in 
America, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the National 
Sheriffs' Association, the Major County Sheriffs of America, and the 
Major Cities Chiefs Association.
  So it is hard to take seriously all this talk on the other side about 
how Ms. Gupta wants to ``defund the police.'' She has never supported 
that. When someone asked the head of the Fraternal Order of Police what 
he thought about these attacks, he called it ``partisan demagoguery.'' 
And that is exactly what it is, and he is right.
  There isn't a serious debate about her record. It is a political 
campaign to defeat her nomination. The American people see through it, 
and I hope my colleagues will see through it as well.
  We would be lucky to have someone with Ms. Gupta's experience and 
leadership at the Department of Justice.
  Many years ago, I had the privilege to work at the Department, and I 
know how seriously the men and women there take their jobs, and I know 
how grateful they would be to serve alongside someone as talented and 
committed to the mission as Ms. Gupta. It is why I believe tomorrow we 
should come to this floor and give her a resounding bipartisan vote to 
confirm her as the next Associate Attorney General of the United 
States.
  I urge all of my colleagues to put aside the rhetoric and the false 
claims. Look at the record for what it is. The police organizations 
have supported her. And vote yes for her nomination.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hassan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on amendment No. 
     1445 to S. 937, a bill to facilitate the expedited review of 
     COVID-19 hate crimes, and for other purposes.
         Charles E. Schumer, Richard J. Durbin, Mazie K. Hirono, 
           Tammy Baldwin, Tammy Duckworth, Alex Padilla, Maria 
           Cantwell, Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory A. Booker, Debbie 
           Stabenow, Brian Schatz, Tim Kaine, Kirsten E. 
           Gillibrand, Benjamin L. Cardin, Gary C. Peters, Patrick 
           J. Leahy, Christopher Murphy.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented

[[Page S2061]]

under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No. 13, 
     S. 937, a bill to facilitate the expedited review of COVID-19 
     hate crimes, and for other purposes.
         Charles E. Schumer, Richard J. Durbin, Mazie K. Hirono, 
           Jeff Merkley, Debbie Stabenow, Richard Blumenthal, 
           Tammy Baldwin, Tammy Duckworth, Alex Padilla, Maria 
           Cantwell, Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory A. Booker, Brian 
           Schatz, Tim Kaine, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Benjamin L. 
           Cardin, Gary C. Peters.

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, Tuesday, 
April 20, be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered

                          ____________________