[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 74 (Thursday, April 29, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S2313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, last night, President Biden delivered 
his first address to a joint session of Congress, and today marks his 
100th day in office.
  President Biden is a likeable person. Many of us remember serving 
with him in this Chamber. But while the tone of his remarks were 
understated, the content was anything but. He talked at length about 
competing with China without mentioning that he wants to cut U.S. 
defense spending after inflation. Exactly what we cannot do if we want 
to keep pace.
  He talked about immigration without taking any responsibility for the 
border crisis that has his administration packing unaccompanied 
children into facilities and releasing arrivals into our country.
  And the President talked about unity and togetherness while reading 
off a multitrillion-dollar shopping list that was neither designed nor 
intended to earn bipartisan buy-in, a blueprint for giving Washington 
even more money and even more power to micromanage American families 
and build the country liberal elites want instead of the future 
Americans want.
  Think back to the start of this administration. Remember its day one 
priorities: axing a pipeline project that would have supported 
thousands of jobs; freezing the exploration behind America's energy 
independence; and re-signing the climate agreement that has gotten less 
emissions reduction out of China, which is inside the deal, than the 
United States achieved on our own, outside the deal.
  The approach has remained equally radical since. Even after the CDC's 
own experts showed months ago that schools are safe, the 
administration's partisan COVID bill threw money at districts without 
requiring prompt reopenings.
  As a humanitarian crisis mounts at the southern border, the 
President's team has offered mixed messaging and ineffectiveness.
  While Iran keeps ramping up nuclear rhetoric and financing terror 
across the Middle East, this White House keeps downplaying the Iranian 
terror. And they appear eager to squander sanctions leverage just to 
climb back into a failed deal from back in the Obama era.
  And again, as Russia and China fast-track military modernization, 
President Biden turned in a defense spending proposal that would put 
U.S. forces behind the curve.
  That was the backdrop for last night's speech. But instead of 
practical plans to fulfill these basic responsibilities, America heard 
a lengthy liberal daydream. We heard about the so-called jobs plan 
packed with punitive tax hikes at exactly the time our Nation needs a 
recovery. Ivy League experts say that it would actually leave American 
workers with lower wages at the end of the day.
  We heard about the so-called family plan, another gigantic tax-and-
spend colossus. Instead of empowering all kinds of families with 
flexibility, this one would just subsidize specific paths that 
Democrats deem best so Washington can call the shots from early 
childhood through college graduation.
  But wait. There was more. There was hostility toward the Second 
Amendment rights of American citizens. There was support for Democrats' 
sweeping election takeover bill that would neuter voter ID in all 50 
States--oh--and, by the way, make the Federal Election Commission a 
partisan body--oh--and legalize ballot harvesting, where paid political 
operatives can show up carrying stacks, stacks of other people's 
ballots.
  Here is the bottom line. Recall that more than a year ago, at the 
outset of the pandemic, a top House Democrat said this crisis provided 
the left ``a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our 
vision.'' Well, last night, President Biden said much the same: that 
his administration intends to turn ``crisis into opportunity.''

  The far left certainly gets the message. Some of the most liberal 
Members of Congress have gone out of their way to say they are 
surprised and delighted--delighted--by the President's willingness to 
do things their way.
  Even a neutral wire report explained yesterday that the Biden agenda 
seeks to ``fundamentally transform and expand government's role in the 
lives of everyday Americans.''
  Let me say that again. A neutral wire report explained yesterday that 
the Biden agenda seeks to ``fundamentally transform and expand 
government's role in the lives of everyday Americans.''
  It is an attempt to continue dragging a divided country farther and 
faster to the left. This administration wants to jack up taxes in order 
to nudge families toward the kinds of jobs Democrats want them to have, 
in the kinds of industries Democrats want to exist, with the kinds of 
cars Democrats want them to drive, using the kinds of childcare 
arrangements that Democrats want them to pursue. These plans aren't 
about creating options and flexibility for Americans; they are about 
imposing a vision.
  Instead of encouraging work and rewarding work and helping connect 
more Americans with opportunities to work and build their lives, this 
administration is working overtime to break the link--the link--between 
work and income. They want to break the link between work and income.
  Outside observers across the political spectrum agree these Democrats 
are unlearning the commonsense, pro-work lessons of bipartisan welfare 
reform from back in the nineties.
  This isn't what the American people voted for. This country just 
elected a 50-50 Senate, a very closely divided House, and a President 
who talked a big game about cutting deals, bringing people together, 
and building bridges. But even on subjects as historically bipartisan 
as pandemic relief, voting rights, and infrastructure, our Democratic 
friends have become addicted to divide-and-conquer.
  As our distinguished colleague Senator Tim Scott put it last night:

       They won't even build bridges . . . to build bridges.

  It doesn't have to be this way. Republicans support actually 
competing with China. Republicans support actually helping working 
families. Republicans support actual infrastructure. Ranking Member 
Capito and a number of our leading Republican colleagues have rolled 
out a multi-hundred-billion-dollar targeted infrastructure proposal. 
Today, in fact, the Senate is set to pass bipartisan legislation to 
help States and localities to provide clean and safe drinking water.
  Our President will not secure a lasting legacy through go-it-alone 
radicalism. He won't get much done that way. It won't be good for the 
country. And whatever the Democrats do get done through partisan brute 
force will be fragile. The American people need us to find common 
ground and to move this country forward, and they would like for us to 
do it together.

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