[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 80 (Monday, May 10, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2402-S2403]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Biden Administration

  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, President Biden promised unity to 
bring the country together during his inaugural address. I was there 
with my 26-year-old son Tucker. We listened together and hoped that 
President Biden would live up to his words. I assumed that when he said 
he would be a President for all Americans, it also included the 75 
million Americans who voted for Donald Trump.
  I was ready, and I still am, to work with President Biden in good 
faith to find commonsense solutions to problems facing the country and 
to ensure the voices of Alabamians are heard. But, so far, the 
President has neither united nor reached across the aisle. His actions 
have shown that he is fine to play along with the divisive tactics of 
the progressive left, rather than unite a large and diverse country.
  President Biden is acting like he is the President of New York and 
California, not the United States of America. The progressives can 
barely contain their excitement. The President received glowing reviews 
from leading progressive Members of Congress, saying the President has 
``exceeded expectations.''
  The left have been waiting a long time for an administration to 
implement their vision. They need to use a Trojan horse to put that 
vision into practice because it is remarkably unpopular with a majority 
of the American people.
  Their vision is unpopular because it centers around a core belief of 
imposing their vision on everyone. But to achieve this, that means 
taking away your freedom--freedom to think differently, freedom to 
worship differently, freedom for you and your family to live 
differently, freedom to spend your hard-earned money the way you want 
to spend it.
  Taking away those freedoms--freedoms that are the foundation of 
America--is not progress. It is called socialism.
  When progressives talk about equity, they mean equal outcomes, not 
opportunities. They want a government that is so powerful it owns 
everything and chooses how wealth is distributed to ensure equal 
outcomes. That, in essence, is socialism, and the folks promoting this 
vision are channeling the same energy as the Marxists and communists of 
the 20th century.
  Well, so far, President Biden has been a more willing partner to 
champion the progressive vision and export it from New York and 
California to every corner of the entire country. Just look at what has 
happened lately. One of President Biden's first moves was to signal to 
the world that America's borders are open. The result? Absolute chaos. 
And the administration shows little interest in fixing it. We cannot 
have a country without borders. That is common sense.
  Democrats were so eager to undo all the work President Trump did at 
the border just because President Trump did it, not because there was 
merit in rolling back these policies. Because of this insane, open-door 
policy, the American taxpayer--not the Biden administration but the 
American taxpayer--is footing a $60 million bill a week--$60 million a 
week--to cover the cost of housing unaccompanied minors at the border--
60 million.
  In the same rush, Democrats are working to undermine the integrity of 
the election process through H.R. 1 and S. 1, the Federal Government 
takeover of our elections.
  They are working to force millions of workers to join unions. They 
all want to strip States of their right-to-work laws, called the PRO 
Act.
  Democrats are using things Americans desperately need, like 
traditional infrastructure, as a smokescreen for things Americans 
desperately don't want, like the fantasy Green New Deal.
  And now Democrats in both Chambers have introduced legislation to 
expand the Supreme Court. And because they don't have the votes to ram 
this through the Senate--such an extreme agenda--many Democrats want to 
eliminate the filibuster, despite the fact that many wrote a letter 
asking to keep the filibuster just a few years ago, when they were in 
the minority.
  The bottom line is that the Democrats want to change the rules so 
they can get their way, because they are to the point where they want 
to transform our country, so said some of our leaders.
  As concerning as each of these actions have been, even more alarming 
are the progressives' efforts to indoctrinate our children by favoring 
fringe theories over actual learning. For example, the California 
Department of Education is considering using a curriculum that says: 
``The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally 
false.'' Their goal is to ``dismantle racism in mathematics.''
  Apparently, two plus two does not equal four anymore because it is 
not

[[Page S2403]]

politically correct. And just last year, the United States ranked 37th 
in the world in math--what a disaster.
  But here is the worst of all. The U.S. Department of Education 
recently introduced a rule that would direct millions--millions--of 
taxpayer dollars to schools that promised teaching critical race theory 
and the 1619 Project for American history and civics.
  Put aside for a minute that these theories have been routinely 
debunked by historians and actively seek to divide Americans on strict 
racial lines. Critical race theory's central belief is that the law and 
legal institutions of the United States are inherently racist--so 
racist, they believe, that these institutions cannot be redeemed and 
must be completely replaced. The goal should be to have better laws and 
better application of those laws, not to tear them down.

  For pushing this, it is not about uniting our country, it is about 
fanning the flames of the unfortunate human tendency to divide and 
separate into different tribes instead of uniting us around a set of 
common morals.
  Shouldn't we be fighting that impulse to divide into groups against 
each other? I think we need to do more uniting, and that should start 
in our schools, which is why I cannot believe that the U.S. Government 
is spending taxpayer dollars to teach our kids to dislike our country. 
How low have we sunk? These ideas are designed to drive a wedge between 
Americans based solely on their skin color. They openly reject the goal 
of the United States of liberty and justice for all.
  Our schools should be places that encourage the open debate of ideas 
and teach important morals to our young people so that they know right 
from wrong. That is why I joined Leader McConnell and 38 of my 
Republican colleagues to send a letter to Education Secretary Cordona, 
urging him to withdraw these divisive grant programs. Part of our 
letter reads:

       Families did not ask for this divisive nonsense. Voters did 
     not vote for it. Americans never decided our children should 
     be taught that our country is inherently evil.

  Secretary Cordona should redirect these grant dollars to American 
history programs that teach the ideals and morals that have made the 
United States the greatest force for good in human history.
  I spent my career in education--40 years. I have seen firsthand how a 
quality education can put a kid on the path to success in our great 
country, regardless of their race, religion, or economic background. 
When done right, education is the key to freedom. But the education we 
see in many schools today is just cementing existing inequality rather 
than giving kids the chance to escape it.
  We have got a clear trend here: undermine border security, undermine 
the election system, undermine the Supreme Court, undermine the Senate, 
undermine our education system, undermine our country. If your goal is 
to deconstruct and completely reshape a country, these are the steps 
that you would take.
  Our country is not perfect. There is a lot we have got to work on. 
But here in the United States of America, citizens have freedom and 
opportunities, and that is what we need to be focused on, not giving 
handouts, not dismantling our institutions but creating opportunity.
  We have the ability to make it better. We have the rules to do so. 
Those rules are in place so that all of us can respect, if not always 
agree with, the changes that are made to make this country better. That 
is called democracy. But changing the rules to force one's vision on 
everyone isn't democracy; it is tyranny. My Republican colleagues and I 
will continue to stand against that. That is what America was founded 
on, after all, and it is what America needs now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon