[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 109 (Wednesday, June 23, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4711-S4712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Democratic Agenda

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it seems that for the past month 
Senate Republicans have watched as our Democratic colleagues send up 
one partisan test balloon after another.
  They threatened a battle over a so-called equal pay bill, which 
turned out to be chum in the water for the trial lawyers but really not 
much else. Then they, once again, threatened the Second Amendment, but 
they couldn't find a friend across party lines to join them in that 
fight. So that trial balloon was popped.
  And who could forget their promise to bring the improperly named 
Equality Act to the floor for a vote? Well, that balloon didn't take 
flight either. And, yesterday, the Democrats' democracy-destroying 
election takeover bill almost survived, but it too came crashing back 
to Earth after failing to clear a procedural hurdle.
  Still, they have made the most of their time over the past month, 
holding up their string of failures as evidence that it is the 
filibuster and not the radically partisan nature of their agenda that 
is thwarting their progress.
  As the Republican leader said at the beginning of this month, it was 
an agenda that was designed to fail. It failed to bring them the power 
that they are craving to have over the lives of millions of Americans. 
It failed to kill the filibuster, and it certainly failed the millions 
of Americans who have been forced to watch, dumbfounded, as this circus 
played out in realtime on their television screens.

[[Page S4712]]

  It was a complete waste of our time. It is what one of my Tennesseans 
said this weekend, talking about these trial balloons, talking about 
this lurch to the left--and Madam President, this was a friend of mine 
who is a Democrat--as he said, it was a complete waste of our time, the 
American people's time. He added: It was a complete waste of my dime--
for the tax dollars that he sends to Washington, DC. He went on to say: 
Think about the problems you could have solved if you had been focused 
on making some progress instead of creating chaos.
  Yesterday, the Commerce Committee held a hearing on achieving 
broadband resiliency. As you well know, this is one of the most 
important infrastructure problems that not only faces our committee but 
also faces this body. We had a great discussion, and I thanked Chairman 
Lujan for that hearing. But I can't help but wonder how much more 
progress we would have been able to make on this issue if the 14 
million unserved rural Americans--yes, unserved; they have nothing--
think about the progress we could have made if those 14 million 
unserved Americans had taken precedence in the minds and in the agenda 
of our friends across the aisle. It would have been great to focus on 
that.
  Speaking of infrastructure, perhaps we could have focused more energy 
on giving the needed authority to our local officials so they can fix 
crumbling roads and bridges and getting regulations out of their way so 
they can go to work helping people get to work and helping children get 
back to school. Certainly, I know a few officials in Memphis who would 
love to see us start thinking long term about practical infrastructure 
support that doesn't include the Green New Deal fantasies that are 
favored by this White House.
  The American people have noticed this lack of focus and this 
freewheeling attitude when it comes to spending taxpayers' money. When 
they look around, they see real need. There are businesses and families 
who are still struggling to pull themselves out of the ashes of the 
pandemic. Policies that are favored by the Democrats would be policies 
that would bankrupt their businesses, that would drive up the debt, and 
that would cause massive inflation. Tennesseans know these policies are 
not going to help them. What it does do is to frustrate them. Neither 
will the Democrats' continued failure to manage President Biden's 
border crisis.
  In April, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 178,000 people 
attempting to illegally cross our border. Fourteen thousand of these 
were unaccompanied alien children. It is a record year for drug 
runners, for the cartels, for bootleggers, for human traffickers, and 
for sex traffickers. We caught the Department of Health and Human 
Services actually finishing the work of the cartels, trafficking many 
of those unaccompanied minors through the Chattanooga Airport without 
the knowledge or the involvement of local officials.
  Meanwhile, my Democratic colleagues are treating this humanitarian 
crisis as if it is nothing more than a logistics challenge. But perhaps 
if we had spent more time on this in the past month, we could have 
convinced them that until they get this crisis under control, they 
would have to admit, in this country right now, every town is a border 
town; every State, a border State. Just ask your local law enforcement. 
They will tell you. Perhaps they didn't want to put the time there 
because they had been busy putting a show on for the cameras and their 
friends on the left.
  Tennesseans noticed what went on here this month. They are not happy 
about it. They have been reaching out. They don't have the luxury of 
playing political games. They don't have the spare resources to gamble 
on woke politics. They are trying to keep the doors of their businesses 
and their churches and their schools and their factories open.
  We did a lot of talking this month, but the friends on the left chose 
not to take action to solve problems. I would encourage them to do a 
little soul-searching over the next couple of weeks and address the 
agenda that the American people would seek to have addressed.
  I yield the floor.