[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 133 (Thursday, July 29, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5148-S5149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             INFRASTRUCTURE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday, I joined a number of my 
Republican and Democratic colleagues

[[Page S5149]]

and voted to begin floor consideration of bipartisan compromise 
legislation for our Nation's infrastructure.
  Our country would benefit a whole lot from some targeted investment 
in the kinds of real, tangible projects that fit a commonsense 
definition of actual infrastructure--roads, bridges, ports, waterways, 
airports, broadband.
  A bipartisan compromise to responsibly finance these kinds of 
investments is guaranteed to be big and complex. It is guaranteed to be 
the kind of legislation that no Member on either side of the aisle will 
think is perfect. But it is an important basic duty of government.
  I am glad to see these discussions making progress. I was happy to 
vote to begin moving the Senate toward what ought to be a robust, 
bipartisan floor process for legislation of this magnitude.
  This kind of focused compromise that our colleagues have been hashing 
out could not contrast more sharply with the multitrillion-dollar 
reckless taxing-and-spending spree the Democrats hope to ram through on 
a party-line vote later this year.
  As I have said before, the Democrats' spree is reckless on multiple 
levels. We are all familiar with the staggering $3.5 trillion bottom 
line. We all know it would only amp up the painful inflation that is 
already hammering middle-class families, in large part because of the 
last partisan deluge of spending Democrats rammed through just a few 
months ago.
  But just as alarming is the parade of leftwing ideas that comprise 
this mess: turning temporary pandemic welfare payments with no work 
requirements into a permanent dole, shoving through big chunks of the 
Green New Deal, government price-fixing that would leave us with fewer 
new medicines and new cures.
  And then there is an effort to further inflame the Biden 
administration's border crisis with a far-left amnesty. We have now 
seen the highest unaccompanied child arrivals on record, the biggest 
month for immigrant encounters in 21 years. This month, total CBP 
apprehensions for the calendar year are expected to top a million--a 
million--for the first time in 15 years, and we still have 5 months to 
go.
  So one might think my friends across the aisle would try to avoid 
repeating the missteps that created the crisis; that they would be 
careful to avoid doubling down on the perverse incentives generating so 
much suffering down at the southern border.
  But, apparently, Washington Democrats intend to do the opposite. 
Their reckless taxing-and-spending spree would include an even bigger 
green light for this crisis at the worst possible time. Under the Biden 
administration's unenforceable catch-and-release policy, just 13 
percent of the 50,000 individuals who have been released into the 
United States since March have actually reported to assigned ICE 
checkups. So in a sense, either intentionally or through incompetence, 
the administration is already practicing a policy that amounts to 
functional amnesty in many cases. What Democrats want now is to make 
that explicit and, believe it or not, permanent.
  They would effectively like our southern border to be even more open 
than it is now, even during an ongoing public health emergency that has 
Federal, State, and local officials contemplating new batches of rules 
for American citizens. The message to Americans appears to be: Put your 
guard back up, even if you are vaccinated.
  But to a jaw-dropping degree, the message to people arriving at the 
southern border seems to be: Come on in. Even if you are COVID 
positive, come on in.
  CBP data are reportedly showing a huge uptick in positive COVID tests 
in the Rio Grande Valley sector. That is just one sector, and that is 
just among whatever fraction of the individuals are actually being 
tested. And among individuals in ICE custody, apparently one in three--
one in three--are declining to receive a vaccine. Yet it seems the 
Biden administration doesn't consider a COVID diagnosis any reason to 
make an exception to its catch-and-release policy. Alarming reports of 
COVID-positive detainees being turned out into Texas communities even 
have border-State Democrats sounding the alarm.
  I hope President Biden is listening. Maybe Members of his own party 
will have better luck conveying what the American people have known for 
months: The situation at our southern border is a crisis. It deserves 
real attention and real solutions, not a reckless taxing-and-spending 
spree with amnesty policies that would make things considerably worse

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