[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 171 (Thursday, September 30, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6828-S6830]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             World Affairs

  Mr. President, I wish I could say that is the only issue that is 
actually moving right now. As I turn and look around the world, there 
are so many issues and things that are going on right now.
  Turkey has actually announced that they are going to buy more Russian 
missiles. They are completely ignoring what is going on.
  France is furious with the United States right now and feels like the 
United States stabbed them in the back in forming an alliance without 
them--withdrawing their Ambassador, which is the first they have done 
in centuries with the United States, because that is a broken 
relationship with France.
  We have put sanctions on individuals. I wish I could tell you it was 
due to a Russian pipeline, but no--those sanctions were pulled. I wish 
I could tell you it was on Turkey for actually buying Russian surface-
to-air missiles, but no--that hasn't been done. We have added sanctions 
onto the Attorney General of Guatemala. Attorney General Porras, they 
are saying, is corrupt, although she is actually trying to address 
corruption in her country.
  I wish I could tell you that is even the only issue we are dealing 
with. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has now announced their new leader 
for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Muhammad Hassan, who is a U.N.-
sanctioned individual. That is the transition to the new government 
that we are going to work with, where hundreds of Americans still 
remain because they were left behind.
  In Iran, it doesn't get any better. In Iran, they just announced 
again that they are not going to allow the IAEA inspectors to be able 
to come in and to deal with cameras in the centrifuge sites. They 
continue to be able to stiff-arm the world and to say that is what they 
are going to do, and there seem to be no new consequences for Iran. But 
there is for the Attorney General of Guatemala, but not in other areas.

  In the Armed Services Committee this week, the top brass for the 
United States made it very clear that they had recommended to the 
President leaving 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. When the President 
announced, ``No one ever told me that,'' the top leadership all said 
they made it clear.
  I wish I could even tell you that is the only issue going on with the 
military right now, but many people don't know that President Biden, 
just a couple of weeks ago, fired every appointee from the Trump 
administration time period that President Trump put in for the Board of 
Visitors for all of our academies--the Naval Academy, West Point, Air 
Force--just cleared them all. It wasn't based on their qualifications; 
it was just if Trump appointed them, they are all bad--and cleared all 
of those appointees from every single academy board.
  By the way, that has never been done by any President, ever. Just 
clear the deck. If Trump said they are good, they must be bad.
  On the southern border, we all know full well what is happening in 
the chaos that is there, as we have now topped well over a million 
individuals that we have interdicted from over 100 different countries 
that have crossed our southwest border illegally. And the number, I 
would love to tell you, of those that have been allowed to able to come 
into the country, except DHS won't tell us that number for months.
  Federal courts have stepped in and have told the Biden administration 
they have to reimpose the MPP process that President Trump put in that 
dramatically dropped the number of people coming to our southwest 
border illegally. The Federal courts instructed the Biden 
administration a month ago that they have to put that back in place. 
And so far, the Biden administration has said: We are thinking about 
it; we are examining it--and won't even release a timeline to be able 
to follow the Federal court.
  Now, it is one thing for the Biden administration to be angry at 
Congress, but currently, they are ignoring a Federal court order. That 
is a whole different issue on our democracy.
  Afghan evacuees have one set of standards to be able to come in; 
people on the southwest border have an entirely different set. And in 
the middle of it, there is an ongoing dialogue about vaccine mandates 
for every American. The President gave a speech and dropped a mandate 
and said: Everyone that works in a company that has 100 people or more 
has to get the vaccine. It is his requirement.
  Now, he has yet to give the legal authority for that. In fact, they 
have yet to put out a single document from the Department of Labor. 
They just put a deadline date out there, and they are asking every 
company to be able to implement it simply based off his speech.
  The President cannot just give a speech and mandate to the country 
what to do. That is not how a representative republic works, but yet 
that is what is happening. It is even more chaos among Federal workers 
and among Federal contractors because they did the same mandate to 
them. But, quite frankly, agency to agency, they are trying to figure 
out what do. And one agency handles it one way, and another agency is 
handling it completely different because no instructions have come down 
from the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management 
and Budget.
  They have failed to be able to put out the most basic instructions, 
so there is chaos. And, literally, we--I have individuals that are 
Federal contractors saying: We are just not going to do Federal 
contracting anymore on this--or they can't complete a contract because 
so many people within their company have said: I am not going to take 
the vaccine. I have already had COVID. I have natural immunity. I am 
not going to do it.
  Currently, the President has only given a speech. And whether it is 
the National Guard that only has 40 percent of the Guard vaccinated or 
whether it is in private companies, the chaos is running around the 
entire country. As people that are vaccinated like me encourage others 
to be vaccinated and say: I am glad that I have been vaccinated, and I 
am glad that I have the vaccine, others are saying: You know what, I am 
an American; why are you making me take this; why am I going to lose my 
job if I can't do this?
  I have talked to union employees that work in Federal unions that are 
saying: Why isn't my union protecting me? My union seems to be 
capitulating instead of actually helping me, I thought my union was 
supposed to represent me. But yet union bosses are telling their union 
members: We are not going to listen to you this time; we are going to 
listen to the President instead of you as a union member.
  And I have talked to quite a few that are really ticked off because 
this was not in their collective bargaining agreement. And they are 
wanting to know when their voice actually gets heard. I will tell you, 
I don't know when their voice actually gets heard because they have 
been locked out.
  All of those things are happening all around the world. And on the 
other side of the building, they are working on fighting over an 
infrastructure bill

[[Page S6829]]

and a $3.5-trillion social welfare entitlement bill that they are 
working to be able to move through as the left and the uber-left fight 
about how much they can spend today. The $3.5-trillion bill that is out 
there has an enormous cost. But, quite frankly, the content of the bill 
is more dangerous than the cost.
  I remember full well in the 1990s President Clinton standing in front 
of the Nation and saying: We are going to end welfare as we know it--
and his statements about the welfare experiment that we have had for 
decades to be able to send cash payments out to individuals we now know 
doesn't work. We need to incentivize work. We need to incentivize 
individuals so that individuals are able to rise.
  Shockingly, in this $3.5 trillion entitlement bill, they are 
literally going back to welfare as we once had it, rather than ending 
welfare as we know it. They are returning to just checks rather than 
encouraging jobs.
  We have seen already what that looks like in our economy just this 
year when in March, April, May, June so many States had such a hard 
time hiring individuals because individuals were getting just enough 
money to be able to get by. And so employers were trying to hire 
people, but people are saying: As long as I can get by, I am just going 
to be able to get by.
  And we watched company after company struggle to be able to actually 
bring staff on. We watched lots of restaurants cut their hours. We 
watched lots of stores cut their hours because they couldn't get enough 
staff. That is the plan for this $3.5-trillion bill: to cut more checks 
to more individuals, to make it even harder to be able to function in 
our economy.
  And it is not just that; it is throughout the bill. They changed the 
way that the Affordable Care Act funding is even done. According to the 
Kaiser Family Foundation study that is tracking all of these changes, a 
family of two adults with a 5-year-old child with an annual income of 
$100,000 will now get $10,500 a year in additional subsidies. A family 
of $100,000, they are going to give an additional $10,500 per year.
  That is not the only issue as well. Dramatic change in preschool 
entitlements, $450 billion they want to spend on this massive childcare 
and preschool entitlement program--and that all may sound great like we 
need do more. Why aren't they engaging in things like Head Start and 
some of the child development block grants? They are ignoring those to 
do an even bigger new program.
  It is fascinating to me. In the budget documents they put out, they 
continue to attack the most basic issue of life. While they do 
childcare spending in one hand and say, We really want to help 
children, if you are a baby in the womb, you have no chance under their 
bill.
  If you are a child that they can see, they want to do $450 billion in 
new entitlement programs. But if you are child in the womb, the bill is 
full of additional incentives to increase abortion in America and to do 
taxpayer-funded abortion in America.
  I have to tell you, I saw a New York Times article just recently that 
had a line where they were talking about abortion and encouraging 
abortion, and they were talking about the new Texas law dealing with 
abortion and life. And they added into it, ``I think a majority of 
women are being sentenced to being parents''--``sentenced to being 
parents.'' How about welcoming a child and seeing them for who they 
are?
  This bill includes a methane fee that will kill the oil and gas 
industry in my State and around the country. This bill includes a new 
clean electricity performance program, which will drive up the cost of 
electricity for every single American. If you think your electricity 
bill was expensive this summer, wait until the Clean Electricity 
Performance Program comes in and see how much your summer electricity 
bill is.
  Oh, but don't worry: If you plug in your electric vehicle--if you are 
getting an electric vehicle, they are going to give you a $12,500-tax 
credit if you get an electric vehicle--if it is produced in a union 
shop, because apparently union shops are more carbon-friendly, I guess. 
They don't say that. There is no requirement for that.
  It is not about a cleaner environment. It is just an extra perk to 
the unions on that and a shot to anyone who does production in a State 
that is nonunionized or a nonunion shop--$12,500 that they want to be 
able to pay towards an electric vehicle. And that is not just for some; 
that is for most every American would get that.
  It includes massive new subsidies for solar and for wind, even though 
wind and solar can make money right now, but because it is so expensive 
to do the transmission lines from far distances, they are including 
massive new subsidies for that.
  They create $3 billion for the Civilian Climate Corps to be able to 
pay young people to do climate activism all around the country, so 
those folks that are climate activists will actually be paid for with 
your tax dollars.
  It includes what the Joint Committee on Taxation states that 
taxpayers--get this--at all income levels will see a tax increase under 
this bill--all income levels. Forty different tax hikes, over $2 
trillion in tax increases that they have announced--it will cost zero 
dollars. We are going to spend $3.5 trillion, and it will have 
absolutely no cost, except that Joint Tax has already looked at it and 
said: All taxpayers will have a tax hit on this.
  In addition to that, companies in the United States will have one of 
the highest tax rates in the entire world. Just basic economics: When 
you are trying to compete, do you want to have a lower price or a 
higher price? Just basic economics. If the United States is going to 
compete with China, should we have a lower tax rate than Communist 
China or a higher one?
  According to this bill, the United States will have a higher tax rate 
than Communist China on our businesses. I don't know of anyone that 
thinks that is a good idea other than the folks that are voting to 
increase taxes dramatically on the American people.
  And for folks that continue to say, Well, it is only on corporations, 
and they think it is Apple and Ford and Conoco, you know what?--when 
you talk about corporations, 1.4 million small businesses are organized 
as C corps. Over 84 percent of C corps have 20 employees or less. So if 
you think this is all about the big boys, oh, just wait.
  Not only that, in their tax policy, they include new marriage 
penalties to disincentivize marriage in America--or if you get married 
and file jointly, you are going to pay more taxes.
  It includes new enforcement from the IRS. Initially, it was a talk 
about $600. If you deposit or withdraw $600 from your bank account, 
then we are going to do new enforcement. That is going to have to get 
turned into the IRS. Then they changed it because they figured out 
people get nervous with that. So now, they are talking about if you do 
$10,000 of additions or subtractions in your bank account in a year, 
then we are going to track you.
  Can I tell you, almost every American in their bank account puts in 
$10,000 in or out in the year. If you make $12,000 in a year and 
deposit a check in your bank account, you will be turned into the IRS 
with your transactions.
  This is a new way to be able to harvest data from every single 
American and turn it over to the IRS that is leaking information like a 
sieve currently, as information is being leaked out from ProPublica to 
be able to just release Americans' tax returns. At the same time, my 
Democratic colleagues are saying, We want the IRS to have even more 
data.
  And if you don't capitulate to the vaccine mandate, well, guess what, 
the $3.5-trillion new bill increases OSHA fines for you 10 times higher 
than what they used to be--10 times higher than what it used to be.
  This is about caving to their will. Yeah, there are a lot of things 
in this bill, and I didn't even touch the hem of the garment on how 
many things are in it.
  We need to be engaged as Americans. And we need to know what is 
actually being proposed by this body and by this President and to be 
able to see the results of that worldwide.
  It is time for us to engage and to stay informed, and it is time for 
this body to consider, Is that really where the American people are? Is 
this really what the American people want? I can assure you, in 
Oklahoma, it is not.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Wyoming.

[[Page S6830]]

  

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes and allowed to use a prop; and 
that, when I finish, Senator Tester be allowed to speak for up to 10 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.