[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 188 (Tuesday, October 26, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7361-S7362]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Government Spending

  Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose what the Democrats 
are trying to do with their reckless tax-and-spending spree. Right now, 
prices are rising all across America. The price of gas has gone up by 
nearly $1 since the day Joe Biden took the oath of office. One in five 
families has had to cut down on their spending, their other spending to 
pay for energy this year, and it is going to get worse this winter.
  In total, the typical American family is paying about $175 more every 
month, month after month, because of inflation. And the front page 
story of the New York Times today talked about the upcoming 
Thanksgiving as the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner of all, and they 
called it a wallop to the wallet. That is the front page of the New 
York Times.
  I would say, when you see that kind of a story, you know that 
inflation is here, and it looks like it is here to stay. And it is 
connected directly to the policies of this President, this 
administration, and the Democrats in Congress who are trying to make it 
worse with this tax-and-spending spree. Democrats ought to be working 
with Republicans to reduce inflation and to cut the spending, but that 
is not what is happening. No, we see just the opposite.
  The Democrats are completely focused on the most expensive spending 
bill in American history. Right now, the cost is at least $3.5 
trillion. With interest payments, the pricetag rises to $4.2 trillion. 
The bill is 2,500 pages in length. You do the math. That is 
$1,400,000,000 for each and every page. You divide the cost of the bill 
by the number of people in America, it is over $10,000 for every man, 
woman, and child.
  The amount that is being proposed to spend is larger than the entire 
economy of Japan, which is the third largest economy in the world. And 
the bill is a towering list of radical liberal priorities: permanent 
welfare programs, free money for electric vehicle owners, earmarks for 
New York City and San Francisco, including Nancy Pelosi's special park 
for the privileged.
  Now Democrats are playing a shell game, trying to hide from the 
American people how they are going to pay for this whole thing. Well, 
they continue to try to hide the ball. Is it more taxes? Is it more 
debt? Is it some of both? Let's be clear: No matter which one they 
decide to do, prices for the American consumer is going to continue to 
go up. No matter which one they choose, the American people are going 
to end up paying one way or the other.
  So, last week, the President went to Pennsylvania and said he didn't 
want to talk about the cost of the bill. He said: We shouldn't talk 
about the numbers. We shouldn't even talk about the numbers.
  Now, I can understand why President Biden doesn't want to talk about 
the numbers because the American people are getting sticker shock. But 
people all around this country, at the kitchen table, when they sit 
down and try to figure out how much money they have and what kind of 
bills are coming in and see the price of food going up and the price of 
fuel going up and the price of gasoline going up and the price of one 
thing after another and housing going up--people at the kitchen table 
are talking about the numbers.
  President Biden would rather tell all of us that the bill costs zero 
dollars. His Press Secretary, his Chief of Staff, and Nancy Pelosi have 
all repeated the same big lie. They say the largest spending bill in 
history costs zero dollars. This isn't just false; it is absurd. If it 
costs zero dollars, why are they having such a hard time trying to get 
it passed? Answer that.
  The American people aren't falling for this. The American people 
know. They know that when Democrats spend more, they pay more, one way 
or the other.
  So why do Democrats keep repeating the big lie? Because they know 
that people don't want a big spending bill. They are against it.
  Tax revenues are already at record highs in this country. Our problem 
isn't that we are taxed too little; it is that we spend too much. Yet 
Democrats' spending bill contains more than 40 new tax increases. If 
these taxes become law, everyone will have to pay one way or the other. 
They will pay more in taxes. They will suffer with lower wages, in 
terms of spending capacity, and pay higher prices.
  According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, two-thirds of the taxes 
Democrats are proposing for businesses would be paid by the middle 
class. Now, that is not what the President wants you to believe--paid 
by the middle class, no question about it.
  Democrats know the American people don't want higher taxes. A Gallup 
poll showed recently fewer than one in five Americans wants more 
government if it is paid for by tax increases. The American people 
don't want more spending, which they know we can't, as a nation, afford 
with the kind of debt we have.
  That is why Democrats, each and every one, seem to be trying to hide 
the cost of the bill through accounting gimmicks. The gimmicks are so 
blatant even their own Democrat experts are telling them to stop it.
  President Obama's ``auto czar,'' Steve Rattner, a major critic of 
these accounting tactics and tricks, he actually wrote an editorial in 
the New York Times about it. He said:

       [W]ith worrisome inflation signs evident, we certainly 
     don't need any more stimulus.

  Democrats are trying to find new ways to take more money from the 
American people. They are proposing to supersize the IRS, and the IRS 
is already the least accountable and most powerful Agency in the entire 
government.
  Right now, the annual IRS budget is about $13 billion. Democrats want 
another $80 billion to hire an army of IRS agents to rifle through the 
bank records of the American people. Even President Obama's IRS 
Commissioner is against a budget that big.
  This proposal just shows how desperate Democrats are to get every 
last penny they can so they can spend it. For weeks, Democrats said 
they wanted to force banks to tell the IRS about any account with $600 
in deposits or withdrawals. Well, the American people found out, and 
they were outraged. I received more calls and more letters on this 
single topic than on any other topic during the entire years I have 
been in the U.S. Senate. But yet Democrats defended the plan for weeks, 
including Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, on national television.
  It has been fascinating to watch her argue back and forth with Larry 
Summers, a former economic adviser to both Bill Clinton, who was 
Secretary of the Treasury for him, as well as to Barack Obama.
  Well, now Democrats finally realize how angry the American people are 
at this Big Brother proposal.
  So what is their solution? More gimmicks, more sleight at hand. Now 
Janet Yellen says the policy will only apply to accounts with total 
transactions of more than $10,000 over the course of a year.
  Well, that new proposal and that gimmick would still affect nearly 
every American in this country who has a bank account. It is 
essentially the same proposal. The American people aren't buying it.
  So the Democrats are now on the horns of a dilemma. Is it more taxes? 
Is it more debt? Is it both? All three options mean more inflation 
hitting families across America and hitting things like the front page 
of the New York Times, where they talk about it as a wallop to the 
wallet.

[[Page S7362]]

  The last thing the American people need right now are higher taxes, 
more debt, and higher prices. Yet this is all that today's Democrat 
Party has to offer.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.