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“LEGISLATIVE SESSION” mentioning Tim Scott was published in the Senate section on pages S2002-S2009 on April 19.
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LEGISLATIVE SESSION
______
COVID-19 HATE CRIMES ACT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 937, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 937) to facilitate the expedited review of COVID-19 hate crimes, and for other purposes.
Amendment No. 1445
(Purpose: To improve the bill.)
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer] for Ms. Hirono and Ms. Collins proposes an amendment numbered 1445.
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask to dispense with further reading of the amendment.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of Amendments.'')
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Without objection, it is so ordered.
COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act
Madam President, last week the Senate began consideration of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. It is my understanding that the Democratic leader hopes a final vote on the bill will occur on Wednesday.
Earnest bipartisan conversations have improved this legislation considerably behind the scenes. Senate Republicans have helped make the bill better. And I am confident that with a bipartisan process this week that also include votes on Republican amendments, we will be able to continue moving forward toward the outcome the country deserves.
Protests
Madam President, on an entirely different matter, last summer our Nation began grappling in a renewed way with anger and pain at the fact that our progress toward racial justice remains unfinished. Rightly understood, this is not a struggle against our Nation's founding principles and central pillars; rather, it is a journey to make America even more faithful to itself to ensure that life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and equal justice under law are, indeed, the birthright of every single American.
Unfortunately, some of last summer's demonstrations devolved into violent and destructive riots. Small businesses were looted, civic monuments were defaced, and government buildings attacked, not just insults but rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at the good men and women of law enforcement. These were efforts to use violence and disorder as a political tactic to influence or overrule our democratic processes and our justice system.
Now, over the last few weeks, Minneapolis returned to center stage with the trial of the police officer who is accused of killing George Floyd last May. Again, the causes of civil rights, equal justice, and rule of law tell us that this trial and every trial must go forward without social pressure, political considerations, and certainly violent threats playing a role. Every single American deserves a fair trial. This is sacred.
You do not balance the scales of justice by trying to tip them, and yet this past weekend, one Democratic House Member from California took it upon herself to visit the protesters in Minneapolis. She said:
``We're looking for a guilty verdict.'' Like somebody window shopping or ordering off a menu, she is looking for a guilty verdict. If that verdict is not reached, the Congresswoman said demonstrators should
``not only stay in the street . . . we've got to get more active . . . get more confrontational . . . make sure that they know we mean business.''
It is harder to imagine anything more inappropriate than a Member of Congress flying in from California to inform local leaders, not so subtly, that this defendant had better be found guilty or else there will be big trouble in the streets.
Again, so much of our Nation's quest for civil rights and equal justice has been the fight to get rid of extrajudicial violence, to get rid of rigged trials where the outcome was molded by public sentiments or angry mobs. It is beyond the pale for a sitting Member of the U.S. Congress to look at what happened last summer and imply there should be some kind of a sequel, a sequel if a legal case does not unfold as she thinks it should.
Now, just a few hours after those comments, two members, two members of the National Guard who were onsite in Minneapolis keeping the peace were targeted in a driveby shooting. Thankfully, neither was seriously injured. But let's hope it doesn't take an injury or a fatality to remind politicians that their words actually have consequences.
Earlier this year, of course, the country heard many strong opinions from Democrats about whether leaders bear responsibility when reckless words precede criminal violence. Instead of trying to tilt the scales of justice with threats, policymakers should focus on actually making policy.
Last year, Senator Tim Scott and Senate Republicans tried to pass legislation that would have expanded body cameras, increased transparency in policing, and finally made lynching, at long last, a Federal crime. Our Democratic colleagues used the filibuster to kill it because it was not anti-police enough. Our colleagues on the far left have enough work to do here in the Capitol without trying to dictate to the judicial branch.
Hong Kong
Madam President, on one final matter, on Friday, the Chinese Communist Party reminded the world what it thinks about justice, due process, and self-governance. Nine of Hong Kong's most devoted pro-
democracy advocates received harsh sentences. What was their crime? Well, it was inspiring over a million people to take to the streets in August 2019 to protest peacefully in support of basic freedoms.
It was not the first time Beijing's thin-skinned authoritarians have brought the hammer down on Hongkongers and, sadly, it will not be the last. China's position is supposedly that ``only patriots''--only patriots should be allowed to govern Hong Kong.
Let's review what it means to be a PRC patriot. Apparently, it means applauding Hong Kong's new so-called national security law cooked up by mainland partisans and the political repression that it enables. It means applauding saber-rattling and interference with civilian commerce in the South China Sea. It means cheering on the Communist Party as it uses invasive technology to repress dissent at home and turning a blind eye to the detention and killing of religious and ethnic minorities in broad daylight.
Well, the CCP is right that real patriots should be speaking out and leading in Hong Kong. They are just wrong about who the true patriots actually are. Hong Kong's patriots are people like my friends Jimmy Lai and Martin Lee, who risk their safety to champion democracy. They are the hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters who carried the torch even as their countrymen have been imprisoned.
I appreciate the voices across the globe who are calling attention to the plight of the real patriots and all the other groups in Beijing's crosshairs.
To the global business and government leaders who haven't yet spoken out, I hope you are watching closely. If Beijing feels comfortable treating Hongkongers this way, just think how little regard the PRC will show for basic international norms.
I am also grateful to our own American leaders who fight for basic human rights, including our Religious Freedom Commissioners Tony Perkins and Gayle Manchin, who have themselves been comically blacklisted by Beijing and rightly wear that as a badge of honor.
I hope the administration will add teeth to its tough talk on China and reassure our friends in Hong Kong that we have their backs.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip
Immigration
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I was sure that I wouldn't like him. I was convinced that we weren't going to get along. I had so many grievances against President George W. Bush--the war in Iraq, the interrogation of prisoners--I really was prepared not to like him at all, and then I met him. Darn it. I met him and I liked him and I still do.
We still have some profound differences on issues. I think back on his Presidency, and there are some things that I want to give him credit for. First and foremost, I want to thank him for being our President during 9/11 because, if you remember what he said after 9/
11--and how profound it is in light of our history since--he said our war against terrorism is not against people of the Islamic faith; it is a faith of peace. What a remarkable statement to make by a President because we have seen just the opposite since by another President from his party.
He did great work when it came to global health, extraordinary work. He changed the world for the better. I was glad to be his ally in that effort.
That wasn't the sum total of all the work on the good side of the ledger that he had done, and I won't recount the areas of disagreement because there were many, but I do want to tell you that I was touched, personally touched by an article that President George W. Bush wrote in the Washington Post this weekend. It was about his new book, a collection of paintings entitled ``Out of Many, One.''
He said, in putting this book together, he was really setting ``out to accomplish two things: to share some portraits of immigrants''--and he has become an accomplished painter--``each with a remarkable story,'' he says, ``I try to tell, and to humanize the debate on immigration and reform.''
George W. Bush, a proud Republican, speaks not only to the people of America but especially to his own political party in this article. ``I hope that these faces, and the stories that accompany them, serve as a reminder,'' he writes, ``that immigration isn't just part of our heritage. New Americans are just as much a force for good now, with their energy, idealism and love of country, as they have always been.''
He goes on to talk about some of the amazing stories, the story of a young man from France who followed his dream to become an American soldier and went on to earn the Medal of Honor, the story of a champion runner who barely survived ethnic violence in East Africa and who told President Bush: ``America has given me everything I dreamed of as a boy.''
He says the backgrounds of these immigrants are varied, ``but readers won't have to search hard for a common theme.'' President Bush writes:
``It's gratitude. So many immigrants are filled with appreciation, a spirit nicely summed up,'' he writes, ``by a Cuban American friend who said: `If I live for a hundred years, I could never repay what this country has done for me.'''
President Bush writes: ``The help and respect historically accorded to new arrivals is one reason so many people still aspire and wait to become Americans.'' And then he asks the important question: ``How is it that in a country more generous to new arrivals than any other, immigration policy is a source of so much rancor and ill will?'' The short answer, he says, is that the issue has been exploited in ways that do little credit to either party. And no proposal on immigration will have credibility without confidence that our laws are carried out consistently and in good faith.
``One place to start,'' bless him, he writes, ``is DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.) Americans,'' he writes, ``who favor a path to citizenship for those brought here as children, known as
`dreamers,' are not advocating open borders. They just recognize that young men and women who grew up in the United States, and who never knew any other place as home, are fundamentally American. And they ought not be punished for choices made by their parents.''
Let me just add, thank you, President Bush. He speaks of our border, and he should. Another opportunity for agreement, he calls it. ``I have long said that we can be both a lawful and a welcoming nation at the same time.'' He writes we need a secure and efficient border, and we should apply all the necessary resources to ensure it.
He goes on to say we need a modernized asylum system that provides humanitarian support and appropriate legal channels for refugees. The rules for asylum should be reformed by Congress to guard against unmerited entry and reserve that vital status for its intended recipients.
I don't disagree with a word he has written. ``Increased legal immigration, focused on employment and skills,'' and here we may have some area of disagreement, ``is also a choice that both parties should be able to get behind.'' He also writes about improving our temporary entry program for some workers.
And listen to what President George W. Bush writes about the undocumented in America, estimated to be in the numbers of millions, 11 million. Here is what he says: ``As for the millions of undocumented men and women currently living in the United States, a grant of amnesty would be fundamentally unfair to those who came legally or are still waiting their turn to become citizens. But undocumented immigrants should be brought out of the shadows through a gradual process in which legal residency and citizenship must be earned, as for anyone else applying for that privilege. Requirements should include . . . work history, payment of a fine and back taxes, English proficiency,'' and other things.
He closes by saying: ``If we trust those instincts in the current debate, then bipartisan reform is possible. And we will again see immigration for what it is: not a problem and source of discord, but a great and defining asset of the United States.''
I was touched by those words and still am that he would be so caring and so pointed in his message. That is the basis for bipartisan immigration reform which America desperately needs.
Now I am looking for George W. Bush and the Republicans to join the Democrats in a bipartisan effort to get it done. I have called together a group for that purpose, and we are going to meet again soon to talk about the progress that we might be able to make.
I do want to thank the President. We have a job to do, and we need the values that George W. Bush still brings to the American people in this debate.
Gun Violence
Madam President, over the weekend in Chicago, a 13-year-old boy, Adam Toledo, on March 29, in the wee hours of the morning, was stopped by police and shot and killed in an alley in the city of Chicago.
Thousands have been gathering since in his memory. The videotape of the arrest was released last week, and there is that stark moment with his hands up, and he is being shot and killed--13 years old.
There is a lengthy debate going on in our city and our Nation about the role of the police, the fairness of law enforcement, and what is happening with children in areas of poverty and guns. This past weekend, our Nation's epidemic of gun violence continued to devastate families and communities. The Adam Toledo tape wasn't the only thing that happened.
In the city of Chicago, yesterday, Sunday, 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams was shot and killed in the backseat of a car while with her father at a McDonald's drive-through. She was one of 27 people shot in Chicago this weekend--5 of them fatally.
In Kenosha, in the Presiding Officer's home State, a gunman in a tavern, on Sunday morning, killed three people and wounded three more.
In Austin, TX, three people were fatally shot on Sunday morning in a reported domestic violence incident.
Then, on Thursday of last week and for the third time this year, there was another mass shooting in Indianapolis at a FedEx facility. Eight people died.
These were just some of the more than 100 Americans who are killed every single day by guns in this Nation. This, unfortunately, is not an isolated set of incidents, and this is not just a rare tragic weekend. This is America 2021. One of the key parts of an effective response to this crisis is understanding it, and that raises important questions about the news coverage of gun violence as well as anything else.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an April 5 column of the Chicago Tribune, entitled: ``Why aren't Chicago's mass shootings included in the outcry over recent violence in Atlanta, Colorado and California?'
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Column: Why Aren't Chicago's Mass Shootings Included in the Outcry Over
Recent Violence in Atlanta, Colorado and California?
(By Heidi Stevens)
When a gunman killed four people and wounded a fifth at a Southern California office building last week, news outlets, over and over, called it the third in a string of mass shootings.
``The violence in the city of Orange was the third major mass shooting in just over two weeks,'' an Associated Press story published on chicagotribune.com read. ``Last week a gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, and killed 10. A week before that, six Asian women were among eight people killed at three Atlanta-area spas.''
No mention of Chicago.
In Sunday's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column headlined, ``How do we stop the parade of gun deaths?'' Chicago gun deaths were nowhere to be found.
But 15 people were shot at a party in Chicago's Park Manor neighborhood on March 14 (two days before the Atlanta-area shootings) and eight people were shot outside a Wrightwood neighborhood storefront on March 26 (four days after the Boulder shooting and five days before the Orange shooting.)
What does it say that the violence here is so rarely included in larger discussions--in the media, among politicians--about mass shootings and the trauma they inflict on our nation?
``Mass shootings are mass shootings when they involve white people,'' Shaka Rawls, principal of Leo Catholic High School in Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood, told me. ``When they're Black people, it's just something that happened over there. When it's violence perpetrated by and on Black people, the mainstream media can easily turn its back and say, `This is what happens in those communities.' But the impact is huge on those communities.''
I called Rawls because the school he leads is located down the street from the funeral home where 15 people were shot on a Tuesday evening in July. Rawls raced to the scene as soon as he heard the news.
``I will never unsee that,'' he said. ``I'm traumatized by that, and this isn't my first rodeo. People are laid out on the ground. People are crying. There's no ambulance on the scene yet. I'm a school principal. I'm not trained for this.''
But in the days and weeks that followed, he found himself having to advocate for his students and staff to receive counseling and support, when he expected to be fielding offers of help.
``So many things that happen in my community are not looked at as violence perpetrated on human beings,'' he said.
``Sometimes we have to remind people that these are humans. The people experiencing this trauma are humans.''
On a day-to-day basis, Chicago's gun violence doesn't go unnoticed or unremarked upon. City residents and leaders face near-constant criticism and ridicule for our devastatingly high number of shootings and deaths.
But I hear those shootings and deaths lobbed as a jeer far more often than I hear them urgently, thoughtfully discussed as a crisis deserving of all-hands-on-deck solutions. And the failure to include Chicago in the national discourse about mass shootings feels like a symptom of this larger problem: an ``othering'' of our violence--as if it isn't as tragic, isn't as much of an assault on humanity, isn't as deserving of widespread calls for answers and reform.
``It's because we're killing each other, so it's nothing out of the ordinary,'' said Danielle Stipe-Patterson, 32, who lives in Park Manor. ``When it should be out of the ordinary. This is traumatic. This is trauma. I can't even watch certain TV shows because I'm living it. Why watch it for entertainment when I literally hear the gunshots every other night?''
Stipe-Patterson's dad was shot to death in Roseland when she was 8 years old. He was outside washing his car when he was killed.
``He wasn't affiliated with any gangs,'' Stipe-Patterson said. ``He was just a boy from Louisiana who had seven kids and two jobs.''
For several years, Stipe-Patterson worked as a program associate for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence conducting workshops and speaking to students in and around Chicago about gun violence and the importance of mental health resources for both prevention and healing.
``At the beginning, I felt like I made a difference,'' she said. ``I was able to share my story with kids who lost a parent or an uncle or a brother, showing them that you can still make it. After a while, sharing the story over and over and over and coming home and living the problem in the community, it was taxing.''
Now she works for a nonprofit that offers arts programming to kids who can't attend school because of chronic illness.
She started to feel like legislators and other people in positions of power were less interested in addressing the root causes--racial segregation, long-term disinvestment on the South and West sides, lack of mental health resources, underfunded schools, repeated exposure to trauma--and more interested in simply chalking up Chicago's violence to gangs.
After a recent shooting on her block, Stipe-Patterson said she and other neighbors tried to get information from police about what happened, how they might help solve the crime, and what to be on the lookout for.
``They wouldn't tell me anything,'' she said. ``You have to solve these things in the community, but how are we supposed to be a community if y'all aren't allowing us to be a community? How are we supposed to change stuff if y'all aren't being transparent with us?''
Every shooting--whether it takes place on a city sidewalk or inside a church or at a suburban high school--is a product of what the shooter experienced in life, Rawls said.
``Poverty, a desperate outlook on life, poor parenting, bullying at school,'' he said. ``How did they get the weapon? What's the economic impact on that community? What's the social and emotional impact on that community? There is not a catchall solution, but those should be the questions in every case. Every case.''
Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in Illinois, said Kathleen Sances, president and CEO of G-PAC Illinois, a gun violence prevention political action committee.
``An average of 183 children and teens die by guns every year in Illinois,'' Sances said. ``The gun violence crisis disproportionately affects Black and brown children and teens, who are 13 times more likely to die from gun violence than their white counterparts.
``Black and brown children are dying and nobody's doing anything about it,'' she continued. ``People who don't live in impacted communities don't see the violence. They dissociate themselves from those people. And I think the media reinforces this perspective.''
I agree. Yet, as a member of the media, I am engaged in an endless internal dialogue about how and how much to write about the violence in my beloved city. Too little is an insult to the human lives shattered by it and a dodging of the responsibility to shine light on our most pressing problems. Too much risks reinforcing negative stereotypes about a city that is so much more than the violence that has forever plagued it.
Rawls said he feels similarly conflicted over whether he wants more attention paid to Chicago's mass shootings, whether he would want to see Chicago listed alongside Atlanta and Boulder and Orange in an AP story.
If the attention would result in more federal resources directed at the problem? If the attention were accompanied by an interest in solving the root causes of gun violence, an understanding of Chicago's porous borders through which weapons flow, an acknowledgment of the levels of trauma and fear that many of his students carry on their shoulders? Sure.
``But the conversations don't have that tone,'' he said.
``There's a, `That's what they get. They shouldn't have been there' tone. I've seen it.''
More media attention? More politicians invoking Chicago in their gun reform speeches?
``It could be like throwing water on a grease fire,'' Rawls said.
I believe we can do better. I believe we--we in the media, we in Chicago, we Americans--can refuse to settle into a place where we accept gun violence as simply the cost of living in this city, where we experience the gun violence here as somehow less remarkable and less remarked upon than gun violence elsewhere. Bullets shattering a funeral on 79th Street are every bit as repellent to human nature as bullets shattering the aisles of a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.
``I think the best thing to remember is that the things that divide us are socially constructed,'' Rawls said. ``The things that separate us are created by society. And if we created them, we can dismantle them. I would like for everyone to see each other as humans, to see this is a problem happening to humans, not just those people over there.''
Mr. DURBIN. Heidi Stevens' column in the Tribune points out that the media often subjectively defines and covers what it considers to be mass shootings. All too often, mass shootings in communities of color are left out of the coverage, and this is wrong. It is unfair. It is nothing short of an outrage. It needs to change.
We need to understand the full scope of this crisis that is killing so many Americans, with reliable, objective data that is quickly made available. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps count, but there is a time lag with its data on firearm deaths and injuries. Right now, the latest official CDC report on gun deaths is from the year 2019. There is a website, though, Gun Violence Archive, that keeps track of shooting incidents virtually on a realtime basis.
I believe that news coverage of mass shootings in America should use the definition and statistics provided by the Gun Violence Archive. They define a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot and either killed or injured, not including the shooter. It is a purely numerical standard. It is not subjective. According to the Gun Violence Archive's definition--I want to put this on the record in the Senate--so far this year, by its definition, there have been 153 mass shootings. Yet we are only 109 days into the year. Nine of this year's mass shootings so far have taken place in Chicago. Four people have been fatally shot in these shootings, and 50 have been injured. It is important to gather this data as quickly as possible so that we can respond effectively.
Last week, I spoke on the floor and commended President Biden for speaking out. He recently announced an important set of Executive actions on gun violence: steps to limit untraceable ghost guns, help for States to pursue extreme risk protection orders. Incidentally, the State law in Indiana was not, apparently, solid enough or tamperproof enough and was overcome there by the latest mass shooting. There is the reporting on firearms trafficking patterns and nominating experienced veteran David Chipman to be the first Senate-confirmed Director of that Agency since 2015.
You see, many of the critics of gun safety legislation say to just enforce the laws we have, but if you have been around the Senate for more than 15 minutes, you will realize the Agency that has a major responsibility in that, the ATF, is notorious for being underfunded, understaffed, and going without leadership. That is part of the design of the people who really don't even want to see the laws enforced.
I am particularly encouraged by President Biden's commitment to providing Federal resources for community violence interdiction programs through the American Jobs Plan and other grant programs. This is the type of serious investment we need to tackle this crisis. This President is taking constitutional, commonsense steps to reduce gun violence, but what have we done? Nothing.
I held a hearing on gun violence in the Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago. We are going to hold more as Senator Blumenthal, of Connecticut, chairs the subcommittee with that responsibility. Hearings are important so that we can put together legislative reforms and appropriate funds. The House has already passed a bipartisan bill to close gaps in the gun background check system. Really, the ball is in the Senate's court at this moment. We need 10 Senate Republicans to help us get to the 60 votes necessary to overcome Republican filibusters.
Will our Republican colleagues stand up and vote to close these gaps in the law? Will our Republican colleagues support the President's call for funding community violence interdiction?
We need to act. Saving lives from gun violence should not be a partisan issue. It is an American tragedy. Sadly, we learn by the day that it is not an exclusive blue State problem. It is a blue State and a red State problem. It is an American problem. We have had too many mass shootings and too many Americans dying in gun homicides, suicides, and accidents. Let's take the bold action that meets the scale of this public health crisis. Our Nation is counting on us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama
Biden Administration
Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, today, I want to talk about two very important topics to America and to the folks back home in Alabama: President Biden's so-called infrastructure proposal and his proposed budget for the Department of Defense.
Now, I know infrastructure and defense aren't exactly the peanut butter and jelly of issues, but let me tell you how they go together. With these two proposals, the American people can plainly see just how out of place President Biden's priorities are.
I have traveled every corner of Alabama, from Mobile to Muscle Shoals, to our State's rural communities and urban centers. All the time, I hear that we need improvements to our transportation and infrastructure, and I have seen it with my own eyes. There are over 100,000 miles of public roads and 16,000 bridges in Alabama. More than 1,000 of those bridges have been condemned. Driving on poor roads costs Alabama drivers a total of $4.2 billion annually due to vehicle operating costs, traffic congestion, and car crashes.
Yet it is not just Alabama. It is everywhere in our country. I have spent decades traveling around the country as a football coach, and I am here to tell you we need help. We need help with our infrastructure. Investment in infrastructure is important and very, very necessary. Sound infrastructure allows people to get work, keeps our goods flowing, and keeps America competitive. That is why every penny of every dollar of any infrastructure proposal should be spent on actual infrastructure.
Sadly, President Biden's proposal fails that test by a long shot. Out of this massive $2.25 trillion proposal, only 6 percent is for roads and bridges. In fact, the proposal puts more money toward electric cars than roads, bridges, ports, and waterways combined. We have to stop treating government spending like it is monopoly money. When the American people hear about what is included in this bill, I think they will agree.
The Biden administration is using the umbrella term of
``infrastructure'' for a host of things folks back home don't associate with the word. Here are a couple of spending items that qualify as
``infrastructure,'' according to President Biden: $400 billion for nursing care and $213 billion for government housing. I can see and understand where those fit in but not in an infrastructure bill. What gets me is the $10 billion per year for a Civilian Climate Corps. This
$10 billion includes free housing, free clothing, free food, and an allowance for members while they promote ``climate justice''--$10 billion a year. Now, is that infrastructure?
We can debate the individual merits of these items, but, please, let's not pretend these are for infrastructure, because we need true infrastructure. To call this an infrastructure proposal is really an insult to the English language. The definition of ``infrastructure'' is not the ``kitchen sink'' approach. Let's call this proposal what it is--a farce. This proposal is simply the Green New Deal in disguise. They need to disguise it because actual infrastructure improvement is popular, and the Green New Deal is not.
In order to pay for all of this spending, President Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax by 7 percent--the largest Federal tax increase since 1993. This would undo President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which spurred the greatest economy we have had in decades. I can tell you right now the worst possible time to raise taxes is in the middle of a crisis. So many employers have already been hit hard and are just trying to get back on their feet. Remember who really ends up paying for tax increases, especially corporate tax rates. It is the consumer, like you and me. It is not the corporations.
As Americans for Tax Reform has pointed out, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act directly led to lower utility bills for hard-working folks across the country. Raising taxes would directly raise electric bills on millions of Americans, essentially taxing them, too. Tax increases threaten family-owned small businesses and family farms, forcing future generations to sell the legacies their parents and their grandparents worked so hard to build.
Here is the real kicker. As the Democrats are out there peddling this proposal as ``infrastructure'' and ``jobs,'' President Biden's tax increase will eliminate 1 million jobs in the first 2 years alone, according to the National Association of Manufacturers--all of that harm just to pay for the Democrats' wish list consisting of the Green New Deal. That absolutely makes no sense. We need to be focused on creating jobs and getting folks back to work, not destroying jobs for progressive pipe dreams down the road.
This comes on the heels of a massive stimulus that just passed--the one the Democrats called COVID relief, but, really, less than 10 percent of the bill went to COVID and health-related measures.
With all the trillions of new spending proposed by the Biden administration so far, you would think that there wasn't any spending proposal that they didn't like.
Yet when it comes to our national defense, President Biden has shown he cares very little about increasing investment to keep our country safe. President Biden recently released his ``skinny budget,'' which includes a cut of $7 billion for the Department of Defense after accounting for inflation.
President Biden's proposal and proposed defense budget is disappointing, dangerous, and a disservice to the men and women in uniform. What is more bewildering is that it asks for our troops to do more on a shoestring budget. It adds more duties, like combating climate change and other social priorities of the Democrats to our already thinly stretched forces, and that is very, very dangerous.
Regardless of whether these individual duties may be warranted--and, for the record, I don't think they are--we shouldn't expect our military to do more with less. At a time when our enemies grow bolder and the threats to America are increasing, ``do more with less'' is the last thing we should tell them to do.
These threats to our Nation are real, and they are getting worse. Russia is likely preparing to invade Ukraine and finish what Putin started in Crimea. North Korea continues to test ballistic missiles. Iran is emboldened to continue its nuclear weapons program.
And then there is China. In recent weeks, China has bullied Taiwan. They think now is the time to test the United States of America. China is building up their military to directly challenge the United States for global supremacy.
Over the last 10 years, China's defense spending increased by $200 billion, while the United States of America decreased its defense budget $400 billion.
We cannot let China continue to gain ground. In order to keep our country safe and protect democratic allies from Chinese aggression, we must stay well ahead of both weapons and technological advances.
President Biden's defense budget is not just dangerous for America. It is bad for us all. Across our State, Alabama has more than 200,000 jobs supporting national defense. The economic impact of the defense sector represents more than 8 percent of our State's GDP.
By underinvesting in defense, the critical work done by the service men and women at Alabama military installations--including Redstone Arsenal, Fort Rucker, Maxwell-Gunter, and others--could be seriously hindered. It will set back our entire State's economy.
I was just at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, where I heard firsthand from Army Material Command how badly we need to invest in modernizing our weapons systems across the world.
The best way to avoid a conflict is to have a bigger and better gun than the other guy. Most of President Biden's appointees at the Department of Defense support the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which is a comprehensive plan to compete, deter, and defeat our adversaries.
This defense budget threatens our military modernization efforts and America's ability to provide combat-ready forces. We cannot allow anything close to President Biden's defense budget to become law. Our military needs to focus on winning wars, not planting trees.
The people of Alabama and the men and women in uniform should know that I will stand up to President Biden and the globalists in his administration who want a weak military.
President Biden has gone on and on about unity and his reputation for reaching across the aisle, but ever since he came into office, his actions have been focused on appeasing the far-left, progressive voices in his party. We saw it firsthand with the stimulus bill. Shortly after that, we get this loaded-up, inappropriately named ``infrastructure'' proposal.
It is not just about the spending, which is a lot, but it is about what is in these proposals--progressive wish-list items that are paid for by the American taxpayer, not the government, the American taxpayer--and are passed on party lines, not bipartisan. And that is where President Biden's priorities clearly lie. He is signaling that he is more willing to invest in progressive policy items than the safety of our Nation and the world.
My colleagues and I are interested in working with President Biden on a bipartisan bill that addresses actual infrastructure, and we are ready to work on a defense budget that actually invests in our military and prepares us against the growing threats. We just need a President willing to unite rather than divide our great country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, over the past few weeks, my Republican colleagues and I have spent quite a bit of time making sure the American people know just how little of President Biden's 2-plus trillion dollar infrastructure plan will fund actual infrastructure plans to fix roads and bridges that are so in need of repair.
These are things that the Tennesseans have repeatedly told me they want to see in a bill: Fix the roads. Fix the bridges.
What do they want to be taken out of that bill? They want to get rid of some of these provisions that have nothing to do with infrastructure--nothing.
So imagine their disappointment--people who are ready for a highway bill, who are ready for a transportation bill, who are ready for an infrastructure bill--imagine their disappointment when they discovered that all the funding that they had hoped was going to go to potholes and expanding lanes on the interstate and fixing flooded back roads would instead be spent on electric cars, union advocates, and climate change ambassadors.
I know pothole repair isn't flashy, but it is what Tennesseans need. An electric car does not do you one bit of good when you are going to have to have a four-by-four to go pull it out of the mud every single time it rains.
We are pretty practical people, and my wish would be that my colleagues across the aisle would join us in reviewing the needs of the American people--the needs of the American people--and in being practical.
The lack of practicality has been a recurring problem in the months since President Biden took office. It seems that the Democrats here in Washington, DC, can't resist the urge to throw money at social-media friendly causes that not even the most talented communicators have been able to tie to the pressing needs of the American people. They did it with COVID relief, and now they are doing it with this infrastructure boondoggle.
The wish list just doesn't match the PR campaign, and that is a shame because this country has its own wish list of urgently needed items that we really can no longer afford to ignore.
Just a few weeks ago, I took my own trip down to the southern border to get a sense of the situation on the ground, and it is a dire situation. We are facing an environmental crisis, a national security crisis, and a humanitarian crisis that is massive in scope. If we want to talk about infrastructure projects that matter, let's talk about all the infrastructure that President Biden abandoned back in January when he halted construction on the wall.
To paraphrase a famous saying, a 450-mile-long stretch of border wall serves the purpose right up until you hit mile 451, and here you can see that is the situation that ranchers and law enforcement officials in southern Arizona are dealing with. The construction just stopped.
President Biden's proclamation ordered contractors to stop work and abandon their progress--immediate, stop. So they walked away because they had to.
What did they leave? They left behind an unfinished wall, piles of supplies, and roads and other infrastructure built to support construction crews. Everything is sitting there--sitting there at the border. The equipment, the border wall--it is all there wasting away--
tax dollars right there.
All of that is now vulnerable to exploitation by the cartels and the traffickers because it is sitting there on the border. This is an absolute shame--an absolute shame. And what we know is that the cartels and the traffickers--whether they are drug traffickers or sex traffickers, or whether they are moving gangs--they are taking full advantage of this situation.
I got the chance to see where the coyotes and the drug smugglers are coming across, now that there is no activity on the border to deter them from using access points built into the wall for their own purposes.
In Cochise County alone, officials have seen a 200-percent increase in migrants this year--200 percent.
The holes in the wall have turned into walking paths for the Sinaloa cartel's drug runners. Law enforcement officials have set up an extensive network of cameras, but there are only so many leads that they can chase when the Border Patrol agents, who should be supporting these efforts, are busy implementing useless--useless and detrimental--
catch-and-release programs.
And see, you see where there is a gap in the wall. Why do you have these gaps? Because the doors that were to go into these gaps are sitting, not in place. Why do you have these gaps? You have them because the wall components are there in the dirt.
But what did President Biden say? As of today, no more. No more. Stop immediately. Halt. Do not build this wall.
And what is it that our Border Patrol tell us that they need? They need a wall, they need more technology, and they need more agents and officers on the ground. This has been their request for years--for years.
On private property along the border, you can see where migrants have ditched their old clothes in exchange for actual uniforms that identify them to a cartel because they are given them by the cartel. It is their cartel-issued clothing, much like a work uniform.
There are piles of discarded backpacks, water bottles, and medicine at regular intervals. There is no telling if the people who abandoned these items made it out alive, because we know many do not make it out alive.
Many of them are left to die in the desert by their handlers, the coyotes, and the cartels. It is vital to note that you do not cross that border unless you are working with the cartel, which means you have paid the cartel a fee to come across that border or you have agreed to go into modern-day slavery and work out your fee. Whether it is with a labor gang, an MS-13 gang, sex trafficking gang, you have to work that fee out once you come across.
Now the ranchers who own these long stretches of property have seen evidence of this evil disregard for human life. They will tell you their lands are no longer safe, they do not feel free, and they are constantly on their guard for the safety of themselves and their property.
I understand that immigration enforcement is controversial--so much so that during his campaign, President Biden promised to avoid the issue entirely by halting construction of the border wall forever. But we are living in the real world now, and in the real world, the globe's most powerful and free Republic is being taken advantage of by the West's most terrifying drug lords and human rights abusers, and the Biden administration is letting it happen. Congressional Democrats are letting it happen. Even though they don't want to admit it, it is happening. Look at the reports. Look at the footage. Talk to Customs and Border Patrol, and talk to the sheriffs in these counties.
So I say to my Democratic colleagues: Do something. Do something. Work with us to find common ground and get this situation under control before it is too late. And realize that every town is a border town and every State is a border State until that border is secure.
If you care about human rights, if you care about infrastructure, please care about this issue--care about this issue--the environmental crisis, the humanitarian crisis, and the national security crisis.
You can spend the next 4 years sitting on your hands and blaming President Trump or Leader McConnell or me or any of my Republican colleagues and blame us and say: Well, there is death. There is destruction. There are drugs. And all of that is happening along this border. But that is the thing about winning elections--they do have consequences. And the consequence that is facing our Democratic colleagues right now is leading and leading on this issue. You own this crisis. You own this crisis. It is from President Biden's failed immigration and border strategy. If you fail to act, you will forever own the tragedy--the absolute tragedy that is unfolding along our southern border.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Duckworth). The Senator from Oklahoma.
Anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, this week marks the 26th anniversary of the worst domestic terrorist attack in history, and that was the Oklahoma City bombing. Each year, we mark this solemn occasion, and this year, we come together to do it again.
I remember that day so clearly where 168 people were murdered. I remember the thundering cadence of the police officers, the firemen, and all the first responders as they were going into the--standing there watching them going into a burning building, risking their lives, and many of them died. I had close friends who died that day, and I know there were so many others who lost family and friends and loved ones. It was a day that forever changed our proud State.
I was flying my plane back from the Mexican border to Tulsa, and I didn't have quite enough gas. I had to make a stop in Dallas. I looked up at the FBO, and there were crowds of people around that TV set in Dallas. I went to see what they were watching, and I recognized it. It was our downtown Oklahoma City buildings. The disaster had taken place, and everyone was watching.
We could have let that moment define us and change us for the worse, and it would have been a lot easier to do that, but that is not the Oklahoma way. Second Corinthians reminds us to not lose heart in times of struggle and tragedy, and Oklahoma did not lose heart. What arose from the rubble that day was the Oklahoma Standard--strangers helping strangers, giving sacrificially, and performing acts of service for each other.
I also want to take a moment to recognize the work of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. For the past two decades, they have upheld their charge to honor those who were killed, those who survived, and those who were changed forever.
So, today, please join me as we remember the victims, their families, and loved ones, as well as extend our thanks to all the first responders who were forever changed on April 19, 1995. Let's honor them by taking a moment to rededicate ourselves to live the Oklahoma Standard embodied in the actions of so many on that fateful day. We owe it to them.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Nomination of Vanita Gupta
Mr. PADILLA. Madam President, I also rise today to offer my strong support for the nomination of Ms. Vanita Gupta to be the Associate Attorney General of the United States.
In the 44-year history of the position, a woman of color has never served as Associate Attorney General of the United States. We have the opportunity to confirm a qualified, proven, and respected woman of color in Ms. Gupta, and the Senate should not delay any longer.
As Associate Attorney General, Ms. Gupta would help restore professionalism, empathy, and dignity to the highest levels of the Justice Department. Through more than 5 hours of testimony--5 hours--
before the Judiciary Committee and in a lengthy career in public service, Ms. Gupta has demonstrated exactly why our Nation would be well served by her leadership in the Department of Justice.
Throughout her career, Ms. Gupta has paid particular attention to the most marginalized and often the least heard among us. From representing wrongfully convicted individuals as a young lawyer to her time in leadership roles at the ACLU, the Leadership Conference, and the Department of Justice, Ms. Gupta has demonstrated her deep commitment to pursuing justice, equity, and equality for all people.
In pursuit of that goal, Ms. Gupta has also demonstrated her desire and ability to work with anyone, including those who might normally disagree with her. Indeed, Ms. Gupta's endorsements from groups like the Fraternal Order of Police and individuals like Grover Norquist confirm that she is a thoughtful listener, a bridge builder, and a consensus seeker.
In this charged political era, it is hard to imagine that any other nominee for Associate Attorney General could give my Republican colleagues more assurance that their views will be fairly considered at the Department of Justice. Yet, our Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee requested that Ms. Gupta's nomination be indefinitely stalled and that she be required to testify before the committee again. When those demands were rightfully declined, they chose to vote en bloc against referring Ms. Gupta's nomination to the floor.
But the opposition to Ms. Gupta's nomination is, frankly, frivolous. For 4 years now, the now-minority members of the Judiciary Committee refused to even comment on, let alone criticize, President Trump's tweets antagonizing judges, Senators, everyday Americans, and so many others. Yet now they argue that Ms. Gupta's occasionally impassioned tweets over the last 4 years are somehow disqualifying, despite her sincere apology, her expression of respect for Members of this body, and her promise to participate in turning down the rhetorical temperature. My Republican colleagues' double standard could not be more clear.
Similarly, our Republican colleagues spent the last 4 years hastily confirming judges and nominees who refused to answer basic questions, like whether or not Brown v. Board of Education was rightfully decided. Of course it was. But now they argue that more than 5 hours of testimony and 10,000 pages of documents were not sufficient to evaluate Ms. Gupta, who repeatedly answered each and every one of their questions. Again, the double standard could not be more clear.
I could go on and on, but instead of continuing to point out the obvious hypocrisy, let me say a few more words about why I am excited to have Ms. Gupta serve as the Associate Attorney General.
For years now, civil rights, voting rights, environmental justice, immigrants' rights, and consumer rights have found themselves as a second thought in the administration of our justice system. No longer. Under Ms. Gupta's leadership, I look forward to seeing a Justice Department that pursues equal justice for all of our citizens and that recognizes the dignity and humanity of all people.
I look forward to seeing Ms. Gupta work with Republicans and Democrats, with liberals and conservatives to find solutions to our problems, as she has throughout her career. And I look forward to young girls and boys of color once again seeing someone who looks like them in the leadership of our Justice Department and knowing that one day, they, too, can reach such great heights.
Colleagues, let's not wait a moment longer. It is time for us to confirm Ms. Gupta as the next Associate Attorney General of the United States.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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