Infrastructure

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last fall, there was a concern among many around the country, many Republican voters, that if elected--Democrats in the House, the Senate, and the White House--if they had the whole of government, they would try to implement massive change, transformative change, as it was described. There was a consistent view articulated by Democrats in other places around the country that it would never happen because Joe Biden, after all, is a moderate. These ideas are crazy ideas. Nobody would ever do some of the things that are being talked about.

Well, I have to say that pretty much everything that was predicted is now coming true, at least as it pertains to legislation that is being advanced by Democrats here in the Congress and by the White House, starting, of course, with the massive amount of spending, the massive expansion of the government.

We saw that with the coronavirus relief bill, which ended up being about $2 trillion. That was on top of the $4 trillion that Congress, in a bipartisan way last year, had put toward coronavirus relief. Much of that $2 trillion--in fact, most of it, about 90 percent of it--didn't have anything to do with coronavirus. Only about 10 percent of all that spending of nearly $2 trillion was actually related to the coronavirus. Most of it was other things that Democrats had wanted to fund, that had been on their wish list, if you will, for some time, and expansion of government.

Well, if that weren't enough, there is now talk of an ``infrastructure'' bill that would spend on the order of another $2.5 to $3 trillion--again, much of which is unrelated to infrastructure. If you define ``infrastructure'' simply as roads and bridges, things that most people think of as infrastructure, the number that has been used is 6 percent of that entire bill is about infrastructure. If you add in broadband and a few other things, it gets slightly higher than that.

The point is that most of the spending in this bill is unrelated to infrastructure. It is another $2.5 to $3 trillion expansion of government, new spending financed--some with tax increases but a lot of it just adding to the debt, just putting it on the credit card and handing the bill to our children and grandchildren, something that has been routinely done around here for a long time.

Mr. President, what I think people should find concerning is that the worst fears predicted about what the left might do if in charge of this country are, in fact, coming true. Much of this new spending--by the way, the infrastructure bill is a first installment. There is another bill to follow, we are told, that would include more trillions in spending, dealing with other issues, including healthcare.

You have this massive expansion of government, massive amount of new spending, unprecedented, truly unprecedented in history, coupled with massive tax hikes, also unprecedented. What is being talked about just in the first infrastructure bill is over $1 trillion in new taxes. The taxing, spending, borrowing patterns that we predicted would happen are, in fact, coming true. Add to that other things that were suggested and proposed throughout the fall and the course of the campaigns.

Subsequent to that included adding DC as a State. So adding DC as a State is going to pass the House of Representatives. I am not sure if they are voting on it today, but it has either been voted on or will be voted on. It will pass the House of Representatives. That is a very, very serious, serious proposal which dramatically changes the U.S. Senate and, I believe, what the Founders intended with respect to the District of Columbia.

Then you add to it legislation that has already passed the House and is being contemplated being passed here in the Senate that would federalize elections in this country, that would codify ballot harvesting, and that would ban voter ID, photo ID, which is something that, I think, most Americans think is a very wise thing to do when it comes to election integrity, to make sure that the people who are voting actually are who they say they are. Voter ID is a pretty important part of that. It would have the taxpayers finance--publicly fund--campaigns in this country. I can't imagine the American taxpayers, among all of the other things that they have to finance in the government, also want to finance the campaigns that they have to sit through.

It would politicize the Federal Election Commission, which, in the past, has been a balanced--three Republican, three Democrat--bipartisan committee that has overseen and regulated elections in this country. So it would politicize it and give the Democrats an advantage, a partisan advantage, on the Federal Election Commission.

All of those things are in this elections bill, which would transform--I mean, I am talking literally transform--the way we do elections in this country, which historically and by way of the Constitution and the law have been handled and administered at the State level. States have been very involved.

What this would do is consolidate more power in Washington, DC, and pull the regulation of elections up to the Federal Government, coupled with all of the changes that I just mentioned. There is no way-- absolutely no way--that even if passed they could be done, could be implemented, for the upcoming 2022 election, which secretaries of state from across the country, including Democratic secretaries of state, have indicated.

So that is another thing that is on the liberal wish list that I mentioned: the federalizing of our elections--taking them away from the States where, historically, elections have been handled and administered--and bringing them here, essentially nationalizing our elections.

Then there is the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is, I believe, being introduced again today by a number of Democratic Senators and House Members--something, again, that would completely change the way we fuel our country in ways that would drive up dramatically the costs that an average consumer in this country and an average family would have to pay for energy. It would be done through mandates, regulations, and heavy-handed government requirements as opposed to incentivizing some of these things that, I think, we all agree we should be doing when it comes to cleaning up our environment. The Green New Deal is the opposite of that. The Green New Deal is a government, Washington, DC, mandate, requirement, heavy-handed regulatory approach to that issue and something that has struck fear in the hearts of literally tens of millions of Americans since it began being talked about only a few years ago.

Those are just a handful on the list of what I would call horribles for which the left has been advocating for some time in this country. All of these things could be accomplished if the Democrats are able to follow through with another thing that they said they would never do and are now talking about and if they have the votes would do, and that is to do away with the legislative filibuster, which is a feature of our democracy that goes back literally 200 years to our Nation's founding and has ensured through those years that the minority has a voice in our policymaking process; that there is an opportunity for both sides to collaborate, compromise, and to ensure that there isn't majoritarian rule. The Founders were very firm about that idea. They thought there needed to be checks and balances against that, and the legislative filibuster has provided that for 200 years.

It is something that we refused to do--even though the Republicans were asked repeatedly during the last 4 years of the Trump Presidency, by the President himself, to get rid of the legislative filibuster-- because we believe it is essential as a feature of our democracy and something that protects the minority in this country, the minority rights, the voice of the minority, in our policymaking process. It ensures that we get solutions that, ultimately, are durable over time because they have been negotiated in a way that requires the input from both sides of the political equation.

That is something that has been sacred, so sacred, even despite the fact that President Trump, on 34 different occasions, asked the Republicans--or probably more; I would say ``ask'' would be a gentle word--and essentially said that the Republicans in the Senate needed to get rid of the legislative filibuster. He either did that by tweet or by public statement. It was clearly something that he believed was a priority in order to implement his agenda. We resisted that. We resisted that even though we would have benefited from it on numerous occasions when it came to moving legislation through the Senate.

For the past 6 years, we had the majority, and for the past 4 years, we had the Presidency up until January of this year, and notwithstanding the constant barrage of suggestions--again, putting it mildly--to get rid of the legislative filibuster by a President from our own party, we resisted that simply because we believed the legislative filibuster is such an essential and critical part of our democracy.

So here we go. The Democrats get elected. They have, on countless occasions, told me privately--individual Senators on their side of the aisle--that there is no way. We would never do that. We will never get rid of the legislative filibuster. It is too important. We are not going to do that. In fact, 33 Democrats signed a letter as recently as 3 years ago, basically, essentially ratifying their support for the legislative filibuster and, as to the suggestion that it could possibly be done away with, suggesting that it would be a terrible, wrong thing to do for this country--essentially coming out strongly, strongly supporting the legislative filibuster. These are 33 Democratic Senators here in the U.S. Senate coming out in support of the legislative filibuster.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot. They are in the majority. They have been in the majority for about 2 months, and they are already talking about it openly, and many have come out and endorsed the idea. Frankly, to be honest with you, I think it would have been done already had it not been for a couple of Democrats who, I think, are thoughtful enough, contemplative enough, and revering enough of our institutions in this country not to be run over by the majority on their side and do away with something that is just so critical and so important to our Nation's not only heritage and history but to our future. If it were not for that, I think it would have been done already. I think the Senator from New York, the Democratic leader, in a New York minute would get rid of the legislative filibuster if he had the votes to do it, partly out of fear that he would be savaged by his ``woke'' left if he wouldn't do it.

Obviously, the President, President Biden, whom, as I mentioned earlier, man people thought would govern as a moderate and a unifier and as someone who fiercely defended the legislative filibuster as a U.S. Senator and made speeches on this very floor in defending fiercely the legislative filibuster, is now also talking about getting rid of it in order to implement massive tax hikes, massive spending increases, and a massive growth in government--an expansion of government unlike anything we have seen in history, including the 1930s, the New Deal. This would dwarf that by comparison.

DC statehood, federalizing our elections, and passing the Green New Deal, all of that could be done with 51 votes if they could blow up and get rid of the legislative filibuster, and all of those are very real, not hypotheticals--real. These are things that have already passed or are going to pass the House of Representatives and are being considered here on the floor of the U.S. Senate, including today when, I think, the Green New Deal is being reintroduced. These are legislative proposals that are so far out of the political mainstream in the things that they are contemplating that it is hard to believe.

Just as an example of the impact that these tax increases could have, look at what the tax cuts that were passed--the reform act that was passed in 2017--were doing in terms of the economy and the benefits that they were having across all demographic sectors in this country. Up until the pandemic, we had the best economy probably in 50 years. We had the lowest unemployment rate, for sure. We had the biggest gain in income wage levels among particularly minority groups.

In fact, this is census data from 2019 that shows that the real median household income hit its highest level ever for African- American, Hispanic, and Asian-American workers and retirees. The 2019 poverty rate was the lowest in more than 50 years for children at 14.4 percent, the lowest ever for individuals at 10.5 percent, for families at 8.5 percent, and for households headed by unmarried women at 22.2 percent. More impressive is that, even after 10 years of economic expansion, the 2019 gains shattered all records as real household income leapt by $4,379 in 2019 alone, 13 times the average annual gain since data were first collected.

So the tax policies we had in place were working, and there have been record income gains, especially among lower income Americans. The poverty rate, as I mentioned, plummeted 11 percent in 2019, the most in 53 years. Things were moving in the right direction. So the question is, If it isn't broke, why fix it? Why would we go and increase taxes in a massive way at a time when the economy is growing and expanding and creating better paying jobs?

What I would argue for those in any income group and across any ethnic group is that the best solution for improving their standard of living and their quality of life is to have a growing, expanding economy that is throwing off better paying jobs and higher wages. That is what raises the income level. That is what lifts the boat for every American, and that is what we ought to be looking for, not how much government can we pull back to Washington, DC, and how much government can do for you but how we can put the right policies in place that put the conditions in place for economic growth that will stimulate the kind of investment that will create those good-paying jobs and start lifting wages across this country.

It is about growth in our economy, I would argue. It is about good- paying jobs. It is about higher wages. That is what our arguments here ought to be about. Instead, right now, we are talking about growing government and increasing taxes and reversing what, I would argue, is a lot of progress that I just mentioned, that being from the 2019 U.S. Census Bureau's data.

Why would we go back on the great progress that has been made? Why would we start to contemplate some of these suggestions that I mentioned, from the tax hikes, the spending increases, the federalizing of our elections, the Green New Deal, and repealing the filibuster which, again, would consolidate more control, more power, in the hands of a few people here rather than keeping it distributed? It would consolidate more and more power in Washington, DC.

That kind of brings me to the topic for today that is on that list of horribles and things that would undermine the integrity of our political institutions in a way that these other things would as well but, I would say, on a much, much higher, much expanded level, and that is packing the Supreme Court which, again, people thought was a hypothetical. That was one of those things to which people said: Now, those guys down there, those Democrats, are not that crazy. There are some moderate Democrats out there. There are some people who would stand up in the way of that and keep something that crazy from happening.

Well, it didn't take very long. It only took a week--just 1 week after President Biden established his Commission to study Court packing, which is another ostensible Supreme Court reform, for the Democratic Members of Congress in both Houses to introduce legislation that would actually pack the Court. This is no longer a hypothetical. This is colleagues on this side of the aisle and the Democrats in the House of Representatives who are openly advocating for packing the Supreme Court in the form of legislation and not just adding a couple of members but adding enough members to give them a majority, to give them a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, many people are probably wondering what the crisis was that precipitated this legislation, a crisis so grave that these Democrats couldn't even wait for the results of the President's stacked Commission. President Biden's Commission, which is stacked with Democrats to give them the result that they want, is supposed to report back in the timeframe of, I believe, about 6 months. They couldn't even wait for that. They had to introduce a bill that would pack the Court. So why did they have to do that? Well, I will tell you.

The crisis that requires us to immediately add four additional Justices to the Supreme Court after 150 years of having the Court at its current size is that a duly elected Republican President was able to get three Supreme Court nominees approved. Apparently, by confirming a duly elected President's Supreme Court nominees, the Republicans stole the Court's majority which, I guess, apparently, rightfully, belongs to the Democrats, and in doing so, it ``politicized the Supreme Court'' and ``threatened the rights of millions of Americans.''

This legislation, the bill's Senate sponsor says, will ``restore the Court's balance and public standing'' and ``begin to repair the damage done to our judiciary and democracy.'' That is from the Democrat sponsor's statements with respect to this legislation--necessary to ``restore the Court's balance and public standing'' and ``repair the damage done to our judiciary and democracy.''

Well, there is only one problem, of course, and that is that this supposed crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court doesn't actually exist. A majority of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing. The Supreme Court's approval rating actually increased-- increased--over the course of the Trump administration.

If the junior Senator from Massachusetts, who is one of the sponsors of this legislation, is looking to address a crisis of confidence, perhaps he should take a look at Congress, whose approval rating is consistently far lower than that of the Supreme Court.

The real crisis--the real crisis we are facing--is not a crisis of confidence in the Court. It is that Democrats are apparently willing to do long-term damage to our democracy for partisan gain.

Yes, Democrats are being hypocritical, and, yes, their Court-packing proposal is outrageously and transparently partisan. But, more than that, it is dangerous because Democrats' Court packing would eliminate public confidence in the nonpartisan character of the Court.

Right now, the Supreme Court is generally seen as being at least somewhat above the partisan fray, as the Founders intended--a fact that I think is reflected in the Court's positive approval rating.

And while some Justices are regarded as more conservative and some as more liberal, Americans don't see Justices as partisan in the way that we see politicians as partisan, and rightly so.

I can think of more than one significant case where supposedly conservative Justices have sided with the Court's liberals, and there are plenty of cases where all of the Supreme Court's Justices have ruled unanimously.

As Justice Breyer pointed out in his recent speech condemning Court packing, Supreme Court Justices do not fit neatly into conservative or liberal categories.

But that perception of Supreme Court Justices as above partisanship would not last long if Democrats succeeded in packing the Court.

Just think about it. We have had the same number of Supreme Court Justices, nine--nine Justices--for more than 150 years. One hundred and fifty years, and then Democrats sweep in, announce that the makeup of the Supreme Court isn't to their liking, and propose adding four Justices, all of them appointed in one fell swoop by a Democratic President. And that is in addition to any nominations the President might make in the ordinary course of things.

Does any Democrat sincerely think that after that any Republican would regard the Supreme Court as nonpartisan? Or, for that matter, how many Democrats would regard the Supreme Court as nonpartisan?

Just imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine that Republicans were proposing to expand the Supreme Court and add four Republican- nominated Justices. Imagine the howls of outrage that would ensue, and rightly so. Democrats, the media, the far left--all would rightfully decry the politicization of the Supreme Court.

Yet Democrats expect us to believe that if it is Democrats who do this, if it is Democrats who pack the Supreme Court, somehow this move is not a partisan and self-serving one?

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, ``If anything would make the court look partisan, it would be that--one side saying, `When we're in power, we're going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.'''

That is from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Or, in the words of Justice Breyer, ``I hope and expect that the court will retain its authority, an authority that . . . was hard won. But that authority, like the rule of law, depends on trust--a trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics.'' That is from Justice Breyer.

And Justice Breyer noted: ``Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception, further eroding that trust.''

As these two reliably liberal Justices make clear, Democrats' Court- packing plan would do the very thing Democrats claim to oppose, and that is to politicize the court. The Supreme Court would quickly lose its nonpartisan standing and quickly become a joke.

Democrats cannot possibly think that Court packing would begin and end with their move under the Biden administration. I can guarantee-- guarantee--that the next time there is a Republican President and a Republican Congress, Republicans would be moving to ``balance'' the Democrats' power grab by adding a few seats of their own. Then the next Democrat administration would do the same thing. It wouldn't be long before the Supreme Court had expanded to ludicrous proportions. Twenty Justices? Thirty Justices? Maybe more?

Instead of a respected and separate branch of government, the Supreme Court would be co-opted by the legislative and executive branches. The separation of powers, upon which our entire Federal Government is built, would be destroyed. The consequences of politicizing and trivializing the Court, as packing the Court would do, would be grave. If Americans don't respect the Court, they will have little reason to respect the Court's decisions or regard them as either definitive or binding.

There has been a lot of concern, rightfully so, about the increasingly partisan and contentious nature of our politics. Politicizing the Court by packing the Court would further inflame partisan division and lead to increasingly bitter and dangerous friction in our society.

It is deeply, deeply disappointing that Democrat leaders--and others in their caucus who wish to be seen as serious and responsible policymakers--haven't condemned this dangerous proposal to upend a bedrock institution of our democracy.

I understand that it may be difficult for them to stand up to the unhinged and far-left fringes of their party, and it is possible that some of them are reluctant to condemn this proposal because of the partisan advantage it would provide. But anyone who cares about the health of our democracy and the stability of our country should be loudly and clearly opposing any discussion of Court packing.

I hope that at least some of my Democrat colleagues will find the courage to speak up and consign the idea of Court packing to the ash heap of history, where it should have remained.

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