The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Debt Ceiling (Executive Calendar)” mentioning Marsha Blackburn was published in the Senate section on pages S5124-S5128 on July 28.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Debt Ceiling
Ms. ERNST. Madam President, we have all experienced a bit of buyer's remorse this past year. The uncertainty caused by the pandemic had folks stockpiling too much or just doing a little online retail therapy for things they may never use. But when it comes to impulse buying, no one can compete with Democrats in Washington. If running up the taxpayers' tab was an Olympic sport, Democrats would easily take home the gold.
Over the past 6 months, the Democrats have run up trillions of dollars in new spending. And as we are just days away from hitting the Nation's debt limit, these same Democrats are preparing to charge trillions more to the Nation's credit card, paid for by taxpayers, of course, to purchase more of their pricey, partisan pet projects and other items on their progressive wish list.
Their reckless spending spree started in March with their strictly partisan $2.1 trillion, a so-called COVID bill. The Democrats assured us the $1,400 stimulus checks and $300-a-week enhanced unemployment benefits included in the bill would get America back on its feet. Well, folks, this July 28, we have 10 million unfilled jobs. Last week, jobless claims increased. And hard-working Americans are feeling the pinch and paying more for almost everything, from gas to groceries. The Democrats' poisonous progressive policies are failing us, and Iowans and the rest of Americans know it. Yet Democrats--they just keep on spending.
Right now, the majority leader is plotting to fast-track an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink tax-and-spending bill that could cost more than $3\1/2\ trillion. So what is in this latest bill? More poisonous progressive policies.
One of the most harmful provisions to families everywhere and especially farm families in Iowa is what I like to call the farm-to-
table tax hike. The Democrats want to pay for part of their radical agenda by increasing the tax on family farms being passed from one generation to the next. But that tax won't only hit farmers and ranchers; it will increase the cost of producing and purchasing food for all of our families.
Americans recognize President Biden's budget-busting bills are a key factor in the skyrocketing costs; yet the Democrats keep packing their bills with progressive pet policies and projects they know won't make your life better but that will appease their political base. And their answer when things don't get better is always: Wait, we didn't spend enough.
Folks, it is laughable to argue that Washington hasn't spent enough when our national debt now exceeds $28 trillion. The shopaholics who control the purse strings in Congress are addicted to spending other people's money on things we don't need or that we can't afford.
Let's review the receipt for Bidenomics: $2.1 trillion for Biden's so-called American Rescue Plan, which includes $200 billion for enhanced unemployment payments, $1.7 billion for Amtrak, $135 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $50 million for environmental justice grants, plus $3.5 trillion for the proposed reckless tax-and-
spending spree.
We still don't even know what goodies are included in this grab bag, but it is likely to include parts of the socialist Green New Deal and doubling the size of the IRS by hiring an army of new auditors. Add on nearly $10 billion for swampy earmarks to pay for pork projects.
The list goes on and on and on, like the world's longest CVS receipt; except you don't expect any savings here, folks.
And when you add it all up, the grand total: $6.8 trillion.
As these bills come due, President Biden's reckless spending spree will leave us with buyer's remorse for years to come. It is time to cut up Washington's credit card and make DC start living within its means, just like every hard-working family across Iowa and America do.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, when President Biden was campaigning last year, he made the pledge over and over again that he wouldn't raise taxes on any American making less than $400,000 a year.
Frankly, I think that is a good pledge, and it is one that he keeps making. But right now, it seems that the facts would prove that he and, frankly, our Democrat colleagues here in the Congress are pushing for this reckless tax spree, this reckless spending spree in a way that makes it impossible for him to keep that pledge.
The Tax Foundation--and people can check this if they want to verify these numbers--looked at President Biden's 10-year plan, the plan he outlined in his 2022 budget. This is not a plan that the Tax Foundation or any other group came up with on their own. They found that his plan would mean a higher average tax burden nationwide, including for middle-class Americans.
In some States, the average taxpayer would see increases immediately; in others, tax hikes would grow over time as the various provisions change in the way that the President's plan says they would change.
You know, no matter what the President says, the tax burden is getting heavier under his plan for middle-class families in every State.
In Missouri, the tax burden on the average filer would be $618 higher in 2026 than it is today. In New Hampshire, it would be $1,072 higher than it is today. And maybe most importantly, in Nevada, it would be
$1,293 higher than it is today for the average taxpayer.
And if that doesn't convince you, there was another analysis recently. This one was from the reliably liberal Tax Policy Center. It predicted that three out of every four taxpayers earning $75,000 to
$100,000 a year would be worse off next year under the Biden plan.
By 2031, that organization estimates that 95 percent of the people making between $75,000 and $100,000 would suffer losses on their tax bill
The tax-and-spending spree envisions monster tax hikes on business, but we all know when you raise taxes on business, they have to get the money from somewhere.
In fact, there are only a couple places to get the money, and one is from workers and one is from customers. And trying to figure out that balance where you don't lose customers and you don't lose workers is pretty hard to figure out. You really can't isolate middle-class workers from these tax impacts. You also can't isolate middle-class customers from these impacts. You can't keep those families from paying higher prices when a chunk of the business tax that the President and Democrats talk about have to get passed on to customers.
So President Biden's tax increases are likely to boost inflation even more than we have seen already, and we have seen a lot of it already. Go to the gas pump, go to the grocery store, go to buy clothes, go to have the basic necessities you have to have, and you are going to see that they are substantially higher than they were a year ago or 2 years ago before COVID, a year ago during COVID.
The President's budget effectively repeals the individual tax cuts enacted by Republicans in 2017. The cuts that were enacted in that law for Americans, really, across income levels, have rate reductions that have to be extended in 4 years. The President's plan doesn't call for extending any of those rate reductions.
Under the President's proposal, someone making $94,000 per year will see her marginal tax rate jump from 24 percent to 28 percent in 2026.
Added to that, you have got higher taxes that Democrats plan to impose on family farmers and ranchers who are hoping to pass along their family business to the next generation.
And, frankly, instead of advocating for these middle-class Americans I have just talked about, our Democratic friends seem to be fixated on restoring the tax break that overwhelmingly benefits wealthy Americans in high-tax States. They are pushing to allow people to deduct more than $10,000 in State and local taxes on their Federal returns.
That scheme, by the way, would allow the top 1 percent of earners to increase their after-tax income by about 2.5 percent, 2.8 percent, while the bottom 60 percent of all filers--if that law is changed back to what it used to be, the bottom 60 percent of all filers would gain less than one one-hundredth percent on average.
It is clear that President Biden's tax hikes will hit a lot of Americans and a lot of Americans that make less than $400,000.
The higher tax costs will hurt people who are already struggling with higher prices at the pump and everywhere they shop, and it will hurt our economic recovery.
My friends may not want to admit--and I wouldn't either if I was them--that they are going to raise taxes on middle-class families, but that is exactly what they are doing. And if anybody doesn't know it now, they will know it if Democrats in the Senate and the House get their way.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, in less than 72 hours, the suspension on the Federal Government's debt ceiling will expire. That leaves Congress with two options: continue with the reckless, wasteful spending it is accustomed to without any accountability to the American people; or finally face reality, make some tough choices, and chart a path forward that lowers the Federal debt and gets spending under control.
Washington is constantly spending more money and taking on new debt without any plan to ever reduce the debt.
Since 1960, Congress has raised or extended the debt limit more than 70 times. Washington's choice to keep raising or suspending the debt ceiling is like raising the limit on your credit card month after month with no plan to pay it off.
It is reckless, and it is this kind of fiscal irresponsibility that is hurting American families and causing the rising inflation we are seeing.
As you can see here, 87 percent of Americans are worried about inflation--87 percent. Low- and fixed-income families are having to cut on purchases because of rising costs.
Look at these numbers: Gas up 52 percent in 12 months; milk, 11; bacon, 16 percent; eggs, 6 percent; used cars, 45 percent; utilities, 6 percent.
I am hearing from families all across Florida who are worried. Read you a couple stories.
A father of three in Jacksonville, who is temporarily helping to take care of two other kids because their father is out of work, has started working a second job driving Uber just to pay for groceries that are rapidly increasing in price. Now, his Uber job is becoming less and less profitable because the rising price of gas.
Mother of four in Wauchula said she used to be able to go to the grocery store and spend a certain amount of money for an entire month's groceries; now she can't. Two hundred dollars in meat is not--is no longer enough to feed her family of five. She is being forced to choose between gas to get to work and groceries for her family, and is picking up extra jobs just to get by.
I can relate to all this. I grew up in a family that struggled for money. My mom would take in ironing for extra money. She would send me or my older brother to the grocery store with exact change, but she told us: You have got to check the prices. The prices keep going up. And if it does, you have got to figure out how to get the food we need with less--with the money we have.
I have spoken to the owner of a construction company in West Palm Beach who says materials are going up. Twenty-four dollars for a sheet of plywood is now $80 a sheet. Drywall is going up a dollar a board. Prices of hardware, like screws, are going up 10 to 15 percent per month. Delivery prices are going up due to gas and the shortage of truck drivers. His employees are complaining about gas and are afraid what it might mean if the price continues to rise.
A restaurant owner in Tampa told me the cost of meat has gone up from
$9 a pound to $18. Gas prices and food prices, coupled with the struggle to find workers, has been very hard on his business.
Another family in Kissimmee told me how hard it is to keep food on the table because everything is so expensive. They are having trouble keeping the car because of the cost of maintenance and gas, but if he doesn't have a car, he wouldn't have a way to get to work to take care of his family.
The price of gas affects nearly everyone, and right now average gas prices are up nearly $1 since last year.
For a family that fills up their tank once a week, if you drive a car, that means Joe Biden raised your expenses $600 a year; if you drive a truck, that means Joe Biden raised your expenses by more than
$1,000 a year.
Biden and the Democrats say they care about people, but they have done absolutely nothing to help families struggling to keep up with inflation. Their plan is to spend more, more, more money, not less.
We have nearly $30 trillion in debt, and there are no plans to slow down. Now Biden and the Democrats want to spend another $5.5 trillion on their liberal priorities, with no consideration as to how this might impact families.
Right now, this message that President Biden and the Democrats in Washington are sending to the American people is clear: We don't care about inflation. We don't care about reckless spending that is causing prices to skyrocket.
If they say that is the cost of getting our liberal--their liberal wish list done, so be it.
I think it is a disgusting approach and I am not going to stand for it. I am here to say that enough is enough. It is time to wake up to reality. Eighty-seven percent of Americans are concerned about inflation. We have to take action to get government spending under control, which is why we have introduced the Federal Debt Emergency Control Act.
My bill prevents Washington from mindlessly spending by requiring that two-thirds of the Senate vote to increase the debt before approving any bill with deficit spending.
It would also terminate any unobligated funding from the American Rescue Plan and any previous spending bills--sending it back to the Treasury general fund for deficit reduction.
Finally, it would ensure that any bill reducing the debt by at least 5 percent over 10 years is fast-tracked through the legislative process.
I have also introduced an amendment to the Senate rules to require that all committee reports include inflationary impact statements so Americans can see the true impacts of government spending.
Americans deserve to know how their hard-earned dollars are being spent and how Washington's spending is affecting inflation. This will ensure they do.
I welcome all my fiscally responsible colleagues to join me to say we don't accept status quo. We won't watch in silence as people try to spend us into oblivion. We won't stand by while inflation wreaks havoc on our families and businesses.
We can get spending under control. While I was Governor of Florida, we paid down one-third of our State debt by living within our means, all while cutting taxes and fees about 100 times.
We can do it here, but we have to start acting responsibly today, and the time to do that is now. It is time to stand up for our grandkids, whose future is being mortgaged for out-of-control Washington spending. This isn't political. It is good government, and it is commonsense.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, America has seen a number of horrendous financial crises before, but none that have so quickly developed as the fiscal crisis this White House created with trillions of dollars' worth of drunken spending and tax proposals in just the first 7 months of control.
The most glaring, almost parody-level, example is the administration's $3.5 trillion and growing, newly labeled, human infrastructure package, which is nothing more than a rosy-sounding title for socialism.
The results of these radical tax-and-spending policies, what are they? A sluggish economy, inflation, and one of the most dramatic expansions of the welfare state in recent history. Recently, the Department of Labor reported that consumer prices climbed for the third straight month, jumping 5 percent in June, the largest increase in 13 years.
Every day, we see inflation impacting hard-working Americans. In fact, this past weekend, we held five townhall meetings in Kansas, and thanks to this administration's economic policies, runaway inflation has replaced COVID at the top of the mountain of concerns for people of my home State.
In Kansas, we are paying more than $1 more per gallon at the gas pump, 40 cents more per gallon of milk, and almost 20 percent more for a home than we were at this time last year. While wages have increased, inflation continues to outpace them by more than two-to-one. I have heard loudly and clearly the concerns from Kansans, and especially from small business owners, the backbone of our economy, about the impact of the Democrats' reckless summer tax-and-spending spree.
One tax proposal, the elimination of stepped-up basis, would be devastating to small businesses and family farms, as that provision allows them to hand down their family business from one generation to the next without paying a costly tax burden.
Under the administration's plan, the average farmer would have a new tax obligation of nearly a quarter of a million dollars, as cropland values in Kansas have risen 220 percent since 1997, not to mention the economy-killing policy of eliminating 1031 exchanges and taxing capital gains at ordinary income levels.
On the spending front, this administration continues to pursue unsustainable and irresponsible spending policies that are actually ruining our economic recovery. Further, they want to increase the debt limit without implementing any spending reforms. This is going to crush our children and grandchildren, leaving their generation to pay for the social sins of this generation.
Instead of getting our fiscal house in order and curbing back on massive government spending, this administration and Democrats in Congress are working to pass trillions more in reckless spending under the guise of infrastructure.
Pre-COVID, we had the greatest economy in my lifetime. That came about because we lowered people's taxes, we lowered regulations, and we lowered energy prices. We need smart, targeted investments, not radical spending that leaves this country at a disadvantage and kills jobs.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah
Mr. LEE. Madam President, for far too long, the Federal Government has been borrowing and then spending money that it simply doesn't have. This is something we have long understood as a problem for the future, for future generations. But now it is not just a problem for the future any more. We are already feeling the consequences right now. Americans of this generation are paying the price today.
Why is this the case? Well, politicians in Washington vote for enormous, reckless spending packages, and they do so for short-term political gain and praise. Now, we all know that does happen, and we all know that, whether it is a spending bill that is soon to come before this body or another, if it spends a lot of money, it probably will bring people a lot of praise.
But it is the people--the hard-working families in Utah and in every other State across the Nation--who are forced to pay the price, the price for the praise and the political gain of the politician who votes for that sort of thing. They are the ones who bear the brunt of inflation's consequences. It is making day-to-day life more expensive. More than anyone, it is the poor and middle class of America who are hit the hardest.
Every single day, it is getting more expensive to fill cupboards, refrigerators, and bellies. Every day, it is getting more expensive to drive to work or drive to the doctor or drive your kids to the school. Every day, it is getting harder to buy a house or buy a car or pay for the heat and the air conditioning in your home.
To give a few specific examples, gas prices are up over 50 percent from last year. This hurts people not only at the pump but with everything they buy, because everything they buy is more costly to transport and, therefore, more costly to purchase.
Chicken prices are soaring. Boneless, skinless chicken breast is trading at $2 per pound, compared to the $1.30 per pound it has averaged over the last two decades. Some diapers that in recent years have cost around $25 per package now cost around $40, and there are fewer diapers in each package.
We, in Utah, are certainly feeling the crunch. According to a recent survey, 85 percent of Utahns are worried about inflation, as well they should be.
Now, what does the Democrats' spending package amount to? A multitrillion-dollar inflation bomb. So far, we haven't seen text, and we haven't seen estimates about how much the bill will cost, exactly. We haven't even seen what Democrats in the White House would like in the bill. But recent estimates suggest that it will spend about $4 trillion, maybe more. The last thing we need for our already frightening inflation is to spend that amount of money. It is taking an already bad situation and making it far, far worse.
In fact, this is the first time we have seen a spending package of this kind--one that spends the amount that it does. I don't just mean the first time we have seen something like this in the Senate this year. I mean, when we are talking about a spending bill that is likely to cost $4 trillion, maybe more, that is more money than we in this body have ever spent. In fact, I would dare say it is more money than has ever been spent at any one time for one legislative proposal in the history not just of the United States of America but in the history of the world.
I mean, look at it this way. There is no entity in the history of the planet that has amassed more economic power than the U.S. Government--
the U.S. Government, which in recent years has been spending at a rate of about $4 trillion a year. This bill, in one bill, could well spend that in one single legislative package. This is an astounding amount of money. No one has ever spent money in such a large quantity in the history of the world.
What is more, this type of legislation has great potential--in fact, a darn near certainty--to carry out a reverse Robin Hood mission that is especially perverse, where we essentially rob the poor to give to the rich. Make no mistake. When we pass spending legislation like this, a small handful of well-connected people will get rich. They will get very rich. Why? Well, because they see it coming. They know how to play it. They know how to benefit from it, and they know how to capitalize on it. That is a very small group of people, and that is a small comfort to those who will be hurt by it. We will get to them in a minute. So that is the first category of people.
You have a second category of people who are well-to-do. Maybe they don't capitalize off of it, but they do end up paying a price. They find goods more expensive. But this small category of people, consisting of well-off people, might not actually feel the pinch because, perhaps, they have enough saved up; they have enough assets. It doesn't really, meaningfully impact their standard of living or their quality of life. But even those first two categories--those who will get rich off of a bill like this and those who won't feel much of an impact--make up a really small segment of the U.S. population, quite possibly, percentagewise, in the low single digits. But poor and middle-class Americans, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, will be most hurt, as they will be the ones to feel their paychecks--their limited paychecks--stretched thinner and thinner each and every week. You see, the U.S. economy doesn't suddenly make more goods simply because Congress decides to spend more. Quite to the contrary, it can't. We don't have the ability to create wealth. All we have the ability to do is channel existing wealth. So if we just add more dollars to an economy that already has access to a relatively finite group of goods and services in any given year, you are just going to increase the cost. That is what happens, and that is how poor and middle-class Americans get stuck with the bill. That is why poor and middle-class Americans end up being harmed in this bad bargain that is really good for a small handful of wealthy and well connected. It may be good for the moment for a small handful of politicians who will get praise and political gain for voting for it. It is really bad for poor and middle-class people, and that is wrong.
Look, at the end of the day, government is not the one hurt by massive, reckless spending packages like this one. People are. Real, breathing human beings are. The government doesn't go hungry at the end of the month. The government doesn't worry about paying rent when the kids need braces. The government isn't forced to choose between buying groceries and paying medical bills. The government doesn't forgo family reunions when it is time to tighten the belt. Taxpayers do. Families do, especially poor and middle-class families. The reckless spending must stop. This inflation bomb is exploding.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, my colleague said it so very well. The inflation bomb is exploding, and people in Tennessee are incredibly concerned about that. I hear about this every single day from Tennesseans.
They are also concerned about the fact that it seems that the Democratic majority has been unable to push forward a budget that would be bipartisan, that would have appropriate spending, and that would prioritize the needs and the concerns of the American people.
Until just a few hours ago, we didn't have any insight into an infrastructure bill that would be bipartisan, and I applaud those who have worked so diligently to reach a bipartisan agreement. But the American people have started to lose a lot of their trust and a lot of their patience with Washington, DC, and I think we can say ``rightfully so'' because they are watching the cost of government go up. They are watching the hesitancy to move forward on their concerns, and they are speaking out to us. I had a Tennessean this week ask me why Washington was wasting so much time, because time is money, and they want to see things done.
We know we need to see what these bills are going to look like. We are hearing that the majority wants to bring forward this tax-and-spend spree of legislation that would be trillions of dollars, and we know that what would end up happening is this would be something that--I call it lie, cheat, steal. You don't say exactly what you are going to use the money for. You don't say exactly where the money is going to come from within the budget. Eventually, all of it comes out of the taxpayers' pocket. And you are stealing hopes and dreams from future generations who are going to--they are going to have to pay the bill for this. It is our children and our grandchildren and future generations that are going to have to find a way to pay for all of this.
That is why I brought this chart back to the floor. I have used it recently here on this floor to remind us of Ronald Reagan's words:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It has to be fought for and defended by each generation.
Very true words. And what a good reminder to us because as we give government more control over our lives, as we give them more control in the Federal budget, as the government takes more money out of the pocket of hard-working taxpayers, what do we see? We see less freedom.
There is such concern that the Democratic majority has refused to come forward and say how they want to spend these trillions of dollars. I think part of that is because there is not a way to pay for it, and they don't plan to pay for it. Instead, they are going to send that bill to future generations.
This is dangerous. We are upside down on this national debt when you look at how that debt clock is ticking. But we have to choose to spend taxpayer money where it matters, and it still matters. It matters to Tennesseans what their tax dollars are spent for, and it matters how they are spent. Another thing that matters to them is what we are spending it for and the driving of inflation across this country.
If my Democratic colleagues continue to dig this hole, future generations will be in so deep that it will be very difficult for them to compete on the global stage. They will be vulnerable to the deathtraps our adversaries in Beijing set for nations that have made the same mistakes that the Democratic majority wants us to make: spending more money than you have to spend for programs that you cannot afford.
I would argue that existing in a state of dependence and vulnerability created by our own government is the opposite of freedom. It is the opposite of freedom. Is that really what we want for our children and grandchildren, to leave them with so much Federal debt that they are covered in debt; that most of their paycheck is going to go to the Federal Government to pay for programs that have long outlived their usefulness? I think not.
That is why it is so important that we look at what is happening right now, as there are these conversations about budgets and as there are these conversations about the tax-and-spend spree that my colleagues across the aisle would seek to propose.
I would also offer that that type of spending is not governing. What it is, is a power grab. What it is, is taking care of your friends and not those who elected you to serve. The American people can see what is coming at them from a mile away, and they are expressing their concerns about DC's out-of-control tax-and-spending spree.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. 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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