Ppp Extension Act of 2021
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the crisis on our southern border continues to escalate. CBP is tracking the largest surge in migrant apprehensions in 20 years. Unaccompanied children are literally piling up in close quarters. It turns out when politicians spend a 2-year campaign advertising amnesty, people actually listen. As one senior CBP official said, there is ``no end in sight.'' No end in sight.
The administration still refuses to even admit there is a crisis, much less address it. We keep hearing strange mixed messaging from the White House podium like ``now is not the time to come,'' as if there will be a good time to break the law and come illegally, and the White House will let us all know when that time is, I assume.
The Washington Post put it gently: ``Administration officials have been plagued by muddled messaging.'' Boy, that is an understatement. But actually, when you look at Democrats' actions, the message isn't mixed at all. That is the problem. For months on the campaign trail, President Biden spoke directly to potential migrants. At one point, he said, ``You want to flee . . . you should come.'' That was President Biden.
President Lopez Obrador of Mexico himself stated this week that President Biden's campaign created expectations that ``caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border, thinking that it is easier to do so.'' That was the President of Mexico.
On Inauguration Day, the President followed through--five Executive orders to roll back immigration enforcement and open up the border. The administration wasted no time rolling back the policies from the prior administration that had guarded against this exact outcome. South of the border, message received. Some migrants are arriving with Biden campaign flags and T-shirts. One arriving person said, ``Biden promised us that everything was going to change.''
So what about the Democrats here in Congress? Are the House Democrats rising to the occasion with solutions? Well, not exactly. They prioritized passing another amnesty bill. They doubled down on the wrong direction and the wrong incentives.
The situation is raising eyebrows among Democrats' own rank and file. As one Texas Democrat put it, ``When you create a system that incentivizes people to come across . . . that immediately sends a message.''
Here, in the Senate, our Democratic colleagues decided to go the route of obstruction. Yesterday, Republicans tried to pass serious proposals to help address parts of the immigration system. Democrats rejected every single one of them.
Senator Ernst had a proposal to require detention for migrants charged with violent crimes. It is not exactly a radical idea. Democrats blocked it.
Senator Cruz had legislation to raise the stakes for repeated illegal entry. It is not exactly rocket science. Democrats blocked that one too.
Senator Blackburn and Senator Lee tried to combat child trafficking within the asylum process, and Democrats even blocked that.
The furthest left ideology on these issues is keeping Washington Democrats from upholding the basic responsibility of government: ensuring the integrity of our borders and protecting our national security. Election Security
Madam President, now, on another matter. Yesterday, the Rules Committee held a hearing on the Democrats' proposal to tilt our entire political system on a partisan basis. It would forcibly rewrite every State's election laws in ways that defy common sense and are deeply unpopular with American voters.
It would mandate nearly unrestricted same-day registration. It would mandate big loopholes that would render voter ID almost meaningless. It would make every State legalize ballot harvesting, where paid operatives can turn up carrying big piles of ballots with other people's names on them, zero chain of custody.
Democrats want to hide behind the mantle of voting rights. What they are really proposing is less security, less integrity, and a grab bag of changes that are deeply, deeply unpopular. Just look at the other changes with zero relationship to voting rights that Democrats want to smuggle in behind that smokescreen.
This bill would take the Federal Election Commission from an evenly split, bipartisan panel to a partisan body so that Democrats could rule unilaterally over politics as well as citizens' speech, turn the neutral judge into a partisan prosecutor, and it would send taxpayers' money to fund political campaigns.
It contains a massive attack on the privacy of citizens who engage in free speech, a massive and intentional gift to cancel culture. That led even the leftwing ACLU to oppose this bill 2 years ago and lead senior ACLU lawyers to torch it again in the Washington Post just recently.
Democrats are desperate to avoid talking about any of these things. They are desperate to convince the media that a partisan takeover at the FEC, socialism for political ad makers, and an assault on free speech and Americans' privacy are just ``voting rights,'' a shameless, shameless bait and switch.
I noticed something funny yesterday. Remember, this is the same bill Democrats were shopping around 2 years ago in response to the 2016 election, which they said was a disaster. Now, 2 years ago, Democrats were marketing this bill as a massive shakeup that our broken elections badly needed.
Our democracy was in shambles after they lost in 2016. It was broken, they said. It was insecure, they said, and only this sweeping transformation could possibly repair it. Of course, it didn't pass, and the 2020 election came and went without the liberal takeover, and yet Democrats say it was a huge success.
Democrats said the 2020 election was beyond reproach. They said the integrity and security were beyond question. They have said only conspiracy theorists would complain about the last election.
Oh, but curiously enough, they are now still pushing this very same bill. Now, instead of a sweeping transformation, they are trying to say it would just preserve our smoothly functioning system so State legislatures can't mess it up.
So let's get this straight. Two years ago, in 2019, Democrats suggested this bill was a bold, radical overhaul for a broken system. In the meantime, what happened was, they got an election they liked, and now they claim the exact same legislation just does a few modest things to protect our system just the way it is.
What utter nonsense--utter nonsense. This legislation has but one goal, just one. It has only ever had one goal, just one. That goal was the same in 2019 as it is today. And that goal is to let Washington Democrats rig the rules of democracy from top down to hide that partisan project behind the smokescreen, the smokescreen of voting rights. Business Before the Senate
Madam President, now one final matter. Senators will soon head home for the State work period. We will be seeing an Easter recess of optimism and hope as the tide of the pandemic continues to turn. Thanks to science and fueled by five bipartisan bills we passed last year, vaccines were developed, approved, and preordered in record time. America was delivering more than a million doses per day before the current administration even took office.
And because of last year's bipartisan work, our economy was already poised for a historic comeback. I am also going to be talking with Kentuckians about their confusion and concern surrounding the multitrillion-dollar partisan spending plan that Democrats just rushed through Congress recently, like why teachers unions got huge sums for schools, much of which won't be spent until years, years into the future, without any meaningful requirement to reopen, even though science says it is safe. There are concerns like why Kentucky and other States whose budgets have come through the crisis intact will actually be subsidizing massive bailouts to other States for mismanagement that predates the pandemic, and confusion and concern about the radical, last-minute provision that tries to prevent States from implementing any policy, any policy that might be interpreted as a tax cut.
That one could wreak havoc on the plans of local officials in my State and entire industries as they try to get the Bluegrass growing again. This provision has the potential to shoot down a State law designed to help the Commonwealth's small businesses deduct PPP expenses from their State taxes and unwind planned waivers of hikes on their unemployment taxes.
Secretary Yellen was asked about this huge uncertainty in a hearing yesterday, about how this will be defined or enforced. She essentially had no answers.
So I will be joining Kentuckians to celebrate what has gone well, thanks to our bipartisan work just last year; to hear their concerns about all the consequences of the Democrats' go-it-alone effort; and to hear what they think about the multimillion-dollar cousin of the Green New Deal that Democrats are reportedly planning for a sequel.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source