Investing in A New Vision for the Environment and Surface
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the mammoth $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill before the Senate.
On Sunday night, we finally got to see the 2,700-page infrastructure bill that we will be voting on sometime tomorrow or Saturday. And what we saw is that Democrats want to give billions of dollars to unelected bureaucrats in the Biden administration to spend however they please.
This bill spends $21.5 billion to create a new office at the Department of Energy called the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which would give President Biden's Secretary of Energy the power to use taxpayer dollars to invest in whatever green energy initiative she likes. Reminiscent of Solyndra, we can have the same bankruptcies at taxpayer expense.
This bill spends $24 billion in taxpayer dollars to preserve the water in the San Francisco Bay, and the Long Island Sound would receive $106 million in taxpayer dollars.
As the New York Times reported, ``Climate resiliency programs would receive their largest burst of government spending ever'' from this bill.
And the Wall Street Journal rightly called it ``a major down payment on President Biden's Green New Deal.'' That is exactly what this bill is.
Furthermore, this bill institutes a new tax on 42 chemicals that will raise prices for everyday consumers. Texans will bear the brunt of these high prices because 40 percent of the manufacturing plants that this new tax will hit are in Texas alone.
But this tax will also hurt Louisiana and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and other manufacturing States.
Indeed, this provision will also likely make many of the raw materials used in infrastructure projects more expensive.
I filed an amendment that would strike this harmful provision. Not only will manufacturing plants in Texas be hurt by this new tax, but for some of these plants, the new taxes will exceed profit margins, leading to plant closings and more and more manufacturing moving to China.
In effect, the loss of these plants would result in lower tax revenue to the Federal Government, not more. Imports would rise, U.S. exports would fall, and production in the United States would fall as well.
Ironically, this infrastructure bill also tries to grow more critical minerals manufacturing and personal protective equipment, or PPE, manufacturing in America. But it places a brandnew tax on both of these things.
PPE is made with many of the 42 chemicals this infrastructure bill now wants to tax, and four of these chemicals are on the Biden administration's own critical minerals list.
The old saying was: If it moves, tax it, and if it stops moving, subsidize it. Well, this bill taxes the things that we are trying to get moving in the first place.
This bill is also a liberal spending wish list. The fact of the matter is, this bill spends too much money, and it is not paid for. We are told that this bill would, in part, be paid for with $205 billion in repurposed COVID relief funds. But when the bill text was released, magically, those funds weren't there. It became apparent, instead, that only about $50 billion in COVID funds was being used to help pay for this bill.
Some have claimed that the bill is paid for, but, by any measure, the pay-fors are quite simply gimmicks. This is a bait-and-switch, and the bill is not paid for like we were promised.
At a time when we spent trillions of dollars already to combat a deadly pandemic, at a time when we are seeing rising inflation across the country, we can't responsibly be spending yet another trillion dollars. This bill is part of a much broader problem we are having with reckless Federal spending.
Furthermore, suppose this so-called bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill were being offered in exchange for the Democrats' massive $3.5 trillion reckless tax-and-spend bill. In that case, I could understand the logic of doing the smaller bill instead of the massive bill. But it is not being offered in exchange.
The Democrats have made it clear that they are going to pass this infrastructure bill, take every penny of the spending, and then turn around and try to ram through their massive $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill right on top of this, which means we are looking at about $5 trillion of spending in just those two bills.
That means trillions of dollars in new taxes. If you pay taxes, they are going up. It means corporate taxes are going up; it means individual taxes are going up; it means small business taxes are going up; it means capital gains taxes are going up; it means the death tax is going up--all while our debt is going through the roof and inflation is rising across the country.
Republicans shouldn't play a part in this. We should instead say enough is enough.
Look, the American people want good roads and good bridges. I want good roads and good bridges. But what this bill does is reminds me of the old swindler who says over and over again: I am going to sell you a bridge; I am going to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge--because the proponents of this bill are selling the same bridge over and over and over again. They go on TV, and they say: Bridges are popular. Roads are popular. You want roads and bridges; therefore, we have to do this.
So let's see what the actual spending looks like to understand the shell game that is being played.
This bill has about $100 billion for roads and bridges. Do you know what? If the Democrats want to pass just that--$100 billion for roads and bridges--I bet you could we get 90 Senators to agree with that. We could be done and go home this evening.
And let me remind my fellow Senators: $100 billion is a lot of money. We aren't talking about $5 at a soda machine in the hall. We aren't talking about $100. We are talking about $100 billion, which, in history, is massive spending. But compare that to the $1.2 trillion in this bill. It is not Monopoly money. It is not make-believe money. It is taxpayer dollars, and it is money we are borrowing from China and debt that we are putting on our kids and grandkids.
The roads and bridges part of this bill, in the context of the larger spending free-for-all in Washington, is about one-eighty-sixth the explosive spending going on. Let's compare that to the overall spending going on in this bill and the total spending, so that it is not in a silo or a vacuum; it is all together.
The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill today is roughly 12 times the new spending on roads and bridges. So they are selling the roads and bridges, but the bill is 12 times bigger. But that ain't it. A few months ago, the Democrats rammed through a massive, so-called COVID relief bill. Only 9 percent of the bill actually went to healthcare spending for COVID.
That was $1.9 trillion. So that was roughly 19 times larger than what is being spent on roads and bridges. Mind you, we keep being told: Roads and bridges are good.
That bill was 19 times that.
And then the massive $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill that is coming right after this that the Democrats intend to ram through--that is 35 times the spending on roads and bridges. And when you add up the spending from December 2020 to now, with the Biden budget request, with the Democrats' tax-and-spend reconciliation proposal, with this infrastructure bill, with the so-called COVID relief bill, and with the emergency spending in December, you hit a whopping $9.5 trillion. That is 86 times the newest spending on roads and bridges.
You know, that is hard to wrap your mind around. These numbers all seem abstract--millions, billions, trillions. It is hard to know what you are talking about. So let's see if we can make it a little more real.
To understand the comparative size, let's take a look at the average American home, right here. The average American home is about 20 feet tall. Compare that to a giant sequoia tree, which is about 240 feet tall, 10 times as much. That is a lot.
But compare that to Big Ben, 380 feet tall. Compare that to Trump Tower in New York City at 700 feet tall. Compare that to One Shell Plaza, where I used to work, in Houston, TX. Or compare that to the Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower. I don't know why. I like Sears. Compare that to the Sears Tower at 1,400 feet tall.
The Sears Tower is 70 times as tall as the average American house. The Democrats' reckless spending is more than 70 times what is being spent on roads and bridges.
So when you see politicians going on TV saying: Isn't it going to be great to have a new freeway? Isn't it going to be great to repair a bridge?--yes, we should do that--they are selling this. That is what they are selling--this tiny, little bit. But understand that what they are ramming through is this. They are ramming through trillions of dollars.
To give you a sense of what $9.5 trillion means, if the Democrats get their way, Congress will be spending $28,563 for every single American. So I ask you at home: Have you got 28 grand sitting around? The Democrats think you do, and they want to spend it.
I have said more than once: Dear God, please let nobody tell the Democrats what comes after a trillion.
These numbers are real. To put that in perspective, indexed for inflation, the U.S. Government spent $4.1 trillion to win World War II--$4.1 trillion to win World War II--the greatest generation, scaling the cliffs of Normandy, beating the Nazis. The Democrats, in 7 months, are spending more than double what we spent to win World War II.
This is reckless, and it is unprecedented. As Admiral Ackbar said in Star Wars, ``It's a trap.'' This is a trap. This is a trap.
Now, listen, for Democrats, it is what they campaign on. If you are a Democrat, you want to raise taxes and raise spending. You want more debt from China. That is what Democrats do. But for Republicans--come on, guys--we are like Charlie Brown, with Chuck Schumer being Lucy and the football. And you have Republicans happily running going: Oh, he is going to keep the football; he is going to keep the football.
And, every time, Lucy pulls the football back, and we go up in the air and land on our rear. It would be nice for Republicans not to fall for it again.
The Senate minority leader is fond of saying there is no learning in the second kick from a mule. Well, there are a whole lot of Republicans that seem eager to get kicked a second time from a mule. The spending that we are looking at--I want to repeat again--is more than double what the United States spent to win World War II, in 7 months.
If you care about your kids, if you care about your grandkids, that is irresponsible. And let me tell you something it is causing. It is causing inflation across this country. You know, families at home--in Texas, in Virginia, across the country--families go to the grocery store, and they buy food for that week. They buy milk. They buy cereal. They buy fruit. They are noticing the cost of groceries going up and up and up. You get to the cash register, and, gosh, that costs a lot more than it cost a month ago, and it costs a lot more than it cost 3 months ago, and it costs a lot more than it cost a year ago.
Then when you go out and fill up your car with gas, you notice the cost has gone way, way up. And then maybe you go with your daughter to Home Depot to buy some lumber. And you look at the prices of the lumber, and you think: Is this a typo? How did these prices go so high?
And then maybe you go to buy a new house, and you see the prices of a new house--the average new house--going up $20,000 to $30,000.
In the last decade or so, we have been living in a little bit of a holiday from history. Inflation has not been a major factor for many people. Particularly many young people don't know what inflation is. Mr. President, you and I are both old enough to remember the 1970s. We remember the Jimmy Carter Presidency. We remember double-digit inflation. We remember 20 percent home-mortgage rates.
Inflation is a cruel tax. It is a tax on the middle class. It is a tax on working men and women. It is a tax on anyone with a fixed income. And it is a tax, in particular, on seniors. Millions of seniors across this country, on Social Security, struggling to make ends meet, their income isn't going up. But thanks to the Democrats' reckless spending and endless printing of money, their expenses are going up each and every month.
This is wrong. This is harmful. The inflation bomb we are facing is hurting Americans.
In a perfect world, I would ask my Democratic colleagues to reconsider. How about we spend just what we spent on World War II, not twice as much. In a perfect world, that might seem like a reasonable proposition. Actually, in a perfect world, anyone would say you are out of your mind to spend what you spent on World War II.
But I am not naive enough to think that Democrats are suddenly going to see the light. I hope, though, at least some Republicans will. If you vote for this monstrosity, it will open the door to trillions more. That is harmful for our country.
And if you are being told it is all about roads and bridges, just remember the one little house we saw. Roads and bridges are one-eighty- sixth of the total spending that is being rammed through. These trillions are 86 times more. We can't afford it. It is irresponsible, and I urge every Senator to say: Enough is enough. Stop the madness.
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