Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, my friend from North Carolina expressed his point of view. I would like to express mine.

Do you think that those who are making incomes in America in the highest levels should pay their fair share of taxes?

I do.

Do you think that those who get the tax break from the Trump tax plan of 4 years ago, which added $2 trillion to our deficit, should pay more in taxes?

I do.

Do you think we should help families who are struggling with the cost of living to defray those costs, for example, for daycare?

Well, I do; and I can tell you from my family experience, so do my kids.

What do you think about the possibility of starting kids in school, a possibility at 3 years of age or 4 years of age, if that is a parent's choice? Is that a good idea?

I think it is. And so do educators.

If kids get a flying start at education, they have a much more likely chance to succeed and to graduate and to progress to a point in life where they are making a living and more. That is part of it.

So do you support, as I do, cutting the rate of childhood poverty in the United States in half?

I think we ought to at least do that, maybe even more.

If your answer was yes to these questions, what I describe is the mechanism which we have taken into the reconciliation process. It is a long Senate word for a bill that we are going to consider in about 10 days to 2 weeks. What we are trying to do is to alleviate and reduce the costs that families face.

It is a legitimate question raised by the Senator from North Carolina: Well, who is going to pay for this?

It is paid for by people in the highest income categories. If you are making less than $400,000 a year, your taxes will not go up. That is what Biden said in the campaign, and that is the standard we have been governed by. For those who are not paying their fair share of taxes, they may have to.

And I am not nervous about putting more auditors in the IRS to look at how much taxes people pay because I know what the numbers are. Working families, particularly those who have withholding, are paying their fair share within a few percentage points; but at the highest income level, these folks are finding ways to avoid their taxes. So working families are paying their fair share and the wealthiest Americans--some of them--are not. So these new IRS auditors will make sure everybody pays their fair share.

How is that for a starting point?

You shouldn't be afraid of hiring more cops on the beat if you are not violating the law, and that, I think, is a reality that most of us realize in life.

In terms of other payments, corporations that have profited, declaring millions of dollars in booked gains and profits, don't you think they ought to pay something?

I sure do. There ought to be a minimum tax that these corporations pay if they are profitable beyond certain million-dollar ranges. That is reasonable to me. Average Americans are paying their fair share. Small businesses are paying their fair share, but some of these folks have found ways to avoid these taxes. I think we ought to look into that.

What is the goal here?

The goal here isn't socialism, however the Senator wishes to define it. The goal is to have the government give families--working families in particular--a helping hand by reducing the cost of daycare, by making more education available, by providing a childcare tax credit to some of these families, by providing home health services for their parents and grandparents who need a helping hand.

Now there is a very popular idea, because a lot of folks who are raising small children also have to worry about grandma and grandpa and how they are doing. Are they in place where they feel safe and secure and taken care of? Or if they can stay home, that is even better. That is what this bill does.

The reconciliation bill provides additional assistance for those people who want to live in the independence of their home to have home healthcare services. I can't think of a better income than if that is part of what they do, and it involves government getting into the picture. For some of my colleagues, that is reprehensible--that is just pure socialism.

But I might remind those who are following my remarks, when Social Security was created to give fiscal solvency to families once retired, it was branded as communism or socialism. Then came the idea of Medicare, health insurance for seniors in America in the 1960s.

Do you know what the American Medical Association called it?

Socialized medicine or socialism. Every time the government steps in to solve a problem which the economy can't solve by itself, the critics will always say it is socialism; it is too much government.

Well, we have got to take care that the amount of government we give to this country is adequate to meet the needs of these families who are struggling with the cost of living today. I believe these are steps in the right diction. Climate Change

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Mr. DURBIN. How does going zero to 60 in 3 seconds sound to you? How about traversing through terrains of unimaginable challenge? Or having an entire kitchen stowed away in your car wherever you go?

These are just a few of the innovations being pioneered by the minds of Rivian, the company that is leading the electric vehicle revolution in my home State of Illinois.

The company recently released the R1T, which ``Motor Trend'' has described as ``the most remarkable pickup we've ever driven.''

That truck won't be built in China and it won't be built in Europe. It will be built in the heart of Illinois, in a town aptly named Normal.

The story of Normal is a story of revival and opportunity. Six years ago, a local Mitsubishi plant shut down, leaving thousands of workers unemployed. Today, that once shuttered factory has sprung back to life, manufacturing the first mass-produced electric truck in America. And even better, lawmakers in Illinois are now positioning Normal to continue leading the industry.

Earlier this year, the State of Illinois provided more than $7 million to a community college in Normal, IL, to launch a program training electric vehicle technicians. Graduates of that program will be fully prepared to land good-paying jobs at Rivian or one of the other countries that are suppliers in the electric vehicle industry.

Why is this good news not just for Illinois?

Each additional Rivian truck on the road will help confront the threat of climate change.

Transportation accounts for more than a fourth--let me repeat that-- more than a fourth of total greenhouse gas emissions. If every vehicle on the road were electric, we would probably be on our way to a green future. What is happening in Normal proves that investing in sustainable innovation drives sustainable economic growth for everyone, and it is a look into the future that Democrats envision under the Build Back Better agenda, a future in which every American can gain the skills they need to be competitive in the 21st century and American innovators have the incentives they need to pioneer new technology. Climate Change Conference

Madam President, the story of Normal's revival will be in the front of my mind tomorrow as I depart for the United Nations' 26th Conference of Parties climate summit in Glasgow. This gathering is an opportunity for the United States and our allies to come together for the first time in years around a shared goal: taking bold steps to address the climate crisis.

One of those steps is the Build Back Better World Partnership, an initiative that will bring together the world's major democracies to support sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries. This partnership will help counter China's rising influence in the world by equipping developing nations with the resources they need to grow their economies without relying on fossil fuels.

On the note of China, Xi Jinping's absence from the COP conference in Scotland should be an alarm bell for the international community. China is the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. They emit more than every other developed nation combined. And the country is headed in the wrong direction. Over the next decade, the Chinese Communist Party plans to build dozens of new coal plants throughout the country.

China's leaders insist they are committed to addressing climate change, but the commitments they have made are inadequate. Carbon neutrality by 2060 is too little, too late.

Fortunately, over the past 2 weeks, President Biden has shown the world that if you want a partner in saving the planet, follow America's lead; work together, across borders. Already, the strategy is working. Yesterday, a coalition of more than 40 countries, including the United Kingdom, Poland, and Vietnam, announced they will phase out coal power over the next two decades.

There is no doubt that the international commitments we agreed to in Glasgow are crucial to combating climate change, but the question I hope to ask our foreign allies is, What will you do the moment you return home?

Climate change isn't a faraway threat. The extreme weather events over the past year have shown it is already here. Over the summer, one storm alone, Hurricane Ida, caused $100 billion in damages--one storm, $100 billion--twice as much as Democrats have proposed to spend each year to reduce the harm of climate change. And these costs are only getting worse.

Last month, our Nation's intelligence community released a landmark national intelligence estimate on climate change. The report illustrated how a changing climate is one of the biggest threats to national security and economic stability. It warns that over the next two decades, climate change will increase global poverty and instability and could lead to conflicts and wars and dwindling supplies of food, water, and habitable land. Hundreds of millions of people are likely to be displaced by 2050.

Among the 11 nations at greatest risk of collapse from climate stress, by this estimate, 5 are in our own hemisphere, and 2 possess nuclear weapons in other places in the world.

These humanitarian crises could also give rise to anti-democratic populists. We have seen it in Hungary. We have seen these same politicians rising in France and Germany, peddling fear and xenophobia after an influx of refugees.

The NIE warns us that ``current policies and pledges are insufficient'' to meet the goals of the Paris climate conference. That is why the question for anyone in a position of power is: What are you doing about climate change today?

Well, between the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better package, Democrats are proposing roughly $900 billion toward the climate change threat. This would be the largest investment in climate action in history.

These proposals will accelerate our Nation's transition to a clean energy future, upgrade our power grid and the rest of our physical infrastructure, and establish America as a global leader. This could pave the way for every State to attract job creators like Rivian or Lion Electric in Joliet, IL, which announced an electric vehicle plant earlier this year.

I heard the previous speaker criticize the idea of a Climate Corps. It is modeled, really, after the Conservation Corps of the New Deal that goes back at least 80 years. I can't understand why we would criticize an effort to put young people to work so that they would have jobs that would improve the world we live in, the Nation we live in, and make a decent income in the process. For many of the kids, this will be their first chance to really understand what life should be like. Why wouldn't we want that? I don't know about North Carolina, but in Illinois, we can certainly use their good, hard work.

I got a call yesterday from the president of the Cook County board, Toni Preckwinkle, who said we have forest preserves all over Cook County--and they are a beauty to behold--but they need basic work. If the Climate Corps members can do it, we want to hire them locally and engage them in that process and give them a good life experience.

What could be wrong with that? That these kids, who might otherwise not have a chance at a job, get a decent job and get rewarded for their good work, with a paycheck when it is all over. For many of us, that was a formative experience we are never going to forget. There are a lot of kids who deserve it, and there is a lot to be done by this effort.

I want to say at this point, as I close--I see other Members on the floor--that we cannot wait when it comes to climate change. There are people who want us to be at the back of the pack, for America to come in second, when we are talking about changing the climate for the better in this Nation and around the world. I think American leadership is needed. It has always been an inspiration to many other countries and can be again today.

I thank the President for his leadership.
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