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Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about the priorities, misguided priorities, of the Democrat majority in the Senate.
So far this year, Senate Democrats have ignored the most important issues that are facing our country. Democrats are focused on cramming through Joe Biden's radical leftwing nominees.
Looking at the Senate floor, you would think that everything is going well in the world and well across the United States. I have news for Joe Biden and for Chuck Schumer: People all across this country are not happy. The country is heading in the wrong direction.
In meeting after meeting in Wyoming last week, as I traveled the State, people talked about sky-high prices, the sky-high debt that we have as a nation, and China's spy balloon.
Under Joe Biden, America is in crisis--inflation crisis, energy crisis, crime crisis, and a spending crisis.
Inflation went up again in January. The numbers came out Friday. The headlines don't lie. They said inflation remains entrenched-- entrenched--and that is what people are feeling all across the country.
In addition to inflation, drugs are pouring across the southern border, killing record numbers of people, even in my home State of Wyoming. When the numbers are like they are in Wyoming, that tells you every State is a border State.
Crime is out of control in Democrat strongholds in cities like Washington, DC. We see it here. We see yesterday in Chicago, the mayor didn't even make it through the primary process--didn't finish first, didn't finish second, not even in the runoff. And according to people I have talked to from that State and watching the news reports, the No. 1 issue is crime; the No. 2 issue is crime; and the No. 3 issue is crime.
Internationally, Chinese President Xi Jinping is reportedly going to Moscow. Why? Well, to strengthen his ties with Vladimir Putin.
The list goes on and on of failures and crises that this administration is facing and, for the most part, has caused and created. Democrats are doing nothing to deal with it.
There is a lot we should be doing in the U.S. Senate. We should be unleashing American energy. We should stop the reckless tax and spending that the Democrats continue to promote. We should secure the border. Stop this flow of illegal drugs. We need to crack down on the criminals who are terrorizing communities. We need to put China on notice. Yet the Democrats are disinterested and ignoring it all.
Senate Republicans are going to force a vote today that will actually help people. We are going to vote to protect America's retirement savings accounts.
The American people know that Joe Biden continues to spread lies about Social Security and Medicare. If Joe Biden is so concerned about people's retirements, he needs to look in the mirror. The only politician meddling with people's retirements is Joe Biden. That is right. The only politician actually meddling with people's retirements is President Biden.
The Biden administration wants retirement plan managers to invest people's retirement funds based not on the best return for the money-- nope--but based on woke ideology. Democrats want this so they can funnel trillions of dollars to their climate elites.
It is called ESG: environmental, social, and governance. The more accurate name might be ``extreme socialist greed.'' Now, this is going to rob American people of a lot of money. ESG is legalized theft from American workers.
Numerous studies have shown that these woke investments are bad investments. People wanting to maximize their savings and their investment and the investment income to benefit their families long term are being held hostage by these new regulations coming out of the Joe Biden administration.
Bloomberg analysts looked at these numbers of the people who invest in this ESG. What did they find? Well, they found that the return for the ESG investments fell way behind the general market--way behind. Year after year, that means less money growing in your retirement account.
This is a slap in the face to the working men and women of the country who are trying to save for their future. I am proud of the State of Wyoming because we have actually sued the Biden administration to stop this.
Retirement accounts are not for promoting a political agenda. They are for helping people retire with money in the bank. They are about giving people some safety, some security, and peace of mind. If woke investors want to promote a political agenda, then they should do it with their own money, not force investors to do so. The only people who benefit from ESG are the climate elites and the professional activists. Everyone else loses money.
Now, let me point out that the analysts from Bloomberg not only said that the return is much less but that the expenses of investing in those programs, with the management fees, is much higher. So you get hammered at both ends: lower returns and higher expenses.
ESG means you can't invest in things like oil, gas, coal, American energy. It means less American energy for people in our country. It means higher energy costs. It means fewer energy jobs and less money in people's retirement accounts.
This is an all-around disaster for the American people, but it is what the Biden administration and so many Democrats want. Democrats know the American people would never vote for this; it would never become law. That is why the Democrats attack American energy through the bureaucracy and through the courts, through their wealthy friends on Wall Street.
Now, Democrats have friends on Wall Street who have been doing their bidding for years. A couple of examples: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank. They refuse to finance oil and gas projects near the Arctic. Citibank refuses to fund coal mining. HSBC refuses to fund any oil, gas, or coal projects.
The American people need to remember this next time Democrats say they oppose the big banks. Democrats and the big banks are practically joined at the hip.
Citigroup won't give a loan to a coal company, yet Citibank is happy to do business with China. Some Chinese companies have higher ESG scores than American companies. These include Chinese companies using slave labor.
This tells you ESG is a scam by the radical left. Now, Joe Biden wants the ESG scam at every bank in America--every bank, every savings account, every investment. That would mean trillions of dollars funneled to politically driven, woke investments. People who have saved their entire lives under this Democrat scheme would actually retire with less money in their accounts.
So I am going to join all of my Republican colleagues today to vote to stop this. Republicans are ready to stand up and say no to Joe Biden and the administration and this reckless policy. No more command and control from Biden's bureaucratic bullies, no to defunding American energy, no to woke corporations, and no to Democrats meddling in people's retirements.
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