Nominations
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, the Republican Party has delivered for the American people. We promised and delivered a country that is safer, stronger, and more prosperous. That is what we have seen in the last year.
Americans are now seeing more money in their pockets. Inflation is now under 3 percent. During the Biden years, it was at a 40-year high of 9 percent inflation.
This Christmas, gas prices are going to be the lowest that they have been, basically, in the last 5 years. In 38 States, including mine, Wyoming, we now have gasoline prices lower than $3 a gallon. That is because Americans are seeing the impact of Republicans who have unleashed American energy.
Our borders are now secured. Not a single illegal immigrant has been released into this country under this administration. Compare that with 10,000 illegal immigrants, every day, flooding across our southern border and bringing with them the drugs and the crime, as so many of them were released into the country and others were never captured.
What we see happening globally is the world's most successful companies are investing in America, and $10 trillion is coming to our shores. Record investment is driving job growth. It drives innovation and drives opportunity.
We passed a comprehensive economic plan called the working families tax cut law. It is the central part of our economic plan. I really want to thank Senator Mike Crapo, chairman of the Finance Committee, for his hard work on seeing this through.
Republicans cut taxes. Every single Democrat voted to raise taxes to the tune of $4 trillion. That would have impacted every working family in America. It would also have been the largest tax increase in American history.
So why is it that we want to cut taxes for American families? It is because you want more money in their pockets. You want waiters and barbers and bartenders to be able to keep up to $1,300 more in money that they wouldn't have in their pockets now but by what we passed, which is no tax on tips.
In my home State and in yours, nurses and firefighters and police officers and coal miners are going to see about a $1,400 increase in their take-home pay in their paychecks next year because of the no tax on overtime.
Seniors are going to see more money in their bank accounts, as well. There is a new $6,000 deduction on Social Security income. Senator Marsha Blackburn fought hard to make sure that deduction stayed in the bill.
Thanks to Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, Republicans modernized tax credits for childcare. That helps parents pay for childcare.
Thanks to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, new parents now get a $1,000 Trump account for every newborn child. Parents can use that to invest in their child's future. Also, parents get a bigger tax credit--$2,200 for every child.
America is now energy dominant once again. The working families' tax cuts unleashed American energy. It reopened Federal lands and waters for energy production.
This is a historic victory for Wyoming. Wyoming is America's energy breadbasket. We have world-class coal and world-class oil and natural gas, and this Republican bill helps American energy workers compete globally.
Republicans also rolled back punishing Biden regulations. Those regulations were burdensome, expensive, and time-consuming. By reining in Biden's heavy-handed bureaucrats, we have saved the American public $180 billion. That pencils out to over $2,000 in savings for each and every working family.
Republicans repealed 23 bad Biden regulations, and we used the Congressional Review Act to do it. That is a record as well.
We stopped California's electric vehicle mandate madness. Thanks to the leadership of Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Deb Fischer, Markwayne Mullin, and Bernie Moreno, Americans are now back in the driver's seat.
My colleague and friend Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming led the repeal of the harmful Buffalo Resource Management Plan. That is really good news for Wyoming's energy producers. The Powder River Basin in Wyoming supplies about 45 percent of all the coal in the country.
Senate Republicans also cut wasteful Washington spending. We cut over $1 trillion in waste, fraud, and abuse as part of the working families tax cuts law.
We also passed the first standalone rescissions bill in over 30 years--a special thanks to Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri.
Taxpayers saved over $9 billion because we cut liberal projects. Let's look at some of them. One of those pet projects included net-zero cities in Mexico. Another cut out electric buses in Africa and taxpayer-funded classes on ``environmental racism.''
Additionally, Republicans created a $50 billion rural hospital fund. It is the single largest Federal investment in rural healthcare in American history.
Do you want to help patients with rare diseases find treatments? We were able to do that. We passed a bill that I introduced called the ORPHAN Cures Act. As a doctor in Wyoming, I saw the challenges that patients faced when they had few or no treatment options. That is why I fought to bring hope for millions of Americans living with rare diseases.
Republicans are also making our communities safer. We began this year by passing a bill from Senator Britt and from Senator Ted Budd of North Carolina. It is called the Laken Riley Act. It was the first bill that we passed this year and the first bill that President Trump signed into law. It mandates the detention of illegal immigrant criminals. Amendments from Senator Joni Ernst and Senator John Cornyn made it even stronger.
We also passed the HALT Fentanyl Act. It cracks down on deadly fentanyl trafficking. This is thanks to Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. They have done incredibly hard work and important work.
On top of that, the working families tax cuts made a historic $170 billion investment in border security. It finishes the wall. It hires more ICE and Border Patrol agents.
As we finish this year, Senate Republicans have confirmed a record number of President Trump's nominees. We began the year by confirming President Trump's Cabinet faster than any Senate in modern history. By week's end, President Trump will have 417 nominees confirmed by the Senate this year. That is far more than the 365 that Joe Biden had in his first year in office.
This historic record comes despite unprecedented obstruction from the Democrat minority. What have they done?
Well, basically, they have just tried to obstruct. They have spent the entire year on the side of higher taxes, on the side of illegal immigrant criminals, on the side of wasteful spending, and on the side of burdensome regulations. If Democrats had their way, Americans would face the largest tax increase in history. If Democrats had their way, illegal immigrants would get free healthcare. If Democrats had their way, the government would still be shut down.
Republicans are putting more money in people's pockets; we are delivering safer neighborhoods; and we are providing more opportunities. Republicans are going to continue to deliver the safety and the prosperity that the American people want and deserve.
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Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Iowa (Ms. Ernst) and the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Grassley).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Grassley) would have voted ``yea.''
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