Ted Cruz

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. I would note several things. No. 1, the Senator from Illinois said he didn't know if the number of illegal immigrants getting checks from the Democrats' stimulus bill was in the tens or the hundreds or the thousands. With all due respect, he does know that. It is not in the tens. It is not in the hundreds. It is not in the thousands. JCT, the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is a nonpartisan organization that reports to this Senate and this Congress, scored my amendment as roughly 482,000 illegal immigrants are getting checks under the Democrats' proposal. Two outside organizations have scored it as millions of illegal immigrants. I would note what Newsweek said, when they corrected their fact- check, and I am going to read a quote: The Ruling. True. Cruz's claim that millions of illegal immigrants would receive stimulus payments is true, given the amount of people who have overstayed their visas over the years. Once they overstay, they technically are considered ``illegal.'' Nowhere in the Senator from Illinois' remarks was a word of apology for falsely calling me a liar on the floor of this Senate and on Twitter. That is unfortunate. What the Senator said right now is also incorrect. The Senator from Illinois said this amendment would halt the payments that are going out. This amendment doesn't do anything of the sort. This amendment restricts sending payments to people who are here illegally. When the Senator from Illinois said he would love to do that, with all due respect, that doesn't withstand even the slightest bit of scrutiny because if he would love to do that, all he had to do was not object, and the American citizens, the people who are here legally, would all get their $1,400 checks, would get them on the exact same timeframe, but those here illegally would not. Today's Democratic Party supports sending checks to millions of illegal immigrants. They have justified it, as the Senator from Illinois did, by falsely claiming none of them are getting checks. Those are not the facts, as the Newsweek fact-check makes clear. I would note that a bill that Democratic Senators are trying to push, denominated H.R. 1, what many are calling the corrupt politicians act, would compound that by allowing millions of illegal immigrants to be registered to vote and, no doubt, to cast votes. This is a political decision that is far outside the mainstream. It is unfortunate, but sadly it reflects where today's Democratic Party is. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, it is clear and indisputable that a significant number of illegal immigrants will receive checks and are receiving checks right now. All 100 Members of this body were misinformed by the Democratic Senator that no illegal aliens would receive fact checks--would receive, rather, stimulus checks. So I want to give my colleagues a chance to adopt the amendment now, with the correct information, with the true information, with the factual information. I would note as well, in these deeply partisan times, it is easy for Republicans to throw insults at Democrats; it is easy for Democrats to throw insults at Republicans. Far too much of that occurs. The Senator from Illinois, who is a friend whom I served with for 9 years, is a talented Senator. I am not here suggesting that when he stood up and spoke on the Senate floor and said things that were absolutely false, that he did so knowingly and maliciously. I would certainly give the Senator from Illinois the benefit of the doubt that he was in error rather than deliberately misstating facts, but the facts are now clear. We have a rule in this body, rule XIX, to reprimand any Senator who imputes the character or integrity of another Senator. I am not going to seek refuge in that rule, although I think there is an argument that I could. But I will say this, that once the facts have been made clear, I hope my friend from Illinois will show the same principle Newsweek showed--to apologize, to say he was wrong and he is sorry for calling me a liar on the Senate floor and then going to Twitter to do so twice. That would be the right thing to do, to acknowledge an error when it occurred. The Senator from Illinois' statement that no illegal immigrants will receive checks under this bill is categorically false. For that reason, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of S. 842, introduced earlier today. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise to oppose the nomination of Xavier Becerra for Secretary of Health and Human Services. There are, unfortunately, numerous nominees in the Biden administration who are either extreme or unqualified for the positions for which they have been nominated, but of all of those nominees, I believe Mr. Becerra is the single worst Cabinet nominee put forward by Joe Biden to serve in the Cabinet. President Biden has told this country repeatedly that his top priority is defeating the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services is on the frontline in fighting COVID-19. Mr. Becerra, by any measure, is woefully unqualified to lead that Department. Mr. Becerra is not a doctor. Mr. Becerra is not a scientist. Mr. Becerra has no healthcare experience whatsoever. He has no medical experience whatsoever. He has no experience in virology. He has no experience with pharmaceuticals. He has no experience running a State or local healthcare agency. He has no experience in logistics. The Department of HHS is in the process of distributing and administering hundreds of millions of vaccines. Mr. Becerra has never so much as distributed french fries at a McDonald's. Mr. Becerra's only qualification and, indeed, the qualification that earned him this nomination is he is a radical, leftwing trial attorney. If a Republican President had nominated as the head of the Health and Human Services Agency someone with zero healthcare experience, zero medical experience, zero pharmaceutical experience in the midst of a global pandemic, that Republican President would have been laughed out of the room. If a Republican President had done that, all of the Democrats would have been lined up here thundering: This is a President that doesn't care about science. We would have heard Democrats telling us: This is a President for whom defeating COVID-19 is not a priority, is not serious. ``This is a President,'' our Democratic colleagues would have told us, ``who puts partisan priorities above defeating the public health menace of COVID-19. This is a President who is more concerned about appeasing his radical base than he is about protecting the public health and safety of Americans.'' Had a Republican President nominated a nominee as unqualified as Mr. Becerra, I feel confident the Democrats would not have been alone. We would see multiple Republican Senators standing up, saying: No. We should actually have an HHS Secretary who knows something about science. We should have an HHS Secretary who knows something about medicine, something about pharmaceuticals. I would note, by the way, President Trump nominated two HHS Secretaries. The first, Dr. Tom Price, was a medical doctor; the second, Alex Azar, was president of a major pharmaceutical company in the United States. Both had years and even decades of healthcare experience. As best I can tell, Xavier Becerra's only experience with healthcare is suing the Little Sisters of the Poor. Frankly, it should be a joke. If a Republican President did this, a Republican Senate would discover the backbone to stand up and oppose it. And what I would say is sad is not a single Democrat is willing to stand up to Joe Biden and say: No. Try again. It is a pandemic. Over a half million Americans have died. How about putting someone at HHS that knows something about healthcare? I will tell you right now, every Senator that supports this confirmation, when they go home, should be prepared to answer to their constituents--should be prepared to answer when their constituents say: Why did you vote to confirm a guy at HHS who doesn't know anything about science or healthcare or medicine? Why, in the middle of a pandemic, did you put in a radical, leftwing trial lawyer instead of someone that could help us beat this pandemic? And for all the Democratic Senators who love to intone gravely ``Listen to the science,'' that is actually--that sentiment is correct. We should listen to the science, which means we should have someone leading HHS who knows something about science My career, as a lawyer, has been litigating cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. If a President asked me to lead the Department of HHS in the midst of a pandemic, I would tell that President: With all due respect, I don't have the professional experience or expertise to do that job. There are other jobs for which I would be qualified, but in a pandemic, the Health and Human Services Department should have someone who knows a damn thing about healthcare. Instead of knowing anything about science or medicine or viruses or virology or immunizations, what Mr. Becerra does know about is persecuting citizens who don't share his radical, leftwing ideology. Mr. Becerra, as attorney general of California, has demonstrated a consistent pattern of contempt for privacy. While attorney general, he used his partisan power to overcome the individual privacy rights of California. As attorney general, he demanded that thousands of registered charities annually disclose to his offices the names and addresses of major donors, even though California law didn't require that. But he used government power to violate their right to privacy. Then what did he do? Did he keep it private for law enforcement purposes to examine irregularities? No. Instead, he published the information from nearly 2,000 organizations, subjecting donors and those nonprofits to harassment and abuse. Healthcare issues are personal. They are sensitive. When you and I go to the doctor, we don't expect our doctor to share our personal healthcare details with the world. Joe Biden has said to the American people: We are going to put someone in charge of the Health and Human Services Department who doesn't care about privacy and has a record of ignoring your right to privacy. Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether Mr. Becerra's invasion of privacy violated the First Amendment to the Constitution. While his disregard for privacy is before the Supreme Court, what did Joe Biden do? He said: Let's put him in charge of healthcare in this country. A third reason Mr. Becerra's nomination is so concerning concerns conscience protections. The next HHS Secretary will be responsible for upholding the conscience protections that are written into Federal law to protect the rights of people of faith, whatever your faith--whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever your faith might be, the right of professionals, of citizens under the First Amendment to live according to their faith. But Mr. Becerra, as attorney general, aggressively defended a California law that forced pro-life groups to advertise for abortion, a law that the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Think about that for a second. He was so radical in going after and persecuting conscience rights, he wanted pro-life groups to advertise for abortion, and it took the U.S. Supreme Court to strike it down and say: That is unconstitutional. Joe Biden wants him to bring the same heavyhanded zealotry to the Health and Human Services Department. And Mr. Becerra has not shown that it is just free speech that he has antagonism to, but it is religious liberty as well. Mr. Becerra has defended California's targeting of churches holding indoor services. The State of California concluded that if you go to an indoor service at a church and you pray or you sing or you worship, you are a public health menace. But if you go to a protest, if you go to other secular activities where the name of God is not invoked, then, magically, this virus is not contagious. It is ludicrous. It was facially absurd. It was driven by an unconstitutional animus toward people of faith, and it took the U.S. Supreme Court to strike it down and to say the policy that Mr. Becerra was defending is unconstitutional. Government cannot target people of faith. So you have got a nominee with no healthcare experience, no medical experience, no scientific experience, but a record of being a radical, persecuting those with whom he disagrees, who has repeatedly gone before the U.S. Supreme Court and lost over and over again for violating the First Amendment, for violating free speech, for violating religious liberty. He is now currently before the Supreme Court for violating the privacy rights of Californians. Do you want an HHS Secretary who doesn't respect your privacy, who doesn't respect your free speech or religious liberty? Do you want an HHS Secretary who is not qualified to draw blood or give a shot, who doesn't know how to distribute vaccines, who has never distributed anything? If nominations and confirmations were based on the merits, were based on qualification to serve, Mr. Becerra's nomination would be rejected by this Senate by a vote of 100 to nothing. The fact that that is unlikely to happen and that every Democrat will march lockstep with the Biden administration to confirm a nominee who has no healthcare experience whatsoever in the midst of a global pandemic show just how profoundly partisan and radicalized today's Democratic Party is. I believe all of us should be united in demanding a Health and Human Services Secretary who is actually qualified to protect our health and defeat this pandemic. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against this nomination

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. I call for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, do I have any time remaining?

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, we are facing an absolute crisis with our schools. Today, only 40 percent of school kids in America are attending in-person school 5 days a week. It has been a year since these COVID lockdowns began. Millions of school kids are falling behind, and it is falling disproportionately on low-income kids, on African-American kids, on Hispanic kids. This bill spends billions of dollars on schools and doesn't require that they open. My amendment does something very simple. It says if a school is open, it gets the new money that is in this bill, but if the school is not open 5 days a week, then that money goes to the parents, up to $10,000 per child, so they can get their kids an education. We have single moms with kids trapped in schools that are not open, and this crisis, this body can do something about. Those kids, if they fall behind, the science and the data tells us that they will be behind, potentially, for the rest of their lives. We should come together in a bipartisan way to say: We are going to open the schools, and we are going to give hope and relief to the kids who are being left behind.

Mr. CRUZ. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 968 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. CRUZ. I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 969 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, moments ago, the Democrats in this Chamber just voted to send $1,400 stimulus checks to murderers, to rapists, and child molesters incarcerated in prison. This amendment, just like the one we just voted on that Senator Cassidy and I introduced, this amendment before us today provides that the stimulus check should not go to illegal aliens in this country. The question for the American people to answer is, Should your money, should taxpayer money be sent--$1,400--to every illegal alien in America? This amendment provides that it should not; that stimulus checks should only go to American citizens or to people lawfully present. Now, Democrats may say their language allows for that, but they know that the IRS treats someone who is illegally present in the United States for 31 days last year as a resident alien. So this corrects that and ensures that illegal aliens are not eligible for taxpayer-funded stimulus checks.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate Texas Independence Day. One hundred and eighty-five years ago today, on March 2, 1836, the Republic of Texas declared our independence from the nation of Mexico. Fifty-nine delegates who adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence on that day gathered at Washington-on-the- Brazos. The delegates adopted a declaration, modeled in significant parts after the Declaration of Independence of the United States. The declaration decried the arbitrary acts of oppression and tyranny from the Mexican Government under the dictator General Santa Anna. In particular, it noted that that government had ``ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived.'' And the Texans signing that declaration sought to protect their rights of free speech, their rights to keep and bear arms, and their rights of freedom of religion. Signing that declaration commenced the Texas Revolution, our battle for independence, where we won independence from the nation of Mexico. And for 9 years, the State of Texas became the Republic of Texas, an independent nation. That, of course, ceased in 1845, when we joined the United States. And today, we celebrate that spirit of independence that is still found throughout all 29 million Texans

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. I withhold my request.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following op-ed be printed in the Record.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I send a question to the desk directed at both sides.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 811, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of the applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all the applicable sections of the act and the applicable budget resolutions for purposes of amendment 811, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, before this coronavirus pandemic hit this country, our economy was booming. Jobs were soaring. Over the last year, our country has suffered tens of millions of job losses. This amendment creates a point of order against any legislation that would increase legal immigration until we return to where we were before this pandemic. I believe in legal immigration. We are a country built by immigrants, but legal immigration is meant to serve the American economy, meant to benefit this country and American workers, and I do not believe we should be significantly increasing legal immigration at a time when tens of millions of Americans are out of work. So this amendment is designed to say: Let's put American workers first. When American workers go back to work, then we can discuss and consider legislation to increase legal immigration, but we shouldn't do so until the tens of millions of Americans who have lost their jobs return to work.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, this amendment is designed to provide relief to the tens of thousands of blue collar workers that work in refineries across this country. Refineries right now purchase what are called RINs, which are artificial regulatory licenses that they must purchase. They were originally designed to be at 1 or 2 cents apiece. In the past year, they have skyrocketed. In the past year, RINs have skyrocketed up to $1.12 apiece, the highest level since 2013. That is a 650-percent increase in the past year. Just a year ago they were trading at 15 cents. What does that mean? That means $15 billion in regulatory cost for refineries. And let me say something importantly: Not one penny of that $15 billion goes to corn farmers or ethanol producers. It goes to Wall Street speculators. So this amendment would provide--it would cap RINs at 10 cents apiece. What that would mean is this is a choice between do you want millions of dollars to go to Wall Street speculators or do you want the money to go to blue collar workers and refineries?

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 871 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. CRUZ. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to honor the life of a dear friend and a former colleague of mine, Jerry Ellig. Some 2 weeks ago, at just 58 years old, Jerry passed away. Jerry and I met in June of 2001. We were both working in the George W. Bush administration. We were working together at the Federal Trade Commission. I had just been hired, at all of 30 years old, to run the Policy Planning Office, and Jerry was my Deputy. I hadn't met Jerry. Our boss Tim Muris, the Chairman, had brought Jerry in beforehand. It is always a dangerous thing when somebody else hires your Deputy, but in this case, Tim did me an enormous favor. Jerry was a colleague of Tim's from George Mason University, a Ph.D. economist, a brilliant man, a lover of liberty. And Jerry and I, for the next 2 years, ran the Policy Planning Office together, and we became dear friends. I don't know that I ever saw Jerry without a smile, without a twinkle in his eye. He always had a joyful spirit, a mischievous grin. And he believed in the power of truth. He became an economist because, I think, Jerry was born to be an economist. I have no doubt playing with his LEGOs as a child, he thought about supply and demand and price elasticity. And he believed in the power of free markets. One of the things that the Policy Planning Office did was something called competition advocacy. Now, the FTC statutory mandate is to defend the competition. There are some 75 Ph.D. economists on the full- time staff at the FTC. And Jerry and I, together, when various State legislatures or State regulatory bodies across the country were considering a particular bill that would have potentially anti- competitive effects--if those State legislatures or regulators asked for our input, the FTC would analyze the proposed bill, and we would file testimony, written testimony, oral testimony. Both Jerry and I testified multiple places. In fact, I went to my office and pulled out the binder of all the competition advocacy that we filed in our time together at the FTC on topic after topic after topic. You know, there are a lot of bad ideas that government considers, bad ideas that come from special pleaders--someone who will benefit--but the harm to consumers is usually diffuse, harder to see, and much greater. And what the FTC would do in competition advocacy is simply quantify the harm, simply provide truth and light and sunshine. It was incredible that when we would be asked to come in and present that testimony over and over and over again, the decision makers would choose not to adopt bad policies, simply when they understood, through careful empirical analysis, how that would hurt the consumers. One area, in particular, that Jerry and I worked on quite a bit was e-commerce. We started an e-commerce task force. This was 20 years ago. E-commerce was in a much more nascent stage 20 years ago than it is today. We examined 10 different industries, every one of which there were barriers to entry. The existing bricks and mortar suppliers would go to their State regulators and seek to erect barriers to entry to stop new e-commerce entrants from competing and driving down prices. Actually, much of the impetus for the entire e-commerce task force came from a white paper that the Presiding Officer will be interested to know where this white paper came from. It was the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democrat group that had written a white paper entitled ``Revenge of the Dissenter Mediated.'' And it talked about all these industries where e-commerce was benefiting consumers but entrenched interests were fighting against it. Jerry and I, together at the FTC, we convened 3 days of public hearings of 10 different industries--contact lenses, telemedicine, education, funerals and caskets, wine. It was interesting. At the end of the hearings, we prepared a series of reports. Every single industry panel--all 10 of the ones who testified--at least 1 of the witnesses said some variance of the following: You know, I have looked at the anti-competitive restraints in these other nine industries, and those are terrible. Those are clearly hurting consumers, but our industry is different. One of the industries we looked at that Jerry took a particular passion for was wine. There were, at the time, extensive restrictions on direct shipment of wine--shipment across State lines, shipment to your home. It was heavily, heavily regulated, and the wholesalers did not want to see that change. We began studying and working on what would become a wine report. It is over 100 pages long of empirical study on what that was doing. We concluded that for consumers, it was driving up costs dramatically, not just a little bit but dramatically. I will tell you, Jerry took great joy in traveling through Northern Virginia, going to wineries, sampling the wine--I will say, he enjoyed that process of it as well--but collecting empirical price data. At the time, numerous arguments were raised as to why you should not allow the direct shipping of wine. One was that it would lead to minors drinking too much. I have to admit, Jerry and I laughed about that because I don't know that I have ever known a 15-year-old who wanted a nice, perky chardonnay. If you were dealing with home keg deliveries, that I will concede would raise an issue, but wine connoisseurs does not match any teenagers I have known. But we decided, well, rather than argue about it theoretically, let's find out. So we sent a letter to the alcohol control boards in each of the States that allowed direct shipment. We asked them a very simple question: Have you seen any problem? Have you encountered any problems with underage drinking as a result of this policy? And lo and behold, they all wrote back and said: No, we haven't seen it at all. It hasn't produced any of that. All that cam together in a report detailing the harm to consumers that came from these restrictions. I will tell you, just a couple of years later, the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case challenging those restrictions on the interstate sale of wine, striking them down, so that now you or I, if we want to order a bottle of wine for our home, we can go and do it on our phone and get it delivered at our home. The Supreme Court decision striking that down cited that wine report that Jerry and I had done more than a dozen times. As I said, Jerry believed in the power of truth, the power of facts, simply shining a light: This is hurting people. Jerry also took joy in that project. You know, Jerry was a fan of tiki cocktails and mixology and all of tiki culture, for that matter. He would proudly wear Hawaiian shirts--loud Hawaiian shirts that his daughter Kat had picked out for him. And he would wear them with the smile and joy he brought every day. He also made some of his own wine. For several years, Heidi and I enjoyed a bottle of cherry port that Jerry had made. He wasn't at risk of suddenly going into the winery business, but it was still, nonetheless, an enjoyable bottle of cherry port. Another project Jerry undertook at the FTC was examining education and school choice. I sat down with Jerry and another Ph.D. economist at the FTC, and we talked about school choice. And I asked the two of them, Jerry and Ken, I said: Let's examine the arguments that are raised against school choice. The most significant argument raised against school choice is that school choice will destroy the public schools; that it will harm the public schools if you give low-income kids access to scholarships. We sat down and said: All right, let's treat that argument seriously. Let's not dismiss that out of hand. Let's treat it seriously because if it were true, I would oppose school choice. That is a serious reason to oppose it. Let's find out if it is true. Jerry and Ken, as economists are want to do, they framed the problem more broadly. They said: What is the impact in a regulated monopoly or oligopoly when competition is introduced and, in particular, what is the impact on quality for the customers who remain with the incumbent providers, not the folks who go to the new entrants but the customers that just remain with the incumbent provider? They went through and they examined multiple other industries that had been regulated monopolies or oligopolies and for which there were abundant data. They looked at telecom; they looked at airlines; they looked at surface freight transportation. And as they detailed in each instance, when competition came in, quality went up. Competition was good. They then examined every empirical study that had been done to date of school choice programs that had been implemented across the country. They found that, unsurprisingly, again, that competition was good-- something we have seen in the two decades since; that when kids get options and competition is brought in and scholarships are available, that the quality of education in struggling public schools gets better and better and better. That article was published: ``Competition and quality in deregulated industries: Lessons for the education debate.'' It is another example of how Jerry recognized that facts, that reason can be powerful. When I left the FTC, Jerry went on to take over the Office of Policy Planning. He led that office of lawyers and economists who loved Jerry, loved his principles, loved his drive, loved his warmth, loved his humor. He was a professor for decades, beloved by his students. He spent decades at Mercatus studying regulations, studying the impact of overregulation, analyzing it. He just finished his tenure as the Chief Economist at the Federal Communications Commission. He was a brilliant guy. When he passed 2 weeks ago--an untimely death--talented economists from governments and the academy mourned Jerry, writing touching words. And in Discourse Magazine, published by the Mercatus Center, Ajit Pai, Chairman of the FTC, for whom Jerry worked as Chief Economist, wrote that he would always remember Jerry's warm smile. Jerry would always start off the conversation with a warm smile, which would put everyone at ease. He would then explain in a collegial tone how he thought we should proceed--wisdom that always informed our ultimate decisions. Smiling and speaking gently are small things, perhaps; but at a time when the currency of public policy discourse is too often pounding the table, Jerry's approach was memorable. He loved his work. He loved economics. He loved free markets. And he loved his family. Jerry was blessed with an incredible wife Sandy, who is a dear friend as well; their daughter Kat, whom they adore--an incredible loving, fun family. You know, when they were on road trips, Jerry would eat grilled cheese sandwiches made by his daughter in a toaster oven in the car because he loved Kat so much. Jerry, like myself, is also a big fan of the movie ``The Princess Bride.'' Jerry's death so early is inconceivable. God bless the memory of Dr. Jerry Ellig. God bless the Ellig family. In Heaven, the lion lies down with the lamb and, Jerry, may there be no transaction costs and may the Coase theorem fully operate. We love you, and we miss you, Jerry. God bless you. I yield the floor.