John Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, most of my people in Louisiana, I think, are probably much like your people in Maine. Most of my people--most of our people--they just get up every day and go to work. They obey the law. They pay their taxes. They try to do the right thing by their kids, try to teach their kids morals. And they try to save a little money for retirement as they enjoy living in what they believe is the greatest country in all of human history. But many of my people, Mr. President, are struggling. President Biden took office on January 20 of last year. So--what are we?--we are in day 490 of Build Back Better. From where many of my people sit, nothing has been built and nothing is back and nothing is better. There is not a more appropriate example of that than the cost of living, inflation. When President Biden took office, the cost of gasoline in my State was $2--$2 a gallon. It is between $4.15 and $4.25 right now. And it is not just gasoline, Mr. President. I mean, I don't need to tell you. A dozen eggs now costs $2.52. Ground beef is $5.41. A pound of chicken is $4.10. The price of oil, the price of gasoline affects so much in terms of our economy. I mean, most of our food and our clothes and our plastics, the things we use every day, are delivered by air, by van, by tanker, all of which use gasoline. Pharmaceuticals are affected by the price of oil. I don't think it is any secret that the Biden administration is trying to disrupt the production of oil in America. I think that is just a fact. We see it in the President canceling leases on Federal lands in the Gulf of Mexico, in ANWR. We see it from the difficult regulatory environment for oil and gas producers. The President has just promulgated new rules for the National Environmental Policy Act. If those new rules come to fruition, it will be impossible to open a new pipeline in America, and I think we have to be honest about that. Now, to be fair, the Biden administration is trying to disrupt the production of oil and gas, especially oil, for environmental reasons, of which we are both aware. But, instead, the Biden administration-- this seems curious to me--wants us to buy oil from foreign countries. And those foreign countries deliver their oil in tankers that use 2,000 gallons of fuel an hour and emit 8 tons of carbon dioxide into the environment per hour. The irony of this is rich. Inflation and oil--once again, I think so much of our inflation in all of the products that we need to maintain our standard of living today starts with the price of oil. Now, President Biden has said he has no control over the price of oil and, therefore, the price of gasoline. But, Mr. President, you can't have regulatory control over the drilling, the transporting, the storage, the refining, the trading, and the taxation of oil as the President does and say you have no control over the price of the commodity. I mean, that is just not true. Here is what most people in my State see, Mr. President. The President, in March of last year, sent every American a $1,400 stimulus check. And they were grateful, but then the Biden administration, for its next trick, crashed their 401(k)s, increased their food bills by as much--for some as much as $3,000 a year; increased their rent, for many as much as $2,000 a year; and increased their gas bills for many as much as $1,000 a year. And they don't see that as a good trade, Mr. President. And it is all derived from President Biden's energy policy, which is--here is his energy policy: wind, solar, and wishful thinking. It is just not realistic. And among other things, it is hurting our country. It is hurting my people in Louisiana desperately because of the rise in gasoline prices. I was very disappointed to see this week that the President has changed his approach to inflation and the price of gasoline. He has said we are now in a transition period, and he said it as if that were a positive thing. He said we are on a transition, and when we get through this transition, we are going to be stronger than ever because we are not going to have to rely on fossil fuels. And I am thinking, you know, I respect the President; but honestly, what planet did he parachute in from? I had just finished reading JPMorgan's energy report; and JPMorgan, looking out until 2030--not 2050, 2030--just 8 years from now--said, in 2030, at the rate we are going, the demand for energy in America will be 20 percent greater than the supply. You know what that is going to do to the price, Mr. President. The JPMorgan energy report said that, at a minimum, in 2030, 8 years from now, the demand for oil is going to be 10 percent higher in America and the demand for natural gas is going to be 18 percent higher. You know what that is going to do to prices. And the President is talking about this glorious transition as if this is going to last forever. I don't know about the good people of Maine, but the good people of Louisiana, they just can't afford it. And my people deserve better. Now, what is the answer? Here is my opinion: We have got to stop spending. The Federal Reserve has got to be given a chance to do its job. The U.S. Congress has a budget that we have set for the United States of America. We need to live within our budget. Except for defense spending, we need to freeze spending. We need to freeze it and give the Federal Reserve a chance to get this inflation under control. Thank you, Mr. President. My people deserve better. The people of America deserve better. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, in 2020, Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana, then Hurricane Marco hit us, then Hurricane Delta hit us, then Hurricane Zeta, then Hurricane Ida--all in a period of 2 years. Those storms caused $150 billion in damage. My amendment and Senator Cassidy's amendment will appropriate $2.5 billion in disaster aid to Louisiana. That would include $600 million for housing aid for Hurricanes Laura and Delta and $1.4 billion in housing aid for Hurricane Ida. The amendment would also provide for $500 million in funding to rebuild Louisiana ports. I am mindful of the fact that we should make sure this aid is paid for. I would remind everyone that through the heroic efforts of Senator Schatz and Senator Cantwell, in which I played a small part, that we forced our FCC not to give away the C-band to our telecommunications industry and, instead, auctioned it out, in which case it brought in $81 billion. And I think we can spare a little bit of that for people who lost their homes and businesses through no fault of their own. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for up to 2 minutes of debate; Senator Cassidy for 1 minute of debate; and Senator Schatz for 2 minutes of debate prior to the vote.

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I call up my amendment number--and Senator Cassidy's amendment No. 4983 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, as you know and as my colleagues know, our budget process is finally moving. I wanted to come down to the Senate floor today to say a few words about the need for disaster relief. I am going to talk about Louisiana but not just Louisiana. Two States in particular come to mind: Kentucky and New York. I hesitate to single out specific States because I don't want to denigrate the needs in other States. We have a number of States that need disaster relief, and the way to address that issue, it seems to me, is in our budget bill. As you know, Louisiana has, like many of our sister States, suffered many natural disasters throughout our history. My constituents, my people, are very tough. They are very tired, but they are very tough. The reason they are tired is because they have been through a nightmare in the past year and a half--I guess 2 years now. They faced what has felt to me like a nonstop series of hurricanes, of storms, of floods. No matter how many times you have been through a natural disaster, I can tell you, it doesn't get any easier to see your home demolished or to see your home flood or to see your business blown away. That is why, as we are working out a government budget deal--and I hope we can work out a budget deal--I want to make sure that Washington doesn't forget about my people in Louisiana or forget about the other Americans who, through no fault of their own, have sustained damage from a natural disaster and need a little help. The storms and the floods that hit Louisiana in the last year and a half are not just a distant memory for many of my people. Louisiana families are going to have to live with the consequences of everything the gulf has been throwing at us for a while. That means broken buildings. That means wrecked homes. That means destroyed businesses. That means debris cluttering the streets. And that doesn't even begin to describe the mental anguish of having a hurricane uproot your life and your livelihood and your kids' education and your ability to go to church on Sunday. I wanted to remind all of my colleagues today of the litany of catastrophes that have befallen my State. I mention this list not to ask for your pity. Let me say it again. Louisianians are tough. We are tough as a boot. We are tired. But I want my colleagues to understand that I am not talking about a simple rain shower here. My people have been through a lot. In August of 2020, Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana. Hurricane Laura destroyed or damaged more than 100,000 homes. Laura leveled or damaged almost every single building--every one--in the city of Lake Charles. Then came Hurricane Delta right behind Laura in October of 2020. Delta left more than half a million Americans--rather, Louisianians and Americans, of course--without power, not just for a few minutes, not just for a few hours, for days. That very same month, Hurricane Zeta tore through Louisiana. Zeta caused approximately 400,000 Louisianians to lose power and damaged many of their homes and businesses. A few months went by, and now we are in February of 2021. A historic winter storm hit my State, froze my State, and 37,000 people lost power. Now, even when temperatures warmed, we didn't find any relief because that May, historic rainfall soaked parts of my State. By parts, I don't mean a little bitty corner of my State; I mean big parts of my State. The rainfall drenched Lake Charles. Remember, I referenced Lake Charles with respect to Laura, which had already been battered. Twelve inches of rain hit Lake Charles. You know the result. If you get 12 inches of rain in a short period of time, as we did in Lake Charles, you are going to flood; I don't care if you live on Pikes Peak. Then Hurricane Ida made landfall in August of 2021. Ida was one of the worst hurricanes ever to devastate my State and one of the worst hurricanes ever to make landfall in the United States of America. The only hurricanes that have matched its strength in terms of wind speed are Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane of 1856. Wind speeds for Hurricane Ida were clocked at well over 100 miles per hour; in some cases, 120, 135 miles per hour. Ida damaged more than 90,000 homes and caused roughly a fifth of all the people in my State to lose power--and I don't mean to lose power for a little while; lose power for days, weeks, months. We are still catching our breath, as you can tell, but just as we were about to catch our breath, we had another hurricane, Hurricane Nicholas. It hit Louisiana with, depending on the area, between 5 and 10 inches of rain, and that was only a few weeks after Ida. Now, after all of these floods, after all of these hurricanes, after all of these storms, after all of these catastrophic rain events, after this terrible string of disasters, FEMA is implementing Risk Rating 2.0, a plan that is going to make flood insurance virtually unaffordable for the people of America and for the people of Louisiana. Louisiana families--again, we are not asking for your pity. We don't want pity in Louisiana. We are proud people. We are tough people. But we are tired, and we pay taxes like everybody else does. And just like some citizens in other States--Kentucky and New York, to name two--we need a little help. We need to address all of these needs--not just for my State but for the other States that need help--in our budget. If you add up the damage estimates from Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta, and Ida, we are talking about 130,000 homes destroyed. According to estimates from my State back home, from the Governor and the legislature, Louisiana still needs hundreds of millions of dollars to help fix the damage Laura and Delta inflicted on our housing and the small businesses of Southwest Louisiana. Frankly--I mentioned Ida and the severity of Ida--the damages for Ida will probably cost a little more than $2.5 billion. We in Louisiana have recovered from natural disasters before, and we are going to recover from these, but we are going to need help to rebuild, just like the people from Kentucky are going to need help; just like the people from New York are going to need help; just like the folks, my fellow citizens out West, are going to need help to recover from wildfires. I fought before to get disaster recovery relief for my people. I don't think I have ever voted against a disaster relief bill to help my neighbors in other States, and I am going to keep fighting. I urge my colleagues not to forget the people in Louisiana and the people of America who have suffered these natural disasters as we work out our budget. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I want to speak on two topics. First, on inflation, President Biden's economic policies, unfortunately, have water-boarded the budgets of most Americans and most Louisianians. We see the official statistics, and the statistics are that inflation is going up 7 percent. I understand that is what the experts say, but most Americans and most Louisianians know that inflation is much worse, much worse. I am sure that has been the experience of the good people of Georgia as well. I mean, I did some calculations before I came down today. From December of 2020 to December of 2021, the most recent numbers we have, gasoline is up 49.6 percent. In my State, in Louisiana, it costs Louisianians $27 more than it did last year to fill up the tank of a Chevy truck. That is every time they fill up the tank. Used car and truck prices have increased by 37.3 percent. In New Orleans, for example, in my State, used car prices were up 38.2 percent through last September. We all have to eat. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, up 12.5 percent. New vehicles, if you can find one, up 11.8 percent. Household furnishings and furniture, up 7.4 percent. Electricity, up 6.3 percent and headed higher. Clothes, 5.8 percent. Fruits and vegetables, 5 percent. Cereals and bakery products, 4.8 percent. And I could keep going. The truth is that most Americans are having to spend, on average, about $3,500 more per year because of President Biden's inflation. Now, to some people, that may not sound like much, that is a lot of money for people in my State. An extra $3,500 out of the budget of most working Americans is a lot. You know, I wish it weren't so, but this inflation has been caused by the Biden administration's economic policies. Inflation is not complicated. It is too much money chasing too few goods. President Biden's coronavirus bill was the tipping point. That is clear. Now, we all voted for a number of coronavirus bills, but the last coronavirus bill was way too expensive. It was unnecessary, and it wasn't a coronavirus bill. The President said: Oh, we have got an emergency. We have got an emergency. And then you read the bill and find out that the bill has got nothing to do with the coronavirus and the money is going to be spent over like a 10-year period. That is not an emergency. The current inflation has characteristics--I have not seen this--of both cost-push and demand-pull inflation, and it can be traced directly to the economic policies of the Biden administration. And the Biden administration keeps pushing. He keeps trying to stuff more diapers down the toilet. The Biden administration wants to throw another $5 trillion--not billion, not million, but trillion--of gasoline on the fire in the Build Back Better bill. And if we pass that, there will be another trillion dollars. I mean, this administration spends money like it was gully dirt. I have never seen anything like it. And then we have inflation. We have all this liquidity, which leads to inflation, and the Biden administration will not accept responsibility. President Biden has blamed inflation--he blamed it first on COVID. Now, I will admit COVID is spreading, but I don't see people walking around coughing inflation on each other. Then he blamed it--I think he blamed it on China for a while. Then President Biden blamed it on greedy corporations. I expect next he will say that inflation originated in a bat. But the truth of the matter is, it is not complicated. It originated with his spending policies, and it is just killing my people. It is killing them. And, as you know, we have a lot going on here in Washington and a lot of issues in front of us that are important--Ukraine, for example. The President shortly is going to nominate a new member to our U.S. Supreme Court. We have a multitude of bills that we are considering, and all of those are important. But inflation is important too, and it is hurting the American people, and it is hurting the least among us the most. Yes, we are seeing inflation in terms of services, but we are seeing inflation more in terms of goods, and low-income Americans, as you well know, spend proportionately more of their income on goods than they do on services. The President's policies, I regret to have to say, have administered a sucking chest wound on the budgets of the people in my State and the people of America, and it has got to stop.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to speak for up to 15 minutes, Senator Marshall for up to 5 minutes, and Senator Menendez for up to 5 minutes before the scheduled rollcall votes.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, my friend Senator Schumer, and some of my Democratic friends would like to change one of the enduring institutions of this institution. They want to get rid of the filibuster--and I call it the 60-vote threshold. And a reasonable person might ask: Well, why not? Institutions change all the time. Change is the law of life. I will tell you why not. I want you to hear these words of wisdom: We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis-- Getting rid of the filibuster. the checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option-- Getting rid of the filibuster. the checks and balances which say if you get 51 percent of the vote you do not get your way 100 percent of the time-- If you get 51 percent of the vote, you do not get your way 100 percent of the time in the U.S. Senate-- that is what we call abuse of power. There is, unfortunately, a whiff of extremism in the air. Those are words of wisdom by Senator Chuck Schumer, May 18, 2005. If we change the 60-vote threshold, if we change this institution which is part of the institution of the U.S. Senate, it will gut this body like a fish--like a fish. And everybody in this body knows that if that is accomplished, our institution will look like a scene out of ``Mad Max.'' America is a--God, what a wonderful place. It is a big, wide, open, diverse, sometimes dysfunctional, oftentimes imperfect, but good country with good people in it. And I want to emphasize the diversity part. What constitutes the good life in my State may not constitute the good life in Connecticut or in California or in Florida or in Maine. And that is one of the reasons that we have and have had the institution of the 60-vote threshold. If you are going to make a law that is going to impact the entirety of this big, wide, open, diverse country, then you ought to have 60 votes because if you only have 51 votes, 51 percent of the vote does not get your way 100 percent of the time. It has worked for a long time. Now, I don't want to sound like I am lecturing, because I get it. I get it. I get that my Democratic friends and some of my Republican friends, who, frankly, are probably thinking about this--but I get that my Democratic friends want to--that they want to serve their President. We all want to serve our President. But you especially want to serve your President when the President is of your own party. I remember when President Trump--now like President Biden--said: Change the filibuster. Get rid of it. I can't get my bills passed. We said no. And by ``we,'' I mean Republicans and Democrats. Here is the letter right here. It was led by Senator Collins, a Republican, and Senator Chris Coons. I signed it. We said no. Now President Biden wants to do the same thing. That is what Presidents do. They try to pass their bills. So I get it. To my Democratic colleagues and any Republican colleagues who are thinking about voting for Senator Schumer's change of heart, I want to tell them: I get it too. I get it. I know the frustration. I have felt it. I have talked about it on this floor before. You know, we all come up here for one reason: to make this country better. And we are ready to go to work, and we want to debate, and we want to decide. We didn't come up here for delay. We didn't come up here for stultification. So I get it. I get the frustration. But you don't satisfy those aims by not following these words of wisdom by Senator Schumer. Now, once passions have cooled, I don't want my words to be construed as an assertion that everything about our body is perfect. There are changes, once passions have cooled and the filibuster is intact, the 60-vote threshold is intact--I use ``60-vote threshold'' because ``filibuster'' to some has negative connotations, and it is a positive rule, not a negative rule. But once passions have cooled, there are a lot of questions that we need to sit down and talk about, and if my Democratic friends want to talk about them, I will be there. Call the meeting. I will pounce on it like a ninja. I mean, there are questions that we need to be asking ourselves about this body; how we can make it better. Do we give our majority leader too much authority? It is not personal. Do we give our minority leader too much authority? It is not personal, but that is a fair question. Every Member of this body knows about the diminution of our committee system. Why do we even have committees anymore, for God's sake? I mean, you go work your committee, and you get a bill out, and it is a bipartisan bill, and you are feeling all toasty and ready to go, and you learn pretty quick around this place that doesn't matter. It is probably dead as fried chicken if the majority leader doesn't want to bring it up. And that is true whether the majority leader is Republican or Democrat. We need to have an honest conversation about the diminution of the committee process. Our amendment rules. My God, there is not a single Member of this body who really understands those rules. I mean, if you ask--pick 10 Senators at random and say: Tell me the truth, now. Do you understand the rules of the Senate about how to offer an amendment? Nine out of ten will tell you no, and the tenth is lying. We ought to have an amendment process that looks like somebody designed it on purpose, and we don't. We ought to talk about that. We ought to talk about the fact that this body--it didn't happen just yesterday--has ceded an enormous amount of our power, under a Madisonian system of separation of powers, to the executive branch and to the administrative staff. After this is over, if any of my Democratic friends want to have that talk and see if we can't come up with a way to improve this body and ask some hard questions, I will be there happily, and I hope we can make progress. But to my colleagues, I say: Please, please, don't do this. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, had there been a rollcall vote on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 323, Marcela Escobari, of Massachusetts, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, I would have voted no. Had there been a rollcall vote on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 519, Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, of New York, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Spain, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Principality of Andorra, I would have voted no.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about two prominent Louisianans who are either transitioning or have transitioned into new ways to serve our State. And I am not unbiased about these individuals, as you will shortly be able to tell. But I think most Louisianans who are fairminded will agree with what I am about to say. The first person I want to talk about--and I have known both of these folks for a long time--is Rolfe McCollister. Rolfe did own--he has sold a number of his companies. What did he do? Well, let me just say generally, first, Rolfe is a very astute and successful business person. He is one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent, publisher in Louisiana. He started from scratch a periodical called the Baton Rouge Business Report, and from that, Rolfe expanded. I mean, the list of his publications is very impressive. He started with the Baton Rouge Business Report. He publishes 10/12 Industry Report, 225 Magazine, inRegister, Daily Report, 225 Dine, Best of 225 This Week. He also started a very important tradition, which is looked forward to in my State, called the Business Awards and Hall of Fame. He started the influential Women in Business, and he started the Top 40 Under 40 list, to recognize some of our younger citizens. Rolfe is retiring effective at the first of the year, and despite all of Rolfe's success in the business world--he is also a banker and he does other things, all self-made. Aside from his success in the world of publishing and journalism, the most important thing Rolfe McCollister has is his passion. Now, he is smart. He is very intelligent, a graduate of LSU, extraordinary character, very dependable. If you need something done, you go to Rolfe. Trustworthy. But it is his passion that has most impressed me about Rolfe McCollister. I first met Rolfe in 1987. I knew of him, but I met him. Louisiana had elected a brand-new reform Governor, a former Congressman by the name of Governor Buddy Roemer. Like many of our reform Governors, Buddy was to serve one term. And when Governor Roemer took over, gosh, the State was a mess. We had, I think it was, a $7 or $8 billion budget. We had a $1.1 billion structural deficit. When Governor Roemer became Governor, we couldn't make payroll. Our schools were a mess. We had no charter schools in Louisiana. Our universities were floundering. And when you don't have adequate funding, universities tend to cannibalize each other. They were all competing for the dollars. It was like Lebanon; you didn't know which faction was going to be the winner today. Our campaign finance in Louisiana was a mess. At that time, it was legal, and not out of the ordinary, for somebody to put $200,000 cash in a suitcase and take it to a political candidate, and it was perfectly legal for that candidate to take it and perfectly legal for that donor to give it. Governor Roemer set out to try to fix some of these problems, and by his side was Rolfe McCollister, not in a paid position. I was working for Governor Roemer then as his lawyer. Rolfe just spent all his time helping, and we needed him, because Governor Roemer would listen to him, and Rolfe was there every step of the way. And after Governor Roemer got beat, Rolfe didn't stop. He has never stopped. He has been a leader in the charter school movement in Louisiana for as long as I can remember. He believes that competition makes all of us better, and it will make our public schools better. He did a stint on the LSU board of supervisors, which runs our flagship university, LSU. Rolfe didn't ever hold back. I mean, he said exactly what he thought about what was working at LSU and what wasn't working, and Rolfe made a lot of people mad. But Rolfe always believed, as did Governor Roemer, and, frankly, as do I--I learned a lot from both of them--that if you make the right people mad, you are doing your job. And this was all because of his passion, because he cared so much about Louisiana, to make it better. He didn't make any money off of it; it cost him money. And I am sure his family said: Hey, Rolfe, you know, can you come home a little earlier tonight, you know? But Rolfe is just a fine person, and I am very proud to have him in Louisiana. When I count my blessings, I count Rolfe twice, and he is transitioning to a new role. He sold his company to his partner, who is another great guy, Julio Melara. But Rolfe is going to still be involved in my State, and I just want to thank him. Tribute to Melinda Deslatte Mr. President, the second person I want to mention briefly--totally different in terms of the way she contributes to our State--her name is Melinda Deslatte. Melinda is the new--I want to get her title right--research director, which is the No. 2 position at the Public Affairs Research Council. The Public Affairs Research Council is a big deal in Louisiana. I think it is our oldest think tank. It is one of the premier think tanks. They are not Republicans; they are not Democrats. I don't know what they are, except smart and straightforward. They periodically publish white papers, exhaustively researched, about issues like the environment, fiscal policy, education. Every year when we amend our constitution--and, unfortunately, we amend our State constitution just about every year--PAR puts out a publication explaining--not advocating for or against, but explaining--the amendments. I read their white papers and their writings like clockwork. The No. 2 position there is research director. So it is important. Melinda Deslatte is the new research director. I think Melinda has taken over the Public Affairs Research Council, and I am bittersweet about it. I am very happy for PAR because they got one of our best and our brightest, but I am really sad for journalism. Melinda ran the Associated Press in Baton Rouge for 22 years--22 years. And, for me, the three things that you have to have to be a respected journalist are, first, you have got to have brains. Melinda has brains aplenty. I am not saying she is the smartest person I have ever met, but to paraphrase Coach Bum Phillips, the list she is on, it doesn't take long to call the roll. You have got to be willing to work very hard to be a successful journalist, and, boy, Melinda has a work ethic. But you have also got to be fair, and Melinda Deslatte was--she is now at PAR--the fairest journalist I have ever dealt with. I don't know what her politics are. I never asked her. I don't even know if she is in a party. And I have been on the long end and the short end of some of her pieces. She was unspinnable. By that, I mean it is not that she wouldn't listen. You could call Melinda. She was a great listener. You could sit there and talk to her and give her your speech for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and if she wasn't on deadline, she would listen to you. But I always got the impression it didn't do any good because she was so smart and so hard-working and so dedicated to her profession that she was just going to call it like she saw it, and she did. She did. She was not an agenda journalist. She was a real journalist. And I know, you know, that Melinda is probably not going to like me saying this. Melinda is the kind of journalist that if a politician praised her, you know, it is like: I must be doing something wrong here. You know, you don't want too much praise from politicians. But she has left her job. So I feel like I can do it. And she has gone on to another way of helping our State. I wish all of our journalists were Melinda Deslatte. I wish all of them were Melinda Deslatte. But, anyway, thank you, Rolfe. Thank you, Melinda. Thank you both for giving so much to Louisiana. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to talk about the American Taxpayer and Medicare Act, of which I am a sponsor. Cosponsoring this legislation with me are Senator Graham, Senator Hagerty, Senator Tim Scott, Senator Rick Scott, Senator Blackburn, Senator Hawley, Senator Cotton, Senator Boozman, and others who are likely to join. I am going to make a few remarks about the bill, and a number of my colleagues would also like to comment about my bill, so I will be yielding to them. At the end of my colleagues' remarks, I will have a motion to make. As a result of the American Rescue Plan, working in conjunction with the Budget Control Act of 2011, there are cuts scheduled to take effect in 2022 with respect to Medicare and with respect to our farmers. Medicare specifically, unless my bill passes and unless this body takes action, will be cut $36 billion. Those Medicare cuts will include--but they are not limited to--they will include cuts to cancer treatments for our elderly. Those cuts would reduce laboratory fees and analyses that our seniors depend on every single day. For the reasons I just referenced, our farmers are also going to get cut unless we take action--specifically, the crop insurance programs on which our farmers rely. We are recovering from a pandemic, as we all know. Now is not the time, in my judgment, to put this burden on our seniors and on our farmers. Our seniors, part of the ``greatest generation,'' don't deserve them, and our farmers, the backbone of America, don't deserve these cuts either. In fact, America was born on the farm, and I think we ought to keep that in mind. At this time, I would yield to the senior Senator from Arkansas, Senator Boozman.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I really appreciate my colleague's remarks, I do. I don't agree with his objection, but I appreciate it. I just want to say a couple more words. I didn't make a deal. Now, let me say it again. Let me say it a different way. I don't hate anybody. Lord knows I look for grace wherever I can find it. I like every one of my colleagues; I really do. The Senate is the most interesting group of people I have ever been around. I am not part of management. I am labor, and I meant what I said. I belong in labor because I don't always fit in, and I do believe it is one of my best qualities. The truth of the matter is--and this is what we are disagreeing over--President Biden, Senator Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, my other Democratic friends have proposed the Build Back Better bill. Now, any economist with a pulse will tell you that it is going to cost about $5 trillion without the gimmicks. It is going to raise taxes a couple of trillion. We will probably end up having to borrow another 3 trillion to pay for it. We will have to borrow the money. We don't have the 3 trillion. We don't even have 5 percent of it. Now, I think that the bill represents a spending taxation and borrowing orgy that we don't need, but I understand my Democratic colleagues disagree. I get that. My Democratic friends can't pass and implement the bill without raising the debt limit. That is just a fact, because they won't be able to borrow the money. Now, if I don't support the bill, why do I want to support allowing them to borrow the money, especially when Senator Schumer--my friend Senator Schumer--can do it on his own? He can do it before the weekend is out. All he has got to do is do a simple amendment to the budget resolution. What am I missing here? And I know a deal has been made and some people are going to vote for it. You are not looking at one of them. And I respect their right to make a deal, but I didn't make a deal. But I have been put in the position of saying: OK, Kennedy, we are going to show you. You have got to choose between keeping your word to your people or cutting Medicare. And we wonder why Congress polls right up there with skim milk. That is why they look around, they see frauds and liars in every direction. I really regret that my bill didn't pass because it would have protected our elderly, and I do support protecting our elderly. And it would have protected our farmers, and I do support protecting our farmers. And this so-called deal puts them both at risk.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, Americans may be poor since President Biden took office, but they are not stupid. They look around Washington, DC, and they see liars and they see frauds in every direction. Now, I don't think a single member of this body supports cutting Medicare or hurting our farmers, especially not at this moment. I don't. I don't. And I don't think any of my Republican colleagues or any of my Democratic colleagues do as well. But a deal has been made. A deal has been made to give us--some of us see it this way anyway--a choice between voting for a heart attack or cancer. You either have to give up your principles on the debt limit or you have to vote to cut Medicare and hurt our farmers, and no one wants to do that. I understand that people disagree over the debt limit, but there is no disagreement in this body over not cutting Medicare and not hurting our farmers. Now, I am labor. I am not part of management. I don't want to be part of management. I wouldn't be good at management because I don't always fit in. It is not one of my best qualities. In fact, it is my best quality, and that is why I brought this bill. As Senator Hawley said, much more eloquently than I could, the disagreement that reasonable people are having over the debt limit has been conflated in a cynical attempt to fool the American people by putting them both in a bill that we are going to shortly be asked to vote on. And we are going to be asked to give the American people either a heart attack or cancer. You have to choose. And I don't want to make that choice, and I am not going to make that choice. And that is why I brought this bill. I do not agree with my Democratic friends about the debt limit. I don't support Build Back Better. I understand many of my Democratic friends do. I understand President Biden does. I understand Senator Schumer does. I understand Speaker Pelosi does. And I respect that, but I don't support it. Now, they are going to try to pass Build Back Better, and they are going to try to implement it. But they can't do it without raising the debt ceiling. Now, if I don't support the Build Back Better bill, why would I want to allow them to borrow the money to implement the Build Back Better bill? I don't, and I am not going to break my word and vote to do that. If my colleagues want to do that, that is their business. I don't tell people how to vote. If I am ever asked how to vote, I rarely--I almost always say, follow your heart, but just take your brain with you. And that is why I brought this bill. And I want to make it very clear, and you can write this down and take it home to mama, I do not support cutting Medicare, and I do not support cutting farmers. I do support keeping my word to the American people. When I tell them I am going to do something, by God, I am going to stick. And I am not going to be scared away by some cynical deal that was made in Washington, DC. Now, Madam President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3344--the bill about which I have been speaking, and my colleagues, Protecting the American Taxpayer and Medicare Act--at this time, it is at the desk. 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. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we talk a lot in this Chamber, as well we should, about the least among us, about how we can protect and lift up the powers. And that is a good thing. I can't think of any person who has less power than a potential human life, than an unborn baby. Now, Roe v. Wade is, of course, about abortion. We know that. But it is also about something else. Roe v. Wade is also about--it is about federalism. Roe v. Wade is also about the American people. Roe v. Wade is about whether a finite group of the managerial elite--and by the ``managerial elite'' I mean the entrenched politicians, the bureaucracy, the media, the academics, the corporate phonies, all of whom think they are smarter and more virtuous than the American people--should have the right to make moral decisions for the American people, instead of the American people making those decisions for themselves. That is really what Roe v. Wade is about. Now, I am pro-life and I am anti-Roe v. Wade. So I want to say up front: I do have an opinion. But even pro-choice legal scholars who believe in legalized abortion on demand understand, as does every fairminded person who knows a lawbook from a J. Crew catalog, that Roe v. Wade is one of the most arbitrary, it is one of the most ad hoc, and it is one of the most poorly reasoned decisions in the history of the United States. In Roe v. Wade, as you know, Mr. President, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a generalized right to privacy, not explicit in the Constitution, means that a woman has the virtually unfettered discretion to terminate a human life--some, to be fair, would say a potential human life--before viability. What is viability? As my colleagues talked about, that is a really, really good question. But I digress. Anyone who knows a lawbook from a J. Crew catalog also knows that there is absolutely no foundation--not in the text, not in the structure, not in the history, not in the tradition of the Constitution--for a constitutional right to abortion, and certainly not on the basis of some unmoored general right to privacy that is not enunciated in the Constitution. And don't even get me started on Roe v. Wade's trimester analysis and the ruling. Try to find ``trimester'' in the U.S. Constitution. You won't. You can't. The truth is--and people on both sides of this issue who are fairminded and reasonably objective--and by that, I mean can see the other point of view. The truth is that Roe v. Wade's constitutional right to an abortion is a 48-year-old, judge-invented rule that represents the U.S. Supreme Court winging it. Now, I know what we were told. We were told back in the 1970s: Look, we have got to have a national rule to settle this issue. Only Washington, DC, can settle this issue. We have to have a rational rule. We need some peace in the land. We need consensus. How is that working out for us? Roe v. Wade didn't settle anything. Now, in the Dobbs case, which the U.S. Supreme Court is about to hear, the U.S. Supreme Court has a really rare opportunity to say, as Justice Scalia wrote in one of his opinions, that value judgments made on behalf of people should be voted on by those people and not dictated from Washington, DC. In the Dobbs case, the United States Supreme Court has the rare opportunity to say what we all know, and that is that America is this big, wide-open, diverse, sometimes messy, sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes imperfect, but always trying-to-get-better group of good people. That is what America is. And we don't always agree--especially not on value judgments, especially not on the ultimate value judgment--like when it is appropriate to take a human life. That is why we get to vote. That is why we get to vote, and that is why we have elected representatives who oftentimes vote on our behalf--elected representatives who also can be unelected if we don't like how they vote. And, finally, in Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court has the rare opportunity to defederalize and deconstitutionalize abortion and return the issue to the States, where it was before Roe v. Wade. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Dobbs, does not have the opportunity--and this is important--to say ``no right to an abortion in America.'' Let me say that again because some of the proponents of Roe v. Wade, I think, have shaded the truth on this. At issue before the Supreme Court in Dobbs is not the right to have an abortion. It is the right--the issue before the Supreme Court in Dobbs is, What is the appropriate political form to make these value judgments? Is it the government or is it the people? And I hope that the U.S. Supreme Court takes advantage of this rare opportunity before it. I yield to the Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Gosh, Mr. President, I wish I didn't have to give this talk. I think it is a bipartisan observation that, unfortunately, Americans are paying a lot more for just about everything. I asked my staff to put together some inflation numbers, and they are just breathtaking: gasoline, up 50 percent; rental cars, up 42.9 percent; you need a used car or truck, they are up 26 percent; a turkey, 20.2 percent; bacon, 20.2 percent; beef, 20.1 percent; pork chops, 15.9 percent; bedroom furniture, 12 percent higher than last year; eggs, up 11.6 percent; televisions, up 10 percent; frozen fruits and vegetables, up 7\1/2\ percent; chicken, up 8.8 percent; shoes, up 8 percent; baby food, up 8 percent; children's clothes, up 7.6 percent. And I could keep going. Unbelievable. Now, I believe in calling them like I see them. I think most fairminded Americans know that President Biden is responsible for this inflation. You don't have to be Einstein's cousin to figure that out. But put the politics aside. The shame of all this is that the burden of these price increases is falling on the backs of the American people, and while Washington is obsessed with the politics of it, the American people and the people in my State have to bear the cost. A lot of people, Mr. President, as you well know, just can't afford to pay 50 percent more to fill up their gas tanks. They can't afford to have to stop and go arrange a bank loan to go to the gas station or to the grocery store. Unfortunately, for Americans in my State and your State and across the country, here with winter coming on, the cost of heating homes is also going up just in time for temperatures to fall. So the cost of heating is going up, and the temperatures are going down. A lot of families are going to have to shell out up to 30 percent more for natural gas than they did this past year. Ask them if their income went up 30 percent. As our days grow shorter, the economic landscape, unfortunately, is getting darker. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It is a cherished American holiday. But even the holiday that Americans observe in order to count our blessings is coming with new hardships. According to the New York Times, Thanksgiving 2021, and I quote, ``could be the most expensive meal in the history of the holiday.'' As I just mentioned a few seconds ago, frozen turkey is going to set you back 20 percent more than it did last year. If you like gravy with your turkey, get ready to pay 7 percent more for gravy. Maybe you don't eat meat. Maybe you are a vegan. Unfortunately, frozen vegetables are also going to cost you 7 to 7\1/2\ percent more, and the high prices only apply if you can find food in the supermarkets. Some of these food products, you can't even find with Google. There is no guarantee that the cranberry sauce and the sweet potatoes will be in stock come dinnertime. Now, this is America. This is 2021. This isn't the Soviet Union, 30, 40, 50 years ago. My God, Washington ought to hide its head in a bag. The official general inflation rate is 6.2 percent higher than it was last October, and that happens to be the largest increase in over 30 years. But we all know, and I can tell you, real people in the real world who go to the grocery store and the clothing store and pay their insurance bill and go try to buy an automobile know that it is not 6.2 percent. It is a lot higher. I need to ask a question, though. Are you really surprised? Are you really surprised that prices are rising when the Biden administration is printing money, when the Biden administration is exploding our debt, when the Biden administration is forfeiting America's energy independence, when the Biden administration is paying people to watch Netflix instead of producing the goods we need, when the Biden administration is ignoring gridlock in our supply chain? The American people aren't surprised. For months--for months--the White House has turned gaslighting Americans about the inflation crisis into an art form. White House officials pretend inflation--if you ask them--oh, it is just temporary--a temporary problem. Temporary, a rat's rear end. It is actually a soul-crushing, job-killing tax on working Americans. That is what inflation is. Every time you go to the grocery store, your taxes go up. And inflation hits lower-income and middle-income families the hardest. And anyone who doesn't believe that should ask Secretary Kerry whether fuel prices have grounded his private jet. Of course not. He is rich. He has got a private jet. He doesn't feel it. You know who feels it? The moms and dads in this country who get up every day, who go to work and obey the law and pay their taxes and try to do the right thing by their kids and try to save a little money for retirement. That is who pays this tax that the economists call inflation. This inflation didn't just appear out of nowhere. I mean, any economist with a pulse knows where this inflation came from. Inflation comes from too much money chasing too few goods. And when you have an administration, as we do with the Biden administration, that spends money like it was gully dirt, whose mantra is, ``We can't possibly spend enough taxpayer money, there is not enough hours in the day''--of course, you don't have inflation. Of course, you don't have inflation. Now, what is President Biden doing tonight? Well, I have noticed that the Biden administration, when it comes to economics and other areas as well, they never make the same mistake twice. They make it five or six times, just to be sure. So how's the Biden administration going to deal with this economic cancer of inflation which is killing the American people? Their idea is: Let's go pass a spending orgy bill--they call it reconciliation--of epic, epic proportions, chockful of welfare blowouts when we can't afford the social programs we have now. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? And one White House official claimed earlier this week that the President's--he calls it a $1.75 trillion bill. It is going to end up, we all know, being a lot more than that. He says it will actually reduce inflation. Right--and those aren't hogs in the hog lot. Just wait. The fact is, unless you were in the quad playing Frisbee during Econ 101, you know this is truth. The fact is that massive government spending has kept workers on the sidelines and has fueled inflation. But the only comfort the permanent Washington types are sending to folks gathered around a historically expensive Thanksgiving table is that more--not less--more of the same insane policies are coming down the pipeline through what the President calls the Build Back Better bill. And I think most Americans call it the Build Back Broker bill. Have you looked at the bill? I looked at the House bill a bit. I started reading it. I am probably going to go broke just reading the thing. Neosocialists love this bill. They love it like the devil loves sin, but the American people aren't going to love it. Louisianans are not going to love it. Louisianans love their families, and they just want to provide for them, especially at Thanksgiving and at Christmas. And they can't do it with inflation raging. This Thanksgiving, what most Americans need the most is relief--not just relief from inflation, but relief from bad leadership. Now, I want my friends in the Biden White House to know that I am genuinely interested in working with them to solve America's inflation problem, but you are not going to do it by spending more money. You are not going to do it by throwing gasoline on the fire. The first rule is to do no harm. Do no harm, and by that, I mean that my Democratic friends should stop trying to ram this multitrillion dollar tax-and-spend bill through Congress. And they should stop for two reasons: Americans don't want it, and Americans can't afford it. So this Thanksgiving, Madam President--and I hope you have a good one--I hope my Democratic friends will give up on tying millstones around the neck of the American economy. I hope they will give up fueling inflation with another extremist spending orgy bill. And if they would do that, if they would just do that, Americans could sit down to eat next Thursday and give thanks that compassion and common sense have finally prevailed in Washington, DC, where, frankly, on most issues, common sense is illegal. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I wanted to say a couple of words about a couple of friends. I really miss Mike Enzi. I am referring, of course, to Senator Mike Enzi, our colleague who served the people of Wyoming and the people of America for 24 years in this body. We lost him a couple of months ago. I tried to get out to his beautiful State to say good-bye, and I couldn't. I couldn't rearrange things. I just--I miss him. I was thinking about Mike this morning. I had a meeting over here early--not too early, about 8 o'clock. I walked from my little, overpriced Capitol Hill apartment, through the park, to the Capitol. The park I am talking about is just east of the Capitol. Mike would always walk through the park when he would come to vote. Not always, but many times he would leave his office and get his exercise and enjoy God's beautiful day by walking through the park. I walked with him a couple of times. Mike was so many things, but if I had to describe him in three words, it would be ``decent,'' ``smart,'' and ``one of the best fishermen I have ever known.'' I want to talk about the decent part and what Mike Enzi meant to me. I mean, I can talk about his background and the fact that he was a giant among Senators and how everybody respected him, but everybody knows that. When I first got here--I think all new Senators feel this way. The Members of this body are very, very smart, and they are very, very driven. And at least for me, when I first got here, it was a very intimidating place. I think that is true for most Senators. I think if you ask all 100 Senators what it was like their first month here, 99 of them would tell you that they were intimidated. The 100th would be lying because this is an intimidating place. But, you know, Mike went out of his way, I remember--I guess he could tell I was insecure--to reassure me. You know, every few weeks I would see him in the cloakroom or I would see him in committee, and he would say: Kennedy, you know, you are making a real contribution to this group. Well, of course, I wasn't, but it made me feel so good and so more sure of myself. And it also made me realize, when I reflect back on it, what a decent thing it was for Mike to do. I mean, he had been here 24 years. He had his pick of chairmanship. I mean, he really was a giant in this body. I was green as a gourd, brandnew; and he didn't have to do that, but he did. I never told him how much that meant to me, and I really regret not telling him that now. I feel so bad for Diana--just the most wonderful person in the world. I don't know Mike's children--Amy, Emily, and Brad--but I have a feeling, knowing that they are the children of Mike Enzi and Diana, that they are three wonderful Americans. I just wanted to say that. I was thinking about Mike today. I miss him.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I rise in support of Senator McConnell's legislation. On August 27, 2020, just 13 months ago, Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana. Forty-five days later, Hurricane Delta hit Louisiana. Nineteen days after that, Hurricane Zeta hit Louisiana. We got a little bit of a break. Four months after that, we were part of the historic winter storm, about which we have all read. And then 3 months after that, we had a historic rainfall event in Louisiana, up to 12 inches, unrelated to a hurricane. Three months after that, Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana. And 2 weeks later, Hurricane Nicholas hit Louisiana. Every one of these storms was over 100 miles per hour sustained winds. The wind for Hurricane Ida was clocked at its highest at 185 miles per hour. If you add up all the damages, it is about $150 billion in 13 months. Now, other States were impacted by these storms, but Louisiana took it full in the face. This was as brutal a blow as nature has inflicted on an American State in modern history. We will be coughing up bones for years, and this legislation is going to help us recover. In fact, this legislation does every single thing that my colleagues Senator Cassidy and Senator McConnell talked about that my Democratic friends want to do, everything: keeps government open, maintains flood insurance, gives disaster relief not just to Louisiana but to my friends in the Northeast part of our country, to my friends on the west coast. It does help my State, Southwest, Southeast, North Louisiana, but we are not the only ones. Senator McConnell's legislation does everything except one thing, one thing: increasing the debt ceiling that Senator Schumer can do in a matter of days on his own. Why are we fighting over this? You know, nature abhors a moron. It is moronic for us to be having this fight when it can be so easily solved. Everything in Senator McConnell's legislation can easily pass this body with 70 votes, and we know it. And then Senator Schumer can come right behind by simply amending the budget resolution, and our problems are solved. Nature abhors a moron. Let's don't be moronic. I yield back to Senator McConnell.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, after 20 weeks of gestation, medical science has determined that children in their mother's womb feel pain. To channel my good friend and the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, you can go to the appropriate professor at any of the universities in your State, and they will tell you that is so. This amendment will allow for penalties for those who perform elective--elective--abortions on unborn children who are at least 20 weeks in gestation. This amendment would not apply to abortions in the case of rape, of incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I call up my amendment 3758 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President. Vote on Amendment No. 3758

Mr. KENNEDY. Do I have additional time, Mr. President?

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 3753 and ask that it be reported by number and, while they are doing that, for someone to check on Senator Tillis. (Laughter.)

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, this amendment will prohibit any changes to the tax treatment of like-kind exchanges.