Rick Scott

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, immediately after Hurricane Ian passed, I made clear that I would fight for and support a standalone disaster aid package to get Floridians the assistance they need to recover. On September 30, just 2 days after Ian made its catastrophic landfall near Fort Myers, FL, I wrote to my colleagues urging them to work with me on getting much needed aid to Florida families as quickly as possible. Immediately after, the aid Floridians desperately needed was delayed so that it could be stuffed into this massive and reckless $1.7 trillion omnibus bill. While that is disappointing enough, I have now heard from Floridians, especially our growers in agriculture, that without changes, this disaster aid will not be delivered in the most efficient and effective way possible to ensure their recovery. We should take this opportunity to act on their concerns today and make needed changes that ensure this Federal disaster aid does as much good as possible. There is no reason to delay this further. I urge my colleagues to stand with those recovering from these terrible storms and the folks who put the food on our tables. Please support this bill.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. I ask for the yeas and nays. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, first, I want to thank my colleague from Ohio for his commitment to Ukraine, to get knowledgeable about Ukraine, what the needs are, and for continued support for lethal aid for Ukraine. And I hope this body continues to support Ukraine. Unanimous Consent Request Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill, which 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. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, I have been in the Senate about 4 years now, and I am not sure I can recall a day before this one that so perfectly exposed Washington's total dysfunction. Last night or I guess this morning just before 1:30 a.m., Senate leadership finally dropped the $1.7 trillion Pelosi-Schumer spending bill--all 4,155 pages of it. In typical Washington fashion, hostages have been taken to pressure Members of this body to approve this bill without a reasonable opportunity to review, debate, or amend it. Most important to me are the Florida families fighting hard to recover from Hurricanes Ian and Nicole who are being used as pawns in exchange for approval of the massive and reckless $1.7 trillion Pelosi- Schumer spending bill. Immediately after the storm passed, I made clear that I would fight for and support a stand-alone disaster aid funding package to get Floridians the assistance they needed to recover. I even wrote to Senators Leahy and Shelby, the Senate top appropriators, urging them to work with me on getting much needed aid to Florida families as quickly as possible in a stand-alone disaster supplemental bill. My letter to them was written on September 30, 2 days after Ian made its catastrophic landfall near Ft. Myers, FL, but the aid Floridians desperately needed was delayed and turned into a hostage taken by Senate leadership so it could be stuffed in this massive omnibus bill. To tell folks in the Sunshine State who are still picking up the pieces left by Ian and Nicole that this aid only comes as part of the 4,000-plus page omnibus spending bill is sickening, and I am not going to stand for it. Government has an essential role to play in our society and core responsibilities to fulfill. We all pay taxes so that government has the resources to keep its promises to us and provide core services like national defense, Social Security, and Medicare. If this spending bill helped balance the budget and only contained the things that the Federal Government should be responsible for, I would gladly vote for it without hesitation, but that is not what we are facing here. When I ran for the Senate in 2018, I promised Florida families to make Washington work for them. That doesn't mean zero Federal spending; it means responsible spending by a Congress that is accountable to taxpayers who fund it. That is how we governed when I was Governor of Florida, and the result was better returns for our State's families. Because we governed responsibly, the economy grew. A growing economy meant we could cut taxes and pay off State debt while making record investments in education, environment, and public safety. Washington can work this way, too, but not while failed politicians refuse to be accountable with your money. The truth is, at more than 4,000 pages, the Pelosi-Schumer spending bill has a lot of policies and funding priorities I actually fought for this year. It has more funding to preserve and protect Florida's Everglades, funding to support our military, and, yes, disaster aid for the families and communities devastated by Hurricanes Ian and Nicole. I support all these things, but I will never support the other parts of the bill that continue gross, reckless spending of taxpayer dollars. These are things like $2.3 million so the Department of Education can reach out to student loan borrowers and urge them to apply for Biden's illegal debt forgiveness program that has been blocked by the Federal courts, more than 7,500 Member projects or earmarks, funding for Biden to continue supersizing the IRS with 87,000 new agents, and continuation of policies that force every family to give the IRS visibility into their personal finances. We just found out this terrible bill prohibits Border Patrol from using this funding to do its job and secure the border. The bill says: None of the funds provided in subsection (1)(A) shall be used to acquire, maintain, or extend border technology and capabilities, except for technology and capabilities to improve Border Patrol processing. So nothing to stop illegal crossings. We are just going to focus on processing people who already broke the law by illegally crossing the border. And while we are throwing a muzzle on our own Border Patrol, we are giving money to countries like Egypt to secure their borders. That makes no sense. We should do both. Florida families deserve better than to be forced to accept these radical policies and reckless spending in exchange for disaster relief. It is insane that I even need to come to the Senate floor to say that, but I am sick and tired of seeing dysfunction in Washington create hard times for families in the Sunshine State. So I am here today to get things done for families in my State who are hurting and ask that the Senate take up and pass the disaster aid contained in the omnibus as a separate and stand-alone measure. This is the exact same language that was written in the omnibus bill that my Democratic colleagues seek to pass. I did not limit this just to Florida; the aid I am asking the Senate to pass benefits other States that have been impacted by disasters like tornados, flooding, and wildfires too. More aid may be needed, but getting this done is a good first step and is something that should never have been jammed into a massive end-of-year spending bill. We can fix that error today, pass this on its own, and get relief on the way to families and communities in need. I had hoped my colleagues would see the common sense in this simple request. Instead, Democrats have blocked this from passing tonight. America's national debt is $31 trillion and growing. When are we going to be so fed up that we decide this isn't sustainable--when we get to $35, $40 or $45 trillion in debt? Too many Democrats and Republicans in Washington are happy to close their eyes, plug their ears, and pass another reckless multitrillion- dollar spending bill we can't afford. I am not going to do that. I am going to fight every day for Florida families, but I won't cave to more spending and let the hard-working people of my State be treated as pawns in Washington's corrupt spending games. Doing so would be a betrayal of my promise to Floridians that I would always fight against Washington's corrupt dysfunction and wild spending. We all get hired by voters in our States to represent them here in the Senate. How is adopting a massive, 4,000-plus page bill without reading it or debating its contents doing the job we all got elected to do? Think about it this way: If you hired someone to negotiate a big, expensive contract for you and they told you to sign it without reading any of it, would you ever hire them again? No. No one would hire someone like that. That is exactly what is happening here. We are asked to approve this massive bill days before a new Republican majority takes power in the House. It is nothing short of shameful abandonment and betrayal of our House colleagues and the conservative voters in Florida and across the Nation who elected them. My colleague's decision to block disaster aid from quickly passing tonight is shameful as well. It is insane that my colleague has insisted on holding this aid hostage in a massive omnibus instead of standing with families hurting from Hurricanes Ian and Nicole and getting them relief today. With inflation up nearly 14 percent since Biden took office, labor participation at historic lows, Federal debt skyrocketing, and a recession on the horizon, there has never been a more important time to stand up and demand fiscal sanity in Congress. That is why I think it makes a lot of sense that the House Republicans have made it clear that they do not support passing the Pelosi-Schumer spending bill. Passing an omnibus right now ties the hands of the new Republican House majority and extends the priorities of Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats--the leaders and party that the American people just voted out of power. Shockingly, some in the Senate have tried to argue that we should ignore the wishes of House Republicans. They argue that expecting a new, slim House Republican to keep the government funded is just too much to ask. I think that is nonsense. The way I see it, the decision before Senate Republicans is as simple and straightforward as it gets here in Washington: We can either stand with Republicans or once again cave to the Democrats. We can either make sure it is House Republicans--not Pelosi and her outgoing Democrat majority--who get a say in how Congress spends taxpayer dollars next year or we can hand the recently fired Speaker a massive retirement gift on her way out the door. I will tell you this: Florida families know that the process we have up here is not working. Inflation is raging, debt is out of control, and Congress so routinely passes massive, thousand-plus page spending bills without giving anyone time to read them that even the press doesn't bother to scrutinize this broken system anymore. While this might be business as usual in Washington, hard-working Americans find it disgusting. Congressional Republicans should be taking every opportunity to stop the reckless, Big Government policies that Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Democrats have jammed down the throats of the American public over the last 2 years. I promised Florida families that I would do that, and I won't back down on my word. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 1437 with amendment No. 6540.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, everyone in this Chamber spoke about the pain American families are feeling as they deal with the raging inflation brought on by Joe Biden's reckless spending, so it was shocking to many of us when Senate Democrats approved $70 billion to supersize the IRS with 87,000 new agents. That means more audits on families and small businesses just as they struggle to get by thanks to skyrocketing prices. What is worse, the Biden administration is also changing IRS standards to begin tracking financial transactions Americans make in excess of $600 to vendors like Cash App and Venmo and PayPal. It is an outrageous violation of Americans' privacy. It is stuff we see in communist China. That is why I filed an amendment to strike the funding for the new IRS agents to prevent the IRS from spying on your bank accounts. I urge my colleagues to protect Americans' privacy, stop the ridiculous audits on families, and support my amendment. I yield back my time.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. I yield back.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from South Carolina for all of his work to promote school choice. I have been proud to partner with him each year to cosponsor the National School Choice Week resolution and promote the maximum amount of educational choice for parents. Since I have been in Washington, I have noticed how many different school options are available for families in the area: public schools, charter schools, private schools, religious schools, home schools, co- ops. There are all kinds of options for parents and their children here. DC is an example of a place where school choice has helped everyone, as government-funded schools have generally failed. Of course, Washington, DC, is also where our Nation's political elite and their children reside. It is where diplomats from around the world come and send their kids to the school of their choice. Bureaucrats, politicians, and wealthy parents have all the choice in the world to send their kids to get a great education. But why should that choice only be available to the elite political class? Why is it that teachers unions and Democratic politicians want to fight school choice and keep students from middle and lower income families in failing schools? It is a perfect example of how the swamp works: They will give every advantage to their own kids, while pushing the working class down. The elites have always had school choice, and like my colleague from South Carolina, I simply want to extend that choice to every family. During my 8 years as Governor of Florida, I was a proud champion of school choice and charter schools. I have long believed that parents, not the government, know what is best for their children. Near the end of my time as Governor, Florida had 653 charter schools operating across our great State. More than one in four K-12 public school kids in Florida chose a school other than the one that they were assigned to. We were ranked third in the Nation for our number of charter schools and the number of students enrolled in our charter schools. That competition helped everyone, including our public school system. When I was leaving, we ranked fourth in the Nation for K-12 student achievement. In other words, our push for maximum choice helped their students in all of our schools get ahead. That didn't happen overnight, of course. But we had to work at it. For example, I worked to expand access to Florida's Tax Credit Scholarship Program. This tax credit encourages voluntary contributions from corporate donors to scholarship funding organizations. These organizations then award scholarships to students from low-income families so they can attend private schools or get help transporting them to a public school in another school district. During my 8 years, the number of kids benefiting from that scholarship program grew from 40,000 to 108,000. Sixty thousand more students were able to attend a school that better met their needs because we gave them that choice. Similarly, I signed legislation creating open enrollment in Florida. That bill allowed more than 280,000 students to attend any public school in the State regardless of their ZIP Code. I also signed legislation to expand access to scholarships for students with disabilities so they could attend a public or private school of their choice. I also signed a bill creating the Schools of Hope Program. It established high-quality educational options for students attending persistently low performing public schools. Instead of attending the lower performing school, we drew in charter school networks that had a proven track record for operating high- performing charter schools in underserved communities. Because we offered them increased autonomy and flexibility and gave them access to grants and low-interest facility loans, these charter schools were better able to serve Florida's neediest students. Add to that, I signed legislation to give every student access to virtual learning, with 428,000 students taking advantage of that program in the 2017-2018 school year. That number was up by 312,000 students compared to 10 years earlier. Parents could use Florida Virtual School to supplement what was happening in person at school, and they could use a hybrid setup with home school or do completely online learning--whatever best suited their child's needs. In Florida, school choice isn't just for the elites, it is for everyone because every family deserves the chance to send their child to the school that best meets their needs. Whether it was virtual school, a private school, a religious school, home school, a charter school, or a public school in a different district, I fought to give the kids the best opportunity to get a quality education. And the best part about it, this kind of choice and competition among schools benefited everyone. It helped all of our schools, including our public schools and neighborhood schools, to improve. In October, a team of researchers from Northwestern University, UC Davis, and Emory studied the outcomes of Florida students who remained in public schools in the 2016-2017 school year--the same time we were continuing to expand school choice. I will read you what they concluded. We find broad and growing benefits for students at local public schools as the school-choice program scales up. In particular, students who attend neighborhood schools with higher levels of market competition have lower rates of suspensions and absences and higher test scores in reading and math. And while our analysis reveals gains for virtually all students, we find that those most positively affected are students with the greatest barriers to school success, including those with low family incomes and less-educated mothers. In other words, school choice helps students of poor and working class families, like the one I grew up in. I was born to a single mom with an 11th grade education and never met my birth father. My adoptive father never had more than a sixth grade education. We were poor and didn't have much to brag about. We lived in public housing and moved around a lot. But my mom pushed me to work hard in school and get a good education. And by God's grace, I was able to live the American dream. That is why I am here--because school choice shouldn't only be for the elites, it should be for everyone. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, let me begin with a simple question: When are we going to say enough? The American people are saying it. Heck, even traditionally liberal, mainstream news outlets are getting there. But here in Congress, it is nothing but business as usual. We just keep letting it pile up month after month, year after year. Now it is burying our country. The ``it'' should be obvious. I am talking about America's massive Federal debt, now more than $31 trillion. It has grown by nearly $5 trillion since President Biden took office, and it was growing like a weed before that too. We should all be disgusted with the reckless spending in Washington that has caused this massive debt. Just look at what it is doing to our country. Historic inflation is raging across America, hurting families and businesses, and pushing the American Dream out of reach, as prices skyrocket and interest rates follow closely behind. Reckless spending approved by this Chamber and our colleagues in the House has caused this. I have been in the Senate for almost 4 years. In this time, I have talked a lot about my childhood. Maybe you have heard my story of someone who was born to a single mom, grew up poor, and lived in public housing. It is a hard place to start your life, and, today, folks in the same situation are struggling more than ever to get by and make ends meet as they deal with sky-high inflation. In most places across the world, people who grow up like me have no hope of being anything but what they were born into--for me, that was poor and watching my mom struggle every day to get by. That is untrue in America. This is the greatest Nation on Earth because a kid who grows up watching their parents struggle and living in public housing can work hard and be anything. But that promise isn't guaranteed. We have to protect that by being responsible with taxpayer money and not allowing inflation and debt to ruin us. Throughout my life, I have run businesses big and small, from a couple of hundred employees to hundreds of thousands of employees. Here is one thing that doesn't change no matter how big you get: If you don't live within your means, you fail. Same goes for any family. No family or business in any of our States gets to burn through money with no consequences. The only place that has become acceptable is here in Washington. Why? Because Congress stopped doing what it got elected to do. As I said, I have been in Washington for about 4 years now. One thing I have learned is that in Washington, compromise means everyone gets everything so nobody has to make a tough choice. The result is gross fiscal mismanagement and unsustainable debt. Instead of standing up to this broken status quo in Congress--something I think most of us ran on--too many people get elected, come to Washington, and become a rubber stamp for more spending. So here we are again, just days away from a government funding deadline. Some of our colleagues are again pushing a massive omnibus-- what we are calling the Pelosi-Schumer spending bill--which keeps this inflation-bomb deficit spending going. I asked earlier: When are we going to say ``enough?'' Will it be when the deficit hits $35 trillion, $45 trillion, $50 trillion? Can you imagine $50 trillion worth of debt? No. The answer has to be now. We say enough is enough today. And we should start by saying no to a massive omnibus spending bill and approving a simple continuing resolution being offered by my good friend Senator Lee of Utah. Doing this allows the new Congress to put together a real budget that is balanced, which is what we should be doing anyway. I don't like continuing resolutions any more than I think anyone here does. Since my first day in the Senate, I have been vocal about needing to pass a budget--a full budget--that is balanced and gets America's finances in order. But that is not going to happen in the next 3 days or before the next Congress begins, for that matter. So the thought of passing a Pelosi-Schumer spending bill now, just weeks before a new Republican majority takes power in the House, is insane. It is as bad an idea as I have heard of up here. It also goes against decades of precedent. As Senator Lee has said, since 1954, control of the House has changed five times, and there has never been an instance of Congress passing an omnibus spending bill before a new House majority takes power. Given that America is now in more debt than ever before and inflation is the highest it has been in 40 years, why should we choose now to break precedent and green-light more reckless spending? And let's not forget what Democrats wish to do with the hard-earned tax dollars of American families. The last time Democrats passed a spending bill, they approved $80 billion so that the IRS can hire 87,000 new agents to target working families and small businesses. Worse still, Democrats are now forcing every American to report any transaction of $600 or more to the IRS, giving the Federal Government unprecedented access into the personal finances of American families. We can expect more of the same from them now. Maya Angelou was right when she said: When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Now, we just heard what our Democrat colleagues are saying in objecting to this commonsense solution to avoid a government shutdown. They are saying that our proposal will cut services. Passing the CR into next year will not result in any cuts to funding or services; it will simply continue government operations just as they are today. Here is the deal. For too long, the failed and ridiculous thinking in Washington has been that budgets don't matter and inflation doesn't matter because voters will never tie wasteful spending to inflation. The only way to get some things done is to shove them into a giant spending bill negotiated in secret and pass it before anyone has any time to read it. That is wrong, and the American public is disgusted with this. It is not how any family or business operates. In the real world, you make plans, you meet deadlines, you make choices and live within your means, because failing to do so means failing to survive and prosper. Congress shouldn't be treated any differently. Congress has been broken and unaccountable for too long. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, have you ever gone out to eat at a restaurant with a group of people, but your order was cheaper than everyone else's? Maybe you weren't as hungry or the restaurant the group picked was more expensive than you could afford so you were selective about what you ordered. Then, when the check comes, someone suggested the group split it evenly. Now, what is your immediate reaction? You are upset, of course, because you ordered the salad not the filet mignon or you drank water, not the expensive bottle of wine. You ordered what you wanted, and they ordered what they wanted; you shouldn't be on the hook for their cost. Sadly, this illustration is far too real, as last month, Joe Biden announced that he would cancel billions of dollars in student loans. Now, let's be clear. He isn't canceling student debt. No, he is transferring that debt to every American taxpayer. Now a construction worker in Florida is having to foot the bill for the loans of a Harvard grad, which they voluntarily accepted for an education they received. So here is what Democrats are trying to say to that construction worker: You didn't go to college; Democrats don't care. You will pay the debt of lawyers and doctors, and you will pay for those who want Ph.D.s in poetry. Talk about poetic injustice. You went to community college or a State school and worked to graduate debt-free. Tough luck. Joe Biden wants you to pay for the advanced degrees of the privileged few. Your tax dollars are now the money pot for other people's student debt. Of course, Joe Biden's plan doesn't even begin to address the real reason for rising higher education costs. That is universities' decades-long practice of unnecessarily raising tuition. As Governor of Florida, I addressed that problem and challenged our universities to keep education affordable. Look at the University of Florida. Undergraduate tuition and fees for this academic year are less than $6,500. It is the fifth best public university in the country. You will get a fantastic education there. Meanwhile, at Harvard, tuition fees for an academic year cost more than $57,000. There are ways to make education affordable, but the Democrats and elites aren't interested in those solutions. That is why Joe Biden is engaging in this reckless move even though it doesn't solve the real issue and even though he lacks the proper constitutional authority. Everybody knows this. That is why, in July of last year, Nancy Pelosi herself denied that the President had such power. She said: The president can't do it . . . That's not even a discussion. Yet now the Department of Justice is engaging in interpretive gymnastics to co-opt legislation that was passed to help our servicemembers in the aftermath of 9/11. It is a desperate attempt to stretch a good law well beyond its intent so that Joe Biden can give handouts to his liberal voters and Harvard pals. Biden wants to spend money that Congress has not appropriated for a loan forgiveness that Congress has not authorized. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is a gross abuse of authority, and I won't stand for it. Congress must assert its authority here. We have the power of the purse, not the President. That is why I have introduced the Debt Cancellation Accountability Act. My bill would require the Department of Education to get an express appropriation from Congress before they could propose waiving, discharging, or reducing student loan debt to two or more borrowers in an amount greater than $1 million. If we want to transfer the debt of some and make everyone pay for it, then Congress has to make that decision. We should simply put it up for a vote. Of course, the Democrats here in the Senate won't do that. Surely, they could have passed a bill by now if they had really wanted to, but they wanted Biden to do it alone. It is easy to see why. In just the past few weeks, we have heard families from across the country speaking out against Biden's unfair and disastrous proposal. I am hearing about it from Floridians every day, and I know my colleagues are too. I would like to thank Senators Barrasso, Lummis, and Braun for supporting my Debt Cancellation Accountability Act and for choosing to stand with me against Biden's overreach. Let's pass this bill today to reverse Joe Biden's unlawful decision and force Congress to decide this issue. Before I ask for unanimous consent, I would like to turn to my colleague Senator Braun from the great State of Indiana.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Are you finished?

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. I am so thankful for Senator Braun's support on this bill and for all of the work he has done to raise awareness about Biden's reckless spending agenda and to stand for fiscal sanity. Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 4483 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, 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. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, so let's remember what we are talking about here. We are not canceling debt; we are transferring debt. We are transferring the debt because this obligation doesn't go away. Somebody still owes this money. What we are saying is, people who decided--they made the choice--to go to college or go to some higher education, they are not going to have to pay their debt. And people who didn't and already paid off their debt, they are going to pay for it. My colleague from Massachusetts never acknowledged the example. We all remember when we went out to dinner and we didn't spend the most money and how somebody suggested that, oh, let's just share it. So we paid for the expensive wine, and we paid for the expensive meal. That is not fair. When you talk to Americans around the country, and they say: Would you like to forgive all the debt? Absolutely. Free is great. But when you say: You are going to pay for it, they say: Absolutely not. Why would I pay off the debt for somebody else? Let's remember just what my bill does. It doesn't say we can't forgive student loans; it says that Congress ought to decide if we do it. This is going to cost up to $1 trillion. I don't think we ought to, so-called, transfer this debt, but my bill will at least give us a chance to have a debate on it. But that is not what my colleague wants to do. I hope my colleague understands that her objection is absolutely a slap in the face to all those workers in Massachusetts and around the country who didn't go to college: construction workers, small business owners, chefs, flight attendants, firefighters, landscapers, and so many other groups of people who have made the decision not to pursue a higher education for whatever reason. There are many others who worked hard to get scholarships or those who worked part time to afford college or plenty others who took the time to pay off their loans. I am going to stand with those people, working-class people--people who are responsible, hard-working Americans who absolutely are willing to pay off their obligations. I think about people like my dad. My dad had a sixth grade education. He was a truckdriver. He worked his tail off. I can't imagine what he would think about working hard every day, then being forced to pay for some other person's degree as a doctor or a lawyer. He would be beside himself. He would think it was so unfair. It is not how the real world works. It is a Democrat fantasyland that Joe Biden is trying to turn into reality. People used to take pride in paying off their debts and working hard to see their commitments come through. Democrats want to destroy that and destroy ideas of fiscal responsibility. They want to forget that we are $30 trillion in debt. They want to forget that we still have record-high inflation as a result of wasteful spending. My colleague wants to pretend that we are in this fantasyland because objecting to my bill is an endorsement of Biden's reckless plan and his unconstitutional debt transfer, from the overachiever, to the Harvard grad, to the working class. As Members of Congress, we should be interested in checks and balances and the separation of powers. We should guard the powers of the Constitution that is especially reserved for the legislative branch. Spending a trillion dollars with no congressional oversight is wrong. That is not exactly how our Constitution was set up. This shameless decision to block my bill is just another example of how far Senate Democrats will go to appease the radical left. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, first off, my colleague never addressed the issue that this is a transfer of obligation. I mean, you can have a conversation about what we should have done with regard to tax cuts in the past, but this is a transfer of obligation. This is a transfer of obligation of people who decided to go to school. We should do everything we can to help people, but we are not addressing the problem here. I addressed it when I was Governor. When I became Governor in January of 2011, tuition in Florida was going up 15 percent a year, plus inflation. I stopped it. We didn't see tuition increase while I was Governor, and we became the No. 1 higher education system in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. We solved the problem of the cost of higher education to make sure people could afford education. We did it because we invested, we kept tuition low, and we paid our universities based on three things: do you get a degree, how much money you make, and what does it cost to get a degree. So, guess what, all of our universities became more efficient and more accountable. That is how you fix the problem. This does not fix the problem. This does nothing to reduce tuition. This does nothing to hold our universities accountable. This does nothing to stop our universities from raising tuition. This does nothing to require our universities to make sure our kids get a job. This does nothing to make sure our kids get good-paying jobs. So I am very disappointed in my colleague in that she would still not address the issue that that is a complete transfer of obligation from some people who decided to go get a higher education to people who decided not to. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Absolutely. I did everything I could to make sure all of our students had the opportunity to go to school. We made sure that they could afford to go to school. What I have said in my bill today is this ought to be done by Congress. And let's don't just do some blanket transfer of obligations here. Congress should be doing this. This is going to cost us up to $1 trillion, and we are going to have people like my dad, if he was still alive--a truckdriver with a sixth-grade education--pay for some Ivy League kid to go to school, and that is wrong.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I am not suggesting you shouldn't borrow money, but what I am suggesting is, if you do borrow money, you made that decision, all right? You shouldn't transfer it to somebody like my dad, who had a sixth-grade education, couldn't afford to go to school, didn't go to school. There shouldn't be a transfer to make sure they pay off your debt. That is a decision you make. You should pay it off. Now, if you have an issue because you can't pay it, let's deal with that issue. That is not what this does. This says, whatever your issues, Joe Biden says, by himself, without any act of Congress--he gets to make a decision by himself: Poof, your debt goes away; somebody else picks it up. That is not right.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, well, first off, let me make sure my colleague from Vermont knows my background. I actually grew up in public housing, born to a single mom. I do care about people, making sure you can get an education. That is why I did exactly what I did in Florida. I made sure people had the opportunity to get ahead. The 4 years before I became Governor of Florida, the State lost 832,000 jobs. By cutting taxes and reducing the regulations and streamlining things, we added 1.7 million jobs so people all over my State could get a job. That is how people get ahead. You don't get ahead by just somebody transferring obligations from one person to somebody else. That improves a few people's lives, but that is completely unfair. That is not how this country was set up, that some people are going to pay for somebody else's obligation that they decided to pick up, and that is all I am talking about.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I think who paid for Jeff Bezos's yacht is all the people who bought packages from Amazon. And by the way, if you do get one that says ``Made in China,'' I hope everybody will send it back. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCOTT of Florida

Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, last month, in a completely partisan process, Senate Democrats pushed through their progressive and deceivingly named Inflation Reduction Act. That bill was a disaster, as it was full of reckless tax increases and spending. Perhaps the worst part of it was that it authorized $80 billion in new funding to the IRS--$80 billion. For reference, that is about the same as what we allocated for Florida's entire State budget when I was Governor, and Florida is the third largest State in the Nation. Even though the IRS does a poor job with the resources it currently has, the Democrats opted to supersize the IRS so they could fund 87,000 new IRS agents, some of whom will be armed and willing to use deadly force to carry out their duties. So, while the Democrats are calling to defund the police and are leaving our Border Patrol agents without the tools they need to secure the southern border, they are happy to enlarge the IRS. We don't even have 20,000 Border Patrol agents--a quarter of the number of new IRS agents the Democrats want; yet they have now approved 87,000 additional IRS agents. That is insane. That many agents under the direction of President Biden should concern every American. We all remember that when Joe Biden was Vice President, the IRS went after conservative groups and Tea Party organizations. Now, armed with tens of billions in new funding and tens of thousands of new agents, what is stopping Joe Biden from directing the IRS to go after groups he doesn't like? What about pregnancy resource centers or Second Amendment groups? Here is what the Democrats are doing: They are turning the IRS into a super Agency to audit more Americans so they can fund even more of their reckless tax-and-spend agenda. Let's not forget that last year, the Democrats wanted the IRS to spy on nearly every American's bank account and track one's everyday transactions. American families can see straight through Biden's plans, and they are furious. We all should be furious. Without a single Republican vote, the Democrats authorized 87,000 more IRS agents--doubling the size of the Agency--all to pull as many dollars as they can away from hard-working families and small businesses so they can fund liberal projects and appease their radical base with more government bailouts. Case in point: Biden's illegal order to transfer student loan debt from borrowers to taxpayers. Someone has to pay for the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt that these borrowers voluntarily took on. Now, instead of the borrowers paying for their own educations, that burden is now borne by every American taxpayer. You didn't go to college? The Democrats don't care. You will pay the debt of lawyers and doctors. Have you already paid off your loans? Biden doesn't want to hear it. Tough luck. Your taxes are the money pot for other people's student debts, and if Democrats are going to keep declaring everything to be free, Biden is going to need a lot more taxpayer money. That, my fellow Americans, is how we get full circle back to the supersized IRS. It is a vicious cycle to fund a radical, socialist agenda. We have to stop it now. I am here to do what countless Floridians have asked me to do--strike this terrible policy from law. It is time to rein in the Federal Government, and that work begins with putting a stop to Biden's IRS army. My bill would simply repeal this disastrous IRS expansion, and I ask all of my colleagues to support it. Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4798. 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. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I agree with my colleague that if you owe taxes, you should pay your taxes, but what is inconsistent with what my colleague just said is that we had an amendment vote that would say that none of these agents could go after anybody making less than $400,000 a year. Every Democrat, I believe, in the Senate voted against that. So the goal is, absolutely, we should make sure that wealthy taxpayers pay everything they owe, but we had an amendment that would make sure this was focused on wealthy taxpayers--this was during a vote just before we left on recess--and every Democrat voted against that. For all of those who are watching, here is what you are going to see: The Democratic Party has created a platform to audit more Americans-- not just wealthy Americans but all Americans. This isn't about fairness; this is about power. The Democrats want to spy on your bank transactions, and they want to send 87,000 more IRS agents on the streets to collect the bill for their reckless spending. Joe Biden has pitched his provision in the image of Robin Hood taking from the rich, but in reality, this expansion is in the image of the Sheriff of Nottingham stealing from the poor and the working class. None of us should be surprised the Democrats are doubling down on the radical IRS expansion policies. We all should be pretty mad. When the Republicans take control of Congress in January, you can expect that we will do everything in our power to repeal this terrible policy. I yield the floor.