Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolution
Floor Speech
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Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, you know, these days, information is only a few clicks away on your computer, and there is more information to be consumed than there are hours in the day. It is information overload, and it is overwhelming to sift through all the noise. But no matter the narrative being pushed, one thing remains: the facts. The facts don't lie. It is information overload.
The facts tell the story better than anyone. Facts take many forms and play out in many ways. They are the impacts of decisions made and actions taken, whether we like it or not. But it doesn't take long for anyone to see this fact: The decisions coming out of the White House have followed one overall thought, one guiding ideology. It is not a unifying ideology that protects the freedoms and liberties we hold dear as Americans. It doesn't safeguard the values of our country or promote a vision for a brighter tomorrow and a more prosperous nation for future generations. It is a Big Government, socialist ideology. It is a vision of transformation. It is a strategy of undoing everything done by the previous administration even if those policies were successful.
Since President Biden's inauguration, every executive order, every regulatory rollback, and every message of so-called unity we were once promised has been in the spirit of doing the opposite of the previous administration, with an emphasis on the ``woke'' transformation of America's founding principles. ``But not Trump'' is not a strategy. It is not a policy stance. It is a reactionary and misguided posture that has plunged our Nation into domestic and international disarray.
It is a backward approach to implementing an agenda to transform the culture and the values of America, and we are seeing the on-the-ground effects of this approach in our communities, at our borders, and abroad.
When the singular driving force of your Presidency is simply being the opposite of your predecessor, our country faces the consequences of that decision. We are facing crises that were preventable, crises that are a direct result of policy decisions. This is an uncomfortable and inconvenient fact for President Biden, and Democrats don't seem too interested in the facts about the consequences of this administration's decision, either.
So let me lay them out. Here are some facts. The Biden administration inherited a conditions-based withdrawal strategy on Afghanistan. The idea was that we will have a withdrawal of forces that kept some boots on the ground to maintain stability and limit chaos and, importantly, preserve the progress our troops had made. Instead of continuing this conditions-based approach that would protect our servicemembers, allies, and innocent civilians, President Biden came up with a new plan, one he thought would make for better headlines, rather than listening to our commanders on the ground.
President Trump's plan was to roll people out strategically and maintain our assets to prevent attacks on the United States in the future. The plan certainly did not involve leaving American citizens behind. Instead, President Biden's decision left chaos in its wake. His decision left our troops vulnerable and resulted in the death of 13-- 13--U.S. servicemembers. The average age of these servicemembers was 22 years old.
His decision has disrespected the sacrifices of more than 800,000 U.S. veterans who bravely served during the War on Terror. His decision gave the Taliban their greatest victory to date and made them one of the top 10 most well-equipped militaries in the world, funded by the hard-working taxpayers of this country. His decision abandoned innocent Americans in a country governed by radical terrorists, and it is clear that he ignored the best military advice given to him by his top commanders and ordered our troops to put down their weapons and retreat.
President Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan this way gave the Taliban everything they wanted: control of the region, our own weapons, and, ultimately, a breeding ground for terrorism. The fact of the matter is, our country will be facing the consequences of President Biden's decision for decades--for decades to come.
Our country was safer for the past 20 years thanks to the bravest fighting forces in the world, our men and women in uniform. Counterterrorism is still necessary, but we just made it harder on ourselves by not having ground forces and by closing Bagram Airfield.
The myth from the White House is that our country had no choice but that we were beholden to a deal made before January 20. But the policy decisions made by President Biden emboldened the Taliban, endangered Americans, and encouraged our adversaries.
Tomorrow, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold the first open hearing--hopefully, one of many--to review President Biden's decision and what caused our time in Afghanistan to conclude the way it did. The American people deserve facts, and I and the rest of our delegation will not rest until we have answers from the people involved.
From abroad to right here at our own southwest border, we are witnessing the disastrous effects of the Biden Presidency play out in epic proportions. The numbers do not lie.
Fact: In July and August, apprehensions at the southern border surpassed 200,000 each month. That is quadruple the amount from this time last year.
Fact: We have seen recordbreaking numbers of illegal immigrants at our southwest border from the day President Biden was inaugurated. Over 1.3 million people have been apprehended trying to illegally cross our southwest border, and that is only the ones we know of. There are hundreds of thousands more getting into our country.
And fact: All of this is a direct result of President Biden's open border policies, a reversal from those of the previous administration.
This is a prime example of the Biden administration putting politics over policy. On January 20, his first day in office, President Biden announced a suspension of the border wall construction. Now billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to cover the cost of canceling the contracts the Federal Government entered into to build the wall. On the same day, he terminated the Migrant Protection Protocols policy.
In February, President Biden terminated the asylum cooperative agreements with the Northern Triangle countries established under President Trump. Doing away with these agreements has allowed caravans to travel thousands of miles through multiple countries to our southwest border, without any capacity support from our regional partners.
These decisions have directly contributed to the unprecedented numbers of illegal immigrant encounters we have seen, because with these decisions, President Biden signaled to the world that anyone wanting to leave their country for ours would be admitted to the United States of America.
After months of avoiding the word ``crisis'' to describe the border, President Biden recently said: ``We will get the border under control.'' To even say he will ``get the border under control'' means he acknowledges that it is not under control.
Well, I guess that is one fact that we can all come to agreement on.
The facts that Democrats seem to want to ignore most are those that deal with our economy. The separation from fact to fiction for our friends across the aisle could not be starker than when it comes to the American economy.
It is a fact that inflation is sky high--as high as it has been since 2010. Despite rising inflation and increasing prices, the President is still marching forward with his vision of Big Government--a big government welfare State, enacted through the Democrats' reckless tax- and-spend spree. He wants to create a massive welfare State paid for by staggering--and I mean staggering--tax hikes that would destroy economic growth.
And the Democrats are his captive audience. President Biden's America is one where our businesses and job creators pay for all. That is not ``pay your fair share.'' That is wealth distribution.
He is not interested in boosting the economy and helping Americans. He is interested in remaking the system with subsidies and entitlements--a welfare state to keep everyone beholden to the government--no work requirements, just complete government dependency.
Our country was founded on freedom. It was founded on opportunity-- the opportunity to work hard and to achieve the American dream. That is what this country owes you, not a handout but a hand up.
The programs laid out in the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spend spree are a transparent effort to a woke transformation of the values and culture upon which our country was built. If that wasn't bad enough, they are going to raise taxes to pay for them, picking from a menu of more than 30 new taxes.
Our businesses, small and large, create jobs and grow the economy. Increasing their taxes means they can't spend and invest in their own businesses. If they can't expand, they can't create more jobs. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Businesses will squeeze inward, cutting workers and wages.
A higher corporate tax rate isn't ``paying their fair share.'' It is destroying the blue-collar jobs that have fueled the middle class.
Why would we ever take pride in the fact that our corporate tax rate is higher than China's? When did that become a worthy goal?
I have an answer for you: It is not. But the terrible proposals to offset the cost of this bill just keep on coming.
The Biden administration wants to require financial institutions to report account balances and transactions greater than $600 made by Americans to the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service. Any transaction you make over $600 will be reported to the IRS. That is every taxpayer in this country. Today, only transactions over $10,000, which is a lot of money, are reported.
Yes, that is the same Agency with a long history of data security failures. Earlier this year, the confidential tax information of a number of prominent Americans leaked--surprisingly, leaked--from the IRS and was published in the press.
The Agency also has a history of singling out certain taxpayers for political purposes. You have a rent payment over $600, planning to buy airplane tickets over $600--how about a new hunting rifle? a wedding dress for your daughter? All of this--any transaction over $600--would be sent to the IRS under President Biden's plan. This is Big Brother Government at its worst.
We are talking about routine financial transactions that Americans make every day. The IRS has no business monitoring these--none. The IRS is intrusive enough as it is. This is something Americans of all political stripes should agree on.
Not only would the IRS be looking over Americans' shoulders, but this would place a heavy burden on community banks and credit unions that play a key role in providing financial services to rural and minority communities. These financial institutions cannot afford to monitor and report all this data to the IRS. They can't afford it. It will put many of these folks out of business, destroying mainstream American communities that rely on all of them in the process.
But don't just take my word for it. The Independent Community Bankers of America's Minority Bank Advisory Council wrote:
Our primary concern is that the proposal would undermine the critical relationship of trust we foster within the communities we serve--communities prone to distrust of institutions and government agencies. We fear that invasive and indiscriminate account reporting would undermine the policy priority of bringing more people into the banking system and may drive many of those in the system to leave.
I couldn't have said it better.
This is one of the most outrageous proposals coming from this administration--and there have been a lot of them over the last 9 months. This is like a shakedown squad coming around to try to get every single cent from you that they can.
So, today, I introduced a bill called the Protecting Financial Privacy Act that would proactively prohibit this. My bill prohibits any Federal Agency from creating, implementing, or administering a financial account information reporting regime that would require financial institutions or individuals to report data on financial transactions or account balances to the IRS in excess of what is already required by the Bank Secrecy Act. The last thing Americans want or need is Big Brother looking over their shoulders.
The President wants to run from the facts. He would rather hide behind them and point fingers. The facts, for him, don't fit. But it is time for the President to wake up. It is time to stop blaming President Trump for disasters that are clearly his own making. It is time to stop an entitlement state of our country that Americans don't want. It is time for the President to face the facts and listen to the American people. He cannot be allowed to deflect responsibility and attempt to distract the American people from crises that were predictable and preventable, especially when the facts couldn't be clearer.
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