-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BRAUN. Madam President, before I ran for the Senate, I ran a business that started in my hometown. Oftentimes you get criticized when you try to draw a parallel between a business and this place. And I guess it is so different, so it would be easy to make that argument.
But in the real world, if you have got a bad idea, you can't just change the rules. You have got to outcompete. You have got to offer another product. Only here, with the results that we have produced over time, would you want it even easier to generate bad ideas and put them into law.
The comparison between State government and here, I think, is valid. In almost all State governments, there is a constitutional amendment or a statute that says you can't spend more than you take in. There are certain guidelines, whenever you try to put any legislation forward, that you run it through regular order. We don't do that anymore. That takes too much time. That takes too much effort.
And when you try to get rid of the things that work in other places and double down on bad performance, that is what my Democratic colleagues are trying to do. The radical Build Back Better agenda failed. And now, instead of changing their agenda, running it through committees, making it more palatable to get at least one Republican vote, they want to change the rules.
Changing the rules of the Senate to enact their failed agenda is just the beginning. They want to completely take over our elections. Senator Sullivan just said a moment ago, in the Constitution, it couldn't be more explicit that that is the domain of the States.
Their plan is to silence those who stand in their way to campaign to fundamentally change in this country election law, and I don't think the country is going to have it. Thankfully, my Democratic colleagues can't even get all of their own Members on board. I think that was the same problem with the Build Back Better agenda. This is just going for something even more extreme, more impactful. It would have a ripple effect for who knows how much and how long down the road.
Hoosiers should not have their voice in DC watered down by power- hungry politicians who will do anything to get their way. The For the People Act should be called the ``For the Politicians Act.'' It would be a better name because that is what we are enabling here. States like Indiana, States like Alaska conduct their elections fairly.
And by the way, where were any complaints pre-COVID? You didn't hear of any. You change the rules; then you want to homogenize it across the country. That doesn't make sense.
Election integrity measures like voter ID are extremely popular--with a photo ID. Every State likes that. That polls in close to the 80- percent range, which is unheard of around here.
Americans are fed up with the top-down approach, one size fits all. It would be different if we were knocking it out of the park to begin with. We certainly aren't. We ought to work on the issues we can agree on and the beautiful system that was built. When you can't, don't feel that the only way it can get done is by doing it here. Turn it back to the laboratory of the States.
Another thing that irks me: 3 years ago, $18 trillion in debt, approaching the record level, which we have now eclipsed, post-World War II. The difference then and now is we were savers and investors then. We are consumers and spenders now. And this will open the floodgates for even more heavy burden on our kids and grandkids.
We shouldn't be changing the rules to make it easier to legislate or spend money when we produce the results that have been produced here now for decades. We cannot allow President Biden and the Democrats to change the rules and take over our elections to save their radical, failed agenda.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source