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Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Madam President, it was I believe then-President Reagan who famously asked, ``Are you better off than you were four years ago?'' I rise to take a moment here at the end of the 118th Congress, at the end of the Presidency of Joe Biden, to say: You bet you are better off today than you were 4 years ago.

I wanted to take just a few moments and reflect on the service, the career, the values, and the consequence of Joe Biden's service on behalf of Delaware in this Chamber for 36 years, as our Vice President for 8, and as our President for the last 4.

I have the honor of having Joe Biden's desk here on the floor of the Senate, and in my office in Russell, I have what was his desk as a Senator for 36 years and as a Vice President for 8.

As the son of both Scranton, PA, and Claymont, DE, in many ways, he was a role model to me and many others in Delaware and a source of inspiration to get involved in public service in the first place.

If you think for a moment about where we were this time 4 years ago, there were three different, profound challenges the United States was facing, all really because of the pandemic--a pandemic that had been badly mishandled and spiraled out of control and was still killing 3,000 Americans a day in December of 2020. Violent crime had skyrocketed. Healthcare coverage was declining. Jobs had been lost in the rates of millions. The United States was divided from some of its closest, oldest, and most trusted allies.

Across those different indicators, just briefly, the numbers tell a striking story. We have one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years today. The COVID-19 pandemic is mostly a thing of the past, a public health concern that still needs monitoring but that is not at any risk of killing another million Americans. Healthcare coverage has improved dramatically. The number of uninsured Americans is today at an alltime low. While the former President left office with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, the private sector under Joe Biden's leadership helped create 15 million jobs--an alltime record.

Joe Biden is someone who was a committed public servant who put country above self; someone who has been one of the most consequential Presidents in our history and the most consequential of my lifetime; who came to this body from a blue-collar background, focused on the middle class, on unions, on what we could do to strengthen our country from the middle out and the bottom up and took that vision to the Presidency.

He worked tirelessly to restore our leadership around the world and to reweave together the bonds between the United States and a then- fractured coalition of alliances and partnerships around the world and to strengthen our economy as it recovered from the devastation of the pandemic.

He never gave up on the promise of our democracy, our Nation, and this institution in particular. The record of the bipartisan legislation that got passed under his leadership I think is striking and will stand the test of time, whether it was bringing back advanced manufacturing through the Chips and Science Act--a generational investment in rebuilding infrastructure all over our country of all different kinds and levels; investing in protecting our veterans from the harm of burn pits and doing right by our veterans, making right on that sacred obligation; combating gun violence; investing in community mental health. All of these were landmark, bipartisan pieces of legislation.

He also struck out in a direction that made a lifetime of difference in reducing prescription drug prices and in investing in a cleaner economy through the Inflation Reduction Act, which was a moment when he abandoned bipartisanship in the interest of making a lasting difference for all Americans.

If you look briefly at what he did beyond our shores, the crisis of Russia's brutal, broad spectrum invasion of Ukraine catalyzed not just the revitalization but the expansion of NATO, moved us from a point where only four of our NATO allies had met their spending targets to today--two dozen. He led a global coalition in defense of Ukraine. He stood strong for our ally Israel after the heinous attacks of October 7 and ongoing attacks from Iran. In the Indo-Pacific, he has done more to create a new security situation than even I could have imagined: the Quad in the Indo-Pacific, the reconciliation of Korea and Japan, and the innovative AUKUS partnership that will deliver nuclear propulsion technology to the Australian submarine fleet and deliver new deterrence.

One of my favorite things he has done was celebrated in his most recent trip to Angola: the investment in infrastructure in the Global South in a way that has higher transparency, better labor standards, better environmental standards. It is more sustainable than our competitors, the Chinese, and their investment throughout the world. I have had the chance to visit both the Philippines and Angola to see our President's lasting work in investing in infrastructure.

Across all of these, strengthening our alliances, investing in our values and our partnerships, finding ways to stand up to aggression--it is my hope that we will find in this Chamber bipartisan support to continue.

What I will miss most about Joe Biden's leadership is that he is someone who lived a quintessentially American story. He never forgot the middle-class roots that gave him the strength to live what was a hard life, knocked down by grief, devastating grief, twice in his life. He got back up. Someone who believed deeply in the dignity of work. The son of a hard-working car salesman. Someone who understood the importance of not just a paycheck but having a purpose and the importance of respecting work and its role in creating and strengthening the middle class.

Last, President Biden has been someone who knew and believed in this institution. I worked with then-Leaders McConnell and Reid, Senator Leahy, and Senator Grassley when Joe Biden was leaving his last moments as the President of the Senate, as Vice President, to pull together a ``Recollections of our Vice President Day,'' and dozens of Senators came to this floor and told their favorite Joe Biden stories. There were stories full of compassion, full of humor, full of dedication, and full of service. That is the man I hope we will remember and recognize as he comes to the conclusion of his service as President close to a month from today. That is the man who I will continue to honor and to respect as I continue in my service on behalf of our shared State of Delaware going forward.

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