Biden Administration
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the Democrats' agenda for the new year.
The American people have just come back from the most expensive Christmas in our Nation's history, coronavirus cases are breaking records all around the country, and many Americans spent their Christmas with their travel plans canceled.
Joe Biden now enters his second year in office with record-high inflation, record-high coronavirus cases, and a record-low approval rating. Now, Joe Biden is breaking all kinds of records, and each of these records reflects an America that is heading in the wrong direction.
The American people have two major concerns right now: coronavirus and what it costs to live their daily lives. Yet these two issues are not even on the radar of Democrats in Washington, DC.
In fact, Democrats have only made these problems worse. First, Democrats have unquestionably driven up the cost of living on American families. Inflation shot up after Democrats put $2 trillion on America's credit card this spring.
Democrats told us inflation was transitory. They said it month after month after month. On the day after Christmas, Margaret Brennan of CBS News asked the Vice President a very basic question. She asked: Was it wrong to consider inflation transitory?
It is not a gotcha question. It is a question American families have asked themselves month after month after month, as they heard Democrats say it was transitory. Well, to the American people the answer is very clear. It is obvious. Of course, it was wrong by the administration, by the President, by the Vice President to try to mislead the American people by claiming that inflation was transitory.
So what did we hear from the Vice President in response to this question that has been of great concern to the American people?
What we heard was 118 words of incoherent rambling. She was like a deer in headlights on a basic question on the top issue of the day. Either the Vice President is out of touch with the needs of the American people or she just didn't want to admit that the Biden administration had been wrong month after month after month, until the inflation numbers hit a 4-year high.
It has gone on now for 9 months and, you know, it is only going to get worse. That is what the experts are telling us. In October, we saw the worst inflation in 30 years, and, in November, it became the worst inflation in 40 years.
Prices have gone up faster than wages. This means the average American family can purchase a lot less today than they could when Joe Biden took office.
And the biggest price increases, of course, have been in energy. In November, we saw the biggest energy price increase in 10 years. CNBC reports that one-fifth of American families couldn't afford to pay an energy bill this past year. Roughly the same percentage have kept their home at an unhealthy temperature because they can't afford the cost of providing heat.
People who travelled for Christmas faced some of the highest Christmas Day prices in history. Gas cost $1 more a gallon this Christmas than it did last Christmas--1 year, $1 a gallon more.
Many people couldn't travel because of coronavirus. Americans broke records for coronavirus cases twice last week. Ohio, Maryland, and here in the District of Columbia, all broke records for hospitalizations due to coronavirus.
Now, remember when Joe Biden ran for office? He said he was the cure for coronavirus. This guy ought to be sued for medical malpractice.
He came into office with two safe and effective vaccines. Millions of people have already been vaccinated. Yet more Americans have now died from coronavirus under President Joe Biden than under the previous President. From day one of this administration, this President has been inconsistent, incoherent, and incompetent.
The flip-flop on masks for the vaccinated has continued. The administration kowtowed to the teachers union on mask mandates for toddlers. They flip-flopped on booster shots. They flip-flopped again on testing.
For months now, countries like the United Kingdom have sent rapid tests to their citizens through the mail. On December 23, President Biden told ABC News: ``I wish I had thought about ordering . . . [at- home test kits] two months ago.''
Well, it turns out the White House did think about it. The media is now reporting that the White House turned down a plan to mail test kits in October.
In early December, the White House Press Secretary was asked why the Biden administration wasn't mailing out tests. After all, the Democrats, on a straight party-line vote in March, put $2 trillion on our Nation's credit card under the guise of COVID relief. Only 9 percent of the money went for healthcare. Where did that money go? Billions and tens of billions of dollars, so-called for testing, in the bill that the Democrats forced on a party-line vote, and yet there aren't tests in the country because people are lined up around the block waiting for tests that the President wished he had thought about.
That is what he told the world. That is what he said on ABC News.
In early December, the White House Press Secretary was asked why the Biden administration wasn't mailing out tests. She mocked the idea. Then, just a few weeks later, it became the policy of this same administration--too little, too late, another flip-flop, another example of the hypocrisy and the incompetence of this administration.
Someone in the press ought to ask Joe Biden if he still believes what he said as a candidate. So let's review what he said as a candidate.
In September of 2020, Joe Biden said: ``If the president had done his job from the beginning''--he was referring to President Trump--Biden said, ``all the people would still be alive.'' ``All the people,'' he said. ``I'm not making this up''--Joe Biden once again telling the world he is not making it up.
I don't know of a single doctor or public health official anywhere in the world who would agree with that statement by Joe Biden, then candidate for President. Yet Joe Biden said it repeatedly.
As a candidate, Joe Biden said: ``Any President who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President.''
And to that I say: Joe Biden, you are right now responsible for that many deaths. So, maybe, you shouldn't remain as President either.
Joe Biden attacked the previous administration for letting Governors manage the response to coronavirus. Yet just last month, Joe Biden admitted: ``There is no Federal solution'' to the coronavirus.
Does Joe Biden still believe what he said as a candidate?
Did he ever believe it?
What does he know? What does he think? What does he believe? Or was he just running for President on the Big Lie?
Now, even for Democrats in Washington, the hypocrisy and the incompetence are astonishing. Now the American people all across this country are suffering the consequences of the mismanagement by this administration.
Flights, train departures, public events are all being canceled due to the resurgence of coronavirus. Cancellations continue today because of coronavirus under the President who said he would solve the problem, to the point that even the majority party's conference, which should have been a lunch, today was moved to be virtual because of the virus that Joe Biden said he would eliminate.
Joe Biden's lies and flip-flops continue. Joe Biden said he wouldn't issue a vaccine mandate. He said it on several occasions and then he broke his word. In the process, he took a sledgehammer to the American workforce, forcing people out of their jobs.
The Biden administration has also issued a mask mandate for children as young as 2 years of age, in preschool.
Just before Christmas, Senator Lummis, also from Wyoming, and I introduced a bill to stop this mandate. There is no scientific basis for forcing toddlers to wear masks. This isn't about the science. It has been shown that the teachers union lobbied for mask mandates in schools.
On May 13, the Centers for Disease Control issued its mask guidance for vaccinated people--for people who had been fully vaccinated. The guidance from the Centers for Disease Control said that fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks indoors.
What happened the very next day?
Well, the very next day, the head of the National Education Association, the teachers union, called the Director of the Centers for Disease Control. The day after that, the Centers for Disease Control released new guidance--new guidance--saying vaccinated people should wear masks in schools. Maybe it was a coincidence. It doesn't look like it or sound like it to me. This flip-flop looks like a kind of political pandering, the pandering to union bosses that this administration has engaged in since day one.
The American people have two big concerns right now: coronavirus and the cost of living. Democrats on Capitol Hill continue to ignore the two biggest concerns of the American people.
What are the Democrats in this body focused on instead? Well, for 5 months now, Democrats in this body have tried to pass the largest spending bill in history.
What is it focused on? Not inflation; not COVID; not crime in the cities, where murder rates are at an alltime high; not border security, where the number of people coming in illegally, carrying disease and drugs, is at an alltime high. No, the Democrats want to focus instead on climate change and new entitlements. Their bill included trillions and trillions of dollars in new taxes and trillions and trillions of dollars in new debt.
President Biden and nearly every Democrat in Congress went on record in support of this socialist budget bill. Not a single Republican supports it, and not even every Democrat supports it. Now Democrats are fighting among themselves, and it is an absolute disgrace. Democrats ought to be thankful that bill didn't pass, because if it passed, inflation would get worse, just in time for elections.
This isn't what the American people want. The American people have many concerns right now about the direction of this country and the direction that the President is trying to lead the Nation. The two biggest concerns are the coronavirus in their communities and the cost of living that impacts on them, on the people every day. Democrats are failing on both.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source