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“Democratic Agenda (Executive Session)” mentioning Tommy Tuberville was published in the Senate section on pages S5062-S5063 on July 26.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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The publication is reproduced in full below:
Democratic Agenda
Now, Madam President, on an entirely different matter, American families are anxious, and they are uneasy.
The share of Americans who feels optimistic about our country's direction has plummeted by almost 20 percent just since the springtime. As recently as early May, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they were optimistic about the direction of the country. That was the highest figure that survey had reported in 14 years, but, alas, that has plummeted. Late last week, a new survey found that optimism is now a minority position as 55 percent of Americans are pessimistic. Approval of the new administration's handling of COVID-19 has tumbled. Their handling of the economy is underwater among Independents. Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans approve of their handling of immigration, the border, or violent crime.
Unfortunately, American families have ample reason to feel this way. The end of June clocked the highest annual inflation spike in more than a decade. The Democrats' stay-home bonus to workers who remain unemployed has slowed the recovery and helped to keep workforce participation stagnant. Meanwhile, last year, as the far left put the squeeze on law enforcement funding in cities across the country, America faced a 25-percent--25-percent--increase in homicides. Then, after the Biden administration was very eager to claim ownership and spike the football on the vaccination trajectory, which they largely inherited from Republican leadership, we have now seen vaccination rates in many places plateau on what this White House has been insisting is their watch.
This turn toward pessimism is especially stunning and especially sad because President Biden took office with the wind at his back. Things were set up for a roaring success like no other Presidential transition in recent memory. Thanks, in large part, to Operation Warp Speed, set up by the prior Congress and administration, we had multiple safe and effective vaccines that were beginning to circulate widely through the country. The new administration's so-called ambitious goal of about a million vaccines per day was already happening before they were sworn in. Thanks to the five bipartisan rescue packages that the Republican-led Senate passed last year, we were primed and ready for a historic economic comeback. Americans were excited and ready to build a comeback summer for the history books.
Yet those incredible tailwinds have largely been squandered. That historic head start has been wasted through bad policy and, in many cases, needlessly divisive leadership.
After a poorly targeted partisan spending package that even liberal economists warned could cause more inflation, American families are now feeling the pain and literally paying the price. After campaign rhetoric and then policy decisions that have made our southern border less secure, a predictable crisis is playing out. After a year of anti-
police and anti-rule-of-law rhetoric from too many on the political left, a violent crime surge is hammering communities and making streets less safe all across our country. Oh, and as the new administration pulls back America's presence in the Middle East in a reckless and rushed fashion, terrorist leaders are simply jumping for joy.
This is how you take a country from near-record optimism to serious pessimism in just 2-months' time. This is how you inherit favorable trends in just about every direction imaginable but produce disappointment. Our Democratic friends' big master plan is yet another reckless taxing-and-spending spree but even larger. The Washington Democrats' big idea is to borrow, print, and spend our way to even more inflation and even higher costs for American families, along with a historic set of big tax hikes to boot.
My friends across the aisle and down Pennsylvania Avenue should be less concerned about checking leftwing items off activists' wish lists. As more and more of the Democrats' partisan agenda comes online, the American people's pessimism grows and grows. The families of our country need a better approach.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Duckworth). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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