Congressional Daily Record
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September 14, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. THUNE. Madam President, it is hard to believe that we are in the last few months of the 119th Congress. Two years ago at this time, Democrats were still in charge, and the country was dealing with the two defining legacies of the Biden administration: a historic inflation crisis and a historic immigration crisis.
And I don't use the word “historic” lightly, but those two crises were truly historic. Democrats presided over the worst inflation crisis in 40 years, with inflation reaching 7, 8, and 9 percent. And they presided over 4 straight years—4 straight years—of recordbreaking— recordbreaking—illegal immigration. Republicans' priority when we came into office was dealing with the effects of these crises, and that started with preventing a massive tax hike on hard-working Americans.
passed a historic reform of our Tax Code. We cut tax rates across the board, doubled the child tax credit, and nearly doubled the standard deduction. But that tax relief was scheduled to expire at the end of 2025.
on their taxes, would have shrunk, increasing the amount of Americans' income the government could tax. Tax rates would have increased. The child tax credit would have been reduced by 50 percent.
additional $2,500 a year to Washington. Well, Republicans were not going to let that happen.
known as the One Big Beautiful Bill—to prevent this massive tax hike on hard-working Americans.
We made the increased standard deduction permanent; we made the lower tax rates permanent; and we made the increased child tax credit permanent. In other words, more money in American families' pockets permanently.
But we didn't stop there. We were well aware that Americans had had a very rough time financially under the Biden administration and so we took action to put additional money in hard-working Americans' pockets.
In 2017, we had doubled the child tax credit. In 2025, we not only made that increase permanent, we boosted the child tax credit even further and indexed it to inflation so its value will never go down.
substantially lowering the tax bills of millions of hard-working Americans, from Uber and Lyft drivers to hairdressers, to police officers. And we added a new bonus deduction for seniors, making retirement more affordable for millions of older Americans.
money didn't stop with the Working Families Tax Cuts. We have also spent this Congress cutting burdensome regulations that have driven up prices for hard-working Americans, from the California electric vehicle mandate, which would have forced Americans into costly electric cars, to regulations that would have driven up the cost of appliances.
working Americans from being priced out of the housing market, and we took action to drive down costs at the pharmacy counter as well.
discounts or rebates from their purchases at the pharmacy counter in their healthcare plans. We removed incentives for pharmacy benefit managers to promote higher priced medications at the expense of seniors. And we improved access to more affordable generic drugs.
Republicans were also committed to dealing with the Biden border crisis.
southern border under control, and the reduction in illegal immigration has been staggering.
fiscal year 2024, there were well over 2 million illegal immigrant encounters at our southern border.
know how many encounters there have been at the southern border? Fewer than 120,000. We are looking at somewhere on the order of a 90-percent decrease.
been released into the United States? Zero. That is right, not a single illegal immigrant has been released into the United States during the entire 2026 fiscal year. Now, that has been the case for 15 straight months, in fact, under President Trump.
from the Biden administration, which presided over the release of millions of illegal immigrants into our country's interior.
the Biden administration are manifold. And to help prevent anything like that from happening again, the Working Families Tax Cut included substantial resources to help guarantee the security of our Nation's border from additional Border Patrol agents to security technology. We also boosted funding for our national defense and for law enforcement.
this Congress to put more money in Americans' pockets and to help make our country more secure. And hard-working Americans will continue to be at the top of Republicans' agenda.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.