H.R. 4346 would appropriate $54.2 billion over five years, including $52.7 billion for semiconductor research and manufacturing and $1.5 billion for 5G development and implementation, and authorizes a 25-percent tax credit for spending on semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Additionally, H.R. 4346 authorizes, over five years, $81 billion for the National Science Foundation (NSF), $67 billion for the Energy Department, $11 billion for the Commerce Department, and $9.7 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Among other actions, the bill authorizes new and existing NASA programs, requires the NSF to support research in new fields including climate change, and authorizes programs to improve underrepresented groups’ participation in STEM fields.

The Senate passed H.R. 4346 on July 27, 2022 by a vote of 64 to 33 (Roll Call 271). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the Constitution does not authorize Congress to fund research and development programs for the private sector. The free market, not government, is the key to technological and economic progress.

During consideration of a veterans healthcare bill (S. 3373), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment to offset the cost of a Veterans’ Benefits for Toxic Exposure bill by prohibiting USAID from distributing foreign-aid funds, other than to Israel, for 10 years. Paul defended his proposition with examples of USAID waste, including a $50 million “Visit Tunisia” program and a $37 million project designed to get “Filipinos back to school.”

The Senate rejected Paul’s amendment on August 2, 2022 by a vote of 7 to 90 (Roll Call 277). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the United States cannot afford to give aid to the rest of the world (in fact, the United States must borrow the money it gives away, since it is operating in the red), and there is no constitutional authorization to do so.

During consideration of protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty to expand NATO to include Sweden and Finland, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered an amendment to add a reservation to the protocols stating that “Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war before the United States engages in war.” Article 5 of the treaty, which created NATO in 1949, states, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them … shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them … will assist the Party or Parties so attacked.”

The Senate rejected Paul’s amendment on August 3, 2022 by a vote of 10 to 87 (Roll Call 281). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because, under the U.S. Constitution, only the Congress may declare war.

The Senate voted on protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty that created the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 that would expand the military alliance to include Finland and Sweden. For the protocols to become effective, all 30 current NATO members must approve them.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the protocols on August 3, 2022 by a vote of 95 to 1 (Roll Call 282), far in excess of the two-thirds majority vote needed to ratify treaties. We have assigned pluses to the nay because NATO is based on the principle of collective security, as opposed to each country acting in its own best interests. Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them … shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them … will assist the Party or Parties so attacked.” The expansion of this entangling military alliance, which was comprised of just 12 members at the time of its founding, increases the likelihood of the United States being drawn into a military conflict.

During consideration of the budget reconciliation bill (aka the Inflation Reduction Act), Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made a motion to commit the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee for changes that would prohibit the Justice Department from using resources to “inappropriately target” or classify parents as “domestic terrorists” based on their engagement with public- school officials. The Senate rejected Cruz’ motion on August 7, 2022 by a vote of 50 to 50 (Roll Call 316). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because Congress should ensure that executive branch officials do not abridge parents’ freedom of speech or their right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances, which is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

H.R. 5376 would spend at least $512 billion on federal programs, subsidies, and tax credits. This includes $369 billion for various climate-change initiatives with the goal of lowering carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, including $270 billion in tax credits, $27 billion in grants to state and local governments and nongovernmental organizations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and $9.7 billion to support zero-emission or carbon-capture technology in rural areas; $64 billion to extend expanded ObamaCare subsidies for three years; and $79.3 billion in expanded IRS funding (including to hire up to 87,000 new agents). Among other programs, the bill imposes a 15-percent minimum tax — based on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) global minimum tax proposal — on corporations with at least $1 million in annual income, enacts drug-pricing changes for Medicare, and raises fee rates on energy production on public lands.

The Senate passed H.R. 5376 on August 7, 2022 by a vote of 50 to 50 (Roll Call 325). We have assigned pluses to the nays because Congress is failing to address its fiscally irresponsible budgeting and appropriating process that yielded a federal deficit of $1.38 trillion in fiscal 2022. Moreover, the bill advances a radical environmentalist agenda, and virtually all of its provisions fall outside the Constitution’s specified powers.

This resolution of ratification (Treaty Document 117-1) would ratify the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Under this treaty, the United States would be required to reduce hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions 85 percent (compared to 2012 levels) by 2036, and create a licensing system to regulate HFC imports and exports.

The Senate confirmed the treaty on September 21, 2022 by a vote of 69 to 27 (Roll Call 343). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the Kigali Amendment infringes on U.S. sovereignty and allows the United Nations to dictate HFC environmental regulations in the United States. Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution does not authorize federal or international regulation of HFCs.

Senate Joint Resolution 63 would terminate the Covid-19 national emergency declared by President Donald Trump on March 13, 2020. As Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stated in a November 17, 2022 op-ed, “The Constitution is the guarantor of our liberties. So it should come as no surprise that those who crave power to rule over their fellow man always seek to suspend the Constitution by declaring and perpetuating national emergencies.” He went on to write, “A president should not be able to unilaterally aggrandize his powers by saying a magic word. If he will not terminate the national emergency himself, it falls to us, the people’s representatives in Congress, to act, and, in the wise words of the court, remind Biden that ‘there is no pandemic exception to the Constitution.’”

The Senate passed the resolution terminating the Covid-19 national emergency on November 15, 2022 by a vote of 62 to 36. (Roll Call 355). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because it is unconstitutional to suspend the Constitution by declaring national public health emergencies.

H.R. 8404 would codify the right to marry regardless of sexual orientation or race. It prohibits the states from denying marriage between two individuals on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. This bill also repeals the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as “only a legal union between one man and one woman.”

The Senate passed H.R. 8404 on November 29, 2022 by a vote of 61 to 36 (Roll Call 362). We have assigned pluses to the nays because this Marxist-inspired bill violates state sovereignty. Additionally, it embraces “woke” culture and undermines the traditional nuclear family. Rights come from God, not government.

H.R. 2617 would authorize $1.6 trillion for regular fiscal 2023 discretionary federal spending and another $100 billion for a wide variety of other legislation (nearly $47 billion for aid to Ukraine and roughly $38 billion for U.S. natural disasters) that was tacked onto the bill in last-minute negotiations by congressional leaders. Looking at the big picture, this bill minimizes congressional accountability to the voters by combining the 2023 spending approval for 15 Cabinet departments and eight federal agencies into only one bill. On top of that, the federal budget deficit for 2023 is expected to be one trillion dollars.

The Senate passed H.R. 2617 on December 22, 2022 by a vote of 68 to 29 (Roll Call 421). We have assigned pluses to the nays because passage of this largely unconstitutional bill in the context of a projected $1 trillion 2023 federal budget deficit reveals a high degree of fiscal irresponsibility and unaccountability to the voters by Congress. This Omnibus 2023 spending bill should have been punted by this “lame duck” session of Congress into the next Congress, where it would have been subject to revision by the members selected by the voters on November 8, 2022.