[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 18, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7052-S7053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the American people sent a clear message in 
this election. They want us to get to work to empower people with a 
plan to fight this virus and to get people back to work, back to 
school, and back to their lives. They gave President-Elect Biden a 
commanding 5-million vote victory to do that. It is time for us to get 
to work.
  We have had more than 1 million new cases just in the past week. Yet 
what does Leader Mitch McConnell--what does he keep the Senate in 
session to do? He keeps the Senate in session and he puts essential 
workers at risk all to try to ram through an unqualified nominee who 
pretty much everybody in this body knows has no business serving on the 
Federal Reserve.
  Let's be clear on what this is about. It is about our outgoing 
President--again, who lost the popular vote by 5 million people and 
lost an electoral college by a landslide--trying to sabotage our 
economic recovery on his way out the door. Yesterday, luckily, Senators 
of both parties rejected that effort. There were 80 million Americans--
most ever by a lot--who voted for stability in this election. Judy 
Shelton, the Trump nominee, promises more Trump chaos.
  You can't say you support working people while putting someone in 
charge who has no problem whatsoever threatening their jobs and their 
savings to push a bizarre intellectual agenda. She has no idea how to 
handle an economic crisis like the one we are in. Her positions aren't 
conservative. They are not traditionally conservative, which we could 
debate. I would be willing to vote for conservatives, as I have before, 
if I thought they were qualified and their thinking was not so far, far 
right out of the mainstream. But her positions aren't conservative; 
they are disqualifying.
  For three decades, she has advocated returning to the gold standard. 
No serious person--progressive, moderate, conservative--no serious 
person, left or right, still believes in the gold standard. She opposes 
FDIC, Federal deposit insurance--the insurance that protects your money 
when you put it in the bank. She has flip-flopped on these issues 
several times during her nomination. The only thing consistent she 
stands for is that she--no surprise--wants to do what Trump wants to 
do. But Americans have moved on from Donald Trump, 80 million strong. 
It is time for the Senate to move on from this failed nomination and 
this failed Presidency.
  This nomination was a waste of time. Look what we should have been 
doing instead. You all know that. Every moment we spend on unnecessary, 
unqualified nominees like this is time the Senate isn't spending saving 
lives. It is time to get to work delivering results for the people whom 
we serve.
  We are watching hospitals fill up again from Oklahoma to Ohio. Our 
healthcare system is getting overwhelmed. Gig workers and self-employed 
workers will lose their unemployment insurance at the end of the year. 
Small businesses and local governments are running out of money. It 
doesn't have to be this bad.
  I have had enough and I think my colleagues in both parties have had 
enough of this false choice between saving the economy and combating 
the virus. We have to do both, and we can do both. It is not an 
unsolvable problem. We need the resources, and we have the resources. 
We are the greatest, wealthiest country on Earth. We have some of the 
hardest workers, the best scientists, and the smartest doctors. We have 
manufacturing expertise. We have natural resources. We have the world's 
reserve currency. We have all those things.
  But President Trump and Senator McConnell want you to believe we 
can't solve big problems; we can't use our resources to help ordinary 
families; we can't use our talents to produce tests and PPE; we can't 
use our ingenuity to figure out how to open businesses and schools 
safely. They have essentially thrown up their hands and said: Sorry, 
America, you are on your own. They want you to believe this is the best 
America can do. In this election, Americans made it clear they don't 
buy that. They have had enough of aiming low and being told: We can't 
do that. We can't solve this problem; it is too big. We can't govern. 
We can't afford it.

[[Page S7053]]

  We can do big things. We did big things in World War II. We did big 
things combating communism. We did big things combating the Great 
Depression. We can do big things, and we can solve the problems for the 
people we serve.
  We did it this past spring. When we passed the CARES Act unanimously, 
one study said that 12 million people were kept out of poverty because 
of the $600 unemployment insurance, because of the help to small 
businesses, because we helped local governments, and because we helped 
people stay in their homes. There were 12 million people kept out of 
poverty.
  And the individual checks that were sent out, essentially, that 
expired in July and August. Since then, we have seen literally 
thousands of Americans a week falling into poverty. We kept millions of 
Americans from falling into poverty. We can do it again. We can keep 
Americans from losing their homes. We put in place an eviction 
moratorium. We gave people stimulus checks. We helped support the small 
businesses. Why are we not doing that again? Why does Senator McConnell 
not want to do that again?
  We can rise to meet this moment. We can restore people's faith in 
their government. We can't allow President Trump--with his out-the-door 
appointees of people out of the mainstream--we can't allow him to 
sabotage this economy and sabotage this government from within, 
creating chaos wherever he can, after voters decisively, decisively, 
decisively rejected him with an electoral college landslide and 
rejected him by more than 5 million votes. The voters have sent a clear 
message to all of us to get to work.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.