[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 217 (Sunday, December 20, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7858-S7859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the COVID relief 
bill that I understand is soon to be brought before the House and then 
to this floor.
  I understand that we have finally, at long last, a deal that 
hopefully will result in real relief for the American people. And there 
is a piece of good news that I want to be sure to note, and that is 
that this COVID relief package will contain direct assistance to 
working people. For every working family in this country that needs it, 
they will be, under this deal, getting a direct check just like they 
did in March.
  Now, that is a victory. There are no two ways about it, and we should 
celebrate that victory not on our own behalf but for the many people in 
this Nation who desperately need it and who, until just a few days ago, 
could expect nothing at all in the way of direct assistance from this 
body.
  I want to thank those who worked so hard to make sure that this 
relief was available and is going to the working people of this 
country--not least the President of the United States, who has been 
very clear, over and over again, that he wants to see direct relief to 
working families, that it should be the cornerstone of the bill. Of 
course, I thank Senator Sanders for his strong stand on this issue, and 
it has been a privilege to work with him on it.
  So this is good news--good news for working families, good news for 
working people just before Christmas, when they need the help the most.
  But I have to say that the levels of support that I understand will 
be offered to working people are hardly adequate, and we should not 
pretend otherwise: $600 per person, $600 per child. This is a fraction 
of what was offered to working people in the CARES legislation just a 
few months ago--legislation, I might add, that every Member of this 
body voted for--every Member voted for. Now they will be getting only a 
portion of that. It all adds up to about $100 billion. And we are told 
that there just wasn't enough left over, that there just wasn't any 
more available for working people.
  Yet I notice that in the spending bill that we are also going to vote 
on as part of this package, a bill that costs over $1 trillion, we 
managed to have found $65 million for salmon recovery in the Pacific, 
$643 million to carry out international communication activities in the 
Middle East, $116 million for the Export-Import Bank, and $118 million 
for that sterling example of international leadership, the World Health 
Organization, which has done more to undermine world health in the last 
year than I think any international organization in the history of the 
world.
  Then there is the so-called bipartisan proposal, which is the basis 
for the present deal--the bipartisan proposal which included, I might 
point out, not a cent--not a cent--in direct relief for working 
people--almost $1 trillion in costs, not one penny in direct relief for 
working people, until it was added recently. That proposal included $20 
billion for higher education--$20 billion. This is going to many 
universities that have massive endowments worth billions and billions 
of dollars, most of that built on the backs of taxpayers, I might add. 
Yet we cannot find any further funds to help working people in this 
country.
  I cannot help but note that working people were the last 
consideration in the draconian shutdowns earlier this year that sent so 
many of them home, that cost them their jobs, that cost them their 
wages, that cost them their healthcare on the job, and they have 
consistently been the last consideration in COVID relief in this body 
ever since. Frankly, it is disgraceful and, frankly, it is 
unacceptable.
  So the work that we are going to do today--and I hope to see a vote 
on this floor yet today on this relief--is a step--a step--in the right 
direction, but it is only a step. And I hope that it will be the 
beginning of a better approach, the beginning of actually putting 
working Americans first, putting their needs, putting their 
independence, putting their strength, their families, their communities 
first.
  That ought to be the economic policy of this Nation. That ought to be 
the economic policy of this body. And I can assure you, that is the 
foundation on which economic recovery will be built because it is the 
working people of this Nation who power the American economy.
  Don't believe anything else. We hear a lot about global capital. We 
hear about the need to secure the financial markets--oh, and, by the 
way, the Federal Reserve. We are taking back $430 billion from the 
Federal Reserve in this piece of legislation--$430 billion from the 
Federal Reserve--funded to the max. Wall Street--funded to the max.
  But I say again: Wall Street, capital, the financial markets--they 
are not the foundation of this economy. The working people of this 
Nation, the working people of Missouri, the working people of our other 
States--they are the foundation of this economy, and it is time that 
they were put first--first for COVID relief, first in our economic 
policy, first in all that we do.
  So I hope that this effort to get them direct assistance will be the 
beginning of a larger effort to orient our economic policy and the 
policy of this Nation around the strength and the independence and the 
needs of our great working Americans.
  I want to end by saying thank you to them, thank you to the working 
people of Missouri who have endured through this crisis day in and day 
out, who have gone to work as essential workers, who have taken care of 
children at home, who have missed shifts at work in order to care for 
loved ones, who have contributed food to others in need even when they 
didn't have enough food for themselves, who have gone without in order 
to see that their children could eat.
  The people of this country, the working people who have sacrificed 
again and again and again and have borne the brunt of this pandemic and 
have continued to show up for their families, for

[[Page S7859]]

their communities, and for this country--thank you. Thank you for 
making this country work. Thank you for building this country as we 
know it.
  Help is on the way. Help is on the way in this bill, which I hope 
will become law tonight. But there is much more to do, and I, for one, 
stand ready to work to do it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

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