[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 218 (Monday, December 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7895-S7898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           GOVERNMENT FUNDING

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, Republicans like to mock modern monetary 
theory--the idea that government can print money with impunity and that 
government can spend whatever it wants without the need to tax. Modern 
monetary theory is basically the Dick Cheney ``deficits don't matter'' 
crowd, trussed up with a new fancy title.
  Most Republicans rightly lampoon this quackery; that is, when they 
are not practicing the quackery themselves. Today, many of these same 
Republicans will vote for a bill that makes modern monetary theory look 
like child's play in comparison. The monster spending bill presented 
today is not just a ``deficits don't matter'' disaster, it is 
everything Republicans say they don't believe in.
  This bill is free money for everyone. Proponents don't care if you 
are fully employed or own your own house or own your own business. 
``Free money for everyone,'' they cry. And yet, if free money were the 
answer and if money really grew on trees, why not give more free money? 
Why not give it out all the time? Why stop at $600 a person? Why not 
$1,000? Why not $2,000? Maybe these new free-money Republicans should 
join the ``everybody gets a guaranteed income'' caucus. Why not $20,000 
a year for everybody? Why not $30,000? If we can print up money with 
impunity, why not do it?
  The Treasury could just keep printing the money; that is, until 
someone points out that the Emperor has no clothes and that the dollar 
no longer has value. To so-called conservatives who are quick to 
identify the socialism of Democrats, if you vote for this spending 
monstrosity, you are no better. When you vote to pass out free money, 
you lose your soul, and you abandon forever any semblance of moral or 
fiscal integrity.
  So the next time you see Republicans in high moral dudgeon, claiming 
and complaining about spending of Democrats and socialism, remind 
them--remind them if they supported this monstrous bill, that really 
the difference between the parties is less Adam Smith versus Marx and 
more Marx versus Engels.
  How bad is our fiscal situation? Well, the Federal Government brought 
in $3.3 trillion last year and spent $6.6 trillion. The deficit last 
year, a record-busting $3.3 trillion. If you are looking for more COVID 
bailout money, we don't have any. The coffers are bare. We have no 
rainy day fund. We have no savings account. Congress has spent all the 
money long ago.
  The economic damage from this pandemic is not the reason for this 
runaway spending. This spending has been going on for decades. Every 
year, even before we get to all the extra COVID-free money, we have 
been spending $1 trillion we don't have.
  Today's money is gone, so Congress is spending tomorrow's money. The 
spending chart is a red line of red ink that goes on forever. When we 
talk about spending tomorrow's money, it is not just the money that we 
need next month. It is the money we might need in a decade. It is the 
money we will need in one, two, three generations from now--for 
national defense and for infrastructure. This is the money that your 
children and your grandchildren will pay back with interest.
  The deficit doubling and tripling--under George Bush, it went from $5 
trillion to $10 trillion. Under President Obama, it went from $10 
trillion to $20 trillion. We are now at $27 trillion, but we are adding 
it at $1 trillion a year before we get to this COVID budget-busting 
bailout.
  Every tax-paying American already owes over $136,000, and they are 
staring at projections into the future that show no end. We are $27 
trillion in debt today. How do we expect a child to have the economic 
opportunity when this crushing debt is their inheritance from Congress? 
The numbers are mind-boggling. It is hard to conceive of what $1 
billion is, much less $1 trillion.
  How big is $1 billion? Well, a billion seconds ago was 1988 and 
Reagan was President. A billion minutes ago, Jesus walked the shore of 
the Sea of Galilee. A billion hours ago, man still lived in caves. But 
$1 billion ago, was just 80 minutes ago--$1 billion ago, at the rate 
Congress spends money, was just 80 minutes ago.
  All of this should be setting off alarm bells. But the only alarm 
bells in Congress are sounding the alarm for more spending and more 
debt. No cuts, no offsets, no pay-fors, and no prioritization. Just 
print it up. Print up more money and give it out to everybody because 
it is free money. Come and get yours while the getting is good. But it 
leads to a mountain of debt. Spend all this money and leave the future 
to figure itself out.
  John Maynard Keynes was once asked: What about the long run?
  He said: In the short run, you can make a stimulus. You can print 
money, and you can give it to everybody.
  And Maynard Keynes, his response was: In the long run, we will all be 
dead; no concern for the future, only for the immediate.
  Our budget deficit for 2020 was $3.3 trillion, but this new spending 
package will also give us another $2 trillion in the next fiscal year. 
By refusing to acknowledge the debt crisis, we are only hastening the 
day of economic reckoning.
  Total debt was 55 percent of GDP just 20 years ago. Today, it is 128 
percent of GDP. So our annual or our total debt is more than our GDP--
128 percent of our GDP. The World Bank estimates there

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is a tipping point of debt to GDP at about 77 percent. Every percentage 
point costs another 10th or so of economic growth. So every year, we 
are giving out somewhere between 5 to 8 percent of growth every year 
because of this burden of debt. This is thousands of jobs, every year--
tens of thousands of jobs that we lose because of this burden of debt.

  We are borrowing and worsening this debt crisis in part because too 
many Governors and mayors have imposed heavyhanded restrictions that 
crush business. It isn't the pandemic that is killing the economy; it 
is the government's overzealous response that is killing the economy. 
The pandemic itself was disruptive, but Congress is being asked to help 
to perpetuate these lockdowns. The more money we give to the States, 
the more they keep us in lockdown.
  Every bailout dollar printed and passed out to the Governors only 
allows these tin-pot dictators to perpetuate the lockdowns. Their rules 
are arbitrary and unscientific. Governors and mayors across the country 
are picking winners and losers.
  Businesses, some that have been in families for generations, are 
being wiped out because they are not allowed to open. Restaurants have 
to close their doors for indoor dining, but then they are told they can 
open at limited capacity, but then they are told they have to close 
again. Then they are told they can open outside, and then they are told 
they can't open outside. Confusing doesn't even explain the half of it.
  Bars are told they can only serve alcohol if people are sitting and 
not standing and only if they have heavy foods on their menus.
  Restaurants are told they can serve outdoors, and then they have 
their permission revoked after they have sunk time and money converting 
their restaurant to outdoor services, but a caterer is told they can 
still serve outside.
  Businesses are told they have to close at an arbitrary time 
determined by government officials, as though the virus only comes out 
late at night. A business in one ZIP Code can open, but one in an 
adjoining ZIP Code across the street has to close, as if the virus 
can't cross an imaginary line.
  Airlines are allowed to fly, but hotels have to limit their 
occupancy, so you may not have anywhere to stay when you get there.
  Mom-and-pop stores and specialty stores are forced to close, but big-
box store competitors are allowed to stay open.
  How is any business expected to survive with this kind of arbitrary 
regulation that changes from day to day? Meanwhile, many schools remain 
closed--despite overwhelming evidence showing kids can learn safely in 
person--which means parents can't go to work, which forces parents to 
leave their jobs and take care of homebound kids. Now they have no 
income because the government forced them to leave their jobs to take 
care of their kids. And many kids are struggling with this improvised 
virtual school.
  The need for help is real. I hear it every day from Kentuckians and 
across the country. But it is clear that government has worsened the 
economic damage and acted as the biggest obstacle to economic recovery.
  There is no free money that can get us out of this situation. The 
only thing that can save us is to open the economy. If we give these 
tin-pot dictators--these Governors--more money, they are less likely to 
open the economy.
  The answer is not printing up and distributing ``free money''; it is 
opening the economy. We are not even debating the real answer to this. 
We are like, just print up the money and shovel it out the door, the 
deficit be damned, the threat of the destruction of our currency be 
damned.
  We can choose to let our economies open with guidance and precautions 
but not obstruction. Let people rebuild their livelihoods. Reopen our 
schools so our kids can return and parents can go back to work.
  Congress should do away with automatic spending increases and 
scrutinize where in the budget we can find savings to pay for the 
pressing needs arising from the pandemic, but we shouldn't simply print 
up money and pass it out to everyone. Or Congress can follow the status 
quo. Congress can continue to borrow from our kids--the same children 
we have locked out of our schools. Congress can keep enabling and 
shutting down businesses by force, spend all of today's money and all 
of tomorrow's money, and then good luck. Good luck figuring out how to 
pay for all of this massive debt.
  It doesn't have to be this way. There is another alternative that 
won't be debated, and that alternative is to open the economy. It is 
not too late to change our course. Cut unnecessary spending. Eliminate 
waste. Stop fighting a $50-billion-a-year war in Afghanistan that 
hasn't had a military mission in at least a decade.
  Make the hard decisions now. We can't keep pretending that more debt 
is a sustainable policy course. ``Leadership'' is not passing on the 
problem to someone who can't protest; ``leadership'' is making the hard 
choices now. This is what we have to do.
  I will oppose this new debt, and I will continue to sound the alarm 
until we change our course. Our country can be saved. We can survive 
this if we pull together. But adding more debt is a mistake. It is not 
the solution, and we should resist it.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hawley). The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I was going to speak in a few minutes, but 
things have been filed now appropriately.
  Let me speak in my role not only as the Senator from Vermont but as 
the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. We have had 
months of delay and painstaking negotiations. Sometimes those 
negotiations have gone all weekend long, until midnight, 1 or 2 o'clock 
in the morning. But this afternoon, we will have before us a spending 
package. It includes all 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2021. 
It also includes a vitally important COVID relief package. Those are 
the numbers and figures, but let's talk about what it means.
  It provides funding for programs that are critically important to the 
American people, and I would like to see it swiftly passed and on the 
President's desk. After all, it is not like we are suddenly rushing 
things. We are 2 months and 20 days into the fiscal year. It would be 
absolutely outrageous if we delayed it further.
  As vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I worked hard to 
reach agreement on this Omnibus appropriations bill that will fund the 
Federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year, without 
relying on a long-term continuing resolution, as sometimes has been 
done in the past. That was not an easy task.
  The budget caps are very lean this year, and we had to stay within 
those. They provided a less than 1-percent increase in nondefense 
discretionary spending, and that is to meet the needs of a nation that 
is reeling from the worst public health pandemic in a century.
  Under normal circumstances, that would be difficult, but it is made 
even more difficult because of the global health and economic crisis we 
face. Notwithstanding the tight top line, we have produced a bill that 
provides important increases in programs that serve the American people 
and invest in our economy.
  I think the bill finally drives a stake through the heart of the 
administration's effort to substantially diminish the role of 
government in helping Americans in need and in promoting economic 
growth.
  We all know that President Trump's first budget proposed to 
substantially diminish the role of government. He wanted to cut 
nondefense spending by 9 percent in fiscal 2018 and 18 percent by 2021. 
He wanted to completely eliminate programs millions of Americans rely 
on every day. For 4 years, in Congress, leading Republicans and 
Democrats came together and we rejected these ill-conceived, arbitrary, 
and reckless cuts.
  This year, I will say to my colleagues--those who have worked hard 
with us on the Democratic side and on the Republican side and who came 
together on this, and, especially, those who worked with us in the 
Appropriations Committee--we are going to do the same in rejecting 
these arbitrary cuts.
  Now, this agreement is the product of weeks of hard work and 
compromise.

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This is not the bill I would have written on my own. It includes things 
I support and, I must admit, some things I oppose. But that is often 
the way legislation is. No one Senator gets everything that he or she 
wants. But together, we can get things that the country wants, and on 
balance, passage of this bill is unquestionably in the interest of the 
American people.
  Let me talk about some of those things. The omnibus spending bill 
includes increases for education and early childhood programs. It 
provides more funding for substance abuse and mental health services. I 
think every one of us knows, from what we hear from back home, that 
these services are of utmost importance in these extremely difficult 
times. It provides more for food assistance programs both here and 
abroad--the assistance that is desperately needed as many families 
struggle to survive during this pandemic. And it includes increases for 
housing and homelessness services to help those who are the most 
vulnerable. These are all programs that my fellow Democrats fought hard 
to include.
  I support this agreement. As I said, I appreciate those who have 
worked with us weekends, holidays, and after midnight on so many 
nights. But I am deeply disappointed that Congress is so unforgivably 
late in completing our work. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever 
why this bill could not have been finished months ago.
  I thank Chairman Shelby, Chairwoman Lowey, and Ranking Member Granger 
for their cooperation and partnership. We worked through our 
differences on the Omnibus spending bill. As the Big 4, we realized we 
had to balance the needs and requests of all of our Members. I urge all 
Members to support it.
  That is for the Omnibus.
  Now, before us today is a much delayed COVID relief package. It, too, 
is the product of bipartisan compromise, and while it falls short in 
some critical areas, I support the agreement. It is also long overdue. 
The American people have been waiting for help for far too long, and I 
am worried our Republican leadership took a wait-and-see approach. We 
were ready to go on this last summer, but for 270 days Majority Leader 
McConnell and the Senate Republicans have blocked every reasonable 
effort to provide desperately needed relief, even as Members of their 
party said quietly: We wish we could do something.
  Now, this package is far from perfect, but time is not on our side. 
We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's look at what 
the good things are in here. It provides much needed investments in our 
economy with support for small businesses--small businesses like those 
in my State of Vermont or those in the State of the Presiding Officer 
or anybody else here. It provides relief for unemployed workers by 
extending unemployment benefits into March. It makes investments in 
vaccine production and distribution. It supports health providers, 
educators and farmers and transportation providers. It provides 
critical investments to expand broadband in rural and low-income areas, 
access which is vitally important during these difficult times, when 
many schools and many businesses are operating remotely.

  It includes another round of direct payments to millions of Americans 
who are still struggling to pay their mortgage or their rent and feed 
their families and heat their homes and meet their monthly obligations. 
Many can't do all those things. Now they will at least get help.
  I urged that this bill also includes $4 billion in emergency funding 
for the Gavi Alliance. Let me explain that. And I appreciate those 
Senators who supported me on that money, the emergency funding for 
Gavi. This is for the procurement and delivery of vaccines to countries 
around the world whose rudimentary public health systems are being 
overwhelmed by COVID-19, whose economies are in free fall due to the 
virus. We cannot defeat this global pandemic, and international travel 
and Congress will not recover without fighting the virus overseas.
  Just as we did during the Obama administration when we were faced 
with Ebola, the administration and the Congress came together and said: 
Sure, we will protect here in the United States, but we will also work 
at getting rid of it in other countries because if it flourishes in 
another country, it is an airplane trip away from our country.
  I support the package, but I want to be very clear. This COVID bill 
is only a first step. We have to do more. Vermonters and the American 
people need more.
  The direct payments included in this package are a fraction of what 
we should have provided, given the dire financial situation of millions 
of people across this Nation. People are hungry. Unemployment continues 
to plague our economies. We should have acted months ago, but let's at 
least act on this today. Families are struggling to pay their rent and 
put food on their table.
  I will continue to fight for more. I made hundreds of phone calls 
from my own State of Vermont. I talked to people whom I never met, but 
I know that they are people who are typical of Vermonters, but they are 
typical of people in any one of the States we represent. I hear the 
fear in their voice. I hear the concern they have. In the middle of 
winter, as snow is coming down, do we heat or do we eat? How many meals 
should we, as parents, go without so we can make sure our children are 
fed? How are children going to do school if they are hungry?
  Look at State and local governments. Around the country, they have 
laid off over 1.3 million teachers, first responders, and other 
employees since March. They need our help. Sometimes there are things 
that we don't talk about. Rates of spousal abuse and child abuse have 
increased during the crisis. We should be providing funds for the 
Violence Against Women Act and child abuse prevention grants, just as 
Republicans and Democrats joined me a few years ago when I greatly 
expanded--with the help of Senator Mike Crapo in a bipartisan fashion--
the Violence Against Women Act and the things we did. None of us, even 
at that time, could have conceived of the crisis we are facing now in 
the country.
  In my State, Vermonters are facing the coldest, darkest months of 
winter. They are struggling to heat their homes. And families need help 
paying their utility bills through the LIHEAP program, and we will help 
that program. When it is 20 degrees below zero and you have had 15 
inches of snow overnight, you can't really look at this as an abstract 
thing and say: Golly, maybe we should have a program to heat our home. 
You are going to die if you don't.
  And we are finally making progress in delivering a vaccine to the 
American people, but the pandemic is far from over. We know that, 
notwithstanding a lot of the things said about this is on its way and 
everybody is going to get one, there are huge gaps in all parts of our 
country and getting the vaccine to them.
  I will be the first at the negotiating table to work with President 
Biden and the 117th Congress to address the many needs that remain 
unmet in this bill.
  The House will send this bill over to us. I would urge all Members to 
vote on it when it comes here.
  Again, I have to look back at the history of this body. I have to 
look at the people who have worked so hard on so many things over the 
years. I know that we have people in both parties who are trying to 
address the needs of our country.
  I don't say this with pleasure but with sadness, I am the dean of the 
United States Senate. Next year, I will start my 47th year in this 
body. I have seen us come together at a time when it is needed, but 
then I see one of the greatest needs I have seen in my years in the 
Senate that we ignored for month after month after month. All of this 
could have been done in July or August or September or October or 
November, not at the very last minute.
  And why didn't we? We had to take time. We had to take time breaking 
long tradition--all of the promises that have been given by the other 
side. We had to take time to move one special interest-supported judge 
after another to lifetime jobs, but they will be paid well. They don't 
have to worry about paying their bills.
  In all 50 of our States, we had people being tossed out of their 
homes, tossed out of their apartments, lost their jobs, unable to feed 
their children, or the fear and anxiety a parent has in telling a 
child: No, I don't know what tomorrow will be like. I don't know what

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next month will be like. We will pray, and we will hope, but I don't 
know.
  We could have stopped that anxiety in June, when the House bill came 
over here, or in July or in August or September and October and 
November. We are doing some of it now.
  But I ask every Senator to search their conscience. Wouldn't it have 
been better if all of us from both sides did something and said: Put 
everything else aside, put aside all the special interest nominations. 
Put that aside, and let's care for the one special interest we should 
have and that is the American people--care for those men and women who 
elected us from either party, who rely on us.

  I have never seen this country so split apart or having such fear 
except for a privileged few, and maybe that includes us. I am not here 
to represent me. I am here to represent over 600,000 Vermonters and 
fulfill my oath to the whole country, 320 million Americans. What we 
should be doing is saying that never again will we let these kind of 
partisan politics slow us and not allow us to go forward.
  We know, and it is easy to say now, we should have taken the bill 
that came from the House of Representatives last summer and brought it 
up on the floor. If anybody didn't like it, file an amendment to change 
it. Vote for it or vote against it. Vote for or against the amendments 
you might bring up. That is what we usually do. I know how to vote. I 
voted over 16,000 times. Why don't we just vote? If we had done that 
this summer, it may not be a perfect bill, but it would be better than 
where we are. Every Member--Republican and Democratic alike--would have 
had a chance to bring up their amendment. They could have made their 
case, either win or lose. We go to the committee conference; we have 
the bill done.
  I say all this not to just be a technocrat of what needs to be done 
but to say this is how you reflect the needs of the American people.
  We faced the threat of Ebola in the last administration. We stood 
together, both parties. We helped the countries that were suffering 
from Ebola and, in doing so, we protected the United States of America, 
and we helped those in this country who might face it. That was a 
shining moment. That was a moment of America at its best. This is not.
  I do hope we can do better next year. I know as senior Democrat on 
the Appropriations Committee, I will fight to do better. But I also use 
my voice and what example I might give as dean of the Senate to say to 
both parties: Here is what we do.
  I think of such examples as Bob Dole, one of the best leaders this 
Senate had, a Republican. He came together with Senator Pat Moynihan, 
one of the most brilliant Senators I served with, a Democrat. And that 
Republican and Democrat came together and set aside their philosophical 
differences, cared for the country, and saved Social Security.
  I could give so many more examples. That was a Senate that acted as a 
conscience of the Nation, and how did they do that? They appealed to 
our conscience. I just use that one example because people said that 
they couldn't possibly do the difficult things necessary to save Social 
Security. Democrats wouldn't give this; Republicans wouldn't give that. 
Instead, you had two Senators of conscience who said: We can do it. 
Let's do it. Let's use our leadership and our conscience to bring 
others together. And that distinguished the Republican Senator Robert 
Dole, and that distinguished the Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick 
Moynihan and they came together and we saved Social Security.
  Those of us in the Senate in both parties who voted for the final 
package knew we were going to have to vote for some things that would 
be unpopular with constituencies. But instead of worrying about special 
interests or single-issue constituencies, we worried about the men and 
women of our States and what they would face if we didn't come 
together. And that is what we voted for, and we saved it.
  I sometimes say that Senators are merely constitutional impediments 
to their staffs, but we could not do the work we do without the staff.
  I want to thank the staff who worked tirelessly to produce the bill. 
By ``tirelessly,'' I mean until after midnight many nights and weekends 
and holidays. When the rest the Senate had gone home, they were still 
working. I know them. Much of the time, I would be on the phone with 
them. I would be working with them and, finally, I would say: It is so 
late. Everybody should go to bed. When I woke up in the morning, there 
would be an email sent to me at 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock in the morning 
because they kept on working.
  So I thank Chuck Kieffer, Chanda Betourney, Jessica Berry, Dianne 
Nellor, Jean Taol Eisen, Erik Raven, Doug Clapp, Ellen Murray, Scott 
Nance, Rachael Taylor, Alex Keenan, Michelle Dominguez, Tim Rieser, 
Dabney Hegg, and all the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee 
on both bills. I would thank Chairman Shelby's staff: Shannon Hines, 
Jonathan Graffeo, and David Adkins.
  Normally, at this time, Senators might just put these names in the 
Record, but I wanted to say them out loud, on the floor, because they 
should hear their names said out loud and know how much I appreciate 
what they have done, not just for the U.S. Senate but for the United 
States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  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.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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