[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 221 (Tuesday, December 29, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7958-S7959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, this is our historic moment. We can see 
the suffering across our country. We can see how desperate people are. 
We can see how during this holiday season, the people are looking at 
the prospect, in the words of Tony Fauci, where the worst may be ahead 
of us for these families. The worst may yet to have been actually 
inflicted upon families and our country. Yet the Republicans are 
refusing to allow for a vote on giving each individual $2,000 in order 
to make it through the rest of this pandemic.
  Senator Sanders today speaks for the millions of Americans who are 
suffering through a devastating health crisis, an unemployment crisis, 
an eviction crisis, a hunger crisis, and a crisis of faith--faith that 
their leaders in this country will stand up and provide for Americans 
in their hour of need.
  Meanwhile, we here in Washington must confront a moral crisis: Why 
can't we keep working families from starving even as we stand ready to 
approve a massive defense bill?
  That is why I am here with my colleague Bernie Sanders to call for a 
simple vote to provide $2,000 in direct cash payments to Americans 
across our country. It is this simple. Just like they did in the House 
of Representatives, the Senate should have a vote--up or down, yes or 
no--on providing these increased cash payments to desperate Americans. 
We can get this done quickly and before the holiday if Leader McConnell 
will simply agree to do it. They already had this vote in the House, 
and 44 Republicans voted for it. Give the Republicans in the Senate the 
same opportunity to vote. We already know that many of them have 
already said they will vote for the $2,000 if they get a chance to 
vote. It is this simple.
  We can do this because a simple vote will just say that you want to 
provide a grand total of $2,000 to Americans who need it to pay the 
rent, to keep the electricity on, to buy diapers, to pay for lifesaving 
medication--just to survive this devastating pandemic. There are 44 
House Republicans who voted for the $2,000 checks. I believe that the 
Republicans in this Chamber will do so as well, and President Trump has 
already made it very clear that he will sign the bill. So we can see 
where the opposition is. It is with the leadership of the Republicans 
in the U.S. Senate.
  People across our country are falling ill and falling behind on their 
bills, and for the families of the hundreds of thousands who have died 
from coronavirus, the medical and funeral expenses are compounding 
their grief. They need money in their pockets.
  In Massachusetts, this past Sunday, we hit 100 deaths in a single 
day--the highest death toll our State has seen in a 24-hour period 
since the very beginning of this pandemic. In the week before 
Christmas, 21,000 new people in our State applied for unemployment 
benefits just as Donald Trump let these protections lapse before 
millions of Americans lost their benefits, and that is a tragedy.
  A $2,000 check is the most direct and effective mechanism for 
delivering economic relief right now to those who are barely holding on 
throughout this crisis, particularly low-income Americans, immigrant 
communities, and our gig and service workers--our essential workers. 
They need help. They have been helping our families, and we need to 
help their families. Right now, these checks would help 158 million 
people across our country pay for housing, put food on the table, and 
make sure that grandma and grandpa have their diabetes or heart 
medication.
  That is why Senator Sanders, Senator Kamala Harris, and I introduced 
legislation to provide every person in our country, regardless of 
immigration status, with $2,000 monthly recurring payments in order to 
help weather this storm. We knew then, 7 months ago, that a single 
$1,200 relief check was not going to be enough to help families get by, 
and the $600 payment in the latest coronavirus package is a crumb to 
the working people who have faced economic hardship through no fault of 
their own. It won't even cover a month of rent, let alone heating 
bills, food bills, Wi-Fi bills for students who are learning from home, 
and all of the other expenses that are piling up for these families.
  Now, some of my Republican colleagues have said that providing $2,000 
would be too expensive. Well, here are some other costs they seem to 
have forgotten. If our proposal to increase stimulus checks to $2,000 
is soaring, the overall cost of the stimulus bill would go from $900 
billion to $1.36 trillion. Yes, that is a $464 billion increase over 
what we were currently projecting for this bill, but it is only a 
fraction of the $740 billion Defense bill that this Chamber stands 
ready to approve again this week.
  I hate to say this, but my Republican colleagues seem to be more 
interested in funding defense than in funding the defenseless, and that 
is what this debate is all about. What do we do to help these 
defenseless families? In this moment of national crisis, we were able 
to afford spending three-quarters of a trillion dollars on a bloated 
defense budget--spending that was supposed to protect our country yet 
did nothing to inoculate against the most profound public health 
emergency in a century--but we can't give hungry and suffering 
Americans $2,000? That is a moral failure for our country. Give 
Americans this money.
  Most of my colleagues support this defense budget. They got to vote 
on it a few weeks ago, and I know they stand ready to override 
President Trump's racist, belligerent veto. We are here today, asking 
the same thing for $2,000 payments--a simple up-or-down vote. Let's 
bring the House bill up for a vote. Leader Schumer is committed to 
bringing it forward. We can get this done before the holiday. We can do 
this for Americans before the year is out.

[[Page S7959]]

  We must remember that what makes America the envy of the world is not 
simply the strength of our defense and military but the strength of our 
people--people like Ahmed Jaya, a parent of three, who was laid off 
from his job as a doorman at the Omni Parker House in Boston this past 
March. Ahmed receives $400 a week in unemployment benefits, but it is 
not enough to cover the bills that keep rolling in as he now faces 
expiring health coverage as well. It is people like Tanya DiStefano, 
from Spencer, MA, who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on Halloween, 
to return from the hospital to find an eviction notice taped to the 
front of her door. These are the stories that should be driving our 
fights. These are the people who need relief now. And these checks will 
go right back into our economy because people will spend this money. 
They need it for the necessities that are confronting their families 
right now.
  Last week, Donald Trump used these people as political pawns. He 
stalled signing the coronavirus relief package, claiming that he wanted 
to give $2,000 checks to every American. By delaying, President Trump 
may have stiffed unemployed Americans out of $300 this week in 
unemployment benefits--benefits that they will not get back. So let's 
now hold Donald Trump to his word. Let's bring this to a vote, and 
let's pass $2,000 relief checks for every person in our country and put 
that bill on Donald Trump's desk.

  This pandemic has laid bare the tragedy of two Americas--one in which 
billionaires have grown their wealth by $931 billion over the course of 
this pandemic, an America where the rich continue to get richer, and 
the other America that has seen unprecedented economic uncertainty, 
Great Depression-level unemployment rates, and devastating losses. It 
is one in which Blacks and LatinX workers suffer disproportionately 
higher rates of unemployment and their families suffer higher rates of 
coronavirus infection and death; where workers get laid off while CEOs 
get raises and companies engage in stock buyback plans; and where 
residents get evicted or their electricity shut off but major 
corporations barely pay taxes.
  For those workers and families and struggling households in America--
for the very vast majority of America--$2,000 is a lifeline, and it is 
time for Leader McConnell to bring this legislation to the floor for a 
vote. The American people have a right to know where every Member of 
the Senate stands on this issue. They now know where President Trump 
says he stands, and they now know where every Member of the U.S. House 
of Representatives stands. The American people have a right to know, in 
this desperate time that we are living through, who was on their side 
to give their families the help they needed.
  Senator Sanders is right. We should have a vote--it should be yes or 
no--and we should do this before the end of this year.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.

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