[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 222 (Wednesday, December 30, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7973-S7974]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUESTS--H.R. 9051 AND H.R. 6395

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I want to concur with what Senator 
Schumer said. What he said goes beyond economics. It goes beyond the 
desperation that tens of millions of working families are facing. It 
goes beyond the struggles of the people of Vermont or Kentucky.
  Let me just make it clear for the majority leader that 10 out of the 
poorest 25 counties in the United States of America are located in 
Kentucky. So my colleague the majority leader might want to get on the 
phone and start talking to working families in Kentucky and find out 
how they feel about the need for immediate help in terms of a $2,000 
check per adult. I have the strong feeling that the people of Kentucky 
will respond no differently than the people of Vermont or New York. The 
last poll that I saw had 78 percent of the American people saying they 
wanted and needed that type of help.
  This discussion, frankly, is not just about the economic struggling 
of working families in this country. It is not just about the massive 
levels of income and wealth inequality. It is about basic democracy.
  Now, what we have to do here on the floor, whether it is Senator 
Schumer or Senator McConnell or I, is to talk in legalese. That is the 
language of the U.S. Senate. The stuff sounds pretty complicated to the 
average person, but all that Senator Schumer and I are asking of the 
majority leader is very simple: Allow the Members of the U.S. Senate to 
cast a vote. If you want to

[[Page S7974]]

vote against $2,000 checks for people in your State, vote against it. I 
see Senator Toomey here. He has been clear about it. I suspect he will 
vote against it. I respect his opinion, but all that we are asking for 
is a vote. What is the problem? In the House, over two-thirds of the 
Members of that body, including 44 Republicans, voted to say, in this 
time of economic desperation, working families deserve help, and they 
deserve a $2,000 check.
  As Senator Schumer just indicated, we have a very unlikely ally in 
President Trump. Nobody here has disagreed with Trump more times than I 
have; yet here is what the leader of the Republican Party writes: 
``$2000 ASAP!'' So, even on this issue, amazingly enough, the President 
of the United States is right.
  What all of this comes down to, my fellow Americans, is not even 
whether you agree with Senator Schumer and myself and 78 percent of the 
American people or whether you agree with Senator McConnell and, I 
suspect, Senator Toomey. That is fine. It is called democracy. We have 
differences of opinion. All that I am asking is to give us a vote. What 
is the problem? Allow the U.S. Senators to cast a vote as to whether 
they are for the $2,000 check or whether they are against it.
  We will need, as I understand it, 60 votes to win. That is a big 
hurdle. I don't know that we are going to win. There are a number of 
Republicans, to their credit, who have said they are ready to vote for 
it. I suspect there may be more, when given the opportunity, who will 
vote for it. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe we will lose. I think that would 
be unfortunate. All that I am asking for right now is to give us the 
opportunity to vote. What is the problem with that?
  I will now go to Senate legalese.
  I ask unanimous consent that at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 31, 
the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 9051, a bill 
to provide a $2,000 direct payment to the working class; that the bill 
be considered read a third time; and that the Senate vote on the 
passage of the bill, without intervening action or debate; further, 
that if passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table; further, that immediately following the vote on H.R. 
9051, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the veto 
message on H.R. 6395 and that the Senate immediately vote on the 
passage of the bill, the objections of the President to the contrary 
notwithstanding, with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, let me 
start by pointing out that we are not in the same place that we were 
back in March. Our economy is in nothing like the situation we faced 
during a moment in March when this body came together and voted 
unanimously, I believe, for the most extraordinary aid package--
financial stimulus bill, however you care to characterize it--in the 
history of the world by far. Remember where we were. We had closed down 
the economy. To a very large degree, the American economy had stopped 
functioning because State governments around the country decided they 
had to close it down. We can discuss and we can argue about whether 
that was a good decision or not, but given the limited knowledge we had 
about the nature of the COVID-19 threat, it was deemed to be the right 
thing to do.
  So we were on the verge of having no economy. That has never happened 
before in our history.
  So what did we do? We decided this calls for extraordinary measures, 
and we would try to use Federal dollars as a substitute for the 
economy--just replace lost income on a massive, unprecedented scale--
and we did. We approved almost $3 trillion in that legislation.
  At the time, we included $1,200 per person. You could make an 
argument that that was an extremely inefficient use of that $1,200 per 
person, but at the time, given the circumstances, I understood why we 
didn't have many good options, and that was something we decided to do.
  So where are we now? We are in a very different place. Our economy is 
not in a free fall. Our economy is in a recovery mode. We are not back 
to where we want to end up. We are not back to where we were before 
March, but we have taken big steps in that direction.
  The economy grew at 33 percent last quarter--33 percent. That is a 
tremendous recovery that is underway. More than half of all the people 
who lost their jobs earlier this year have regained their jobs. So we 
are not finished yet, but that is a huge step along the way.
  And now we are being told, after passing another extraordinary bill--
this one almost $1 trillion and including $600 per person--that that is 
not enough; we need to do $2,000 per person, despite the fact that we 
know for sure, we know for a fact, that the large majority of those 
checks are going to go to people who had no lost income.
  How does that make any sense at all? We know for sure that the 
majority of these people had no lost income. They didn't lose their 
jobs, and yet we are going to send them not $600, not the $1,200, but 
$2,000.
  So think about this. A married couple, who both are working and have 
2 kids, maybe they work for the Federal Government, like 2 million-odd 
people do. Maybe they work for a large company, the vast majority of 
which did not have large numbers of layoffs. So this two-child, two-
income couple that makes six figures had no interruption, no 
diminishment of their income whatsoever. They are going to get $8,000 
of money we don't have that is going to be either borrowed or printed. 
That is what it is all going to come down to.
  There are people who are still suffering from the economic fallout of 
this terrible COVID crisis. There is no question about it. We know 
there are people who are concentrated in a handful of industries, for 
the most part--not exclusively--but people who have worked in the 
restaurant industry, people who work for hotels, travel, entertainment. 
So many of those people are still out of work and their prospects of 
getting their old jobs back are not good in the short run. I sure hope 
they will be good in the medium-term run, if not sooner.
  And our bill addressed that. It addressed that problem. How did we do 
that? With a new round of PPP loans, which are really grants to small 
businesses, if they will keep their workforce intact; expansion of 
unemployment insurance benefits, so that people who have historically 
been ineligible remain eligible so they can continue to collect 
unemployment benefits; an increase in the amount of unemployment 
benefits, a $300-a-week overlay of Federal money on top of whatever 
their State program is; $600 per person, regardless of whether they 
lost income.
  All of that was passed just a few days ago, and now we are told we 
need to come back immediately, right now, and make sure that we are 
sending $2,000 checks to people who had no lost income.
  So for that reason, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.

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