[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 3, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S304-S314]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SETTING FORTH THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 
                    FOR FISCAL YEAR 2021--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.


                             S. Con. Res. 5

  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I will continue with the brief discussion 
about home and community-based services.
  It is so critical, as I mentioned earlier, to have these services 
available for seniors and for people with disabilities, and it is also 
relevant in the life of a child. We know--and as the Presiding Officer 
knows well in her efforts to provide these services to those in the 
disability community and among seniors--that it is important to 
children as well. Medicaid home and community-based services provide 
over $4 billion right now in support so that children can receive 
therapy and other necessary services to participate in school, and as I 
mentioned earlier, we know the impact upon seniors and people with 
disabilities. So that is the reason we are emphasizing, among many 
reasons, the investment in this bill for home and community-based 
services in the context of the pandemic and the devastation of the 
virus and more broadly.
  The second issue I will raise--I know we are short on time--is an 
issue that I mentioned earlier. In addition to home and community-based 
services, this is an issue that relates to the family's ability to pay 
for childcare. So it affects the parents as well as the children. It is 
the child and dependent care tax credit. Obviously, it is an existing 
tax credit, a credit that parents have been able to rely on, but it is 
nowhere near robust enough to make it possible for more parents to 
afford childcare.
  Here is the reality when it comes to what happens in the midst of 
this pandemic: We know that families have many reasons they can't make 
ends meet, but, also, many families have members of their families who 
want to get back to work. We are told that about 20 percent of working 
adults say the reason they are not working is that COVID-19 has 
disrupted their childcare arrangements. So it is both a childcare 
access and affordability question.
  The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that women accounted for all 
jobs lost in December of 2020--not most jobs, not some jobs. All jobs 
lost in the United States were among women. Women lost 156,000 jobs. 
Their labor force participation rate is at its lowest point in a third 
of a century. One of the big reasons is childcare. We need to expand 
the child and dependent care tax credit to give parents the ability to 
recoup thousands--not hundreds but thousands--of dollars in childcare 
expenses.
  That is what my legislation will do. That is what the new 
administration wants to do, and that is what we should do in this next 
COVID bill, and there are a lot of reasons for it.
  I will end with this. Last year, the National Academy of Sciences 
released a roadmap to reduce child poverty. We have heard of the good 
provisions in this legislation on the child tax credit and the earned 
income tax credit and of the substantial impacts they have had on 
lowering child poverty--one estimate, by half.
  Also contributing to this and to lower child poverty even more would 
be to enhance the child and dependent care tax credit. Here are the 
numbers: 9.2, 9.2, and 518. What do I mean? The National Academy of 
Sciences says that, if you have a robust child and dependent care tax 
credit, you can reduce child poverty by 9.2 percent. Guess what happens 
to wages. There are raised aggregate earnings across the country also 
by 9.2, but it just happens to be billions--$9.2 billion. Then the 518 
refers to the jobs--increased net employment by more than 518,000 jobs 
according to the National Academy of Sciences.
  So, among the many, many things we are doing in this bill, we need to 
invest in home and community-based services and also invest in a much 
more robust child and dependent care tax credit.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma


                    Unanimous Consent Request--S. 75

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of 
S. 75 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. 
Further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a 
third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, this 
measure, essentially, is a pretextual, ideological, and extreme step 
that really detracts from what should be our primary purpose at this 
moment in our history.
  Literally, we are fast approaching 450,000 deaths in this country, 
and people continue to die at the rate of more than 3,000 per day. Our 
economic progress continues to be stalled. In fact, it is declining, 
with joblessness increasing across Connecticut and the country. People 
are struggling to stay in their homes, put food on their tables, and 
pay for the medicine they need. Our goal should be making sure people 
have vaccines and the economic support that they need. Instead, we are 
here on a measure that would, essentially, take away rights, burden 
rights, for people--women--who need that right.
  We ought to be focusing our energy and attention on winning our fight 
against this pandemic, but, instead, we are here, debating a pretextual 
and ideological bill, another anti-choice bill--yet another attempt to 
restrict a woman's right to choose about when and whether to have a 
child. This bill purports to be about protecting individuals with Down 
syndrome, but it is merely a pretext for requiring healthcare providers 
to scrutinize women for their decisions to seek an abortion. The 
pretext is to take away those individual rights.
  As a matter of fact, this bill has nothing to do with protecting 
people with Down syndrome, and it has nothing to do with addressing 
discrimination. If my colleague would like to genuinely help people 
with Down syndrome, he would ask for unanimous consent on legislation 
that the disability community actually has supported. The National Down 
Syndrome Society wants increased funding for medical research at the 
National Institutes of Health. It wants better educational 
opportunities and settings for people with Down syndrome. It wants laws 
and policies that ensure economic self-sufficiency and better 
workplaces and a fight against discrimination.
  Those are the legislative priorities of this disability community, 
but what this bill actually does is it essentially requires healthcare 
providers to interrogate women about their decisions to seek an 
abortion. Healthcare providers who might violate this bill, if it ever 
became law, would incur fines, imprisonment, or both.
  In conclusion, people have a right to make these kinds of deeply 
personal decisions. Those rights are protected under our Constitution. 
We should be protecting people with Down syndrome, and we should be 
expanding their opportunities and fighting discrimination, not using 
them as a pretext for restricting and burdening a woman's right to 
choose.
  Therefore, I object.

[[Page S305]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I have a hard time with that, I say to 
my friend from Connecticut.
  Somehow, in protecting those with Down syndrome, you are killing 
those with Down syndrome.
  Right now, I am really shocked that people would talk about 
protecting children. The previous speaker was from Pennsylvania. He had 
a bill on childcare and taking care of kids. Yet now we are talking 
about the fact that a baby, in having been diagnosed with having Down 
syndrome, somehow should be aborted. I can't think of how anyone could 
oppose this bill, especially because the American people 
overwhelmingly--70 percent of them--oppose aborting a child on the 
basis that the child would be born with Down syndrome. That includes 56 
percent of the people who consider themselves to be pro-abortion 
people. Fifty-six percent of the people who support abortion oppose 
this on the basis of a Down syndrome diagnosis.
  In the United States, over two-thirds of the unborn babies diagnosed 
with Down syndrome are aborted right now. Why? Instead of receiving 
information, resources, and support, mothers often resort to feeling 
pressure to abort.
  Justice Clarence Thomas put it a little bit more directly. He said: 
``I am deeply concerned that for babies with Down syndrome, abortion 
has become `a tool of modern day eugenics.' '' That was from a U.S. 
Supreme Court Justice.
  My bill would protect these innocent lives from systematic 
discrimination through abortion. We say that we support equality in the 
United States. Yet countless babies' lives have been stolen because of 
their chromosome counts. So I am surprised that my colleagues can 
object to this commonsense bill and that they reject protecting the 
most vulnerable among us, and, certainly, those who are born with Down 
syndrome are among the most vulnerable among us.
  I just want the people to know out there, our friends in the Down 
syndrome community--and there is a community--that a lot of people are 
concerned about this. I am going to keep fighting for you even though 
some are using any kind of excuse that they can think of from 
protecting these babies.
  Before I yield the floor, I will respond to any comments from the 
Senator from Connecticut.
  Hearing none, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 137

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, the whole point of American foreign aid is 
to assist countries in times of need and in support of a common 
interest between us and them. Yet, for many years, our foreign aid 
dollars have been used to impose violent, cultural imperialism by 
promoting and providing for the practice of abortion.
  Tragically, instead of helping to preserve, strengthen, and sustain 
the lives of women and children abroad, our taxpayer dollars have been 
used to harm women's lives and to end the lives of their unborn 
children, especially baby girls.
  In some of these countries, girls are disproportionately aborted, 
precisely because they are female. U.S. aid is used not to affirm the 
equal dignity of girls and women but to violently deny it. And in some 
of these countries, abortion has been forced on women who don't even 
want abortions--women in countries like Vietnam or Peru, for instance, 
who were forced to endure the coercive abortion and sterilization 
campaigns of the 1990s, just to name a few examples.
  What kind of aid does violence to women and girls? What kind of help 
is it to impose U.S. abortion extremism on countries that culturally 
and democratically reject it or contribute to international 
organizations that allow regimes to use abortion as a tool of 
oppression? And what kind of progress is it to encourage sex-selective 
abortion and the denigration of human dignity for both the baby and the 
mother?
  This cultural imperialism is not pro-woman. It is not pro-child. And 
it is not pro-healthcare. It is pro-sexism and pro-violence, and we 
must end it.
  According to the latest Marist poll, the American people 
overwhelmingly agree. Nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose using tax 
dollars to pay for abortions, and more than 75 percent of Americans 
oppose using tax dollars to support abortions in other countries--75 
percent.
  Now, thankfully, President Ronald Reagan first took steps to reverse 
this kind of support in 1984, instituting what became known as the 
Mexico City policy to prohibit foreign aid from going to organizations 
that provide for or promote abortions or that advocate to change 
abortion laws within a foreign country.
  Since then, the policy has, unfortunately, been rescinded and 
reinstated again and again between changing administrations. Between 
Republicans and Democrats, it has been moved as a sort of political 
football.
  But the lives of babies and the dignity of women--these are not 
political footballs. Women and children everywhere have immeasurable, 
innate, inherent dignity and worth, regardless of where they are from, 
and they ought to be entitled to the right to life and protection from 
harm, regardless of who happens to be in office at any given moment.
  The Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act affirms this very 
truth. This bill would permanently stop the use of our foreign aid 
money from funding or promoting abortions overseas.
  I also defend the women and babies everywhere and value the women and 
babies everywhere by supporting two other measures introduced by my 
friends Senator Inhofe and Senator Blackburn. Senator Inhofe's bill, 
the Protecting Individuals with Down Syndrome Act, would affirm that 
disability does not determine or demean the dignity and worth of a 
human life. And Senator Blackburn's bill would ensure that taxpayer 
funds under the Title X Family Planning Program do not go to any 
facility that performs or provides referrals for abortions.
  In our laws and throughout our lives, we ought to uphold the dignity 
of each and every human person, regardless of the race, sex, 
appearance, abilities, or age of the person in question. The measures 
before us today do just that, and we should support them.
  And now I would like to yield time to my friend and distinguished 
colleague, the Senator from Montana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana
  Mr. DAINES. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from Utah, 
Senator Mike Lee, for his remarks.
  Last week, with the stroke of a pen, President Biden eliminated 
critical pro-life protections. He reversed the Mexico City policy and 
began the process of dismantling title X protections against abortion.
  I am glad to join Senator Lee, Senator Blackburn, along with several 
other pro-life Senators fighting back and calling on the Senate to pass 
the important bills today to reverse President Biden's pro-abortion 
actions.
  The bottom line is, President Biden's actions were basically a 
handout to Planned Parenthood. It is no surprise, as Planned Parenthood 
spent millions to get the President elected. Now they are simply 
cashing in--this time, on the taxpayer's dime.
  The United States should not spend taxpayer dollars to support a 
radical abortion agenda throughout the world, and we should absolutely 
not allow a slush fund of taxpayer dollars to line the pockets of 
Planned Parenthood.
  I also want to thank my colleague Senator Inhofe, who urged the 
Senate to pass his bill today to protect babies with Down syndrome from 
being targeted for abortion.
  Now, I watched what happened here just minutes ago. The Democrats 
objected. It is truly astounding. This bill should have passed 
unanimously, and it really exposes a terrible hypocrisy.
  Most Republicans and Democrats today in Congress are unified in 
support for the Special Olympics. We are unified in supporting 
protecting those individuals with disabilities. Yet my colleagues 
across the aisle today opposed this commonsense legislation that would 
stop the most lethal kind of discrimination--the most lethal kind of 
discrimination imaginable--and that is being singled out and brutally 
killed simply because of a Down syndrome diagnosis.
  Last week, I stood right here to bring attention to this very 
chilling issue. Today, babies with Down syndrome are the most 
endangered on Earth. In fact,

[[Page S306]]

sadly, in the United States, 67 percent of babies diagnosed with Down 
syndrome are aborted. That is two out of three.
  And, for me, this is personal. Last week, I shared the story of a 
sweet baby boy named Andrew. He is the son of some of my very good 
friends. Andrew has Down's. He brings light and joy to his family's 
life every day. He has an older brother, an older sister. I can tell 
you, this world, their family would not be the same without him.
  I am deeply concerned that for babies with Down syndrome, abortion 
has become a tool of eugenics. It is the duty of this body to end this 
lethal discrimination. It is our duty to protect every innocent life, 
no matter how small, no matter how many chromosomes they may have.
  I believe every human being is created with God-given dignity and 
God-given protection. No court, no legislature, no law can take that 
away.
  I will not give up this fight, and I know many of my colleagues 
standing here today will not give up as well.
  I want to thank Senator Lee.
  I yield the floor back to Senator Lee.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee 
on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 137 
and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further 
ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that 
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, my colleague from Utah tells a nice 
story, but it is not accurate. He is not being honest about what is 
going on with the global gag rule, and I am really disappointed that he 
is once again trying to push this dangerous legislation.
  As I pointed out when I objected to the same bill less than a year 
ago, the policy in question closes health clinics, decreases care, and 
needlessly puts the lives of women, children, and families at risk. In 
fact, instead of protecting life, the global gag rule erects new 
barriers to critical health services, including reproductive health 
services for people and communities that already have limited access to 
affordable, quality healthcare.
  And let's be clear: America's taxpayer dollars do not go to fund 
abortions overseas.
  What my colleague is objecting to is funding for family planning 
services to help women protect their families. And the policy that he 
wants to codify into law is dangerous in the best of times, but during 
a global pandemic, when care is already stretched, it is downright 
deadly.
  The Guttmacher Institute estimates that a 10-percent--just a 10-
percent decline in family planning services, including reduced access 
to reversible contraception and pregnancy and newborn healthcare, 
results in 49 million more women with unmet contraceptive needs; 15 
million additional unintended pregnancies; 1.7 million women and 2.6 
million newborns who will experience major complications due to not 
receiving the care they need; and most unfortunate and sad, 28,000 more 
maternal deaths and 168,000 more newborn deaths because of this policy. 
And that is just a modest 10-percent reduction in family planning 
access.
  So if you really care about families and newborns, you will ensure 
that they have access to the critical services that they need so they 
don't have those unintended pregnancies.
  It is safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has diverted care 
and shut down access to family planning clinics across the globe, is 
greatly exacerbating the situation. So now is not the time to place 
draconian limits on family planning dollars.
  In fact, we need a renewed commitment to comprehensive family 
planning. That is why last week, along with 47 of our colleagues, we 
reintroduced the bipartisan Global Health Empowerment and Rights Act. 
The bill, also known as Global HER, would ensure that care is not 
limited based on the President in the White House because if we are 
going to actually get serious about improving the lives of women and 
girls, we should be working to end the global gag rule, not to expand 
it.
  So for all of these reasons, I object to my colleague's request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, 75 percent of Americans, regardless of how 
they feel on other issues--I understand my colleagues take different 
positions on issues related to the sanctity of human life. I understand 
that. As much as I disagree with them, I respect that it is their right 
to hold that opinion.
  This bill is about something much narrower, something upon which 
Americans--75 percent of them--overwhelmingly agree, and that is that 
we shouldn't be using U.S. foreign aid money to fund or promote 
abortions overseas.
  If we can't accept that, it is terribly disappointing and would be 
news to most Americans.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, again, I would just like to correct 
what my colleague is saying. We do not use foreign aid money to perform 
abortions overseas. In fact, a poll conducted by CHANGE, Center for 
Health and Gender Equity, demonstrates that 59 percent of likely 
voters--if we want to talk about polls--59 percent of likely voters in 
America oppose banning U.S. global health assistance going to 
organizations in other countries that provide legal and safe abortions 
or abortion referrals. Only 30 percent support this policy.
  Research published in the Lancet medical journal last July found that 
the global gag rule under President George W. Bush--which was 
implemented on an exponentially smaller scale than what was done by 
President Trump and what is proposed in the law that my colleague from 
Utah is asking for unanimous consent to put forward, that kind of 
reduction in access to services increases a country's typical abortion 
rate by 40 percent while reducing the use of modern contraceptives by 
3.5 percent.
  See, this is what happens when you don't base policy decisions on 
scientific data. You get these kinds of narratives that are absolutely 
inaccurate. What we know and what is repeatedly evident through the 
research is that the global gag rule or, as my colleague calls it, 
protecting life in global health assistance, actually increases 
abortions.
  It is, unfortunately, simple logic. Decreasing access to family 
planning methods like modern contraception, counseling, and the health 
spacing and timing of pregnancies, directly leads to more unwanted 
pregnancies. But because this policy also limits abortion services that 
organizations provide with other non-U.S. funds, women with unwanted 
pregnancies are forced to seek out unsafe abortions. That is why we see 
the abortion numbers increase. So it is a lose-lose policy, and, of 
course, it is women and children who pay the price.
  The Foundation for AIDS Research found that one-third of 286 PEPFAR 
Programs implementing partners who were surveyed had altered their 
services or organizational operations in response to the global gag 
rule under former President Trump--a great program, PEPFAR, under 
George W. Bush, that has saved millions of lives, and yet what we saw 
under the Trump implementation of the global gag rule is that they had 
to alter the services that they provided, including reducing sexual and 
reproductive health and pregnancy counseling, youth outreach, 
contraception services, and HIV counseling, testing, and treatment.
  The policies that my colleague is advocating for makes the situation 
worse for women and families, and if he would look at the scientific 
data, he would understand that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                    Unanimous Consent Request--S. 88

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, since 1976, Federal law has 
prohibited the use of Federal funds--taxpayer dollars--for abortion.
  Section 1008 of the Public Health Service Act explicitly States that 
title X funds ``shall not be used in programs where abortion is a 
method of family planning.''
  But, as often happens in Federal law, there is a loophole: Federal 
regulations do allow abortion facilities to be colocated within clinics 
that are following the title X rules, and those

[[Page S307]]

rules are providing healthcare to women.
  The Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act would close that 
loophole by prohibiting the awarding of these funds to entities that 
perform abortions or that provide funds to entities that perform 
abortions.
  The bill allows for exceptions to be mad in cases of rape or incest 
or to save the life of the mother. It would also require HHS to provide 
an annual report to Congress listing entities receiving grant funds, 
and specifying which of those grantees performed abortions under the 
exceptions.

  This is not a big change. As I said, this is a simple change. It is 
one that would add to the protections of women and their unborn 
children. It is a statutory fix that will redirect tens of millions of 
dollars in funding to providers, our community care clinics that are 
offering comprehensive healthcare services for women.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 88, and the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read 
a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, reserving the right to object. We are 
in the middle of a pandemic. Families are struggling, and we should be 
doing everything we can to make it easier for them to get the care they 
need from providers that they trust.
  The title X program has been incredibly helpful to people seeking all 
kinds of healthcare, from cancer screenings to STI screenings, to birth 
control, and more. And before the Trump administration's gag rule 
slashed the capacity of the title X network in half by cutting out 
trusted healthcare providers, over 4 million patients a year turned to 
title X-funded providers for their healthcare.
  These patients are disproportionately young people, women who have 
low incomes, and women of color. An overwhelming majority of them have 
historically turned to providers like Planned Parenthood, which would 
be permanently kicked out of the program by this bill.
  We need to be tearing down barriers, like former President Trump's 
title X gag rule, that are jeopardizing access to care for patients, 
not reinforcing them. And we need to be focused on addressing the pain 
of this pandemic and on taking steps to finally end it, not wasting 
time with blatantly ideological bills that appeal to the far-right base 
at the expense of our families.
  While Republicans seem intent on keeping patients from getting the 
healthcare they need, I am glad we finally have a President who is 
listening to women and men across the country. He has made clear that 
he wants healthcare to be a right, not a privilege, and he has already 
directed his administration to review the damage of title X gag rules 
that have been so harmful to so many people--an important step toward 
rescinding the rule, as I continue to push for.
  So I urge my Republican colleagues to stop these attacks on women's 
healthcare and turn their attention to something families actually 
want, which is serious action to end this pandemic.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to 
respond to much of what my colleague had to say about we are in the 
middle of a pandemic. Families are struggling. Yes, indeed, that is 
very true. And if you want to talk about making healthcare services 
more available to more women, then, yes, indeed, what you want to do is 
make certain that these taxpayer funds are not used to provide abortion 
services, that these funds are going to the community clinics that are 
the ones that are providing the screenings.
  Many of the Planned Parenthood clinics do abortions. They refer women 
to the community clinic around the corner for the cancer screenings, 
for the breast exams, for the Pap smears. So there should be agreement 
that, yes, individuals should have access to this healthcare. And if 
you say: If you perform abortions, you cannot have these title X 
dollars, then the hundreds of community clinics that are access points 
to healthcare for women in underserved communities, these funds would 
be made available to them.
  I think we also have to talk about rights and privileges and touch on 
that for just a moment. I fully appreciate, we all have different 
opinions, and it is wonderful that we live in a country that allows 
freedom of speech, where we can express our difference of opinions.
  What we do have to realize is this, that we have in this country 
1,700 lives lost every day to abortion--1,700 voiceless and 
vulnerable--and to me that is just an absolutely heartbreaking stat 
that these unborn children do not have the opportunity to enjoy that 
right to life. I find that very sad.
  As I said, this legislation would make certain that all of this money 
goes to these health clinics but not to a clinic that provides abortion 
service.
  This is the kind of access that, yes, indeed, many families would 
appreciate having more access and more services available to women at 
their community clinics.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                             S. Con. Res. 5

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Thank you. The actions of my Democratic colleagues this 
week make it clear that they do not have any intention of working with 
Republicans on a bipartisan COVID package. There is no other 
explanation for the budget resolution that was introduced this week.
  We are not considering this budget resolution for the usual purpose 
of establishing overall spending and revenue levels for the fiscal 
year. That has already been done. The sole purpose, then, of this 
budget is to establish reconciliation instructions whereby the majority 
can pass a partisan COVID package on a party-line vote, quite contrary 
to the inaugural address of President Biden where he said he was going 
to be reaching out to Republicans.
  I know there has been some discussion with Republicans but not a 
serious effort to compromise. Embarking down this inherently partisan 
path of going the budgetary reconciliation route now poisons the well 
for any fruitful bipartisan negotiation. And you can't say it too many 
times that it is completely at odds with President Biden's call for 
unity and bipartisanship during the campaign and told to the people of 
the United States in the inaugural address.
  It doesn't have to be this way. My Republican colleagues and I stand 
ready to engage in bipartisan discussions to reach an agreement to 
provide targeted COVID relief. A consensus package could be done very 
quickly, just as happened with the bipartisan CARES package back in 
March of last year. The relief package Congress passed in December came 
together very quickly once both sides agreed to set aside partisan 
poison pills. Republicans did that for things we wanted, and Democrats 
did that for things they wanted.
  Now, hardly 6 weeks later, here we are back on a partisan approach to 
helping the needy people because of the pandemic and helping the 
healthcare crisis because of the pandemic. In the past year or so, we 
have done a lot. We have been able to come together in a bipartisan way 
to pass around $4 trillion in COVID-focused relief, and we did that 
all--you can't say it too many times--with strong bipartisan support. 
Why not now? There is no reason we can't come together for the American 
people and do it once more and probably have to do it again after 
something would be passed the early part of this year.
  Instead of wasting our time with a weeklong partisan exercise, we 
could be working together today to forge a bipartisan compromise. If 
this was the course that the majority were to take, I think there is 
much that we could agree to with near universal support and do it in 
short order. Everyone recognizes we need to get control of the virus as 
a first priority. That is necessary to save lives and get back to 
anything close to resembling a normally functioning economy.
  Rapid deployment of the vaccine is our best hope for our getting 
there to

[[Page S308]]

get the economy functioning. I doubt a single Member of this Senate 
body would object to additional funds for vaccine distribution if it 
will get more people vaccinated sooner. I am also confident that many 
on my side could agree to additional relief for individuals and small 
businesses that have been hardest hit by the pandemic. I am sure of 
that because we have done it twice in the past. We can have a 
discussion on unemployment assistance, rental assistance, funds for 
reopening schools, and additional grants to small businesses to help 
them keep the lights on. I can say that very positively because we have 
done it twice in the past.
  But any relief, from our point of view, ought to be targeted and 
focused on the task at hand. At $1.9 trillion, the President's proposal 
is far from being targeted and far from being focused. It includes 
permanent, liberal, structural economic reforms. This is using a crisis 
to enact long-term Democratic policy priorities rather than addressing 
the immediate needs of the day.
  It also includes a bailout of fiscally irresponsible States at the 
expense of States that have managed their budgets very wisely, like my 
home State of Iowa. This is fundamentally unfair to the taxpayers in 
responsibly governed States.
  The President putting forward his proposal should have marked the 
beginning of the discussion, not the end. If my Democratic colleagues 
would abandon this partisan exercise, bipartisan discussions could 
start in earnest. In fact, 10 Republicans made an attempt to do that by 
spending 2 hours with President Biden at the Oval Office. They reached 
out, obviously, and President Biden listened and discussed in good 
faith, but it doesn't seem like anything can come of it. This may mean 
that you have to compromise on some priorities. That is a simple part 
of life here in the U.S. Senate if you want to get anything done.
  The excuse that there isn't enough time or the need for relief is so 
urgent that bipartisanship must go out the window is just that--nothing 
but a simple excuse. By following the current path, this entire week is 
being wasted on partisan theater, with no tangible benefit for the 
American people. At the end of this week, the Senate will be no closer 
to drafting actual relief legislation.
  We should instead be working together to iron out our differences, to 
get bipartisan relief to the American people, and that can be done 
sooner than using the reconciliation process that turns out to be a 
partisan approach that is needless to do based on the fact that twice 
in the last 11 months, we have passed bipartisan virus relief packages 
to help fight the pandemic, to help people who are hurt by the economic 
consequences of that pandemic, and also to give confidence to the 
American people. Let's move in a bipartisan way.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the urgent 
challenge our Nation is facing and the urgent response that it 
requires.
  I am always willing to work across the aisle to look for common 
ground and commonsense solutions. I think my colleagues know this and 
my record shows it. I am going to keep talking to my Republican 
colleagues in hopes that there are areas where we can find common 
ground to help our workers and our families and get our arms around 
this pandemic. But what we cannot do is allow the possibility of 
further delay or weaken our response efforts.
  With the resources in this resolution, we will be able to reinforce 
our public health workforce, our community health centers, and our 
supply chain, all of which are stretched incredibly thin.
  We will be able to scale up testing and tracing and vaccination and 
genomic sequencing and surveillance for new strains of virus and 
address harmful health inequities that continue to make this crisis so 
much more deadly for communities of color.
  We will be able to provide needed support to our students, our 
educators, our public schools, and those in higher education as they 
grapple with this crisis and work towards safely reopening for in-
person learning.
  We will be able to provide to parents in need of quality, affordable 
childcare and to a childcare sector staring down mass closures and 
layoffs.
  We need to help workers who are struggling today to make ends meet, 
who are unemployed, and who are worried about their retirement being 
thrown into jeopardy. We need to help families across the country who 
are struggling today to make ends meet, by providing them with direct 
financial assistance. We need to help States and Tribes and cities and 
communities whose budgets have been stretched dangerously thin, by 
providing needed funds.
  I see no reason why pursuing this path has to be partisan. After all, 
if Republicans can use budget reconciliation to give huge tax breaks to 
the wealthiest corporations, surely they are willing to use it to give 
relief to communities and families who are struggling in this economic 
crisis. If they can try to use reconciliation to cause a healthcare 
crisis by taking health coverage and healthcare protections away from 
hundreds of millions of people, surely they can support this process, 
using it to fight the healthcare crisis that has claimed over 440,000 
lives in our country and counting. But if they do not, if they insist 
that using this process to provide relief during a historic pandemic is 
a partisan vote or that the amount of the relief is too much, I think 
they are going to have a tough time explaining what and whom they stand 
for.
  Democrats have no problem going on the record as the party that 
fought for people during the pandemic because, when your house is in 
flames, you do not argue about how much of the fire to put out or how 
much water to use or how many lives to save; you do whatever it takes 
until the crisis is over and everyone is safe, and you do it as fast as 
you can.
  This crisis is not over. Everyone is not safe--not from this virus 
and not from this economic crisis. There are 440,000 people who have 
died. We are still averaging 140,000 new cases a day. New strains are 
presenting new challenges. Underlying disparities are growing deeper, 
and we are already seeing with vaccination rates that communities of 
color are being left behind.
  We do have to take action, and that is exactly what Democrats are 
doing today.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURPHY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am here today to speak in favor of the 
underlying resolution and urge my colleagues to support it. I will be 
very brief.
  I would like to tackle three topics, amongst many, in this package. I 
would like to talk a bit about the crisis that stands ahead of us with 
respect to summer learning and summer programming for kids all across 
this country. I would like to talk a little bit about the importance of 
expediting the pace of vaccinations and then, lastly, about the global 
fight that lies ahead of us to make sure that we are building a 
pandemic response infrastructure around the world that makes sure this 
never, ever happens again.
  Before delving into those three topics, let me just say that we have 
an opportunity to pass programming to meet this moment that is wildly 
popular. There was a poll out yesterday that suggests that many of the 
most important programming in this package enjoy 70 percent support 
amongst the public. The relief checks, which will total $2,000--$600 
from last year, $1,400 in this package--have 74 percent support among 
the American public. Only 13 percent of Americans oppose those checks. 
Increased Federal funding for vaccinations--69 percent favor that 
increased funding; 17 percent oppose it. Those are difficult numbers to 
get on any major area of policy in the United States today. To have 74 
percent in favor of anything is pretty impressive.
  But it speaks to the moment. It speaks to the expectations that 
Americans have. But it also speaks to the

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fact that there is unity in the American public about what we need to 
do.
  President Biden rightly talked about unifying the country around an 
agenda to build back this country better, and these polling numbers 
show that he has done that because you don't get to 74 percent support 
for an initiative without a whole bunch of Democrats, Independents, and 
Republicans supporting that measure.
  So we hope--we want to get to a place where we have bipartisan 
support in the Senate, but we know we have bipartisan support for this 
agenda out in the American public. These polling numbers and polling 
numbers to come will prove that. The reason is that the crises we are 
trying to address don't really care what your politics are.
  Let me talk about these three distinct areas.
  First, I want to talk about what is happening in our schools. Others 
have done that in a far more articulate way, so I want to drill down 
specifically on what is going to happen this summer.
  Schools are in crisis right now. I know that because I have two kids 
in public school--in a big, urban public school. They haven't been back 
in the classroom at all. They have continued to learn from home the 
entire time. But they have all the support that they need around them--
two loving parents who are willing and able to help in any way that we 
can. Not every child has that. So schools have been scrambling just to 
make sure that they are doing instruction right, that they are opening 
schools safely, that they are building support systems around students.
  But come this summer, you are going to have all sorts of kids who 
aren't going to have programming ready for them, aren't going to have a 
safe place to go, and are going to have tremendous amounts of learning 
loss.
  You are also going to have kids who are in need of a really healthy, 
safe place to be this summer. Some kids will need deep academic 
experience, but others kids are just going to need some emotional 
growth, are going to need something fun to do so that they have the 
ability to restart and be ready to reenter what will, hopefully, be a 
much more normal-looking classroom.
  In this bill is over $100 billion for schools, to support the safe 
reopening of schools. And what we do in this plan that the President is 
proposing to us is to allow for some of that money to be used for 
summer programming.
  I am going to make a pitch to have a set-aside, a portion of money 
dedicated to summer programming. But what we all agree on--those of us 
who support this package--is that the challenge ahead of us is not just 
how we keep schools open and open those that have had their doors 
closed, but what we do to support kids for 12 months of the year, not 
just 9 months of the year.
  This is going to be a tough summer for a lot of kids, and we have to 
have a specific focus--as this plan does--on meaningful summer 
programming for kids--programming that is emotionally healthy, that 
addresses some of this learning loss.
  In a typical year, middle-class kids--kids with families that have 
some means--are five times as likely as those living in poverty to 
attend a summer camp, twice as likely to visit a museum or go to a 
performance. We can't allow for that disparity to be present this 
summer, not this summer. We have to have funding in this bill. We have 
to pass funding through Congress to make sure that every kid in 
thi country, especially kids coming from limited-means backgrounds, can 
get into quality summer programming. This summer we have to make that 
promise to them.

  Second, let me talk about vaccines. I know my colleague from 
Connecticut is going to talk about this as well.
  We did well this past week. There were 1.36 million doses 
administered. I say ``well'' because that is 20 percent more than we 
did the following week, but it is not good enough.
  In this plan from President Biden is $10 billion to operationalize 
the Defense Production Act. Senator Baldwin and I have been working on 
this issue for the better part of a year. If you want to produce more 
vaccine, if you want to produce more testing equipment, more PPE, then 
you have to organize America's industrial base better than what was 
happening under the Trump administration. You have to go out and find 
every potential manufacturing partner who can help Pfizer and Moderna 
and Johnson & Johnson and any vaccine maker that comes after them be 
able to make more and make it faster.
  We are standing up capacity in Connecticut. We are doing well--No. 3 
nationally in terms of the percentage of shots that we get into 
people's arms--but we can do a lot more. We just need that production 
to be ramped up. In this bill is specific money to operationalize the 
Defense Production Act so that we can make more vaccines. That is one 
of the most important parts of this bill.
  Finally, I wanted to talk about the global challenge that we have 
ahead of us. This virus didn't start in the United States. But, man, it 
moved quick--from a wet market in China to the west coast of the United 
States to today, with 400,000 lives having been lost. And the question 
is: Why? Why was this virus able to move so quickly? Why weren't we 
able to contain it? Why didn't we learn more about it earlier? Why 
wasn't the world ready for this moment?
  Now, China has a lot to answer for. But, frankly, the whole world has 
to understand that we didn't allocate resources properly. The United 
States didn't allocate resources properly. We spent, last year, $740 
billion on hardware for the Department of Defense and $12 billion on 
global public health. Nobody today, living in the United States, would 
tell you that that was the correct allocation. So inside President 
Biden's package is funding to start to rebuild the global pandemic 
prevention infrastructure.
  I won't go into the details of how we do that today, but there are 
estimates suggesting that we are going to need over $20 billion 
globally in order to stand up greater capacities. That means more 
resources at a reformed WHO. That means more U.S. diplomats who are 
working in the public health space. That means doing partnerships with 
developing nations in which we put some money on the table in exchange 
for public health reform so that they can strengthen their own systems 
of pandemic detection and prevention.
  But even if you drive this thing down in the United States, so long 
as there are outbreaks that exist on the other side of the world, we 
are still at risk. And there may come along a virus down the road that 
is even more contagious, that spreads even faster than this one, so 
shame on us if we don't, at the same time, lock down this virus 
domestically and set up a system of defense internationally to make 
sure that we are ready for the next one.
  We can walk and chew gum at the same time. And President Biden's 
focus on rebuilding our alliances comes at the right time because we 
are not going to be able to do this by ourselves.
  We have to meet the moment. We can't go small right now. The problems 
are too big.
  Senator Blumenthal and I have spent lots of time at food banks in 
Connecticut. We have never, ever seen the desperate need that exists 
today in our State. Shame on us if we don't use the power that has been 
granted us to both take on this virus and deliver economic prosperity 
to people who have had it robbed from them through no fault of their 
own.
  I urge my colleagues' support for the budget resolution.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am really pleased to follow my 
colleague Senator Murphy after that very articulate case and to build 
on the case for keeping our promises to America. The Presiding Officer 
knows that promises made must be kept, including another $1,400 in 
stimulus payments to every individual, bringing that total to $2,000, 
which is what we promised; to make sure that vaccines are available 
broadly across this country and that schools become places of learning 
again, in person for students and teachers in a safe learning 
environment.
  What we are doing in this package, which is big and bold--and it has 
to be--is to put money in people's pockets, put vaccinations in 
people's arms, and put children back in schools safely. And I emphasize 
``safely.''
  Now, I was very excited over this past week or 10 days to travel 
throughout the State of Connecticut and visit clinics where 
vaccinations are being

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provided to thousands of people in Connecticut, raising our rate to one 
of the highest in the country--about 10.3 percent.
  I saw nurses and doctors at Danbury Hospital, led by John Murphy, 
making promises real for people.
  I visited Rentschler Field, a former runway turned into a vaccination 
site for people receiving those shots in their arms from the Community 
Health Center, headed by Mark Masselli.
  I saw vaccinations at Griffin Hospital, a wonderful team headed by 
Pat Charmel. But here is the story at Griffin Hospital. Last week they 
did 6,000 doses. This week it will be 2,000, not because of any lack of 
skilled vaccination person power, not because of any lack of 
determination--because of lack of vaccine.
  Shortages in Connecticut and around the country are impeding and 
setting back our effort. They are lengthening the tunnel. There is 
light at the end of the tunnel, but it is longer as we delay the 
vaccine that is necessary to do the job.
  There is not enough. It is not reaching the people who need it in 
enough supply, and it is not being delivered equitably. The numbers in 
Connecticut show that people in communities of color are nowhere near 
as likely to receive that vaccine--in fact, perhaps three times less 
likely.
  We need to make sure that delivery is fair and effective in this 
country, or we will never conquer this pandemic and put America back to 
work. Using the national Defense Production Act is absolutely 
necessary, but so is the commitment of $160 billion in this big and 
bold relief program.
  It has to be big and bold. It also has to be done now. Time is not on 
our side. I have no tolerance for delay or dithering. I have no 
patience for cuts in this package; $1.9 trillion ought to be our floor, 
not our ceiling. And if there is a need for targeting those stimulus 
payments, the money ought to be reallocated to vaccines and to creating 
safer environments to work and to learn.
  Vaccines are important to our schools. Teachers are essential 
workers. They are on the frontlines. They are putting their lives at 
risk. They have been demonstrating the courage and conviction to come 
to school, but they should receive this vaccine.
  A safe learning environment means also personal protective equipment, 
barriers such as we are seeing in restaurants and other public places--
plexiglass and other kinds of dividers. These kinds of essential 
equipment are the reason that we are advocating $130 billion for our 
schools.
  There are many other steps that must be taken to ensure not only that 
our learning environments are safe but also that students have the 
connectivity they need remotely because for some period of time, that 
will be the way they learn.
  More than a third of communities of color in the State of 
Connecticut, which is thought to be a very sophisticated and advanced 
State, still lack that connectivity--a third of our seniors. Safe and 
fair learning environments mean broadband, and that is also another 
reason for that $130 billion in this package.
  Many of these students face serious gaps--1 to 3 months and even 
longer for some students who have lacked that connectivity--up to 6 
months in basic skills: reading, writing, and arithmetic. These kinds 
of gaps have to be filled.
  We need a major effort to focus on our students who have been left 
behind, and that is why this kind of package is a moral imperative. It 
is a social obligation. We will lose talents and skills, but students 
will also lose their future.
  We should come together on a bipartisan basis. There is nothing wrong 
with cooperation, and I hope that my colleagues across the aisle will 
join with us as we move forward, but we will move forward. We cannot 
repeat the mistakes of the past when efforts to wait meant 
unconscionable delay. We have no such luxury in this humanitarian 
crisis. We must move forward, and we will.
  I yield the floor to my colleague from Nevada.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, the American people need our help, and they 
need it now. Far too many families are struggling just to get by.
  My home State of Nevada has been hit especially hard during this 
pandemic. Before COVID, Nevada was stable, and Nevada was thriving, but 
since the pandemic began, our industries--especially our travel and 
tourism, key economic pillars of our State--were devastated. In fact, 
countless Nevada businesses have struggled, and unfortunately many have 
had to close their doors permanently. This is forcing Nevadans out of 
work and putting their financial well-being in jeopardy. Now, during 
this public health and economic crisis, Nevada is close to having the 
highest rate of unemployment in the Nation.
  Here in Congress, we have passed stopgap packages to try to help all 
those who are facing these tough times. The relief measures we have 
delivered for the American people have been a good start, but they are 
not enough to safely see our country through this pandemic.
  Small business owners risk losing their businesses if they cannot 
access the full loans and grants that Congress promised them but that 
the last administration failed to deliver. Our State and local 
governments have exhausted their budgets responding to this public 
health crisis, and as a result, they face looming cuts to essential 
support and services that our communities are relying on.
  This isn't something that is happening just in my State; this is the 
common experience across our country. The people of Nevada, the 
American people--they are desperately calling out for a lifeline, and 
we must deliver a real one and as soon as possible.
  COVID-19 is a global public health emergency, and it requires the 
full force of the U.S. Government. We must act boldly and efficiently 
as we work to overcome this crisis and meet the needs of this moment.
  We need real relief--real relief fo families who are struggling to 
pay their bills, for those who are struggling to afford basic 
necessities, for parents who are struggling just to feed their kids.

  We need real relief. We need real relief for our travel and tourism 
industries. We need to ensure that they can make it through this 
turbulent time. We need a framework for ensuring that health and safety 
standards are met, and we need a path toward restoring consumer 
confidence.
  We need real relief--real relief for our small businesses, including 
tax credits to help businesses get by and full EIDL loans and grants 
without arbitrary caps.
  We need real relief--real relief for our workers, including increased 
unemployment benefits and proper IT infrastructure to get those 
benefits out faster to Americans in need.
  We need real relief--real relief for State and local governments so 
that they can continue working tirelessly to save the lives of 
Americans in every corner of our Nation, so that they can continue 
testing and tracing in our communities, so that they can continue to 
provide childcare for essential workers, and so that they continue to 
provide PPE and things to limit the spread of COVID-19.
  We need real relief--real relief that supports a greater vaccine 
distribution and accelerates vaccine deployment, including to our 
communities of color and rural areas where healthcare access is too 
frequently a challenge.
  Senator Cortez Masto and I have been working with our Governor. We 
have been working with our Governor and working with all of our local 
governments to get more shots in arms across the State of Nevada, but 
we need more.
  When so many in our country are hurting and they are struggling, we 
must ask ourselves why American families, why members of our 
communities, why would they deserve any less? It is time for a 
comprehensive relief package that truly provides relief to the American 
people.
  I urge all of my colleagues to join me in this effort to help see our 
Nation through this challenge. Lives are depending on us. Our States 
are counting on us. The whole country is looking to us--looking to us 
to show leadership, to stand up, to save lives and livelihoods. So 
let's ensure that we don't let them down. Let's pass that real relief, 
thoughtful and targeted relief, and do it now.
  I yield the floor.

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, more than 3,000 of my fellow New Mexicans 
have lost their lives to COVID-19. They were New Mexicans like Teresa, 
an essential medical worker from Springer, NM. She bravely went to work 
to test Haitians for COVID-19 and to stop the spread of the disease. 
Tragically, Teresa contracted COVID-19 and passed away over the 
Christmas holiday, leaving behind her husband Roger and their three 
children.
  But Congress has another chance to spare other families the pain that 
Teresa's family is experiencing, the very thing that drove Teresa every 
day to go and save others. This resolution will allow Congress to mount 
an aggressive public health response and prioritize resources where 
they are needed most--for vaccines, testing, and public health programs 
that fight COVID.
  Funding included in this package will be aimed at dramatically 
increasing rates of testing, bolstering the supply chain to increase 
the availability of testing supplies and personal protective equipment, 
hiring and training public health workers to administer the vaccine, 
and increasing vaccine production.
  As Congress focuses on getting vaccinations into every arm as quickly 
as possible, strong Federal funding is especially critical for States 
like New Mexico, where vaccines and medical supplies must travel longer 
distances to reach the communities that need them.
  We know we have the capacity to get these vaccines in people's arms. 
We need more vaccine. Vaccines are essential to the priorities I have 
heard from many of my constituents--safely opening schools as soon as 
possible because this pandemic is widening the achievement gap that 
already existed. To meet this goal, Congress must invest in safely 
reopening schools and make facility improvements to ensure every 
educator, the people who prepare the food, drive the buses, keep the 
schools looking clean, social workers and nurses, and every student is 
safe to return.
  America must provide quality distance learning to those who are not 
yet ready to return and work to address widespread learning loss that 
exacerbates the achievement gap. It is also clear that the toll of 
COVID-19 on students' learning and mental health will last for years, 
meaning investments are necessary well beyond this academic year.
  The Senate must act for the families who have lost loved ones, for 
Roger and Teresa and their three kids, and for parents struggling to 
keep their students safe and healthy.
  The Senate must act to defeat this virus and to rebuild our Nation's 
economy. It must pass this budget resolution.
  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. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as the new chairman of the Budget 
Committee, I wanted to take a few moments to talk about the $1.9 
trillion budget resolution that I hope will be passed late tomorrow 
night.
  I think sometimes our friends in the media make the political process 
much more complicated than it is. Real politics in a democracy is not 
that complicated. What it is about is assessing the problems facing the 
Nation and coming up with solutions to those problems.
  One of the great tragedies that has occurred, in my view, in recent 
years is that for working-class people, middle-class people, lower-
income people, these are folks who in a variety of ways are hurting and 
have hurt for many, many years. Wages in this country have been 
stagnant for decades. Young people are finding it increasingly 
difficult to go to college. Ninety million Americans are uninsured or 
underinsured. We have a political system which is significantly corrupt 
because big money can buy elections. And people look around them and 
they say: Who cares about me? Who is worried about me or my parents or 
my kids?
  When that happens--when that kind of political alienation happens--
people can become prone to conspiracy theories and all kinds of big 
lies and everything else. Here is the simple truth, not complicated. 
Right now in this year 2021, we face more crises than this country has 
faced certainly since the Great Depression and maybe going back to the 
Civil War, when the very existence of this country was at stake.
  As we speak right now, whether it is in the State of Georgia or my 
State of Vermont and all over this country, there are tens of millions 
of working families who have lost their jobs, lost their incomes, and 
they are worried tonight as to how they are going to be able to feed 
their families. They are worried about the back rent they owe.
  We have a moratorium on evictions, but that moratorium some day is 
going to end. People say: How am I going to pay thousands of dollars in 
back rent? I am going to be evicted. I am going to be out on the 
street.
  People are in the midst of this terrible, terrible pandemic, where we 
have lost over 400,000 lives--well over 400,000 lives. There are over 
90 million people who are uninsured or underinsured and are having 
difficulty affording going to the doctor, and on and on it goes.
  Kids. I have seven grandchildren. Kids all over this country have had 
their education disrupted.
  As a result of the pandemic, people have become isolated from their 
friends and their families. Mental illness is soaring with increased 
numbers of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.
  This country faces just terrible, terrible problems. I think we can 
agree that the year 2020 was the worst year in so many ways in our 
lifetime, maybe in the history of this country. And now, right now, it 
is absolutely imperative that the Congress of the United States 
understands that reality and keeps faith with the American people.
  One of the reasons, by the way--and I say this to the Presiding 
Officer today, who is from Georgia and recently won his election--it is 
doubly important that we keep faith with the American people is because 
promises were made in this election in Georgia, which was not just a 
Senate race. It was more of a national race. President Biden was 
involved. Majority Leader Schumer was involved. I was involved. A lot 
of leading Democrats were involved.
  We said to the people in Georgia and we said to the people in 
America: If we gain the majority, we are going to significantly improve 
lives for working people all over this country. Those are promises made 
that must be kept.
  I want to just spend a few moments to talk about what is in this 
bill. We throw out numbers--$1.9 trillion. Who knows what $1.9 trillion 
is? It is such an unfathomable number. It is such a huge number. What 
does it mean? Who knows? Who understands that?
  I want you to understand what is in this bill. For a start, what I 
believe and I know you believe is that when people are hurting, when 
they owe back rent, when they can't afford to feed their kids, when 
they can't afford to go to the doctor, we need to get cash into the 
pockets of those people as soon as we possibly can.
  I was one of the people here a month ago when a whole lot of people 
were talking about it. I said we need direct payments. We need to get 
cash into the hands of people. I fought very hard. We ended up with 
just $600 in the last bill. It wasn't enough. It is a start, but not 
enough. We said our goal was $2,000. And in this bill, there will be an 
additional $1,400 for every working-class man, woman, and child.
  So if you are an individual, a single person making $75,000 or less, 
when we pass this legislation you are going to get a check for $1,400. 
If you are a couple earning less than $150,000, and let's just say you 
have two kids, each person in the family, the husband, the wife, and 
the two kids get $1,400 apiece. That is $5,600.
  Let me tell you something. For a struggling working-class family, 
that $5,600 is going to mean an enormous amount. It will allow people 
to pay the rent, allow people to pay off their debts, allow people to 
go to the doctor. That is what this legislation is about.
  We made a promise. Some of us made that promise--I did--that we would 
make sure that in working-class families, each individual gets $2,000 
and we

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will keep that promise: $600 then, $1,400 now.
  As a result of this pandemic, we have seen a horrific increase in 
unemployment. Unemployment is soaring all over this country. Millions 
of workers have lost their jobs. They have no income coming in. The 
extended unemployment benefits that were previously passed are going to 
expire in mid-March. What this legislation does--very importantly--if 
you are unemployed right now and you are worried you are going to lose 
your employment, when we pass this legislation, your unemployment is 
going to be extended through the end of September. And on top of the 
normal unemployment benefits you get from your State--and they vary 
State to State--you are going to get an additional $400 a week. We will 
not turn our backs on the millions of unemployed workers in this 
country.

  Included in the legislation that we are fighting for is the need to 
raise the minimum wage in this country from the starvation wage that 
currently exists of $7.25 an hour to a living wage of $15 an hour. Now, 
we understand that restaurants and small businesses are hurting, and in 
this legislation, there will be a significant amount of money to make 
sure that small businesses will be able to afford that wage increase.
  You know, when we talk about the economy, the media very often 
focuses on the stock market. That is important. We can focus on 
unemployment--terribly important. Yet what we don't focus on enough is 
that half of our workers in this country are living paycheck to 
paycheck. They have nothing in the bank, and they have to live off the 
paychecks they make. If they have an automobile problem--the car breaks 
down--or somebody in the family gets sick, they are in deep financial 
trouble. It seems to me that, in the richest country in the history of 
the world, it is not too much to demand that, if you work 40 hours a 
week, you don't live in poverty. Fifteen bucks an hour is not going to 
make anybody rich, but I have seen workers and talked to workers all 
over this country who are trying to raise their kids on $10, $12 an 
hour, and you can't do it. So $15 an hour is an important start in 
making sure that all working people in this country can live with 
dignity.
  This legislation will expand the child tax credit from $2,000 to 
$3,000 and to $3,600 for families with kids under the age of 6. Now, 
what is not talked about very much in America--not by politicians, not 
by the media--is the fact that we have one of the highest rates of 
childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, and that is a 
terrible, terrible thing. You know, politicians give speeches of ``the 
future of this country is with our children,'' so forth and so on, but 
they have millions of kids living in poverty. Millions of families 
can't afford to send their kids to decent quality childcare. So 
expanding the child tax credit will go a very long way to reducing 
child poverty in America, and that is something that we must do.
  It is no great secret that, as a result of the pandemic, our revenues 
going into State and local governments are in significant decline. The 
result of that is that, in the last year, well over a million State and 
local employees have been laid off. We are talking about teachers. We 
are talking about firemen. We are talking about police officers and 
other municipal and State employees. When you have those layoffs, not 
only is that a crisis unto itself for those workers, it means that 
State and local governments cannot provide the services that need to be 
provided in the midst of this terrible crisis. So this legislation 
would provide $350 billion to State and local governments, many of 
which are facing bankruptcy.
  Now, obviously, the crisis that we are facing today is not only an 
economic crisis, it is clearly a health crisis. The good news is that, 
in a relatively short period of time, at least two manufacturers in 
this country--and more, I think, are coming on board--have introduced 
and created vaccines, which are now being distributed. That is the good 
news. The bad news is that we need to significantly increase the 
production of those vaccines. We don't have enough. Even more 
importantly, we have to do a heck of a lot better job in distributing 
those vaccines and getting those vaccines into the arms of people, and 
this legislation will provide billions and billions of dollars to do 
just that.
  At a time when we are looking at the highest level of hunger in this 
country in decades, many billions of dollars are going to make sure 
that our children and our families do not go hungry. Clearly, one of 
the major crises facing this country is that schools in every State are 
either not open or they are open with irregular hours. Kids are trying 
to get an education online. Sometimes it works and sometimes it 
doesn't, but our goal is to make sure that we can reopen schools and 
expand after-school and childcare programs for working families and do 
it in a way that is safe. We want parents to feel good and know that 
the facilities they are sending their children to are safe, and we have 
a whole lot of money in this bill to do just that.
  In this bill, in order to protect workers, there is a sizable sum of 
money to prevent the pensions of millions of workers and retirees from 
being slashed by 30, 40, or even 65 percent. A number of years ago, in 
the middle of night, in some big omnibus bill, language was put in that 
would destroy the promises made to millions of workers in terms of the 
pensions that they were guaranteed, and we rectify that in this bill.
  Right now, in America, as I mentioned earlier, some 90 million of our 
people are either uninsured or underinsured, which speaks to the need, 
in my view, of major healthcare reform. My own view is that we need to 
put in a Medicare for All, single-payer program so that we are 
no spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other country 
on Earth despite so many people being uninsured or underinsured. Well, 
Medicare for All is not in this bill, but what is in this bill is a 
significant amount of money to expand healthcare, and we are still 
looking at the best ways to do that. One of the ways will probably be 
by expanding Medicaid and also investing significantly in community 
health centers and the National Health Service Corps. We have a crisis 
in terms of the number of doctors and nurses that we need, and the 
National Health Service Corps is a program which will forgive debt for 
doctors and nurses if they practice in underserved areas.

  I know sometimes we get consumed by numbers. It is going to be $2.1 
trillion, $1.9 trillion, $1.7 trillion. That is not the issue. The 
issue is whether we are prepared to address the crises facing the 
American people. Will this bill solve all of the problems that we face? 
No, it will not. Will it go a long way to addressing many of the crises 
and easing the anxiety of so many working families? Yes, it will, but 
this should not be the end of the process. As soon as we pass this, we 
are going to come back with another major piece of legislation, and 
that will deal with some of the long-term structural problems our 
country faces in terms of a crumbling infrastructure and in terms of 
the need to deal with the existential threat of climate change. We need 
to create millions of good-paying jobs. That is something that this 
Congress has got to address. Too many of our people are unemployed, and 
too many of our people are underemployed. This we will be dealing with 
in the next COVID reconciliation bill.
  Now, there has been some discussion on--and the media seems fixated 
on--the issue of partisanship. Oh, my God. We are being so partisan 
here. Let me remind everybody that, under the Trump administration, 
massive tax breaks were passed that went to the top 1 percent and large 
corporations. Eighty-three percent of the benefits in the Trump tax 
plan went to the 1 percent and large corporations. Do you know how 
bipartisan that bill was that passed in reconciliation? There was not 
one Democrat who voted for that bill. It was voted just with Republican 
votes.
  Then, outrageously, as part of the reconciliation, the Republicans 
came forward and said: Hey, we think it is a brilliant idea to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act and throw up to 32 million people off the 
healthcare that they have. I don't know what people are thinking about 
when they propose to throw tens of millions of people off the 
healthcare that they have, but that was their idea to repeal the 
Affordable Care Act. By one vote by the late John McCain, that did not 
happen, but not one Democrat voted for that bill.

[[Page S313]]

  My point is that it is one thing for my Republican friends here to be 
talking about the need for bipartisanship, which all of us support, but 
the reality is they used exactly the same process to pass or at least 
try to pass major, major pieces of legislation.
  So all that I want to say is that we are living in an unprecedented 
moment in American history. Again, it is quite likely that this 
Congress today and President Biden are facing more serious crises than 
any President--certainly, since FDR and maybe going back to Abraham 
Lincoln--has faced. We have a healthcare crisis. We have a pandemic. We 
have an economic meltdown. We have an education crisis. We have an 
infrastructure crisis. We have a criminal justice crisis. We have an 
immigration crisis. You name it, we got it. Either we are going to have 
the courage to address those problems or we are not, and I think now is 
the time to do it. We certainly look forward to the support from our 
Republican colleagues, but what is most important is that, at a time of 
massive pain and anxiety, this Congress acts boldly on behalf of 
working families.
  For too long, we have seen the Congress give tax breaks to 
billionaires. We have seen lobbyists work to get hundreds of billions 
of dollars in corporate welfare for people who don't need it. We have 
seen a tax system in which major corporations like Amazon--maybe the 
most profitable corporation in America or one of the most profitable 
corporations and owned by the wealthiest guy in America--pay zero in 
Federal taxes, and, right now, the very rich have an effective tax rate 
which is lower than that of working families.
  So I know it may sound like a radical idea, but the time is now for 
the U.S. Congress to begin to represent the vast majority of the 
people--the working class of this country, the middle class of this 
country, and lower income people--who are struggling. Let us work 
together. Let us crush this terrible pandemic. Let us get our kids back 
to school. Let us reopen our economy. Let us create a government that 
works for all of us and not just the very few.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, it is wonderful to see you in the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. My first time.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, one thing you can say about Americans, 
we know how to meet the moment.
  When the world was upended by a Great Depression and a quarter of our 
people were out of work, we took bold action. A brandnew President, 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and large majorities in Congress ushered in 
a New Deal that put folks back to work, stabilized our economy, and 
invested in America's future.
  When freedom abroad was threatened by fascism, we again took bold 
action as a country. We used American ingenuity to build an arsenal of 
democracy, which, by the middle of 1944, was churning out B-24 bombers 
every 60 minutes at Ford's Willow Run plant in Michigan.
  Now is the time again to take bold action on behalf of the American 
people. We are now a year into a pandemic that has claimed the lives of 
nearly 450,000 Americans--450,000 Americans--parents and grandparents 
and friends and neighbors and cousins and coworkers and community 
leaders. Almost 15,000 lives have already been lost in Michigan--dear 
souls lost to us.
  And it is not just lives that have been lost. Businesses have closed, 
workers have been laid off, folks have been without paychecks for 
months and months.
  Parents are struggling to keep food on the table and the heat on 
while troubleshooting the spotty internet their children depend on to 
keep their classes going on Zoom.
  And grandmas and grandpas are missing out on seeing their families 
grow up. Babies born last March are already learning to walk and talk, 
and too many have not had a chance to be with them in person.
  Americans know how to meet the moment, and it is time for us to do it 
again. It is time to pass a rescue plan bold enough to stamp out this 
pandemic, get families the immediate help they need to weather the 
economic crisis, and get our children safely back in school.
  That is just what our American Rescue Plan will do, and we need to 
get it done as soon as possible. American families have waited long 
enough.
  There are a lot of good things happening right now. A home COVID-19 
test was just approved. Soon we will have three effective vaccines 
available. We know that we can't get back to normal, though, or revive 
our battered economy unless we get vaccine off shelves and into 
American arms.
  That is why our plan will increase the number of people being 
vaccinated, boost our testing capacity, and ensure that our healthcare 
professionals and other frontline workers have adequate protective 
equipment.
  The plan will also provide additional funding for rural health 
infrastructure through the agriculture portion of our bill, which I am 
so pleased to lead.
  Our rural hospitals are struggling to survive right now like places 
where I grew up in Northern Michigan. This funding will help them keep 
their doors open, purchase necessary supplies, vaccinate more people, 
and treat more patients via telehealth, which has become so important.
  In the meantime, we know that American families need help to survive 
during this pandemic. They need help. They need to know we have got 
their backs. They have got to know that, in all of this, somebody has 
got their back.
  The American Rescue Plan will give working families direct checks, 
extend crucial unemployment programs, boost the child tax credit and 
earned-income tax credit, which will lift half of American children out 
of poverty this year.
  Can you imagine? We have an opportunity here in Congress, working 
with our wonderful new President and Vice President, to pass a policy 
that will lift half the children in poverty out of poverty--not 10 
years from now, not 5 years from now--this year. What an exciting 
prospect. And we need to get it done.
  This means struggling families will, with all of this help, be able 
to cover the rent or the mortgage, pay their bills, keep food on the 
table. And keeping food on the table is especially crucial in a time 
when so many of our neighbors are going hungry.
  In fact, we know that 50 million Americans across the country--moms 
and dads and children--right now are facing hunger every day. We are 
better than this as a country.
  We have all heard stories about seniors waiting hours in lines for a 
box of food or parents skipping meals so their children can have a 
little more to eat.
  The agriculture and nutrition funding in this American Rescue Plan 
will tackle hunger head-on by extending pandemic EBT for the duration 
of the pandemic. What does that mean? This is about children. This is 
about feeding children--children who otherwise may get fed at school 
but aren' able to do that to be able to have the resources they need 
from moms and dads to feed them while they are not in school, as well 
as in the summer.

  It will also provide more fruits and vegetables for moms and babies 
and make sure that families who are eligible for help are getting it. 
People who need help in this country need to get that help. They need 
to know we have their back.
  We know that two-thirds of SNAP benefits--the Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program--two-thirds of it goes to families with children. By 
extending the bump-up in SNAP funding through the end of September, we 
can make sure families aren't running out of food and going hungry at 
the end of the month.
  That is especially important for children because it is hard to 
learn--it is hard to learn how to read and write, and it is hard to 
focus when your stomach is rumbling, when you have got a headache 
because you haven't eaten. Our children need to be fed, and they need 
to be back in class as well.
  We can't get our economy moving again if parents can't return to 
work, and parents can't return to work if they are worried that their 
children aren't safe at school or one of the parents or the only parent 
has to be home with the children. What do they do?
  So all of this fits together, and this American Rescue Plan will 
provide the support needed to safely reopen the majority of K-12 
schools within President Biden's first 100 days.
  How important is that? What a great goal for us to have, and we can 
do that.

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We are just days away from working together and being able to get that 
done, and it will serve all students, no matter how, no matter where 
they learn.
  And for our farmers, speaking as the incoming chair of the 
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, our farmers who have 
been directly affected by the ups and downs of the pandemic, the plan 
addresses the break in the food supply chain, and it enables us to buy 
and donate their products to food banks.
  You know, we had so many selling to restaurants and big enterprises, 
the food supply chain stopped. They have excess food. I know dairy 
farmers in Michigan; it breaks their hearts to think of the idea of 
dumping milk when we need that.
  So the efforts that are in this bill will help them be able to move 
from a bulk supply chain to be able to get gallon jugs, put the milk 
into the hands of families, and stop the wasting of precious, valuable 
food that our families need. This is going to help farmers' bottom 
lines, and it feeds families in need.
  Our agriculture provisions also provide critical funding for PPE for 
farmworkers and workers who labor every day in food processing plants 
so we have the food that we need--protective equipment that they need 
and that they deserve.
  The plan also targets help for farmers of color who have been hit 
especially hard by the pandemic, on top of the historical challenges 
and discrimination they have faced in accessing land and capital. The 
plan provides critical debt relief to help them weather the storm and 
keep their operations going until the next growing season.
  Vaccinating Americans, providing economic help for families, getting 
our children back to school safely, those are the three main goals of 
this plan.
  All of these goals have one thing in common: It is about investing in 
people. It is about putting people first--the American people first. 
Over our Nation's history, the policies that have truly been lifting 
people out of poverty and moved them forward have invested in people, 
from our land grant universities to social security and Medicare and 
Medicaid, to the Civil Rights Act, to the Children's Health Insurance 
Program, to increasing the minimum wage. And these are all policies, I 
am proud to say, created and supported by Democrats.
  Investing in our people helps American families, and it helps our 
economy too. We have seen these Democratic policies create more jobs 
when you look at the numbers. When we look at the numbers, under which 
policies and which Presidents have we seen more good-paying jobs? And 
over and over again it is Democratic Presidents because of the way that 
we invest. It is what we do, how we invest, to create opportunity to 
give everybody a fair shot to succeed, to invest in people and 
opportunity. Those things have created better economies and more jobs.
  So, broadly, we are committed to making sure everyone shares in the 
prosperity of our country, and these policies create the conditions 
necessary to help people dream big dreams and actually achieve them.
  It is a new year. It is a new Congress. It is time to act. It is time 
to end this pandemic, give families the economic support they need, and 
get our children safely back to school. This is the moment. This is the 
moment we need to think big. We need to be bold. We need to lean in on 
policies that we know work--because they have worked before.
  Americans know how to meet the moment, and our moment is now.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, 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. LUJAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, 50 million Americans, including 17 million 
children, are facing food insecurity because of this public health and 
economic crisis, with Black and Latino families more likely to go 
hungry. In New Mexico, one in three children and one in five adults are 
at risk of hunger. In the wealthiest country in the world, this is 
simply unacceptable.
  The budget resolution focuses on getting relief to the people who 
need it most, beginning with an extension of the 15-percent increase in 
supplemental nutrition assistance benefits through September of 2021. 
Increasing SNAP benefits has proven to be one of the most effective 
forms of economic stimulus, and it has the dual benefit of allowing 
families to purchase the food that they need to stay healthy, as well 
as supporting businesses that accept SNAP dollars.
  The budget resolution also bolsters the WIC Program to ensure that 
children and their mothers have access to a nutritious diet necessary 
for healthy development, an important investment in the future of our 
country. This funding increase is especially significant for States 
like New Mexico, where nearly a quarter of children are born into 
families with incomes that fall below the Federal poverty line.
  In addition to addressing hunger, this resolution includes critical 
support for the people who grow our food, produce our food--our farmers 
and ranchers. In New Mexico, farmers and ranchers, who were already 
struggling due to drought conditions, face new challenges due to COVID-
19. Shuttered restaurants left chile growers and dairy farmers without 
their customer base and scrambling to find new markets. Ranchers 
experienced long delays at meat packing plants where workers were hard 
hit by COVID-19. Those workers need help too. The pandemic also made it 
harder to find workers to cultivate the land and tend to the animals.
  This resolution also supports a provision I advocated for to provide 
debt relief for minority and disadvantaged farmers and ranchers who did 
not receive their fair share of COVID relief under the last 
administration.
  It is said that societies are judged by how they treat their most 
vulnerable. It is sad because not everybody opens their eyes to see how 
this should be measured.
  The Senate must act for the families and children facing hunger and 
for our hard-working farmers and ranchers--those that are producing 
food, picking food, preparing food, and getting it to market and 
stocking the shelves.
  We must pass this budget resolution.
  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. SCHUMER. 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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