[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 35 (Wednesday, February 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S848-S849]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Madam President, on another matter, as you know, this week our 
Democratic colleagues in the House are continuing to take action on 
President Biden's relief bill, using the budget reconciliation process.
  It is really not so much an issue in the House, where you can do 
anything you want, basically, with a majority vote. But if all goes 
their way, our Democratic colleagues will write a $1.9 trillion check, 
funded by taxpayers--future taxpayers because it will be borrowed 
money--without the input of a single Republican in Congress, either in 
the House or in the Senate.
  We know that there are 10 Republicans who went over to the White 
House, had a very pleasant meeting with President Biden, but were 
essentially told: My way or the highway. Any effort to try to come up 
with a bipartisan compromise was rejected
  Regardless of your political affiliation or views on this particular 
bill, that fact alone should trouble every single American. After all, 
there was no need for partisan maneuvering to pass a coronavirus relief 
bill last year. As a matter of fact, we passed five of them. All of 
them were signed into law with overwhelming bipartisan support. No bill 
received fewer than 90 votes here in the Senate. One even passed 
unanimously.
  Of course, the reason for the widespread support wasn't because 
Members thought these relief packages were perfect. There were things I 
would have changed if I had had a chance, and I am sure others would 
have made other changes.
  But each bill was a clear response to the crisis at hand and free 
from any unrelated partisan priorities. In other words, it was focused 
on COVID-19 relief.
  Suffice it to say that the same cannot be said about this latest 
piece of legislation, this $1.9 trillion bill being rammed through 
Congress by our Democratic colleagues.
  Overall, I have three concerns with this legislation. First, it would 
dramatically overspend in areas that aren't even in need of additional 
funding.
  In the early days of the pandemic, we had no real expectation about 
how long the crisis would last or how big a blow it would deal to our 
economy. After the CARES Act was signed into law in March, late March, 
it made sense to hit the pause button so we could see how what we did 
was working--what was working well and what was not working so well. 
Where was more assistance needed? Where was it sufficient?
  These needs became obvious pretty quickly. One example was the 
Paycheck Protection Program. Within 2 weeks of passage of $350 billion 
worth of relief, it ran dry--in 2 weeks. So we quickly came together on 
a bipartisan basis to replenish the fund with additional money, and we 
did so again at the end of the year.
  This sort of bipartisan, step-by-step approach is the most effective 
way to get funding where it is needed without wasting money on already 
well-funded programs.
  But, unfortunately, our friends across the aisle didn't apply that 
same logic to this $1.9 trillion piece of legislation, which sends 
hundreds of billions of dollars to areas that are nowhere near running 
out of money.
  One example is public education. So far, Congress has provided more 
than $110 billion to support K-12 education, including $68 billion in 
the relief bill passed just in December. Schools in Texas have used 
this money to update their ventilation systems, purchase masks and 
personal protective equipment, and make other investments in classroom 
safety. But the vast majority of the funding that was provided in 
December is still waiting to be used. In other words, there is no 
current need for any more money from Congress.
  As a matter of fact, as of February 9, States have spent just under 
$5 billion of the $68 billion we have already provided for K-12 
education. They have spent just $5 billion out of the $68 billion.
  As a reminder, in December, the CDC--the Centers for Disease 
Control--estimated schools would need only about $22 billion to reopen 
safely, meaning there is already more than enough money to support safe 
school reopenings. But that data-driven estimate from the experts 
doesn't seem to matter to our Democratic colleagues or the 
administration, who are preparing

[[Page S849]]

to drop another $130 billion for public education. So $5 billion has 
been spent out of the $68 billion we have already appropriated, and our 
Democratic colleagues now want to spend another $130 billion.
  Since most of the existing funds remain to be spent, the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bulk of spending of this 
new proposed funding would occur after this year, after 2021; that is, 
the majority of the funding in this new so-called COVID relief bill 
wouldn't even be touched until, God willing, the pandemic is already in 
the rearview mirror.
  I have advocated for funding to help our schools prepare for a safe 
return to the classroom, and the experts tell us that there is more 
than sufficient funding already out there to make that happen. So I am 
left to conclude, as I think most--really, any reasonable person would, 
that it is irresponsible to have taxpayers foot the bill for another 
$130 billion when there is no need for the funding.
  And this isn't like we are spending money that we have. We are 
actually borrowing money from future generations, exacerbating an 
already huge Federal debt.
  That brings me to the second concern I have with this bill: It 
completely ignores the trajectory of our economic recovery.
  At the start of the pandemic, we all know the economic hammer came 
down hard and fast. As States imposed lockdown measures, businesses 
closed their doors, people lost their jobs, and consumer spending 
plummeted.
  But as the pandemic has gone on, even the more moderate predictions 
about an economic depression have proven wrong. By any measure, our 
economy has recovered faster than any of us expected. That should be a 
positive thing. We should be happy about that.
  The unemployment rate has steadily declined, going from 14.8 percent 
in April to 6.3 percent last month. State tax revenues have largely 
rebounded. As a matter of fact, California has fared so well that it is 
adding money to their rainy day fund. In other words, they don't need 
any more money. Their revenues have exceeded their revenues from years 
before the pandemic even hit.
  The Congressional Budget Office projects that the U.S. economy will 
return to its prepandemic size by the middle of this year, even if 
Congress doesn't approve another penny of money. Let me say that again. 
The Congressional Budget Office projects the U.S. economy will return 
to its prepandemic size in the middle of this year--just a few months 
away--even if Congress does not approve any more Federal money to aid 
the recovery.
  Well, it is tough to reconcile that fact with the claim from our 
friends across the aisle that we need to spend another $1.9 trillion, 
money that we don't have.
  Despite all the data that shows our economy is recovering, rebounding 
in a robust way, this bill sends another $350 billion to State and 
local governments that are not facing the dire budget shortfalls that 
we worried about last March. And it is not without negative 
consequences.
  Larry Summers, who served as the Treasury Secretary during the 
Clinton administration and who was an economic adviser to President 
Obama, offered a good observation on the situation in a recent opinion 
piece. He wrote:

       [W]hereas the Obama stimulus was about half as large as the 
     output shortfall, the proposed Biden stimulus is three times 
     as large as the projected shortfall. Relative to the size of 
     the gap being addressed, it is six times as large.

  For this administration to make public comments about following the 
science--certainly, following the facts, listening to the experts--it 
is hard to reconcile that with this bill that is so divorced from 
reality. I don't think you can do it, which brings me to my third big 
concern with this bill: This is not a COVID-19 relief bill in its 
entirety. It includes a range of completely unrelated, liberal 
priorities that should not be included in this emergency spending, let 
alone one that is rushed through in a partisan manner through the 
budget process.
  One case in point is the proposed increase in the minimum wage to 
$15. Regardless of the cost of living, businesses in small towns and 
major cities alike would be required to pay their employees $15 an hour 
by 2025. Now, for big companies in big cities, that may be doable. That 
may be the going rate to get the kind of quality workforce you want. As 
we know, companies like Amazon have already implemented their own $15 
an hour minimum wage back in 2018, and they can afford it. But for 
small businesses that are the backbone of our economy and are key to 
our economic recovery following this pandemic, this could lead to 
massive layoffs or permanent closures.
  The Congressional Budget Office that I referred to earlier estimates 
that this provision alone could put 1.4 million Americans out of work. 
Do we really want to pass a provision that would put 1.4 million 
Americans out of work? That is 50 percent more than it could 
potentially lift out of poverty.
  As a reminder, our colleagues are trying to rush this massive change 
through Congress as part of a pandemic relief bill because they know 
that it is the only shot at passing a bill that would have this sort of 
dramatic negative effect on jobs--all under the guise of economic 
relief and stimulus. There is simply no way to justify a one-size-fits-
all mandate that treats Silicon Valley the same as it does mom-and-pop 
businesses in rural America.
  And the range of unrelated provisions doesn't stop there. This 
legislation includes $30 billion for public transit agencies, a blank 
check to bail out mismanaged union pension funds without any reforms, 
and funding for a bridge to connect the majority leader's home State of 
New York to Canada. So we are going to build the majority leader a 
bridge to Canada as part of an emergency COVID-19 relief bill. It is 
outrageous. Everyone remembers the infamous earmark now known as the 
bridge to nowhere. At least in this case we know where the bridge will 
end up. But a pandemic relief bill should not serve as a Trojan horse 
in order to pursue such parochial and local desires or any other part 
of an unrelated liberal wish list.
  So the Biden bill of $1.9 trillion actually creates more problems 
than it solves or it tries to solve nonexistent problems. It drives up 
our national debt by spending money that experts say is not needed. It 
ignores the data--the facts about our economic recovery--and it creates 
even more problems, all in the name of securing a win for the 
administration and our Democratic colleagues. It is as though this bill 
were drafted in a vacuum with no attention paid to what has already 
been done, how things are going, or what we anticipate the need will be 
in the future.
  If the evidence and the experts tell us that more funding is needed 
to bolster our response to the virus, I will be one of the first people 
to advocate for additional targeted relief. But this race to spend 
money for the sake of spending money and ignore what the experts are 
saying is absolutely disgraceful.
  The two parties have done much better than this. As I said, last 
year, we passed five COVID relief bills on a bipartisan basis because 
we all were trying to come together and meet a common enemy--the COVID-
19 virus and the consequences of the pandemic. But it seems like this 
$1.9 trillion wish list is divorced, really, from the COVID-19 relief 
that we did in the past and is designed purely for partisan political 
purposes, and I think it is an unfortunate development in an area where 
we have so successfully worked together in a bipartisan way.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Minnesota.

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