[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 3, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1015-S1016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, the bill before the Senate this week is not 
really about COVID relief; it is about politics. Before this, COVID 
relief has not been a terribly partisan issue. In fact, we have passed 
5 relief bills, each with at least 90 votes. That means they are 
overwhelmingly broad-based and bipartisan efforts. So if this one were 
to pass, it would be the first of those to have passed that has been 
highly controversial. Why? Because, in the first place, it borrows and 
spends another $1.9 trillion when there are still hundreds of billions 
of dollars of unspent relief money from past COVID-19 relief packages. 
The new spending authorizes money to go to projects in States and local 
governments, including many that may not even need it.
  The fight against the pandemic has, of course, fundamentally changed 
in the months since this plan was first devised and proposed. It is 
already outdated. Now, as we are here, into the month of March, the 
circumstances have changed, yet the plan remains largely the same as it 
was. So it feels a little bit, to me, like we are fighting the last war 
using the last war's battle plan, leaving us unprepared for the battle 
actually in front of us.
  This is a bill that will worsen our national debt and weaken our 
economy in the long run without even doing much to help small 
businesses and American families in the short term.
  This is not without consequence. In fact, as the book by Drs. 
Reinhart and Rogoff, published nearly 10 years ago--a book known as 
``This Time Is Different''--notes, once we get into this cycle, once we 
get accustomed to spending this much and acquiring this much of a debt-
to-GDP ratio, we find ourselves in dire circumstances--circumstances in 
which it is even more difficult to raise the same revenue based on the 
same tax structure or even while tweaking that tax structure, it can be 
very difficult to pull out of the tailspin that could be produced when 
we start spending in sums this large and perpetuating a debt-to-GDP 
ratio that is, frankly, unsustainable.
  This $1.9 trillion package has very, very little to do with COVID-19. 
In fact, only 1 percent of the spending in this bill will go toward 
accelerating vaccine distribution; just 5 percent is focused on public 
health. Instead, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal 
Budget, three times as much money will go toward partisan priorities 
that are ``not directly related to the current crisis.''
  What are some of the examples of this type of spending? Well, we have 
$1.5 billion more set aside for Amtrak, which is itself already sitting 
on $1 billion of unspent bailout money. What this has to do with the 
virus and why the virus somehow justifies giving them an additional 
$1.5 billion when they are already sitting on $1 billion of still 
unspent bailout money is beyond my comprehension. There is $50 million 
in funding for environmental justice projects, also difficult to 
connect that up to COVID; $200 million for the Institute of Museum and 
Library Services; $135 million for the National Endowment for the Arts; 
$135 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities; $86 billion 
in a pension bailout for private sector workers.
  The list goes on and on, but you get the idea. You get money that 
goes to projects, as well as a significant amount to State and local 
governments. We will get back to that in a moment. When there is as 
much as $63 billion leftover in unspent funds, this money will not 
necessarily even help schools to reopen.
  And $350 billion in aid goes to State and local governments, even 
though total losses to date have mostly been covered by the $360 
billion that Congress has already provided in aid for State and local 
governments over the last year. While there is some disparity among and 
between the States and how they have responded to the COVID pandemic 
and how they fared as far as their revenues, State and local revenue 
has mostly recovered, and while 26 States saw general revenue decline, 
21 States actually saw revenue gains. In fact, my home State of Utah, 
as well as some other States, is running surpluses. Utah's sacrifice 
and good governance should not go to bail out other profligate States 
to the tune of $350 billion.
  I think about hard-working moms and dads in Utah, struggling to make 
ends meet while paying their Federal and State taxes. They are told 
over and over and over again that they have to be giving more. They are 
told that what they have spent and the time they have allotted--weeks 
or months out of every year just to pay their Federal tax alone--still 
somehow isn't enough, isn't nearly enough because, in addition to the 
money that they have worked so hard to earn and give to the Federal 
Government, there is so much more that has to be spent, like $1.5 
billion going to Amtrak, even though it is already sitting on $1 
billion of unspent bailout relief.
  These same moms and dads throughout Utah are not pleased when they 
are made to understand that, in addition to bailing out Amtrak again 
when Amtrak is already sitting on this $1 billion in unspent bailout 
relief money, they are also going to have to bail out other States; 
they are going to have to bail out State and local governments that 
haven't been managed well, as Utah's government has. This isn't fair to 
them. This is a matter of fundamental fairness to them and to countless 
Americans, not only in Utah but in every State.
  Some States still have unspent funding that they have gotten from 
previous COVID relief packages. California alone has $8 billion in 
unspent funding, and New York has up to $5 billion. In this bill, we 
are acting like States are facing a fiscal catastrophe that is 
specifically from COVID when they are not.
  At the same time, we are acting like the unprecedented magnitude of 
Federal debt is a nonissue. It is not. We have got this situation 
exactly backward.
  Look, any new relief funding just needs to be targeted, and it needs 
to be temporary, and it needs to be directly tied to COVID relief. This 
package is, instead, about fulfilling the political wish list of one 
political party over another and has very little, if anything, to do 
with the pandemic. It is offensive, and, yes, it is inappropriate for 
one political party--the political party that clings to the narrowest 
of margins of a majority in this body--to push its own political wish 
list onto an opportunity to provide COVID relief for the American 
people, and it would be equally inappropriate for Republicans to use it 
as an opportunity to push their own wish list.
  Look, we haven't seen this before. We haven't seen anything like this 
before. We didn't, in the past, see any of the previous COVID relief 
packages pushed through reconciliation. There are a number of reasons 
for that, one of which was it is wrong. It is not an appropriate use of 
reconciliation. Another was, it wasn't necessary because we made it 
bipartisan, not just mildly bipartisan with a few straggler votes here 
or there but overwhelmingly so.

[[Page S1016]]

  This one is different. I am not opposed to discussing what role 
government should play in providing actual relief from the pandemic. We 
can and should have that debate. I welcome it. I would love to have it 
right now. In fact, that is a question that I think merits its own 
debate. This bill is not about that, not anything close to that. It is 
riddled with poor economic reasoning and rank political favoritism. It 
will only worsen our debt and our economic health in the long run. It 
doesn't help America's small businesses and families in the short run. 
It doesn't do anything to materially advance the cause of getting our 
children back to school at a time when they have suffered so greatly, 
not only academically but socially and in so many other ways. That is 
where we ought to be focused.
  This bill comes nowhere close to addressing that issue, and, instead, 
it directs itself in other directions that are not only helpful, but in 
many cases they are the opposite of that.
  It is sad. It is disappointing. And on that basis, I can't support 
this bill but would urge my colleagues to figure out ways to make it 
better. We don't have to do it this way. It doesn't have to be a deeply 
partisan vote. We can still choose a different path. I, for one, hope 
we will.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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