[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 3, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1016-S1018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, the circumstances that we face today in 
the Senate are so disturbing. This is really, really unbelievable. I 
mean, there is so much good news out there on the healthcare front, on 
the pandemic front, on the economic front. But what we are going to do 
in this Chamber is absolutely, absolutely appalling.
  The Members of this Chamber came together five times last year and 
passed overwhelmingly bipartisan bills to deal with this pandemic, to 
deal with the economic crisis that came from the lockdown that we 
experienced--five times, about $4 trillion, completely unprecedented in 
scope and scale, the nature of it. Never imagined before, but we did 
it. We did it because we needed to, and we came together. I think it 
was the biggest of the bills passed--the biggest by far--without a 
single ``no'' vote in this whole Chamber, completely bipartisan.
  So President Biden gets elected, gives a great speech, a great 
inaugural speech, about uniting the country, coming together: We don't 
have to be divided the way we have been. We can work together and find 
common ground.
  So 10 Republican Senators go down to the White House and say: Well, 
Mr. President, I know you would like to do $1.9 trillion, whatever it 
is, but we think there is a good case for $600 billion.
  Now, I don't happen to agree with those 10 Republican Senators, as it 
happens. I don't think even that is appropriate, but they did. And the 
reason that is significant is that there were 10 of them, which just so 
happens to be exactly the minimum number needed of Republican Senators 
to join with the Democrats to pass anything they want on a bipartisan 
basis. So there, handed to him on a silver platter, to the President, 
was the opportunity to do a bipartisan bill to figure out where that 
common ground was. The Republicans were offering to negotiate from 
there. This probably could have ended easily at $1 trillion or so after 
just weeks before passing a $1 trillion bill. The President could have 
gotten so much of what he wanted, but President Biden didn't want any 
part of that. You have to ask yourself, why is that when he campaigned 
as the guy who is going to unify America, and he had every Republican 
vote he needed sitting in his office, asking him to work this out? He 
said: No, not interested. Effectively, that is what he said.

  Well, when you look at the bill, it is clear why President Biden 
chose this path, because there is no justification for this bill. There 
is no medical justification. There is no pandemic justification. There 
is no economic justification. This isn't about coming together and 
doing something about a crisis; this is about a partisan leftwing wish 
list. And, of course, Republicans aren't interested in that kind of 
political gesturing that is going to do economic damage.
  I am reminded of the words of Rahm Emanuel, who famously said: ``You 
never want a serious crisis to go to waste.'' Rahm Emanuel must be very 
proud of our Democratic colleagues and President Biden because what 
they have done is they have taken a crisis that is rapidly receding--
let's be honest--and they decided this is their chance to make one last 
mad dash to the door with a staggering amount of money and presumably 
claim credit for the recovery that is already well underway.
  The good news is--there is a lot of good news, right? We went through 
one of the most trying times we have been through in a very long time 
in this country. This pandemic was devastating. It was deadly, it was 
scary, and the economic crisis was very, very real. But now we have 
over 100 million doses of vaccines that have gone into people's arms. 
You figure that we might very well have 100 million Americans who have 
had the disease and recovered. We have to have well over half of the 
American population who has either recovered or been vaccinated and is 
therefore no longer at risk to this disease--not a significant risk. 
That is fantastic news.
  By the way, the vaccine administration is accelerating. Following 
that, we are unsurprisingly seeing this terrific collapse in the number 
of new cases. The daily count of new cases of the coronavirus, of 
COVID-19, peaked at around 250,000 new cases in a single day. We were 
running at that pace. By the time we got to the inauguration of 
President Biden, we were down to 185,000, and yesterday was about 
60,000. So we are less than a quarter of the number of new cases on a 
daily basis that we were experiencing at the peak, and it continues to 
drop. It is going to continue to decline probably very rapidly as we 
continue to roll out these vaccines. That is terrific.
  There is a sort of parallel recovery of the economy underway. If you 
go back to April of 2020, when it was at its worst, the unemployment 
rate was almost 15 percent, 14.8 percent. That is a terrible, terrible 
unemployment rate. As of January of this year, just a few months ago, 
the unemployment rate was 6.3 percent, less than half of where we were. 
We are not back to the fantastic economy we had a year ago just before 
this pandemic broke, but we are getting there. Eighteen States across 
the country have unemployment rates below 5 percent, so we are going to 
get there.
  The economy is growing. After a collapse in the second quarter of 
last year, the third quarter came roaring back, and the fourth quarter 
grew. The Congressional Budget Office thinks that in this whole 
calendar year of 2021, our economy will grow almost 5 percent. Most 
private economists think it will be more than that. There is a lively 
debate about whether we will even reach 6 or 7 or more percent growth. 
We were told never again to expect to see 3 percent. But that is how 
strong this economic recovery is because of the resiliency of the 
American people, the tremendous ingenuity of the private sector to come 
up with vaccines that are incredibly effective--several of them--and do 
it in a record time, I mean a fraction of what was the previous record 
time. It is amazing.
  And yes, you know what, we played a role in this too. I think we did. 
The bipartisan cooperation of Congress to pass one bill after another 
on a huge scale--like I said, five bills. The biggest was without a 
single dissenting--actually, I am not sure any of them had a dissenting 
vote in the Senate. And there was almost a trillion dollars in 
December, leaving tens of billions of dollars that we approved that 
haven't even been spent yet. The intended beneficiaries haven't gotten 
the money yet. It takes a little while to get the money out the door.
  Given this context, given this history, this is why it is so 
dispiriting to see our Democratic colleagues insisting on a bill that 
has almost nothing to do with COVID. That is the truth. It is not about 
reopening the economy; it is a partisan leftwing spending binge. That 
is what it is. Let's take a look at some of the individual items.
  We have these so-called stimulus checks--I never heard anything more 
inaptly named--$414 billion. The fact is, real, personal income in the 
country

[[Page S1017]]

today is higher than it was just before the pandemic. Disposable, real, 
per capita income rose at its highest rate since 1984. Personal savings 
rate hit an alltime record high in 2020. Why? Because we more than 
replaced lost income through all of the bills that we passed. What 
about that data suggests we need another round of universal payments to 
people? It is not going to stimulate the economy. Even the last check--
60 percent of that money went to savings accounts or paying down debt. 
According to a Penn Wharton study, about 75 percent of these checks are 
going to go into savings.
  Why in the world are we sending so many checks to tens of millions of 
people who never had any lost income? Under this bill, the Federal 
Government is going to send out $5,600 to a family of four--$5,600 to a 
family of four who makes $160,000 a year and never had a dime of income 
loss, no interruption of income, no loss of income. They are going to 
get $5,600. By the way, that is on top of the $5,800 they already got 
last year, with no need, no demonstrated problem here. So $11,400 of 
money that we don't have, we are going to send to people who never had 
a dime of lost income. That is a big chunk of this bill.
  It may not be the worst. It may be that the worst is the $350 billion 
we are going to send to State and local governments to bail out the 
mismanaged blue States and cities. The amazing thing is, you can't 
possibly make the case that they need the bailout. They don't even need 
it. Why do I say that? Well, if you look in 2020--the books are closed 
now. We know what we didn't know early in the year of 2020. We are in 
2021 now. We know what happened in 2020.
  What happened was States and municipalities in the aggregate brought 
in more revenue in 2020 than they did in 2019, which was a record year. 
So they set an alltime new record for tax revenue collected--alltime 
new record. And that does not include the $500 billion we sent them 
anyway. I mean, these States are loaded with cash. I don't know what 
they are going to do with it
  There is $60 billion in rainy day funds. We heard: Oh my goodness, 
these States are going to have to cut essential services. All the 
teachers are going to be laid off. The firemen and the police officers 
are all done.
  How is that when they have taken in more revenue than they ever have 
before in their history and then we sent them another $500 billion? Now 
we are going to send them yet another $350 on top of this? How does 
this make any sense at all? We are going to borrow or print this money 
so we can send it to a bunch of States, many of which are sitting on so 
much cash, they are going to probably cut taxes. It is just 
unbelievable.
  Then there is the ObamaCare expansion. What does that have to do with 
COVID? This is just a decade-long goal of our Democratic colleagues to 
continue the endless expansion of ObamaCare. There is $45 billion in 
this bill to pay insurance companies more money to cover people who 
already have health insurance. That is what they are doing. Sixty-three 
percent of these new subsidies will go to people who already have 
health insurance through ObamaCare. By the way, it includes huge 
numbers of people who make over $100,000 a year. Never miss a chance to 
make more people dependent on government.
  It has policies, big policies, that will absolutely slow the economic 
recovery. Let me be clear. This bill will slow down the economic 
recovery underway. Why do I say that? Well, the bill insists on adding 
$400 a week on top of whatever States are paying in unemployment 
benefits. Well, what does that mean? It means that more than half of 
everyone who is unemployed is going to get paid more not to work than 
they get paid working. Who could even think this up?
  We have had unemployment insurance for decades in this country. We 
have never said: Let's systematically make sure that people can make 
more money not working than they can make if they go to work.
  I hear some of my colleagues talk about the dignity of work. I think 
there is a lot of dignity in work. What is our message to people about 
the dignity of work when we say: You are worth more to us sitting on 
the couch than you are at your job. That is what this is. It is a 
terrible idea.
  How do you know for sure that nobody on the other side is even 
pretending that this is really about the economic recovery? Well, you 
know for sure because the Congressional Budget Office has told us that 
only a fraction--a small fraction--of this money is even going to be 
spent this year. How long do we think the pandemic is going to be with 
us as a pandemic? How long do we think we are going to have these 
lockdowns? We are going to be out of the woods pretty soon here.
  As I said, half of all Americans have already been either vaccinated 
or recovered from this. But the school numbers are a good illustration, 
the elementary and secondary education. This bill has $128 billion--
$128 billion--and $6.5 billion is going to be spent in 2021. The rest 
gets dribbled out for years and years. How long do they think before 
schools can reopen? Oh, by the way, this bill doesn't require schools 
to reopen. You don't even have to reopen. Just throw billions and 
billions of dollars at schools whether or not they are actually having 
kids in the school.
  Some of these provisions are so blatantly unrelated to COVID or the 
economy that it is really just hard to even read them with a straight 
face.
  There is $86 billion to bail out multiemployer pension plans without 
any reform whatsoever. Look, we all know we have a multiemployer 
pension problem in this country, and there has been a lot of discussion 
about what do you do about these grossly underfunded pension plans and 
how do you fix this. The conversation has always been, what kinds of 
reforms come with what kind of cash so that these errors of the past 
are corrected? There are no reforms here. None. Nothing. Just a big 
pile of cash. It is a clear message that you don't have to fix 
anything. You don't have to reform the flaws of these programs that got 
us here. And by the way, it is the same message to the insolvent public 
pension plans of most of the major cities in many States: Don't worry. 
Look what Congress will do if the Democrats have their way. They will 
just send you so much cash, you don't have to worry about the 
insolvency you are dealing with.
  What a terrible message.
  There is $270 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and 
Humanities. That is COVID-related. Thank goodness that is there.
  There is $91 million for ``outreach'' to student loan borrowers. I 
don't even know what that means.
  There is $50 million for environmental justice grants. I have no idea 
what that means.
  But this one is really rich. There is about $4 billion for ``socially 
disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.'' I say ``about $4 billion'' 
because it says ``such sums as may be necessary.'' Here is what the 
money is for. It is going to pay off 120 percent of the debt of these 
farmers and ranchers, 120 percent of the borrowings.
  So what in the world are the requirements to have 120 percent of your 
debt paid off? Well, you actually have to have debt. OK, so you have to 
have borrowed money from the USDA farm loan. There are tens of billions 
of dollars out there. They lend a lot of money. And you have to be a 
member of one of the following groups: African American, American 
Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islanders, refugees, 
or immigrants.
  As long as you are in one of those categories of mostly racial and 
ethnic groups, then the taxpayers are going to pay off 120 percent. It 
is not the whole loan but more than the whole loan--120 percent.
  The thing that is so disturbing about this is that the essential 
criterion is your skin color. The essential criterion is your race. 
This is unbelievable to me. By the way, there is no income test and no 
asset test for the underlying loans. There is no requirement whatsoever 
that COVID caused any problem--caused any lost income or any other 
problem. It is not mentioned.
  So what is the effect of this?
  This means that, if you have a wealthy Hispanic rancher who has a $1 
million loan from the USDA, he is going to get $1.2 million and pay off 
the loan--200,000 bucks with which to do whatever he likes. Meanwhile, 
if you are a poor White farmer in rural Pennsylvania and you have a 
$100,000 loan, you get nothing, exactly nothing. How

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is that even remotely fair? I don't even know how that could be 
constitutional. It is, certainly, not in any way COVID related.
  There was an amendment in the House that would have limited the 
payment. It would have allowed the program, which I object to, but it 
would have allowed this repayment of debt but only for debt incurred 
during the COVID crisis. The Democrats all voted that down. That 
failed. This is unbelievable stuff.
  Even the provisions that purport to be about public health are 
completely divorced from any reality. As I think I mentioned earlier, 
we are administering almost 2 million doses of vaccines every day now. 
That is terrific. It is actually the highest daily rate of doses 
administered anywhere in the world. The government has already 
purchased 700 million doses. Now, we have fewer than 350 million 
Americans, and not all Americans are going to need two doses. You can 
do the math: We have bought more vaccine doses than we need to 
administer, and that is fine. Yet how many more do you need to buy when 
you have already bought more than enough for every single American?
  That is not all we paid for. Through the previous bills that we 
passed, we paid for the research and development. We paid for the 
production. We paid for the transportation. We paid for all of the 
accompanying supplies, like the syringes, the vials, and the dry ice. 
We paid for all of that, and we should have. That was the right thing 
to do. Insurance covers the cost of the administering of the vaccines. 
Between Medicare and Medicaid and private insurance, it is free. What 
is left to spend money on? I am all ears, but I haven't heard what we 
need to spend money on.
  So what do we have in this bill?
  We have no justification for it in terms of public health. We 
certainly have no justification for it in terms of the economy. We 
certainly have no justification for it in terms of basic fairness. 
Frankly, it is going to do more harm than good, but you don't have to 
take my word for it. We could take the word of prominent liberal 
Democrat economist Larry Summers. He was the Treasury Secretary under 
President Clinton, and he was the Director of the National Economic 
Council under President Obama.
  He said about this bill:

       [M]acroeconomic stimulus on a scale closer to World War II 
     levels than normal recession levels will set off inflationary 
     pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.

  Or consider the words of Steve Rattner, who is a liberal economist. 
President Obama named him the ``car czar.'' You may recall him 
administering that program.
  He said of the American Rescue Plan, which is, apparently, what they 
call this:

       The American Rescue Plan is also partly a legislative 
     Trojan horse--an enormous aid package aimed at addressing 
     needs that, in some cases, go well beyond the immediate 
     challenges of COVID. Some of the most expensive provisions 
     are the least well targeted to help the neediest.

  That is from a liberal Democrat who, I think, supports the bill, but 
at least he is being honest in his description of it.
  So my suggestion, my plea, to my Democratic colleagues and to the new 
President is to listen to some of the things you have said. Try an 
approach that is actually informed by the facts on the ground--the 
health facts, the economic facts, the reality. Look at what the science 
is currently telling us about the course that this virus has been 
taking. What about actually attempting to bring people together--the 
path of unity--after we demonstrated five times last year that we can 
work together and do something on a bipartisan basis?
  I urge my colleagues: Don't push through this radically partisan bill 
that will probably, in the end, do more harm than good.
  I yield the floor
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.

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