[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 41 (Thursday, March 4, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1039-S1042]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT OF 2021

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, some of our Republican colleagues say that 
America doesn't need President Biden's COVID rescue plan because ``the 
pandemic is nearly over.'' Funny. I have never heard them say we 
shouldn't spend money to help tornado victims in their States after the 
tornadoes were gone.
  Let me say it clearly. We are not out of the woods yet. I wish we 
were. There are 510,000 Americans--maybe more now--who have died. The 
United States has 5 percent of the world's population. We have 20 
percent of the COVID infections and deaths. Why? Because of poor 
leadership during the first year of this pandemic.
  We had a President then, who is now gone, who would announce it was a 
hoax, and it was going to disappear by Easter, downplaying the 
seriousness of the situation with his fanciful flights about certain 
chemicals that were going to save us or whether or not we should all be 
gargling Lysol every morning. It made no sense, and the American people 
came out of that experience confused and infected, with deaths in their 
families. That was the reality of the first year of the pandemic.

[[Page S1040]]

  There was also another reality, which the Republican leader just 
alluded to in that, 12 months ago, we passed something called the CARES 
Act. It was historic--the largest Federal expenditure in the history of 
the United States of America. Who designed that bill? Well, it was 
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, whom I didn't know well but who, 
apparently, had some skill as a negotiator because he managed to not 
only speak for President Trump but to negotiate a bipartisan package in 
March of last year, called the CARES Act, for $2 trillion. It came to 
the floor of the Senate, with a vote of 96 to nothing. Every Democrat 
voted for the COVID rescue plan of the Trump administration a year 
ago--every Democrat.
  The second major bill occurred in December, that of $900 billion, 
designed to help us through the first 3 months of this year--again, 
with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin at the table on behalf of President 
Trump, negotiating with Democrats and Republicans. It came to the floor 
of the Senate, and, this time, there were 92 votes in favor of it, 
including every Democrat, and 6 Republicans voted no.
  So, you see, when it came to COVID rescue plans under the Trump 
administration, the Republicans were happy to ask us to join them, and 
we did. Oh, some people said we were giving them a political advantage 
here or there or the other place, but those arguments didn't prevail on 
the Democratic side. The Nation came first. The pandemic came first. 
Unemployed people and businesses that were struggling came first, and 
we voted that way.
  Then came a new President: Joe Biden, elected November 3, despite the 
denial of some. It was a reality. He took this pandemic and faced it 
squarely--no excuses about hoaxes or ``it is going to go away'' or ``I 
have got a favorite chemical that will save everybody's life.'' He 
faced it squarely. He accepted the responsibility, as President of the 
United States, to tell the American people the truth.
  The first thing he told them was that we cannot, we should not, stop 
in our efforts to end this pandemic and put America back on its feet. 
So he made a proposal, a proposal with at least $160 billion in it, for 
buying vaccines, administering those vaccines, and distributing them 
across the United States. I would think that everybody would agree with 
that as a starting point. It wasn't the end point.
  As for the cash payment promised by the Trump administration and 
agreed to by most Democrats, he wanted to keep his word on that--$1,400 
more for families all across America.
  He talked about State and local aid. I can tell you that this is more 
than a theoretical exercise in my State of Illinois. We need help. The 
expenses of COVID-19 and the lost revenue by our shrunken economy have 
taken their toll in my State and in the cities across the State.
  I just got off a Zoom call with a dozen small towns in Illinois. They 
are all down from my neck of the woods. They are great folks, doing 
their best, struggling under COVID-19.
  They asked me: Are you going to send us any help?
  I said: President Biden has made his American rescue proposal. If we 
can pass it, help is on the way.
  Assistance won't just go to Springfield, our State capital, or to 
Chicago, which does need help, but to cities across our State and 
across our Nation. That is included in this bill too. Help for our 
schools is included in this bill too. The list goes on, and it is an 
important list because it really highlights the priorities of recovery 
in the United States.
  President Biden and all of us heard the news a day or two ago when 
the Governors of Texas and Mississippi, in full-throated denial of the 
reality of this pandemic, basically took off all the limitations on 
businesses and on individuals. No more mask requirements. Let's open up 
everything all the way. The President was right. That was not a smart 
choice. It was not a wise choice. We are up against it, and we have to 
remain united in our effort to defeat this coronavirus.
  So this week, in a day or two, President Biden's American Rescue Plan 
will come to the floor. Will we have another bipartisan rollcall, 96 to 
nothing, 92 to 6? I am afraid not. As of this moment, and I hope it 
changes, no single Republican Senator has expressed an interest in 
voting for this bill. Not one. I hope it changes, and it could. Some 
Senators at the last minute, I think, will realize this is the right 
way to go.
  Meanwhile, the Republican leader comes to the floor every day and 
mocks this plan--a Democratic wish list, a liberal wish list, Nancy 
Pelosi's wish list. This is the American people's wish list. Eighty 
percent of the American people support what President Biden is trying 
to do, and the leading economists have told us we have to do this. If 
we don't inject money into this economy to restore its energy and 
future, we will pay for it not just for months to come but far beyond.
  It is a situation that every parent knows, when they go to the 
doctor, to the pediatrician, with their little boy or little girl with 
an earache, and he says: I am going to give you some antibiotics. Now, 
this is a 5-day prescription. This little boy is going to start feeling 
better on the second day, and by the third day, he is going to be 
playing as usual. You are going to think, well, he doesn't need the 
rest of these antibiotics. Don't make that decision. Keep giving him 
the full dose of medicine to get well completely, or he may lapse back 
into it again and get sick all over again.
  So you stick with it even when your little boy is running rings 
around you or the little girl is getting ready to get on her tricycle, 
because that is what the doctor said, and that was the right thing to 
do.
  That is the same thing with this. If we accept the Republican 
argument that this pandemic is really over; if we accept the argument 
of the Governor of Texas--that was yesterday; we don't have to worry 
about it tomorrow; if we take that approach, we could have a disastrous 
result. We could be back in trouble again in just a few weeks.
  I hope we don't. I hope we come together in the Senate, preferably on 
a bipartisan basis, and help the President get us through this 
pandemic. This is our chance. We have no greater responsibility than to 
put an end to this pandemic, put the economy on its feet, get the kids 
back in school, and let grandparents visit those grandkids again. That 
is part of getting America back where it needs to be.
  We need bipartisan support. As Democrats, we provided that support to 
a Republican President. Now that we have a Democratic President, will 
our Republican Senators do the same?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I was presiding on Tuesday. Sometimes my 
staff will give me a folder of things to review while I am presiding, 
and often they will be upset when I come back having not reviewed what 
they have given me. The reason for that is simple: When there are 
Members speaking before the body, I am, frankly, very interested to 
listen and to hear what our colleagues have to say. We don't do enough 
of that in this place. We are so busy during the day, we don't spend a 
lot of time on the Senate floor. We might have the floor on on our TV 
in our office, but we are not always paying attention to what our 
colleagues have to say. One of the benefits of being able to preside is 
that you do get to listen to the arguments that are being made right 
here on the floor.
  In the hour or so that I was presiding on Tuesday, I got to hear 
about four or five of my Republican colleagues come down in sequence to 
make their case as to why they would be voting against the American 
Rescue Plan, and so I got to hear a number of themes being developed.
  I don't think coincidentally a number of arguments were made 
repeatedly by many of our friends on the Republican side of the aisle, 
and so I decided it might be worthwhile to just spend a few minutes 
talking about the claims that are made about this bill by Republicans, 
the reasons why they are voting against it, and to talk about how some 
of these arguments may be a little bit more disingenuous than we might 
like.
  The first thing that I heard was that this bill was just too 
expensive. It is $1.9 trillion. That is a lot of money, no doubt, but 
this country has never ever faced a healthcare crisis or an economic 
crisis like we do today. This is an unprecedented moment in our 
Nation's history, and it requires us to step up and do something that 
isn't just going to sound like it will work and help people but 
actually will.

[[Page S1041]]

  What is, I guess, to me ironic about this claim that it is too 
expensive, that it is going to cost our kids and grandkids too much 
money, is that Republicans passed a tax bill that was almost to the 
dollar the exact same amount as this relief bill is. They passed a $1.9 
trillion tax bill where the majority of the benefits went to the 
richest Americans who needed no more help. There was no crisis in 2017 
amongst American millionaires and billionaires. Yet Republicans were 
very willing to draw down $1.9 trillion in debt-financed tax cuts; $1.3 
trillion in corporate tax cuts; $83 billion to let heirs of huge mega-
estates be able to inherit more money without taxation; $435 billion 
tax cut for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. So it is a little 
hard to listen to my Republican colleagues claim that this bill is too 
expensive when they were willing to spend the exact same amount of 
money in 2017 on tax cuts for their wealthy corporate and millionaire 
friends.
  It is also hard to listen to this argument because just a year ago, 
Republicans were willing to spend $1.9 trillion to address this crisis. 
It isn't as if Republicans haven't understood, when they were in 
control of the White House and the Congress, that we needed to step up 
and meet this moment. Republicans have said: Well, this is different 
because we are turning the corner. Well, as Senator Durbin laid out 
very well, we may be able to see the corner, but we are not there yet.
  March 24 was the day that we passed the CARES Act--almost the same 
amount of money as we are considering today. On that day, 737 people 
died of COVID-19. Yesterday, 2,369 people died of COVID-19. So in many 
ways, the crisis today is exponentially worse than it was a year ago 
when Republicans, to a person, were willing to spend $2 trillion on the 
crisis. Now, all of a sudden, when Democrats are in charge of the White 
House, when a Democratic majority leader sits here in the U.S. Senate, 
$1.9 trillion is too much money to spend on a crisis that is taking on 
a daily basis three to four times as many lives as it did when we spent 
this money a year ago.
  By the way, the economic crisis is still acute. There may be 
technically more people at work today than there were in April or May 
of last year, but surveys suggest today 80 percent of Americans don't 
have enough money to pay their bills. Why? Because a lot of people are 
back to work, but they are working fewer hours, right? They have less 
reliable work. So there is still a crisis that exists amongst 80 
percent of Americans today. This is no less than the crisis that 
existed in 2017.

  Here is the second critique that is made over and over about this 
bill: It is a partisan bill, Republicans say. Well, that is a complaint 
of Republicans' own making because it is only a partisan bill in the 
U.S. Senate. Three out of four voters support the American Rescue Plan. 
This is a recent Morning Consult poll. It has been referred to before 
on the floor. Seventy percent of all voters support the American Rescue 
Plan. Not surprisingly, there is some difference between Democrats and 
Republicans but, frankly, not much. Ninety percent of Democrats support 
the American Rescue Plan, and 60 percent of Republicans support the 
American Rescue Plan. Why? Because everybody is hurting in this 
country. Everybody is hurting. Republicans and Democrats need an 
extension of unemployment benefits. Republicans and Democrats both want 
cash payments. Republicans and Democrats know that their kids can't get 
what they need in schools without additional support.
  This is a unifying proposal in the American public. President Biden 
made a commitment to govern in a way that unified the country. He has 
done that. He has proposed a bill that has the broad support of 
Republicans and Democrats. I don't know that it is his fault that it 
can't draw Republican support in Congress despite the fact that it 
draws Republican support from the public.
  Finally, this was maybe the most interesting theme of the complaints: 
It is not COVID relief. I have heard different statistics thrown out by 
my Republican friends. Some of them suggest that only 5 percent of this 
bill is COVID relief. I am not sure exactly how they come to that 
calculation, but what I understand them to say is that anything that 
isn't directly related to putting shots in people's arms or treating 
people with present cases of COVID is not COVID relief.
  Well, let's just take a look at what was broadly part of the CARES 
Act that was supported by every single Republican and what is broadly 
part of the American Rescue Plan, because my Republican colleagues 
thought that everything in the CARES Act was COVID relief, whether it 
was designed to immediately attack the healthcare crisis or whether it 
was designed to address the economic crisis.
  There were stimulus checks in the CARES Act--not as big as the ones 
in the American Rescue Plan, but they were COVID relief when we passed 
the CARES Act. Now, according to Republicans, they are not COVID 
relief.
  There was an unemployment extension and a plus-up in the maximum 
benefit under the CARES Act. That was COVID relief back in March of 
last year, but now, according to Republicans, it is not COVID relief.
  There was money for vaccines and for testing in the CARES Act. In the 
American Rescue Plan, there is money for vaccines and testing.
  Small business relief was, of course, conceived in the CARES Act, the 
PPP program. That is a big part of the American Rescue Plan, but now it 
is not COVID relief, according to my Republican colleagues, whereas it 
was last year.
  There was State and local funding in the CARES Act. There is State 
and local funding in the American Rescue Plan.
  There was rent and mortgage relief in the CARES Act. There is rent 
and mortgage relief in the American Rescue Plan.
  All of a sudden, since Democrats took control of the White House and 
took control of the Senate, all of these things, which were categorized 
as COVID relief by Republicans in March, are no longer COVID. You are 
just supposed to think of these as extras, as Democratic priorities.
  Ninety percent--ninety-five percent of what is in the package we are 
voting on today is simply an extension of the same set of funding 
streams that we authorized in a bipartisan way a year ago. And so this 
idea that this is some Democratic wish list, when we are essentially 
just extending or increasing the same funding streams that were in the 
CARES Act, is nonsense. It is nonsense. Of course, this is all COVID 
relief. Of course, it is COVID relief when you are increasing 
nutritional benefits to people who can't afford to feed their kids 
because they have lost their job or they have lost hours because the 
economy melted down due to a pandemic. That is not, all of a sudden, 
not COVID relief today.

  This one is maybe the most bizarre of Republican claims. This bill is 
expensive, but it is not too expensive. This moment is unique, and we 
are mandated by our oath of office to meet this moment. Republicans 
didn't have a problem spending $1.9 trillion to give tax breaks to 
their wealthy friends. I don't know why they, all of a sudden, have a 
problem putting money in the pockets of hard-working Americans who are 
suffering through the worst healthcare crisis this country has seen in 
a century.
  Republicans say this is a partisan bill. Out there in America, guess 
what--it is not. It is not. Republicans and Democrats support this 
because it is full of commonsense ideas that make a lot of sense to 
people, no matter what their political ideology is outside of 
Washington.
  Republicans say this bill isn't COVID relief but a Democratic 
progressive wish list. No, it is simply an extension of the things that 
were bipartisan priorities last year. We thought they were good ideas 
then. We think they are good ideas now, especially given the fact that 
four times as many people are dying today as were dying in March of 
2020, when we passed the first bipartisan CARES Act, and as the economy 
today is in just as dire straits as it was.
  I hope we are turning the corner. I hope we get vaccines into the 
arms of individuals such that we are soon back to the numbers of deaths 
per day that we saw in March of last year. I hope that we are on a road 
again to full employment. But I am confident that none of that can 
happen unless we make this investment in COVID relief and in economic 
relief. It is an obligation as stewards of the economy and

[[Page S1042]]

the welfare of the American people for us to step up to the plate and 
get this done this week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Republican whip
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, less than 2 months ago, at his 
inauguration, President Biden spoke about his deep commitment to 
bringing Americans together.
  Today, the Senate will consider the first major bill of his 
Presidency, an intensely partisan piece of legislation. Why is the bill 
before us today so partisan? It is not because Republicans were 
unwilling to cooperate with Democrats on COVID legislation. In fact--in 
fact--Republicans made it very clear that we were willing to work with 
Democrats.
  No, the bill before us today is so heavily partisan because Democrats 
didn't want to work with Republicans. Democrats saw an opportunity to 
use the COVID crisis to advance a whole host of liberal priorities, and 
they were afraid that allowing Republicans to participate in the 
process would mean that some of their pet projects would be excluded or 
that they would have to pare back some of their more profligate 
spending.
  So Democrats decided to use reconciliation to ensure that Republicans 
wouldn't be able to interfere with their Democratic legislation. And 
let's be very clear about the nature of that legislation. Democrats 
would like to present this as a COVID bill. It is not. Yes, there are a 
handful of true COVID priorities in this legislation, such as more 
money for vaccines and coronavirus treatment, something that I think 
everybody here on both sides of the aisle supports. But the bulk of 
this bill is either non-COVID-related or ostensibly COVID-related but, 
actually, either unnecessary or excessive.
  On the non-COVID front, there is the $86 billion bailout for 
multiemployer pension plans, the billions for climate change and other 
environmental policy issues, a new taxpayer-funded leave program for 
government employees with no requirement that it be used for COVID-19, 
and I could go on.
  The version of the bill that came over from the House contained such 
non-COVID-related measures as $100 million for an underground rail 
project in the House Speaker's home State and $1.5 million for a bridge 
in the Democratic leader's home State, plus a massive increase in the 
Federal minimum wage that would cost an estimated 1.4 million jobs, 
according to the Congressional Budget Office, and potentially--
potentially--devastate small businesses already reeling from the 
effects of the coronavirus.
  Then there are the ostensibly COVID-related measures, such as $350 
billion for States. So what is the big problem there? Well, States 
don't need anywhere near that much money to weather the rest of the 
pandemic. The vast majority of States are not in crisis, and rescuing 
those States that are not in crisis would not take anywhere close to 
$350 billion. Democrats are going to spend hundreds of billions of 
taxpayer dollars on an unnecessary giveaway to States, and on top of 
that, that giveaway is heavily, heavily weighted in favor of blue 
States. That is right. The distribution formula is designed to heavily 
favor Democratic States.
  Well, then there is the money for schools. Now, Republicans have been 
very willing to give schools money to help them reopen. In fact, last 
year, when Republicans were in the majority--which, by the way, during 
that time we passed five COVID-19 relief bills, all with bipartisan 
cooperation and support, at the 60-vote level that we use here in the 
Senate for most legislation that we take up under regular order--but we 
put a lot of money into giving schools money to help them reopen. In 
fact, Republicans voted for $68 billion for K-12 schools.
  At this point, that money is sufficient. Schools have spent just $5 
billion of the $68 billion that we have already provided. Let me repeat 
that. So far, schools have spent just $5 billion, or less than 10 
percent, of the $68 billion that has already been given to them.
  Yet the Democrats' bill would appropriate an additional $129 billion 
for schools, 95 percent of which would be spent after this year--the 
year of the crisis, the year of the emergency, the year of the 
pandemic. You would think that, if this was a crisis, the funding would 
be made available to be used this year, but it is not. It is spent in 
the years 2022 to 2028.
  Do Democrats really expect Americans to believe that school dollars 
that won't be spent until 2027 or 2028 are urgently needed coronavirus 
response dollars? This is the pattern with this bill, though.
  We just passed a large coronavirus relief bill in December, the fifth 
coronavirus relief bill that Congress has passed, and a lot of the 
money from that bill hasn't been spent yet. In fact, a lot of money 
from earlier coronavirus bills has not been spent. Yet Democrats are 
throwing massive additional amounts of money at various recipients with 
no idea--no clear idea--of whether or not that money will be needed or, 
in some cases, when we know very well that that money isn't needed
  Republicans will be introducing amendments to the Democrats' bill. I 
am introducing an amendment to undo the Biden administration's freeze 
on the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which has provided support 
for farmers and ranchers who have been hit hard by the pandemic.
  I hope some of my less extreme Democratic colleagues will join 
Republicans to advance some of our amendments, such as Senator Graham's 
amendment to change the distribution formula for States to the formula 
used in the bipartisan CARES Act, which passed unanimously here in the 
Senate, so that both red and blue States would get a fair shot at 
funding, or amendments to remove those provisions that are in no way 
related to COVID relief.
  Unfortunately, Democratic leaders have made it very clear that they 
are not willing to entertain Republican ideas. So I don't have a lot of 
confidence that Republican amendments, even if adopted, will end up in 
the final bill.
  It is deeply disappointing that pretty much the first thing Democrats 
did this Congress was to take a bipartisan process--the coronavirus 
relief--and make it partisan. All five--all five--of the coronavirus 
bills that Congress has passed to date--last year, when Republicans 
were in the majority--were bipartisan. This bill could have been 
bipartisan, too, but Democrats decided that Republicans and the 
Americans that they represent should not have a voice in this 
legislation.
  Is this what the rest of the Biden Presidency is going to look like? 
I sure hope not, because it is going to be really hard--really hard--to 
come up with solutions that are durable and that represent the middle 
of the country--those people whose voices are not heard in the 
legislation that we will be taking up today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

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