[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 41 (Thursday, March 4, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1043-S1044]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT OF 2021

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, since we have a few minutes here--I think 
Senator Sanders is supposed to be next--I just thought I would take a 
few minutes to talk about President Biden's coronavirus bill.
  Let me see if I can explain why so many of my Republican colleagues--
and I am a part of that--are disappointed in the bill. This bill will 
be our sixth coronavirus bill. I don't think anybody, any fair-minded 
person, can accuse the U.S. Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, of 
not trying to respond to this devastating virus and the economic 
problems it has created.
  I have been very proud, within the first five bills, that we did it 
on a bipartisan basis. We spent a lot of money, about $4 trillion. That 
is 4-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 taxpayer dollars. And, of course, we don't 
even have 5 percent of that. We borrowed every bit of it. It is a 
staggering sum. But we did it because we had a crisis. We had to deal 
with it. That is what we were sent up here to do. We did it on a 
bipartisan basis. But this, the last bill, President Biden's most 
recent bill--we call it the $1.9 trillion bill--we haven't done it on a 
bipartisan basis. I am disappointed in that.
  I understand politics. The Presiding Officer does too. But I listened 
very carefully to President Biden throughout the campaign and in his 6 
weeks of this administration, and he said very clearly and repeatedly: 
You know, I want to work with everybody. What I heard him say to the 
Republicans was: You know, I want to meet you halfway.
  I don't mean any disrespect, but if that is the case, either he or 
the people around him are not very good judges of distance.
  It has been made very clear to us that there would be no negotiations 
on this bill and that President Biden decided to proceed to 
reconciliation, which only requires a majority. And I think we both 
expect there to be 50 Democratic votes in favor of this bill and 50 
Republican votes against it, and Vice President Harris will break the 
tie. That is not a bipartisan bill, and I regret that, and I think it 
could have been different.
  You know, we can debate about whether we need $1.9 trillion, and I 
understand there are good arguments on both sides. I have heard the 
arguments, and I have listened carefully to my Democratic friends 
explain why they think we need it. There is another side of the story, 
and that is that, thank the Lord, we enjoyed 4 percent GDP growth last 
quarter. Most economists reckon that we will have about 6 percent GDP 
growth this year. The American people have about $1.6 trillion in 
excess savings. We have all this liquidity that, as soon as it is 
allowed to be

[[Page S1044]]

released, is going to stimulate our economy substantially, in my 
judgment.
  Everyone involved is doing a wonderful job on the vaccines. President 
Trump's team did a wonderful job. President Biden's team is doing a 
good job. The Governors seem to be doing a great job. People are 
getting vaccinated. We know that we have a lot of people in America who 
had the virus and didn't even know it. We are rapidly approaching the 
point where, either through vaccination or people who had the virus and 
therefore have the antibodies, we are going to have way over the 
majority of American people protected.
  So one point of view is that we don't need to spend $1.9 trillion, 
but there was a middle ground here, and I am disappointed that the 
President took the position that, look, we need to spend $2 trillion 
right now, even though there is $1 trillion at least in previously 
appropriated funds that we haven't spent yet.
  Now, a reasonable approach would have been to say: Do we really need 
to spend $2 trillion? Maybe we ought to spend the other $1 trillion and 
see if that will do it. Another reasonable approach would have been to 
say: Maybe we ought to reprogram some of the $1 trillion that hasn't 
been spent. For example, we appropriated I think about $70 billion to 
our elementary and secondary schools. They have only spent $4 billion, 
so why are we giving them another $160 billion in President Biden's 
bill? Maybe--I am not saying it is the case, but we ought to explore 
it--maybe the schools didn't need the full $70 billion we gave them if 
they have only spent $4 billion or $5 billion. So maybe we can 
reprogram some of that money.
  Now, if we had this money sitting in a checking account, I would 
still think--because it represents a scarce resource, I would still 
think that we need to take a look at the money we have already sent and 
either spend it, if it is well placed, or reprogram it before we go out 
and spend $2 trillion. But we don't have the money in a checking 
account. We will borrow every penny of this money, $2 trillion. That is 
going to bring debt up to 27, 28, 29 trillion dollars, and we know that 
right behind it is going to come a green infrastructure bill. I am 
hearing that could be $2 trillion to $3 trillion more. At some point, 
we are going to run out of digits. I mean, at some point, we are going 
to have to change the name of the Department of Treasury to the 
``Department of Debt'' because there is no treasury left. It is all 
debt.
  The other thing that bothers me about the bill is President Biden--
and, again, I understand politics. He has marketed this bill as an 
emergency. It is an emergency. We have to do it now. Right now, we need 
$1.9 trillion to deal with the economic crisis caused by the lockdown. 
And I understand that argument and that there currently are some 
Americans who need help, but if what the President is saying is 
accurate, then why is so much of the money not even going to be spent 
until a year from now?
  I look at the bill, and I say, if all that is true to deal with an 
immediate crisis, why are we giving money to States and local 
governments that have actually seen their revenues go up? Why? There is 
no crisis. And I look at the bill and I ask myself, you know, why are 
we giving money to bail out pension plans? Can we talk about this? And 
I look at the bill and I say, why, as I just alluded to, why are we 
giving $160 billion--I think that is the figure--$160 billion to our 
elementary and secondary education institutions when we have given them 
$70 billion in the past and they have only spent $4 billion? Where is 
the fire? They have $65 billion or so left. This is real money. There 
is no money fairy.
  I look at the bill--I mean, I want to help the American people. Gosh, 
many of them do need help. But should we really be sending stimulus 
checks to people who have never missed a paycheck out there? Do they 
really need the money if they haven't been laid off and if they have 
been paid the entire time of the lockdown? Why are we doing this?
  Couldn't that money--first of all, one option is not to spend it if 
there is not a need. We can pay down our debt or at least not increase 
our debt. Another option would be to spend it on something that we 
really need.
  I come to the conclusion--I am not trying to be mean-spirited, but 
that is why I say calling this a coronavirus bill, you know, it is like 
calling Harvey Weinstein a feminist. This isn't a coronavirus bill, not 
the way it has been portrayed.
  Now, the American people still have needs. We still have some folks, 
primarily in the leisure industry and in the travel industry, who need 
our help. They do need help.
  We have a lot of folks who have lost their jobs through no fault of 
their own. They are on unemployment that is about to run out. They need 
our help, and we ought to help. But the right way to do this is to sit 
down as a body--Democrats and Republicans--and go through our needs, 
not our wants, because that is another problem with this bill; it is 
more ``wanty'' than needy. Let's go through our needs, and let's 
discuss how much money we should appropriate to those needs in light of 
the facts that we have already spent $4 trillion and we have a bunch of 
money left over. And that is not the way this is being done.
  This is just being rammed down our throats. This is just raw gut 
politics, which I understand. I have been around it. You have, too, Mr. 
President. We have both been around the block a few times. But that is 
not how you allocate scarce resources.
  The final point I will make is, I know when we did the Tax Cuts and 
Jobs Act--``we,'' meaning the Republicans--we went through 
reconciliation. We did. And so a fairminded person might be thinking, 
well, Kennedy, you know, how can you criticize your Democratic 
colleagues for using reconciliation if you did it? And that is fair, 
except when we did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we asked our Democratic 
friends in leadership: Can we sit down and see what we can put 
together? And we were told: No, we don't want to reduce taxes.
  That is not what happened this time. Ten of my colleagues--I wasn't 
invited, and that is OK. But 10 of my colleagues went to the White 
House and visited with President Biden for 2 hours and came back and 
said: You know, I think he may want to put a bill together. And we were 
excited. We were going: Yay, that is great. Wonderful.
  Then, the next thing we knew, the White House issued a statement and 
said: Our idea of unity is to do what we say and don't ask questions.
  Both of us know that is not unity.
  So all of this could have been avoided. It all could have been 
avoided. And I think we are going to end up spending money that doesn't 
need to be spent right now. I think we are going to end up spending 
money where we don't need to spend it.
  I am so glad that Senator Schumer withdrew his bridge project and 
that Speaker Pelosi withdrew her Silicon Valley subway. That is just 
spending porn as far as I am concerned.
  But, in any event, I wanted to get that off my chest. We are going to 
go through a vote-arama, where we all offer amendments. Maybe together 
we can make this bill better and get rid of some of the spending porn, 
as I call it, and do the job that the American people sent us here to 
do.
  Thank you.
  I don't see Senator Sanders. I'm sorry.
  With that, I yield to my good friend Senator Peters.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

                          ____________________