[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 80 (Monday, May 10, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2407-S2408]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  Jobs

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I hope that you had a marvelous 
Mother's Day. I enjoyed so much being back in Tennessee, and over the 
past week, I really had the pleasure of hearing from so many 
Tennesseans who are just celebrating having reopened businesses and 
music venues and public spaces in our communities.
  There was a lot of happiness across our State as I was there. 
Everywhere you looked, you could see evidence that people are ready to 
get back to work, and they want to get back to life as normal.
  There is also a lot of evidence that local businesses are ready to 
get back to normal. You cannot walk 10 feet in Knoxville, TN, for 
example, without running into a ``help wanted'' sign. Normally, this 
would be an indicator of a successful economic comeback, but here is 
the problem: Those signs just are not working, not for retail or 
restaurants or even for the industrial sector with small business 
manufacturing. Some businesses are getting so desperate for help that 
they are offering signing bonuses worth hundreds of dollars to anyone 
willing and able to come back to work.
  All year, we have used a particular catchphrase to encourage people 
to get their vaccinations. We have said that if we could only get shots 
in arms, then we could get back to normal. Well, as it turns out, that 
was step 1. We are getting the shots in arms. People are getting 
vaccinated. Now it is time for step 2, and that is getting people back 
to work, getting them to fill these jobs.
  I have said time and again and I will say it again: The best economic 
stimulus there is, the very best economic stimulus there is, is a job. 
It is a job. This holds true not just for those pulling in a paycheck 
but for the businesses that are hiring.
  My Democratic colleagues--many of them--disagree with me on this 
point, but I firmly believe the best economic stimulus is a job. For 
months, some have refused to discuss an end to the various emergency 
relief programs we all agreed were necessary to help workers and 
businesses survive the lockdowns. But they were never meant to be 
permanent programs; they were there for a time of specific need.
  I think, if some of my colleagues took the time to speak to the 
owners whose businesses are short on labor, they would hear the same 
story over and over again. Their pool of potential employees was 
drained dry, at least in part by the unemployment insurance plus-up 
that we initiated last year. Because of the way that program was 
designed and because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
rejected our offers to amend it, potential employees are drawing in 
more in unemployment than they would make at some jobs.
  Now, some of my colleagues across the aisle dispute the notion that 
this imbalance has led to a labor shortage. They claim that if there 
are people staying home and collecting unemployment rather than taking 
their old job back, or maybe a new job, that those examples are 
anecdotal. But to that point, I would ask: How many anecdotes does it 
take to create a trend?
  In Tennessee, there are at least a quarter of a million jobs 
available, but as of last week, we still have about 49,000 people 
receiving the $300 plus-up. This means that there are five jobs--five--
five jobs available for every single one of those 49,000 people.
  I want to make it clear that these business owners have no reason to 
lie about the trouble they are having finding help. Their survival 
depends on their ability to hire a team of employees. They gain nothing 
by poisoning the well with false accusations. Anyone who has ever run a 
business knows that.
  They also know it is a difficult call for these potential employees 
to make, even when signing bonuses and higher wages are on the table, 
but therein lies the disconnect. While businesses are incentivized to 
do all they can to attract workers, the Federal Government has 
incentivized workers to hold out as long as they can before taking the 
leap into a new job. It is not their fault, but it is the reality that 
Congress created.
  What we are seeing now isn't economic stimulus. I would offer that it 
is an economic stalemate. And if we don't break the ties that bind 
recovery to the success or failure of a government program, we will 
suffer long-term economic consequences.
  As I said, some of my Democratic colleagues fundamentally disagree 
with that approach. They have made that disagreement clear to the tune 
of $6 trillion worth of spending that would be like nothing else that 
we have ever seen and making it a permanent part of our economic 
landscape.
  They gave us a COVID relief package that had almost nothing to do 
with fighting the pandemic, an infrastructure proposal that dedicates 
60 percent--60 percent of its total pricetag to job-killing proposals 
like the Green New Deal fantasies and, most recently, a supposedly pro-
family proposal that, if implemented, will in fact replace the 
stability of the nuclear family with a lifelong tether to the welfare 
state.
  Talk about never letting a crisis go to waste. This isn't compassion, 
in my opinion, and it isn't recovery. This is a power grab. They took 
the majority, put pen to paper, and produced a wish list. They have 
wanted to check off items from that wish list since 2010. So their list 
is long.
  This version of economic stimulus, which, in reality, is just a 
destructive cycle of spending and dependency and taxation and 
inflation, will require more than just a general buy-in from the 
American people. They are going to have to persuade people to cede 
authority, to cede authority over their lives, their families, their 
businesses, their jobs, their employment--cede that authority to the 
Federal Government.
  Now, if this isn't true, if this isn't their goal, let the Democrats 
dispute it. Let them come to the table and listen to what these 
business owners are telling us. Let them help figure out a way to offer 
a light at the end of the tunnel to the unemployed and underemployed 
instead of keeping them tangled in a safety net that was neither 
designated nor intended to be permanent.
  We still have a long way to go before we can declare victory over the 
COVID-19 pandemic. But what my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle refuse to acknowledge is that we will never make it across the 
finish line if we don't allow the American people to

[[Page S2408]]

hope for that victory. We need to allow them to hope that last month's 
terrible jobs report was just an anomaly. I certainly hope it was.
  And most importantly, we need to allow them to remember that a little 
over a year ago, we didn't have to rely on emergency supplements and 
direct payments from the government to survive. We had the most robust 
economy we had in decades and decades. Unemployment numbers were at 
record lows. Wage gains were at record highs.
  So we have been there before. We can and we will recover. But 
encouraging total reliance on the government is not going to be what 
gets us there, especially when so many businesses in this country are 
trying to hire workers, and workers are not taking the jobs.
  I yield floor.