[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 85 (Monday, May 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S2535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. McCONNELL. On an entirely different matter, when the 117th 
Congress and President Biden were sworn in back in January, our Nation 
had already turned the corner in our battle with the coronavirus. New 
cases and deaths had already peaked and actually started to plummet. 
The vaccines, made available in record time thanks to Operation Warp 
Speed, had already started to roll out nationwide at a rate which the 
Biden administration inherited and sustained until April. The five 
bipartisan COVID packages that Congress passed in 2020 had the American 
economy packed with dry powder and primed for an epic comeback.
  Economists across the spectrum agreed. One of President Obama's CEA 
chairmen said: ``We have no historic parallel with anything like this 
level of excess saving.'' Larry Summers, another top Obama adviser and 
President Clinton's Treasury Secretary before that, said the bipartisan 
December package was already enough to elevate a measure of household 
income to ``abnormally high levels, unheard of during an economic 
downturn.'' We were already adding back jobs.
  But instead of tailoring another bill to build on this momentum, they 
pushed ahead with the $2 trillion partisan plan that the far left 
wanted. Republicans predicted it would hurt our recovery if Washington 
kept taxing working people so the government could pay others a bonus 
to stay home. I stood here in February and quoted an expert who said:

       In an expanding economy that is putting the virus behind 
     it, paying people more in unemployment than they could 
     receive from working is an act of substantial economic self-
     harm. It would keep workers on the sidelines, stop the 
     unemployment rate from falling as rapidly as it otherwise 
     would, and slow the overhaul recovery.

  Well, we all knew what would happen, but Democrats insisted on 
continuing to pay people more not to work.
  In April, as the President's policies took effect, we only added 
266,000 jobs. That is nearly 800,000 under estimates, just as jobs 
openings soared to more than 8 million, the biggest number ever 
recorded. We are literally taxing the American workers who are back on 
the job for the sake of slowing down our economic recovery.
  Instead of an agenda to reopen America, Democrats muscled through 
policies that would actually prolong parts of this crisis. And, of 
course, that is what happened. A record number of small businesses say 
they have open jobs they cannot fill.
  Governors across America are having to take matters into their own 
hands and turn off these extra-generous benefits. In States like 
Arizona, Georgia, Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia, we have Governors 
having to clean up this mess, which at least one of their own Senators 
actually voted for.
  The policies that we needed in March of 2020 are not the policies we 
need in May of 2021. That has been obvious to Republicans, to 
economists, and to the American people.
  The sooner that my Democratic friends here in Washington can catch 
up, the better.

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