[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 122 (Tuesday, July 13, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S4837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a totally different matter, 
Senators have just spent 2 weeks traveling our home States and hearing 
what is on the minds of working families. I got to spend time with all 
kinds of hard-working Kentuckians across the Bluegrass.
  There is no question we are in better shape than we were a year ago. 
Thanks to the genius of science, the success of Operation Warp Speed, 
and the bipartisan rescue packages the Republican-led Senate passed in 
2020, the year 2021 was primed and set up for a historic American 
comeback well before the new Democratic Congress or the new Democratic 
administration was even sworn in.
  But Democrats still wanted to rush ahead with the huge borrowing and 
spending sprees they had promised their far left. Top economists, 
including famous Democrats, warned our colleagues to think again. Even 
liberal experts tried to warn our colleagues that the socialist ideas 
they had drawn up in 2020 were not suited to what Americans needed in 
2021. Overspending and overborrowing would unleash inflation, slow 
rehiring, and hurt small businesses.
  All that was predicted, but Democrats rushed ahead. They rammed 
through what the White House bragged was the most leftwing legislation 
in our Nation's history, and now Democrats want to follow up with an 
even more absurd summer sequel.
  Well, let me tell you, I just spent 2 weeks hearing from my fellow 
Kentuckians, and they are already paying a heavy price. Manufacturers 
are still absolutely hammered by supply chain shocks. Employers large 
and small say Democrats' special bonus for workers to stay unemployed 
is badly hampering their ability to fully reopen and to serve their 
customers. Most of our surrounding States have already put a stop to 
this awful idea, but Kentucky's Governor, regretfully, hasn't.
  It isn't just for-profit businesses, either, that are having trouble 
getting people back to work. I heard from one residential treatment 
center for pregnant women and new moms grappling with substance abuse. 
They said that because of the generous Federal bonus for staying home, 
they have had trouble finding enough support staff to even reopen one 
of their facilities post-COVID. About 80 percent of the people who 
schedule an interview don't even show up.
  These backward bonuses have also invited heaps--heaps--of fraud. In 
California, for example, a significant share of the State's COVID 
unemployment benefits were paid out fraudulently, billions and billions 
of dollars to people who shouldn't have gotten them at all. And now--
get this--Democrats want to give the California labor secretary who was 
in charge of that nightmare a promotion. In fact, we are scheduled to 
vote on her confirmation today to a leading position at the Department 
of Labor. You really can't make this stuff up.
  And then there is inflation. Just this morning, we learned that 
runaway inflation has continued to hit working families and hit them 
hard. Consumer prices spiked in June considerably more than had been 
forecast. Inflation is up 5.4 percent year over year--the fastest jump 
in 13 years. Stunningly, it is up 0.9 percent just month over month. 
Families are feeling it everywhere, from the supermarket to the gas 
pumps, to housing, to the used car lot, and beyond--all thanks in part 
to the Democrats' half-baked spending spree from the springtime. Now 
they want an even more absurd, even more damaging summer sequel.
  What Democrats say they want to force through this summer through 
reconciliation would make our current inflationary mess look like small 
potatoes. Nobody seriously thinks our country needs another gigantic 
overdose of overborrowing, overspending, and overtaxing.
  This isn't what the American people voted for, either. Our 
distinguished colleague, the junior Senator from Vermont, the chair of 
the Budget Committee, has been very transparent about his socialist 
ideology for decades, very upfront about it, but the country didn't 
elect a 50-50 Senate and a President who claimed to be a moderate so 
that Chairman Sanders could turn America into a socialist country.
  Working Americans know that is not what they voted for. This summer 
they will see who wants to borrow and spend trillions more dollars for 
no reason and who would rather help them get their jobs back, their 
stable prices back, their small businesses back, and their lives back

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