[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 169 (Tuesday, September 28, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6720-S6723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Government Funding
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the debate on President Biden's massive
plan to expand social programs has focused primarily on its enormous
cost. Remarkably, little attention has been paid to the content of
those policy changes. Yet the expensive entitlement programs the
administration is proposing would have profound implications for
people's lives and for the values that are among the pillars of our
society, for they would break the connection between work and a
brighter future.
From antiquity to our time, great thinkers have observed that work is
about more than just putting food on the table, important though that
is; it has a profound value that enables people to build lives of self-
reliance and meaning.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said:
No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity
has dignity.
Under the President's plan, assistance checks sent from Washington
would have no requirement that a recipient work, or pursue education or
training, or participate in programs to remove barriers that prevent
him or her from working. These unconditioned checks would sever the
link between government assistance and work, education, or other
requirements. No one would help a family identify obstacles to a better
life. In essence, the Biden administration would reverse the pledge and
reality of President Clinton's reforms when he promised to ``end
welfare as we know it.''
Robert Doar, who oversaw assistance programs both for New York
Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
described what has long been a bipartisan consensus. He said:
. . . the way to help people escape poverty is through a
combination of work and government aid--not work alone and
not government aid alone. But the two together.
Why is that combination so powerful and so successful?
Government assistance provides a hand up and aids families who are
struggling to overcome barriers to a better life. Work not only
provides the economic pathway out of poverty, but--also equally
important--imparts dignity, self-reliance, and confidence. It allows
people to provide for their own families. It instills a sense of
belonging and pride. It strengthens our communities.
Let me give you two examples.
I first met Adais when she was enrolled in the Federal Job Corps
program in Limestone, ME. As a teenager, she had been homeless and
wanted to get as far away as possible from the terrible circumstances
in her life--thus her choice of the Job Corps in northern Maine. After
completing this program in Limestone, Adais earned her degree in
nursing from Husson University in Bangor. Today, due to her own
perseverance, hard work, and government support during a very difficult
time, she has a good life working as a nurse and providing for her
three sons. She can take much pride in the life that she has built for
herself and her family.
The second example involves women I met at the Aroostook County
Community Action Program. They have benefited from a holistic approach
to poverty, one that focuses on the needs of both the children and
their parents--a two-generation-together approach--in order to end
intergenerational poverty.
This two-generation approach identifies obstacles to work and
financial independence, and then provides the necessary coaching and
supports to help parents succeed in their goals while also meeting the
needs of their children.
These mothers recounted to me with great pride their very moving
stories of climbing the economic ladder out of poverty and into the
workforce, providing a much better life for themselves and their
children.
What these stories have in common is the dignity of work. As Stephen
Hawking observed, ``Work gives you meaning and purpose.'' Securing the
skills and support to get good jobs changed the lives of these parents
and the lives of their children.
Now, let me be clear that I have supported providing additional help
to assist low-income working families. For example, I worked with
Senator Rubio to successfully double the child tax credit and expand
its refundable portion as part of the 2017 tax reform act, but this
credit was tied to work until the Biden administration changed the
rules of the American Rescue Plan earlier this year.
Given the pandemic, that may well have been justified as a temporary
measure. But now, the administration wants to jettison the work
requirement permanently, and the House Democrats' bill removes all
means testing for a new childcare entitlement program so even very
wealthy families would qualify.
Shouldn't we look carefully at the consequences of sending checks
from Washington untethered to any work or other requirements? Shouldn't
assistance prioritize those with the greatest needs but in ways that
position them to achieve self-reliance?
There are certainly times when it is appropriate for government to
step in, and no one is arguing that people who cannot work, who may
have disabilities, for example, should not receive government
assistance--of course, they should. And in a time of crisis, certainly,
we should do all we can to help
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those who are in need, through no fault of their own, and that is what
happened during the pandemic.
There were many temporary programs that were instituted to help as
our economy shut down and people were laid off. I, along with three of
my colleagues, authored one of them--the Paycheck Protection Program.
The rationale was to allow employers to receive funding so that they
could continue to pay their employees and keep intact that bond between
employers and employees so that the workers could return to the
workplace once the economy reopened. That program was successful and
temporary.
But that is not what this administration is proposing. Rather, it is
creating entitlement programs untethered to work that would
fundamentally change incentives for our families, our communities, our
society, and our economy, depriving people of their dignity and eroding
their ability to provide for themselves and their families. Absent a
pandemic or other crisis, Washington should not simply write monthly
checks, creating dependency among those who could have a better life.
The Federal Government's obligation is not fulfilled by simply sending
a check, washing its hands of any responsibility to actually help
people achieve self-sufficiency.
It appears that this administration is moving toward the left's
proposal for a guaranteed minimum income, regardless of one's ability
to work. Never forget that the first version of the Green New Deal
included a guaranteed income for those ``unable or unwilling to work.''
We must not go down that path.
We will not build a more prosperous, just, and equitable society,
characterized by opportunity, dignity, and meaning, just by issuing
government checks. The time-tested way to achieve those goals for
American families is by supporting and rewarding work. It is by
recognizing the dignity of work. And that is the tradition that we must
continue to embrace.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, it is one of the most basic questions
that we get in almost any setting: What do you do? It is common
conversation, back and forth between adults or teenagers or college
students alike: What do you do?
It is a philosophical issue, though, that really has to be addressed,
and, interestingly enough, it has become a greater divide between
Republicans and Democrats of late. It didn't used to be that way.
The simple conversation about ``what do you do'' and encouraging
people to be able to be engaged in productive work and what they do
seemed to be something that was unified.
Democrats and Republicans alike rallied in the 1990s, as Bill Clinton
declared: We are ending welfare as we know it. A 60-year experiment of
sending out checks to individuals, saying we are going to help people
escape poverty by sending a check to individuals, and if we give them a
check, they will rise out of poverty.
Bill Clinton stood before the Nation and said: I campaigned to end
that because that experiment didn't work, and he focused in a whole
different direction, encouraging, as he spoke often on deadbeat dads,
individuals that should pay their child support, need to pay it, and he
highlighted how many people weren't doing that because those families
were left exposed.
And he talked about the dignity of work, saying: To help people to be
able to escape from poverty, we need to incentivize work and stop just
sending a check to individuals but instead attach that to work.
The Nation stood and cheered and rallied around a moment to say:
Let's help people, but let's help people actually rise.
There is a statement that I heard often, even during that time
period: Let's not make welfare a hammock; let's make it a trampoline,
that they can get assistance for a moment and be lifted out and to be
able to rise to other things.
I thought that was a settled issue, until just last year. I suddenly
started hearing President Biden on the campaign trail, and now in
office, with my Democratic colleagues in the House already passing
something over there in their committees, saying: We want to actually
go back to welfare as we knew it. We want to be able to go back to that
failed experiment, when we used to just mail checks to people, and so
people in government would feel good to say: We took care of childhood
poverty.
I have already heard people--even today in this body--say: If we pass
this $3\1/2\ trillion proposal, we will cut childhood poverty in half.
That was a statement that was made pre-1990s, when government believed
if I just mailed a check, suddenly children would rise out of poverty
because the numbers are right. But, actually, what we discovered was
inflation would rise as checks were mailed out, and families were
trapped in permanent levels of poverty because there was a disincentive
to actually engage in work.
Now, again, this used to not be a Republican-Democrat thing. This was
just a thing that we could look at the data.
Brookings Institute, which is a left-leaning think tank--I think we
could all commonly agree with that. The Brookings Institute has, year
after year, gone back to be able to look at how people actually escape
poverty. How does it happen? What are the features that are there if
people--if it is true in their life that they escaped poverty. They
have identified three areas; that if these three areas are true, you
will escape poverty.
No. 1, graduate high school. People that graduate high school, much
lower level. No. 2, have a full-time job; have an income; if you
actually are working full time. And, No. 3, if you wait until 21 to be
married and then have children after marriage.
If those three things are true, the Brookings Institute said only 2
percent of the people actually are in poverty. Seventy-five percent of
those folks in poverty that graduate high school, get a full-time job,
have children after marriage--if those three things are true, 75
percent of them rise into the middle class.
This is not rocket science in some ways; it is just human nature. But
the bill that is being set in front of us that is $3\1/2\ trillion in
entitlements--and just to be able to put in perspective how large that
is, if you combined the budgets of all 50 States, the total budget of
all 50 States, it is $2 trillion. This new entitlement bill is $3\1/2\
trillion that is being proposed--$3\1/2\ trillion of new entitlements
that would go to individuals that removes things like an incentive to
work. It says you can get childcare tax credits, even if you are not
working; that no matter if you are working or not--and the current
limit, by the way, don't forget, is only $2,500 of income in a year. If
you will do at least $2,500 worth of income in a year, then you get
additional assistance. It is the encouragement to say the State will
come alongside of you, but we have got to help you to be able to rise
out of this spot--even that is taken away.
There is a marriage penalty that is included in this. Ironically,
when I read from the Brookings Institute, and they say, ``Do you want
to help people rise out of poverty,'' there is actually a marriage
penalty in this where it actually punishes.
So we seem to be punishing work and punishing marriage rather than
encouraging people to be able to rise.
Listen, this statement should be common for us: What do you do? It is
not just meaningful for individuals and for communities, it is
meaningful for children because, in school, children will be asked:
What do your parents do? And if it is nothing, it matters to a child. A
child has the example that is set in front of them, and it becomes a
generational issue. We should encourage each generation to be able to
rise and be a part of our society, not to be disconnected but to be
engaged with all of our society. That develops community between
individuals. It helps our economy to grow. It is what made us the most
powerful economy in the entire world because we had what we called the
American work ethic.
The American work ethic was a very simple principle that everyone
should have the opportunity to be able to do whatever job they choose
to be able to do, to be able to have access to the economy.
And if we find any individual or any group that is blocked out of the
economy, government steps in and clears the path to make sure there is
a level path to be able to be engaged so that everyone has that option
to be able to engage in the economy; that everyone has the chance to be
able to rise.
[[Page S6722]]
That does not get better by telling people: Oh, sit down. You don't
have to work. Oh, sit down right over there. We will take care of all
your kids all the way through. You don't have to engage.
It sounds nice unless you are living in it. And then it traps people
in generational poverty--urban, rural, across the country. It traps
people in generational poverty. That doesn't help families. That
doesn't help children. That doesn't bless families and help them to be
able to rise out of poverty. It keeps them trapped in it.
We have a philosophical difference. How do we help people in poverty?
I believe we help people in poverty by clearing out of every
opportunity and making straight level paths, setting that in front of
individuals and saying: You are an American. Go after the American
dream. Apply the American work ethic: try, graduate high school, get a
job, get married, stay engaged, bless your children. I believe that is
the best way to be able to help our Nation.
Apparently, others believe that it is better just to be able to say:
No. You can't do it. Sit down. I will send you a check.
I don't think that casts a vision for their children, and I don't
think that helps our Nation.
If you want to make it very straightforward and simple, the census
said that we have 21 million children who have a parent that lived
outside the household in 2018. Thirty percent of those children were in
poverty--three times the rate of children in households where both
parents were present.
I could read the Brookings. I can read the census data. But I think
we all know it in our gut; that we provide purpose and meaning to
people when they can answer the question: What do you do, and it
matters to our country and to them as a family.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Madam President, I thank my colleagues,
both Senator Collins and Senator Lankford, for their thoughts and their
comments and their words today because what we are talking about today
is not about simply a $3\1/2\ trillion spending bill.
We are talking about something more fundamental to what it means to
be an American. I am proud to be an American. I am proud to live in a
country where upward mobility is a reality; that we can, by hard work
and a strong education, change our fortunes in this country and not
only change it for ourselves but change it for the generations that
follow us.
As Senator Lankford talked about the three important ingredients of
escaping poverty, I will say that, as a kid who stumbled in high
school, who did not do well as a freshman, who did not see the
opportunities that America had available, who did not believe always
that there was a way that a poor kid in South Carolina could ever
escape poverty, I am thankful that I met a mentor and had a powerful
mom who believed in me in a way that I could not believe in myself.
I am thankful to live in a country where the American free enterprise
system provided a pathway forward, and if I could just see it and
believe it and work towards it, it was possible for me to achieve the
outcomes that we are sitting here trying to defend.
I am thankful that, as a kid who then finished high school, went on
to college, and experienced the American dream, that we are here
together to defend the American dream for the next generation. The
challenge, of course, is that when we look at the $3.5 trillion
package, it makes it harder for a kid trapped in poverty, as I was, to
find a path forward.
I will simply say that while we discuss this $3.5 trillion package,
the content of this package is more concerning than the cost of the
package. I am certain that someone on the other side will figure out
that taking 10 years of funding and making it 5 years of funding cuts
it from $3.5 trillion down to $1.75 trillion. I am confident that that
math is easy to do on either side. But I am not confident that we can
preserve the American dream in all of its glory if the content of this
package becomes law.
I think about how unfortunate it would be, in a nation that is
narrowly divided, 50-50, that we would find ourselves, because the
Democrats control the White House--there is a 50-50 split in the Senate
that requires the Vice President to break a tie and a five-seat
majority the Democrats have in the House. With those slim majorities,
they want to do something so fundamentally transformative that it
scares me for the future of the kids trapped in poverty all over
America.
I don't know how we will continue to be able to preach the good news
of economic opportunity and economic freedom when you are on the road
to socialism. The two are antithetical. They don't go in the same
direction. There is a fork in the road, and we as a nation have to
choose one. Unfortunately, the Democrats, who have the slimmest of
majorities, have the votes to fundamentally weaken the greatest
economic engine in world history through taxing and spending policies
that bring us so much closer to socialism.
The Democrats actually want you to believe what they say more than
what you see with your own eyes. You see, the breadcrumbs of this $3.5
trillion package can be seen by the level of inflation. If you put too
much money into the economy too quickly and the supply remains about
the same, it leads to inflation.
What inflation means to kids living in single-parent households and
to people living and working paycheck-to-paycheck, what inflation means
is, it means a tax. It means that even with a small, marginal increase
in your income, with the rate of inflation being over 5.5 percent, your
spending power goes down.
So when you pull up to the gas station, as I did and as so many
Americans do every single day to go to work, and you look at the price
per gallon, it is over $3 a gallon, which represents over a 40-percent
increase in the cost of gas. On a fixed income, as our Social Security
recipients and our golden Americans are, on people working paycheck to
paycheck, a 40-plus percent increase in the cost of gas deprives them
of some of the luxuries, the margins in their paychecks, and then stack
on top of that a 20-percent increase in the cost of your utilities.
It is impossible--impossible--to recognize the devastating impact
that the Biden inflation is having already on middle-income Americans,
on paycheck-to-paycheck Americans, people living in poverty, and
single-parent households.
But worse than the inflationary effect, which, of course, is a
precursor to the $3.5 trillion, is what the content does. Think about
this: In America today, if you write a check for $10,000, the IRS wants
to know who you are writing it to. Under this proposal, imagine, if you
will, the IRS spying on your bank account for every transaction over
$600. Imagine four tires--more than $600. So the IRS wants to know why
you are spending $600 on tires. Imagine if your engine runs hot and you
have to take your car in to get it checked--more than $600. Imagine
trying to find the money, scraping the resources together just to be
able to buy school clothes for your kids, and if you have a couple
kids, a couple pairs of shoes, pants--dresses are up 18 percent.
Imagine that $600 expense being taken out of your account, and the IRS
is looking into your account to see what you are spending the money on.
The content of this legislation is more dangerous than the amount of
the legislation. And I got to tell you, $3.5 trillion is pretty
dangerous, but more dangerous than the $3.5 trillion is having the IRS
empowered to take a look at every single transaction. Not only the
$600, but imagine doubling the number of IRS agents with the $80
billion in this package--doubling the number of agents to come take a
look at your family business, your family accounts. Destructive.
Go beyond that. Think about the average farmer in South Carolina who
spent their entire life farming and who has more land than money.
Because of this package and its impact on family businesses and family
farmers, because of the way they want to refigure the death tax or the
estate tax, as we say it when we are being polite in mixed company,
here is what it means: It means that you jeopardize the ability to pass
your family farm to the next generation.
This is not theoretical. You can talk to a farmer named Whit Player
from
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Lee County or Monty Rast in St. Matthews, SC, who have been farming for
decades. Ask them about the impact of not being able to pass the family
farm or small business to the next generation.
Think about punishing the farmers and still providing a check for
$12,500 for someone making $800,000 a year to buy a luxury vehicle, an
electric vehicle. You are going to give them a tax credit even though
they make $800,000.
Imagine a part of the bill where union workers at an auto factory are
able to sell their cars with a $4,500 tax credit, but the Volvo workers
in South Carolina, the BMW workers in South Carolina who don't work at
a union factory--their cars don't get the $4,500 tax credit, embedding
a unique form of bias into this bill. It just doesn't feel right.
Restoring the tax credits for the State and local taxes for
millionaires and billionaires across this country and putting that
burden back on the backs of working people, middle-class working
people.
I won't even go into raising the corporate tax from 21 percent to 28
percent or 26.5 percent. I won't go into eliminating passthroughs for
small businesses, mom-and-pop businesses; a 20-percent increase because
they eliminate the 20-percent credit on their small businesses. I won't
get into that because we don't have enough time. I won't get into the
raising taxes on individuals. I won't get into the capital gains tax
going from 23.8 to 43.8. I won't get into all of that right now, but I
will say this: If the Democrats' plan succeeds, I fear for that
American dream that I am able to live right now. I fear that kids stuck
in poverty today will be stuck in a caste system of socialism tomorrow.
Madam President, thank you for your time, your patience. I am just
concerned about the greatest Nation ever designed in the history of the
world. Thank you.