[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

[[Page S6721]]

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.