[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 192 (Tuesday, November 2, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7585-S7586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Build Back Better Agenda

  Mr. President, on the topic of budget reconciliation, we are on the 
cusp of a

[[Page S7586]]

historic accomplishment. This Build Back Better agenda is part of a 
great American tradition: marshaling our Nation's resources and 
ingenuity to build a better future for our country.
  This is the strategy that drove our victory in World War II or the 
Cold War and our dominance now in the Age of Information.
  Years of gridlock left us at risk of falling behind. Our competitors 
on the global stage, like China, sense an opportunity. They look at the 
same statistics we view. And those statistics tell a sobering story.
  For example, America used to lead the world in the best roads and 
bridges, but today, according to the World Economic Forum, we rank 
13th.
  How is that for a slogan?
  Our Nation has also fallen behind when it comes to educational 
attainment. We rank 35th out of the 37 major countries when it comes to 
investing in early childhood information and care. Our economy is the 
most unequal it has ever been since the Gilded Age, leaving behind 
millions of American families who are struggling to pay their bills.
  The Build Back Better agenda, inspired by Joe Biden's administration, 
is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore the American promise. 
It will create millions of jobs and ensure every family has a chance to 
live in dignity and protect our children's and grandchildren's future.
  Sadly, like the American Rescue Plan, we still don't have a single 
Republican who will step up and join us. I hope that changes.
  In my home State of Illinois, the Build Back Better package would be 
life-changing. It will fund high-quality childcare for more than 
750,000 children.
  I have told the story before of how--when my son Paul learned that 
his wife Tanja was going to have a baby, they called the grandparents 
right away. The next call was to a daycare center to enlist their 
little baby--they didn't know was a boy or girl--as early as possible 
in their neighborhood daycare center. That shows you the kind of demand 
there is in quality daycare.
  We also need to make preschool a reality for more than 250,000 
additional children in Illinois with this package. That is a million 
children combined, between childcare and preschool, that will finally 
be able to access high-quality care and education.
  The Build Back Better package will also prevent hundreds of thousands 
of kids from going hungry. And it will give low-wage workers a tax cut 
of up to $1,500 a year.
  How is that for a change?
  Four years ago, in the Trump administration, the Republican priority 
was a tax cut for the highest income Americans.
  Our priority, the Democratic Biden priority, is a tax cut for working 
families and lower-income families to give them a fighting chance to 
make ends meet.
  These are just a few of the provisions included in the Build Back 
Better package.
  I might add something that is often mistaken. What I have just 
described to you is fully paid for. We pay for it by making certain 
that those who are making the highest incomes in America and the 
corporations that are the most profitable pay their fair share of 
taxes. This is policymaking at its best--fair and fiscally responsible.
  Yet when our Republican colleagues hear how these investments will 
ease the burdens of working families, they seem to have one takeaway. 
It is the one thing we hear from them over and over: ``Socialism1''
  I mentioned that the Build Back Better agenda is part of the great 
American tradition. Well, that word ``socialism'' is part of the 
American tradition, too, on the Republican side, but one that hasn't 
stood the test of time.
  Let's look back at history, at how many times the word ``socialism'' 
has been thrown around. During the Great Depression, President Franklin 
Roosevelt proposed Social Security to protect the elderly from 
financial ruin. In response, one Republican lawmaker declared Roosevelt 
``the first Communist President of the United States'' and accused him 
of advancing a ``Socialist platform.''
  Sound familiar?
  Thirty years later, a similar debate played out over the creation of 
Medicare. The American Medical Association even recruited a future 
President, Ronald Reagan, to cut a television ad to record an album 
warning the public about the dangers of ``socialized medicine.''
  Well, more than a century later, the vast majority of Americans are 
still covered by private health insurance. But Medicare is one of the 
most popular programs in America.
  Can you imagine where American seniors and families would be today if 
we had listened to those socialist denunciations of Social Security and 
Medicare?
  Here is one more example from the Great Depression: When joblessness 
in America reached 25 percent and Congress was considering the creation 
of America's first unemployment insurance system, a Congressman named 
Samuel Dickstein decried the idea of unemployment insurance as an 
``out-and-out communist program.''
  Now, you need to hear the rest of the story because, years after he 
made that declaration, it was discovered that Samuel Dickstein was a 
Soviet spy.
  Time and again, the claim of socialism has been bandied about to 
oppose commonsense policies that help working families get by. Now, as 
then, these claims have no basis in reality. It is a smear tactic that 
is, once again, being used to frighten Americans and distort and derail 
a meaningful debate.
  Let's get past the name-calling and get down to basics. Do you 
support yet another huge tax cut for massive corporations? Or is it 
time--at long last--to support working families?
  Our Republican colleagues answered that question when they were in 
charge. They took on nearly $2 trillion of debt in America to cut taxes 
for corporations and the wealthy. It seems they are happy with that 
brand of socialism, so long as it benefits major corporations and those 
who are well-off.
  Democrats believe in putting working families first, which is why the 
Build Back Better package includes the biggest tax cut--let me repeat 
that--it includes the biggest tax cut--for working and middle-class 
families in American history, and we believe in making smart 
investments in good-paying jobs.
  We have an opportunity to do all of this by enacting President 
Biden's Build Back Better agenda. Let's continue this great tradition 
and fight off the charges that we are somehow lapsing into socialism.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.