[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 194 (Thursday, November 4, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7780-S7781]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Build Back Better Agenda

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, everything we are doing to lead our 
country to build back better from this pandemic is about putting 
workers at the center of our economy. It is about raising wages and 
bringing down costs.
  We know what has happened in this country in the last decade. We have 
seen profits go up. We have seen the stock market go skyward. We have 
seen executive compensation explode upward. Yet wages in Nevada and 
Ohio and all over this country have essentially been flat. That is why 
this Build Back Better plan is about raising wages and bringing down 
costs.
  We know what is wrong with our country. I said 20 years. It has been 
30 years, 40 years where productivity has gone up. Workers are earning 
more and more for their companies and for their bosses, but they simply 
aren't sharing in the wealth that they have created. They have simply 
seen their wages flat.
  It has gotten more and more expensive for families to raise a family 
and build a middle-class life. Healthcare, childcare, prescription 
drugs, higher education, housing are things the Presiding Officer and I 
have worked on in the Banking and Housing Committee.
  Costs have doubled, tripled, quadrupled since people my age were 
trying to go to school and start a family. Meanwhile, people's hard 
work isn't paying off.
  I remember in our Banking Committee, we did a hearing. It was more of 
a listening session. It was one where Senators were not asking 
questions. It was listening to people, which we should probably do more 
often. It was called the ``Dignity of Work'' session.
  One woman was from southern West Virginia, who struggled her whole 
life and, clearly, was working hard. She said the words ``working'' and 
``poor'' should not be in the same sentence. Think about that. She has 
worked all her life. She is making $13--she didn't go to Harvard. She 
didn't go to Ohio State. She worked all her life. She worked to raise 
kids. She is still making $12, $13, $14 an hour--and that, Madam 
President, as costs only ever seem to go up. Even middle-class families 
don't feel stable. That was before the pandemic.
  We know that in this country, before the pandemic, a quarter of 
people paid more than half their income--more than half their income--
in housing, in rent. That means if one thing happens in their lives--
their car breaks down; their child gets sick, has to stay home from 
school; they maybe have a minor workplace injury and miss a week of 
work--everything can go wrong. Their lives can turn upside down because 
they can be evicted.
  Then what happens?
  We know this pandemic has upended the global economy. Supply chains 
are struggling. People feel their budget squeezed. They are anxious 
about whether prices that have gone up will ever go back down.
  We heard a lot of politicians, particularly in this body, try to 
stoke families' anxiety for their own political gain, but they don't 
offer solutions. Their only answer is: Let's take power away from 
workers.
  They think the only way to keep prices low is to keep wages even 
lower. That is a false choice.
  We work on real solutions to bring down the biggest cost Americans 
face for the long term and to help families keep up with the cost of 
living.
  Housing, childcare, healthcare--those are three of the biggest items 
in any family's budget. Build Back Better tackles all of them.
  On the Banking and Housing Committee, everything we are doing is 
about making housing more affordable, whether you pay a mortgage or 
whether you pay rent. Housing is just way too expensive and not 
available to enough people, plain and simple. We need to build more 
homes people can afford. We need to make the houses and the townhouses 
and the apartments we already have more affordable, and we need to make 
it affordable to buy a home.

  I visit communities in Ohio all the time with houses that look 
affordable. They are listed, maybe, at even $50,000 or $75,000, but 
families can't come up with a down payment or sometimes they can't find 
lenders to make the loans. Sometimes we see these lower cost properties 
snapped up by private equity--by investors paying cash. We are working 
to fix that with plans like targeted down payment assistance, expanding 
access to lower cost mortgages.
  Look at healthcare for a moment. Monthly premiums, deductibles, and

[[Page S7781]]

prescription drug prices still eat away at people's budgets. In the 
American Rescue Plan, we strengthen the Affordable Care Act to make ACA 
insurance plans more affordable. Customers are saving an average of 40 
percent on their monthly premiums on ACA plans because of the American 
Rescue Plan we passed in March. We will make sure those cost savings 
continue so Americans can save on their coverage.
  We will make it more affordable for seniors and Americans with 
disabilities to get the care they need at home from a workforce that 
actually makes a living wage.
  I was with a number of home care workers in Cleveland the other day. 
These are people who take care of people we love. They take care of 
aging parents; they take care of workers injured on the job; they take 
care of families. They make $11, $12, $13 an hour. Some of them have 
been doing this for 20 years, and they still don't make a living wage.
  As I said earlier, as the lady from West Virginia said, the words 
``working'' and ``poor'' should not be in the same sentence.
  We know how powerful the Big Pharma lobbyists are. For years--
decades--many of us have fought to allow Medicare to negotiate prices 
with drug companies, just like private insurance companies and the 
Veterans Health Administration do.
  I used to, as a Member of Congress, take busloads to Canada--about 3 
hours away--so that seniors could buy prescription drugs in Windsor, 
Ontario, because it cost half as much. It was the same brand name, same 
dosage, same packaging, but the Canadian Government negotiates prices 
directly with the drug companies. The American Government doesn't.
  Why?
  Well, you know why. Look down the hall at Mitch McConnell's office, 
who has been the Republican leader of the Senate for many years. Look 
at the lobbyists from the drug companies who line up outside his 
office. He is always telling people: No, we are going to do whatever 
the drug companies want. We know that the entire minority, the entire 
Republican Party here, is in the pockets of the drug companies. We know 
that.
  The problem is we have got to get all 50 Democrats to stand up and 
say: No. We are going to negotiate. We are going to stand with Medicare 
beneficiaries. We are going to stand with people who need prescription 
drugs--of all ages--and we are going to negotiate on their behalf 
directly with the drug companies, cutting the price.
  We do that with the VA. Whether it is in Reno or in Cleveland, 
whether it is in Las Vegas or in Columbus, the VA pays significantly 
less for prescription drugs than do the rest of us.
  In this bill, we are finally standing up to the drug companies. We 
are going to start bringing down seniors' prescription costs. For the 
first time ever, we are empowering Medicaid to negotiate directly. It 
is going to make a difference for seniors--a huge difference for 
seniors--who are living on fixed incomes.
  Of course, we know, for young families, they face, generally, 
different costs. The children of working parents often get their health 
insurance through Medicaid or through CHIP. Right now, if a mom takes 
on an extra shift, or if a dad takes a bonus for a job well done, that 
tiny change--that small change in their monthly income--could cause 
their kids to lose their insurance for the month.
  What kind of policy is that?
  So Dad works really hard and is really good at his job, so he gets a 
raise; and Mom wants to work an extra shift, so she brings a little 
more money home.
  And then we take the benefit away?
  So we are saying to them: Yes, we believe in working hard, and we 
believe in family values, but if you work too hard and you make too 
much money, we are going to take away the benefit.
  That kind of policy is just stupid. That is why we are including my 
legislation that will keep kids insured all year. It means parents 
won't have to worry they will get hit with a huge medical bill if their 
child gets sick in the same month they work some extra hours.
  Of course, the biggest cost for so many families is childcare. The 
Build Back Better plan will ensure that middle-class families pay no 
more than 7 percent of their income on childcare. What a relief that is 
going to be.

  Again, the point of this bill is job creation. Build Back Better is 
job creation; it is the biggest tax cut in American history for 
families with children; and it is to bring costs down.
  One of the most oppressive, most burdensome, most difficult costs for 
families is childcare. For a family with one toddler and two parents 
who earn $50,000 a year, our plan will save them $5,000--$5,000--in 
childcare costs. Some families will save up to $6,500.
  Think of what that means. On top of this, as I said, is the biggest 
tax cut for working families in American history.
  In my State and in Nevada--the Presiding Officer's State that Senator 
Cortez Masto represents--it is not much different from the rest of the 
country.
  More than 90 percent of the families in Ohio who have children under 
18 will, at a minimum, get a $3,000 tax cut--at a minimum, $3,000 a 
year. That is a real tax cut. That is not like a deduction. Those are 
real dollars in their pockets. Think about that: more than 90 percent 
of families in this country.
  In my State, it is families with 2.2 million children. That many 
kids, that many families, will get at least a $3,000 tax cut. If they 
have three children, they will get an $8,000 or a $9,000 tax cut in the 
course of a year, and that is one of the most important parts of this 
bill. It will help them keep up with the costs of diapers and childcare 
and clothes and all of the other expenses.
  One of the joys of this job is going online where we have a website. 
We have a ``tell your story'' about the biggest tax cut in American 
history for working families and what that means to you.
  One woman wrote in and said: For the first time in my life, I can 
send my son to summer camp for a week.
  A man wrote in from Cincinnati and said: For the first time ever, I 
can, finally, now afford fast-pitch softball equipment for my daughter.
  Others have said: You know, now I can put aside $100 a month for my 
child to go to Eastern Gateway or to Stark State or to North Central 
Ohio's technical or community college.
  Others have said--and this is the one we hear the most. You have 
heard so many families talk about the last week of the month. For the 
people around here who make more money than this, you don't think of it 
much; but in the last week of the month, so many families face the 
anxiety of: How do I put together enough money to pay my rent this 
month?
  Well, the child tax credit has relieved that anxiety for millions of 
families because they get that $300 or that $250 or, maybe, with two 
children, they get $600 on the 15th of the month that can ease the 
making of their rent that time.
  But it comes down to: Whose side are you on?
  It comes down to Mitch McConnell and the lobbyists in his office and 
the politicians who always do his bidding and pass their tax cuts for 
the wealthy and the corporations that outsource jobs, and you know 
that. It was 4 years ago that there was the biggest tax cut, and 70 
percent of that tax cut went to the wealthiest 1 percent of people. 
Contrast that with our tax cut whereby 90 percent of Ohio families will 
get at least a $3,000-a-year tax cut.
  It is pretty simple. If you want tax cuts for billionaires, then vote 
against this bill. If you want tax cuts for working families, that is 
why you will support Build Back Better.
  Do you want tax cuts for drug companies, or do you want to bring down 
prescription drug prices? Do you want tax cuts for big banks that won't 
give your family a mortgage, or do you want to bring down the cost of 
housing?
  When you love this country, you fight for the people who make it 
work. You fight for their jobs. You fight for their higher wages. You 
fight to bring down their cost of living. That is what we are doing.
  I yield the floor to my colleague from Ohio.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.