[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 199 (Tuesday, November 16, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8219-S8220]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          American Rescue Plan

  Mr. President, I want to speak today, sort of, maybe not so much as a 
Senator but as a former city councilman and mayor.
  I am sort of unique. There are 30 people in the United States who 
have been a mayor, Governor, and U.S. Senator--1 of only 30 in our 
entire history. The first time I was introduced and someone said that, 
I thought, that clearly cannot be right. So many Governors become 
Senators, that clearly cannot be right. I asked the Historian to 
research the matter because someone introduced me that way. And it came 
back that that is correct. Only 30 people in the history of this 
country have been a mayor, a Governor, and a Senator. And as I pondered 
the reason for that, it suddenly occurred to me: Being a mayor will 
kill you.
  Governors can become Senators, but mayors often make everyone mad, 
and it is hard to go from being a mayor to having a post-mayoral 
political career because the job is so tough.
  And yet, when people ask me: Which job do you like better, Governor 
or Senator, I always say: Look, I like them all. But if you made me 
give up every title I ever had except one, the one I would hold on to 
is mayor. I would hold on to being a mayor because when you are a 
mayor, it is 24/7, 365. There is no recess for a mayor. City councils 
and mayors don't go into recess. You are dealing with people on the 
issues that are the closest to them. You can make people happier or 
madder.
  You can convince people in local government, in a nation of 330 
million, sometimes they think: What does my vote matter? What does my 
voice matter? No one will listen to me. In local government, you can 
convince people that actually they will be listened to.
  So I would hold on to that mayoral role, and, frankly, if I had not 
been mayor, I never would have been a Lieutenant Governor or Governor 
or a U.S. Senator. So I owe anything that I am or do in politics now to 
the fact that I started in local government.
  I spoke yesterday to the Virginia Association of Counties, the 
gathering of all county supervisors of all 95 counties around Virginia. 
They gather once a year, usually in person. Last year, it was by Zoom.
  They were so glad to be back together, in person, in Norfolk 
yesterday, hundreds of them in a conference room. And they asked me to 
come and talk about what is going on in Congress. And I said: How much 
time do you have? But what I really focused on was three things, and I 
want to focus on those three things now, speaking about them from the 
perspective of local officials not just in Virginia but all over this 
country: first, the American Rescue Plan, which was passed in March, 
but it is just beginning to have an impact in Virginia's cities, 
counties, and towns; second, the bipartisan infrastructure bill that 
was signed at the White House yesterday; and, third, the education and 
workforce bill that we are working on now that I believe will reach 
the President's desk in December.

  I started off by telling these county supervisors what I truly 
believe; that anybody in public life right now, elected or a first 
responder or any classroom teacher, when we are all finished with our 
times in public life, I think we will look back on this period of time, 
beginning March 2020, as the most important period of our public 
service careers. The pandemic has created such destruction, death, 
economic catastrophe, illness, and division that we have all been 
tested in our personal lives and our work on behalf of our citizens. 
Our constituents have needed us in unparalleled ways since March of 
2020.
  Last year, on a cold Saturday in March, we passed the American Rescue 
Plan. It contains significant funding in four basic pillars: 
healthcare, relief to individuals and families, aid to businesses, and 
then, finally, aid to State and local governments, including 
educational institutions.
  The American Rescue Plan immediately affected millions of Americans--
families, healthcare, institutions, businesses--through measures like 
massive vaccine deployment, checks to individuals, business grants. 
These kept families afloat and helped protect themselves against COVID, 
and they also kept the lights on for many of our local businesses.
  But what I want to focus on is the aid that we gave to State and 
local governments and, again, particularly--particularly--to local 
governments. Virginia and its localities, through the American Rescue 
Plan, received $7.2 billion in the American Rescue Plan; $4 billion to 
the Commonwealth of Virginia and $3.2 billion to our cities, counties, 
and towns.
  And as soon as we passed it, I started to go around and talk to our 
cities, counties, and towns: How are you going to spend these local 
moneys? What they told me was interesting in April

[[Page S8220]]

of last year. They said: Well, first, we are going to wait and see how 
the State decides to spend their $4 billion because we don't want to 
spend on something and have the State spend on the same thing. So we 
are going to let the State, the Governor, Governor Northam, the General 
Assembly program the $4 billion. But while the State is doing that, we 
are going to go out and dialogue with our citizens.
  And I really applaud my local governments. Recognizing this was one-
time money that wouldn't happen every year, they had intense public 
dialogue with local constituents about what can we do to really 
transform? How can we use this money? And they have done it in 
fascinating ways.
  As I traveled around the State and talked to these local governments, 
I see them advancing long-delayed capital projects, water and 
wastewater upgrades, closing the digital divide by investing in 
broadband, constructing community centers in parts of the community 
that haven't received investments in the past.
  Many gave hazard pay to first responders. The American Rescue Plan 
helped people fund police, ambulance, fire, mental health workers, 
public health workers, grants to local nonprofits and churches that 
supported the community during COVID, grants to shore up Virginia's 
hard-hit businesses that were engaged in the tourism industry as people 
stopped traveling. This is what our local governments have done with 
these dollars.
  The investments are supplemented by more than three and a half 
billion additional dollars to Virginia childcare providers, K-12 school 
systems, colleges, community colleges, with billions more for other 
local priorities like transit and broadband infrastructure.
  So it was heartening to talk to these county officials. And there are 
more red counties in Virginia then there are blue counties, so I was 
talking to county officials from all over the State, and more would 
have been in Republican counties than Democratic counties. But they 
were thrilled that Congress--that the Senate by a one-vote margin, as 
we all remember--passed the American Rescue Plan to invest in these key 
local priorities.