[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 199 (Tuesday, November 16, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8220-S8221]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Build Back Better Agenda

  Mr. President, I want to now talk about the third bill. The 
administration calls this bill the Build Back Better bill, and some 
call it the reconciliation bill because of the Senate budget procedure 
that we are using to pass it. As a member of the Budget and the Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committees, I call it the education and 
workforce bill. It is an education and workforce bill. This bill, to 
me, is fundamentally about preparing America's workers for tomorrow and 
making sure that our workforce has the training and the childcare and 
the housing and the healthcare to outcompete any country in the world.
  If we want to make good on the promise of the infrastructure bill, 
who is going to build it? We just signed an infrastructure bill, but it 
didn't have the training and the education component. Who is going to 
build this? We have to have a workforce to build this massive 
infrastructure improvement, a once-in-a-generation improvement. That is 
what the Build Back Better bill is about.
  We are not going to outcompete China just by diplomacy or tariffs or 
tough talk. We aren't going to outcompete China just by growing our 
military budget. The best way to outcompete China is to invest in 
America's workers.
  The success of America's economy in the next 50 years will depend on 
our making the same investments that allowed us to thrive in the 20th 
century--investing in infrastructure, investing in people--and that is 
the basis of Build Back Better.
  This education and workforce bill also provides sizable investments 
in community colleges to train workers for infrastructure jobs, to 
train the next generation of K-12 teachers, and to train workers to 
enable America to lead the world into a new and innovative energy 
economy. There will be investments in rural economic development, a 
Pell grant increase, an extension of the child tax credit, and 
additional healthcare and housing funds to reduce costs for American 
families. The bill will close the Medicaid coverage gap, lower 
healthcare costs and the costs of prescription drugs, and will fund 
better public health infrastructure.
  The thing about this bill that maybe excites me the most is this: We 
will be able to provide funding for States to make prekindergarten 
universally available for every 3- and 4-year-old in this country, and 
we will do it through a mixed delivery model that supports high-quality 
public and private providers. This will help an additional 140,000 3- 
and 4-year-olds in Virginia have pre-K, and we will also fund childcare 
for the kids younger than 3 years old to bring down costs of childcare 
for working families. When you combine both the pre-K and the childcare 
support in Virginia, it will mean that 500,000 more kids just in my 
State will have access to quality and affordable childcare and early 
education. When kids get a strong start, it

[[Page S8221]]

puts them on a brighter path for the rest of their lives, and it makes 
it much easier for their parents to go into the workforce, knowing that 
their child has high-quality and affordable childcare options.
  If we pass this bill, and I am confident we will, it is going to be 
the most pro-family and most pro-child bill Congress has ever passed. I 
believe this bill will do for children what Social Security did for 
seniors in a status that we have long lived in this country, where we 
accept a child poverty rate that is dramatically higher than the adult 
poverty rate. What does that say? What does that say about a society? 
This workforce and education bill, Build Back Better, will end our 
acceptance of that unacceptable status quo and move us to a position 
where we can cut child poverty and give our kids a much stronger start 
for a successful life.
  The American Rescue Plan, as I mentioned a minute ago, passed the 
Senate by just one vote--just one vote. One vote had changed all of 
those benefits to my local governments and to families and to 
educational institutions and to hospitals and healthcare networks and 
to businesses. All of those would have not occurred. None of the 
counties whose leadership I spoke to yesterday would have received the 
moneys that I talked about for the transformative projects.
  I hope we will pass this education and workforce bill by a wider 
margin than just one vote, but if it is just one vote--if it is just 
one vote--so be it. So be it.
  When there was an effort in this Chamber in August of 2017 to take 
health insurance away from 30 million people--one of the most dramatic 
moments in my entire public service career--we saved 30 million 
people's healthcare by 1 vote--by 1 vote. When we acted on the American 
Rescue Plan in the middle of the pandemic, in March, to try to help our 
country climb out of the worst public health crisis in a century, we 
got it by one vote. I would like a wider margin, but if it is just one 
vote--if it is just one vote--we will still be doing really important 
work.
  Americans deserve a Congress that will fund businesses and schools; 
that will train the workforce; that will build out transportation 
networks; that will support hospitals and health clinics; deploy 
vaccines; provide additional funding for law enforcement officers and 
first responders; create better broadband connections; provide tax 
relief to working families and lower childcare costs. Build Back Better 
is the next step to lifting us out of the pandemic and rebuilding the 
American economy.
  I have to say I am 63 years old--I will be 64 in February--and this 
has been the hardest 20 months of my life, and I think most people in 
this country might say the same thing. Just think about the sheer 
number of the 750,000 people who have passed and the people who have 
been ill--my wife and I both had COVID, and we know a lot of people who 
died of COVID--and beyond, those being the folks who didn't have COVID 
but who had a grandchild born whom they couldn't go visit or a friend 
who died, and they couldn't go to the funeral, or who lost a job or had 
a business that they had sweated to build but had to shut its doors. It 
has been such a tough time.
  But, as I looked out at the hundreds of county officials who were 
gathered in person yesterday in Norfolk and as I talked to them about 
these bills--and I saw them there in person--I detected an uplift. I am 
feeling a sense of uplift. I am feeling a sense of uplift as we see 
wages increasing. I am feeling a sense of uplift as we make a 
commitment, for the first time in a generation, to be builders and 
invest and grow our infrastructure. I am feeling a sense of uplift as 
we approach investing in workers and in our families the same way we 
are investing in infrastructure.
  I have a feeling that, over the next couple of months, these 
important investments will braid together in a way that will make 
people feel a sense of uplift about the economy and as vaccines 
continue to be distributed and now as boosters are being distributed.
  How wonderful it was to hear the Presiding Officer talking about his 
children being able to be vaccinated, his school-aged children. I think 
that is going to contribute to a sense of uplift, too.
  I just want this body to be a generator of uplift. Sadly, a lot has 
come out of the Capitol in the last few years that hasn't exactly been 
an uplift for people. I believe we are standing on the threshold of a 
chapter where this body, the U.S. Senate, will be a great generator of 
uplift for the American people, and I believe passing the Build Back 
Better is a step that will be really important in making that happen.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.