Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3608

Floor Speech

The first thing I want to do is I want to thank my colleague from Louisiana for the kind words about my tenure as Governor and tell him I respect and admire his passion for being a U.S. Senator and his passion for the wonderful State of Louisiana, which is a wonderful State.

As we all know, this is a challenging time for every level of government. This crisis was unprecedented, and Congress absolutely took bold action to stem the spread of the virus and work to save our economy. But if we are not careful, Congress will create another equally devastating crisis down the road, a crisis of our own making.

Our national debt and deficits--already at unsustainable levels--have skyrocketed as Congress has spent, as my colleague said, almost $3 trillion to address this crisis. To put that in perspective, Congress has spent $9,000 for every American--$9,000 for every American.

At some point, we need to start thinking about the impact this spending will have on the future of our children and our grandchildren and how we are impacting our ability to fund our military and our safety nets like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Again, I know everyone here, including my colleague from Louisiana, wants to help their State. I want to help States too, which is why I support continuing the existing restrictions tied to the coronavirus relief fund that were included in the CARES Act to make sure this spending is for coronavirus relief and response. Regardless of whether we are removing existing guardrails or talking about completely new funding, both actions would result in a blank-check bailout for States.

Let's remember, we are talking about $150 billion. To put that in perspective, the median income for a worker in Florida is approximately $30,000; $150 billion will pay the total annual income for more than 5 million Floridians.

And let's talk about who we are bailing out here: Not those on unemployment, we took care of them in the CARES Act; not our teachers, we took care of them in the CARES Act; not our healthcare workers, we took care of them in the CARES Act.

We are bailing out liberal politicians who cannot live within their means, and now, we are asking Floridians to pay for the incompetency of Governors like Andrew Cuomo. We know California, New York, and Illinois have no problem using hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund their liberal priorities and to backfill their budget shortfalls and solve their longstanding fiscal problems. But it is not fair to the citizens of States like Florida, where we made the hard choices to put our State on a financially secure path.

The Wall Street Journal laid it out clearly for us this week when they said:

Democrats in Albany are claiming to be victims of events that are out of their control. But they have increased annual spending by $43 billion since 2010--about $570,000 for each additional person. Florida's annual budget has increased by $28 billion while its population has grown by 2.7 million--a $10,400 increase per new resident.

New York has a top state-and-local tax rate of 12.7 percent, while Florida has no income tax. Yet New York has a growing budget deficit, while Mr. Scott, as Governor of Florida, inherited a large deficit but built a surplus and paid down State debt. The difference is spending.

The Wall Street Journal concluded:

The policy question is why taxpayers in Florida and other well-managed States should pay higher taxes to rescue an Albany political class that refuses to restrain its tax and spend governance . . . Mr. Scott is right.

The Wall Street Journal is right, so is the Chicago Tribune, which called out its own State leaders this week for mismanaging Illinois taxpayer dollars. The Chicago Tribune said:

Preparing for the next recession and the next unanticipated crisis--think pandemic--is a huge component of leadership. So when our politicians whimper that they're helpless in the face of disaster, remember: They and their forebears had decades in which to prepare for whatever would surprise them. Instead they chose to borrow more money, spend on new programs and watch their pension indebtedness sore.

American families make responsible budgetary decisions every day. Successful companies make responsible budget decisions every day. Well- managed States like Florida have done it for years. It is time for New York, Illinois, and California to do the same.

Let's look at--and my colleague said some of this: We have given States $150 billion--billion--for their COVID expenses.

Now, to put that in perspective, with hurricanes, we don't give 100 percent. We had four major hurricanes while I was Governor. The Federal Government, one, did not cover all the expense of the hurricane and did not cover any budget shortfalls I had, any lost revenues I had, which I had when tourists couldn't come during a hurricane and after.

Five hundred billion dollars in short-term loan opportunities for municipal governments, $45 billion in FEMA disaster funds, $30 billion for education, and we have no earthly idea whether education costs have gone down or gone up. I would assume education costs have gone down; $34 billion for mass transit community grants; $270 billion for emergency appropriations; $50 billion for Medicaid, and, again, we haven't seen it, but I would assume our Medicaid costs so far have gone down.

Then on top of it, through the small business relief, individual checks, unemployment, we have given our States another $1.3 trillion.

Now, put that in perspective, their annual revenues, not including Federal dollars, is a little over $1 trillion a year, so look at what we have already spent. So as you can see from this chart, Congress has already allocated billions in direct and indirect aid to States and localities.

Total direct funding from the Federal Government exceeds $1 trillion dollars--trillion. Even this doesn't begin to account for another $1.3 trillion in indirect assistance to small businesses, individuals, and increased unemployment benefits to families in all of our States.

These numbers, as my colleague has said, are staggering, what we have already spent. We have to get serious about how we are spending taxpayer money and the fact that this year's Federal budget deficit will be the largest in the history of our Nation.

While it may be tempting and easy to believe that removing the restrictions on the coronavirus relief fund will satisfy States looking for a bailout, I am afraid that we are all mistaken. It will never be enough. These funds are still needed, one, for coronavirus relief, and, unfortunately, many States have not been shy about their desire for hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts for their liberal agendas.

I am not going to let this happen. I think about this in the context of my seven grandchildren. We cannot saddle them and children like them all across our great country with mountains of debt. Right now, the debt stands at over $77,000 per American.

Now, think about that for a second. The median income for Americans is about $33,000, and we already have put them on the hook for $77,000--$9,000 just with what we have done this year.

Now, to put that in perspective, after the first 200 years of this country's existence, national debt per person was around $3--$3, after 200 years--and now, we are at $77,000.

I think about that in the context of a Social Security recipient like my mom. How are we helping people like my mom when we run multiple trillion-dollar deficits and grow our national debt to an excess of $26 trillion? What happens to those living on fixed incomes when our deficits and national debt cause high inflation?

I grew up in a poor family in public housing. My mom worked three jobs and my parents--my adopted dad and my mom--were constantly struggling for work. Even though my mom had no money, she told me: You are the luckiest kid alive because you grew up in this country. She was optimistic, and she was hopeful. She told us that we were blessed because God and our Founders created the greatest country ever, where anything was possible.

To take away the same opportunities I had to live the American Dream from our children and grandchildren would not only be a political failure, it would be an abdication of our moral responsibility.

It is time we make the hard choices to put our Nation on a path to recovery--recovery from this virus, from the economic devastation it brought with it, and the fiscal calamity that decades of politicians have ignored.

I hope my colleagues will join me in this fight to keep our country's future bright. To do that, we have to make hard choices; we have to be fiscally responsible.

Mr. President, I therefore respectfully object.

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