Unanimous Consent Request
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. I think we will all admit that this crisis was unprecedented, and Congress has already taken bold action to stem this virus and 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 almost $3 trillion--$3 trillion--to address this crisis. To put that in perspective, Congress has spent $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, 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 wants to help our States. I want to help our States, too, which is why I support maintaining the existing restrictions tied to the Coronavirus Relief Fund that were included in the CARES Act to make sure this spending is for coronavirus response.
Congress has already allocated billions in direct and indirect aid to States and localities. Total direct funding from the Federal Government already exceeds $1 trillion. Let me just go through it.
We gave them $150 billion for COVID-19 expenses. To put that in perspective, while I was Governor of Florida, we had four hurricanes. The Federal Government never funded 100 percent of my cost. We are funding 100 percent of the COVID-19 cost.
We have given our State and local governments $500 billion in short- term loans. We have given them $45 billion in FEMA disaster funds, $30 billion in education funds without any information on whether education costs have gone up, $34 billion for mass transit and community grants, $270 billion for CARES Act emergency appropriations, and $50 billion for Medicaid--and as we have all seen with the healthcare costs, Medicaid costs have gone down around the country.
Even this doesn't begin to count another $1.3 trillion in indirect assistance to small businesses, individuals, and increased unemployment benefits to families in all of our States.
We have given $175 billion to our healthcare community. We have given $11 billion to our States to deal with testing.
Now my colleagues want to spend another $1 trillion before the other trillion dollars that was already allocated has even been spent.
I sent a letter this month to all U.S. Governors to get more details on exactly how they are allocating the Federal coronavirus response funds that they have already received. I have heard back only from four States.
Do you think I have heard back from New York? Of course not, and I don't expect to. Why? Because politicians in these liberal States have refused to live within their means for decades, and they want Floridians to backfill their budgets and pay for the incompetency of Governors like Andrew Cuomo.
Andrew Cuomo got elected when I got elected--at the end of 2010, at the end of the financial crisis. I have watched him in my 8 years as Governor. Did he balance his budget? No, he doesn't balance his budget. He keeps borrowing more money year after year.
The Wall Street Journal's editorial board said: ``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.''
New York has increased their spending since 2010 by $43 billion, which is $570,000 per new resident--$570,000 per new resident. They already have a State and local personal income tax rate of 12.7 percent.
I know why they want money: They can't tax their citizens any more. They have already done it. Because of all of their taxes, people keep moving to States like Florida. They have lost $9.6 billion in adjusted gross income to other States just since 2018.
So what these States have done is they don't live within their means, and now they want us to come be responsible for their bad budgets, their pension plans, and things like that.
One of my colleagues brought up this concept that some States are donors. I have been up here 18 months. I have looked at the Federal budget. I haven't seen a dime come from the States. It comes from the taxpayers in those States. Do you know how it comes here? It comes here to pay for things like Social Security and Medicare. Then these citizens get sick and tired of the high taxes in places like New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and California and move to lower tax States and then receive these benefits.
Then people come up here and say: Oh, our government funded governments in other States. No, they don't. The citizens do it, and then they get sick and tired of those high taxes and move.
So we know New York, California, 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.
It is not fair to the citizens of States like Florida where, over my 8 years as Governor, we made the hard choices that put our State on a financially secure path. Because we made those choices, the Governor of Florida was able to sign a responsible State budget today without having to beg the Federal Government for a bailout. Guess what. There are teacher pay raises in there and increased funding for K-12 education.
American families make responsible budgetary decisions every day. Successful companies make responsible budget decisions every day. Well- meaning States like Florida have done it for years. It is time for New York, Illinois, and California to do the same.
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 this country. While it may be tempting to throw money at the problem and then believe that removing the restrictions on funding will satisfy States for a bailout, I am afraid that my colleagues are mistaken.
These funds are still needed for coronavirus response, 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.
By the way, when you hear about all these letters that come that want more money--I spent 8 years as Governor of Florida. I don't remember one time that somebody came to me and said: Why don't you spend less money? Of course everybody is going to come up here and ask us for more money, more money, more money. It is somebody's money.
I think about this in the context of my seven grandchildren. We cannot saddle them and children like them across the country with mountains of debt--debt that right now stands in excess of $77,000 per American--$77,000 per American.
Do you know what it was in 1976? It was $3 per American. It is $77,000. 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 to make the hard choices, to put our Nation on a path to recovery--recovery from this virus, from the economic devastations brought with it, and from the fiscal calamity that decades of politicians have ignored. I hope my colleagues will join me in the fight for our future.
I therefore respectfully object.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I would like to respond to my colleague before he leaves.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I wasn't here when the tax bill was done. I cut taxes of over $10 billion. We cut taxes and fees. And what happened is our economy grew. We added 1.7 billion jobs.
Let's go back and look at this. We talk about money. We have given $150 billion for the expenses. We have given loans. We have given FEMA disaster funds. We have given education funds. We have given mass transit funds. We have given emergency appropriations for a variety of different sections. We have given many healthcare dollars for Medicaid. On top of that, we allocated $175 billion to our healthcare system, and we gave our States $11 billion for testing. It is not like we have been up here and not responding. We have responded.
By the way, the dollars have not all been spent. What we need to do is, let's see what these Governors come back with. I have gotten a response from four Governors so far. Let's look at what they said, and then we can make a responsible decision on how we spend our money going forward.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source