Motion to Discharge--S.J. Res. 77
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I came to the Senate 2 years ago because the people of Florida entrusted me to fight against the broken ways of Washington and the out-of-control spending that is threatening the future of our children and our grandchildren.
I am fighting every day against the political class in Washington-- the same elites that scoff when people like me say that government needs to be run like a business. They say government is too complicated to run like a business, but I say that any elected official or government bureaucrat who believes that should resign tomorrow because they are part of the problem.
It is time to wake up. It is time to wake up to the fact that every dime spent in Washington belongs to American taxpayers, and every dollar spent now is a tax increase for a future generation.
It is time to wake up to the fact that our Nation is more than $27 trillion in debt. Every cent we spend moving forward threatens our ability to fund our military and our safety nets like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
It is time to wake up to the fact that our position as the leader of the free world is not promised and shouldn't be taken for granted. Irresponsible career politicians who care more about their next election than the future of our country will run this Nation into the ground if we let them, and I am fighting like hell to make sure they don't.
Now, let me be clear. I support another relief measure to help our small businesses and individuals who are hurting because of the coronavirus.
For months, Senate Republicans have been trying to pass responsible and targeted measures to quickly help those in need. And for months, Democrats have blocked these measures because of politics.
Nancy Pelosi admitted it. She said she purposely stood in the way of the deal until after the Presidential election so that politics would be in their favor to avoid ``considerations in the legislation that we don't want.''
It is shameful and exactly why the American people are fed up with Washington.
Congress has already allocated $2 trillion in direct and indirect aid to States and localities. And we know, unfortunately, because Congress tried to get this money out the door as quickly as possible, many programs within the CARES Act are riddled with waste, inefficiency, and fraud.
Now a group of my colleagues want to spend another trillion dollars, including almost $200 billion to bail out liberal States with Governors who can't do the basic job they were elected to do--manage their own budgets. And we don't even know how much is still unspent from the previous coronavirus relief packages.
I have reached out to every single Governor--twice now--to learn exactly how they have spent the hundreds of billions of dollars they have already received, and only 10 have replied. They won't tell us because they don't want us to know there are still billions of dollars left unspent. They don't want us to know that the real purpose is to take taxpayer money meant to help get through this crisis and use it to backfill their inefficient and wasteful budgets and pension programs.
Liberal Governors and mayors around the country think the American people are stupid. They think taxpayers in States like Florida won't realize if the Federal Government uses their taxpayer money to bail out States like New York and California and pay for those States' wasteful spending.
Governor Newsom has had his hand out for a bailout despite the fact that California's tax revenues for this fiscal year are running $9.9 billion or 18.6 percent above projections. Personal income tax revenue in October was $1 billion--15.6 percent higher than in the previous October i California, and sales taxes were up 9.2 percent. For the last 4 months, overall revenue in California has exceeded spring forecasts and even 2019 collections.
This is a State that paid $1.5 million to the chief investment officer of its public pension fund, who was actively investing in companies tied to the Chinese Communist Party, only to later find out this person was personally invested in companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. You can't make this stuff up. How is that for pension waste and a national security threat?
It is the same story with Governor Cuomo. New York's overall tax revenue was up 4.3 percent in September compared to September 2019.
These are the same Governors who are OK issuing new stay-at-home orders that are killing small businesses. As long as they get more money from the Federal Government to backfill their budgets and pension plans, they don't care how many people in their States have to suffer. These Governors and mayors don't care, as long as they don't have to follow their own oppressive rules.
Let's not forget about Nancy Pelosi and the hair salon, California Governor Gavin Newsom dining at the French Laundry, Austin Mayor Steve Adler encouraging constituents to stay home from his timeshare in Mexico.
Do as I say, not as I do.
These liberal politicians who refuse to open their States or spend taxpayer money wisely are seeing high numbers of unemployment. Most of the States with the highest unemployment rate in the country are controlled by Democrats.
On the other hand, Republican-led States that are making the hard choices to get on a fiscally responsible path and reopen their economy safely are succeeding and seeing lower unemployment rates.
Thirty States have halved their unemployment rate since May, while real GDP grew 33 percent in the third quarter, erasing losses from the previous quarter. You can see there, this is from a Wall Street Journal editorial--if you haven't heard, ``states are experiencing a surge of-- tax revenue.'' Politicians don't want this good news to get out because they want to get more of our money from States like Florida to pay for the budgets of Illinois, New York, California, and New Jersey. You can see the GDP growth of 33 percent in that quarter.
Over here you can see States have seen a big drop-off in their unemployment rates by half over the last 6 months, and there has been a big growth in private sector employment, but it doesn't stop these liberal Governors and mayors from wanting more money.
Look, I know everyone wants to help our States, and so do I. We help our States by ensuring appropriate spending of the billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars already allocated. We help our States by safely opening the economy and getting Americans back to work. We help our States by sending money to schools to safely reopen and funding vaccine research and distribution.
Most States will be in a strong position to get through this pandemic without more Federal aid, and that is great news for our country. But we know New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey don't need bailouts; they want bailouts so they can use that money intended to address the fallout from COVID to backfill their longstanding budget problems and their pension problems.
I have said all along that I will not support that. It is not fair to the citizens of States like Florida, where over my 8 years as Governor, we made the hard choices--they were hard--that put our State on a fiscally secure path. We paid down our State debt. We cut taxes. We balanced our budget every year without borrowing money.
And $908 billion--$908 billion--of spending today equals a tax increase of $7,000 per American family down the road. It is not money that we have. It is a tax increase of $7,000 per American family down the line.
Many families in our country right now are trying to figure out how to celebrate this holiday season while they struggle to afford daily expenses. These are people we need to be helping.
You wouldn't run your business or family the way Washington is run-- like there is an endless supply and no consequences to racking up unthinkable amounts of debt. That is what many of my colleagues want. But to keep spending money like this means taking away the same opportunities that I have had and others have had to live the American dream, and it will take it away from our children and our grandchildren.
It is time to wake up. It is time to make the hard choices to put our Nation on a path to recovery--recovery from this virus, from the economic devastation it has brought with it, and from the fiscal calamity that decades of politicians have ignored.
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