Setting Forth the Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Con. Res. 5, the majority and Republican managers of the concurrent resolution, while seated or standing at the managers' desks, be permitted to deliver floor remarks, retrieve, review, and edit documents, and send email and other data communications from text displayed on wireless personal digital assistant devices and tablet devices.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the budget resolution that was introduced today.
Mr. President, let us be clear and let us in the Senate understand what the American people know all too well, and that is that our country is currently experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the worst public health emergency in over 100 years.
January marked the deadliest month of the pandemic, with over 90,000 Americans losing their lives as a result of COVID-19--90,000 Americans in 1 month.
In the midst of all of this, over 90 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and are unable to afford to go to a doctor when they become ill.
The isolation and the anxiety caused by this pandemic have resulted in a horrible increase in mental illness, in depression, in anxiety, and in suicidal ideation.
Today, as we speak, over half of our people are living paycheck-to- paycheck, including millions of essential workers who put their lives on the line each and every day. More than 24 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed, or have given up looking for work, while hunger in this country--hunger in the richest country in the history of the world--is at the highest level that we have seen in decades.
Because of lack of income, over 14 million Americans are behind on their rent, averaging some $5,800 per family, and many of those families face eviction all across this country. People are worried that when the moratorium on eviction ends, they are going to be thrown out of their homes, put out on the streets. Americans who worry about eviction understand that they must not join the half a million Americans who are already homeless.
That is some of what we are experiencing today. That is what the American people understand.
Meanwhile, in the midst of this devastation to the working class and middle class of our country, the wealthiest people in America are becoming much wealthier, and income and wealth inequality--a longtime problem--is now soaring. Incredibly, while families throughout the country are struggling to put food on the table to feed their kids during this pandemic, 660 billionaires--not a whole lot of people--have increased their wealth by over $1 trillion.
As a result of this pandemic, education in our country, from childcare to graduate school, is in chaos. The majority of young people in our Nation have seen their education disrupted. Kids are not getting the learning that they need, falling further and further behind. On top of that, it is likely that hundreds of colleges will soon cease to exist.
In this moment of unprecedented crises, the Senate must respond through unprecedented action. The budget resolution we are debating today is simple, and it is straightforward. It will enable us to pass President Biden's $1.9 trillion emergency COVID relief plan through reconciliation with 51 votes instead of 60.
Now, I have heard from some of my Republican colleagues who tell us: Well, this reconciliation concept, that is a radical idea. Why are you using reconciliation?
They are telling us that it is absolutely imperative that we go forward in a bipartisan way and require 60 votes for passage. But I must say that when Republicans used this same reconciliation process, I didn't hear much about bipartisanship at that point. In fact, Republicans used the reconciliation process to provide trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large, profitable corporations by a simple majority vote. The only people who voted for that bill were Republicans--no bipartisanship in that bill.
My Republican colleagues used reconciliation to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the drilling of oil--once again by a simple majority. The only people who supported that were Republicans-- not one Democrat.
As we all remember, painfully, my Republican colleagues used the reconciliation process to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act and throw up to 32 million Americans off of the healthcare they currently have. As you will recall, that was a 100-percent partisan vote, which fortunately lost by one vote.
Further, weeks--weeks--before a Presidential election, the last election, my Republican colleagues pushed through their nominee for the Supreme Court with 50 votes. That was a few weeks before the election. Not one Democrat supported that nominee--a totally partisan vote.
Well, as the incoming chair of the Senate Budget Committee, this is what I believe: If Republicans can use reconciliation to help the wealthy and the powerful and pass legislation strongly opposed by the American people, we can and must use reconciliation to help Americans recover from the worst economic and public health crisis in the modern history of our country. In other words, now is the time for this Congress to stand with the working class and the middle class of this country and do what the overwhelming majority of the American people want us to do.
It is worth pointing out that poll after poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans--over 70 percent--support what President Biden and what we are trying to do. They know we have to act boldly.
So I hope we will not hear much more about bipartisanship, given my Republican colleagues' record on that issue.
Let us be clear. The working class of this country and the middle class are facing more economic desperation than at any time since the Great Depression. I have to tell you that to me, emotionally, it was a painful sight to see in my own city of Burlington, VT, hundreds of cars lined up so that families could get the food they needed to feed their kids. What happened in Burlington is happening in every State of this country. People--many of whom have never had any public assistance at all--are lining up to get emergency supplies of food in order to keep their families alive.
Whether it is the pandemic, which is killing 3,000 people a day; whether it is the economic collapse, which is leaving millions of our people destitute; whether it is the disruption of education in this country, which means that kids are falling further and further behind, this Congress must act and act boldly.
For too long Congress has responded to the needs of the wealthy and the powerful and big-money campaign contributors. Now is the time, in this unprecedented set of crises, for us to respond to the needs of working families, whether they are Black or White, Latino, Native American, or Asian American.
It is no secret that millions of our fellow Americans are literally giving up on democracy--giving up on democracy. They think that the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Government does not care a whit about the needs of working people. The people who go to work every day, who keep our country going, who put their lives on the line during this pandemic, they look at us, and they say: Does anybody there in Washington--all you rich guys, do you understand what is going on in our lives?
Well, this week, during this debate, we are not only going to begin addressing the health and economic and educational crises we face, but maybe, even more importantly, we are going to begin the process of restoring faith in the U.S. Government. Maybe, just maybe, we can do what Abraham Lincoln talked about in the midst of the terrible Civil War, and that is, be a government and act like a government of the people, by the people, and for the people and not just powerful special interests and their lobbyists.
What will this budget resolution mean for the average American? I know we are throwing out a lot of numbers; $1.9 trillion is a lot of money. What does it actually mean? How is it going to impact the lives of ordinary people? Let me just say a few words on that.
Everybody is concerned about the pandemic, which has taken so many lives and caused so much illness and suffering. What this legislation is about is an effort to aggressively crush the pandemic and enable the American people to return to their jobs and schools by providing the funding necessary to establish a national emergency program to produce the quantity of vaccines that we need. We need to increase vaccine production, and, equally important, we need to significantly improve the distribution of vaccines so that we get them into the arms of people as quickly as we can.
What this legislation means is that during this severe economic downturn, we must make sure that all Americans--low-income people, working-class people, middle-class people--have the financial resources that they need to live with dignity. This budget resolution will allow us to keep the promises that we made to the American people and increase the $600 in direct payments for working-class adults and their kids up to $2,000--another $1,400.
I want you just to think--whether it is Connecticut or Vermont or South Carolina or anyplace else--think about, during this terrible crisis, what it will mean to an average family to suddenly get a check for $5,600 for a family of four on top of the $600 per person that they received a few weeks ago. Think about what that will mean to people who are losing hope right now.
Passing this budget resolution will give us the tools we need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour, expand unemployment benefits, expand the child tax credit, and prevent eviction, homelessness, and hunger.
Passing this budget resolution means that during this raging pandemic, we will be able to provide healthcare to millions of Americans who are uninsured and underinsured by expanding Medicaid, improving the Affordable Care Act, and other approaches.
Passing this budget resolution means that we will go a long, long way forward to addressing the long-term problem of childhood poverty in America, and that is that by expanding the child tax credit, we have the opportunity to cut childhood poverty in this country in half and no longer be the major country on Earth which has one of the highest rates of childhood poverty.
Let me very briefly mention a few of the specific provisions in the budget resolution that will enable the Senate to pass this budget under reconciliation.
First, as I just mentioned, the overwhelming majority of the American people have told us very loudly and clearly that the $600 direct payment that Congress passed in December was a good start but is not enough. In this bill, we are going to increase that $600 by another $1,400.
We cannot continue to allow workers in America to work at jobs that pay them a starvation wage. A United States of America job should lift you out of poverty and not keep you in it. So let us be clear: When we increase that minimum wage to $15 an hour, not only will we be providing a much needed raise for tens of millions of American workers, we will also, by the way, save taxpayers many billions of dollars each and every year.
Moreover, this pandemic has caused tens of millions of American workers to lose their jobs through no fault of their own. For 45 consecutive weeks, unemployment claims have been higher than during the worst week of the great recession in 2008. This budget resolution that we are considering now will provide the funding necessary to provide 18 million Americans with $400 a week in supplemental unemployment benefits until the end of September.
So, if you are watching us--if you are watching TV now because you are unemployed when you would rather be at work--understand that this bill will extend unemployment $400 on top of the normal unemployment your State provides until the end of September. We have not forgotten the unemployed.
Further, all of us know that we have a childcare crisis in America. It was severe before the pandemic. It is even worse now. This budget resolution would begin to provide the resources necessary to provide childcare to 875,000 children in America, and it would expand the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,000 and $3,600 for kids under the age of 6. In other words, we hear what working families are going through, especially those who are struggling and hav children. This will be a major, major step in improving lives and easing anxiety for young couples with kids.
In addition, let us not forget this pandemic has had a horrific toll on the finances of State and local governments, many of which are literally on the verge of bankruptcy. Over the past 10 months, State and local governments have laid off some 1.4 million workers, including 50,000 in December alone. These are teachers, firemen, cops, and other municipal and State employees. The budget resolution that we are debating today will provide $350 billion to prevent mass layoffs of public sector workers in State and local governments. The Congressional Budget Office has said that the best bang for the buck of all the money Congress has passed so far for COVID relief is to aid State and local governments.
Further, if there is one thing this horrific pandemic should have taught all of us, it is that we must no longer consider healthcare as simply an employee benefit. Healthcare must be a human right. It is unacceptable to my mind that over 14 million Americans have lost their employer-provided health benefits over the past 10 months. Over 14 million workers have lost their health coverage, impacting even more people because there are wives and husbands and children involved as well.
This budget resolution, will, among other healthcare provisions, enable the Senate to expand Medicaid. It will allow more Americans to receive the primary care that they need through community health centers. It will address the serious shortage of doctors and nurses in rural areas and inner cities by expanding the National Health Service Corps and will make sure that our veterans receive the healthcare that they have earned and deserve by increasing funding at the VA by $17 billion.
In addition, in the wealthiest country on Earth, we can no longer tolerate hunger in America, and this budget resolution will enable the Senate to provide nutrition assistance to tens of millions of families struggling to get the food that they need--and that includes the disabled and the elderly--by expanding SNAP, WIC, and the Pandemic EBT Program.
In America today, some 14 million Americans owe an average of $5,800 in back rent. If we do not get our act together, tens of millions of Americans will soon face the possibility of being thrown out of their apartments and homes and onto the streets. This budget resolution that we are debating will provide the funding for rent relief, utility assistance, and mortgage relief to millions of tenants and homeowners who are in danger of eviction or foreclosure.
It also deals with the shame of homelessness in America. Today, in the midst of the dead of winter, we cannot have hundreds of thousands of Americans sleeping in homeless shelters, in their cars, or out on the streets. And right here, in walking distance from this Capitol, there are tents located in parks where Americans are sleeping in the middle of the winter.
This resolution provides investments in appropriate housing that will protect the health of our people and help decrease COVID-19 transmissions with safe and socially distant housing.
Further, all of us must acknowledge that there is a pension crisis in America today. As a result of the greed on Wall Street, workers and retirees and multiemployer pension plans are in danger of seeing their retirement benefits cut by as much as 65 percent. That is unacceptable. Promises were made to those workers, and the U.S. Congress cannot renege on those promises.
Not only is this $1.9 trillion emergency COVID-relief package the right thing to do from a moral perspective and a public policy perspective, it is exactly what the overwhelming majority of the American people want us to do. According to a recent poll from Change Research, nearly 70 percent of the American people support President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 plan; 83 percent support boosting direct payments from $600 to $2,000; 64 percent support raising the Federal minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour; and 62 percent of voters support additional unemployment benefits.
We are living in an unprecedented moment in American history. The last year has been a year the likes of which none of us have experienced in our lifetime. And the American people, who are living in pain, in anxiety, in isolation--they are looking to the U.S. Senate, and they are saying: Are you going to hear and understand what we are going through? Are you going to do something to address the terrible problems in terms of healthcare, the economy, and education that we are experiencing?
It is no great secret that, for many years, the Congress has listened very attentively to the needs of billionaires, to the needs of campaign contributors, and to the needs of lobbyists. Now is the time for us to listen to the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, the disabled, and the poor. Now is the time to restore confidence that the American Government works for all of us and not just the few.
I urge passage of this important, important piece of legislation.
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