Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. DONALDS. Mr. Speaker, as I walked onto the House floor today, I heard the talk from the other side, talking about wanting to share in good ideas. But what is interesting is, as this budget resolution has come forth, there has been no sharing of ideas.
We have seen a general framework coming from the Biden administration calling for $1.9 trillion, but that completely flies in the face of the fact that there is $1 trillion that this very body, the last Congress, appropriated last year that is still unspent. That money has not gone out the door. Yet, we are talking about solutions to help our country through COVID-19.
Now, my career before politics was actually in finance and economics. I spent 17 years in that field. If you are going to talk about stimulating an economy, the first thing you want to do is actually study the current state of your economy. One of the metrics we always like to use in financial services is the unemployment rate. It is a pretty popular statistic.
Let's take a look at the unemployment rates going on around the country. In my State of Florida, it is 6.1 percent. In Alabama, it is 3.9 percent. In South Carolina, it is 4.6 percent. In Texas, it is 7.2 percent.
Compare that to blue States in our country, New York and California, where they soar over 8 percent.
Why is that happening?
Because their governors and their mayors have refused to reopen their economies.
If you want to stimulate something, actually let the American people get back to work. Let them run their businesses, and you would be surprised at what actually would happen in our economy.
Let's talk about the $15 minimum wage, which is in the Biden plan. I don't know how a $15 minimum wage is going to help struggling small businesses continue to thrive in the current environment. Furthermore, what we have already seen with the $15 minimum wage is that it has led to workers actually getting less hours, less hours at the jobs that they have. I don't see how that is actually helping anybody stimulate an economy.
Let's talk about education. In this plan, right now there is $170 billion, give or take, to go to local school districts to reopen.
But guess what? If they are picketing outside of the school district's school board in Chicago to not go back into the classroom, what is this additional money actually doing?
In Florida, we have been open in our schools. We have done this. There are tens of billions of dollars already available to help school districts reopen. All they need is leadership. They don't need more money.
The last thing I want to add is with respect to State and local governments. Every State government and every local government either gets their money from income taxes, sales taxes; like in the great State of Florida, property taxes on the local level. This is typically how you get your revenue. If you want to help State and local governments take care of their revenue problems, they should open up. They should not come back to this Capitol and get money.
Why should Florida pay for New York?
Except for the fact that the only thing New York has done is help the real estate markets in Florida because New Yorkers are fleeing New York to come to the great State of Florida.
Mr. Speaker, let's be clear. This budget resolution is not about economics. It is not about COVID-19. It is not about helping our schools reopen. This budget resolution is purely politics. It is an opportunity to push through an agenda through budget reconciliation where, if you actually studied our economy and studied the fact that now close to 40 million Americans have been vaccinated with the vaccine from the previous administration, we are on track to getting reopened. We should study this. We should be more targeted. We should not be putting forward a massive spending bill where no study has ever been given.
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