Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DOGGETT. ``Reconciliation'' defines not only this budget process, but, to most Americans, it simply means that you come together to overcome prior differences. President Biden has made clear his desire to reconcile, to come together. We welcome Republican proposals, but we steadfastly reject Republican delay. Too many Americans are struggling to let these filibustering Republican Senators repeat what happened last year. You remember, Mr. Speaker. We waited, we waited, and we waited more than seven months, and, finally, they yielded at the edge of Christmas and gave us too little, too late.

After so much dithering, today represents an opportunity for Republicans to reconcile. They need to reconcile with the truth. They need to reconcile with the facts--not phony ``alternative facts,'' but reality; to come together, with us, for American families who never received those 100 million vaccines that President Trump told us would be here last year, to reconcile with the reality of anxious Americans today who are out there calling, standing in lines, and trying anxiously to get some protection from this pandemic that wasn't provided last year.

When the Senate is permitted to become a graveyard for important legislation for American families, too many Americans are sent prematurely to the graveyard.

Could anyone have imagined here a year ago that Trump Republicans who refused to prepare and respond to this pandemic--remember when they claimed that the virus would simply just disappear like a miracle?

Could anyone have imagined that now as a result of their approach, almost half a million Americans are dead and more to come from their vanishing virus?

As that virus has evolved to become more transmittable, cannot our colleagues evolve to hear the need for vaccine, for food, and to not having people sleep under bridges?

Let's reconcile, let's make amends, and let's deliver relief now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source