Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge Mr. Yarmuth here for the clarity and the speed with which he has proceeded.

A reminder in support of this resolution here to the previous speaker, the gentleman from Missouri: this is the opening salvo in a process. This is not the conclusion. To talk to the President of the United States this morning without any incendiary rhetoric and no divisive tone, but for him to reiterate good suggestions will be entertained as good suggestions as the process goes forward.

The COVID-19 crisis is far from over. Record numbers of deaths--look at the numbers in front of us, Mr. Speaker.

What has happened?

The number of people who are projected to die by the next quarter, 500,000 Americans dead, 25 million infected, 19 million Americans receiving unemployment insurance.

And we are going too fast in this process?

President Biden and his American rescue plan contains the kind of bold policies that we have sought to advance here for months. We understand that the economy will not recover without first crushing the virus. Mr. Speaker, we will not get the economy back up and running until we defeat the virus and restore safe working conditions, as previously noted.

This public health emergency requires aggressive, science-based action, and it is going to take time. In addition to passing measures to eradicate the pandemic, we must ensure that families and jobless workers are able to afford life's basic necessities, or, as we might say, liquidity and cash flow in the system.

Accomplishing these goals requires us to go big. Economists left, right, and center have all said the same thing in this chorus: Go big.

The Ways and Means Committee is ready to meet this challenge. We are going to beat this virus and we are going to put money into the hands and pockets of the people in America who really need it, extending unemployment assistance, combating child poverty, supporting hard-hit families, the retention tax credit, and the earned income tax credit. We are going to give some help to people in America who, again, really are in harm's way. Passage of this resolution will provide us with an additional pathway to swiftly advance these priorities.

By the way, as of this morning, 76 percent of the American people agree with what we are doing.

In times as desperate as these, we need to prepare our mechanisms so they are ready at our disposal to get the American people the relief they need.

Mr. Speaker, for millions of lives and livelihoods that are at stake, I urge all of my colleagues today, regardless of their party, to support this critical measure.

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