Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. CLINE. Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the gentleman. Our families are hurting. Our farmers are suffering, and our small businesses are failing from the shutdown policies of Democrat governors like mine in Virginia. They need our support as we manage through this pandemic.
But what they don't need is a $1.9 trillion package packed full of Democrat wish list items that will cripple our economy, including a minimum wage increase that would destroy 1.3 million jobs, according to the CBO, and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out poorly run State governments.
Mr. Speaker, 1 month ago the last COVID relief bill, nearly $1 trillion, was signed into law and, together with previously enacted stimulus laws, over $1 trillion remains unspent. In fact, the CBO, just this week, announced that they project our economy to bounce back over the next several months, without trillions of dollars in additional stimulus aid from Congress, and that much of our recovery hinges on the removal of these shutdown requirements and the pace of vaccinations. That is where our focus should be, ensuring that those who want to be vaccinated receive it, and ensuring that we reopen our businesses and schools as soon as possible.
As a new member of the Budget Committee--or I hope to be a new member of the Budget Committee; we haven't even organized yet for this Congress--I am outraged by the slipshod way this resolution is being rammed through the House. It is like being a member of the Judiciary Committee and having impeachment rushed directly to the floor without hearings. Whoops, did that.
I see the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee still here. I don't know that he would like it so much if we had tax bills that came directly to the floor without going through Ways and Means.
What is next, a farm bill that doesn't go through the Agriculture Committee? A transportation bill that doesn't go through the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee?
You know, the circus being run by House leadership gives a bad name to circuses everywhere.
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