Setting Forth the Congressional Budget for the United States Government

Floor Speech

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Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, more than 3,000 of my fellow New Mexicans have lost their lives to COVID-19. They were New Mexicans like Teresa, an essential medical worker from Springer, NM. She bravely went to work to test Haitians for COVID-19 and to stop the spread of the disease. Tragically, Teresa contracted COVID-19 and passed away over the Christmas holiday, leaving behind her husband Roger and their three children.

But Congress has another chance to spare other families the pain that Teresa's family is experiencing, the very thing that drove Teresa every day to go and save others. This resolution will allow Congress to mount an aggressive public health response and prioritize resources where they are needed most--for vaccines, testing, and public health programs that fight COVID.

Funding included in this package will be aimed at dramatically increasing rates of testing, bolstering the supply chain to increase the availability of testing supplies and personal protective equipment, hiring and training public health workers to administer the vaccine, and increasing vaccine production.

As Congress focuses on getting vaccinations into every arm as quickly as possible, strong Federal funding is especially critical for States like New Mexico, where vaccines and medical supplies must travel longer distances to reach the communities that need them.

We know we have the capacity to get these vaccines in people's arms. We need more vaccine. Vaccines are essential to the priorities I have heard from many of my constituents--safely opening schools as soon as possible because this pandemic is widening the achievement gap that already existed. To meet this goal, Congress must invest in safely reopening schools and make facility improvements to ensure every educator, the people who prepare the food, drive the buses, keep the schools looking clean, social workers and nurses, and every student is safe to return.

America must provide quality distance learning to those who are not yet ready to return and work to address widespread learning loss that exacerbates the achievement gap. It is also clear that the toll of COVID-19 on students' learning and mental health will last for years, meaning investments are necessary well beyond this academic year.

The Senate must act for the families who have lost loved ones, for Roger and Teresa and their three kids, and for parents struggling to keep their students safe and healthy.

The Senate must act to defeat this virus and to rebuild our Nation's economy. It must pass this budget resolution.

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Mr. LUJAN. Mr. President, 50 million Americans, including 17 million children, are facing food insecurity because of this public health and economic crisis, with Black and Latino families more likely to go hungry. In New Mexico, one in three children and one in five adults are at risk of hunger. In the wealthiest country in the world, this is simply unacceptable.

The budget resolution focuses on getting relief to the people who need it most, beginning with an extension of the 15-percent increase in supplemental nutrition assistance benefits through September of 2021. Increasing SNAP benefits has proven to be one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, and it has the dual benefit of allowing families to purchase the food that they need to stay healthy, as well as supporting businesses that accept SNAP dollars.

The budget resolution also bolsters the WIC Program to ensure that children and their mothers have access to a nutritious diet necessary for healthy development, an important investment in the future of our country. This funding increase is especially significant for States like New Mexico, where nearly a quarter of children are born into families with incomes that fall below the Federal poverty line.

In addition to addressing hunger, this resolution includes critical support for the people who grow our food, produce our food--our farmers and ranchers. In New Mexico, farmers and ranchers, who were already struggling due to drought conditions, face new challenges due to COVID- 19. Shuttered restaurants left chile growers and dairy farmers without their customer base and scrambling to find new markets. Ranchers experienced long delays at meat packing plants where workers were hard hit by COVID-19. Those workers need help too. The pandemic also made it harder to find workers to cultivate the land and tend to the animals.

This resolution also supports a provision I advocated for to provide debt relief for minority and disadvantaged farmers and ranchers who did not receive their fair share of COVID relief under the last administration.

It is said that societies are judged by how they treat their most vulnerable. It is sad because not everybody opens their eyes to see how this should be measured.

The Senate must act for the families and children facing hunger and for our hard-working farmers and ranchers--those that are producing food, picking food, preparing food, and getting it to market and stocking the shelves.

We must pass this budget resolution.

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