Providing for the Adoption of S. Con. Res. Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Morelle, the gentleman from New York and distinguished member of the Committee on Rules, among other committees of the House, for bringing this important rule to the floor.

Madam Speaker, we just left a meeting with President Biden where we had a discussion about how this legislation meets the needs of the American people. As our colleagues may be aware, early this morning, before 6 a.m., the Senate passed a budget bill, which is identical in instruction to the bill that we sent there.

We had the debate on that bill on Wednesday. It passed with a strong vote in the House, and then went to the Senate. It comes back to us now and we are addressing it. So that is what brings us to the floor now.

What brings us to the floor now is the opportunity to crush the virus, to put vaccines in the arms of the American people, money in the pockets of the American people, children safely in school, people back in their jobs.

We can do that following science and good governance to make it happen. We must do that in a way that addresses the disparities. It is almost sinful to see the disparity in access to some of the vaccines and everything that happened up until now.

As I mentioned the other day in the debate on the budget bill, the GAO has put out a report that at least 90 percent of their recommendations to the Trump administration on how to address the COVID crisis were ignored. Twenty-seven out of 31 were ignored.

This legislation, again, based on science and knowledge, and respect for all the people in our society and in our country, addresses many of those concerns in a more current way as now we have more access to vaccines and people more willing to participate because they have hope. That is what this legislation does. It gives us hope.

It is a reconciliation bill, which means we can just pass it with 51 votes in the Senate. It would be my hope that we don't have to use it as a reconciliation bill, that we will be able to have bipartisanship with the facing of the facts of what is needed to meet the needs of the American people, both in this body and in the United States Senate. But in order to have a guarantee that the people's needs will be met, we are passing this legislation today.

I hope that we will have a very strong vote in favor of crushing the virus, money in the pockets, people back to work, and children, children, children safely in schools.

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