American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, some of us have been here for some period of time. Some of us have heard this debate before. My friend, Mr. Reed, from New York, opined, and others have opined, about how we passed a number of bipartisan bills, five to be exact. March 4, March 14, March 27, April 24, and then we had a hiatus, because the majority leader of the Senate said we ought to take a break and see what happens, and the minority leader of the House said the same thing. So we didn't take any action. Frankly, tens of thousands of people died-- hundreds of thousands of people died.

Now, I point out that we have acted five times: 415-2, 363-40--a voice vote on the CARES Act, $2 trillion--388-5, and 359-53.

Now, if you include the CASH Act, which we passed, because the President, i.e., Mr. Trump, said we needed more money for people, so we passed the bill and 44 Republicans voted for that one as well.

Now, there is only one thing that has changed since we passed those first five bills. We now have a Democratic President and not a Republican President. That is the only thing that has changed.

The need is there. The virus is still with us. The economy is struggling. But now we have a Democratic President, so I expect zero of you to vote for this.

Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I expect zero Republicans to vote for this bill.

Why do I expect that? Because I was here in 2009 when, under George Bush, we went into the deepest recession this country has seen since the Great Depression.

Very frankly, Mr. Speaker, we passed two major pieces of legislation to deal with that recession. One was called TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. A Republican President and Democrats passed that bill. Only a third, Mr. Speaker, of the Republicans would support President Bush.

You can shake your head, but you look at the Record, that is the fact. That is the fact.

Democrats supported the request of a Republican President because we thought it was in the best interests of the country and our people. And the only reason it passed this House is because Democrats, 172 of us, stood up with George Bush and voted for that program. And it was a bad vote for us. It was the right thing to do, but politically it was a bad vote.

How sad, Mr. Speaker, I think it is that we passed five bipartisan votes with a Republican President. Now the President is different, and we don't want to give him any credit, so we are going to cut off the nose of the American people to spite the face of America.

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic majority in the Senate has taken action, passing an amended version of the American Rescue Plan that this House approved on February 27. The version they sent us back reflects the same commitment demonstrated by this House to take the big and bold action demanded by the American people and overwhelmingly supported not just by Democrats, but by Republicans.

The Republicans outside this House support this bill. Only the Republicans inside this House, unanimously apparently, oppose this bill while some 60 percent of the Republicans in America polled say, ``We are for this bill.''

But we have a Democratic President, I get it. President Biden's plan is reflected in this legislation. It says President Biden's plan, but this is our plan. This is a plan we built over a year of tough debate, long debate, substantive debate and discussion on both sides of the aisle, and in a bipartisan fashion passed those five bills.

This bill is consistent with the measures we passed last year to confront the challenges to our public health and economic well-being. It achieves a number of critical goals: It puts vaccines into Americans' arms; it will put money in Americans' pockets; it will put children back in classrooms; it will put millions of Americans back to work and reopen businesses safely; and it will put at ease the frontline and essential workers who are in the public sector, like teachers, the first responders, by ensuring that State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments can keep them employed.

Mr. Speaker, the American people overwhelmingly support this legislation, with more than three-quarters in favor of its enactment, according to a Morning Consult poll from March 3rd. I would like to see some of the NRCC polls because I think they give the same message. But, of course, maybe those people polled didn't realize there was a Democratic President. Heaven forbid that we vote for something that a Democratic President wants.

Mr. Speaker, I put our party up to any kind of analysis in terms of our bipartisan support for Republican Presidents when we thought it was in the best interests of the country. Nearly 6 in 10 Republicans want to see this bill passed.

Listen to your people. I am surprised that more of our Republican colleagues are not planning to vote for this legislation. I hope they will do so. I hope they will do so because I think it is in the best interests of our Nation, of our families, of our individuals, of our businesses, of our economy. I hope they will join Democrats in taking action to help the nearly 10 million Americans who are out of work compared to this time last year.

We waited. This is what happened. I hope they will also join Democrats in voting to extend expanded unemployment insurance benefits that would otherwise lapse for more than 11 million families this weekend and to make good on our promise to send another round of $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans.

What are they going to do with that check?

They are going to put it in the economy, and it is going to grow the economy and create jobs.

And I hope they will join us in supporting a massive effort at deploying vaccines and testing so we can defeat this virus.

The American Rescue Plan means an end to the failed approach of hitting the pause button. It didn't work. It is time to hit the start button. It is time to start Building Back Better through bold action. That is a political slogan. I like it. I have a Make It In America slogan myself.

But this is not about slogans. It is about investment in our country, in our economy, and in our people, our families, our children, and, yes, the most vulnerable among us. That is what my faith teaches me to do. This is a vote to face our challenges with all of our strength and resolve. This is a vote to have each other's backs as fellow Americans in this time of difficulty.

Mr. Speaker, with our votes today, we can send this legislation to President Biden so he can sign it into law and get the help that America and Americans need.

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