Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, sure, the Democrats' $2 trillion didn't buy our country anything lasting like a Hoover Dam or an Interstate Highway System--nothing like that--but the money had to go someplace--and, boy, did it ever.

Democrats and lots of the media spent most of 2020 and 2021 shouting that Republicans were risking calamity because we didn't want to dump endless sums into slush funds for State and local governments. It turns out we were right, and they were wrong. State and local governments are now so awash in Democrat bailout money they can't even figure out where to put it.

One recent news report found this bonanza has ``provided a boon for localities seeking to build or upgrade their pickleball amenities.'' Yes, you heard that right.

Dozens of municipalities are adding pickleball courts to their park and recreation offerings--and many are using a slice of their coronavirus aid package to underwrite the construction boom. If the Hoover Dam and the Lincoln Tunnel are enduring monuments to the New Deal's infrastructure spending, perhaps pickleball courts will become a lasting legacy of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

In New York, one county set aside $12 million in so-called relief funds to renovate a minor league baseball stadium. In Iowa, county officials put aside $2 million--listen to this--to buy a private ski area. In Colorado, two golf courses are getting their irrigation systems replaced, thank goodness. In Wisconsin, a skate park is getting a million-dollar makeover.

The American Rescue Plan didn't rescue working people from anything. It only rescued bureaucrats from any semblance--any semblance--of fiscal sanity.

Remember, Democrats openly admitted they viewed pandemic relief as an ideological Trojan horse. They called this terrible, deadly virus ``a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.''

And so right on cue, their so-called rescue plan has funded environmental justice grants to address something called inequitable tree canopy cover in Massachusetts. Some public school systems, in the vice grip of Big Labor, are using their windfalls to advance bizarre indoctrination in things like critical race theory.

The rescue plan dollars have funded staff trainings to make sure the educators paid to look after young kids are up on all of the latest ``woke'' buzzwords and causes.

The American people wouldn't want this junk if it were free. They definitely don't want it for the pricetag of $2 trillion of their money and the worst inflation in a generation.

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