Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3608

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk for a few minutes about the Coronavirus Relief Fund Flexibility for State and Local Government Act. Before I get to my motion, I just want to make a couple of points.

Point 1, as you know, we have passed four bills dealing with the pool of misery America and the world find themselves in with respect to the coronavirus. We have spent a breathtaking amount of money. I never imagined that I would vote for bills of the magnitude that I have voted for, but we all did what we had to do.

If you add up the four bills, we have spent $3 trillion so far. I have expressed it this way before, but I am going to keep doing it because it is just a breathtaking amount of money: $3 trillion is 3-0- 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 taxpayer dollars. We may have to spend another $3 trillion

As you know, we set up some facilities at the Federal Reserve. They are called 13(3) facilities, through which the Federal Reserve is loaning money to American businesses to try to keep them afloat after the government shut down the American economy.

The Federal Reserve cannot lose money. I am not suggesting that all $3 trillion that the Federal Reserve ends up loaning out will remain unpaid. I hope not. But for the portion that does go into default, we are going to have to appropriate money to cover those losses. We already appropriated $450 billion, but if the losses go higher, we have to cover them.

We have spent $3 trillion for certain and, potentially, we are going to have to spend another $3 trillion. It is a staggering amount of money. The entire U.S. economy, the greatest economy in all of human history, to put things in context, is $21 trillion a year. That is how much we produce a year if you add up all the goods and services that we, as Americans, produce.

As you know, Speaker Pelosi has introduced yet another bill, a fifth bill. The House has passed it. It was on a party-line vote. I think one Republican voted for the bill. A number of Democrats voted against it. It was a close vote, but the House passed it at Speaker Pelosi's suggestion. It would cost another $3 trillion.

I have to tell you, when I first heard about the bill and after I looked at the bill, I was very, very surprised. I was shocked. I don't mean to overstate my case. I didn't faint or anything, but maybe it would be fair to say that my emotions were a cross between surprise and shocked.

It is not a coronavirus bill. It is a ``remake American society'' bill. For one thing, it would cost another $3 trillion. I am not going to recite the zeros again, but $3 trillion is $3,000 billion on top of the money we have already spent. It really would remake American society.

The Speaker included provisions about immigration laws. A lot of taxpayer money would be given to people who are in our country illegally. It would let Federal prisoners go free. It would expand the Affordable Care Act, which even President Obama calls Obamacare. I remember when ObamaCare passed. We were promised--President Obama promised--that if you pass this bill, health insurance will be cheaper, and it will be more accessible, and your life will be better. None of those things have any resemblance to reality.

Of course, I could go on about Speaker Pelosi's legislation. It is not going to pass the Senate. I suspect she knows that. What is going to happen next in this opera? Well, if past is prologue, the majority leader and the minority leader in the Senate and the majority leader in the House and the Speaker and Secretary Mnuchin--all of whom I have respect for--will go off and they will negotiate a deal, and then they will come back and they will present it to the Senate and the House. I could be wrong, of course. I am in labor, not management. I could be wrong, of course, but the bill will not go through regular order. It will never be considered by committee. We probably will not be allowed to amend the bill because a deal has been made. It will be ``take it or leave it.''

Now, if past is prologue, given the circumstances, people will moan and groan, but they will vote for the bill, whether they know what is in it or not, whether they were included in the discussions or not. That is what happened with the CARES Act.

I am not sure that is going to happen this time. I am not sure that this time the non-negotiating Senators and House Members are going to moo and follow their leaders into the chute like cows. I think this time might be different. I am not saying that is a good or bad thing. It depends on what the deal is. I am raising the possibility.

Speaker Pelosi could eliminate every other word in her bill and cut the price tag in half and I still don't think that the Republicans of the Senate are going to support it. If she takes out all the goodies for the leftwing--the left leftwing--of her party--I don't use that in a pejorative sense. If she takes out all the goodies that remake Western civilization in her bill, I am not sure that the leftwing of her party in the House is going to vote for it. What I am saying is, for better or worse, I am not sure there is going to be a fifth bill. That is point 2.

Point 3, let me go back to our CARES Act. In our CARES Act, we spent an enormous amount of money to help States and to help local governments. We gave $150 billion directly to States and cities to combat the coronavirus. We appropriated extra money on top of that for public schools. We appropriated extra money on top of that $150 billion for universities. We appropriated extra money on top of all that for our hospitals, many of which are public.

We appropriated extra money on top of all of that to give States extra Medicaid money. My State received $1.8 billion for State and local government, $300 million for public schools, $200 million for universities, over $600 million and climbing for our hospitals, and extra Medicaid money. It is about $3.5 billion in Louisiana. That is a lot of money along the bayou.

I want to dissuade people who say we haven't done anything for State and local government. We have. We have done a lot. That is point 3.

Point 4, I am not guaranteeing it is my final point, but I intend it to be. Point 4, the $1.8 billion that we gave State and local government has restrictions. It can only be spent combating the coronavirus. If you don't spend it combating the coronavirus, you are supposed to give it back. That will happen when donkeys fly. We will never see that money again. It is spent, for better or worse. And I voted for the bill. I don't think any fairminded person can deny the fact--and I think it is a fact--that as a result of the coronavirus, just as the Federal Government has had and will have revenue shortfalls, so will State governments and so will cities. People haven't been paying sales tax because they haven't been buying stuff. People haven't been paying income tax at the State and local levels because they haven't been working. I wish that weren't the case, but it is a fact.

My bill would say to those States and cities: You can use the $1.8 billion to offset revenue shortfalls. Some of my colleagues for whom I have great respect--one of them is here tonight, Senator Rick Scott, and I mean that. He was a heck of a Governor. He is a heck of a Senator. They have argued that we shouldn't give that flexibility because some States are mismanaged. I agree with that. I do. If I were King for a day and had a magic wand, I would take all of the many measures that then-Governor Scott implemented in Florida and say we need to do these in every State. We can debate whether that would violate federalism, but I watched him carefully as Governor. He was a great Governor. When he inherited Florida, it was a mess, and he cleaned it up.

So when he and others make the point that we shouldn't bail out mismanaged States, I agree with that. But I can't divorce myself from the fact that every State--mismanaged, well managed, medium managed, poorly managed--has revenue losses as a result of the coronavirus. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't cut their budgets. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't scrub their budgets. We ought to do it at the Federal level. That will happen, too, when donkeys fly. We expect our friends at the State level and at the local level to scrub their budgets, but I still think they are going to come up short. I worry that if they do that and they have to start laying off first responders, it is going to hurt the recovery.

Now, not everybody agrees with what I have just said, and not everybody agrees with Senator Scott's position. Reasonable people disagree sometimes. But this much I also know: Whether you agree or disagree for the next 6 months, Senator Scott is not going to convince, for example, Governor Cuomo of New York to adopt his position. I am pretty confident of that. And over the next 6 months, Governor Cuomo is not going to convince--I know this--Senator Scott to adopt his position. In the meantime, we have a problem to deal with.

I will make one final point. Some of my colleagues have said: Kennedy, we don't need your bill because the Treasury Department through the Secretary of Treasury has issued directives saying that the money can be used for first responders.

Now, look, I am a big Secretary Mnuchin fan. I think he has been a rockstar through this process, but I don't understand this concept of a directive. I know what a rule is. I know what a regulation is. I know what due process is. I know what the Administrative Procedure Act is, and I don't think a directive fits into those categories.

I also know that a Secretary of a department, no matter how bright and capable and talented he may be, cannot change an act of Congress, and the CARES Act doesn't say a dadgum thing about using this money for first responders. If I am a Governor, I am going to worry that, if I do spend the money without an act of Congress, that someday: Knock, knock, knock on my door. Hello? I am from the government. In fact, I am an inspector general, and I want to see your books, and I have looked at your books, and I want you to give that money back. It has happened before.

The only way to give our friends in State and local government security is for us to pass law, not for the bureaucracy to tell us what we did. We know what we did.

Look, I know that some on my side of the aisle disagree with me, and I have learned a little bit in 3\1/2\ years. I have learned two things mostly. I learned this the first week: Everybody up here who smiles at you is not your friend. And, No. 2, I have learned up here you have got to watch what people do, not what they say.

This bill is not coming to the floor of the U.S. Senate anytime soon. I know that. I get it. I am just saying it should. I am saying it if it does--if it does--it will get 90 votes. I am saying, finally, that these revenue losses are real. Managed, mismanaged--we can debate that forever. They are real, and we have got to get this economy up and going again. If States are laying off teachers and first responders and policemen and firemen and people at public hospitals or raising taxes, it is going to be that much harder. That is why we ought to pass my bill.

It doesn't spend a single, solitary new penny--no new money. It just gives Governors and mayors a little more flexibility.

For that reason, I have to read this long script.

1581 be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time, and that the Senate vote on passage of the bill, as amended, with a 60 affirmative vote threshold for passage with no intervening action or debate; finally, if passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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