Coronavirus

Floor Speech

I agree. I have agreed for months. But he also said something that is completely incorrect. You might call it a lie. He said that Republicans have done nothing. That is not true.

I was on daily calls during the August recess after we had attempted and were debating internally a trillion-dollar package at the tail end of July before the August recess, recognizing--and I was one of the ones pointing out--the fact that we had already passed, as the good Senator from Vermont said, over $3 trillion in four different COVID relief financial packages early in the pandemic. At that point in time, there was $1.2 trillion of that unspent. A big chunk of that wasn't even obligated. Today, as we stand here debating this now, we still have a little under $600 billion unspent and unobligated.

So the point I was making to my Republican colleagues during those last few weeks in July and those conference calls in August was, before we authorize any more money, before we further mortgage our children's future, why don't we first repurpose and redirect what we already passed because what we passed, we passed very quickly because we had to. We had to do something massively, and we did something massively so that markets wouldn't seize, so that the people--the individuals who were out of work through no fault of their own and the businesses that were shut down through no fault of their own could get financial relief.

So we came together unanimously, and we did that, but doing it fast, doing it massively--I certainly knew it was going to be far from perfect. We found out the Federal Government actually has a hard time spending $3 trillion because, over the course of a number of months, they didn't spend it all. They couldn't even obligate it.

So what Republicans did during the August recess--because we couldn't come to an agreement by the end of July--was we worked long and hard on a targeted bill, more than $600 billion, $300-plus of it for people on unemployment, $260 billion for small businesses, $100 billion for education, and tens of billions of dollars for vaccines and testing and agriculture and childcare. We offered that on the floor, and 52 Republicans voted to proceed to that bill. Democrats just said no.

I felt it was a crisis, an emergency, and we shouldn't have been turning our backs on these people who are suffering in September. Democrats said no. All they had to do was say yes. They couldn't take yes for an answer.

Madam President, I often use this analogy: I go up to you, because I know you are a generous person, and say: Madam President, give me 200 bucks. And you kind of look at me with a little shock and say: Well, I won't give you 200, but I will give you 100. Then I go stomping off and say: No; it is $200 or nothing.

That is what the Democrats did to over $600 billion in needed and necessary relief for the crisis, for the emergency, for the people we don't want to turn our backs on because they are suffering. If they were really serious and they actually wanted a result, if they wanted to relieve the suffering, wouldn't the logical thing have been to say yes, take $600 billion, pocket it, get that relief flowing in September, and then come back and argue for more? But they said no. They were cynical. They played politics with it. And that is what they are doing here today.

I am sure, to paraphrase a widely known saying, that the road to total national bankruptcy is paved with good intentions. I am sure that is true. I don't question the good intentions of any Member of this body. We all want to provide the relief. We all want to relieve suffering. We all want to help fellow Americans who are hurting through no fault of their own.

But we talk about suffering. We use words. We don't look at numbers very often. The Senator from Vermont has offered a few numbers, but let me quote a couple. Let me just kind of lay it out. I didn't have enough time to do a chart, so I will try and go through this slowly, but I think it is important to put this all in perspective.

Prior to the COVID recession, we had a record number of Americans employed at the end of December 2019. Just under 159 million Americans were employed. By April, 2 months into the pandemic, 3 months into the pandemic, employment had dropped to 133 million. That is a loss of over 25 million jobs--25 million--which is why we acted, why we acted in a bipartisan fashion to provide relief for those people--25 million--who had lost their jobs.

Now, the good news: It is hard to keep the American economy down when you don't overtax, when you don't overregulate. So in November--the latest figures we have--there are now just shy of 150 million Americans employed again. I realize some are underemployed, but still you have 150 million Americans employed--down about 9 million jobs from that record high when unemployment was only 3.5 percent. We had a record economy because we stopped overregulating and we had a competitive tax system. Now the unemployment rate is 6.7 percent.

In the CARES Act, which I supported because I want to help people, part of that was the economic impact payments--basically what the Senator from Vermont is proposing here in this bill he wants to pass by unanimous consent. It spent $274 billion. It was paid to just under 166 million Americans, for an average check of about $1,673 per person.

You can break that down into households because, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the average check per household was $2,400. That is 115 million households that got a check--115 million. Now, remember, at the low point, 25 million Americans had lost their jobs. We sent checks to 115 million households--4\1/2\ times the number of people who had lost their jobs.

My problem with the CARES Act, with the first four packages, is it was a shotgun approach. We just spent money. We just opened up the spigot, and we just sent it all over the place. We didn't have time to target it to those who really needed it. As a result--and we are seeing today--businesses that needed it, business owners, small business owners, have been wiped out of their life savings. They didn't get relief.

It wasn't well designed. It wasn't well targeted. And we probably spent hundreds of billions of dollars and sent it to people who didn't need it.

We are $27.4 trillion in debt today. That is 128 percent of the size of last year's economy. If this bipartisan deal goes through, about $1 trillion, we will be at $28.4 trillion in debt--132 percent of our GDP.

I remember the good old days when I first got here. I ran because we were mortgaging our kids' future. We were a little over $14 trillion in debt, and when the economy was over $15 trillion, we were under 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio.

What the Senator from Vermont is proposing is basically duplicating, without any reforms that I know of, those economic impact payments from the CARES Act, another $275 billion, for a total of $550 billion--a half a trillion dollars sent out again to 115 million households when right now we have only--not ``only,'' this is tragic. Every job lost is a tragedy. But we have 9 million jobs less than we had when we had a record level of employment before the recession--9 million jobs lost, 115 million households. That is 12.6 times the number of jobs that have been lost.

I think the question needs to be, if we are going do this again, is there any sense, any information in terms of how the $275 billion is spent? Well, we have an answer from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They do a monthly internet-based survey called the Survey of Consumer Expectation. They did two special surveys, one in June and one in August. The June survey took a look at how those households spent the $2,400 checks. Here are the results: 18 percent of those checks were spent on essential consumption--essential; 8 percent was on nonessential, the fun stuff, I guess; 3 percent on donations--Americans are still generous--for a total of 29 percent spent on consumption. The marginal propensity to consume was 29 percent. For the remainder, 71 percent, half of it was put to savings--spent on increasing savings-- and the other half was paying off debt.

They also studied how the unemployment plus-up was spent. It had pretty similar results: 24 percent of those dollars went for essential consumer goods; 4 percent, non-essential; 1 percent, donations. Again, a total of 29 percent was consumed; 71 percent was either saved or used for debt reduction.

They did another special survey in August, asking those same 1,300 households that they surveyed: How would you spend a $1,500 check? Not $2,400--$1,500. The response was that 14 percent would be spent on essential items, 7 percent on nonessential, 3 percent on donations. But only 24 percent of a new check would actually be spent on consumption; 76 percent would either be saved or pay off debt.

That is not very good economic stimulus. Again, the numbers are without any reforms, without trying to target the dollars to people who really need it. I would want to do that. I would like to work with anybody to try and get that relief flowing as quickly as possible to get it to the individuals who need it. I am sure the need is still great. It is greater than 9 million. I understand that. But let's look at some figures.

I do want to point out a past stimulus in terms of its effectiveness. In 2009, we had the great recession. Let me quote some employment figures from that.

In January 2008, we had 146 million Americans employed. Remember, today we have 149 million. Our record was 159 million, but there were about 146 million before the great recession.

By December 2009, it had dropped, hit the low point of 138 million people working; 8 million people had lost their jobs.

In January, 2009, President Obama was inaugurated, had total control of government, a filibuster-proof Senate, control of the House. He could pass anything he wanted, and they did. They passed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. They did that in February 2009. At that point, there were 141.6 million Americans working--141.6 million Americans. The unemployment rate was 8.3 percent. Again, throughout 2009, that stimulus didn't work too well because unemployment fell to 138 million Americans. It took 3 years--3 years--until January 2012, because of overregulation and overtaxation, to return to February 2009 levels of 141.6 million Americans working--3 years. That is what we call a slow, nonexistent recovery.

Oh, a quick aside: The Senator from Vermont is talking about how we need the $600 plus-up for the unemployed because they are suffering. President Obama, with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, with a filibuster-proof Senate--they provided a $25-per-week plus-up to State unemployment when they had total control. Now they are demanding $600. I know that is not part of what the Senator from Vermont is asking for in terms of a unanimous consent request. I thought it was just somewhat noteworthy.

Again, I am not heartless. I want to help people. I voted to help people. I voted for the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, but I also am concerned about our children's future and the fact that we are mortgaging it. We do not have an unlimited checking account. We have to be concerned about these things.

My complaint about the Senator from Vermont's bill--and, quite honestly, the bipartisan effort--we have $600 billion unspent, unobligated. Let's work long and hard. Let's look at economic data. Let's target it properly. Let's not just shotgun it out to the economy again, wasting tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. Let's focus on that. Let's pretend it is like real money--like it is our money--and spend it well. We don't need to mortgage our children's future by another $300 or $400 billion. We don't need to do that.

We can alleviate suffering. We can help our fellow Americans. We could have done it in September, but the good Senator from Vermont and all of his colleagues on the Democratic side simply won't take yes for an answer, and my guess is, they are taking that same stance today.

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