Setting Forth the Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, we have already begun to hear a little revisionist history with respect to this crucial issue. There was exactly one amendment on the CARES Act, and that amendment, supported by almost every Senator on the other side of the aisle, basically would have blown up the law that I put special focus on because it was deemed the only way to get expanded unemployment benefits out to folks in a timely way.
We were told that there was all this bipartisanship. Yet on the crucial issue, that wasn't the case because that benefit, in particular, is what helped scores and scores of communities all across the country stay afloat because that money was spent locally. It was spent on rent. It was spent on groceries. And most of all, it was weekly. Yet there was exactly one amendment on the original legislation, and that one amendment was to blow up the only way to get checks out to folks relatively quickly--point No. 1.
Point No. 2, these were not folks who didn't want to work. They were told by their government--told by their government--that they really needed to be at home to deal with the virus. These folks want to work; there is no question about it.
We are going to talk about this, I imagine, in this debate, but study after study has shown that the expanded unemployment during this period was not a disincentive to work. There is just no evidence of that. In fact, when we look at crucial periods of time when people might have stayed home, they were rushing to get back to work.
We are going to discuss this, and I am going to start the debate now on where we are at this moment because I think this discussion comes down to a simple proposition; that is, whether millions of workers and their families should have to spend years and years living in the wreckage of the COVID economy. The jobs recovery for millions is going in reverse.
Millions of Americans have lost jobs through no fault of their own. Maybe they were working at the airport. Maybe they were tending bar. Maybe they were teaching our kids when the worst pandemic--the worst pandemic in a century--swept the United States. They didn't do anything wrong.
The question now is whether the U.S. Senate is going to step in with big policies to actually be of help to them or whether it is going to quit on those workers when they need a modest amount of assistance until everybody gets vaccinated.
President Biden has a strong, focused plan that is going to meet the moment, get relief to workers in the middle class, and kick-start the jobs recovery. The plan that was brought forward yesterday by 10 Republican Senators doesn't come close to meeting that bar.
The debate isn't a whole lot more complicated than that. I am glad that there is some agreement on both sides for funding vaccines. Yet the economic divide in this debate is very clear.
Here are the key facts as we start this discussion. The independent experts at the Congressional Budget Office released a new report yesterday that shows how long-lasting this jobs crisis is really going to be. According to the Budget Office, it could be more than 5 years before the unemployment rate even begins to approach where it was a year ago.
Millions of workers could stay stuck on an economic tightrope, worried about eviction, worried about going hungry, wages to flatline for the better part of the decade.
Americans know what happens when Congress takes its foot off the gas, slows down the recovery, because that is what happened a little bit over a decade ago--12 years exactly. The great recession hit, but in early 2009, the Senate decided, we are going to go small. I was around. Everybody was told: You know, not so bad if you go small because the Senate will get a second bite at the apple. Nobody ever got a second bite at the apple, and workers suffered and suffered some more. In my home State, it took 7\1/2\ years in Oregon for the unemployment rate to fall back to where it was before the recession.
Recent history tells us you have to go big. We are hearing from economic experts telling the Senate to go big. Treasury Secretary Yellen, fresh off her unanimous, 26-to-0 vote in the Finance Committee, and Fed Chair Powell are saying: Go small and you make a big mistake.
That is why the outline that a group of my Republican colleagues brought forward this week just does not get the job done. It is the same playbook as 2009, and it leaves too many workers on the economic tightrope for years to come.
The budget resolution before the Senate has some big solutions on the economy and for our workers. Right off the top, it makes investments in vaccines and care that is needed to end the pandemic as quickly as possible. This is the No. 1 way to get the lives of Americans back to normal. It is not going to happen overnight.
In the meantime, our economy needs another rescue package. That is what the resolution, the budget resolution, essentially sets up. It is hard to figure, when you are at home, all of the legalese and lingo, but now we are really dealing with the lives and the well-being of the American people, and this is what starts us in the right direction.
Here are three examples of why this resolution is so important.
First, it sends big financial support to jobless Americans. There is not going to be a full jobs recovery as long as it is unsafe to go to restaurants indoors or go to conventions or pack fans in the basketball arenas. Those workers need help.
As I mentioned when we heard a little revisionist history on the expanded unemployment earlier, as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I negotiated the $600-per-week boost and expansion of unemployment insurance last year in the CARES Act. It was an economic lifesaver for workers who used that money to pay rent, to buy groceries, and to cover the cost of medicine. I still have those workers come up to me and say: Ron, I heard about what was going on in the Senate. You all gave me the money to pay for my car insurance, because if I didn't have that car insurance, life in our family would just fall apart.
So contrary to what we heard earlier--and during the course of this debate, I am going to put several studies into the Record. There has never been hard evidence that enhanced, expanded unemployment benefits in any way held back the recovery. In fact, when enhanced unemployment benefits expired last summer, the job recovery actually slowed down.
In December, our colleagues on the other side extended unemployment insurance just to mid-March, and they cut the additional benefit in half. I believe that was also a big mistake. Between the worst economy since World War II and the pandemic entering its second year in America, you couldn't find a worse time for Senators to start nickel- and-diming workers--hard-hit workers--out of the relief they so desperately need.
As I noted, there was just one vote, only one vote in the original CARES package, and that vote was led by my colleagues who would have blown up the only way to get benefits in a relatively quick way out to millions of workers.
In my hometown, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,750. Traditional unemployment insurance benefits don't come anywhere near paying that rent. If you are a single parent trying to raise one or two kids, even with the expanded benefit, you are barely making ends meet. If you are a two-income household, it can also be a big struggle. Nobody is going out buying boats with their unemployment insurance benefits. They are spending it at corner stores, local markets, going to the pharmacy, paying for medicine for kids who aren't feeling well.
The budget resolution before the Senate calls for a 6-month extension with an extra boost of $400 per week. It is a proposal that I support. In later packages, I want colleagues to know, I am going to keep pushing for the full $600. And I believe that Congress ought to tie the extension of unemployment benefits to economic conditions in our communities, to economic conditions on the ground. It is just common sense.
Unemployment insurance works best when it covers all workers, when it pays an adequate benefit, and when Members of the U.S. Senate can't politicalize it by setting arbitrary dates and setting up cliffs when people are going to get cut off of those benefits.
Second, the budget resolution helps bring back jobs. The RESTAURANTS Act is a vital jobs program. It will save a lot of jobs in one of the industries hardest hit by the pandemic, and it is particularly important because a lot of restaurants weren't able to take advantage of the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program.
Another key jobs proposal that is part of this resolution is help for States and localities. I want to make something clear for the record about State and local funding because this has been attacked by our colleagues on the other side since last March. I would bet my last dollar that somebody will come down to the Senate floor this week and rail about the so-called blue State bailout and say it is all waste. That is nonsense.
State and local funding is first and foremost about jobs that are a lifeline. It is about firefighters. It is about road crews. It is about sanitation workers. It is about public health employees. It is about teachers. It has nothing to do with red States or blue States; it is about saving people's jobs in communities across the country, and those are jobs where they are out saving people's lives. Nearly 1.5 million of these essential workers have already lost their jobs since the pandemic began, and unless Congress provides funding to States and localities, even more will be laid off this year.
Third, the budget resolution is going to put money into the pockets of working families and the middle class. The fact is, tens of millions of American families are literally one financial setback away from devastation. That should have been clear before the pandemic. There is certainly no denying it today
Increasing relief checks to $2,000 is going to help, especially because so many workers have lost hours or taken lower paying jobs than they had a year ago. But the budget resolution also includes fresh ideas from President Biden and colleagues on this side to increase family incomes--first and foremost, expanding the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. In my view, this is long overdue.
People always ask, well, what is it really going to do? What is it going to do that is meaningful to our country? What we are told is that effort is going to cut child poverty in half. Just try to put your arms around that.
When you go home to talk to folks and they ask, hey, what is going on there, you can say, I am part of an effort--a sensible effort which for many years had some real Republican support--I am supportive of an effort to cut child poverty in half, give millions and millions of families a chance to get ahead. It sure sounds to me that a policy like that is a no-brainer.
I am going to close by briefly addressing arguments I have heard coming from the other side.
First, I heard a number of Members say that the price tag is too high. Well, I will tell you, if you voted for Donald Trump's deficit- financed handouts to multinational corporations and billionaires, you cannot credibly argue that the relief for workers is fiscally reckless. And the fact is, the deficit isn't going to get better until unemployment comes down and the economy gets back to strong and consistent growth.
Second, I have heard some Senators suggest that the budget resolution is bad for unity. My answer to that is, the only place where big, bold economic relief is a divisive proposition is within the four walls of the U.S. Senate. We have seen the polls--overwhelming support for these key positions, the key policies that are part of this budget resolution. I would submit to my colleagues, the only place where there is really a strong division on the value of this budget resolution is within the four walls of the Senate.
The last point is a little bit personal. The President of the Senate and I have known each other a lot of years. We worked very closely in the other body and here. I, over time, have gotten a fair amount of flak for sometimes being too bipartisan, doing too much to try to bring both sides together. I always will say--always--it is better if you can find common ground.
But calls for unity aren't supposed to be a political baseball bat where you club somebody. They are supposed to be real. They are supposed to be about finding common ground, not about stalling for the sole purpose of stalling.
What you see in this budget resolution is exactly the kind of plan that Americans voted for and the overwhelming majority of Americans support. That is why I am strongly behind this resolution.
As a senior member of our party on the Finance Committee, I am looking forward to a lot of debate on this issue. That is why I felt it was important to step in when we heard some revisionist history from the other side that there hadn't been any partisanship. There sure was on that very first vote on the CARES Act.
This is an important debate. What is really most important is that while we continue to listen to our colleagues on the other side, while we continue to reach out, which I am committed to do, the U.S. Senate get this job done because there is too much economic hurt in America to do otherwise.
We have another unemployment cliff coming in just a few weeks. Technically, the date is March 14. That is when the next round of unemployment expires. I really think we have to get this done by the beginning of March. There is no time to waste.
I urge my colleagues to support the resolution, as I will.
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