Setting Forth the Congressional Budget for the United States Government

Floor Speech

Literally, we are fast approaching 450,000 deaths in this country, and people continue to die at the rate of more than 3,000 per day. Our economic progress continues to be stalled. In fact, it is declining, with joblessness increasing across Connecticut and the country. People are struggling to stay in their homes, put food on their tables, and pay for the medicine they need. Our goal should be making sure people have vaccines and the economic support that they need. Instead, we are here on a measure that would, essentially, take away rights, burden rights, for people--women--who need that right.

We ought to be focusing our energy and attention on winning our fight against this pandemic, but, instead, we are here, debating a pretextual and ideological bill, another anti-choice bill--yet another attempt to restrict a woman's right to choose about when and whether to have a child. This bill purports to be about protecting individuals with Down syndrome, but it is merely a pretext for requiring healthcare providers to scrutinize women for their decisions to seek an abortion. The pretext is to take away those individual rights.

As a matter of fact, this bill has nothing to do with protecting people with Down syndrome, and it has nothing to do with addressing discrimination. If my colleague would like to genuinely help people with Down syndrome, he would ask for unanimous consent on legislation that the disability community actually has supported. The National Down Syndrome Society wants increased funding for medical research at the National Institutes of Health. It wants better educational opportunities and settings for people with Down syndrome. It wants laws and policies that ensure economic self-sufficiency and better workplaces and a fight against discrimination.

Those are the legislative priorities of this disability community, but what this bill actually does is it essentially requires healthcare providers to interrogate women about their decisions to seek an abortion. Healthcare providers who might violate this bill, if it ever became law, would incur fines, imprisonment, or both.

In conclusion, people have a right to make these kinds of deeply personal decisions. Those rights are protected under our Constitution. We should be protecting people with Down syndrome, and we should be expanding their opportunities and fighting discrimination, not using them as a pretext for restricting and burdening a woman's right to choose.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am really pleased to follow my colleague Senator Murphy after that very articulate case and to build on the case for keeping our promises to America. The Presiding Officer knows that promises made must be kept, including another $1,400 in stimulus payments to every individual, bringing that total to $2,000, which is what we promised; to make sure that vaccines are available broadly across this country and that schools become places of learning again, in person for students and teachers in a safe learning environment.

What we are doing in this package, which is big and bold--and it has to be--is to put money in people's pockets, put vaccinations in people's arms, and put children back in schools safely. And I emphasize ``safely.''

Now, I was very excited over this past week or 10 days to travel throughout the State of Connecticut and visit clinics where vaccinations are being provided to thousands of people in Connecticut, raising our rate to one of the highest in the country--about 10.3 percent.

I saw nurses and doctors at Danbury Hospital, led by John Murphy, making promises real for people.

I visited Rentschler Field, a former runway turned into a vaccination site for people receiving those shots in their arms from the Community Health Center, headed by Mark Masselli.

I saw vaccinations at Griffin Hospital, a wonderful team headed by Pat Charmel. But here is the story at Griffin Hospital. Last week they did 6,000 doses. This week it will be 2,000, not because of any lack of skilled vaccination person power, not because of any lack of determination--because of lack of vaccine.

Shortages in Connecticut and around the country are impeding and setting back our effort. They are lengthening the tunnel. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it is longer as we delay the vaccine that is necessary to do the job.

There is not enough. It is not reaching the people who need it in enough supply, and it is not being delivered equitably. The numbers in Connecticut show that people in communities of color are nowhere near as likely to receive that vaccine--in fact, perhaps three times less likely.

We need to make sure that delivery is fair and effective in this country, or we will never conquer this pandemic and put America back to work. Using the national Defense Production Act is absolutely necessary, but so is the commitment of $160 billion in this big and bold relief program.

It has to be big and bold. It also has to be done now. Time is not on our side. I have no tolerance for delay or dithering. I have no patience for cuts in this package; $1.9 trillion ought to be our floor, not our ceiling. And if there is a need for targeting those stimulus payments, the money ought to be reallocated to vaccines and to creating safer environments to work and to learn.

Vaccines are important to our schools. Teachers are essential workers. They are on the frontlines. They are putting their lives at risk. They have been demonstrating the courage and conviction to come to school, but they should receive this vaccine.

A safe learning environment means also personal protective equipment, barriers such as we are seeing in restaurants and other public places-- plexiglass and other kinds of dividers. These kinds of essential equipment are the reason that we are advocating $130 billion for our schools.

There are many other steps that must be taken to ensure not only that our learning environments are safe but also that students have the connectivity they need remotely because for some period of time, that will be the way they learn.

More than a third of communities of color in the State of Connecticut, which is thought to be a very sophisticated and advanced State, still lack that connectivity--a third of our seniors. Safe and fair learning environments mean broadband, and that is also another reason for that $130 billion in this package.

Many of these students face serious gaps--1 to 3 months and even longer for some students who have lacked that connectivity--up to 6 months in basic skills: reading, writing, and arithmetic. These kinds of gaps have to be filled.

We need a major effort to focus on our students who have been left behind, and that is why this kind of package is a moral imperative. It is a social obligation. We will lose talents and skills, but students will also lose their future.

We should come together on a bipartisan basis. There is nothing wrong with cooperation, and I hope that my colleagues across the aisle will join with us as we move forward, but we will move forward. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past when efforts to wait meant unconscionable delay. We have no such luxury in this humanitarian crisis. We must move forward, and we will.

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