Endless Frontier Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. Madam President, my friend from Ohio is correct. In many respects, it ought to feel like morning again in America. After all, COVID-19 is finally on the retreat. The vaccines have been a roaring success because of Operation Warp Speed. One hundred and twenty-four million Americans are now fully immunized, and another 30 million are halfway there. With the exception of a few holdout States, the mask mandates are gone, thank goodness. By all measures, our economy should be firing on all cylinders, but America now has a workforce problem. People are not heading back to work.

In February, the Congressional Budget Office predicted our economy would return to its prepandemic size by the middle of the year without receiving any new stimulus from Congress. Regrettably, Democrats in this Chamber brushed off that optimism from the CBO. They decided to pass more stimulus, to the tune of $1.9 trillion.

This time, the money was excessive. It was poorly targeted and passed without bipartisan consensus. Three months later, the results are unflattering for my Democratic friends. Last month, our economy produced a paltry 266,000 jobs when experts had predicted over 1 million jobs--this at a time when our economy has a record 8 million jobs available, jobs that need to be filled.

Small businesses are desperate to hire. Restaurants, for instance, are having trouble finding people to become waiters and chefs. The National Restaurant Association reports that, in January, 8 percent of restaurant operators said finding and keeping workers was their No. 1 concern. That number doubled in February. It doubled again in March and then again in April. According to the latest survey, 57 percent of restaurant operators now say that finding and keeping employees is their biggest problem. The same problem exists across multiple sectors--hotels, construction, lawn care, welding, tech. The list goes on.

Americans would be streaming back into the workforce if not for the counterproductive policies passed by the majority. Government is now paying millions of able-bodied Americans to stay home, to stay home when they could be back on the job. Expanded unemployment benefits have become a hindrance to our recovery rather than a help, just as many of us had warned.

March 2020 was a unique moment of emergency that called for urgent financial relief for the American people. This body passed it on a sweeping bipartisan basis. But it is now May of 2021. The hour of emergency has passed. Americans need policies to help them reenter the workforce.

Fortunately, millions of Americans have Governors who are pushing back against Washington's pay-to-stay-at-home policies. Governor Tate Reeves, in my State of Mississippi, is one example. I commend Governor Reeves for opting out of the expanded Federal unemployment funds in order to help our State embark on a full recovery. Nearly half of all Governors now share the same mind and are saying no to those unnecessary funds.

Madam President, the American people elected a 50-50 Senate and a narrowly divided House. They do not want drastic changes or dramatic growth of government. They simply want to put this pandemic behind them and get back to providing for their families.

Americans need government to get out of the way, and Republicans stand with the American people and on the side of a full recovery.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. And I certainly withdraw my reservation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source