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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) spoke on the Senate floor to voice her opposition to the Democrats’ partisan $1.9 trillion stimulus bill. Senator Fischer explained how the package fails to target aid to those who need it, and called on Congress to work together in a bipartisan manner to deliver relief.
Full Transcript of Senator Fischer’s Floor Speech:
Mr. President, I come to the floor today because the Senate will likely vote soon on the Biden stimulus bill.
I think all of us in this chamber agree that we want to get relief to the American people.
That was our objective when we passed the CARES Act last year, which allocated $2.2 trillion to the relief effort.
It was our objective when we passed four other COVID relief bills in 2020 – and these brought the total up to $4 trillion.
All of these measures were the result of bipartisan cooperation and negotiations – Democrats and Republicans working together.
But right now, the president and congressional Democrats are pushing a completely partisan product through a totally partisan process to promote their progressive agenda.
They call it the “American Rescue Plan,” and the price tag is $1.9 trillion – more than double what we spent after the financial crisis starting in 2008.
When combined with the five COVID packages we’ve already enacted, the total cost to American taxpayers would be close to $6 trillion – more than the GDP of every country other than China or the U.S.
And as of the end of January, hundreds of billions of dollars from these bills had yet to be spent.
December’s relief bill dedicated $284 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program, but only a quarter of those funds had been obligated.
That same bill provided $20 billion for Economic Injury Disaster Loans – none of it had been spent by February 1st.
The same is true of the CARES Act’s funding for community planning programs, for which hundreds of millions of dollars remained unspent.
Over 90 percent of these bills’ combined funding for mental health programs was sitting idle as of late January as well.
Mr. President, the White House calls this bill a QUOTE “emergency legislative package to fund vaccinations, provide immediate, direct relief to families bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis, and support struggling communities.” END QUOTE
Each of these things is important, and support for them should absolutely be part of any package we pass.
But when you look somewhere other than the White House website to find out what is actually in this bill, you see that many parts of it don’t belong in a package that’s meant to help us recover from our fight against this virus.
Let’s start with what will make the biggest difference for working families: the direct payments to individual Americans.
For months, I have supported sending these checks.
I went on the record in December to say that people are hurting and that we should help them with more aid in the form of direct payments.
I think these payments are a good idea.
But they should be targeted to those who truly need them, not sent to people who haven’t been affected in the same way as the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs.
If this once-in-a-century pandemic hasn’t put you out of work at one point or another, you’ve been lucky.
But this plan would give you a check even if you never lost your job and struggled to pay your bills.
That is not right.
This administration had time to work with Republicans to make sure those who need help get it.
They didn’t do that.
Instead, people who never lost their job, get a check.
People who were never furloughed get, a check.
And financially stable families who earned as much as $200,000 last year – they still get a check, too.
Mr. President, if so many Americans are hurting, as we all know they are, our only focus should be getting this aid into their hands, not using their insecurity as a chance to pass a bunch of wish list items from the progressive agenda.
The White House wants Congress to spend billions of dollars on things no COVID aid bill should be addressing.
Many other senators have expressed similar concerns.
We believe that every cent of any COVID relief bill needs to go toward recovery from the effects of COVID on our families and our communities.
The new administration has a chance to show that they really are interested in bipartisanship and unity, two words President Biden uses nearly every day.
They could prove that today by reaching out to Republicans in good faith.
But so far, any effort by the administration to do so has only been to provide an appearance of “working together,” not to make any actual progress on a bipartisan product.
Instead, they are focused on filling this package with progressive priorities.
Let’s take a look at some of the items on that list:
Giving $30 billion to public transit authorities, even though President Biden only asked for $20 billion and several major agencies have said the December relief bill would get them through at least this summer;
Spending $50 million on family planning programs that would not have Hyde protections, meaning that our tax dollars would pay for elective abortions;
Allowing Planned Parenthood to receive small business funding from the Paycheck Protection Program;
Dedicating another $50 million to the troublingly vague goal of QUOTE “combatting the climate crisis” END QUOTE;
Sending $12 billion overseas in aid, which doesn’t belong in a domestic COVID response bill;
And spending over $100 million on a subway system near Speaker Pelosi’s district in the Bay Area.
I will leave it up to my Democratic colleagues to explain how expanding a subway in northern California would help all Americans “build back better” in this pandemic.
So far, they are silent.
This is supposed to be an emergency rescue plan for the Americans who have been hit hardest by COVID.
But instead, the Biden stimulus plan doesn’t make any of the tough decisions we need to make and uses Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars as a blank check.
This proposal also pays lip service to the importance of getting students back into the classroom while asking this body to vote for things that would do exactly the opposite.
Even though almost $70 billion of the funds dedicated to schools in December’s relief bill still hasn’t been spent, this American Rescue Plan would give them nearly $170 billion more.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say this money is necessary for a majority of K-8 schools to safely reopen in the president’s first 100 days – but their bill would reserve 95% of that new money for 2022-2028.
How does that help families today, who want their kids back in school now?
This bill goes even further than that – it would treat schools that choose to open and schools that remain closed the same way, which does nothing to incentivize them to get kids back in classrooms.
This plan would give $350 billion to states, cities, and localities.
A big chunk of that money will be used to bail out states like New York and California, which have kept people away from their jobs and children out of schools for months on end.
Even worse, this bill tallies states and localities’ level of funding based on raw unemployment numbers, not unemployment rate.
That would punish both red and blue states that have handled the pandemic well.
It leaves behind states like Nebraska, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the country because we have succeeded in balancing safety and reopening where other states have failed.
It would also hurt Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire, three blue states that have kept their unemployment numbers low.
When you look under the hood, this bill is more about passing a partisan wish list than getting the United States through the worst public health crisis we’ve faced in over a century.
At best, the name American Rescue Plan is misleading.
At worst, it’s deceptive.
I stand ready to work with the administration and my Democratic colleagues in Congress to address these issues, and to get Americans the help they need in a targeted, reasonable, and productive way.
We did that with the CARES Act, and we could do it again if our colleagues on the other side are willing.
That’s the way the Senate is supposed to work – in a bipartisan way.
It’s how we reach consensus and deliver the policies the American people need and deserve.
I know I share the sentiments of many of my colleagues when I say that I’m disappointed in how this process has been conducted.
Without an effort to compromise and make major changes to this stimulus package, I will be voting no.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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