Congressional Record — Senate, S1001 (March 3, 2021)

Summary

Page S1001 of the Senate section of the Congressional Record for March 3, 2021, in interleaved columns, as the Senate enters morning business. Mr. McConnell criticizes the Democrats' relief bill, saying its funding formula favors big blue States, it adds benefit packages for government employees and lets abortion providers draw money from small business programs, and that the Senate has been largely missing in action, which are his views. He recalls that the Senate wrote the CARES Act with bipartisan task forces. A reprinted passage from a reporter describes the message received in Tijuana about the new administration and migrants.

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March 3, 2021 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S1001
MORNING BUSINESS bipartisan funding formula in ways committee chairmen should be to
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem- that will especially bias the money to- outsource all their gavels to the House.
pore. Under the previous order, the ward big blue States. This outraged a The Senate wrote the CARES Act. In
Senate will be in a period of morning bipartisan group of Governors, largely the earliest days of the crisis, this
business, with Senators permitted to from middle America, who went on Chamber took the bull by the horns. I
speak therein for up to 10 minutes record this week. There are generous personally assembled bipartisan task
each. new benefit packages for government forces that crafted urgent solutions to
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I sug- employees. There are provisions to let help America weather the storm.
gest the absence of a quorum. abortion providers drain money from This time around, on the substance,
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem- rescue programs that were built to the Senate has been largely missing in
pore. The clerk will call the roll. save Main Street small businesses. action. House Democrats are bristling
The senior assistant legislative clerk There is a strange new Acela corridor and publicly pushing back if our Sen-
proceeded to call the roll. kickback where they will make Medi- ate Democratic colleagues even try to
Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, I care send more money to just New Jer- make their mark on this partisan bill
ask unanimous consent that the order sey, Rhode Island, and Delaware. in small ways.
for the quorum call be rescinded. Just looking at the timeframe for all So these two radically different proc-
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem- of their spending belies any notion that esses have generated two radically dif-
pore. Without objection, it is so or- this is an urgent rescue plan. ferent pieces of legislation.
Take the K–12 funding which, con- The Democrats had a choice. They
dered.
trary to science, Democrats say is a chose to go it alone, tack to the left,
f prerequisite for opening schools. Nine- leave families’ top priorities on the
RECOGNITION OF THE MINORITY ty-five percent of that supposedly ur- cutting-room floor.
LEADER gent money would not be spent this fis- f
cal year but, instead, over the next 7
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tem- IMMIGRATION
years. Let me say that again. Ninety-
pore. The Republican leader is recog- five percent of the money for K–12 is Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, on
nized. not going to be spent this year, but a completely different matter, just 6
f over the next 7 years. That is not my weeks into unified Democratic govern-
definition of an emergency. ment, we already have another crisis
CORONAVIRUS
Grants for rural healthcare would be brewing on our southern border. In
Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, last on a slow drip out through fiscal 2024. January, Customs and Border Protec-
year, Congress rallied five times Agriculture-related funds would trickle tion logged more than 78,000 encoun-
around historic bipartisan legislation out over the next—listen to this—over ters on our southwest border, more
to meet urgent and unprecedented the next decade. It doesn’t sound very than double the figure from January of
needs. Our COVID–19 packages rein- urgent to me. 2020.
forced the healthcare frontlines, fueled What the American people need are Last week, HHS sources told report-
the sprint for vaccines, and cast life- fast-acting plans to get schools re- ers we just logged the busiest February
lines for the workers and small busi- opened now, get laid-off workers back in the history of the Unaccompanied
nesses hit hardest by shutdowns. into jobs, and finish the fight against Alien Children Program. The number
Together, those bills cost about $4 this virus right now. The Democrats of kids turning up on our border with
trillion, but none of those measures have, instead, drawn up a liberal omni- no parents is soaring, and everyone ex-
passed the House of Representatives bus to fund miscellaneous government pects the numbers to keep climbing.
with less than a bipartisan super- spending over the next decade. Now the Biden administration is re-
majority of about 80 percent—com- We are adding all this money to the portedly planning to reopen the same
pletely overwhelming support. national debt, and they have a rescue kinds of emergency shelters over which
Then, last week, House Democrats package with most of the money being Democrats vilified the Trump adminis-
rammed through the American Rescue spent out far in the future. That is why tration a couple of years back. Both
Plan Act on a razor-thin margin of 50.7 there was bipartisan opposition over in President Biden and his Secretary of
percent. The only thing bipartisan the House. That is why aspects of the Homeland Security have said this week
about their bill was the opposition to House bill are already dropping like they don’t think this is a crisis. Not a
it. Their bill costs about $2 trillion. flies before this thing even hits the crisis, they say? Well, if this isn’t a cri-
That is roughly the same size as the Senate floor. sis, with unaccompanied kids pouring
entire CARES Act that saved our A pet project for the San Francisco in and exceeding the capacity in a pan-
health system and economy through Bay area is gone. Special upgrades for demic, I would hate to see what one
months of shutdowns last year. Even a bridge connecting New York to Can- looks like.
liberal experts admit this is far out of ada, gone. Even CNN had to admit The cause of this emergency is not
proportion to what is needed now, with these were ‘‘controversial.’’ Senator some mystery. It is not mysterious at
vaccines going into arms and the econ- SANDERS’ far-left minimum wage pol- all. Everybody knows exactly what
omy already primed to literally roar icy that would have killed 1.4 million happened. The new administration ex-
back. jobs just as we try to recover appears plicitly campaigned on weakening bor-
Amazingly, Democrats managed to to be gone, too—at least for now. der security, and 6 weeks in, they have
allocate less than 9 percent—9 per- According to public reports, right reversed the ‘‘Remain in Mexico’’ pol-
cent—of their massive bill to the entire now, as we speak, several of our Demo- icy, begun letting more people in in a
healthcare response; 9 percent of the cratic colleagues are frantically trying haphazard way, and broadcast con-
$1.9 trillion related to the healthcare to trim back other crazy provisions: fusing mixed messages.
response, and—listen to this—even less the runaway government bailouts, the The L.A. Times says: ‘‘Biden immi-
than 1 percent of the $1.9 trillion to the policies that will keep workers at gration policy stirs confusion at Mex-
vaccines that will actually finish the home when we should be focusing on ico border.’’ They interviewed one
fight. rehiring. woman who crossed the Rio Grande
They needed to save the other 91 per- Just a few days ago, President ‘‘on a smuggler’s raft’’ and was only
cent of the borrowed money for a vast Biden’s Chief of Staff bragged that this briefly detained before being released

SSpencer on DSK126QN23PROD with SENATE
catalog of liberal spending with basi- smorgasbord of borrowed money will into our country. She explained she
cally no relationship whatsoever to add up to ‘‘the most progressive domes- had specifically come because of the
beating COVID–19. For example, they tic legislation in a generation.’’ new Biden administration: ‘‘That gave
want to send wheelbarrows of cash to So that is what you get when the us the opportunity to come.’’
State and local bureaucrats to bail out Democratic leader persuades all of my Another reporter put it this way:
mismanagement from before the pan- distinguished friends across the aisle ‘‘The message received in Tijuana and
demic. They are changing the previous that their first undertaking as Senate other Mexican border cities was

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