A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to ensure that the 2021 recovery rebates as provided for in the American Rescue Plan Act are not provided to prison inmates convicted of murder and that such sums shall be redirected to the Department of Justice to be paid out in the form of restitution to compensate victims of crime.

Mr. President, I am going to suggest an even narrower situation. Perhaps we can't agree on victims of crime. How about murderers?

We just had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on gun violence. We saw a horrific mass murder in Colorado. Can't we agree that murderers shouldn't get checks--$1,400 stimulus checks--from the taxpayers? Let's take the money going to murderers and put it in the crime victims task force fund instead.

And so, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 929, introduced earlier today. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, you know, it could be hard in these partisan days to know what the truth is. Both sides yell at each other. They insult each other. It is hard to know who is telling the truth.

I ask the folks at home who are listening to this debate to exercise a little bit of common sense. The Senator from Oregon just told you the Federal Government has no idea who are murderers currently in prison. I want to suggest that doesn't make any sense.

I feel quite confident the Department of Justice could produce a list of currently incarcerated murderers in Federal prisons within 24 hours. I am absolutely certain the State of Texas could produce that list. I am confident the State of Connecticut could produce the list of the murderers currently in Connecticut prisons. I am even confident the State of Oregon could produce a list of the murderers convicted of homicide currently incarcerated in the State of Oregon.

The claim that we don't know who the murderers are who are in our prisons serving time for murder--it doesn't pass the laugh test.

Reserving the right to object.

Thank you very much.

Mr. President, there isn't information about this crime or these crimes at the Federal, State, and local levels. So, again, we are back in exactly the same place.

The Senator from Texas wants to hold up the checks to millions and millions of people in spite of the fact that he voted--he voted earlier--for a system that got the checks to everybody in a timely way. And when you don't have the information about the specific crimes at the Federal, State, and local levels, it becomes impossible to carry out what the Senator from Texas seeks to do. And the net effect is, again, that millions and millions of Americans aren't getting the funds that they need to pay for essentials, rent and groceries.

I object.