Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Madam President, I rise today in support of the budget resolution and the American rescue plan proposed by President Biden. It is, without question,…
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Madam President, I rise today in support of the budget resolution and the American rescue plan proposed by President Biden. It is, without question, a necessary next step in our fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Just last month, roughly 100,000 Americans lost their lives to COVID. To date, we have lost more than 430,000 Americans to this virus. Included in this number is over 15,000 Michiganders. Millions of Americans have become sick as a result of this deadly virus, and far too many people in Michigan and across the country are suffering from the unprecedented economic crisis that this pandemic has caused. Families are struggling to put food on the table and to put a roof over their heads and just to pay bills.
The relief package that was passed in December provided important emergency relief, but it didn't go nearly far enough. I had the honor of meeting with President Biden and Vice President Harris today at the White House to discuss the need to work together and to act boldly and quickly to deliver urgently needed support.
More than 120 economists are pressing Congress to pass the sweeping relief package, and the danger is not going big but rather failing to meet the urgency of the moment. These 120 economists wrote: ``History shows that what
our nation cannot afford is inaction or timidity in the face of what many consider to be the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression.''
It is clear to me that we must extend unemployment benefits to those who are out of work through no fault of their own. We must pass an additional $1,400 in stimulus payments to individuals. We must provide more food assistance to ensure that no child or family goes hungry because of this crisis, and we must ensure small businesses can stay afloat.
We must provide more funding to speed up the distribution of vaccines so that we can get more vaccines in the arms of Americans quickly, safely, and equitably. And we must provide more resources so that schools can reopen safely under the guidance of public health officials and experts.
We must deliver relief to communities on the frontlines of COVID- response efforts and make sure that they are not forced to cut essential services for residents or lay off health professionals or teachers or firefighters or law enforcement officials. We must replenish the disaster relief fund, which will help give our cash- strapped State and local governments the resources they need to pay for personal protection equipment, aid in vaccine distribution, and provide additional support services to communities struggling with overwhelming coronavirus cases.
We must provide funding to ensure there is strong oversight of how Federal taxpayer dollars are actually being spent on Federal COVID efforts, ensuring that resources and support that Congress has authorized is actually reaching the people who need it the most.
One of my top priorities and an issue I hear about every day from Michiganders is the need to extend unemployment benefits. Over 3 million Michiganders have claimed unemployment insurance since the start of this pandemic. That is around one-third of the entire population of Michigan. And, unfortunately, we are not out of the tunnel yet. Over half a million of these claims are still active.
It is not just impacting one part of my State. All 83 Michigan counties are experiencing higher levels of joblessness, a disturbing trend that we have seen continue into this year. Michiganders want to work, they want to keep their families safe, and they want to put food on the table. In order to do all of this, we must first get this pandemic under control, while helping families and workers make ends meet. They need and must have our continued help and our support.
As the Biden American Rescue Plan recognizes, Federal unemployment assistance programs are essential to bolstering our State programs, and while 1.9 million unemployment claims in Michigan during 2020 have flowed through the State unemployment program, nearly just as many claims, 1.7 million, were made possible by the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program. It is a program that I helped to establish last year in the CARES Act.
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance is a lifeline to workers who are self-employed yet had their source of income interrupted by the pandemic, including gig workers and freelance workers and small business owners.
I certainly agree with President Biden that we must continue Federal unemployment assistance programs through September of 2021. Implementing this rescue package means we will not abandon millions of workers who otherwise would be ineligible for assistance or whose benefits would have long run out. It would also mean that the level of benefit that they receive is closer to the amount necessary for their families to have some measure of financial stability.
In Michigan, far too many families are finding it difficult to feed themselves and their children. Michigan had the sixth highest rate of projected food insecurity in 2020. Nearly 2 million individuals lived in food-insecure households. That means each day almost one in five Michiganders worries about whether or not they or their loved ones are going to get enough to eat that day.
The number of Michiganders struggling with hunger has increased by around 600,000 since the start of the pandemic, and, sadly, most of this has been as a result of an uptick in child hunger.
Our food banks across Michigan are doing all they can to step up to the challenge, but they are experiencing unprecedented surges in demand as more families seek assistance. Food assistance is one of the top reasons people contact my State's emergency hotline. The Federal Government must do more in providing food assistance to these families.
The American Rescue Plan will extend the 15-percent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefit, while maintaining an increase through the coming months and through the summer, a time when childhood hunger is at its highest level due to the lack of school meals. It is a critical backstop against rising food insecurity, and this change will help keep hunger at bay for around 40 million Americans.
The rescue plan also supports these efforts by providing a one-time emergency infusion of support for State anti-hunger and nutrition programs. This will ensure that benefits quickly and efficiently get to children and to those families that are in need.
According to the nonprofit No Kid Hungry campaign, this funding will amount to around $25 more per person per month for those who are currently struggling. A family of four will get an extra $100 a month. This is an investment we must certainly make.
The proposal before us will also invest $3 billion to help women, infants, and children get the food they need. This multiyear investment in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, is needed to account for increased enrollment due to growing hunger and to increase outreach to ensure that low- income families have access to high-quality nutritious food and nutritional education.
During this dark, challenging winter, we must address the hunger crisis in Michigan and across the country.
Another issue that I hear about constantly from Michiganders is the additional support we must provide to our small businesses. Many small businesses--the very backbone of Michigan's economy and the economic driver in many of our local communities--have been forced to shutter or are just barely hanging on.
Nationally, small business revenue is down 32 percent, and at least 400,000 firms have permanently closed. Minority-owned small businesses and those in hard-hit industries, like restaurants and hotels and entertainment, have suffered disproportionately.
Whether it is a boutique in Plymouth, a family-owned farm in Michigan's fruit belt, or a restaurant in Detroit, these small businesses bring our State character, community, and a sense of place.
Congress must do everything we can to assist our small businesses, and we must ensure that COVID-19 small business relief assistance is clearly administered and is easy to access. That is why I fought for a vital increase in small business funding, like the Paycheck Protection Program, which was included in the CARES Act and subsequent legislation that I was proud to help pass.
In Michigan, over 128,000 Paycheck Protection Program loans were approved before the program first expired, totaling over $16 billion in funding. And although the PPP brought hope to many during this crisis, it alone was simply not enough. We must continue to expand access to small business grants and loans for our Michigan businesses.
The American Rescue Plan is ambitious, but it is achievable and will help our small businesses survive and help rescue the American economy as we work to recover. It will support communities that are struggling in the wake of COVID-19 by providing support for the hardest hit small businesses, especially small businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color, and protecting jobs of the first responders and transit workers and other essential workers whom we depend on each and every day.
It will provide grants to more than 1 million of the hardest hit small businesses--flexible, equitably distributed grants that will help small businesses get back on their feet and put the current disaster behind them. Additionally, it will leverage government funds into additional small business lending and investment.
By investing in successful State, local, Tribal, and nonprofit small business financing programs, Congress will exponentially generate low- interest loans and venture capital to help our small businesses survive, to create and maintain jobs, and to continue to provide the essential goods and services that our communities depend on.
According to an independent analysis conducted by Moody's Analytics, the American Rescue Plan will help create 7.5 million jobs in 2021, double economic growth, and return the United States to full employment a full year faster. Small businesses in Michigan and across the country need this help, and they need it now.
Passing the American Rescue Plan will help us get through this economic crisis and come out stronger on the other side. And I know we all look forward to the day when we can visit our small businesses.
I know I am excited to see Michiganders going out to eat in Greektown before visiting Comerica Park. They will stroll through downtowns like Birmingham and Grand Rapids. They will drive up north and spend time i small businesses in Traverse City and Marquette, and just maybe swing by a local brewery, or enjoy boating on one of our beautiful Great Lakes. I will never stop fighting to make sure that when the day comes, Michigan's small businesses will be up and running.
But as we address the economic impact to this pandemic, we must also use this relief package to address the public health crisis.
Since the outset of the pandemic, FEMA has stepped up to assist in response to the COVID-19 crisis by coordinating medical supply acquisition and distribution and assisting State and local governments with funds for response activity, such as overtime pay for public health officials. And now FEMA is taking on an even larger role as we continue this critical phase of response, which is vaccine distribution.
When I spoke to the President and Vice President earlier today, I was pleased to hear their vision for using FEMA resources and expertise to provide essential staff, supplies, transportation, and other resources necessary to ensure that every vaccine dose is actually reaching the arm of an American.
These activities are all supported through FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund, and we must provide the funding needed to ensure that FEMA can have the maximum flexibility to help our State and local governments and resources needed to deploy COVID-19 vaccines to combat this pandemic.
There are so many faces that have been on the frontlines of responding to this unprecedented public health crisis: our healthcare workers, delivery workers, grocery store employees, and so many others who have sacrificed so that we can have the care, the goods, and the services that we need to get by. Essential workers include our dedicated civil servants who work tirelessly to serve the American people in countless ways--from providing medical care to delivering our mail, to safeguarding our national security. We truly appreciate their continued service under incredibly challenging circumstances.
To help ensure the health and safety of Federal employees and their communities, we must provide funding to the Emergency Federal Employee Leave Fund. This fund offers emergency paid leave, which ensures workers can stay at home if they are feeling ill, and, by doing so, prevent community spread of COVID-19.
This provision will also provide much needed flexibility to our civil servants and their families as they juggle caregiving for children and other family members with their remote public service work.
Our Nation's postal workers, who work tirelessly to deliver prescription drugs, essential goods, and even our holiday gifts throughout the pandemic, are facing unique challenges. Federal employees who interact directly with the public, like our hard-working postal employees and letter carriers, need better access to workers' compensation benefits if they contract COVID-19 in the line of duty.
The effectiveness of our ongoing response to this pandemic depends on our career Federal workforce, and these two policies are an important step in ensuring the safety of civil servants, their families, and their communities.
Finally, we need robust oversight to make sure relief dollars are spent appropriately and are going to families, small businesses, hospitals, and the communities that need them most.
When this body considered the CARES Act, I worked across the aisle with Senator Johnson and the House to create two oversight mechanisms to provide transparency and accountability to the American people.
First, we created the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, or PRAC. The PRAC is a new entity made up of new inspectors general-- independent industry watchdogs--and charged with overseeing the entire Federal Government coronavirus response and all of the associated spending. We also charged the Government Accountability Office-- Congress's watchdog--to conduct similarly wide-ranging oversight.
In just 10 months, these oversight bodies have published reports on issues ranging from vaccine development to the Paycheck Protection Program, and the PRAC has established a website where anyone can go and see exactly where their hard-earned tax dollars are going.
We must continue to support both the PRAC and the GAO so they can continue this critical work, keeping Congress and the American people informed, ensuring taxpayer dollars are used responsibly, and helping to restore public trust in our Federal Government during this coronavirus response.
So it is clear, we are facing a crisis unlike any other in our Nation's history. We must work together to pass robust and bold COVID relief package. Michiganders and the American people are counting on us to do the right thing, and it is now our time to deliver.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.