Floor Statements

Madam President, I first thank Senator Sanders for his passionate support for housing. He understands, having traveled the country and connected with so many people, that there is almost nothing more important--maybe nothing more important to people's lives, to their material lives, than having a safe, accessible, affordable place to live.

And Senator Sanders mentioned that 25 percent of renters in this country pay half their income in rent, for housing costs. And one thing goes bad in their lives--their car breaks down, their child gets sick, they miss a few days of work because of a minor injury--and their whole lives can turn upside down. Senator Sanders recognizes that.

And the legislation we begin later in the week is such an important step, as the Presiding Officer knows as a member of the Banking and Housing Committee, that we are going to take on housing. So I thank Senator Sanders for that.

Madam President, I rise to urge my colleagues to support the budget resolution immediately after the infrastructure vote tomorrow.

I particularly am glad to see the Presiding Officer in the Chair today. Earlier I spoke on this floor about the infrastructure bill and her efforts--Senator Duckworth from Illinois, her efforts--to ensure disabled-access transit stops.

We still have far too many transit stops in this country in big cities like hers in Chicago and mine in Cleveland and Philadelphia and New York and all over that are not accessible, and that has got to be our mission.

I chair the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Most people call it just the Banking Committee. In reality, it is the housing, banking, and transit committee. And that is our responsibility to move in the right direction, and we are moving there rapidly. And I thank Senator Duckworth for her work on that.

I want to talk not long. I know that Senator Cardin is awaiting and has been patient, and I believe that Senator Inhofe might be here too.

This week we have moved forward a bill to provide critical investments in transportation infrastructure. I am glad we are doing that. The next step is to address housing.

Nothing is more important than housing. As chair of the Banking and Housing Committee, I have held hearings about housing needs across the country. This committee, called Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs-- most refer to it as ``Senate Banking''--has been mostly about Wall Street in the past and not nearly enough about housing. Those issues are changing.

I know Senator Cardin knows--and not just in Baltimore but in Western Maryland and everywhere, as in urban Ohio and rural Ohio--how important housing is. We hear repeatedly about the shortage of affordable housing, about wide disparities in access to home ownership.

This isn't just about a few coastal cities. We heard from mayors in Akron, OH; in Bozeman, MT, Senator Tester's State; in Tempe, AZ, about their housing needs. Their markets vary. In Bozeman, home prices are up 50 percent. It is almost impossible for a young family to find a place to live. In Akron, home values are sometimes too low to find financing, and banks tell us they can't make a profit on selling a $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 mortgage on a $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 house.

Their issues are different, but all three mayors told us they need the Federal Government to be a better partner in helping to invest in their housing and in their communities. Without housing investment, there cannot be economic growth. That is because housing--by any real definition, housing is infrastructure.

Where you live determines so much about your life: where your kids go to school, how far you have to go to work, what kind of jobs you get. It determines where you do your grocery shopping and whether you have access to fresh fruits and vegetables; whether your kids are exposed, as they are in far too many old neighborhoods--whether it is Appalachia, Southern Illinois, or whether in Ohio or whether it is Cleveland or Chicago--too often to hazardous lead or mold.

We saw over the past year that housing certainly affects our health. People's paychecks have not kept up with the cost of living, particularly the cost of rent.

Senator Sanders, earlier today--and this was before the pandemic, what he was talking about, that 25 percent of American renters pay more than half their income in rent. One thing goes wrong in their lives-- their car breaks down, their child gets sick, they miss 3 days of work because of a minor injury--and everything turns upside down for them. This is even more of a problem, of course, for Black and Latino renters, with little left over each month for food and medication, let alone saving.

It is not just renters. Today, more than one in five homeowners still pay more than one-third of their income in rent. And the Black ownership rate--this is pretty unbelievable. The Black ownership rate is as low as it was when, in 1968, this body finally passed open housing, finally passed fair housing.

The first Secretary of HUD, after we passed the fair housing law, was Senator Romney's father, George Romney. As hard as he tried--partly because the President, his boss, followed a southern strategy--he did very little in the end, could accomplish very little for housing equality.

We are the wealthiest country in the world. We have half a million people, including 100,000 children, without a place to stay on a given night.

The budget resolution on the floor tomorrow will finally make the investment we need to help more families find and afford a place that they can call home. Think of the word ``home.'

It helps us provide funding to make critical repairs to our Nation's public housing, to make it more sustainable, to save families money, to reduce harmful effects on our climate. It helps provide affordable places for families and seniors to rent, including in rural areas, and helps more families become first-time homeowners.

It will help communities invest in their neighborhoods, including Brown and Black communities who have been left out of our Nation's recovery. It will make their homes more resilient in the face of changing climate. Communities will have housing and transit investments that work together to bring down the cost of daily commutes, to reduce harmful effects on our climate.

With the resolution before us tomorrow, we have an opportunity to make people's lives better and to give local economies the chance to grow. We can expand access to affordable rentals. We will make it easier to purchase a home. We will put tradespeople to work in good- paying, often union jobs, building housing and making it safer and making it resilient.

I urge my colleagues to support this long-overdue investment in our homes, in our communities, and in our workers.

I yield the floor.

-Madam President, I am pleased to see language in the State broadband grant program prioritizing employers with ``a demonstrated record of and plans to be in compliance with Federal labor and employment laws.'' It is unfortunately common for employers to violate our Nation's labor laws, from the National Labor Relations Act to the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

The broadband industry, sadly, is no exception.

In many industries, employers are engaging in rampant subcontracting and outsourcing.

This situation is generally known as a ``fissured workplace,'' a circumstance where a primary employer outsources noncore business functions to subcontracted firms but still maintains tight control over the outcomes of those subcontractors.

These arrangements impede enforcement of our Nation's labor laws.

At times, employers engage in these practices strategically to evade accountability for labor law violations.

I have worked with several Senators on this problem in the past, across the ideological spectrum and including with members who helped craft the bipartisan infrastructure package.

It is my understanding that the language in the State broadband grant program was written chiefly to ensure that American taxpayer dollars prioritize projects with both past records of strict compliance with Federal labor and employment laws and plans to continue compliance with future projects.

American taxpayer dollars should create good-paying American jobs.

With its strong Buy America provisions, the bipartisan infrastructure package works to do that.

We need to ensure that Federal dollars support good jobs and high standards and limits the use of subcontractors.

There are many examples of ``high road'' employers who go above and beyond the minimum standards we set with our labor laws.

That is the way it should be.

I expect to see this funding prioritize such ``high road'' employers who use direct employees for projects.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ben Lockshin, the detailee in the Banking and Housing Committee, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the session.

Mr. President, I rise with--I don't know if I ever actually said this on the Senate floor--I rise with a heavy heart because of the death earlier today of a longtime friend, Rich Trumka, who was the longtime President of the National AFL-CIO.

I call him a friend because my wife Connie--who is in the Gallery with our grandson Clayton. My wife Connie and I have walked picket lines with Rich Trumka, done rallies with Rich Trumka, and spoken on behalf of workers with Rich Trumka.

He was a son of our part of the country--Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio. He was a coal miner, not just the son of a coal miner. I believe he once told me he was the grandson of a coal miner, but he was a coal miner early in life.

He embodied the soul of the labor movement. He understood workers. He was for them and of them in ways that are unusual in America in the 21st century.

He understood and lived and fought for the dignity of work, the idea that hard work should pay off for everyone. He understood what a woman from southern West Virginia said to me some weeks ago at a ``Dignity of Work'' hearing in the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee that I chair. She said the words ``working'' and ``poor'' should not be in the same sentence. Think about that. The words ``working'' and ``poor'' should not be in the same sentence.

Rich Trumka understood the dignity of work. When you work hard-- whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge or work for salary or work for tips or take care of children or grandchildren or children or grandparents--that hard work should be rewarded; that no one who works hard should not have a decent standard of living.

Few in this country have done more for workers than Rich. Giving workers a voice has been his life's work. From his days in the mine, when he was an outspoken advocate for trade unionism, he understood it was unions; that carrying a union card was about empowering workers. If you join a union; you make better wages; you get better benefits; you get health insurance; you have more power over your schedule. You have a safety net often when tragedy strikes. Rich understood that. He understood that unions helped build careers and provide for families.

Our hearts are with Barbara, his wife, and their son and with all the workers around the country. I can't even imagine how many workers Rich Trumka touched.

I looked at the impact of just the work he did with me, let alone with so many in this body; the work he did fighting for pensions, and with his support--leading the charge, really--a million families in the United States--more than a million families--had their pensions restored back in March when we passed the American Rescue Plan.

He understood the importance of the child tax credit. He understood the importance of the Affordable Care Act. He understood the importance of protecting the right to organize, which 47 Senate Democrats are cosponsors of. He was even, yesterday, on a call with workers in Alabama, helping to encourage them to organize. He knew that his job as a labor leader was to represent the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of members and their families but to always try to recruit new people to join the labor movement, and he knew that it was an uphill fight because of the way the system is rigged toward corporations and toward employers.

He would say, if he were here, how important it is to carry on with or without him, carry on his life's work by standing in solidarity with all the men and women of the labor movement, who built the strongest middle class the world has ever seen.

We see that middle class shrinking day by day, slowly shrinking, and the reason is because we see the number of union members shrinking. He knew the way to turn that around was the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. He knew the way to turn that around was to get more people organized, to give them the option.

Half of America would like to join a union, surveys say--at least half--if they had the opportunity. Most don't because of the outmoded, outdated, rigged-against-them labor laws in this country, but Rich understood that. He understood people staying in the middle class. The union card helped people join the middle class, expand the middle class.

Also, one other point is, I thought of what Rich Trumka did. One of the things I worked most of my career on is a better fair trade policy. I voted against every single trade agreement that came in front of me until 2 years ago, and that is because Rich Trumka played a major role in changing NAFTA, in changing the USMCA, the United States-Mexico- Canada Agreement, and put in language that Senator Wyden and I worked on that will put workers at the center.

The way that Rich Trumka understood government is, if you put workers at the center of our policy--workers at the center of our trade policy, workers at the center of our tax policy, workers at the center of everything we do here; call it dignity of work; call it putting workers at the center--if you do that, everything right will flow from there. We will have a more just society. We will have a more prosperous society. We will have more opportunity for our children. That is what Rich Trumka was. That is what he stood for. That is what he was all about. That is the fight that we need to carry on on his behalf and in his memory.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, with the Presiding Officer's help, and the help of 48 others--48 others in this body, we provided back in March an amendment; and then in final passage, we provided the biggest tax cut--the largest tax cut for working families ever.

It is called the Child Tax Credit. It has been several years in the making. We didn't make so much progress the last 4 years, but an election and a new President, coupled with a new U.S. Senate, has made all the difference in the world.

In my State, 2.4 million children are eligible. And 2.1 million of those--I will get to that in a moment; we haven't reached everybody yet. But 2.1 million saw last week in the mail--in their mailbox or direct deposits in their bank accounts--2.1 million children were the beneficiary of $250 or $300 last week.

So every month--July 15, coming up August 15, September 15, October 15, children from zero to 5, their parents will get $300 each of those months. If their children are 6 to 17, those families will get $250 per child. Almost every child--92 percent of children in Ohio, roughly the same; 9 out of 10 in the State of Wisconsin, the Presiding Officer's State, will be getting--their families will be getting checks in the mail--these checks in the mail.

In sort of a macro big way, we know this does a number of things. First of all, it drops the poverty rate among America's children by almost 50 percent. Imagine that. One bill we do drops the poverty rate among children in this country by 50 percent, something government has never been able to do. And because of this Child Tax Credit, the largest tax cut for working families in American history, it will make a huge difference.

In another macro sort of way, the people of Wisconsin and Ohio and other

States will benefit because we are injecting this kind of money. In Ohio last week, $550 million was sent to the State from the Federal Government to these children, to these families. And for most of these families--the wealthiest people don't get this--it is 90 percent; 9 out of 10 families do, but they have children.

This money goes directly into these communities. They are going to be spending this money at the local grocery store, the local hardware store, to fix their car so they don't miss work, and maybe take their kid once in a while to a restaurant. So the money is not going to be put in a Swiss bank account. It will be spent in local communities, making a difference. That is sort of the big picture.

The joy of working on this bill and starting--I started working on this in 2013, joined by Michael Bennet and Senator Booker, and then, since he came, Senator Warnock and Senator Baldwin and Senator Ossoff have been helpful and Senator Wyden, the chair of the Finance Committee. The joy of this is to see how this affects individual families' lives.

So a couple of weeks ago, before the checks were sent out, I did a series of roundtables in Defiance, in Findlay, in Ryan, in Cleveland, in Dayton, in Toledo, in--where else?--in Youngstown, and in Cincinnati, and I just asked families: What are you going to do with this money? Many families didn't know it was even coming; the word wasn't out yet. I just heard some interesting comments. But then after the checks were sent out, I also heard stories, and here is what this means to families:

One mother said: You know, for the first time, I can now send my son to camp for a week, to a summer camp--for the first time in her life.

A father said: You know, I am now going to be able to buy for my daughter--she loves fastpitch softball. She is really good. I am going to be able to buy her the equipment to do that.

A number of families said: We are now in a position where we can actually, without scrounging--so many American families can barely afford their rent. Twenty-five percent of American families pay half their income in rent. Think about that. One out of four renters pays half their income in rent. One thing goes wrong in their lives--their car breaks down--they can end up being evicted.

So what this $300 per child or $250 per child--for a lot of families, it just relieved the anxiety of the difficulty of putting together the money they need to pay their rent, because the last week of a month for many families is different from the first three because, the last week, they start making cuts and not spending as much money on food, all the things they have got to do to pay their rent. Look, this is going to alleviate--it is going to lift that burden off so many families.

Other families who are a little more affluent but still, you know, hanging on to being middle class are now able, they told me, to put $100 aside every month. Because of this child tax credit, because of the largest tax cut for working families ever, they are going to be able to put aside $100 a month for their child to go to Ohio State or to Denison or to Cleveland State or to Sinclair Community College in Ohio.

So all the kinds of things--and you know, Madam President, I know you have, in Wisconsin, have thought about this. The best thing about this is, you know, it is not Senator Baldwin or Senator Schumer or Senator McConnell or President Biden--it is not them saying to a family: OK. Here is some money. Here is where you are going to spend it. We are going to help you with this. We are going to help you. It is trusting these families. This $250 a month or $300 a month these families get, they get this money, and they decide what is best for their family.

It is still, frankly, Madam President, inexplicable to me that everybody on this side of the aisle voted no, every single one of them. They had two chances. They voted no on an amendment on the bill, and then they voted no on the bill to give the largest tax cut for working families ever.

We all know around here--it is no secret--that this side of the aisle likes tax cuts; they just like them for rich people. But they always argue: You know, if we cut taxes on the rich, it will trickle down; it will help everybody. Well, there is kind of no evidence for that, but they keep doing it because they know that it plays really well with their rich contributors.

But this is what tax cuts are really about. The child tax credit puts money in people's pockets, it gives them the choice on how to spend those dollars on behalf of their families, and it helps the community because there is more money in the community. We know that, and we know that the best kind of infrastructure, the best way to build infrastructure in this country is to build a foundation for families.

I am for this bill that we are considering now: water, sewer, highways, bridges. I want to do that, but I want to build a foundation for families, too, not just the physical--a better highway system, a better water and sewer system--but I want to give families broadband. I want to give families a little bit of money like this does. I want to build and help families with housing because then that foundation-- these families can launch their children into a more prosperous future, and that is, to me, what this is all about. That is why the child tax credit is the most important thing I have ever worked on in my career, and I think it is one of the most important things Congress has done in a quarter century.

I yield the floor.

(Mr. BROWN assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, earlier this month, Zaila Avant-garde became the first Black American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. It is kind of discouraging in the year 2021 that barrier still needed breaking.

Her achievement is an inspiration for so many students around the country. She drew strength and courage from another trailblazer who had gotten significant less attention, whose story has not been told and honored the way that Zaila was.

In 1936, 13-year-old MacNolia Cox from Akron, OH, became one of the first two Black students to compete in the National Spelling Bee. She qualified after winning the regional competition that went 60--6-0-- rounds, sponsored by the Akron Beacon Journal. Black communities across the country cheered her victory. They looked forward to her joining the national competition. She was celebrated at churches and clubs, talked about by celebrities, and even politicians. At the RKO Palace in Cleveland, band leader Fats Waller, tap dancer Bill Robinson, whom we know, whom history knows as Mr. Bojangles, brought her on stage.

Three thousand Ohioans came to Akron's Union Station to send MacNolia off on her journey to Washington. She had little idea the treatment she would endure at the tip of the Jim Crow South. She was forced to ride-- she is, essentially, Ohio's representative at the National Spelling Bee, a 13-year-old Black--I was going to say Black young woman--Black girl from Ohio. She was forced to ride in segregated train cars. She was forced to stay at a private home instead of at the Willard hotel.

Nine years later, my parents--my dad came from overseas, my mom from Mansfield, GA--met at the Willard hotel at the end of his service in World War II.

She could not stay at the Willard hotel because she was African American, while all the other White competitors did. At a dinner for the finalists, she and her mother were forced to enter through the kitchen door of the hotel and sit at a separate table segregated from the other finalists. How shameful that was.

Despite it all, MacNolia Cox made it far in the competition. There were only five students left when the judges gave her a proper noun to spell. She hadn't studied it. Proper nouns were supposed to be off limits. The judges had had enough of a Black girl getting that far. They wouldn't listen to the Beacon Journal reporter, who covered her to report on the competition. She pointed out to the judges that the judges--the judges--weren't following their own rules. She was eliminated. Of course, she was. Her achievements, her story soon faded from memory until now.

Zaila Avant-garde talked to the media about scrolling through pictures of national spelling bee contestants with her father, seeing face after face that didn't look like hers.

It reminds me, yesterday, I had breakfast with the Secretary of the Treasury at the Treasury Department. To get to her office--her office, ``her,'' I reiterate--you walk down a long, long, long hallway. Every picture in the hallway are people who look like me. They were Secretaries of the

Treasury. Every single Secretary of the Treasury, until Janet Yellen, looked like--well, older, certainly, than the Presiding Officer--but looked like we do.

She saw MacNolia Cox's face, and she learned her story as she was looking through these. She told reporters when she was competing, she thought of MacNolia. She thought about what she had endured 85 years earlier.

Now, more Americans are learning both of their stories. More kids are seeing themselves in the faces of champions. That is why Black history matters. It matters in the classroom. It matters in movies. It matters on the Senate floor. It matters in books. It matters in TV shows. It matters in the national news. It is how we shine a light on the injustices students like MacNolia and Zaila had to overcome and work to fight them.

It is how we show kids that these are dreams--these aren't dreams only for certain kids who look a certain way. These dreams, these aspirations, these achievements in 21st century America should be for everyone.

I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Akron's MacNolia Cox, and even more importantly, telling her story for future generations

Mr. President, over the past week, we have put money directly--directly--in the pockets of the families of 60 million American children.

In Ohio, 2.1 million children, their families got hundreds of dollars each in tax cuts, money to help them keep up with the costs of raising a family, money they will spend in the local economy--I say to the Presiding Officer, you know this, the largest tax cut for working families in American history ever.

Stories have poured into our office from across Ohio--the Presiding Officer is hearing those in Hawaii--all from parents who work hard to make ends meet. They now have a little bit extra of their own money back to spend on groceries and childcare and medical bills and school supplies.

We care about families. There is a lot of talk in this body about we care about families. Well, if you care about families, this is all about empowering families. Families decide how to spend these dollars; Mitch McConnell doesn't decide. Joe Biden doesn't decide. Brian Schatz doesn't decide. I don't decide how we spend these dollars. Families decide. They are dollars they have earned working hard to provide for their family--it is hard work raising children--and how they have raised their kids.

I think all of us are hearing these stories. Some of them on our websites, some of us in townhalls, we are hearing these stories. Let me just briefly tell just a handful of them.

Rob, from Copley, OH, said he is going to spend it on ``bills and necessities, especially necessities for [my] kids.''

Traci said she is going to use it to ``pay for my children's sports fees.''

One mother said, ``My 8-year-old was able to attend a Coding Camp this week'' for the first time. She was just thrilled.

We know how expensive healthcare is. We know how medical bills and copays and premiums eat away at families' budgets. So many parents have talked about how this will help them afford healthcare expenses.

Leanne, from Akron, is going to be able to afford ``my daughter's medical bills.''

Hayley said she will use the tax cut ``to pay for speech therapy for [her] child.''

Susan said it will allow her to ``pay for my child's dyslexia tutoring.''

Jen said, ``Ours will be going straight''--you have to love this one--``Ours will be going straight to the orthodontist each month.''

Brittney wrote that this tax cut ``came at a great time.'' She said:

My son got sick with pneumonia this . . . week. That led to

an urgent care visit, breathing treatment, chest X-rays, and

a lot of medicine--so our payment will go to [emergency]

medical bills to make sure our son [can thrive] and has the

medicine he needs.

The Presiding Officer may remember that there were two votes on the child tax credit. First, an amendment to take it out--every Republican voted to take it out--and then an amendment to pass the bill on March 6 at about this time of day and every Republican voted against it. I know it is all about tax cuts for rich people for them, but we can get to that later.

We know another benefit of this is, this is money spent in communities. I am not getting any notes from parents saying: ``You know, thank you, Senator Brown, for this child tax credit you have been working on for a decade. I am going to put more money in my Swiss bank account.'' Nobody is saying that. We have gotten so many stories already how this money supports the economy and supports jobs.

Katie from Brecksville: Month 1, she is using it for ``a much-needed family vacation.'' Month 2, she is using it for ``school supplies.'' That supports hotel jobs and restaurants jobs and retail jobs.

Lyndsay said she had used it for ``back to school clothes,'' again, supporting local retailers.

Brittany from Butler said: ``We will be able to put new windows in the kids' bedrooms that will keep them cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.'' That sounds like work for a local handyman or a woman or a window business.

Lisa said she is spending it on ``diapers and school supplies . . . we put a little into starting a 529 college fund.''

Think about that. These families are struggling. I don't know for sure, but sounds like Lisa may have a couple of children, so she gets this--they are little, so she is going to get $300 per child. So she gets $600 July 15. She will get $600 August 15. She will get $600 September 15. She will get $600 October 15 and November 15. And she has decided she can now afford a few things she couldn't afford. But she is going to maybe put $100 of that every month into a 529 college fund so her child will be--the whole idea of infrastructure is building a base, a foundation, to launch children into better lifestyles, to launch children into a more productive life, to give kids opportunity. That is what this does. That is what the child tax credit does. And it is almost everybody.

Ninety-two percent of Ohio kids' families are getting a tax cut every single month. So many parents mention the costs of childcare. So often, over and over, we hear how this will allow parents to afford the childcare that allows them to go to work.

Courtney, a mother, wrote that her tax cut is already more than half--``slightly more than half the cost of part-time daycare tuition per month here in Athens,'' down in southeast Ohio. She said, it is appreciated so much, the ``help getting my child back into childcare and keeping me and my husband in the workforce.''

So it comes back to one question--I think the Presiding Officer knows this--whose side are you on? Whose side are you on in these fights? Are you on the side of the parents who work hard every day for their families?

In a dignity-of-work roundtable in our Senate Banking Committee, a woman from West Virginia said the words ``working'' and ``poor'' shouldn't be in the same sentence. The words ``working'' and ``poor'' shouldn't be in the same sentence. These are families who are working really hard. Give them a little bit of a break so they can rise above the poverty line so they can afford some things to launch their children into more productive lives.

So are you on the side of these parents who work every day? Or are my colleagues going to raise these families' taxes at the end of the year? Because this expires next year, if we don't continue it. I haven't seen any help yet on their side wanting to come in. I am still hopeful.

We remember what happened on 2017. The Presiding Officer remembers this. In 2017, you could walk out this door pretty much any time of day, and you could look down the hall in 2017, and you could see lobbyists lined up outside of Mitch McConnell's office, all well dressed, all really, really well paid, all hat in hand--some literally, some figuratively--saying: Senator McConnell, we need this additional tax break.

Do you know what? We spend $1.5 trillion on that tax cut. They don't want to spend $100 billion a year on these children. One hundred billion is--I should do the math really quick--about 8 percent of $1.5 trillion, something like that--6 percent. So they will

do $1.5 trillion in tax cuts. Seventy percent of it went to the richest people in the country. Yet they don't want to do tax cuts for children that elicit these stories.

I don't recall, getting on my website, stories saying: You know, thank you, Senator Brown--even though I voted against it--thank you for that big tax cut back in 2017. I could buy another yacht, thank you. Or I get to go to Europe again, thank you.

We don't hear those stories. Here are the stories you hear about these children who need that tax cut.

So you will remember when they all lined up outside of our colleague Senator McConnell's office. You will remember that tax cut. They promised it would trickle down to everyone else and then it would create all this prosperity. Well, we know it didn't happen. They kept the money for themselves--no shock there. Corporations turned around and spent that money on--shocking--stock buybacks for their executives. They ended up, always, in the pockets of their executives.

Now, this year, without a single vote from Republicans in Congress, who passed tax cuts for everyone else, a pretty simple contrast: tax cuts for billionaires and corporations--thank you very much--as they line up down the hall, or do you want tax cuts for working families?

Every single month, we show parents and workers, every single month these checks are coming: $300 per child if your child is from newborn to 5, $250 a month if your child is from 6 to 17. Every single month, we show we are on your side. We are putting more of your own money back into your pockets.

I know the Presiding Officer joins in this. We will not stop fighting to make sure parents' hard work pays off. We will not stop. We will deliver on this.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I see a very different country, apparently, from my colleague. And I respect Senator Cornyn.

I sat at this desk on March 6. We had been voting, as the Presiding Officer from Hawaii remembers. We had been voting all night. It was a Saturday at about 12:30. We had voted for about 11 hours. And we defeated by one vote an amendment where Senator Grassley and my colleagues from the Finance Committee and the Senate Republicans tried to delete the child tax credit from the American Rescue Plan. We then took a second vote around noon on Saturday, after 11 or 12 hours of voting, where we passed the American Rescue Plan by one vote.

Two different times, the Republican Party, which always votes for tax cuts for the richest people in the country, always on party-line votes, always under the very discredited theory that with tax cuts the dollars trickle down to workers and to the middle class and the rest of the country--they will always vote for a big tax cut for rich people, but they opposed twice--unanimously opposed, every single one opposed--the child tax credit.

(Mr. KING assumed the Chair.)

Today is the magic day. I remember saying to Senator Casey, when we passed the American Rescue Plan, that this is the best day of my career in public service because we are going to reduce the child poverty rate by 50 percent.

This isn't a tax cut for rich people, so they can buy another home or another yacht or another vacation place. This is money in the pockets of working-class and middle-class and struggling people from Maine and Ohio and Texas and Iowa and all over the country.

So, today, people should start checking their bank accounts, looking at their phones, checking their bank accounts, looking in their mailbox. Starting today--today, Friday, Saturday, Monday--the great majority of American families will see this tax cut. They will see this $250 or $300 a month. They are going to start receiving it. There will be $250 if the child is 6 or over. There will be $250 6 to 17. If they are 5 or under, it will be $300 per month per child--on July 15, August 15, September 15, October, November, December.

Then, with the second half of the tax cut, they will get a lump sum starting next year when they file their taxes. Ninety-two percent of kids in my

State--92 percent of children under 18--are eligible for this.

These are all numbers and these are all statistics, but here is what it means. I did a series of roundtables in Cleveland and Columbus and Dayton and Cincinnati and Toledo and Youngstown and Fremont and Bryan and Defiance, OH. Here is what I heard. One woman said: You know, my son, for the first time in his life, I can send him for a week at summer camp because of this child tax credit.

A father said: I can buy the equipment for my daughter to play fastpitch softball now.

Another said: I am so anxious--I heard this many times--I am so anxious at the end of every month during the last week. How am I going to cobble together the money to pay my rent? And often I have to choose between buying enough food and paying my rent.

Others said: Now I can work more hours because I can afford daycare for my children.

A few said things like: You know, now, per child--my babies are 3 and 4 years old--I can put $100 a month aside for each of them so they can go to Lorraine Community College or Sinclair or Northwest State Community College or Ohio State University or Denison. They can get a start on saving money. Why wouldn't we want to do that?

We talk about infrastructure around here. Infrastructure is building a foundation so families can launch their children to a better life. And providing families $250 or $300 a month--month after month after month--gives those families, give those kids an opportunity they never would have had. Why wouldn't we think this is the best day this Congress has had in 25 years when we do that? It is pretty simple.

You know what I really like about this--and I know the Presiding Officer appreciates that in Maine; Senator King in Maine, Senator Grassley in Iowa--we don't make the decisions about what these parents should do. We provide them the dollars. They spend it best, whether it is a family in Dubuque or a family in Portland or whether it is a family in Mansfield or Cleveland. I don't know what is best for them. We provide them the dollars. They make the decision of what is best for their child--summer camp, diapers, softball games, saving for college, just having enough to eat, occasionally getting to go out to a diner down the street in Lima, OH. All those kinds of decisions, let the parents make.

We are giving them that. If we care about family values, if we care about our families, give them a little more help. It will make a huge difference in their lives.

That is why it is so important. It starts today, then next month, and the month after, for a year.

We need to renew this. We need to make sure it is permanent. If we do that, it is going to launch a whole generation of kids and give them more opportunity. What is not to love about that?

I yield the floor.

Michael Bennet, thank you. You said this is a new day. I loved how you set that up. The mayor of Denver gets a tax cut or at least pours money into the richest neighborhoods in Denver, expecting that to trickle down or trickle out to help other neighborhoods and other people. It obviously doesn't work that way any more than the--I was going to say the Bush tax cut, but it has been their playbook for years. Whenever they get a majority, they give a tax cut to rich people, arguing it will trickle down. It never does. Senator Booker has been so articulate about that. As you say, Senator Bennet, it is a new day for this country.

I think the three of us think--and I think that Senator Hickenlooper, the Presiding Officer, has thought this, as have most Members of the Senate--that this is perhaps the most important thing we have done in this Senate in 25 years.

Tomorrow, parents across the country will check their bank accounts. Not all of them are going to know what Cory Booker, Michael Bennet, and all of us did, but they are going to see, most importantly in many ways--maybe my religious faith teaches me this. It is almost better that these people have these--they get these checks in Cleveland and Akron and Mansfield, and they have no idea how they got them. They didn't know I had anything to do it as their Senator; they just know their lives are better.

Families will see $250 or $300 direct-deposited into their accounts every month for the next 6 months, and then they get the rest of the year in a lump sum. Then, as Senator Bennet and Senator Booker said, it is up to us to make this permanent.

In my State, 92 percent of the kids in the State are eligible. We have a great majority--at least, we think, 90 percent of them will see these checks this week either in their bank account or in their mailbox. We have to make sure we get the other children who are eligible. Their parents may not have filed a tax return, and those families need to go to childtaxcredit.gov to make sure they get this benefit.

Even before this pandemic, we all know hard work wasn't paying off for millions of workers. We have seen in the last 20 years that productivity has gone up. Corporate profits have exploded. CEO pay has soared almost unimaginably. Yet wages have essentially been flat. That has gone on for decades even though the cost of everything is up, especially the cost of raising children.

Our child tax credit recognizes the fact that raising children is work. It happens to be the most--maybe it is not compensated the same way, but it happens to be the most important work any family can do. But from childcare to health insurance, to transportation, we have seen that a hard day's work doesn't begin to cover expenses for so many parents, and even middle-class families don't feel stable.

As a result, 2 weeks ago, we were out of session, and I spent the week in Fremont, in Defiance, in Cleveland, and in Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Youngstown, and Toledo talking to people about the child tax credit. The stories I heard from people--these were mostly parents who will benefit. These are some community activists whose kids may have been grown or don't have kids. But the stories I heard, things like--Senato Bennet and I had a discussion with people from Denver and Cleveland one day on Zoom a couple weeks ago, too, and we heard over and over that parents were saying: Every month we just have to figure out, during the last week of the month, how are we going to pay our rent.

Now those families will have a little more comfort in knowing and less anxiety knowing they will be able to make their rent payment.

I heard a number of parents say: Well, now I can send my son, for the first time, to scout camp or to day camp during the summer. Other parents said: I don't have to choose between the food we need to buy and buying diapers. I don't have to reuse diapers.

All the kinds of stories, we heard. People were saying: I don't have to work that second job and be away at night. I can get daycare on my regular job and get the benefits and have a little money so that I can do these things.

And the stories are as limitless as the number of people who are involved.

And maybe the best part of this--and Michael and Cory and I have talked about it. Maybe the best part of this is we have SNAP benefits. We know that is important for hungry families. We know the hungry people and the children especially. We do the rental assistance, emergency rental. We know how important that is. But these dollars-- this $250 or $300 a month, it goes to families, and they make the decision about what they need. I don't make it.

The senior Senator or the junior Senator--even though the junior Senator is older, right, than the senior Senator? I am confused.

But the Senators from Colorado don't make the decision. The Senator from New Jersey and I don't make the decision. These decisions are made by the mothers and fathers who go to their mailbox and get this check or see it in their direct payment.

So we know that this is not just good for those families. It means dollars in their pockets. It means they can make decisions they couldn't have made. It means they can build a foundation for their own children to have more opportunity--all of that. But this is also really good for the community. It means more dollars are spent at local restaurants, more dollars are spent at local stores. So that is an important part of this, too, that it will help to lift up our economy.

Families aren't putting this money in a Swiss bank account, unlike the tax cuts that Senator Bennet talked about with the Trump tax cuts that every Republican supported, virtually, and that blew a hole in the budget. That money was put in Swiss bank accounts. It doesn't trickle down. This money is spent in the community.

This is how we grow the economy. This is how we invest in the people who make it work. We don't shovel tax cuts to the very top and hope it trickles down. We know it never does. With these tax credits, we show parents and workers: We are on your side.

We won't stop fighting until these tax credits are permanent. Senators Booker and Bennet have talked passionately and persuasively about that.

I would add a couple other thanks here. Two of my staff are sitting in the back of this hall, Katie Mulhall and Chad Bolt, who have made this tax, working with Senator Bennet's and Senator Booker's and Senator Warnock's staff--in making these tax cuts to reduce the poverty rate and making this happen this session with President Biden's active support.

I also would call out two staff people, one of whom is still in the office and one who is now working in the House of Representatives, Jeremy Hekhuis and Gideon Bragin, who began work on this in 2013, when we first started working with Rosa DeLauro and the work that she had done. I thank all of them for making this happen.

I especially thank my colleagues from Colorado and Georgia and New Jersey. We keep fighting to give these families the peace of mind that these tax credits will be there for them up until their children are 18 so they can raise their kids with a little less anxiety and a little more comfort and a whole lot more opportunity.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week, Ohio and our Nation lost a champion for civil rights, Miss Elsie Steward Young of Highland County, a conservative, rural county in Southwest Ohio.

Miss Elsie, as everyone called her, had just celebrated her 105th birthday. She is a legend in Southwest Ohio. Her courage, her leadership made a difference for children not only in her community but all over the country.

In 1954, after the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision and ordered an end to segregation in American schools, the two all-White primary schools in Hillsboro--again, a small town, Highland County, southwest of Columbus--refused to integrate. The district continued to send Black students to a single all-Black school which was woefully underfunded.

I remember the stories my mother would tell me of growing up in Mansfield, GA. She said she knew and she told me--when busing became such a controversy in the 1960s and 1970s, she told me that she knew all about busing.

In the South, when she grew up in the twenties and thirties, they would bus Black students past the newer, better kept White schools to the segregated Black schools that were falling apart. No criticism of ``forced busing'' in those days.

That was essentially what was going on in Hillsboro, OH, and Elsie Steward Young wouldn't stand for it.

She and a group of mothers--this is in the 1950s--took matters into their own hands. They became the Marching Mothers of Hillsboro. Every single day for two long years, they marched for miles to the town's all-White primary school; every day they were sent home.

They carried on. Eventually, the community and the State and the country noticed. They joined with the NAACP to file a lawsuit against the Hillsboro board of education. It made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and they won.

Because of Miss Elsie and her fellow mothers' advocacy, the Court ordered the schools to integrate and paved the way for integration in other northern cities.

Her activism showed us why ordinary students and ordinary citizens-- what they can achieve when they join together to fight for justice.

It is a reminder of how far we have come, how much work we have to do to achieve justice and opportunity for all children in our country.

Three years ago, Elsie Steward Young was inducted into the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame. That fall, we honored the Marching Mothers of Hillsboro and the children--of course, now adults--who marched. We honored them with our office's Canary Award at our annual Ohio Women's Conference.

Then-Senator Kamala Harris, now the Vice President, was supposed to speak. We were going to present Miss Elsie with the award. She was already past 100 at that point. We both had to stay in Washington at the last minute because of Supreme Court votes.

So many Ohioans at that conference told me later that, frankly, I am not sure that the Vice President--the future Vice President and I were missed that much, not with Miss Elsie there. She not only filled the void, she provided so much energy with her forceful, inspiring words; and during that conference she was 102.

Throughout the conference, people lined up to get pictures with her. When the video played depicting the bravery and determination of the marchers and when Miss Elsie spoke accepting the award, of course, there was hardly a dry eye in the audience.

She talked about how she and other mothers only did what any mother would do for her children.

So many Ohioans will miss Miss Elsie Steward Young. Our thoughts are with her three surviving daughters, her two surviving sons, and, get this, her 36 grandchildren.

We know her legacy lives on through her success, through her victories, through her fight for justice, through her families, through the future generations of young people whom she inspired to stand against justice.

I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Miss Elsie Steward Young, Ohioan mother, determined champion for civil rights

Object.

Object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the career and service of a proud Ohioan, Dan Sewell, who will retire at the end of June, bringing an end to his 44-year career in journalism.

Dan spent 39 of those years with the Associated Press, serving Americans, both by bringing them the news and by telling their stories--in Buffalo, Miami, San Juan, Atlanta, and Chicago, where he has worked as a writer, editor, assistant bureau chief, and most recently in our home State, in Cincinnati, OH.

A native of Middletown, OH, Dan graduated from Edgewood High School. He got his start in journalism as a student journalist at Ohio University's student newspaper, The Post. That is where Dan and I first met, when he interviewed me as the youngest member of the Ohio State Legislature.

Journalists like Dan play a vital role in our democracy--they ask tough questions, they challenge special interests and uncover corruption, and they connect Americans with their communities and with the world. Whether it was the Grenada Invasion in 1983, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or the mass shooting in Dayton's Oregon District in 2019, Dan has done vital work on the frontlines, covering stories that matter to people.

Not only has he made a difference through his writing, Dan also teaches as a part-time instructor of journalism at Miami University in Oxford, OH, helping mentor the next generation of journalists.

Dan is a devoted husband to Vickii, father of five, and grandfather of nine, and plans to spend time with them during retirement. And he will have more time to partake in his favorite hobby--attending Cincinnati Reds' games.

On behalf of grateful readers in Ohio and around the country, I thank Dan Sewell for nearly four decades of service in journalism, doing work that is important to the fabric of our communities and our country.

Mr. President, one week from today, on July 1st, Trade Adjustment Assistance will expire.

This is our only tool to support workers who lose their jobs because of countries like China that cheat the rules. And in one week, it goes away. This is an economic problem and a China problem.

All of us, of both parties, recognize the threat that countries like China pose to our economy. It's why just two weeks ago, we came together and passed the Endless Frontiers Act on a broad, bipartisan basis: To secure and expand our domestic supply chains, to support R&D to ensure the next generation of manufacturing is developed in America and made in America, and to finally--finally--ensure that Americans' tax dollars are used to buy American products that support American jobs.

This should not be controversial.

We are working to undo decades of bad trade policy with China, and decades of neglect for our domestic supply chains. That's going to take years. We know corporations won't stop outsourcing jobs on July 1st. We know China isn't going to stop cheating and undermining American industries on July 1st. And we know our manufacturers will still have to compete against governments that prop up their competitors on July 1st.

We owe it to workers, who we know are going to have their lives upended through no fault of their own to unfair trade, to do everything we can to ease the transition. Today, I'm not asking for a complete renewal of the program. I'm not even asking for an extra year of the program.

I, on behalf of my Democratic colleagues and American workers, asked for unanimous consent from this body for a straight 3-month extension of TAA, so that we can keep having the conversations about how best to structure the program going forward. It appears that my friends on the other side would prefer a 1-month extension. I would like more, but in the spirit of compromise--this beats the alternative--letting TAA expire and leaving workers in the lurch.

And while that dialogue continues, workers get the help they need.

We know workers are losing jobs to China all over the country. Sadly, that happens every week, every day.

By extending this program, service workers and people whose jobs get shipped overseas to countries without trade agreements will get help.

Training funds, will continue being provided, at a time when we need to train people for the new jobs that we want industry to create. We all want the US economy to be more resilient in the face of economic shocks. We all want to see fewer communities devastated by unfair trade. We all want American workers' hard work to pay off TAA is part of that.

We came together to extend it in 2011. We came together to extend it in 2015. We must do the same today.

If you love this country you fight for the people who make it work. That's what we do with Trade Adjustment Assistance.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Carolina Young, of my staff, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 117th Congress.

Mr. President, last week, America lost a baseball legend, a pioneer in civil rights, Jim ``Mudcat'' Grant.

He joined the Cleveland Indians in 1958. He spent 14 years in the Major Leagues. I remember watching him play when I was a kid growing up in Cleveland in the 1960s.

Cleveland has been, more than any other franchise, perhaps, a pioneer for change in baseball. Cleveland had the first Black player in the American League, Larry Doby, Hall of Famer. He came into the league only about 2 months after Jackie Robinson integrated the National League. Cleveland had the first Black manager, Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. Cleveland also had ``Mudcat'' Grant, who refused to be silent in the face of segregated hotels and racist slurs and discrimination from management.

Grant was an accomplished singer with a beautiful voice. He organized the singing group ``Mudcat and the Kittens'' to make up the income he was denied that other players had, that White players had, in advertising and endorsements. Companies wouldn't hire a Black player. They toured the country during the off-season, performing with Johnny Carson and in places a little less known.

I remember Grant in later years serving as an announcer for Cleveland Indian games with a southern drawl that was unmistakable.

He didn't just use that voice, though, for entertainment or commentating on plays; he used it to speak out for civil rights.

During the national anthem at one game, predating Colin Kaepernick, Mudcat Grant--in the 1960s, before civil rights and voting rights had passed this Congress, he said this during the national anthem. He said:

This land is not free. I can't even go to Mississippi and

sit down at a lunch counter.

A Major League Baseball player.

In 1958, he and his White teammate Gary Bell roomed together for away games, becoming the first time--players, in those days, when they were paid less than management, charged less, whatever, players roomed together. Two players would room together. Gary Bell and Mudcat Grant were the first Black and White roommates in the major leagues in 1958.

While running for President, Senator John F. Kennedy invited Mudcat Grant to breakfast. Grant didn't hold back. He talked openly with Senator Kennedy, with the future President, about the poverty he grew up in, the racism he endured every day--this was 1960--as a Major League Baseball player.

Of course, it wasn't only his activism we remember Mudcat Grant for. We know his talent on the field. He was Minor League's Rookie of the Year in 1954, only 7 years after baseball was integrated.

In 1965, he was the first Black player to win 20 games in the American League. He should have been the first, but listen to this: For years, major league managers conspired to prevent Black pitchers from becoming 20-game winners. That almost doesn't make sense.

Well, Grant said some catchers would tell the hitters, the opposing hitters, while they were catching, what was coming because they didn't want you to do well as a pitcher.

Other managers, when a player was reaching--a pitcher was getting close to 20 games, other managers sat the player down so he couldn't win 20 games as a Black man.

After Black players pass away, we often hear about how they were among the underappreciated talents of the game. That is not a coincidence. In addition to being a singer, Grant was also a writer. He published a book in 2007 called ``The Black Aces.'' It is about the great African-American pitchers. Part of his project is to tell more stories about Black players and to teach

more people about the history of baseball integration.

It is the kind of stories we need to tell more often. Our country is richer, as the Presiding Officer representing Arizona knows--the country is richer when we tell people's stories.

Let's honor James Timothy Grant, Jr., by telling his story, by heeding his words. In his great poem ``Life,'' James Timothy Grant Jr. wrote:

Life is like a game of baseball, you play it every day. It

isn't just the breaks you get, but the kind of game you play.

James ``Mudcat'' Grant, rest in peace.

I yield the floor.