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“Coronavirus (Executive Session)” mentioning John Barrasso was published in the Senate section on pages S967-S969 on March 1.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Coronavirus
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I have come to the floor, on several occasions now, to talk about this $1.9 trillion spending bill that will be soon before this body.
I have talked about different parts of the bill on different occasions. I have talked about the mandates, the bailouts, and the billions and billions of dollars of spending completely unrelated to coronavirus. Now, these are all reasons enough to oppose this piece of legislation.
Today, I would like to talk about another problem that I see with the bill, and that is that this bill would now subsidize health insurance far beyond what was ever imagined when the House and the Senate passed the Obama healthcare law--way beyond the subsidies ever envisioned in that.
One analysis shows that this bill would give a family of four making close to a quarter million dollars a year--family of four making close to a quarter million dollars a year--up to $9,000 in free subsidies for healthcare.
Now, that is not four times the poverty level; that is almost four times the average income of a household in the United States.
You know, government aid is supposed to be for those who need it, people who can't make it on their own, but that has not been the focus of the Democrats with this legislation.
This legislation is not about coronavirus, not about coronavirus testing and vaccinations. They have already been paid for, so that someone who wants to get a test or get the vaccine, they get it. It was paid for previously. The vaccines are free. We don't need additional money to pay for the shot. We voted on that last year. It is the law of the land.
This new proposal, with these additional subsidies, is just going to get us this much closer to one-size-fits-all, socialized medicine.
Now, Democrats have realized for many years that the Obama healthcare law has failed America. They know it is unaffordable for working families. People understand that the copays are so high, the deductibles are so high that people who have been mandated to buy it found that they didn't really get any value for their money.
Many people I have talked to said, with ObamaCare, the premiums were so high it was actually higher than their mortgage at home.
Well, Republicans want to lower healthcare costs, actually the cost of care. Democrats seem to just want to raise what government pays.
And Democrats are also trying to pressure States to expand Medicaid. There are about a dozen States that have chosen not to expand Medicaid.
Now, I am a doctor. I know the importance of Medicaid. I know the importance of providing care for people who cannot care for themselves. Often, that is families, low-income families, pregnant women, patients with disabilities. You look at the original intent of Medicaid--huge value for the American people but not what they have seen with the ObamaCare expansion.
We should work together for these most vulnerable of individuals so that they can get the care that they need. Yet it is not what Democrats are doing with this proposal, not with the additional subsidies, not with the additional expansion of Medicaid. They are trying to bribe States--bribe States to give free care to able-bodied, working adults; not to people who were originally intended to be helped by Medicaid but for able-bodied, working adults.
Those are people who ought to be getting their health insurance through their job, through work. That is the best way this works for them, insurance that they can use without these extraordinarily high deductibles and copays that we see with ObamaCare. The contrast could not be clearer.
Republicans are offering the American people a stronger economy and opening schools. That is what we ought to be focusing on. Democrats and the healthcare law are subsidizing health insurance for the rich. It is astonishing. You wouldn't think it would be that way. It doesn't make sense. It is not coronavirus relief.
People need relief now. They want their kids back in school. They want to get back to work. They want to put the virus behind them. That is not what I see in this $1.9 trillion bill that the Senate will soon be considering.
I think only 1 dollar out of 11 of this $1.9 trillion bill actually goes to help get people back to work, kids back to school, focuses on the healthcare components of coronavirus.
The kids-back-to-school component, you say: Well, there is money to put kids back to school, but 95 percent of that money doesn't even start to get spent until 2022. The coronavirus crisis is going to be behind us by 2022.
We should be working together, targeting support for the American people who need it the most, not subsidizing people who don't actually need the subsidies.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Republican whip.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, Democrats continue to push forward with their partisan COVID legislation. The House of Representatives passed the Democrats' $1.9 trillion partisan wish list on Saturday, and the Senate is expected to take it up later this week.
Just weeks after the President expressed his commitment to unity at his inauguration, he and his party are forcing through exclusively partisan legislation despite Republicans' clear willingness to negotiate. When it comes to Democrats' COVID bill, President Biden keeps asking, ``What would you have me cut?''--as if there is no way anyone could dispute the necessity of anything in this legislation.
Well, as I said last week, I have some suggestions because this bill is rife with unnecessary and problematic provisions. Democrats are presenting this as a COVID relief bill, but a lot of this bill has little to do with responding to the pandemic. In fact, less than 10 percent of the bill is directly related to combating the COVID health crisis.
If President Biden would like to know what to cut, let me suggest starting with the bill's $350 billion slush fund for States. Now, there is no question that COVID has placed additional pressure on States, which is why Republicans supported targeted funding for States in previous COVID legislation. But at this point, the vast majority of States are not in crisis.
A number of States actually saw higher tax revenues in 2020. The majority of States, including my home State of South Dakota, have the resources they need to weather the rest of the pandemic. Even if the Federal Government bailed out those States that are still struggling--
some, at least partially, because of their own mismanagement--$350 billion far exceeds the amount that would be needed. Democrats are simply providing a large and unnecessary giveaway to States with the distribution formula heavily weighted in favor of blue States.
Then there is the bill's funding for schools. Now, Republicans are committed to getting schools reopened so our kids can get back to the in-person learning that they need. It is why we voted for $68 billion in COVID funding for K-12 schools last year. But right now, schools don't need additional funding. So far K-12 schools have spent just $5 billion of the $68 billion that we provided them. Yet the Democrats' bill would provide nearly $129 billion in additional funding. And despite all that additional and unnecessary money, nothing--nothing--in the bill would require schools to actually reopen. Schools could collect this money while still depriving students of the benefits of in-person learning.
And another thing, Democrats are billing this legislation as a COVID relief bill and suggesting that it is providing urgently needed funding. Yet 95 percent of the funding for schools--95 percent--would be spent after this year. That is right. Just 5 percent of this
``emergency funding'' would be spent in 2021. The rest would be spent between 2022 and 2028. Are we really supposed to believe that money that would be spent in 2028--years after the pandemic is likely to be over--is somehow urgently needed COVID relief funding?
Well, I could go on for a while here with suggestions for what to cut in this bill. I am pretty sure that $100 million for a Silicon Valley underground rail project doesn't have a lot to do with getting our country out of the COVID crisis. Or how about the $1.5 million for a bridge in the Democratic leader's home State?
And then there is the $86 billion bailout for multiemployer pension plans, billions--billions--for environmental policies, and a provision to ensure that Planned Parenthood and labor unions can apply for Paycheck Protection Program loans designed to help small businesses--I am not sure how far that will go toward helping our economy, but it will certainly help build the coffers of some of Democrats' political allies.
If Democrats were really just focused on COVID relief, this would be a much smaller and targeted bill, but Democrats' ambitions were much larger than just addressing the COVID crisis. As a Democrat political operative famously said, ``never allow a good crisis to go to waste.''
Well, Democrats have taken that advice and are using the COVID crisis as cover for a whole list of partisan priorities with potentially very negative consequences. The Democrats' COVID bill runs a very real risk of overstimulating the economy, as evidenced by the large increase we have seen in money supply which could, among other things, drive up prices on the goods that Americans use every day--in other words, inflation. Even some liberal economists have sounded the alarm over the size of the Democrats' coronavirus legislation.
And then, of course, there is the danger posed by driving up our debt. We had to borrow a lot of money last year to meet the demands of the coronavirus crisis, and while it was money we needed to borrow, we need to be very aware of the fact that we added a substantial--
substantial--amount to our already very large national debt. We need to be very careful about any additional borrowing and ensure that we are only borrowing what is absolutely necessary.
I think it goes without saying that the more that we borrow, the more debt we have to retire. If something negative happened on interest rates and interest rates normalized--went back to a more normal setting--the interest itself on that amount of debt would literally dwarf anything else we do in our budget, including defending the country.
And that, I believe, is a very, very real threat, because if you look at what is happening right now with the economy and with all the money that we have flooded out there so far and another $2 trillion, if the Democrats have their way in this particular proposal, and all that money out there starts pushing up those costs and we start seeing inflation in the economy, it doesn't take very long for interest rates to go with it. In fact, they already are. If those interest rates start pushing up very quickly on the amount of debt that we are piling up, financing that debt--the amount of interest, the cost of interest on that debt--would be absolutely overwhelming and devastating to this country.
So we need to be very, very careful about any additional borrowing and ensure that we are only borrowing what is absolutely necessary. That means making sure that anything we do in terms of additional pandemic relief is targeted and fiscally responsible, and that does not include money for a bridge in New York or a taxpayer bailout for mismanaged States.
It is deeply disappointing that Democrats chose to turn their backs on bipartisanship. Republicans were ready to work with Democrats on additional targeted relief.
As I have pointed out before, the pandemic has been an issue on which, at least up until now, there has been very much bipartisan support. Last year, when Republicans were in the majority, we did five--five--coronavirus bills, all bipartisan, all done at the 60-vote threshold that governs most legislation that moves through the Senate in a cooperative way.
In this case, the Democrats are plowing forward, pushing this legislation in a very partisan way, and I think that is unfortunate given our history on this issue of bipartisanship and the importance of making sure that we are doing the right things on behalf of the American people to help them get through this pandemic.
Choosing to pursue a partisan process allows Democrats to stuff the bill with unnecessary spending and political payoffs, but that is not the way to help our country or our economy recover.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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