Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. For the information of Senators, there will be three rollcall votes starting at 11 a.m., and four rollcall votes at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 430, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Brown, reserving the right to object, I don't want to laugh. This is too serious. But we have the chairman of the Republican Senate campaign committee who comes down to the floor--he knows better. I mean, he just knows better. He knows this is a political stunt. It is what he does. I don't think the chair of the Senate Republican campaign committee gets paid extra to do this kind of stuff, but it is just clearly a political stunt. He knows. He doesn't really know--I don't know what he knows, but I do know that I haven't seen his interest in housing since he has been in the Senate. I am the chair of the Housing Committee. When I was ranking member with Senator Crapo, for whom I have great respect, I didn't see any. But all of a sudden, he has this interest in low-income people's housing to make sure that they have safe, accessible, affordable places to stay. He knows--he should know; I don't know how he would not know--that HUD is not requiring proof of vaccination for people to use their services. There is no hint of any of us--I mean, because I am lucky enough to be chair of this committee, I do more in housing than perhaps anybody in this body--at least one of the three or four who do the most--and I don't know anybody who is saying we are going to require proof of vaccine. So it is just a political stunt. I don't know if the Senator from--I think it is Florida; I am not sure--the Senator from Florida is going to, as soon as this is over, take down these debates and show how he is standing up for people's access to housing, especially low-income, but he is proposing that the Senate take up and pass a bill to address a problem that just isn't happening. The sad part is, we know how real housing issues are in this country. It isn't a stunt for people trying to figure out how they are going to pay the rent. We know that before the pandemic, 25 percent of renters in this country were paying more than half their income for rent. That means if the car breaks down, it means if their child gets sick, it means if they have a minor workplace injury and they miss a week of work, it means that then their lives are turned upside down because they are evicted. I wish I saw my colleague and the other officers of the Republican Senate campaign committee out on this floor fighting for those renters, fighting for those low-income people who are paying $700 or $800 a month in rent in Hartford or in Cleveland and could pay less if they owned a home, but they don't have the downpayment. It would be great to see them come out on the floor and work with us--work with us--the Senator from Connecticut and me and others, to help low-income people come up with that downpayment. There are 27,000 Floridians who were experiencing homelessness even before the pandemic. So I just wish I saw this concern and these concerns in other ways. Housing is a foundation for opportunity. It is the biggest cost most families face. The cost is way too high. We can't build an economy that works for everyone when housing prices eat up more of families' budgets year after year. We can work to fix that. I encourage the Senator from Florida to join us to fix the real problems in rural areas, in big coastal cities, in small towns on Lake Erie or the Atlantic Ocean. It is a national problem that needs a national response and a national, significant investment. Let's take housing problems seriously. Let's stop the political stunts. Let's work together for the people whom we serve. Therefore, I object.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I have a message for Ohio voters, my great State of 12 million people. To Ohio voters, to parents, I say: Check your bank accounts. On Friday, most Ohio parents--the parents of more than 2 million children, 92 percent of children in our State--most Ohio parents, once again, saw $250, or $300, or $600 in tax cuts directly deposited in their banks accounts, or maybe they got the check in their mailbox. To parents, I say: We know how hard you work at your jobs and raising your children. Any parent--any parent--knows how much work it is to take care of children, especially young children. I am the lucky, proud grandparent, grandfather of eight grandchildren. I watch my children--five of our grandchildren live in Ohio; three of them live out of State not too far away. I watch them. I watch how hard they work, how difficult it is to take care of young children. And it has only gotten harder, of course, we know, over the last year and a half. So often I say to these parents: Your hard work doesn't pay off like it should. We have seen what happened over the past few decades: productivity goes up, stock prices have soared, executive compensation is off the charts; yet wages have barely budged. Meanwhile, you know how expensive it is to raise children: healthcare, school lunch, diapers, clothes, school supplies, braces, sports fees. The list never seems to end. One of the biggest expenses, of course, for so many families is childcare. Parents feel like they are stuck. The more they work, the more expensive childcare is. You feel like you can't keep up, no matter how hard you work. It is why we passed the child tax credit--the largest tax cut for working families ever. It is about finally, finally, making your--Ohio parents--your hard work pay off so you can keep up with those extra expenses that keep coming when you are raising a family. Stories pour into our office from parents from Sandusky to Portsmouth, from Ashtabula to Middletown and Hamilton, from Toledo to Gallipolis--stories we hear over and over about these tax cuts; stories about how expensive childcare is, how parents are using their money to afford childcare so they can go back to work or, in some cases, work overtime. Kristen of Columbus said she is using this to pay for ``Daycare. For two kids [at] $600/wk.'' Brittany said, ``Daycare.'' Ellie said, ``Daycare.'' Alex in Cleveland: ``Every penny goes to daycare. 4 kids in daycare . . . $800/week.'' These tax cuts mean more parents are in the workplace. They can afford to go to work. It is that simple. And let's be clear. Getting $300, getting $600 a month per child in tax cuts doesn't discourage anyone from getting a job, or doesn't cause any of them to quit. I am going to leave my job that pays $30,000 a year because I am getting $3,000--said no one ever to us. There is no way you could afford to raise a family on that. You still need a job. These tax cuts help parents afford that job. It is all about dignity of work. I can't count the number of families that said: You know--I said on this floor a few minutes ago that 25 percent of renters in this country spend half their income on rent. So we know how anxious those families are on the last week of the month. One of the things I have heard perhaps more than anything else about this child tax credit is: The last week of the month, we don't have to deny our kids dessert, or we don't have to cut something else because some of that anxiety has been lifted off our shoulders because we are getting $250 per child in the child tax credit. It makes a huge difference in just their lives. As I said, it is about the dignity of work. All work has dignity, whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, whether you work for tips, whether you are on salary, whether you are caring for children, whether you are taking care of a sick parent. Raising children is work. Raising kids is a hell of a lot more work than moving money from one overseas bank account to another, or than checking your balance in your stock portfolio. That didn't stop Mitch McConnell from rewarding the wealthiest CEOs and hedge fund managers and Swiss banks account owners. We remember what happened. We looked down the hall in Senator McConnell's office, just 100 feet or so down there, and you see--particularly 3 or 4 years ago, you saw the lobbyists lining up there as he was dolling out to the wealthiest CEOs and the hedge fund managers and the Swiss bank accounts holders and the politicians, doing their bidding: pass that tax cut for the wealthy and for corporations and outsource jobs. Don't think a lot of those CEOs didn't take the tax cut, outsource jobs, set up manufacturing in those countries, and sell back in the United States. And then they took part of the tax cut and did stock buybacks to make themselves richer. Senator McConnell and the leaders in this body all knew that is what that was all about. But when it comes time for a tax break for families making $10- or $20- or $50- or $75,000 a year, they are absent. We know that it was a partisan vote. Every Democrat voted for the biggest tax cut in American history. Every Republican voted against the biggest tax cut in American history. Fortunately, there were more of us than there are of them. It was 51 to 50. They promised their tax cuts for the rich would trickle down. We know they never do. They keep the money for themselves. They spent that money on stock buybacks. Now, as I said, without a single vote from Republicans--I don't like to be partisan around here. I represent a State that leans Republican. A lot of Republicans vote for me because I work with them and want them to succeed, as I want everybody to succeed. But we also know this tax cut shows whose side you are on. It is a pretty simple contrast--are you on the side of workers, or are you on the side of these big corporations that outsource jobs? Do you want tax cuts for billionaires and decamillionaires, or do you want tax cuts for working families? Overwhelmingly, Americans from all over the country, from all kinds of backgrounds agree with that. Everyone is lining up behind extending the child tax credit expansion: the faith community, the civil rights community, the children's advocacy community, Catholic Charities, Bread for the World, RESULTS, the Coalition on Human Needs, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Children's Defense Fund. So many others are writing us in the last week in support of keeping these checks going, in support of extending the child tax credit 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, making it permanent, because every single month we show parents and workers we are on your side. So count on it. Starting July 15, first check; a month later, mid- August, second check; a month later, mid-September, third check; just last week, the fourth check. Two hundred and fifty dollars if your child is between the ages of 6 and 17; $300 per child if your child is under 6. It has been like clockwork. It has made a difference. We haven't quite reached everybody in my State--2.5 million children are eligible, 2.4 million. We have reached about 2.3 million of them. So we are still working to find those other parents who don't know about this for their children. But think of what that has done for 92 percent of my State's children. Ninety-two percent of the kids in my State, their parents are benefiting from this. One man said to me: You know, for the first time ever, I can buy my child--I can buy my daughter fastpitch softball equipment. At the same meeting, a woman, a mother, told me: You know, for the first time ever, my son can go to summer camp now, first time ever. Other parents were talking about childcare. One family said: You know, we can put aside $100 a month so my daughter can go to Sinclair State Community College, or maybe the University of Dayton, or maybe Ohio University. Other families talk, as I said, Mr. President, about rent, the anxiety they feel at the end of every month to come up with that rent check so they don't get evicted. Every single month, we are showing parents and we are showing workers we are on your side. We will keep doing that. I hope more Republicans join us and we can do this bipartisan, but, either way, we will not stop fighting to make sure parents' hard work pays off for years to come.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the following letters into the Congressional Record.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I come to the floor for the opposite reason. I am thrilled to rise to urge my colleagues to support Rohit Chopra to serve as the next Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I have seen the good work they used to do. They used to have an Ohio Director. The first Director there was Richard Cordray, a friend of mine, somebody who stood up for consumers pretty much every day of his work life. Rohit Chopra will become the CFPB Director at a time when far too many Americans feel that the system is rigged against them. You hear reports about billionaires not paying taxes. You hear these reports about record profits on Wall Street. You see the influence. Just check down the hall. Look down the hall. You can see the influence in the minority leader's office, Senator McConnell. Lobbyists are going in and out, always getting their way. When a Republican freight train goes down the railbed full of tax cuts, you know it never stops. It is always about helping those in charge get wealthier. As the CFPB Director, Rohit Chopra will be here when people feel like no matter how hard they work, they don't get a fair shot in this country. His job will be on the side of the public. His job will be on the side of the workers. I know the Presiding Officer sees this job as I do--as putting workers at the center of our country, at the center of our economy, at the center of our work here. The Senator from Georgia sees the country in the same way: putting workers at the center of our agenda. That has not happened until we had this new President. Now, with Rohit Chopra, we have the chance to turn this around. The public has watched the largest corporations amass enormous power and use it to gain access and influence in this town to write the rules in their favor. Again, I won't open the door to show you again, but if you look down that hall, you will see the people going in and out of the Republican leader's office. They are always gaining access, always gaining influence, always writing the rules in their favor. So it is not surprising that most people don't believe there is anyone on their side, fighting for them in the Federal Government, but we know that is not true. That is why I know Rohit Chopra will prove them wrong, and he will fight for all of those who feel like they have been left on their own. Even before the pandemic, hard work wasn't paying off. We all know that productivity has gone up in this country in the last many years; we know executive compensation has skyrocketed; and we know the stock market has gone up. But do you know what we also know and what people feel every day? They feel like their wages have been stagnant. They feel like they are working harder and harder in Savannah or in Columbus, GA, or in Cincinnati or Columbus, OH. They know they are working harder and harder every day, and they are simply not getting ahead. They feel that they have been left on their own. Productivity is up, and wages have stagnated. Meanwhile, we know the cost of housing, the cost of childcare, the cost of higher ed, the cost of prescription drugs--they all go up--and 40 percent of Americans aren't able to come up with $400 in an emergency. Before the pandemic, one-quarter of renters paid more than half their income in rent. You know what happens there. If you are paying half your income in rent and your car breaks down or your daughter gets sick or you miss a couple days of work from a workplace injury, your life changes. It goes upside down, and you can get evicted. Then the coronavirus hit, and millions of workers who were one emergency away from draining their savings turned to a payday lender as they faced emergencies all at once. Millions of homeowners now have fallen behind in their mortgages and are at risk of foreclosure--one in six Latino homeowners, one in five African-American homeowners. Through it all, we have seen COVID-related scams emerge--scams that use a global pandemic as a means to cheat their fellow Americans. I mean, there is always somebody out there. Most of us aren't that way. Most of us in the Senate and most of us in this country aren't that way, but there is always somebody out there who will scam their fellow Americans. As a result, half a million Americans--that is a lot of people--reached out to the CFPB last year, seeking help. That is 54 percent more than in 2019. Record numbers of consumers complained about errors in their credit reports or harassment by debt collectors. Those Americans need someone willing to stand up to the biggest banks and to stand up to the most powerful corporations and fight for them. Rohit Chopra has the expertise and the track record to do that, and he will be America's voice and America's advocate. He has a deep understanding of financial markets, a strong record of protecting consumers and workers and small businesses, promoting competitive markets, and holding bad actors accountable. In 2018, this body, this Senate, voted unanimously--unanimously--that is all of us--to confirm Rohit Chopra as an FTC Commissioner. They voted unanimously. In the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee--it used to be just called the Banking Committee because it was all about Wall Street; now the word ``Housing'' is in capital letters in that committee. In that committee a few weeks ago, all 12 Republicans voted against Rohit Chopra. Everybody here voted to confirm him when he was to go to the FTC. I don't know if any Republicans in this body are going to vote for him now. It is really kind of shocking as he has worked with Members of both parties on a wide array of issues that are important to American consumers. As Commissioner, he worked with Democratic and Republican State attorneys general to protect American small businesses and consumers from foreign goods that were flooding the market with fake ``Made in the USA'' labels. I worked on this issue a lot. My colleague Senator Portman from Ohio--he and I worked together to strengthen, in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the ``Buy American'' provisions--stronger than they have ever been--so that we won't see a project like the Bay Bridge in California, Northern California, made entirely with steel produced by Chinese companies--all part of the Chinese Communist Party. We are not going to see that again. We are going to see what ``Made in the USA'' means. Mr. Chopra's job, in part--something that his predecessor didn't do-- will enforce ``Made in the USA.'' If a company puts ``Made in the USA'' on a label, they should hear from the government. You just can't commit that kind of fraud. In my State, Ohioans look for ``Made in the USA'' because they want their dollars to support our economy. They know it also means a quality product, and it means made by American workers. He has led the FTC's recent crackdown on Big Tech. Americans across the political spectrum were concerned about these huge tech corporations that seemed to get bigger and bigger and to control more and more of their lives. Mr. Chopra authorized the Agency's current lawsuit against Facebook. This is what he did in the last job he was in when he got unanimous support in this body for confirmation. He stood up for Amazon drivers when the company stole more than $60 million. Imagine Amazon, as maybe the most successful corporation-- certainly, one of the largest corporations in the world--stole $60 million of tips of workers making $9, $10, $11, $12 an hour, and they are not getting away with it. I mean, maybe they got away with it before, but they didn't get away with it because Rohit Chopra was there. Banks aren't going to get away with that kind of stuff. Payday lenders won't get away with that kind of stuff. All kinds of people who try to defraud American consumers--they are not going to get away with this because Rohit Chopra is going to be the cop on the beat. During his prior time, when he worked with Richard Cordray at the CFPB, he served as the Agency's first student loan ombudsman. He looked out for students in the $1.7 trillion student loan market--$1.7 trillion. That is 1.7 thousand billion, this $1.7 trillion student loan market. He worked with State attorneys general of both parties to bring enforcement actions against scammers who preyed on students who were drowning in student loan debt. I see the pages on both sides, sitting here on the steps. Many of them are going to school in the next couple of years or are going to college. Many of them will take student loans. Many of them may be preyed on by some of these scammers. I am guessing every one of these pages here, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, whether sponsored by Chuck Schumer or Mitch McConnell or me or Rob Portman--I am guessing every one of you would vote for the confirmation if you could vote. Sorry. You are not even old enough to vote yet, but if you could, you would vote for Rohit Chopra because he is going to protect you. He is going to protect you when people try to scam you and your student loans. His commitment to protecting servicemembers has been particularly important. He uncovered a predatory lending scheme. He was able to return more than $60 million to them and their families. Think about that. People are trying to scam our servicemembers. The wife is away, serving our country, and the husband is home and they try to scam the husband, the husband who worries about his wife every day overseas-- these predatory lenders and others. That is why you need Rohit Chopra there to protect them. He has earned the endorsement of a bipartisan group of State attorneys general. He is supported by a broad coalition of 150 consumer groups, civil rights groups, labor groups, public interest groups, and small business organizations. They know, like I do, that, with Mr. Chopra leading the CFPB, Americans can be confident they will have someone looking out for them. Corporations, big banks, payday lenders-- they all have high-priced lobbyists. You see them going in and out of Senator McConnell's office. We know that. They have an outsized voice in this town. Most people don't have lobbyists. I just introduced a bill to help those on SSI. They are the lowest income people, averaging $500 a month in income. They didn't have a voice. They hadn't been heard from in 20 years until Congress did it. It is the same with people that Rohit Chopra will be paid to protect: They don't have lobbyists. They don't have a PAC. They certainly don't have a super PAC. They are not able to unleash tens of millions of dollars of dark money to win elections. They don't have an expensive lawyer they can get on the phone with a bank or a credit card company if something goes wrong. That is why we created the CFPB--to fight for them, to be a voice for ordinary people--and, soon, Americans will have Rohit Chopra on their side. If you were scammed by a payday lender, if you were overcharged by a bank, if you took an unfair hit on your credit report, it doesn't matter whom you voted for or what State. It doesn't matter who your Senate sponsor is. If you are a page, it doesn't matter whom you voted for. It doesn't matter what State you live in. You need help. You want someone on your side, and Rohit Chopra will be on your side. He will stand up. He will be your advocate. That is why, as chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, I enthusiastically support Mr. Chopra's nomination to serve as the next Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I urge all of my colleagues to support him.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all remaining postcloture time be considered expired.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, it is always a thrill to come to the floor to talk about the child tax credit, especially with three colleagues who really are the authors and the most important pushers, if you will, of this bill in the Senate. I am going to turn it to Senator Bennet--he and I worked on this for damn close to a decade now--and Senator Booker. And then we will be joined last by Senator Warnock, who has only been in the Senate for a year--not even--and has done so much already for the State of Georgia, and he is one of the best supporters of this in the U.S. Senate. So I will reserve my comments for a little later. Senator Bennet will go first.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Booker, and I join my friend Senator Warnock here to talk about this. Thanks to Senator Bennet, Senator Booker, and Senator Warnock for their leadership on what I think is the most important thing I have done in my years in public office: the child tax credit that Senator Bennet and I began on years and years and years ago, joined by other colleagues. Senator Warnock has really taken it over in a big way this year in getting it across the finish line. Sorry for the sports metaphor, but that is how important this is. Senator Bennet said something about--and I guess Senator Booker--that raising children is work. At least one of my colleagues--a number of my colleagues on that side of the aisle, and I believe a colleague or two on this side of the aisle, said something about a work requirement in a child tax credit. And I don't understand that because I spent a lot of time, including this weekend, with my grandchildren, and I see how hard my daughters work raising children and our son works raising children and the pressures. And this bill, cutting everything else away, relieves some of the anxiety that parents face, the anxiety of how do I get the money together to pay the rent this week, before the end of the month, so I don't get evicted or I don't get behind in my rent--just the opportunities for these parents. So I want to talk directly--directly--to Ohio parents. We talk about parents and about the child tax credit. I want to talk to Ohio parents for a moment. Parents, check your bank accounts. A week ago today, we once again put money directly in the pockets of the families of most Ohio parents. The families of 92 percent of Ohio children are getting these dollars either direct deposit in their accounts or in their mailboxes in checks. It started July 15, then August 15, and then September 15. It will continue. Our goal on the floor today is to make this permanent; at least to make sure this goes beyond the end of the year. We are going to succeed in doing that. It is so important that we do. Back to talking to parents. We know how hard you work at your jobs and raising your kids. Any parent knows how much work it is to take care of children, especially young children. It has only gotten harder over the last year and a half. The pressures are greater. The anxiety placed on families is more. We have not recognized in this country often enough that raising children is work. If you have a job outside the home, you are probably not getting paid what you are worth. We have seen what has happened over the past few decades. Productivity has gone up. Stock prices have soared. Executive compensation is stratospheric. The wages have been flat. Wages for most Americans have barely budged; meanwhile, you all as parents know how expensive it is to raise kids--childcare, healthcare, school lunches, diapers, clothes, school supplies, braces, sports fees. The list never seems to end. That is not to mention trying to put money away--just a few dollars a month--trying to put money away for college or sending your kid to camp or maybe--maybe, as I have heard from some parents-- for the first time in 2 or 3 years, they are going to get to take a little vacation for a few days or maybe, once a month, going out to dinner at the local diner. You feel like you can't keep up no matter how hard you work. It is why we passed the child tax credit. It is why we started, several years ago, working to get other Senators on board until we had virtually, literally, every Senator on this side of the aisle. Every single Democrat has voted for the child tax credit twice already. Unfortunately, every single Republican voted against it. I don't even really understand why they are against it when, you know, you could look out down the aisle here, you can look down the hall, and Senator McConnell's office is down the hall, and you see the lobbyists lining up there. They always get their tax cuts. A train carrying tax cuts leaves the station whenever Republicans are in power--a tax cut for wealthy people--but this is a tax cut for working families, and we know how important that is. It is finally-- finally--to America's parents, making your hard work pay off so you can keep up with those extra expenses that keep coming and coming and coming when you are raising a family. Stories have poured into our office from parents across Ohio about these tax cuts. Let me just give you snippets of several of them. Katie in Akron: It helps pay for school supplies. Caitlin: It pays for preschool for my son. Lindsay: It is back-to-school clothes. Fern: It will pay for preschool for both of my children, and the rest is going into a savings account for them. From Melissa: I used part of it to buy school uniform pieces for my 4-year-old. Jennifer: Put it away for college tuition. Maia: Food and school supplies. And one of the most common stories we hear over and over is that parents are using this to afford childcare so they can go back to work or keep working or work a few more hours. One mother from Minford in Southern Ohio near Portsmouth, wrote to me, and she said: My husband and I are middle class, raising two children [both] under 6. . . . We have been worried about the financial burden of paying for 2 children in full-time child care. The $300, per child, will be placed directly towards child care so . . . we [don't] have to worry about how my participation in the workforce affects us, and allow us to participate more in the economy. She continued: I believe these payments will allow more parents, especially mothers, to participate more fully in the workforce, [allowing] them more time to pursue training, and help American families [get] food on the table. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. She really tells the story. You know in Connecticut and in Georgia that not everybody has gone back to work that could find work; in part, because employers are finally starting to pay more, but so much of the time because they can't find childcare or they can't afford childcare. We know that. That is what these tax cuts are all about. They are about the dignity of work. All work has dignity, whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, whether you work on a salary or work for tips, whether you are raising children, or whether you are caring for aging parents. Raising children is work. Raising children is work. It is a hell of a lot more work than moving money from one overseas bank account to another or checking the balance in your stock portfolio. That didn't stop Senator McConnell and the Republican majority 2 or 3 years ago from rewarding the CEOs and hedge fund managers and Swiss bank account holders. We all remember what happened. Mitch McConnell-- and the lobbyists lining up down the hall--and the politicians who always do their bidding passed their tax cut for the wealthy and corporations that outsource jobs. You know what they promised? They promised it would all trickle down and have more jobs and workers in Savannah--the hometown of the Senator from Georgia--that there will be more jobs and the workers would get more pay and the companies would invest more in the workforce. Well, it didn't exactly happen that way. They kept their money for themselves. They spent that money on stock buybacks. Unsurprisingly, where did that money go? It goes in the pockets, mostly, of executives. Now, this year, without a single vote from Republicans in Congress, we passed tax cuts for everyone else. It is a pretty simple contrast. Whose side are you on? Do you want tax cuts for billionaires and corporations--that is what they did 4 years ago; that is what the President and the Congress did 4 years ago--or do you want tax cuts for working families? That is what Senator Warnock's and Senator Ossoff's and President Biden's elections meant in November and January of this year; that instead of more tax cuts for the richest people in the country--though that bill, 70 percent of the tax cuts or the benefits went to the richest 1 percent--now we are seeing our tax cut goes to 90 percent of the families in this country. Every single month we are showing parents and workers we are on your side. We will not stop fighting to make sure parents' hard work pays off for years to come. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, a week ago today, we celebrated Labor Day, a day to honor America's workers, a day to honor the labor movement that built this country and built our middle class. It recognizes all Americans working hard every day to support families who contribute to community and power our economy. Over the summer, as I know that the Presiding Officer has traveled to Arizona, I have been all over my State of Ohio talking with those workers: steelworkers in Toledo, busdrivers in Canton, VA healthcare workers serving our veterans in Chillicothe, union mechanics in Columbus. They live in different communities. They come from different backgrounds. But the dignity of work unites all of us. We take pride in hard work in this country, and we believe, as Dr. King said and Pope Leo XIII said, that all work has dignity, whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, whether you work for tips, whether you take care of aging parents, whether you are raising children or whether you are a new grandparent--no matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of work you do. For far too many people, hard work isn't paying off. Productivity has gone up. Stock prices have soared. Executive compensation is stratospheric. But wages have barely budged. This isn't a coincidence. It is not an accident of the market. It is not an inevitable result of our system of capitalism. Wall Street has the power in this economy. They are obsessed with accumulating more wealth for the people who already have it. The system we have, where most of the gains in the economy seem to go to those at the top, is by Wall Street's explicit design, and it comes at the direct expense of American workers. We don't always make the connection. People are rightfully angry, but they don't think about how decisions in corporate boardrooms and on the floors of stock exchanges thousands of miles away affect their job opportunities and their wages. Corporations focus on their short-term performance on the stock market, not the long-term success of the company and its workers. Their main goal too often becomes increasing stock prices quarter to quarter. That is how CEO performance is evaluated. They are compensated in large part with company shares. Stocks can account for as much as half of an executive's compensation package. Corporations, therefore, juice those stock prices by repurchasing their own stock, what we call stock buybacks. Here is how it works. There are a finite number of company shares at any given time. Purchasing shares will decrease the number of shares available to investors and therefore drive up the price and the value of the remaining shares. Existing shareholders will see their stock value increase. Lo and behold, often those existing shareholders are the executives of the company. This is often an even more attractive option to executives than dividends because buybacks are more flexible and, under current law, they aren't taxed until the shares are sold. That is what we want to change. The economy hasn't always worked this way. A few decades ago, most of Wall Street capital funded the real economy: wages, machinery, research, new construction, expansion of the company. Stock buybacks used to be considered illegal market manipulation. Think about that. Stock buybacks then used to be considered illegal market manipulation. Today, they have become routine. Now, only 15 percent of capital goes to the real economy while the amount corporations spend on buybacks has just exploded. Between 2004 and 2013, Home Depot, a great company by most measures, in that decade spent 99 percent of its net income on stock buybacks--99 percent of its net income on stock buybacks. IBM spent 92 percent. That is right. Some companies spend close to 100 percent of their profits on their own stocks rather than workers' wages, rather than expanding the company, rather than investing in research and development. It has only gotten worse since Washington Republicans' 2017 tax giveaway to these corporations. We all remember--and I have pointed this out before--the lobbyists down the hall in front of Senator McConnell's office, the corporate lobbyists that lined up one after another as Senator McConnell decided, on behalf of his Members and with President Trump during the Trump-McConnell Presidency--how Senator McConnell handed these companies a windfall. Their executives turned around. I remember Senator McConnell, when he walked down the hall here after doing his conversations--I will just leave it at that--with his lobbyist friends. He would walk down the hall, and he would stand at the majority leader's--then the majority leader--and I think that tax giveaway is part of the reason he is no longer the majority leader. But he would say that that is going to trickle down and workers are going to get raises and companies are going to expand and benefits are going to go to the whole economy. Well, that is not exactly what happened. When he handed them that windfall, you know what the executives did--the executives who were lobbying him, the executives who were contributing to the campaigns, the executives who control the Wall Street Journal editorial board? Do you know what they did? They turned around; they plowed that money right back into stock buybacks, which meant, lo and behold, right into their own pockets. The largest U.S. companies--in 2018, right after the tax giveaway, over a trillion dollars, 70 percent, went to the richest 1 percent. Don't forget that number. In 2018, the largest U.S. companies spent more than $800 billion in stock buybacks, a 50-percent increase from the previous year, a 50-percent increase because they got that largesse from the Federal Treasury. They spent more on stock buybacks than on debt payments, than on capital expenditures, than on research and development, than on dividends--in other words, the real economy. Now, in 2021, as millions of families struggle to recover from this pandemic and get back on their feet, you might think things would change. We are hearing that a lot of companies--the Presiding Officer hears it in Arizona; I hear it in Ohio--a lot of companies complain about supposed labor shortages. You might think that these companies that are sitting on cash, that it might cause companies to reassess. They need more workers. Maybe they should cut back on juicing their stock buybacks, and instead they could permanently raise pay or increase retirement contributions or offer better healthcare plans or invest in new training programs--all of those to attract new, better paid, more satisfied, happier workers. But, no, this year corporate stock buybacks are on track to approach or even surpass the 2018 record. Proponents of stock buybacks argue that companies purchase their own shares only after considering other, value-creating investment options. In other words, companies are arguing: You know, we do stock buybacks. Yeah, you are right; it makes us a little richer individually, and we can buy that third or fourth home in Florida or on the Cape or on Lake Erie or whatever, but also, we consider everything that would be good for the company. We funded all that; so then we do stock buybacks. That is a ridiculous argument. Talk to any family in Cleveland or Chillicothe or Mansfield or Marietta or Springfield, anywhere outside of Wall Street. Ask these families if they can think of a better investment for the trillions--trillions, thousands of billions-- trillions of dollars in wealth American workers have created. But, of course, executives' personal interests influence their decision making. One study of 2,500 companies found that the greater the percentage stock options in executive compensation packages, the more likely a company was to make stock buybacks. That is fairly logical. The greater percentage of stock options in an executive compensation package, the more likely a company was to make stock buybacks. So how do we stop this never-ending cycle of corporate greed and make sure that workers are sharing in the profits they create? We start with the new bill that Senator Wyden, the chair of the Finance Committee, and I are introducing: the Stock Buyback Accountability Act. The Tax Code is one of the best tools we have to influence businesses. The idea is simple. If you want to buy back your own stock, you have to pay just a little bit--a 2-percent tax--on the money you make off of it. Two percent is pretty small. It is a hell of a lot less than the tax rate that workers at First Solar, which I am going to visit this week in Perrysburg, are paying or workers at Whirlpool or workers at the local corner store, at the local Dave's supermarket in Garfield Heights, are paying. But that little tax will make companies think a little harder about whether stock buybacks are really the best use of their trillions in profits. I hope it will make it a little more likely that they will invest the money in something useful, something like a new factory or researching new products or training and apprenticeship programs or pay raises for the workers who are making these profits possible. It has to be the goal of any stock buyback plan. It is not about punishing executives. I am indifferent. I have always believed it is whom you fight for and what you fight against. I will always fight for workers in this job. I don't have any interest in punishing executives. I just don't want to unduly reward them at the expense of workers. It is about executives paying their fair share just like their workers do. It is about changing the incentives in our economy so that more of our country's wealth gets invested back to the people who created it. We have known for years that stock buybacks are a problem. They distort the market. They lead to less long-term economic growth. They divert investment from workers. That is why it is on worker pay, not stock buybacks. We have a real chance to actually do something about it. After years of politicians talking about reining in Wall Street, now is our opportunity to do it, to show people we are listening and to take action. Worker pay, not stock buybacks. Create a fairer tax system. Creating a fairer tax system is one of the simplest ways to change the Wall Street and corporations' first system that Americans are so tired of. We make this simple fix to finally, finally crack down on stock buybacks. We get rid of the tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas. We make multinational corporations pay their fair share instead of always, always, always forcing working families to foot the bill. We crack down on wealthy tax cheats that game the system. We give working families the largest tax cut ever. We did that in the bill we passed in March. We are going to do that in the bills we pass this fall. It comes back to the dignity of work. Wall Street simply doesn't recognize that all work has dignity. They consider shareholders' equity in a company to be all that matters. But workers have equity in a company too. It is called sweat equity. It is time they were rewarded for it. Worker pay, not stock buybacks. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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.

Mr. BROWN. 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.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. -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. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. 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

Mr. BROWN

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