John Yarmuth

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it has been roughly 1 year since the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed in the United States. Since then, more than 26 million Americans have been infected, and more than 440,000 have lost their lives. Millions of Americans remain out of work as families are pushed to the brink of devastation. Our economy faces lows unseen since the Great Depression. Food insecurity is climbing. Widespread school closures threaten to derail our children's education. And our most vulnerable communities are being forced to bear the brunt of these twin crises as underlying health and economic inequities grow worse. Congress has previously come together to pass relief packages, but COVID is getting worse, not better. Our recovery is painful and the most unequal on record. We are still deep in the trenches. We have to do more, a lot more. As chairman of the Budget Committee, I promised that we would do everything our committee could do to support our recovery, which is why I introduced the 2021 budget resolution being considered today. This budget resolution was designed solely for one task: providing Congress with the option of using reconciliation to implement the American Rescue Plan and deliver the critical relief we need. President Biden's American Rescue Plan lays out an aggressive legislative package to change the direction of these crises, including a national vaccine program; testing and tracing, paid sick leave to stop the spread, an extension of lifeline unemployment benefits that are set to expire in March; direct financial support for families; and support so schools can operate safely. Our country desperately needs this relief, and economists across the ideological spectrum agree. Past crises have made it clear that doing too little will cost us far more. Weak support will lead to a weak, prolonged, and K-shaped recovery, posing more severe risks to our economic and budget outlooks than any deficits we might incur. Without the American Rescue Plan, CBO estimates that it will take at least 3 years before employment returns to prepandemic levels. But with this vital support, economists estimate that we can bring the economy back to near full employment in a little over 12 months. We have the plan and the ability to do this. And, thankfully, we can also afford to do it. Interest rates and inflation are at historic lows, lower today than even before the pandemic, and the return on smart investments in the economy has never been higher. Economists of all stripes are telling us, begging us, to use the fiscal space we have. They are warning that if we don't go big, we will be responsible for a long, painful, and unequal recovery, one that will cost more lives and more jobs, that will cause more businesses to close and result in more damage to our Nation's economy, both in the short- and long-term. The resolution's budget reconciliation framework sets a budgetary target of up to $1.9 trillion, the estimated cost of the American Rescue Plan, allocated across the 12 committees that have jurisdiction over some portion of the plan. The resolution instructs these committees to report legislation consistent with these budgetary targets to the Budget Committee by February 16. The Budget Committee will then combine the legislation and prepare it for floor consideration. There will be plenty of opportunities for my colleagues across the aisle to engage in this process and offer amendments, but we cannot afford to slow down our response to these urgent crises while Republicans decide if they want to help or not. The American Rescue Plan can be the difference between getting a vaccine or a virus, advancing to the next grade or falling behind, keeping the doors open or shutting down businesses for good. The choice is clear. I look forward to passing this resolution and ensuring Congress delivers the American Rescue Plan to the American people. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to respond to the notion that this is a radical plan. The radical, very radical chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Trump, Kevin Hassett, said: But I think we need to be risk-averse and pass another relief package. There are so many businesses treading water, barely hanging on. Now they are getting hit by another shock. You could end up in a negative spiral for the economy. January 22, 2021, the radical Kevin Hassett. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), the distinguished chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my friend from Texas, and I remind him that this, as I said in my opening statement, is plan B. We would prefer not to do this. We would prefer to have a bipartisan, regular order solution to this. We could do it actually more expeditiously than the reconciliation process. But when Republicans, in an effort to be supposedly bipartisan, offer $600 billion--when virtually everyone says we need relief and rescue money approaching the $1.9 trillion figure--it is not genuine, bipartisan, good-faith negotiation. That is posturing. We will have several weeks to reach a bipartisan agreement. I hope we can. But this is plan B. And we will proceed with it because the American people can't wait as long as the Republicans seem to be able to. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott), the distinguished chairman of the Agriculture Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the names of the Budget Committee staff who worked so tirelessly and competently on this piece of legislation. Budget Committee Majority Staff List Erika Appel Ellen Balis Samantha Carter Edward Etzkorn Jose Guillen Jocelyn Harris Emily King Sarah Lee Sheila McDowell Diana Meredith Kimberly Overbeek Barbara Pike Katie Raymond Scott Russell Laura Santos Raquel Spencer Greg Waring Alexandra Weinroth Christie Wentworth Jennifer Wheelock Ted Zegers Grady Stevens (intern)

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, for the record, nothing in this proposal should come as a surprise. The resolution's budgetary target matches the estimated cost of the American Rescue Plan, every detail of which was put forward during President Biden's campaign. Further, many of these provisions have already passed the House but languished on Senator McConnell's desk. Nothing we are doing here precludes a bipartisan deal. But let's be clear, the American people overwhelmingly support President Biden's plan. And I can assure you they couldn't care less about House procedures. They want us to act and get them the relief they need now. January was the deadliest month yet for COVID. Every 28 seconds, an American died from the coronavirus. At that rate, more than 385 Americans will have died while we are debating this resolution. We cannot afford to slow down. We need to hurry the hell up.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the passionate words of the ranking member, and I failed to hear one instance in which he expressed concern or any ideas about how to help the hundreds of thousands of Americans who will die if this government does not act quickly and aggressively; or the hundreds of thousands of businesses that will close; or the schools that he wants to reopen, which we all want to reopen. We are looking for ideas, but so far all we have had is resistance and obstruction. The President this week actually met with 10 Republican United States Senators in an effort to get a bipartisan approach to the crisis we face. I would still hope that we can do that, but we can't afford to wait for that to happen. That is why this process is in place, giving plenty of opportunity for the Republicans in both the House and Senate to participate and to help us find a better plan to move forward. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), who is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the gentleman from California to both Congress and the Budget Committee and I look forward to working with him. I will advise him that in just a few weeks he will have the opportunity, as a member of the Budget Committee, to go through a markup, offer amendments to the plans that will be proposed in another budget resolution that will actually come to the floor. So I look forward to that discussion and hope that will satisfy the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Johnson), the distinguished chair of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, once again, I welcome the gentleman from Iowa to the House of Representatives, and I will correct him. There is no 10-year budget outlook in this budget. This is a single budget resolution, only for this fiscal year, designed to facilitate the use of the reconciliation package to implement the President's American Rescue Plan, which, by the way, he campaigned vigorously on throughout his campaign. While Republicans were saying, ``Oh, it is too early to do something. Let's pause. Let's wait. Let's do this,'' the President was aggressive. The President was creative, forceful, and the American people rewarded him with a victory. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan F. Boyle), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, once again, I welcome the gentleman from Florida to the House of Representatives. I really think that we ought to stop talking about States bailing other States out. The next time that a major hurricane hits Florida, we are not going to say that New York and California don't want to help them. That is not the kind of body that I hope we are. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I know it is fascinating, and I have heard this argument now year after year after year talking about how much every individual in this country has owed because of the debt--the national debt. We have been accumulating debt in this country for most of our 240-year history. I ask the gentleman: Has there ever been one American citizen or one American citizen's ancestor who has ever paid any of that debt or who has ever been asked to pay for that debt? Of course not. That is because we are a sovereign currency nation. We don't pay attention to that. And just to clarify one thing he said, he said spending money has never helped in a crisis. Well, you will find virtually no economist who will not say that what we did last spring when we passed the CARES Act helped us mitigate the very first few months of this disaster. We didn't do enough then. We can't make the same mistake now. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), the distinguished chair of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentlewoman from Georgia said that this plan is going to destroy the economy. I think it is interesting that the American Rescue Plan has received praise from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Retail Federation, among other business groups, and top economic advisers from the last four Presidents: Kevin Hassett, who I mentioned earlier from the Trump administration; Gene Sperling; R. Glenn Hubbard; and Alan Blinder have all said that additional spending is needed to rescue the economy. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Georgia an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the distinguished chair of the Committee on Small Business.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), the distinguished chair of the Committee on Financial Services.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I want to welcome the gentlewoman from Iowa to the House of Representatives and just remark that when she said that this is a plan that was crafted in secret, this plan was crafted during the 2020 campaign. It was part of President Biden's agenda, and every American voter had a chance to register his or her support for that plan. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire from the Chair as to how much time remains on both sides.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Higgins), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to my friend from Texas, to say that, in about 3 weeks or a little less, the Budget Committee will have a piece of legislation which actually goes into the details of the American Rescue Plan and includes those. There will be a markup. The gentleman will have every opportunity to offer amendments, and then that bill will come to the floor as well. So don't give up hope.