Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have already begun to hear a little revisionist history with respect to this crucial issue. There was exactly one amendment on the CARES Act, and that amendment, supported by almost every Senator on the other side of the aisle, basically would have blown up the law that I put special focus on because it was deemed the only way to get expanded unemployment benefits out to folks in a timely way. We were told that there was all this bipartisanship. Yet on the crucial issue, that wasn't the case because that benefit, in particular, is what helped scores and scores of communities all across the country stay afloat because that money was spent locally. It was spent on rent. It was spent on groceries. And most of all, it was weekly. Yet there was exactly one amendment on the original legislation, and that one amendment was to blow up the only way to get checks out to folks relatively quickly--point No. 1. Point No. 2, these were not folks who didn't want to work. They were told by their government--told by their government--that they really needed to be at home to deal with the virus. These folks want to work; there is no question about it. We are going to talk about this, I imagine, in this debate, but study after study has shown that the expanded unemployment during this period was not a disincentive to work. There is just no evidence of that.…”