Political Quotes

“Reserving the right to object, Mr. President. First of all, I want to say to my colleague from Missouri that I certainly share and I think every Senator in this Chamber shares his concern for people who are hurting because of this COVID pandemic. Businesses have closed. People are on unemployment. People are in need through no fault of their own. This is an act of God, and that is one of the reasons why I certainly supported the CARES Act. That was over $2 trillion. In total, this body has passed well over $3 trillion, 15 percent to 16 percent of last year's GDP in terms of financial relief. My comments here are really not directed specifically at the proposal of the Senator from Missouri because he makes many good points. We do have working men and women, we have households that--again, through no fault of their own--are struggling, and we need to provide financial support. I think my comments are, in some respect, more general from the standpoint of how we have done that. As I have explained to my colleagues in conference, by and large, the initial need packages here were a shotgun approach. We had to move fast. We had to do something big. We had to make sure that markets wouldn't seize, that financial relief could be sent to people very quickly, and so we passed over $3 trillion in financial relief. I knew it would be far from perfect. It was far from perfect.…”