Tim Kaine: “good afternoon. I rise today to talk about the American Rescue Plan and its effect on my economy. It has been a tough…”

“good afternoon. I rise today to talk about the American Rescue Plan and its effect on my economy. It has been a tough year. It was a year ago tomorrow that I sent my Senate staff home for a trial-run, 2-day telework in case we ever were to need it, and they never came back. Until now, as people are starting to get vaccinated, they are coming back personally to the office after having worked, in a pretty amazing way, virtually for the year. It was just about a year ago that I got coronavirus. It was just about a year ago that I gave my wife coronavirus. It has been a long, long year: more than 500,000 Americans dead, more than 10 million still out of work. After sizable work by Congress in five bills in 2020 to inject resources into the economy, we are still down 10 million jobs. But today is a bright day. Just within the last few hours, the House of Representatives passed the Senate bill that we sent to them Saturday afternoon on the American Rescue Plan, building off the original House proposal, and that bill is filled with things that will make a tangible difference nearly immediately in the lives of so many Americans: payment to everyday families, individuals, children; acceleration of the vaccine deployment; resources so that we can open our schools and our colleges and our childcare centers, which are all preconditions to seeing the economy reopen.…”