mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
CORONAVIRUS
Richard J. Durbin (Democrat, IL) \u2014 2020-12-29

there was then the drama around the COVID- 19 relief bill. prgtoken It was hard to describe what we went through in the last week to 10 days with messages from the White House. I wish that the President and those around him, advising him, would have called to mind the 335,000 Americans who have lost their lives due to this deadly pandemic and the many more who have lost a family member, friend, or loved one. In Illinois, we have lost 16,000 lives to COVID-19--tragic, historic. I extend my deepest condolences to the friends and families of those who have died or who are fighting this virus. Many are my friends. prgtoken More than 121,000 Americans spent last night in the hospital--a grim new record of hospitalizations as our heroic nurses and doctors face unrelenting stress from this crisis. I just think, as I reflect on the interviews of these men and women who are on the frontline of healthcare, how stoic they usually are, how controlled they usually are, and how they are losing it now. With the overwhelming numbers they are facing and the terrible prospect of someone's dying with a member of the family being unable to even enter the room in the last minutes of one's life has got to be heartbreaking on a scale that none of us can imagine. Think about doing that every single day. They have done it. I will tell you we will never be able to repay them with our gratitude. They are true American heroes. prgtoken Many of us returned to Washington this week. As I said, we are celebrating the holidays in a fashion like never before with social distancing, Zooms, FaceTime, and calls with family and loved ones. It is no substitute for the kids being there to open their gifts on Christmas morning, but it is the reality of what we face today. prgtoken There is some hope on the horizon, and though I have been many times critical of the administration, I do want to give the President credit for the Warp Speed Program. It is amazing, as I read the stories, of what they were able to achieve in discovering two vaccines that can treat Americans and people around the world and keep them safe as they face this coronavirus. It broke all the records in the discovery of these vaccines. As I read about it, I continue to be grateful and want to make sure America recognizes the doctors, the scientists, and the researchers. prgtoken Barney Graham--I didn't know his name until yesterday--came out of a story published in the New Yorker. He works at the National Institutes of Health. He is given a great deal of credit for the breakthrough in the first two vaccines that have been approved. There are others just like him. I salute Dr. Francis Collins, of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, both of whom have become my friends over the years--and what a job they have done for America. So many more deserve recognition, and I hope there will be an opportunity to give it to them. prgtoken The fact is, t
CORONAVIRUS
Christopher Murphy (Democrat, CT) \u2014 2020-12-29

America has 600 billionaires. Now, $1 billion doesn't sound like a lot of money these days. President just signed a bill, begrudgingly, that has $900 billion in it. But trust me--$1 billion is still a whole lot of money. It is actually so much money that it is really hard to find words to describe what it looks like, but let me try. prgtoken If you are, for instance, one of the half a million Americans who make the minimum wage in this Nation and are lucky enough to work 40 hours a week, guess how many years you would have to work in order to get $1 billion. Five hundred years? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? No, you are not even close. If you make minimum wage in America today, you would need to work for 75,000 years in order to make $1 billion--75,000 years. Neanderthals were roaming the Earth 75,000 years ago. Those guys, if they had made minimum wage, would have had to have worked up until present day, every single day--that is, of course, if they hadn't spent a dime of the money they had made in order to accrue $1 billion. prgtoken One billion dollars is a bananas amount of money, and there are 600 people in America today who make at least that amount of money or have that amount of money to their names. That is crazy. With $1 billion, you are leading a life that, frankly, none of us can really imagine, right? You have private planes. You have yachts. You have household staffs in the dozens. You have enough money to make sure that your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren and your great-great-grandchildren never have to work a day in their lives. Generations of your offspring can just live lives of indolent luxury, without a care, if they so choose. prgtoken Do you know where I was 2 days before Thanksgiving this year? I was at Hamden Middle School, in my State, to help hand out free food for the unemployed, the poor, and the disabled ahead of a long holiday weekend. Those long weekends can be really hard, especially the ones that fall at the end of the month when the SNAP benefits have long run out. I got there as darkness fell but right at the beginning of the event. I noticed that down the hill from the roundabout at the school at which they were handing out the food, there was usually an empty parking lot. That night, at that moment, at the beginning of the event, that parking lot was lit up by hundreds of sets of headlights of hundreds of cars that were just sitting there, idle, in that parking lot. prgtoken I asked the organizer of the event what was going on in that parking lot. Was there some other event happening that evening? Why all the cars? prgtoken He told me: The cars started pulling into that lot hours ago. They got wind we were handing out food, and they got here early to make sure they didn't get left out. We have enough food for 300 people, and there were 300 cars in that lot before I even got here. prgtoken That is what has happene
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
Charles E. Schumer (Democrat, NY) \u2014 2020-12-30

now let me return to the matters at hand. prgtoken Today, the Senate will begin the process of overriding the President's veto on the annual Defense bill. The House has already overridden the veto by a comfortable margin. I expect the Senate to follow suit and enact the NDAA into law over President 's evolving and ridiculous objections. Congress has passed the annual Defense bill for 59 years in a row. It is an important opportunity to ensure our defense and security policies reflect the evolving challenges of our world and provide our servicemembers and their families, as well as Defense Department civilians, the support, resources, and training they need. The particular legislation includes a pay raise for troops and provisions that will allow the executive branch to be better postured to identify and deter breaches to America's cyber security. In the wake of the SolarWinds hack, that might be a good policy to enact. prgtoken Nonetheless, President vetoed this legislation because it provides for renaming military installations that honor Confederate military leaders or, maybe, because it doesn't address an unrelated social media issue. Think about it for a moment. The President vetoed a pay raise to living American soldiers in order to defend the honor of dead Confederate traitors. Well, the Senate will soon have an opportunity to override the President's objection and do right by those brave Americans who wear the uniform. prgtoken As I said yesterday, there are two major issues before the Senate right now--the annual Defense bill and the vital and important effort to send $2,000 stimulus checks to American families. There are only a few days left in this session, and the Senate should consider both issues before adjourning. prgtoken There is a very simple solution to this dilemma: Leader McConnell should bring both measures up for a vote and let the chips fall where they may. I believe both measures--the defense override and the $2,000 checks to American families--will pass, but at the very least, the Senate deserves the opportunity for an up-or-down vote on increasing the individual payments to the American people. prgtoken At the end of my remarks, I will ask the Senate to set a time tonight for a vote on the House bill to provide $2,000 checks. The leader objected to a similar request I made yesterday, and it appears he may be considering a different bill that packages stimulus checks with other unrelated and partisan policies. prgtoken I want to be very clear about one thing: There is no other game in town besides the House bill. The only way to get the American people the $2,000 checks they deserve and need is to pass the House bill and pass it now. The House has recessed for the year. Any modification or addition to the House bill cannot become law before the end of this Congress. It is a way to kill the bill. Make no mistake about it: Either the Senate takes up a
CORONAVIRUS
Sherrod Brown (Democrat, OH) \u2014 2020-12-30

we have heard a lot of revisionist history this afternoon. prgtoken Look back in March, when Congress did the right thing and the Senate voted unanimously. Because of our efforts, 13 million people were kept out of poverty--we know that--because we provided relatively generous unemployment insurance. We did the direct payments. We helped with small business loans. But then this Senate thought its work was done for the year. We begged Senator McConnell month after month after month to come back and help. prgtoken As I said, 13 million people were kept out of poverty because of the work this Congress did in March of this year, but now, since--many of those benefits, especially the unemployment benefit and the direct payments, were not continued, of course. Those benefits expired in August, and we have seen 8 million people drop into poverty in this country since. Yet Senator McConnell refuses and refuses and refuses prgtoken I hear this revisionist history that just want to help people who are already affluent and give them more money. Well, remember back in March, the only amendment that we considered, the only amendment that Senator McConnell allowed on the floor of the Senate to the CARES Act, the only amendment was to take away the $600-a-week unemployment insurance. The only place s fought was the $600- a-week unemployment insurance. That more than any single thing we did is why people were kept out of poverty. Now the best we could do was $300-a-week unemployment insurance--the best we could do. In spite of Senator Cornyn's and others' comments, Senator McConnell waited, waited, waited, and waited. Finally, we were able to do that. prgtoken The President of the United States threatened to veto it, causing millions of Americans to fall off their unemployment insurance. We know all that. It is just important to remember all that. prgtoken But there is one simple question before the Senate this week: Are we going to put more money into people's pockets? The American people made it clear on election day that they want a government that is on their side. This is our chance to deliver for them, to show people whom we serve that we can make a real difference in their lives, which we did back in March. prgtoken It is pretty simple. The best way to help Ohio workers and families is to put more money in their pockets, not in the bank accounts of the largest corporations and biggest banks, hoping it will trickle down. We know it never does. The CEOs just pay themselves instead. prgtoken We know that just recently there was more good news for American CEOs who are able again to do stock buybacks, more dividend distributions. A lot of corporations have made a lot of money--more power to them-- during this pandemic, but those are the corporations that continue to get the big tax breaks. prgtoken We need, instead, to directly invest in people who make this country work. It helps people pay t
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 9051 AND H.R. 6395
Edward J. Markey (Democrat, MA) \u2014 2020-12-30

I rise to echo the sentiments of the Senator from Vermont. He is right. The s are wrong on this issue. On every single part of this debate, Senator Sanders is right; the s are wrong. prgtoken We are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis in our country. We have a healthcare crisis, we have an unemployment crisis, we have a hunger crisis, we have a housing crisis, we have an addiction crisis, and we have a moral crisis in this country. prgtoken The U.S. Government should be responding to the needs, to the desperation of families in our country at this time. There is a crisis of faith that the American people have in its government's ability to respond to human suffering. Well, this institution has been created to respond to human suffering. That is our job prgtoken Tony Fauci has made it very clear that the worst of the pandemic is ahead of us, not behind us. We know what is coming, and yet we are not responding. We know this is not going away soon, and yet we are not responding. prgtoken A program, Operation Warp Speed, was created to create a vaccine, but because for 7 months the s have refused to fund the public health prgtoken system of our country at the State and local level, we have ``Operation Snail Speed'' to put the vaccinations in the arms of the American people. prgtoken It was anticipatable. Tony Fauci and others were warning us back in May and June and July that there would be a second wave and the second wave could be bigger. We got the warning. The s refused to heed that warning. prgtoken And here we are now, without the public health infrastructure to deal with the overflow capacity in emergency rooms, in ICUs all across the country, while simultaneously asking those same medical institutions to put vaccinations in the arms of healthy people, without the resources provided by the Federal Government to help those States and local communities to deal with that crisis. prgtoken Sometimes Daniel Patrick Moynihan would say that when you deal with an issue you deal with it with benign neglect if you don't want to help or you don't want to hurt--deal with benign neglect. prgtoken What has happened with the s this year is that they created a program which is designed neglect. It is an actual plan not to provide the funding, not to provide the help for those families, for those communities, for those institutions that are now being overwhelmed, and asked, on top of that, to put this extra burden of putting vaccinations in people's arms, but without the extra resources. prgtoken And what do they do on the side? They throw out these red herrings--so many red herrings that you would need to build an aquarium in the well here of the Senate in order to deal with all of them--that gets away from the central issue: Yes or no, up or down, will you provide $2,000 to Americans who are going to need it through what Tony Fauci is saying will b
CORONAVIRUS
Richard J. Durbin (Democrat, IL) \u2014 2020-12-30

I yield for a question through the Chair. prgtoken I have listened to the figures used on the floor about families who would qualify for the $2,000. It is my understanding that an individual with an income of $75,000 or less could qualify for the $2,000 payment, and for a joint return--husband and wife--$2,000 could be given to them if their income is under $150,000. Is that your understanding?
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUESTS--H.R. 9051 AND H.R. 6395
Patrick J. Toomey (Republican, PA) \u2014 2020-12-30

in reserving the right to object, let me start by pointing out that we are not in the same place that we were back in March. Our economy is in nothing like the situation we faced during a moment in March when this body came together and voted unanimously, I believe, for the most extraordinary aid package-- financial stimulus bill, however you care to characterize it--in the history of the world by far. Remember where we were. We had closed down the economy. To a very large degree, the American economy had stopped functioning because State governments around the country decided they had to close it down. We can discuss and we can argue about whether that was a good decision or not, but given the limited knowledge we had about the nature of the COVID-19 threat, it was deemed to be the right thing to do. prgtoken So we were on the verge of having no economy. That has never happened before in our history. prgtoken So what did we do? We decided this calls for extraordinary measures, and we would try to use Federal dollars as a substitute for the economy--just replace lost income on a massive, unprecedented scale-- and we did. We approved almost $3 trillion in that legislation. prgtoken At the time, we included $1,200 per person. You could make an argument that that was an extremely inefficient use of that $1,200 per person, but at the time, given the circumstances, I understood why we didn't have many good options, and that was something we decided to do. prgtoken So where are we now? We are in a very different place. Our economy is not in a free fall. Our economy is in a recovery mode. We are not back to where we want to end up. We are not back to where we were before March, but we have taken big steps in that direction. prgtoken The economy grew at 33 percent last quarter--33 percent. That is a tremendous recovery that is underway. More than half of all the people who lost their jobs earlier this year have regained their jobs. So we are not finished yet, but that is a huge step along the way. prgtoken And now we are being told, after passing another extraordinary bill-- this one almost $1 trillion and including $600 per person--that that is not enough; we need to do $2,000 per person, despite the fact that we know for sure, we know for a fact, that the large majority of those checks are going to go to people who had no lost income. prgtoken How does that make any sense at all? We know for sure that the majority of these people had no lost income. They didn't lose their jobs, and yet we are going to send them not $600, not the $1,200, but $2,000. prgtoken So think about this. A married couple, who both are working and have 2 kids, maybe they work for the Federal Government, like 2 million-odd people do. Maybe they work for a large company, the vast majority of which did not have large numbers of layoffs. So this two-child, two- income couple that makes six figures had no interruption, no diminishment of th
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 9051 AND H.R. 6395
John Cornyn (Republican, TX) \u2014 2020-12-30

, Pelosi's second bite at the apple, just after we voted on a $900 billion bill that has now been signed into law by the President of the United States, is not the way to send relief to the hardest hit Americans. Under this legislation, a family of five with an annual income of $350,000 would receive a stimulus check. This is reminiscent of the Heroes Act that the House passed, which cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires. This isn't about helping the people that need it the most. This is about helping millionaires and billionaires and people who frankly have not suffered the hardships economically that others have during this pandemic. The median household in my State is $60,000, and the wants to send taxpayer-funded assistance to folks earning nearly six times that much. Even the Washington Post editorial board agrees this is bad policy. prgtoken It doesn't differentiate between people who have been receiving a paycheck during this pandemic, such as government employees, and people who, simply by virtue of their job, have been put out of work and are not receiving any income or maybe at best unemployment compensation. The 's bill isn't about targeting folks who have lost their jobs or have seen their income reduced. It is a far cry from the additional assistance President requested for the hardest hit Americans. The reality is, this bill would spend roughly $300 billion more on folks who aren't even experiencing a financial strain from the pandemic. prgtoken We need to focus on the people who have been hurt. That is what our COVID-19 relief bill, which was just recently signed into law, is designed to do, and I dare say this is not going to be the last time we visit this topic. If there is more we need to do, I am confident we will do it. But today, in this prgtoken way, is not the right way to do it. I object.
CORONAVIRUS
Mitch McConnell (Republican, KY) \u2014 2020-12-30

. Now let's talk about COVID-19 relief. Four days ago, President signed the second largest rescue package in American history. The largest one was the CARES Act back in March. Due to this pandemic and our massive response, we now have a national debt far larger than our entire economy for the first time since World War II, but we knew our people needed more help, so Congress just passed another nearly $900 billion in emergency relief targeted to those who need it most, a second round of payroll support to save small business jobs, more unemployment aid, vaccine distribution money, funding for safe schools, and much more. prgtoken In addition to historic amounts of targeted help at the request of President and his team, the package also included another round of direct checks to households, whether or not each household needs the help, whether or not their finances have changed dramatically this past year. prgtoken Yesterday, Secretary Mnuchin announced households should begin receiving these payments as early as today and this week. That is more good news to a lot of people. prgtoken After Congress and the administration finalized the bipartisan bill, the President expressed interest in further prgtoken expanding nontargeted direct payments. So to ensure the President was comfortable signing the bill into law, the Senate committed to beginning one process that would combine three of the President's priorities: larger direct checks, a repeal of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and further efforts to review the integrity of our democracy--three of the President's priorities in one Senate process. That was the commitment, and that is what happened yesterday when I introduced text reflecting just what the President had, in fact, requested. prgtoken Now House and Senate want something very different. As they tried to do countless times in the past 4 years, Pelosi and Leader Schumer are trying to pull a fast one on the President and the American people. prgtoken First of all, they are hoping everyone just forgets about election integrity and Big Tech. They are desperate to ignore those two parts of President 's requests, and you can draw your own conclusions. Even on the question of larger checks, the have tried to warp what President actually laid out. prgtoken Look, it is no secret that s have a diversity of views about the wisdom of borrowing hundreds of billions more to send out more nontargeted money, including to many households that have suffered no loss of income during the crisis. COVID-19 has not affected all households equally--not even close. prgtoken It is hardly clear that the Federal Government's top priority should be sending thousands of dollars to, for example, a childless couple making well into six figures who have been comfortably teleworking all year. Our duty is to help get help to the people who actually need help, like we did,