U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) delivered the following remarks on the floor of the United States Senate today:
“‘This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.’
“’Opportunity to fit our version.’ That’s a quote, not from some communist activist leader somewhere in the United States, not from some third world general. That’s from the third-ranking Democrat in the United States House of Representatives.
“Let that sink in for a minute. Read it again. ‘This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.’
“And I thought a bogus impeachment was shameful enough, but clearly not.
“People in this country are dying. They are dying. Literally. People are losing their jobs every day. Literally. More and more people are getting sick every day.
“That’s why Senators rushed back here to pass the House’s bipartisan legislation that was negotiated between the President and Speaker Pelosi.
“Then we let both sides work on the next steps. We passed their bill within less than 24 hours of receiving it from the House, as imperfect as it was. We passed it with 90 senators voting for it. That’s how bipartisanship works. [Then] we worked round the clock to craft a plan, and we succeeded.
“Now here we sit, listening to our Democratic colleagues pretend this is a partisan plan as if they weren’t sitting in the room as it was being negotiated. Many of their ideas are in this bill.
“Why are they doing that? I’ll tell you why. Because when we see a rising body count they see a political opportunity. Shame on them. The Trump Derangement Syndrome is accelerating the Coronavirus. They should be ashamed of themselves.
“They see a chance to impose their ‘vision’ their left-wing, radical ‘vision’ on our country because they think they can force it past us in a moment of crisis. Their extreme partisan obstruction has blinded them.
“What has happened to this place? Why are they even here?
“Attempts to work across the aisle, honest attempts by rank and file Republicans and rank and file Democrats, have resulted in our Democratic colleagues creating a revisionist view of what we’ve been doing and blind political opportunism just to advance their extreme left-wing agenda.
“An agenda that includes things like the Green New Deal, something that actually had a vote on the floor of the United States Senate. Guess how many of them voted for it? None. It’s that nutty. None, and yet now it’s their agenda, that’s their vision, that’s the opportunity they see.
“How about socialism for the entire economy as well? It wasn’t enough just for the energy sector. Not enough just for the health care sector. Not enough just for the banking sector. Let’s just have socialism, let’s debate which Democratic candidate is the best socialist.
“How about hurting our farmers, our ranchers, our oil workers our truck drivers, our restaurant owners, our manufacturers, our welders? Everybody.
“Mr. President, we aren’t even asking them to vote on this plan. The vote last night was not on the bill. The vote this afternoon was not on the bill. It was simply a procedural vote to begin the debate to continue the negotiations on the bill. Not one moment would have been lost, but guess what, now over a day has been lost while we dither.
“We’re asking that when they do finally agree to help the American people that instead of killing the economy as they’ve been doing, that we are ready to act on the bill. But no, not given enough for them.
“Many of my colleagues have talked about what’s in the bill. $4 billion for the CDC, do you think they could use it? How about $9 billion for child nutrition. Do you care, Democrats, about child nutrition? We’ve often heard you talk about it. where is it now? How about $20 billion for veterans, they don’t care about that? How about $50 billion for our farmers, how about $75 billion for our health care providers? Do you think your health care providers could use a little more assistance, Democrats? I think they could, and they need it now. They needed it yesterday. How about $350 billion for the small businesses that employ all those people who are now getting fired because they can’t even keep their doors open.
“But that’s not even worth a debate to our Democratic colleagues.
“Apparently, it’s all now back open for debate! Reports today say the Minority Leader is holding that $50 billion for farmers hostage so they can get more of the ‘opportunity to restructure things to fit [their] vision.’
“Apparently he forgot or never knew food doesn’t come from the deli. Food comes from the farmer, Mr. Minority Leader. There’s no sandwich in the New York deli without the farmer growing the grain, there’s no meat in that sandwich without that rancher raising the livestock. No they don’t make that food in the deli, Minority Leader.
“And who started all of this? It wasn’t him. He tried to be helpful for a while, or at least it appeared so.
“It wasn’t an uprising of the rank and file Democrats who have been filing in occasionally to this chamber. It wasn’t a breakdown in negotiations between Republicans and Democrats.
“It was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, flying in here on a plane powered by fossil fuels – maybe those fossil fuels were made by some oil from Alaska, or North Dakota, or Texas – demanding an expansion of renewable energy tax credits and other parts of her extreme, left-wing, radical, partisan agenda.
“What in the hell does that have to do with coronavirus? The absurdity of it speaks for itself.
“That’s what we’ve learned to expect from the majority of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and in the other chamber of Congress ever since the freshman Democrat from New York became the de facto Speaker.
“But that’s the House. We’re not the House. We’re the Senate. We’re supposed to be the adults in the room, and yet some of our colleagues are here acting like petulant children when there are people suffering who don’t know what to do or where to go for help.
“They are turning to us. We’re the help. We are it. We are driving the ambulance while the Speaker of the House tries to steer us into the ditch while the Minority Leader of the Senate hangs on for dear life in the passenger seat.
“Why would those people come to us for help anymore? The House Speaker doesn’t care about them, she cares about renewable fuel tax credits.
“Where is rural American supposed to go? The Democratic leader sees them simply as a political pawn. Hostage, ‘$50 billion for farmers, let’s hold that one up, maybe we can get more of what fits our vision, our radical agenda.’
“Apparently, helping these people doesn’t matter to them. Well, I have news for the Minority Leader. While Democrats dither, Americans are dying. That’s a real fact. Let’s get back in here tonight, let’s pass this legislation, let’s get it done and get it to the people who need it most.”
