First, we must increase the direct payments passed by Congress in December from $600 to $2,000 for every working-class adult and their children. On this issue, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, several Republicans in the House and the Senate and undoubtedly millions of struggling Americans – who wanted more stimulus in December –would agree. But given the enormous crises facing the country, that is not enough. Through reconciliation, we must pass a major Covid-relief package that expands emergency unemployment benefits to $600 a week, provides aid to state and local governments to prevent mass layoffs, enacts hazard pay for frontline workers, saves the US Postal Service, addresses the crisis of homelessness and ensures that no one in America goes hungry or is evicted. During the crisis, we must provide emergency health care to all by requiring Medicare to pay the medical bills of the uninsured and under-insured. We must fully fund Covid-19 testing, tracing and vaccine distribution. At a time when our primary care health care system is faltering, and when millions have no medical home, we must also substantially increase funding for community health centers and the National Health Service Corps, which provides scholarships and forgive student debt of medical professionals who agree to work in underserved areas.

But what happens if Democrats go forward in a different direction? What happens if they spend week after week, month after month “negotiating” with Republicans who have little intention of addressing the serious crises facing the working families of this country? What happens if, after the passage of the vitally important American Rescue Plan – the Covid-19 rescue package signed into law by President Biden in March –the momentum stops and we accomplish little or nothing? Without strong and ongoing accomplishments that improve the lives of working families, there is a strong possibility that Republicans will win the House or the Senate or both bodies next year. The American people want action, not never-ending “negotiations” and obstructionism, and they will not come out and vote for a party that does not deliver. And if the Republicans do regain control of Congress, we can be sure that the economy will move steadily forward toward a system in which the rich get richer thanks to increased corporate domination. We can be sure that the climate crisis will intensify, diminishing the likelihood of our children and grandchildren living in a healthy and habitable environment. We can be sure that our government will drift away from democracy, as voter suppression, dark money and conspiracy theories continue to dominate our political system.

The way out of this recession, the way to create jobs, is to grow the economy by encouraging investment in factories and equipment, and by speeding up tax relief so people have more money to spend. For the sake of American workers, let's pass a stimulus package.

The process of recovery is not a simple one. ... We cannot be satisfied merely with makeshift arrangements which will tide us over the present emergencies. We must devise plans that will not merely alleviate the ills of today, but will prevent, as far as it is humanly possible to do so, their recurrence in the future.

In this unprecedented moment in American history, we need an unprecedented legislative response. President Trump is incapable of providing leadership, and instead continues to mislead the public and act out of political self-interest. So it is Congress that must lead, and it must do so now. With anxiety growing, everyone in our country needs to know that, in the midst of this horrific pandemic and economic meltdown, their government is doing everything possible to keep them healthy and financially secure. In other words, we need to build upon and expand the recent stimulus package with new and bolder emergency legislation which must be passed as soon as possible.

I mean, right after a time where we’re going through a pandemic that lost 22 million jobs at the height, we’ve already added back 11.6 million jobs, because we had a president who cut taxes, rolled back regulation, unleashed American energy, fought for free and fair trade, and secured $4 trillion from the Congress of the United States to give direct payments to families, save 50 million jobs through the Paycheck Protection Program. We literally have spared no expense to help the American people and the American worker through this. …

Through reconciliation, we must make sure that unemployment benefits during this crisis period are not taxable so that workers don’t get hit with a huge tax bill they didn’t expect on April 15. Moreover, we need to create millions of good paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure – our roads, bridges, sidewalks, schools, water systems and affordable housing. Further, as we lead the world in combating the existential threat of climate change, we can create millions more jobs by making massive investments in wind, solar, geothermal, electric vehicles, weatherization and energy storage. We must guarantee at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave and end the international embarrassment of the United States as the only high-income nation that fails to provide paid maternity leave. In order to address our dysfunctional early childhood education system, we must provide universal pre-K for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country and greatly expand childcare. And, if we are to have the best-educated workforce in the world, we need to make public colleges and universities tuition free and cancel all student debt for working-class Americans.

In many ways, our economy last year was good. The inflation rate went down, and wages, profits, production, housing starts, real income, investment all went up. Four million new jobs were created, an all time record, and many of these jobs, I'm glad to say, were in New England. Employment here in New England last year went up 5 1/2 percent. The unemployment rate dropped 3 full percentage points, from 8 1/2 percent down to 5 1/2 percent. But unemployment and inflation is still higher than I'm willing to accept, and so my top priority this year on the domestic scene is still the economy. I've asked the Congress to help me put into effect a coherent program to make more jobs and to bring inflation closer under control. We need a cooperative anti-inflation effort, with voluntary action being taken by industry and by labor to keep wages and prices from pushing each other up. We need an expanded jobs program to help those who are hit hardest by unemployment. Next week I will send to the Congress legislation that would reauthorize the $12 billion Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, provide for 725,000 public service jobs and for a billion dollar youth employment and training program.

Time and climate change will not wait us. We call on all countries to take decisive, effective and concrete actions to transform our economic recoveries after the pandemic into the environment friendly “green” model and start to fulfill our commitments made before the international community while every country is overcoming the pandemic with less damage.

Unemployment cannot be cured by relief work nor by patchwork of any kind. We must develop national resources and improve trade so that there will be increased employment and a tremendous revolution in industry and in power by the use of electricity and petrol, which must be accompanied by reorganisation of transport, including the making of roads, the reconditioning of railway plant and equipment, an extension of pensions which must enable the more aged workers to retire, the raising of the school age with necessary maintenance grants. We must dam the influx of premature people into industry.

Clearly, our number one priority at home -- now and in the years ahead -- is the strength of the national economy. It makes no sense for anyone in Congress or the Administration to try to blur the very obvious difference between the short run and the long run. Both are essential for our economic security, and we face major challenges on each. The most urgent short-run need is economic recovery. I strongly support Senator Daschle's plan. I believe Democrats are ready to work with the President for the kind of immediate, temporary, and fair stimulus that is essential to end this lingering recession and put our national economy back on the path of solid growth for the future. Neither side will get all it wants if we work together here. But surely we can agree to focus on the large number of laid-off workers and their families who are hurting, and who deserve help the most while they look for new jobs. Surely we can agree on the tax incentives that will actually encourage business investment now, without letting them become a transparent pretext for unaffordable longer-term tax giveaways or special interest bonanzas that the country can't afford.

In a pandemic, you don't have time to wait. You have to take action to help people. We haven't been able to be as nimble as we've needed to be

Our economy is in a dire state, hence we need to re-focus the economy. We cannot depend on those who have been abusing power and enriching themselves to champion the common cause of the people. The plight of the workers, the farmers and fishermen, they need to be protected.

[The first task is to beat inflation.] Until we do, every wage rise which is not met from higher production is a ticket to the dole queue. That is why it is important to reach a renewed understanding with the trade union movement for the next 12 months, an arrangement which will break decisively from the inflationary spiral that has plagued us.