{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=900FEA51-6646-4A0C-A120-F600F2562A00", "Democrats\u2019 Reckless Taxing and Spending Spree Designed to Reduce Employment and Undermine Work", "2021-10-28", "2021", "2021-10", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Democrats\u2019 reckless tax and spending spree:\n\n\u201cIn recent years, Washington Democrats have shown an alarming willingness to invent crises to justify radical ideas.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve tried to vilify our independent judiciary and exhume the concept of court-packing from the ash heap of history.\n\n\u201cThey\u2019ve tried to sell a 50-state federal takeover of election laws by fearmongering about mainstream and reasonable state decisions.\n\n\u201cAnd when it came to an actual crisis \u2013 a once-in-a-century pandemic \u2013 Democrats didn\u2019t even try to conceal their intentions. As the House Majority Whip put it back in March of 2020, it was all, \u2018a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.\u2019\n\n\u201cWith unified control of government, they bragged this spring about passing the most progressive legislation in American history.\n\n\u201cThis first spending spree expanded federal supplements to unemployment insurance so massively that the best choice for huge numbers of skilled American workers was to simply stay home.\n\n\u201cThe whole thing was an avalanche of cash that stunted our economic recovery and accelerated inflation.\n\n\u201cNow Washington Democrats are behind closed doors again, assembling an even bigger reckless taxing and spending spree.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s meant to be a Trojan horse for permanent socialism. Conclusive proof the radical left is calling the shots in today\u2019s Democratic Party.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve talked about the laundry list of left-wing boondoggles that our colleagues are packing into this plan. At the heart of it all is one simple and dangerous assumption: that American families ought to be more reliant on the federal government.\n\n\u201cDemocrats\u2019 plans would chase more Americans off of the private health insurance plans they\u2019ve chosen and onto government rolls.\n\n\u201cThey would shred a decades-old consensus about the importance of work and massively expand cash grants to families without any employment requirements.\n\n\u201cThey want to re-implement welfare without welfare reform.\n\n\u201cThere is giveaway after giveaway that aren\u2019t even means-tested. Their plans have literally proposed to have taxpayers fund free school lunch for the kids of millionaires and billionaires \u2014 no means testing whatsoever.\n\n\u201cIn addition, Washington Democrats want to insert themselves into the middle of the most personal family decisions about childcare and family structure, redistributing huge amounts of money only to households that arrange their lives the way Democrats want.\n\n\u201cIn area after area, Democrats want to implement far-left policies that would make the economy worse for working families, but then clumsily try to make it up to citizens with socialism that\u2019s disconnected from work.\n\n\u201cThis is a frontal assault on the nature of employment and work itself in American life. They are out to, as one economist put it, \u2018fundamentally change the relationship between the state and its citizens.\u2019\n\n\u201cEven the New York Times last month called what Democrats are hammering out \u2018a cradle-to-grave reweaving\u2019 of the government\u2019s role.\n\n\u201cLower wages\u2026 Fewer jobs\u2026 At least American workers will have cradle-to-grave socialism.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s one vision for the future, all right.\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s not one that Americans want.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s one that Senate Republicans will fight at every step.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:24:51Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=900FEA51-6646-4A0C-A120-F600F2562A00"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8675889112055302, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}