[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                        RECOGNIZING AND BUILDING
                       ON THE SUCCESS OF PANDEMIC
                            RELIEF PROGRAMS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

                                 OF THE

                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-41

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
      
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]      


                       Available at: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
45-878 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                               
                             
                             
                             
                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking 
    Columbia                             Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts      Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee                Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia         Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Ro Khanna, California                Michael Cloud, Texas
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Katie Porter, California             Pete Sessions, Texas
Cori Bush, Missouri                  Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Danny K. Davis, Illinois             Andy Biggs, Arizona
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida    Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr.,      Scott Franklin, Florida
    Georgia                          Jake LaTurner, Kansas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland           Pat Fallon, Texas
Jackie Speier, California            Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois             Byron Donalds, Florida
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Mike Quigley, Illinois

         Jenifer Gaspar, Deputy Staff Director & Chief Counsel
                          Derek Collins, Clerk
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                  Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director

             Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis

               James E. Clyburn, South Carolina, Chairman
Maxine Waters, California            Steve Scalise, Louisiana, Ranking 
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York             Minority Member
Nydia M. Velazquez, New York         Jim Jordan, Ohio
Bill Foster, Illinois                Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Nicole Malliotakis, New York
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on September 22, 2021...............................     1

                               Witnesses

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Professor of Human Development and 
  Social Policy Director, Institute for Policy Research 
  Northwestern University
Oral Statement...................................................     7
Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, President Children's Defense Fund
Oral Statement...................................................     9
H. Luke Shaefer, Professor of Social Justice and Social Policy, 
  Associate Dean for Research and Policy Engagement, Gerald R. 
  Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan
Oral Statement...................................................    10
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum
Oral Statement...................................................    12
Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Co-Executive Director, Georgetown Center on 
  Poverty & Inequality, Georgetown University Law Center
Oral Statement...................................................    14

Written opening statements and the written statements of the 
  witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * Article regarding Australia investigating COVID origins; 
  submitted by Rep. Scalise.

Documents entered into the record during this hearing and 
  Questions for the Record (QFR's) are available at: 
  docs.house.gov.

 
                        RECOGNIZING AND BUILDING
                       ON THE SUCCESS OF PANDEMIC
                            RELIEF PROGRAMS

                              ----------                              


                     Wednesday, September 22, 2021

                   House of Representatives
                  Committee on Oversight and Reform
              Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:44 p.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, and over Zoom; Hon. 
James E. Clyburn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Clyburn, Maloney, Foster, Raskin, 
Krishnamoorthi, Scalise, Jordan, Green, and Miller-Meeks.
    Chairman Clyburn. Good afternoon. The committee will come 
to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for 
an opening statement.
    As the coronavirus spread nationwide in the spring of 2020, 
the economic harm was immediate and devastating. Over 22 
million people lost their jobs, and the share of Americans 
unable to afford their basic expenses, like food, housing, and 
healthcare, sharply increased.
    Congress responded to this crisis with unprecedented relief 
legislation. That response worked. The relief packages we 
enacted, coming in with the American Rescue Plan, have eased 
Americans' financial hardships, reduced poverty, and supported 
a robust economic recovery.
    Recent Census Bureau data show that the pandemic relief 
legislation, particularly the American Rescue Plan, helped 
millions of Americans pay their basic expenses and reduce the 
poverty rate even as the pandemic continued to wreak havoc on 
our economy. An analysis of Census data conducted by select 
subcommittee staff and released just this morning showed, that 
in the weeks after the American Rescue Plan's relief payments 
were distributed, the share of households without enough food 
to eat or were behind in rent both declined by almost 20 
percent, and that continued for many months after the payments 
were made.
    The select subcommittee's analysis is confirmed by many 
other studies. The Urban Institute estimates that the American 
Rescue Plan's direct payment, relief payments, child tax credit 
expansion, unemployment insurance extension, and other 
measures, are contributing to the most dramatic poverty 
reduction on record with a particular significant decline for 
Black Americans.
    This summer, as the Biden administration rolled out the 
American Rescue Plan's expanded child tax credits advance 
payments, families with children saw significant declines in 
food insecurity and poverty. One analysis found that just one 
child tax credit advance payment; 2 million fewer children went 
hungry. And another report found that the first payment lifted 
6 million children out of poverty. Data released just last week 
also show that nearly 3 million Americans have gained health 
coverage through Affordable Care Act exchanges with the support 
of the American Rescue Plan's enhanced tax credits for health 
insurance. The ARP drove down premiums and healthcare costs for 
children in a wide range of income levels buying insurance on 
the exchanges, ensuring expanded access to healthcare as we 
continue to combat the pandemic.
    In addition to relief measures that are directly 
alleviating hardship, the American Rescue Plan has supported a 
robust economic recovery. The United States' economy has grown 
at a rate far higher this year than most forecasters 
anticipated before its passage. And the United States is the 
only country among the G-7 Nations that has already recovered 
and surpassed its pre-pandemic economic output.
    This economic growth has fueled a significant job recovery 
with over 3 million jobs created since the American Rescue 
Plan's passage in March 2021.
    Despite the challenges presented by the spread of the Delta 
variant driven by the unvaccinated, the United States has added 
an average of 750 jobs per month over the last three months. 
For those American families still struggling, this vital 
financial assistance is continuing to provide an essential 
lifeline. The dramatic progress we have made in easing 
financial burdens and reducing poverty during this crisis shows 
that we can reduce economic disparities when we have the will. 
Now, in order to avoid a reversal of this progress, we must 
find the will once again.
    The American Rescue Plan was designed as a temporary 
stopgap measure to rescue our economy from an unprecedented 
crisis. We must now extend many of its provisions and build on 
them to create a strong, sustainable, and inclusive post-
pandemic economy. To achieve this, we must act to ensure that 
children are not mired in poverty, that people have access to 
affordable healthcare, that Americans have decent housing and 
the ability to care for their loved ones, and that all 
communities have the infrastructure necessary to connect them 
with opportunity.
    Extending the child tax credit expansion, making health 
insurance more affordable, closing the Medicaid coverage gap, 
ensuring paid family and medical leave, and making broadband 
accessible and affordable are just a few of the steps we must 
take. They are just a few of the elements of the Build Back 
Better agenda which we must enact to build a better future for 
all Americans.
    Before I yield to the ranking member, I want to respond to 
the letter he recently sent to me renewing his request that 
Treasury Secretary Yellen testify before the select 
subcommittee. As I responded earlier, I share his desire for a 
hearing with Secretary Yellen, and my staff has been working 
diligently with the Treasury Department to schedule it. Given 
that this is a hearing the ranking member and I both hope to 
have, I would suggest that we have direct and private meetings 
to further discuss our preparations for a meeting with the 
Secretary.
    With that, I now yield to the ranking member for his 
opening statement.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I look forward to those discussions to followup and have 
that hearing with Secretary Yellen. Maybe you and I can have 
further discussions about having a hearing on the origins of 
COVID-19, something I will talk about shortly.
    But, first, Mr. Chairman, to bring us to the subject of 
today, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle plan to use 
this hearing as an opportunity to show their massive spending 
and tax bill that is moving before Congress. But before we get 
into that, I want to direct everyone's attention to what is 
happening with the coronavirus and with the Biden 
administration, which I thought was supposed to be the purpose 
of this select subcommittee.
    This virus has killed more than 672,000 Americans. The 
daily death count under President Biden's watch is now 2,000 
Americans a day. Almost two years into this pandemic, and 
things are still this bad. Yet we still haven't had a hearing 
about where the virus came from. The United States' 
intelligence community has failed to reach a definitive 
conclusion about whether the coronavirus escaped from a lab in 
China or got into humans through an infected animal. We are in 
no better position to prevent the next pandemic today than we 
were before this subcommittee was created.
    There are serious questions that have been raised about 
whether the United States played a role in funding gain-of-
function research at the very lab that is suspected of 
engineering the coronavirus. Leaked documents from a FOIA 
request show that the U.S. Government gave $3.1 million to the 
health organization EcoHealth Alliance, which funded 
coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and 
that almost $600,000 of that taxpayer money was partially used 
by the Wuhan lab to find and alter bat coronaviruses that could 
jump to humans and infect them. Why are we not having a hearing 
on this?
    In fact, I was just a few hours ago today, in a meeting 
with the Prime Minister of Australia, and one of the things we 
talked about was the origins of COVID. And, in fact, he, the 
Prime Minister of Australia, called for an investigation into 
the origin of this virus over a year ago, Mr. Chairman, over a 
year ago. Now, he didn't say that he suspected where it 
started. He said: Shouldn't we investigate it?
    And do you know what happened after that? China actually 
got into a trade war with Australia over that question, just 
the question of where it started. Maybe there might be a little 
guilt on their part that just raising the question of saying, 
``We're going to look into where this disease that killed over 
600,000 Americans, millions globally, started from so we can 
prevent it from happening again,'' and as soon as you say that, 
China engaged in a trade war with Australia.
    But at least Australia did not back down, Mr. Chairman. 
Australia wasn't bullied by China. I wonder if anybody who is 
blocking an investigation into the origins of COVID are more 
afraid of being bullied by China than they are by getting the 
facts to how this disease actually started as 2,000 Americans 
every single day are dying, and we still haven't had that 
hearing. We will continue to press for that hearing, Mr. 
Chairman. American people all across this country want to get 
those facts, deserve to get those answers. Australia's Prime 
Minister had the guts to go and ask that question. We ought to 
as well, and we are going to continue on the Republican side 
pushing for that very hearing.
    Another area ripe for oversight is the Biden 
administration's political interference with the science. 
That's right. You heard President Biden talking for two years 
about, oh, there needs to be no political interference with the 
science except now that he is President, we see reports that he 
may be interfering with the science. This is what we have seen 
the President do.
    Well, first, we already know that he went around the 
science when he catered to union heads to keep kids out of 
school. The science said keep kids in school, and the Biden 
administration threw that science out the window to bow to 
teachers' unions who wanted to keep kids out of school, which 
is destroying millions of kids.
    And, most recently, the Biden administration prematurely 
announced that booster shots would be available this week, 
telling the American people that the vaccines have diminished 
efficacy over time. Then two career officials that are involved 
in vaccine review at the FDA departed, left the FDA amid 
concerns that the Biden White House was pressuring the 
scientists, pressuring them to recommend boosters before there 
was any data that backed it up.
    Now the FDA advisory committee says, no, boosters are not 
broadly necessary yet. Talk about mixed messaging. Talk about 
the Biden administration interfering with the science. Maybe we 
should have a hearing on that.
    Political interference at the FDA, which this certainly 
looks like, would be incredibly damaging to public confidence 
in the coronavirus vaccine and every other drug or treatment 
the FDA approves. That is why Oversight Committee Ranking 
Member Comer and myself sent a letter to the FDA to investigate 
this potential interference by the Biden administration with 
the science.
    By the way, more than nine months into President Biden's 
term as President, and he still hasn't appointed an FDA 
Commissioner. We are in the middle of a pandemic where hundreds 
of thousands of Americans died, 2,000 Americans a day are 
dying, and President Biden still to this day, nine months in, 
has not appointed a head of the FDA. When you look at the lack 
of therapeutics, when you look at some of the rudderless ship 
accusations that are being made at the FDA because they don't 
have a head yet--the President still hasn't appointed a head of 
the FDA.
    Mr. Chairman, maybe we should have a hearing in this 
committee into why the President of the United States will not 
appoint someone to head the Food and Drug Administration as we 
are in the middle of a pandemic. That would be an important 
hearing to have. Maybe we could jog the President to actually 
appoint somebody to head the FDA and right this rudderless ship 
that we still see so many problems coming out of.
    Just today, The New York Times extensively covered the lack 
of in-home testing options, the FDA's slow pace in approving 
testing options, not to mention the slow pace of therapeutics 
approval. Experts called the process for approvals, quote, 
onerous and inappropriate. Why don't we have a hearing on that? 
The New York Times said COVID isn't disappearing any time soon. 
So long as it continues to circulate and cause both serious 
illness and despite, rapid testing is arguably the only way 
that society can return to something that resembles normal 
life.
    By the way, there is also a migrant crisis at our southern 
border. Thousands of people are pouring into the country each 
and every day. We know that many of them are bringing COVID 
into our country. Our own Border Patrol agents are telling us 
that, and yet the Biden administration is more concerned with 
putting masks on two-year-old children than imposing these 
kinds of restrictions to prevent COVID from coming into our 
southern border.
    Surely these are topics worth looking into, and yet, here 
we are, examining ways to spend more money and further fuel 
inflation, which we know the spending is directly fueling, and 
then add mountains more debt to our children.
    Today's hearing will be used to try to sell this Democrat 
socialist dream of a bigger welfare state. They want to spend 
$3.5 trillion to raise taxes so that they can continue spending 
on all of these wasteful programs. They tout free money. 
Everybody knows there is no such thing as free money. 
Businesses couldn't find workers all summer long because the 
Democrats insisted on paying people more money not to work than 
to get back to work when ``help wanted'' signs are all across 
our country. Companies competing with Uncle Sam is something 
that most of them cannot do. And, by the way, to try to do it, 
they are raising prices. That is one of the drivers of 
inflation that is crippling so many families across America.
    On top of that, the reckless government spending is causing 
inflation. Prices are up at the gas pump, at the grocery store. 
They are rising faster than wages. Even with wages going up, 
inflation is going up even higher. It is taking away any 
benefit that families are getting, and, in fact, the people hit 
the hardest, as we all know, from this inflation are the lowest 
income people.
    I remember back when President Biden said nobody making 
under $400,000 would see any kind of tax increase. Inflation is 
probably the biggest direct tax increase on low-income 
families, but they don't stop there. Their tax increase plan 
also goes after an energy tax. Yes, they are trying to raise 
taxes on things like natural gas, which many families use to 
heat their homes in a cold winter, to cool their homes in a hot 
summer, and yet people are going to see double-digit increases 
in their electricity rates if the Biden administration gets 
their way with their tax hikes. And who is going to pay the 
bulk of that? Yes, low-income families, breaking President 
Biden's pledge.
    If you are making less than $100,000, you will be paying 
more if President Biden gets his way on these tax hikes. That 
doesn't touch what happens if he raises income taxes which he 
is trying to do. Everybody knows that not only will hurt wage 
growth, it is going to ship millions of jobs overseas. You 
don't have to wonder about it. It is what was happening before 
we cut taxes.
    So, if you want to talk about how to get our economy back 
on track, there is a simple answer: It's get government out the 
way. Help businesses bring back workers. Help schools reopen 
and follow the science. The science says to do just that, but 
that's not what is happening. They are manipulating the 
science. The President continues to go around the science, 
continues to avoid appointing someone to run an agency that 
should be leading the science on things like more therapeutics. 
We would have less people dying every day if the President 
focused on that. That is why we should be having hearings on 
those issues, not on how to spend more money and saddle our 
kids with mountains more debt. Let's focus on solving real 
problems that we still have today instead of trying to cover 
them up, trying to cover up the President's failures, trying to 
cover up whatever China did that they clearly are concerned 
about because if they are going after Australia because 
Australia wants to find out where this thing started, maybe 
that should tell you something right there.
    That is where our focus should be, Mr. Chairman. We will 
continue to press for that, and, with that, I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses, and I yield back the balance of my 
time.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Scalise.
    I am pleased to welcome today's witnesses. First, I welcome 
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, a professor and economist who 
serves as director of the Institute for Policy Research at 
Northwestern University. Professor Schanzenbach has studied the 
effectiveness of nutrition assistance programs and tax credits 
and has tracked data related to economic hardship through the 
pandemic.
    Next, I would like to welcome the Reverend Starsky Wilson, 
who serves as president and CEO of the Children's Defense Fund. 
Dr. Wilson and the Children's Defense Fund are tireless 
advocates for the well-being of America's children and have 
highlighted the unique hardships children faced during the 
pandemic.
    I would also like to welcome Luke Shaefer, professor and 
associate dean for research and policy engagement at the 
University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy. 
Professor Shaefer has analyzed data related to the economic 
hardships faced by Americans during the pandemic and the 
effects of pandemic relief legislation.
    I would next like to welcome Indivar Dutta-Gupta, who 
serves as co-executive director of the Georgetown Center on 
Poverty and Inequality, which develops policy recommendations 
to address poverty and inequality and to expand economic 
opportunity.
    Finally, I would like to welcome Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who 
serves as president of the American Action Forum.
    Thank you all for taking the time to testify today. I look 
forward to hearing from our witnesses today on what we can 
learn from our pandemic response and how we can build on recent 
successes.
    Will the witnesses please rise and raise their right hands? 
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give 
is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 
help you God?
    You may be seated.
    Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the 
affirmative.
    Without objection, your written statements will be made 
part of the record.
    Professor Schanzenbach, you are recognized for five minutes 
for your opening statement. And feel free to let me know 
whether or not I have butchered your name.

 STATEMENT OF DIANE WHITMORE SCHANZENBACH, PROFESSOR OF HUMAN 
 DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL POLICY DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY 
               RESEARCH, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

    Ms. Schanzenbach. It was perfect.
    So, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise, and members 
of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear 
before you today at this hearing on recognizing and building on 
the success of pandemic relief programs. My name is Diane 
Schanzenbach. I am an economist and the director of Institute 
for Policy Research at Northwestern University.
    As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous 
economic disruption with a swift and large decline in 
employment. This in turn led to purposeful increases and access 
to and participation in social safety net programs, such as 
unemployment insurance and SNAP. Both congressional and 
executive actions have further expanded the generosity of many 
of these longstanding programs.
    Other programs were newly conceived during the crisis, such 
as the new pandemic EBT payments to make up for missed school 
meals. Researchers have found evidence that these relief 
programs have been successful in alleviating poverty and 
economic hardship and sustaining consumption during this time.
    The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent, up one 
percentage point over 2019, but a drawback of the official 
poverty measure is that it doesn't take into account many of 
the government programs designed to assist low-income families. 
The supplemental poverty measure takes these programs into 
account and highlights their important roles during the 
pandemic and recession.
    After counting for the safety net response, poverty rates 
fell from 11.8 percent in 2019 down to 9.1 percent in 2020. 
This is a tremendous policy success. The first two rounds of 
economic impact payments lifted 3.2 million children out of 
poverty, a larger impact than any other program studied. The 
earned income tax credit and child tax credit lifted 2.7 
million children out of poverty, and SNAP and school lunches 
lifted 1.3 million children out of poverty.
    Now, child poverty is a serious problem in the United 
States. Children growing up in poverty begin life at a 
disadvantage. On average, they attain less education, face 
greater health challenges, and are more likely to have 
difficulty obtaining steady and well-paying employment in adult 
life. A panel of experts convened by the National Academy of 
Sciences estimated that, because of such effects, childhood 
poverty costs our economy between $800 billion and $1.1 
trillion every year.
    Now, against this backdrop, a fully refundable child tax 
credit, delivered on a monthly basis, will provide a reliable 
$250 to $300 per month per child to sustainably provide 
financial stability for children and their parents. While this 
is insufficient as a sole income source, it will help families 
make ends meet and alleviate parents' stress and help them 
focus on their work and their families.
    Now, until the American Rescue Plan, the CTC was primarily 
targeted to middle class families, and it had only been 
partially refundable, meaning that families who owe little or 
no income tax weren't eligible for the full credit. As a 
result, due to their family's low incomes, 1 in 10 children 
received no CTC benefits and 1 in 4 received only a partial 
amount. In other words, 27 million of the children who needed 
it most received less or no help from the CTC. This includes 
roughly half of all Black and Hispanic children and children 
who live in rural communities.
    Due to the American Rescue Plan, now almost all of these 
children receive the full benefit amount. If these changes are 
made permanent, they are projected to cut poverty nearly in 
half for children.
    Full refundability will help workers in low-paying sectors, 
who previously only earned enough to claim a partial CTC. These 
are workers in occupations such as cashiers, nursing home 
aides, cooks and janitors, salespeople, the essential workers 
who have been keeping our economy running during this pandemic.
    The expanded CTC will promote our country's long-term 
economic prosperity. We have a lot of research on this, showing 
that reducing child poverty increases education outcomes with 
fewer school absences, higher test scores, improved graduation 
rates. It also improves health and reduces crime.
    Low-income children who benefit from safety net programs 
during childhood grow up to be more likely to be employed and 
earn more as adults. And, as a result, expanding the CTC will 
yield a long-term financial payoff for us. In fact, once the 
full benefits of the CTC are accounted for, the net cost to 
taxpayers of the expansion seems to be as little as maybe 16 
cents for every dollar of new benefits.
    It's, of course, important to consider potential impacts of 
an expanded CTC on parents' incentive to work. Empirical 
studies suggest that the income provided through the CTC is 
unlikely to meaningfully reduce parental labor supply. Most 
parents would continue to work, and few would substantially 
reduce the number of hours they worked. A permanently expanded 
CTC would yield tremendous, immediate, and long-term benefits 
for children and their families and would be unlikely to 
meaningfully reduce employment. Recently, I co-authored a 
letter highlighting these same points that was co-signed by 
over 460 economists.
    For the good of the Nation, we need to be investing more in 
children than we have been. The enhanced CTC is an important 
start. Thank you, and I look forward to questions.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Professor 
Schanzenbach.
    Now, before I yield to Dr. Wilson for five minutes, let me 
yield the gavel to Congressman Foster, who I think has already 
voted on this issue as I go vote, and, hopefully, I'll return 
by the time--before your time expires for your next vote. So, 
with that, Dr. Wilson.

  STATEMENT OF REV. DR. STARSKY WILSON, PRESIDENT, CHILDREN'S 
                          DEFENSE FUND

    Rev. Dr. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Clyburn. Good 
afternoon, Ranking Member Scalise, distinguished committee 
members. Thank you for this invitation to testify on Federal 
efforts to help the 74 million children in America, especially 
Black and Brown children, during the pandemic. Let me also 
thank and acknowledge the other distinguished panelists that 
are here with us today. I look forward to continuing to learn 
from each and every one of you.
    We're grateful for the opportunity to share, and I'm 
honored to offer testimony on behalf of the Children's Defense 
Fund. And as its president and CEO, CDF has advocated for 
children across America for nearly 50 years. We live in a 
Nation where marginalized children flourish, where leaders 
prioritize their well-being, and where communities wield the 
power to ensure they thrive.
    Clearly, COVID-19 has highlighted and illuminated systemic 
inequality, structural racism, and disinvestment in our Black, 
Brown, indigenous, and immigrant communities that left us 
unprepared to deal with a national crisis. These families were 
more likely to lose their jobs, contract the virus, be 
hospitalized, and die because of COVID-19. And a year and a 
half later, our communities continue to struggle.
    New data from the Census Bureau shows that more than 11.6 
million children, nearly 1 in 6, lived in poverty in 2020. This 
represents the first increase in child poverty in many years. 
Fortunately, expansion in antipoverty programs made as part of 
the temporary COVID relief reduced that hardship. Now these 
measures must be made permanent.
    The pandemic highlighted the need for guaranteed income for 
families. The American Rescue Plan included a one-year 
expansion of the CTC, which you've heard before, that boosted 
its value, allowed half to be paid monthly, and extended it to 
more than 23 million additional very low-income children, 
predominantly Black and Latinx children.
    The expanded CTC is predicted to lift more than 4 million 
children out of poverty and begin to close racial income gaps, 
cutting poverty in half for Black, Hispanic, AAPI children, and 
by 61 percent for indigenous children. In its first month, the 
expanded CTC reduced food insecurity by more than 30 percent 
and kept 3 million children from poverty.
    Families have told us how this benefit--how important this 
benefit is. I quote: The monthly payment means not having to 
pick up extra shifts and more time with my family, one parent 
said.
    Another said: It would mean emotional relief knowing that I 
don't have to worry about feeding and providing basic 
essentials for my children.
    The Build Back Better Act would expand the CTC through 
2025. Congress must pass it without weakening it and keep 
fighting to make the expanded CTC permanent.
    The pandemic also exacerbated child hunger and demonstrated 
the importance of universal free school meals. The USDA was 
given authority to help schools feed children safely and 
conveniently last year. This allowed schools to serve over 3.2 
billion free healthy meals to more than 22 million children, 
more than half Black and Brown children. This authority will 
expire soon. Congress must extend it to ensure schools have the 
flexibility they need to keep children fed. Failing to do so 
could plunge millions of marginalized children back into food 
insecurity.
    Long term, the Build Back Better Act would get us closer to 
universal school meals, extending them to 9 million more 
children. This is critical because 10.8 million children, 58 
percent children of color, live in households earning too much 
to qualify for free meals but too little to get by. Congress 
must pass the Build Back Better Act and continue to push for 
universal free school meals.
    Finally, we must support the roughly 20,000 children in 
foster care who are cutoff from support every year when they 
reach adulthood without a permanent family. When COVID hit, 
more than half of our foster youth faced food insecurity. Two-
thirds reported cuts to work hours or lost jobs, and only 37 
percent reported having family to turn to. The consolidated 
Appropriations Act of 2021 provided $400 million to help former 
foster youth get by and gave flexibilities to the child welfare 
system to care for them. Many of the provisions of the law will 
expire September 30, and thousands of youth will be ejected 
from services, keeping them from poverty and from being 
unhoused. Congress must pass H.R. 5167 before September 30 to 
extend these supports so no child will be sent from foster care 
into homelessness in the streets.
    Families need support throughout the duration of this 
crisis and economic downturn to protect children from the harms 
associated with poverty, hunger, housing insecurity. And, 
furthermore, once the crisis passes, Congress should adopt 
permanent measures to ensure children and families are always 
supported.
    Children, I say as a minister, are a gift from God. They 
are a treasure to us. I thank you for the opportunity to speak 
today and look forward to hearing more from the members of the 
committee on how we will care for this treasure.
    Mr. Foster.[Presiding.] Thank you, Dr. Wilson.
    And we will now hear from Professor Shaefer.
    Professor Shaefer, you are now recognized for five minutes.

 STATEMENT OF H. LUKE SHAEFER, PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND 
   SOCIAL POLICY AND ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH AND POLICY 
ENGAGEMENT, GERALD R. FORD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY 
                          OF MICHIGAN

    Mr. Shaefer. Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise, 
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
speak with you today.
    In early March 2020, I was deeply concerned about the 
impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economic security of 
low-and middle-income Americans. I was especially worried about 
families with children who have the most trouble making ends 
meet and who, in this pandemic, faced massive job loss as well 
as school closures. Looking back today, there is no question 
this has been a time of trial for American families. Yet it has 
also proven to be a time when government worked, when public 
policy shielded millions of families from economic crisis like 
we have never done before.
    The social safety net response ushered in by the bipartisan 
CARES Act and continued in the December COVID relief bill and 
the American Rescue Plan is truly historic. A wealth of 
evidence now shows it has proven incredibly effective. I 
believe this success is due in large part to the speed and 
flexibility of a broad-based approach that prioritized putting 
money in people's pockets through EIPs and expanded 
unemployment insurance. American households spent this help on 
food, housing, and other needs. They paid down debt and got 
themselves on sure financial footing.
    Much of my research during COVID-19 uses the Household 
Pulse Survey, which the Census Bureau has fielded since April 
2020, to better understand how Americans are dealing with the 
public health and economic crisis. In a report in the summer of 
2020, we found that, despite historically high unemployment, 
rates of hardship were stable and, in some cases, declining 
following the rollout of CARES. In line with this, this month, 
the USDA reported that annual food insecurity in 2020 did not 
rise for the population and increased only modestly among 
households with children. I never could have imagined that 
would be true when this crisis started.
    When we updated the Pulse data a few months later, though, 
we could see that things took a wrong turn in November as 
infections rose and the economic recovery stalled. Hardship was 
on the rise. By the end of 2020, I believe we were headed in 
the wrong direction without further Federal action. Then 
Congress acted twice through the COVID-19 relief bill and the 
American Rescue Plan, and we could see the impact in the Pulse 
data clear as day. From December 2020 to April 2021, food 
insufficiency plummeted by 40 percent, financial instability 
dropped by 45 percent, and the reports of adverse mental health 
problems fell 20 percent. Hardship has inched up in recent 
months as we get further away from the EIPs but remains well 
below levels seen last December.
    Scores of other studies come to similar conclusions about 
the success of this unprecedented safety net response. The 
credit scores of Americans are better now than in 2019. Credit 
card debt is lower, and fewer people are missing payments. 
Available evidence indicates this is true for Black and 
Hispanic Americans as well as Whites. A study by the Federal 
Reserve found that more households could cover a $400 emergency 
expense in July 2020 compared to October 2019. Other 
researchers have found spending fell off a cliff as the 
pandemic started but, following the CARES Act, immediately 
rebounded in striking fashion.
    Nearest to my heart is the expansion of the child tax 
credit. With monthly advance payments that rolled out this past 
July, this policy holds the promise to cut child poverty by 45 
percent and eradicate its most extreme forms. As those payments 
rolled out, we've already heard, once again, we saw food 
hardship drop. We saw poverty drop as this help was delivered, 
this time among those with children.
    None of these programs work perfectly. Some have not gotten 
the help they needed. Yet, while we should always think about 
how we can do better, I think it is also critical to recognize 
the successes we've had. This is the best, most successful 
response to an economic crisis that we have ever mounted, and 
it's not even close. I hope we can carry the bipartisan 
blueprint forward.
    A word of caution: Expanded unemployment insurance has 
expired, and the evidence from states where it's ended early 
sees no increase in employment but a definitive rise in 
hardship. I hope I'm wrong, but I expect the next few months 
will be harder for many. Most importantly to me, I urge you to 
make the expansion of the child tax credit permanent. This 
policy holds the promise to dramatically reduce child poverty, 
especially among children of color. It recognizes that raising 
kids is expensive, and society has a reason to come alongside 
parents in that work.
    Research indicates that we'll benefit from this investment 
for years to come. We are at a crossroads, and you have the 
power to chart a very different path forward. I am deeply 
grateful for what you have done for American families so far, 
and I hope you will take the next step to make a very different 
future possible. Thank you.
    Chairman Clyburn.[Presiding.] Thank you very much, 
Professor Shaefer.
    Thank you very much, Congressman Foster, for continuing 
this process for us. I just cast my vote, and I am still open 
for you. Thank you.
    Let us now yield five minutes to hear from Dr. Holtz-Eakin.
    Dr. Eakin, you are recognized for five minutes.

 STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ACTION 
                             FORUM

    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Well, thank you, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking 
Member Scalise, and members of the committee for the privilege 
of being here today to discuss these issues. I want to make 
three main points, and then I look forward to answering your 
questions.
    Point No. 1 is that 2020 saw an incredibly effective 
response to the COVID-19 recession, and it occurred on a 
bipartisan basis. In 2021, however, we need to do something 
different, and we have, but it's not been nearly as well 
designed and effective as I would have hoped. And, going 
forward, any growth in antipoverty strategy should focus very, 
very strongly on education, educational attainment, building 
skills, and doing this in the environment of rapid job growth. 
Let me expand on each of those.
    The response in 2020 was just terrific. I would concur with 
Dr. Shaefer in that this is the best response to an economic 
crisis that we've ever seen. It was timely. The CARES Act 
passed in March and the Consolidated Appropriations Act in 
December were done on a bipartisan basis at times when 
increases in cases had threatened the progress of the U.S. 
economy in strong and severe ways, so Congress acted 
appropriately and quickly.
    It was done to the appropriate scale. The U.S. economy 
contracted by 10 percent in the second quarter of 2020. For 
perspective, in 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression, 
the U.S. economy contracted by 12 percent, so we experienced an 
extremely severe downturn in the spring of 2020. Congress 
responded with an extremely strong response in the CARES Act. A 
10-percent of GDP response was necessary, and the Congress 
delivered it. It was also, by and large, well designed. There's 
going to be lots of Monday morning quarterbacking, but, on the 
whole, I thought that the CARES Act targeted funds effectively. 
There are some design issues with unemployment insurance that 
certainly are worth meriting discussion, and lending facilities 
at the Federal Reserve never turned out to be what we had 
hoped, but I think on the whole, it's very difficult to 
complain about that.
    Turning the corner to 2021, we started to see something 
very different. The American Rescue Plan is none of the above. 
It certainly is very poorly timed. At the time of its passage, 
the U.S. economy, if you looked at the real-time data, was 
growing at about a 6 1/2 percent rate. There was simply no need 
for further stimulus. We should have turned the corner toward 
longer run planning for economic growth.
    It was not appropriately scaled. It was much too large. At 
$1.9 trillion, it was anywhere from four to five times larger 
than most estimates of the output gap, the gap between 
potential to produce and actual GDP in the economy. So it was 
something that we really didn't need that much of.
    And it was incredibly poorly designed. It was not targeted 
on COVID-19. In some cases, we had bailouts of multi-employer 
pension plans. It wasn't targeted on anything in the near-term 
radar screen at all.
    And so it flunks those tests of being appropriate in design 
and scale and timeliness.
    And the results were undesirable. It didn't move the needle 
on growth at all. We grew in the second quarter at roughly the 
same rate we grew in the first quarter, but it did move the 
needle on inflation. First, asset price inflation. We saw sharp 
rises in cryptocurrencies, equities, home values, and then 
translated into consumer prices where over the first half of 
2021, the food, energy, and shelter components of the CPI rose 
at a 10-percent annual rate, not something that's terribly 
desirable.
    The next in line is the Build Back Better Act. This is 
something that is not a pro-growth proposal. In research that 
we commissioned at the American Action Forum, we took a serious 
look, using a model just like the joint committees, at what 
happens if you raise taxes of that type, spend it exclusively 
on productive infrastructure and R&D, and the answer is you get 
negative economic growth.
    The actual Build Back Better Act does not exclusively 
target productive investments. Instead, it has a large amount 
of expansion in social safety nets, and it is not fully paid 
for and will increase the structural deficit for years to come. 
That combination makes it an undesirable platform for stronger 
long-running growth and antipoverty efforts.
    In closing, I would say that the most important thing to 
remember about poverty is it shouldn't be defined as the 
absence of material well-being. It should be defined as the 
inability to be economically self-sufficient, and we need to 
focus our efforts on generating economic self-sufficiency, 
providing people with education, skills, and having them take--
deploy those skills in a rapidly growing economy with lots of 
job openings.
    So I thank you for the chance to be here, and I look 
forward to your questions.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Dr. Holtz-Eakin.
    Finally, we hear from Mr. Dutta-Gupta.

   STATEMENT OF INDIVAR DUTTA-GUPTA, CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
     GEORGETOWN CENTER ON POVERTY & INEQUALITY, GEORGETOWN 
                     UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER

    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Thank you, Chairman Clyburn and Ranking 
Member Scalise and members of the subcommittee. My name is 
Indivar Dutta-Gupta, and I'm co-executive director of the 
Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. I'm honored to be 
here before this subcommittee to discuss the historic relief 
measures put in place in the COVID-19 pandemic and the 
importance of permanent improvements to our social protections 
system.
    The policies we're discussing, from the earned income tax 
credit and child tax credit to unemployment assistance and 
caregiving supports, are central to building an equitable and 
prosperous Nation. Earlier this year, policymakers enacted the 
American Rescue Plan, one of the largest Stimulus Plans in our 
Nation's history. Their plan wasn't perfect, but it built off 
of three previous bipartisan relief measures to significantly 
mitigate poverty and hardship. These temporary Federal relief 
efforts, especially those boosting household incomes and 
ensuring people's access to essential services, played a 
central role in stabilizing families and our Nation's economy 
while pushing back on racial and gender inequity.
    Unprecedented Federal support allowed families, businesses, 
and the economy to begin to recover from the pandemic's 
economic shock much faster than after the 2007 to 2009 
financial crisis. In fact, amidst the deepest economic and 
labor market contraction in generations, the United States may 
have achieved its lowest poverty rate on record last year, a 
stunning outcome attributable in large part to the Federal 
fiscal response. The impact this year could match or exceed 
what was achieved in 2020, especially if the new child tax 
credit reaches eligible families through a whole-of-society 
effort.
    Now, unquestionably, Federal relief measures have been 
substantial, but a response of such a scale was made necessary 
in part by the twin challenges of extreme preexisting 
inequality and an unusually weak baseline of support for 
struggling families in this country. Entering the pandemic, our 
economy was characterized by enormous income and wealth 
disparities and widespread racial and gender gaps in education, 
housing, the labor market, and beyond.
    At the same time, the United States' social protection 
system lacked key provisions and investments. Unlike other 
wealthy nations, we had no national paid family and medical 
leave program, no sick leave guarantee, no child allowance or 
robust cash assistance, no unemployment assistance for new job 
seekers or returning workers, and no health coverage 
guaranteed.
    And, despite Federal relief measures, our economic recovery 
has slowed. As of last month, we are 5.3 million jobs below 
prepandemic levels and up to 9 million jobs short of 
prepandemic trends. To ensure that our post-pandemic economy is 
stronger than our prepandemic one, we'll need ongoing 
investments that ensure an equitable distribution of 
opportunity and resources to combat the systemic inequities 
that hinder our economic prosperity.
    Rebuilding our government through permanent structural 
Federal policy changes can prevent an uneven recovery where the 
wealthy are back to a prepandemic normal and everyone else 
feels the economic aftershocks of the recession for several 
years, as happened after 2009.
    Policies in the Build Back Better proposals, with some 
crucial additions, would provide needed investments to help 
families hit hardest by the pandemic recover and reduce poverty 
in hardship for generations to come. In particular, our social 
protection system could be strengthened further by making 
permanent expansions of the child tax credit and earned income 
tax credit, closing Medicaid health coverage gaps, fully 
funding housing assistance, establishing a comprehensive 
national paid family and medical leave program, transforming 
early childhood education and long-term care, modernizing 
unemployment assistance, establishing a large-scale national 
subsidized jobs funding stream, and ensuring that immigrant and 
mixed status families are eligible for and access Federal 
support.
    A well-functioning economy ensures widespread economic 
prosperity and ensures that all of us, not just the wealthy and 
well-connected, are prepared for and supported to withstand 
crises. The next crisis may not be national or a pandemic, but 
it will come. Returning to our prepandemic social policies 
exposes Americans' livelihoods to needless risks in the face of 
climate, economic, public health, national security, and other 
threats. We have a chance to learn from, improve upon, and 
extend our remarkable successes responding to the financial 
insecurity families face during this pandemic. The combination 
of the bipartisan infrastructure package and reconciliation 
bill moving through Congress could offer American families and 
the American economy transformational benefits, including by 
increasing labor supplies, meeting our national caregiving 
needs, and raising productivity. The revenues dedicated to 
paying for some of these investments could push back against 
concentrated private wealth and power, reduce inflation, and 
level the playing field for small businesses and working and 
middle class American families.
    Now is the time for policymakers to buildupon our 
extraordinary pandemic relief measures and make structural 
changes that protect all American families and our economy 
against future threats. Thank you.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Dutta-Gupta.
    Thanks to all of you for your testimony here today, and I 
hope to now begin the questions.
    Now, each member will have five minutes for questions, and 
I now recognize myself for five minutes.
    Now, I want to really address a question to Dr. Holtz-
Eakin.
    Dr. Holtz-Eakin, I represent a congressional district in 
South Carolina. I've studied history pretty much all of my 
life. I know a whole lot about what happened after the Great 
Depression, and it seems if you only measure progress by how 
much the economy grows. I know how the pockets of poverty that 
I now represent, how they were created. And I do believe that, 
if you look at the poverty rate, the reduction that we 
experienced after the CARES Act, et cetera, that would be a 
pretty good measurement for a lot of people.
    But what I want to know is you think that the only success 
programs can have is if the economy grows without regards to 
everybody being brought along with it? I'm at a loss as to how 
you measure success. Can you explain a little bit to me, what 
you would do about all those people that were left behind back 
in the 1930's and that if we're not careful and we're not 
sustaining what we've done as we've done with the Rescue Act, 
why do you think that would be a failure? Let me remind you 
that I just I heard from the leader, the minority leader in the 
Senate, that we must protect the full faith and credit of the 
United States of America by raising the debt limit, but the 
Democrats must do it alone, which means that if we do it, it is 
going to be bad because it's not bipartisan. That's what you 
sound like to me. Kind of explain that to me.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Well, I am certainly happy to urge 
Congress to either suspend or raise the debt limit. And I am 
not wise enough to counsel you on how to get the votes in both 
the House and the Senate, but the consequences of failure to do 
so would be severe, and it is something I urge you to get done.
    As for the first part of the question, let me say a couple 
things. One, there is no single measure of success, and you're 
right about that. And it's certainly not the case that simply 
having growth in aggregate GDP guarantees broad well-being. I 
concur with that. It seems to me that in this moment, the 
important thing to do in 2020 was to address the root causes of 
the pandemic recession, which, as I mentioned in my opening 
remarks, was very swift and very severe. Those root causes are 
different than any other recession the United States has ever 
had. If you look at the data, income grew in 2020 and so did 
wealth. In the 20th century, we saw income fall during 
recessions. In the 21st century, wealth has always fallen. We 
had big financial crises.
    This isn't like those. And so, if you want to look at the 
root causes, you have to deal with, first, the public health 
emergency that is the coronavirus and the threat of COVID, 
which prevented people from going to work and which interfered 
with the operation of especially the service sector that 
involved personal contact, and the spending in that service 
sector really was largely dominated by high-income Americans, 
who cut back on their travel, going to shows, staying in 
hotels, eating at restaurants, all of that. And, as a result, 
the employment in those sectors fell dramatically, and that was 
largely lower income, less skilled Americans.
    And so an effective response in 2020 got people who weren't 
going to be helped by a check, who didn't need anything in the 
way of the elaborate programs that were in the CARES Act, but 
really were afraid of the public health threats. And so deal 
with that. I think, as I said in my opening remarks, the 
Congress on a bipartisan basis did a tremendous job in 2020.
    That's not the job in 2021. 2021 is about how do you take 
those areas which have chronic poverty, those areas which do 
not experience rapid economic growth and have them improve over 
the long term. And there I think the data are quite clear. The 
dividing line between poverty and nonpoverty in the United 
States is work. And having people have the capability, the 
education, and skills to work, and an economy growing rapidly 
enough to have a job to give them the opportunity to work is 
the recipe we need to focus on.
    Chairman Clyburn. I appreciate that, but let me say this: I 
think that the income and wealth gap grew. You're telling me 
that income grew and wealth grew. Why, then, do we have an 
increase in the income and wealth gap?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. The other unique feature of this recession 
is that it did not hit the economy in equal fashion. It hit it 
very unequally. If you were a person like myself, your 
recession was probably over by August 2020. But it was a 
prolonged period of unemployment for less skilled, less 
experienced workers and those especially concentrated in the 
personal-service sector, leisure and hospitality being the 
poster child for prolonged downturns.
    So this recession's all about inequality. It hit the 
economy very unequally. And that needed to be thought about in 
the response, and I think it was to a great extent.
    Chairman Clyburn. Well, thank you very much. I agree that 
it was uneven. And that's why we have the American Rescue Act.
    With that, I'll yield to Mr. Scalise.
    Mr. Ranking Member?
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And as the chairman, Mr. Holtz-Eakin, was talking about how 
you measure success, before the government goes and spends 
trillions more dollars, most of which would be borrowed from 
our children--this isn't money sitting in a piggy bank 
somewhere. This is money that doesn't yet exist. And some of it 
would be raised in new taxes, which would hit low-income 
families the hardest. Some of it would just be borrowed, and 
borrowed from kids.
    I know the term ``generous'' was being used earlier, as if 
you're being generous if you're, you know, just spending money 
wildly. I would argue, charity is being generous with your own 
money, but theft is being generous with your kids' money. And 
that's the real concern here.
    But before we talk about how much new money they're trying 
to spend, why don't we look at what actually did help improve 
success for families, especially low-income families?
    I know you're very familiar with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. 
When we actually cut taxes, lowered our rates to make our 
country competitive, we brought millions of jobs back to our 
country. But if you look at what happened, the unemployment 
rate reached a generational low, with record low unemployment 
rate for women, for people of color, for workers without a high 
school degree. The economy gained nearly 5 million jobs before 
the pandemic.
    You saw businesses starting to reinvest again, making 
businesses and workers more productive, while boosting worker 
wages. That's where we saw real success. Workers' net worth 
soared during that period when we cut taxes prior to the 
pandemic.
    Low-and middle-income families, by the way, saw the largest 
gains in wealth growth in 2018 and 2019. And that's according 
to the Federal Reserve. Low-income families saw their net worth 
increase 37 percent. So the lowest-income families benefited 
the most by cutting taxes, making our economy productive again.
    So production isn't just about GDP; it's about creating a 
new middle class. We rebuilt the middle class. Would you agree 
with that assessment from the Federal Reserve and other results 
that we've seen from cutting taxes?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Yes, I thought the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 
was a very important reform.
    Mr. Scalise. And if you look at what this proposal is we're 
seeing moving before the House right now, to go the other 
direction, to raise taxes--and, again, the President's out 
there promising, if you make less than $400,000, you won't see 
a dime in new taxes.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin, if there is, as in this bill--if they get 
their way and they raise taxes on natural gas, would only 
people making over $400,000 pay that tax?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No.
    Mr. Scalise. Who would probably be hit the hardest from 
that kind of tax increase?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. That's going to be hit families with small 
budgets, who spend a bigger fraction of their budget on those 
core necessities.
    Mr. Scalise. Wow.
    And if you listen to people up here, they're acting as if, 
don't worry, it's just those millionaires and those 
billionaires, as if this is going to be shielded, as if no jobs 
are going to go to China.
    As you just said, as anybody with common sense says, if you 
raise taxes on things like natural gas, everybody pays it. In 
fact, hospitals pay it.
    Would not healthcare costs go up if hospitals are paying a 
14-percent increase on their electronic bills?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Certainly. Core cost structures would go 
up across the economy. You can't separate one group of people 
from the operation of the entire economy. That's one of the 
basic lessons of economics.
    Mr. Scalise. Yes.
    And, in fact, if you look at President Biden's promises, 
they all said, don't worry, you're not going to see a tax 
increase if you make under $400,000, don't worry, your 
healthcare costs won't go up. All that's broken--broken--if 
they get their way and they pass this bill to raise taxes, and 
raise it, by the way, trillions of dollars.
    Let me ask you, right now, when you look at the 
unemployment rate, when you look at the job openings, have you 
seen numbers that I've seen that show that there are more job 
openings today than there are people looking for work?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Yes. There are roughly 8 million, a little 
above, unemployed people and about 10-1/2 million job openings 
in the U.S.
    Mr. Scalise. And would that be one of the drivers of 
inflation that you're seeing right now?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. The driver of inflation is, we've got big 
supply constraints because we're not getting people back to 
work, and we pumped $1.9 trillion into an economy that already 
had loose monetary and fiscal policy. And inflation is the 
inevitable result.
    Mr. Scalise. Yes. And inflation is probably one of the 
biggest problems I hear about from families, especially low-
income families. They're the ones who were hit the hardest by 
all this inflation driven by President Biden's spending.
    But let me ask you this. Because the President--President 
Biden's director of the National Economic Council just recently 
said--his name's Brian Deese, and he said that if Americans 
don't buy meat they won't feel inflation. I'm not sure what 
world he lives in, but, I mean, if this is one of the top 
advisors to the President of the United States, it's no wonder 
why their economy is in disarray, why inflation continues to 
soar.
    Do you agree with Brian Deese, the President's director of 
National Economic Council, that if Americans don't buy meat 
they won't feel inflation?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I do not agree.
    Mr. Scalise. It's a ridiculous statement. Maybe we could 
have him in for a hearing as a witness to explain how he could 
be so out of touch with what most American families are facing: 
higher inflation, higher costs, lower wages when you factor all 
that in. And then that's before they raise trillions in new 
taxes, plus trillions in additional debt, borrowed money from 
our children.
    Let's stop this madness. Let's get things back to where 
they were when it was going well with the lower tax rate.
    With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Ranking Member.
    I am now going to yield five minutes to Mrs. Maloney.
    Is Mrs. Maloney with us?
    I'll now yield five minutes to Mr. Foster.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Am I audible and 
visible here?
    Chairman Clyburn. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Foster. OK.
    Well, one of the key parts of our fiscal response to this 
crisis were the direct cash payments, which went to over 160 
million households, which allowed Americans the flexibility 
to--and the freedom to prioritize their family's core needs 
during a pandemic and had a wide range of impacts.
    Through a series of relief bills, American families making 
less than $150,000 per year received economic impact payments 
of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child and a second round 
of payments of up to $600 per individual and, under the 
American Rescue Plan, a third round of $1,400 per individual.
    Professor Shaefer, you published some striking data on 
material hardship during this pandemic. Your analysis shows the 
importance of the relief that we distributed and how important 
it was to the American people, through the CARES Act and last 
year's appropriations bill and in the American Rescue Plan.
    Can you tell us a little of what you saw in terms of the 
impact of the pandemic relief bill's economic impact payments 
on people's ability to afford food, basic expenses, and how 
they affected the neighborhoods as well as the direct 
individuals who received the payments?
    Mr. Shaefer. We've really been blessed with more data this 
time around than we've ever had in a previous recession, and, 
especially because of the Pulse Survey, we could see how 
families were doing week to week.
    And you see those stimulus payments go out, and, bam, food 
hardship goes down, financial stability goes down. People are 
using that money at the grocery store. They're paying their 
landlords. They're paying their mortgage holders. That's part 
of why we see credit scores have gone up from where they were.
    When you think about the strong years, starting in the 
Obama Administration, job growth that lasted and the longest 
economic expansion in history--and we're talking about families 
being on better financial footing than they were before then. 
They spend that money at their utilities, their propane gas 
providers, and healthcare.
    In a recent paper I had published in Health Services 
Research, we see, as expanded unemployment insurance goes out, 
that people return to the healthcare office. I think a lot of 
people thought people were only staying away at the very 
beginning of the crisis because of health factors, but we also 
know, as those job losses piled up, that they were maybe not 
going to the doctor because they couldn't afford the copays.
    So it's really quite striking, I think, that all of the 
witnesses say, especially this framework, with those stimulus 
economic impact payments, expanded unemployment insurance last 
year, that really created a framework that we need to take into 
the next recession, I think, beyond more broadly, because I, 
for one, would take this recovery over any past that we've ever 
had, eight days of the week.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. And I think you're right about the data 
that we're going to get from this. I mean, there's going to be 
just a--it's really a rich trove of data for economists and 
behavioral economists. Because I think there are a lot of myths 
out there about people who receive direct payments will just 
sit around, you know, sit around on the couch, playing video 
games and waste the money.
    What are the factors that you think made these payments so 
effective? And what could we do, you know, to--you know, if 
immediacy was important, what can we do to improve that, or 
other factors that you can tease out of the data so far?
    Mr. Shaefer. As Mr. Holtz-Eakin mentioned, it was a fast 
response. And one of the great things about providing these 
cash transfers is that you empower families to say, you use the 
money on the things that you need the most. Right? If you need 
it--if you need food, go use it on food. And we saw huge 
numbers of families using it on food. If you need it for the 
rent, use it on the rent. So there's an empowerment factor.
    But there's also this flexibility. There's this--you know, 
there's a libertarian argument here, too, that providing those 
cash transfers means we can cut through the red tape. We don't 
have to figure out how to means-test it. By making a broader 
group of the population eligible, we don't have to spend so 
much of government resources finding out, are you above or 
below some sort of line?
    And I think we can argue where the upper bounds should be, 
but when we see these payments really mattering for people well 
up the economic distribution--you're seeing improvements among 
families who are at $60,000, $70,000 a year--we know that we 
can save that money, we can be more efficient, by providing 
cash transfers fast and that families use that money to meet 
their basic needs and they're better off for it.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. And I think it was--you mentioned 
libertarian wisdom--Milton Friedman that said, you know, there 
are these poor people, but they don't really need more 
government programs, they need money. Was that--I think I've 
heard that attributed to Milton Friedman.
    Mr. Shaefer. That's right. Milton Friedman was one of the 
proponents of a negative income tax, which goes to the same 
exact principle as what we did, to say, when people need help, 
the most efficient thing to do is to provide the cash and not 
spend a lot of that money into extra services that pretend that 
we know what families need, when, really, they're the experts 
and they can make those decision.
    And now we have this incredible evidence, in the greatest 
economic crisis of all time, that that strategy works and 
families use the money for things that make them better off and 
make society better off.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. Thank you.
    And my time has expired, and I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Foster. Thank 
you so much. I've got to go vote, so I'm going to yield the 
gavel to you once again, as I recognize Mrs. Maloney for five 
minutes.
    Carolyn?
    Mrs. Maloney. I'm here. Can you hear me now?
    Chairman Clyburn. We hear you now.
    Mrs. Maloney. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The pandemic has underscored the importance of allowing 
workers in the United States to take time off from work if they 
get sick or need to take care of a loved one.
    Early in this pandemic, Congress required many large 
employers to provide paid sick leave to help slow the spread of 
the coronavirus and support workers who got sick. In the 
American Rescue Plan, Congress extended tax credits to small 
and midsize businesses that gave workers paid sick leave.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta, we'll start with you. In your opinion, 
have the paid-sick-leave provisions in the American Rescue Plan 
slowed the spread of the coronavirus?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Thank you, Congresswoman Maloney. That's a 
terrific question. There is, in fact, evidence that the 
provisions in the emergency relief measures slowed the spread 
of the coronavirus.
    The FFCRA, Families First Coronavirus Relief Act--or, 
Response Act was studied by researchers, who found that there 
were around 400 fewer confirmed cases per state per day in 
states that gained access to paid sick leave through the FFCRA. 
That would translate into roughly one prevented case per day 
per - one. Three-hundred workers who had newly gained the 
option to take up--and, remember, it was just two weeks of sick 
leave.
    I will note that a lot of workers, a large share of 
workers, did not have access to any sort of leave, and still 
don't, with the policies being not mandatory for the vast 
majority of employers and with a lot of carve-outs for some of 
those workers.
    So I do hope that we learn from this, that paid sick leave, 
paid family and medical leave even, are genuine investments in 
public health and in our economy, but that we buildupon what 
we've done with a more robust, comprehensive, and universal 
approach.
    Mrs. Maloney. Well, can you expand, how has expanding paid 
leave in this pandemic improved our economy?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Absolutely. So just think about somebody 
who cannot go without a day or a week's pay, and maybe they 
feel unwell. And this is not that uncommon. Even at the end of 
the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, some 40 percent 
of families would struggle to meet a $1,000 emergency. So the 
truth is that a lot of American workers are living quite 
precariously even after a decade-long economic expansion. So 
lots of workers show up for work when it would be good for all 
of us if we could contain the spread of contagious diseases, 
including COVID-19.
    And they also fear for losing their jobs. Maybe they can 
afford a day off; maybe they can afford a few days off. That 
doesn't mean that they will have their job back at the end of 
that time.
    So offering protections for workers to be able to 
prioritize their own health and the health of their loved ones 
as well, including potentially sick kids and others they care 
for, can absolutely allow people to focus more on productive 
economic activity and avoid some of those substantial health 
costs that we have been facing in this country.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
    The pandemic has highlighted many inequities in our 
society. Low-income and essential workers, communities of 
color, and vulnerable people have disproportionately been 
impacted by both the health and economic harms from the 
pandemic. Yet low-wage workers and parents of color are less 
likely to have paid sick leave and family leave.
    Dr. Wilson, what impact can a parent's lack of paid leave 
have on their children's well-being?
    Rev. Dr. Wilson. Thank you very much for the thoughtful 
question.
    Clearly, some of the things that we know is that most 
parents and caregivers who are in low-income families don't 
have paid leave to care for their children or older adults at 
all and never have had access. And, of course, this 
disproportionately impacts Black and Brown parents.
    We also know that millions of women have been pushed out of 
the labor force because they didn't have paid leave or 
childcare. And, more importantly, this is about caring for a 
child in their earliest stages of life, to bond with the child, 
to care for them, and every person in the U.S. should have 
access to that, regardless of race, ZIP Code, or income.
    So we know that early bonds parents develop with their 
babies are critical to future learning, to building a positive, 
loving relationship with the child, and to helping that child 
develop the cognitive, social, and emotional development that 
helps them reach their full potential.
    So paid family leave or parental leave can also reduce 
infant mortality by as much as 10 percent, according to a study 
of 141 countries with paid-leave policies. So paid parental 
leave can reduce the share of low-birth-weight babies by over 
10 percent, decrease the likelihood of early term birth by 
nearly seven percent, with particularly large impact on 
children and the well-being of children and Black mothers.
    So we know that this is something that helps children to be 
well, helps them to develop over time. And access--or, removing 
that access will have deleterious effect on the future of 
children in America, particularly Black and Brown children.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
    My time has expired, and I yield back to Representative 
Foster. Thank you.
    Mr. Foster.[Presiding.] Thank you.
    And now, at this point, I think I will yield back to Chair 
Clyburn to continue the proceedings.
    Chairman Clyburn.[Presiding.] Thank you very much, Mr. 
Foster.
    I now recognize Congressman Green. Is he here?
    Mr. Green. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Clyburn. You are now recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member.
    And thank you to you the witnesses.
    Today's hearing is another failure of this committee to 
address the key questions that the Biden administration, 
congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media refuse to 
discuss. Instead, despite the Federal Government's 
unprecedented spending over the past year and a half, my 
colleagues across the aisle believe more spending is necessary. 
Now the Democrats are leveraging this Select Committee on the 
Coronavirus to justify trillions more for their progressive 
wish list.
    Never mind the disaster of the unemployment handouts that 
left small businesses struggling to find workers because the 
government was paying people more to stay at home than to work. 
Never mind the spending-fueled inflation that's eating away at 
Americans' wallets. Bought any chicken lately? We'll just go 
for a $3.5 trillion tax and spending spree packed with Bernie 
Sanders' wish list.
    Earlier this summer, my colleagues and I held a forum where 
we discussed the evidence surrounding the origins of the virus 
that began in Wuhan and the actions that should be taken to 
ensure a thorough investigation. Do you think maybe the 
American people want to know if the Federal Government funded 
gain-of-function research in a Communist Chinese lab that led 
to a new virus strain? Why, yes, they do. But not Nancy 
Pelosi's Select Committee on the Coronavirus.
    Just last week, a letter published in The Lancet which 
reaffirmed the probability of a lab-leak origin while noting 
that there is little to no evidence supporting a natural origin 
in this outbreak. Still no pangolin yet. Why can we not have a 
conversation about that? Are we uninterested in searching for 
answers when the evidence contradicts the establishment's 
narrative?
    Let's take ivermectin. The authoritarian establishment 
seems instantly to dismiss any mention of the drug. Some states 
are even threatening to take licenses of doctors who prescribe 
it. The human version of ivermectin has been prescribed to 
millions of people and it has been widely used for years in the 
developing world to treat parasitic illnesses. As a meta-
analysis in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Therapeutics 
states, and I quote, ``A large majority of randomized and 
observational control trials of ivermectin are reporting 
repeated large-magnitude improvements in clinical outcomes,'' 
end quote.
    Why is the vaccine the only thing any Democrat will 
consider? Why are we not talking about this study? And why are 
the media and some states trying to rip the licenses from well-
trained M.D.s who want to prescribe it? Now, there's a valid 
investigation for this committee. Not going to happen, though. 
The only science they care about is what supports their 
authoritarian control.
    As President Biden tries to push his unconstitutional 
vaccine mandate, we continue to ignore the studies showing 
durable--the durability of natural immunity. As Dr. Marty 
Makary noted last week in The Washington Post, several studies 
have shown that natural immunity provides robust and 
longstanding protection against the virus.
    In late August, a study out of Israel involving 700,000 
people--and, oh, by the way, since we're so worried about the 
science, the more confidence--the larger a study, the more 
people you have, the larger the ``n,'' or sample size, the more 
confidence you can have in the conclusions of that study.
    That study of 700,000 concluded that those with prior 
infection are 27 times less likely to have a symptomatic 
reaction or reinfection than those who are vaccinated--27 
times. Yet we continue to insist on a one-size-fits-all 
mandatory vaccine policy regardless of age or prior infection.
    If immunity from prior infection is better than the 
vaccine, which that and many other studies says it is, then why 
are we considering kicking soldiers out of the military who 
have had COVID but don't want, or apparently from the science 
need, a vaccine? It makes no sense--unless, of course, you're 
selling vaccine.
    This isn't an abstract issue. It's a serious concern that 
has immediate, real-life implications for millions of 
Americans. Many of those who chose not to get vaccinated 
because they've already had COVID are wondering whether or not 
they're going to lose their jobs. If they already have acquired 
immunity, does it make sense to continue implementing this one-
size-fits-all sell-more-vaccine policy and force them to get 
both shots?
    Should a previously infected person, with better immunity 
than provided by the vaccine, be fired because they won't bend 
the knee to the authoritarians who keep perseverating 
``vaccine, vaccine, vaccine''?
    Why can we not have a conversation about this? These are 
pressing questions with serious real-world implications that 
this committee can and should explore. The failure to do so is 
a failure of this committee to address the most pressing issues 
for Americans in this pandemic.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Dr. Green.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin for five minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
    I'm sorry that just the sequencing of questioning puts the 
burden on me to respond to some of the disinformation we just 
heard.
    There's a report out today which shows that the 10 states 
with the lowest vaccination rate now have an infection rate 
four times higher than the rest of the country. And it stands 
to reason. The vaccine is saving people's lives. So this is a 
life-and-death matter.
    How many videos do we have to see of people who, 
themselves, were very proud not to get the vaccine and told 
other people not to get the vaccine who then ended up with 
COVID-19 and are begging people to get vaccinated and are 
saying they're sorry for participating in all of the propaganda 
and disinformation against vaccines and against masks?
    So I'm just--I'm sorry to see that there are still people 
trying to sell that very dangerous notion against vaccines.
    And, by the way, why should a person get vaccinated if 
they've already had COVID-19? Because they can get it again. 
And we have colleagues who have had COVID-19 twice.
    And people are dying every single day from COVID-19. So I 
don't want to participate in any way in any of the dangerous 
propaganda that continues to be out there which is causing an 
absolute resurgence of COVID-19 across the country.
    But the American Rescue Plan's--the American Rescue Plan 
and the Child Tax Credit have already made a tremendous 
difference in the lives of millions of American kids and their 
families. According to one analysis I saw, the number of 
children experiencing hunger in American has gone down by 2 
million. Two million children fewer are experiencing hunger 
because of what we passed in the American Rescue Plan, because 
of what we passed in the Child Tax Credit.
    And Columbia University estimates that the first Child Tax 
Credit payment this summer lifted 6 million children out of 
poverty. OK? The very first payment under the Child Tax Credit 
plan we passed lifted 6 million kids out of poverty in the 
country.
    So it might not seem like a lot of money to a lot of 
people, how much money goes to each family, but it makes a huge 
difference in the lives of children and their families. So 
we're fighting to make the expanded Child Tax Credit 
permanently available to kids in families with the lowest 
incomes.
    And my question is, Professor Schanzenbach, what difference 
would it make if we actually make the Child Tax Credit 
permanent now? What kind of broader economic effects could we 
expect to see as a result of this expansion, and what 
difference would it make in the life of the kids?
    Ms. Schanzenbach. Yes. So, in the short term, we'll see, 
just like you said, less hardship. We'll see lower rates of 
hunger, lower rates of poverty, et cetera. But where I think 
this is just crucially important is, we know from research that 
these investments, that reducing child poverty, has long-term 
impacts.
    I agree with Doug Holtz-Eakin, who said essentially that 
any serious long-term growth strategy has to involve education. 
And, for kids, it really--the CTC alleviating poverty will 
enhance the education investments that we make in them. They 
will grow up to be healthier, more likely to graduate from high 
school, et cetera. This will have long-term positive economic 
payoffs.
    Mr. Raskin. And what difference might it make, Dr. Wilson, 
in alleviating our longstanding inequalities in wealth and 
income along the lines of race?
    Rev. Dr. Wilson. Yes. Part of the challenge that we see is 
both, of course, an income gap, a racial income gap, and a 
racial wealth gap. Both have to be addressed.
    But, as it gets to income, we see that the expanded CTC has 
most impact for Black, Brown, and indigenous families. As we 
think about this, we're talking about cutting child poverty in 
half for Black families, 52 percent for Black families, 45 
percent for Hispanic families, 65 percent for indigenous 
children, as we talk about the impact.
    So you're having a disparate impact because you're 
investing in a place where people are more likely to find 
themselves in poverty. So----
    Mr. Raskin. But for poor children of all racial backgrounds 
and ethnic backgrounds, lifting them up in this way profoundly 
alters their life chances and their opportunities for success 
in life, right?
    Rev. Dr. Wilson. Absolutely. This will lift all families. 
This will lift all children who are touched by it. And, quite 
frankly, by doing so, it will have a redounding effect on our 
entire economy by making sure that children are well.
    Mr. Raskin. OK. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back 
to you. And thank you for continuing to promote science and the 
prosperity and the health of our people.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Raskin.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Jordan for five minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I just would start with, I thought it was almost--it was 
amusing to hear Mr. Raskin critique Dr. Green's statement. I 
mean, this is the state of where we are today in America, where 
the lawyer critiques the Doctor of Medicine about natural 
immunity. I think--I mean, I found that--I mean, you'd laugh if 
it wasn't so serious.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin, is the Democrats' economic plan working?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I think, as I said in my opening remarks, 
that the things that were done in 2020 were very effective, on 
a bipartisan basis, and the things that are being done this 
year are not.
    Mr. Jordan. Right. The bipartisan CARES Act package PPP 
program worked. But, in the last nine months, we went from 
rising wages to less purchasing power. Is that accurate?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Yes, inflation has exceeded wage growth.
    Mr. Jordan. Stable prices to----
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Inflation.
    Mr. Jordan [continuing]. Not just any old inflation, 40-
year high in inflation, right?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. First half of this year, the 50 percent of 
the CPI basket that is food, energy, and shelter went up 10 
percent, annual rate.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes. Energy independence to--remember, we have 
this spectacle now of the President of the United States--nine 
months ago, we were energy-independent, and now we have the 
President of the United States begging OPEC to increase 
production. I don't think that's an economic plan that's 
working. In fact, I think it's a dismal failure.
    He's nodding his head. Let the record show the witness 
nodded his head.
    Have you ever seen a dumber plan than the Democrats'? I 
mean, lock down your economy, spend like crazy, pay people not 
to work, and, oh, for the people who are working, we're getting 
ready to raise your taxes. Could there be a dumber plan?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. As I said, we actually took the proposal 
seriously and ran it through something that looks just like 
what the Joint Committee would use for analysis, and it's a net 
negative for the U.S. economy.
    Mr. Jordan. Net negative. Yes. And the American people are 
feeling it now, I mean, everywhere I talk.
    Let me ask you this. When you pay people not to work, 
should you be surprised when you can't find workers?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No one should be surprised about what's 
going on.
    Now that the benefits expired, it will be a very different 
story, and we'll see it first in the October jobs report that 
gives us the September numbers. But, you know, we know from 
decades of research that, if you raise the replacement rate, 
the fraction of your wages that gets replaced by UI, spells of 
unemployment are longer and, in the aggregate, unemployment is 
higher. That is well-established.
    This is over 100-percent replacement for 37 percent of 
American workers. I mean, it's--no one would propose that in 
normal times, and to put it in place as the economy opened up 
just made no sense.
    Mr. Jordan. Do you know any--I mean, I don't know of any 
employer--I think there's probably a few, but everyone I talk 
to across the Fourth District of Ohio, across our great state, 
across the country--I was in Wisconsin over the weekend and 
Minnesota over the weekend. No one can find--we were driving 
through Minneapolis on the way to the hotel, because we stayed 
there the night before to fly out of Minneapolis on Monday 
morning. And I saw at a Mexican restaurant, taco stand, on the 
window, ``$15 an hour,'' I mean, as big and bold as you could 
see.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Yes.
    Mr. Jordan. No one can find people to work.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. It is everywhere.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I have three openings I'd like to fill. 
I'm going to raid your staff.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes. I hope you don't, but I understand. I 
understand the sentiment. I understand.
    When you tell people they can't be evicted, should you be 
surprised when they quit paying rent?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No.
    Mr. Jordan. No. I mean, it's like, it doesn't take a genius 
to figure out this is literally the dumbest economic plan I 
have ever seen.
    Now, when they worked in a bipartisan fashion at the start 
of this virus when it hit us and we didn't know exactly what 
was there, we did some things that everyone I've talked to--the 
same employers who tell me now they can't find workers are the 
same ones who said, ``Thank you for the PPP program.''
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Yes.
    Mr. Jordan. ``Thank you for what you did initially when we 
had so much uncertainty around what was going to happen.'' But 
now it absolutely makes no sense, where we're going.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I think the PPP program is the single best 
fiscal response we've ever seen. The SBA got $32 billion out 
the door in 2019; they got $500 billion out in a month.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. And it was an extraordinary lifeline to 
people and the small-business infrastructure of this economy.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes. Now, let me--last question. I'll let you 
take whatever time you want on this last one.
    They're getting ready to try to raise everyone's taxes. I 
mean, tell me your thoughts on that.
    Because, again, I think, when you lock down your economy, 
when you spend like crazy, when we have the highest inflation 
in 40 years, when you pay people not to work, when you tell 
them they can't be evicted, you shouldn't be surprised when 
they quit paying rent--when all that happens and then you say 
to the people who have been working, who have been paying their 
rent, ``Oh, by the way, we're going to raise your taxes,'' I 
don't see how that's going to help our economy either.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. As I said, we ran this through some 
serious studying, because I would talk to my colleagues across 
the aisle in the economics profession and say, can we both 
agree that this proposed 3.3--it wasn't in the campaign--tax 
increase is a bad idea? And they'd say, yes, but the spending's 
going be so good, you don't have to worry about it.
    And I think it's--not only is the overall level troubling, 
the way it's being done is even more troubling.
    Mr. Jordan. Yep. They passed----
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. In the years leading up to the Tax Cuts 
and Jobs Act, we lost 100 major headquarters, and in the years 
since, zero.
    Mr. Jordan. Right.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. And we're going to go right back to the 
third-highest corporate tax rate in the OECD and a very high 
global worldwide tax. That's exactly the recipe that got us in 
trouble to begin with.
    And so the way the taxes are being raised is as troubling 
to me as the aggregate numbers.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you. I am tempted to use some 
privilege as----
    Mr. Jordan. Go ahead. Go ahead.
    Chairman Clyburn [continuing]. Chairman, but I'm going to 
refrain from doing that.
    And I now recognize for five minutes Mr. Krishnamoorthi.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate the time.
    Dr. Holtz-Eakin, I just have a couple questions for you.
    You know, the expanded Child Tax Credit results recently 
came out, in terms of how the money has been utilized by 
families receiving the Child Tax Credit.
    Do you dispute that for households earning less than 
$25,000 the first payments were spent on food?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I'm not an expert on those studies, so----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. No, I'm just asking----
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin.--and I'd be happy to study them.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi [continuing]. Do you dispute that or 
not?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I don't know those studies. I'd be happy 
to look at them.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. It sounds like you don't dispute it.
    Do you dispute that it was 52 percent of households used 
the money for utilities?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. As I said, I haven't read the studies, so 
I can't dispute or agree with it.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. So I assume you can't dispute----
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. It makes sense to me, but I don't know.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. It's just a yes-or-no question. Sounds 
like you can't dispute it, and that's what I'm asking you. Can 
you dispute it? Do you have evidence----
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I have no interest in disputing it.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi [continuing]. To the contrary right now?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. If you want to know my reservations with 
the Child Tax Credit, it's that we aren't focusing it 
exclusively on poor people----
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I didn't ask you about your 
reservations. I just asked you, do you dispute the evidence or 
not?
    The Child Tax Credit has allowed households earning less 
than $25,000--41 percent of them are using it on clothing for 
their family. Do you dispute that? Do you have any evidence 
that you can point to right now, as you sit here----
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No, I have no--no.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi [continuing]. Pointing to the contrary?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. The answer was no.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. OK. How about rent and mortgage? Do you 
have any evidence to point to the contrary that, among 
households earning less than $25,000, their first payments were 
spent on rent and mortgage?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. How about school supplies? Thirty-one 
percent of households earning less than $25,000 spent their 
first payments, the first dollars that they received, on school 
supplies for their children. You don't have any evidence to 
point to the contrary that that's not true, correct?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. So let me just get the story straight 
here. For households earning less than $25,000, the first 
payments that they used the expanded tax credits for were on 
food, utilities, clothing, rent, and school supplies.
    You don't dispute that food, utilities, clothing, rent, and 
school supplies for a family with children are essential 
payments for that family, essential expenses for that family, 
correct?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Now, sir, let me just point you to some 
of your previous statements about the expanded Child Tax 
Credit.
    One of the criticisms you have--and you can please correct 
me if I'm wrong on this, but--and I'm paraphrasing--is that you 
feel that it's a disincentive to work, correct?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. No. There's no incentive to work. I didn't 
say it was a disincentive. It's not tied to work.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. OK. So let me--I just want to get you 
on the record very clearly. You are not saying that it is a 
disincentive to work. You're just saying there's no incentive 
to work, correct?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Correct.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. OK.
    Let me just ask you this. If you are a single mom with 
children and you want to go to work but childcare is extremely 
expensive and you were to use the expanded Child Tax Credit to 
help pay for that childcare so you can go to work, in that 
instance, the expanded Child Tax Credit would allow the woman 
or the mom to reenter the work force, correct?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. In that instance, yes.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And let me just ask you this. You don't 
dispute that only 57 percent of women are currently 
participating in the labor work force, correct?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Oh, no. We have very low labor force 
participation.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Especially among women. Women have 
dropped out of the work force in droves, mainly to take care of 
their children and their elders, who unfortunately may have 
been afflicted by coronavirus, or because the schools were 
closed, right?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. We've seen declines in both male and 
female labor force participation. I think both are troubling.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. But the bigger drop, just in absolute 
numbers and percentages, was among women, correct?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. I'd have go back to check. I can get that 
to you.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. The answer is yes. It's a very basic 
question.
    And so the expanded Child Tax Credit allows for these 
women, especially the single moms, but all moms, to participate 
once against in the work force, to be more productive, to 
expand our economy and enhance our prosperity, because they 
have the money to finally hire childcare. And that's an 
essential piece of the puzzle if we're actually going to build 
America back better and get women back into the work force.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Krishnamoorthi.
    The chair now recognizes Dr. Miller-Meeks for five minutes.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
    And I thank all of our panelists.
    And, you know, unfortunately, I was not going to start my 
questions this way, but I just want to clarify some things from 
my colleagues.
    First of all, I am a proponent of COVID-19 vaccines. I've 
been vaccinated. I gave vaccines and attended vaccine clinics 
in all 24 of my counties.
    Early on in the pandemic, when we first had vaccines 
available, there was not as much research and data we have 
available about natural immunity as there is now. So, if I may 
say, you know, being a proponent of acknowledging the benefit 
of natural immunity--which does not mean people should go to 
COVID-19 parties and get infected, but to recognize that 
immunity is what we should be talking about, whether it is 
immunity from a vaccine or immunity from natural disease--and 
then, that way, have vaccines available for those who need 
vaccines and also to treat and send to other nations so that 
their population can have an increased level of immunity so we 
can get through the global pandemic.
    So I just want to clearly make that statement, that we 
should be talking about immunity--we don't want anybody to get 
ill or to get sick--and also to clarify that, yes, people who 
are vaccinated can come down with COVID-19, as can people with 
natural immunity. So having had a vaccine does not necessarily 
confer that you will never contract a disease. And that's true 
for all infectious diseases.
    Furthermore, we should also be talking about having people 
have proof of their immunity.
    So I would encourage my colleagues to support a bill that 
I'm producing to mandate the coverage for T cell immunity, so 
that humoral immunity--which may not be long present in the 
bloodstream, but there is T cell immunity for viruses, so we 
can prove immunity, and, that way, keep everybody in the work 
force, rather than only talking about vaccine mandates, which 
sends some people out of the work force.
    So, again, it was not my intention--so I'm going to ask the 
panelists to be very brief in their comments, if I may.
    Dr. Schanzenbach, you have written extensively about the 
negative impact of school closures on our students. Your 
research also found that they impacted low-income students and 
also in reference to food insecurity. So is that correct?
    Ms. Schanzenbach. Yes, absolutely.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. And you----
    Ms. Schanzenbach. We've really hurt our children.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Yes.
    And you also mentioned that, during these school closures, 
there was less access to school lunch programs or other food 
programs that the school may have, and so that, too, led to a 
negative impact, especially in our low-income and minority 
students.
    Ms. Schanzenbach. Yes.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Yes. And that that also related to a 
slight decrease in the level of poverty in our students.
    And so, while these extraordinary pandemic measures have 
slightly reduced poverty in the United States, the World Health 
Organization has said that worldwide poverty in children has 
increased over 15 percent and may take decades to reverse.
    And the school closures not only had an effect on food 
insecurity, as you had indicated, but they also had a 
tremendous effect upon the loss of grade level and, also, 
mental health disorders.
    So, based upon your research, I would think certain 
Governors, mayors, school boards chose not to let teacher 
unions keep schools closed and put tens of thousands of our 
children at risk. And their failure to reopen schools has 
directly led to kids going hungry and has endangered both their 
mental and physical well-being.
    So I thank you for that research, which has helped change 
decisions to keep students out of the classroom and 
jeopardizing our most vulnerable.
    If I could ask all of the panelists--and I know my time is 
running short--Dr. Schanzenbach, do you believe that there is 
inflation? And are you worried about inflation?
    Ms. Schanzenbach. Yes. So I'm not a macroeconomist, but I 
studied up on this----
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. That's OK. I don't----
    Ms. Schanzenbach. OK.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. I don't mean to cut you off. Just 
``yes'' or ``no.'' I want to go to all the panelists.
    Ms. Schanzenbach. Oh, sure.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Reverend Wilson, are you concerned about 
inflation?
    Rev. Dr. Wilson. I believe there is inflation. I worry 
about children.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. OK.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta, are you concerned about inflation?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yes, and, fortunately, all the evidence 
suggests it's transitory.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. OK. Transitory, which I asked the Fed 
Chair several months ago. Now we're in eight months of 
inflation.
    Mr. Shaefer, are you concerned about inflation?
    Mr. Shaefer. I think it is something that we should watch 
but also something we should've expected and----
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin, are you concerned about inflation?
    Mr. Holtz-Eakin. Yes, I am.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Yes. As a matter of fact, inflation has 
eaten away at the benefits of rising wages. We've seen beef up; 
eggs, price of eggs; price of gasoline; my husband's favorite, 
milk; and my favorite, bacon. So inflation certainly is a 
problem.
    As a matter of fact, today, the Federal Reserve signaled 
that it could start reversing its pandemic stimulus policies in 
November and, earlier than anticipated, increase its interest 
rates.
    So thank you very much. Inflation is a problem related to 
too much money in an economy, and I think that we need to be 
mindful of our excessive spending.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you.
    I think that that ends all the members who are present. 
Before I go any further, if the ranking member is there, I'll 
yield to him now for a closing statement.
    Mr. Scalise. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony.
    And start off in my closing, Mr. Chairman, by once again 
saying, at some point in time, this committee actually needs to 
start having hearings on the real problems we're seeing related 
to President Biden's botched handling of COVID-19. We sure 
don't have enough time or jurisdiction to handle all the other 
things that President Biden has botched, and there's other 
committees to do that, but for goodness' sake, if the Select 
Subcommittee on Coronavirus can't start looking into some of 
the things that we've been calling on this committee to look 
into that are leading to more deaths in America--again, 2,000 
deaths a day in America right now under President Biden's 
watch.
    And, still, to this day, he has not even named a person to 
head the FDA--the FDA, which is the agency, by the way, that 
approved three different vaccines under President Trump's 
Operation Warp Speed. Yes, that FDA. Where is President Biden's 
pick for the FDA head? Why don't we have a hearing on that?
    Mr. Chairman, if you announced today that we're going to 
have a hearing next week, I would assure you by next week 
President Biden would pick a head of the FDA. But we don't have 
that hearing, and we ought to.
    We ought to have a hearing, Mr. Chairman, on the origins of 
COVID. We've been calling for this for over a year. More than 
650,000 deaths in America, millions worldwide. Again, as I said 
in my opening statement, a few hours ago, I was with the Prime 
Minister of Australia. The Prime Minister of Australia actually 
called for a hearing into the origins of COVID last year, and 
he did it because, he said, No. 1, ``I don't know where it 
originated from, but I want to know. People in Australia in 
want to know.'' Well, you know what? People in America want to 
know too. Why is this administration trying to cover this up?
    You look at this article--and I'll ask that this be entered 
into the record, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Scalise. This article talks about how, after Australia 
didn't accuse any country of starting it but said, ``Let's 
investigate the origin,'' which country then went after 
Australia, Mr. Chairman? China. China initiated a trade war 
with Australia after they just said, ``We want to find out 
where COVID started.'' What should that tell everybody?
    And so why don't we look into it? We shouldn't be afraid of 
China. We should want to know where this started so it doesn't 
happen again. This is something we should be having a hearing 
on.
    We talk about inflation, and maybe we could be having a 
hearing about all the inflation caused by all of these spending 
plans. Look, a family of four with two parents out of work last 
year made over $100,000. That was a report initiated by 
Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee. A hundred thousand 
dollars. And people on the Democrat side act like that was 
wealth creation.
    If you go take out a $50,000 credit card and then you max 
the whole thing out, you didn't create wealth. You just created 
$50,000 in debt. Whatever you bought with it, good for you, but 
you have to pay it back. It's not like you were making 
something, you were manufacturing things that people bought. 
This is money borrowed from our kids.
    And so, when you go down the line--we just have two medical 
doctors, as Mr. Jordan was talking about, on our committee, two 
medical doctors that talked about some of the medical problems 
that we're seeing. I had said in my opening statement that we 
ought to have a hearing on President Biden going against the 
science, actually trying to manipulate the science. And there's 
evidence of it. I laid it out in my opening statement. Do you 
know, not one Democrat disputed any of it--any of it?
    Two people that are involved in vaccines at the FDA left 
the FDA because they're tired of the political interference by 
the Biden administration, and we haven't had a hearing on that.
    Those are the things that we should be having hearings on 
and getting to the bottom of and stopping. And if we stop that, 
maybe then the President would pick somebody to head the FDA. 
Maybe then the President would look at more therapeutics. Maybe 
he'd go find more vaccines, not just rely on the three that 
President Trump handed off to him when he walked in the door, 
but maybe go find more, go encourage more, go encourage 
therapeutics for people that are in the hospital instead of 
just trying to shame people if they get COVID and say, well, 
it's because they weren't vaccinated. Let's encourage people to 
get vaccinated, but let's go find more therapeutics.
    We've got the greatest medical research in the world. If 
they don't get their way and pass H.R. 3, drug price-fixing--
which, by the way, would run 40 percent of all drugs that are 
on the market out of America. We wouldn't be able to get 
lifesaving drugs like so many other countries have if they get 
their way. They just put that back in the bill yesterday, their 
great tax-and-spend bill that's going to create more inflation, 
that's going to put millions more people out of work in 
America.
    China would love this stuff. This is a gift to China. They 
give more jobs to China. America would have a higher tax rate 
than the Chinese Communist Party if President Biden and 
Democrats in Congress got their way.
    As Mr. Jordan said, this is insanity. This is the 
stupidest, craziest policy we've ever seen.
    You're already seeing a negative impact on families--
lowest-income families, as Mr. Holtz-Eakin said, by the way, 
that are impacted the hardest. The lowest-income families are 
the ones paying the biggest price for President Biden's 
inflation. And what do they want to do? They want to jack it up 
on steroids by borrowing trillions more, taxing trillions more, 
and increasing inflation even higher.
    And their only answer is, well, just go print and give 
people more money, and then they're rich again. Really? People 
know there's no such thing as free money. They know the 
negative consequences of all this free money.
    The negative consequence is inflation. They're paying more 
money on everything. They go to the grocery store, they're 
paying more money. They go to their favorite restaurant, 
they're seeing about a third of the tables empty, and they have 
to wait an hour. Why? Because the government's paying people 
more money not to work than to work, which costs them even 
more.
    If they want to get a new microwave for their kitchen, it's 
going to cost them probably 30 percent more, but they're going 
to have to wait months to get it.
    And God help them if they have to go fill up their gas 
tank. They're paying 40 or more percent for that, because 
President Biden said no to American pipelines but yes to 
Russian pipelines, yes to Europe, South--Middle Eastern 
countries' ability to produce more oil, but no to America's 
ability to produce more oil--which, by the way, we do it much 
more efficiently.
    So, if you're worried about carbon emissions, all this 
climate change--President Biden goes to the U.N. yesterday, 
doesn't talk about solving all these world problems, doesn't 
talk about confronting COVID and finding out the origins of it. 
He talks about climate change. And then his policies actually 
make it worse, because they increase carbon emissions, because 
he shuts down manufacturing in America and ships those jobs to 
China. China emits four or five times more carbon to make the 
same stuff, the same steel, the same other manufactured 
products that he's trying to ban in America. Going after fossil 
fuels, begging OPEC to produce more oil--which, by the way, 
they emit more carbon to make the same oil that we make here in 
America.
    Stop beating up on America. Stop blaming America. Let's 
bring back America. And stop borrowing from our kids. Let's get 
this economy open and let's get schools back open and have 
hearings on all this, Mr. Chairman.
    With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Ranking Member.
    I hear that Ms. Waters is on her way to the room. Has she 
arrived? I do not wish to close this without giving her an 
opportunity to ask questions. I understand she has not arrived.
    I want to say to my friend, the ranking member--and he is 
my friend--you know, I wish you were present for Mr. Peter 
Marks from the FDA. He met with us and answered many of his 
questions. And I'm sure that all of us have schedules that we 
find ourselves in conflict, but if the ranking member had been 
in attendance, he would've heard Mr. Peter Marks say there was 
absolutely no political interference with him and the FDA on 
the part of this administration. And I prefer--he said that 
under oath, by the way.
    No, he was not under oath. We just received that as 
information.
    Now I want to thank all the witnesses for their testimony 
today.
    The coronavirus pandemic caused enormous economic pain for 
American families, particularly those in low-income and 
minority communities. Congress and the Biden administration 
acted boldly to alleviate those hardships, dramatically to cut 
poverty, and put us on the path to recovery.
    Today's hearing has made clear that the American Rescue 
Plan's relief provisions have delivered for families and 
supported our economic recovery. From direct relief payments to 
the expanded Child Tax Credit, the American Rescue Plan has 
delivered swift assistance to help working and middle-class 
families pay for their basic needs as we add millions of jobs.
    But a return to the pre-pandemic economy is not sufficient. 
For too long before 2020, far too many Americans were 
struggling to provide for their families and get ahead 
economically. The American Rescue Plan was designed to combat 
the immediate crisis, and now our task is to reduce the 
longstanding disparities that were exposed and exacerbated by 
the pandemic.
    As I have shared with the select subcommittee before, last 
year I was criticized by the Republican minority leader of the 
Senate for observing that the coronavirus crisis presented--and 
I'm quoting myself--quote, ``a tremendous opportunity to 
restructure things to fit our vision,'' end of quote. And let 
me complete the statement: ``of a more perfect Union, with 
liberty and justice for all.''
    For the last several decades, our economic structure has 
denied liberty and justice for far too many Americans. Our 
economic structure has denied workers the same rewards as those 
with wealth, denied educational and economic opportunity to far 
too many, denied affordable healthcare to millions, and 
threatens to deny a livable planet to future generations.
    The American Rescue Plan has shown that we have the ability 
to restructure things to rescue our country from the immediate 
crisis. As its emergency measures gradually come to an end, we 
are facing a choice. Will we surrender the progress the 
American Rescue Plan has made and accept a return to an 
economic structure that denied liberty and justice to far too 
many, or will we take this opportunity to restructure things to 
fit our shared vision of liberty and justice for all? It is my 
firm belief that we must build a more perfect Union. We must 
build back better.
    And I want to say today--and qualify this by saying, in my 
studies of various parts of our history, I have not found it to 
be a fact that Alexis de Tocqueville actually said what he's 
given credit for having said by many people--that America is 
great because its people are good, and if the people of America 
ever cease to be good, America will cease to be great.
    It is not a demonstration of goodness for name-calling and 
for such vitriol as we hear often in referring to other 
people's attempts to right the wrongs that exist in our 
society. But for us to maintain an element of goodness and 
respect for each other and for their efforts, that's what it's 
going to take for us to get this country back on track, not a 
lot of vitriol and disrespect for people.
    And, with that--and, without objection, all members will 
have five legislative days within which to submit additional 
written questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be 
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    Chairman Clyburn. This meeting is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:41 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                 [all]