[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 52 (Wednesday, March 18, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1789-S1790]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, shortly, the Senate will vote on the Paul 
amendment, and I want this body to understand why I strongly oppose it.
  The Paul amendment, in its essence, has nothing to do with the 
underlying proposal responding to this enormous COVID-19 crisis. The 
Paul amendment is a poison pill that essentially focuses on an old 
political issue that this body has debated before and very likely is 
going to debate again. I just don't believe the Paul amendment has any 
place in a debate on an emergency coronavirus bill.
  Every Member of this Senate understands our country is facing and 
dealing with a national health and economic crisis. The country wants 
us to focus like a laser on emergency measures that can help save lives 
and keep families from falling into destitution.
  The Paul amendment says, in effect, that immigrant families with kids 
are going to pay for the emergency with their kids' well-being. These 
families, like so many others, are especially vulnerable at this 
moment. It is just wrong to bring misery into their homes.
  I would just ask my colleagues to save the immigration debates for 
another time when we are not in the middle of a pandemic. Today, the 
focus is about that pandemic and acting in an emergency, where we come 
together, both political parties, both sides of the aisle. When you are 
dealing with this kind of pandemic, your focus is helping families and 
workers, small businesses, and all of those people who are walking on 
an economic tightrope. They are not getting paychecks, is what we are 
hearing, and they are trying to figure out how to pay the rent. If they 
pay the rent, do they have money for food? If they have money for food, 
what do they do about out-of-pocket healthcare? Folks want our support 
with those survival issues.
  On the Finance Committee--I am very pleased to see the distinguished 
President of this body working with us on the Finance Committee. What 
we have tried to do is focus on modernizing unemployment insurance. I 
have said to my colleagues: Let's just face it--unemployment is a 
system that has been in a time warp.
  I think we have a very important proposal that is going to help an 
enormous number of people from sea to shining sea. We need to do so 
much right now, particularly in terms of saving lives and getting 
healthcare to our people.
  What I hear from home is people who are following this are saying: 
There is so much to do. Act now, then get on with the additional steps 
that have to be taken. But for today, get on with this. Get on with 
passing this bill and getting ready to move to the next bill.
  Those in need of healthcare and citizens struggling to make it 
through these unprecedented times want action now. They all realize 
that there will be several additional pieces of legislation--hopefully 
sooner rather than later--but our job today is to make sure we pass 
this bill.
  I urge my colleagues, when we vote on the Paul amendment very 
shortly, to oppose it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I rise in support of my amendment to pay for 
this economic stimulus package by removing less important spending from 
elsewhere in the budget.
  I would ask every American: If you were faced with a personal crisis 
and had to spend extra money and you had to spend extra money on food 
and medicine--money that you had to borrow from a relative--wouldn't 
you prioritize your resources and immediately stop loaning money to 
friends overseas for their children to go to, for example, space camp? 
Wouldn't you stop funding clown colleges in Argentina? If you had a 
true emergency like this pandemic, wouldn't you stop building roads and 
gas stations in Pakistan? If you had a true emergency like this corona 
pandemic, wouldn't you immediately stop spending money studying why 
drunk people fall down more than sober people?
  I ask my colleagues to stop wasting money in this time of crisis. 
Stop being a rubberstamp for wasteful spending. Do your jobs and 
prioritize our precious resources. It is our job and our responsibility 
to conserve these resources.
  Why is this important? Why shouldn't we just print or borrow the 
money instead of making cuts in things like foreign aid? Because next 
time, maybe in the not too distant future, our children may not even be 
able to borrow their way out of a crisis. Our dollar will be devalued, 
our economy ruined, and all because we will have been profligate fools 
with our resources; all because we refused to do what we were elected 
to do, which is to prioritize the truly vital, such as coronavirus 
relief and medical research, over the extraneous, such as spending 
money on clown colleges, gas stations, and roads in Afghanistan.
  To my fellow Americans, remain hopeful, remain kind, remain faithful, 
and above all, remain resilient. In the world's history, pandemics are 
the norm, not the exception. It is only recently--in the modern era of 
antibiotics and vaccines--that pandemics have become less frequent.
  Ever since vaccines eradicated polio and smallpox, modern man has 
become accustomed to the idea that life is relatively safe and that a 
long life is to be expected. Consequently, any re-eruption of diseases 
beyond our control paralyzes us with fear.
  People have forgotten what it is like to experience the annual dread 
of recurring infectious disease. My parents remember vividly the polio 
pandemics of the 1950s. In one of the last great outbreaks of polio, 
before the vaccine, almost 60,000 people contracted polio and over 
3,100 died. Jonas Salk was greeted as a conquering hero for developing 
the first widespread polio vaccine, but that was nearly 70 years ago. 
In the early 18th century, Dr. Zabdiel Boylston showed great courage in 
introducing inoculation for smallpox. Within a generation, smallpox was 
on the wane and ultimately defeated when Edward Jenner discovered how 
to vaccinate using the milder cowpox.
  This latest pandemic already has heroes--some known, but most of 
these heroes are unknown doctors and nurses on the frontlines. The 
innovators among us are already putting forth potential treatments and 
possible cures. A half dozen antiviral medications are in the final 
stages of study. Researchers believe that an old drug developed for 
malaria may help. Reports indicate that scientists will likely set a 
speed record in developing a vaccine.
  Now is not the time for malaise; now is the time for optimism. By 
summer, there is a very good chance we will be in the recovery phase. 
Now is not the time to give in.
  Several generations have grown up unfamiliar with the devastation of 
pandemics, and even now, when it is impossible to look the other way, 
the young and healthy rationalize their relative safety. 
Psychologically, it is easier for the young and healthy to view 
mortality as something that happens to the old and unhealthy. 
Coronavirus scares us because it kills not only the old and infirm but 
the young and vibrant, although much less frequently. One of the 
coronavirus's first victims was a 32-year-old, previously healthy 
ophthalmologist in Wuhan.
  The question is not how serious is the pandemic or whether we should 
act but whether there is a plan of action that can preserve our economy 
and lead to a quick rebound.
  I don't think anyone will ever know for certain whether grinding the 
U.S. economy to a halt was necessary. Likewise, no one can really know 
the converse--what would have happened had we not attempted to slow the 
virus's spread. It is useful, though, to remember that just 10 years 
ago, we suffered the swine flu pandemic, and the swine flu was no walk 
in the park. It is estimated that about 60 million Americans were 
infected and over 12,000 people died.
  Now experts have said that the coronavirus is much more lethal than 
the swine flu--likely true--but worldwide deaths from the swine flu 
were estimated to be between 150,000 and 575,000. When calm returns, it 
will be helpful to examine how our responses

[[Page S1790]]

differed between the swine flu and the coronavirus.
  At one time, we were completely helpless before the ravages of 
natural disasters, such as infectious diseases, but our history is one 
of great innovation and perseverance. We will survive this pandemic. 
What government does to mitigate the calamity should be short-lived, 
temporary, and cause as little distortion to the free market economy as 
possible.
  The history of pandemics indicates a strong likelihood that the peak 
of infections and mortality could pass in a few weeks to a few months. 
Congress should remain calm and try not to explode the debt in our 
response.
  The public should know that Congress has already enacted reforms that 
will free up millions of industrial masks to be used by our doctors and 
nurses. Thoughtful sequestration and quarantining is in place and 
helping. In addition, I have introduced legislation to allow our 
university labs and advanced private labs to be able to develop 
additional testing for coronavirus and possible cures by removing 
redtape at the FDA.
  I do worry, though, that as we go further into debt, we may reach a 
point where our debt is so large that we are unable to manage the next 
pandemic. We should never forget fiscal responsibility, even in a 
crisis. We should pay for any new Federal funding by taking that money 
from areas of the budget where it is not being wisely used. My 
amendment does just that.
  My amendment says that if you want to apply for money from the 
government through the child tax credit program--this is money the 
government gives to people--then you have to be a legitimate person and 
you have to have a Social Security number. We have been talking about 
this reform for a decade now, and we never seem to be able to get it 
passed. It has nothing to do with not liking immigrants; it has to do 
with saying taxpayer money shouldn't go to nonpeople. You should have 
to be a person to get taxpayer money. It just says you have to have a 
Social Security number. People estimate this will save $26 billion. 
That goes a long way toward paying for this bill.
  I think we should also end the war in Afghanistan. We are spending 
$50 billion a year on that war. And it is mostly not to fight war. It 
is to build stuff for them. It is to build infrastructure for them. We 
have a lot of problems with infrastructure in our own country without 
spending $50 billion a year in Afghanistan.
  If we have a true emergency now, it is our job to prioritize, to take 
that money from where it is not being spent wisely and spend it on 
something we need at the moment.
  My bill also allows the President to look throughout the budget and 
transfer money from any other wasteful areas. If you look at our 
budget, it is loaded with waste. Nobody ever culls the waste, and then 
we have an emergency, and they say: Let's just borrow more money. 
Instead, what we should do is we should actually take money that is 
unwisely spent and move it over to account for this emergency.
  What I am offering is a very reasonable proposal. We simply pay for 
this emergency bill by taking money from other areas of waste in the 
budget.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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