[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 55 (Saturday, March 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1880-S1881]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                       SENATE LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, negotiations on the third phase of the 
coronavirus legislation went late into the night last night and will 
continue through the day today.
  I have spoken to Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin several times, 
as well as President Trump, to keep them apprised as we continue the 
work through a number of issues. In fact, I just had a very good, very 
detailed phone call with Secretary Mnuchin--or ``Steve and Chuck,'' as 
he prefers to call it. We discussed many of the outstanding issues, and 
we are making very good progress. I have every expectation that this 
progress will continue throughout the day. Democratic negotiators will 
meet with their Republican counterparts throughout the day to continue 
hammering out the details.
  The Senate is here, we are working, and we are all eager to come to a 
bipartisan agreement as soon as humanly possible.
  There are still a number of priorities that Democrats continue to 
fight for in the package that is now being assembled.
  As I have made clear, Democrats have two primary goals, broadly 
defined, in this next phase of coronavirus legislation. One is to 
address the impending public health crisis head-on with a massive 
infusion of resources to our hospitals, our medical facilities, and our 
other public health infrastructure. The second priority is to put 
workers first. In fact, our proposal, which we laid out as early as 
Monday, is entitled ``Workers First.''
  Democrats want to do as much as possible to prepare our healthcare 
system, and we want to give Americans who are most immediately affected 
by the economic slowdown ample relief so they can weather the storm 
over the long haul. So, on healthcare, Democrats are fighting for a 
Marshall Plan for our public health infrastructure.
  We need hundreds of billions of dollars for ventilators, testing 
equipment, gloves, masks, ICU beds, and PPE, or personal protective 
equipment, for our frontline medical workers.
  I spoke to the head of the nurses union in New York yesterday. They 
are short of masks. These brave nurses are going to work, doing their 
job, but they don't have the right equipment that they need.
  Money must go to our hospitals and our nursing homes, our community 
health centers, and our State and local governments. This can neither 
wait for a future bill nor a supplemental package. We need it right 
now, not 2 weeks from now.
  A senior doctor at Maimonides hospital in Brooklyn, NY, wrote to me 
yesterday. Here is what the doctor said:

       I'm writing to you in a move of desperation. Currently, we 
     have severe shortages in the basic necessities needed to 
     fight the disease and protect health care workers. Disposable 
     masks and gowns are in such short supply, we re-use them 
     until they fall apart. We don't have adequate supplies of 
     supportive medicines. Beds, ventilators, nurses and critical 
     care doctors are also needed. We need a national response to 
     this disease.

  I urge my colleagues to hear the urgency and strain in this brave 
doctor's voice, the desperation in his warning. If we don't provide 
these resources right now, what is already a dire situation will--not 
could--become catastrophic. It will affect hospitals everywhere: big-
city hospitals, medium-sized suburban hospitals, and small rural 
hospitals. Many of them will go under in a short period of time.
  So we need a Marshall Plan for our public health infrastructure, and 
it must be in this legislation, in the opinion of the Democratic 
caucus.
  As we have made clear from the beginning, we must also put workers 
first. That means a dramatic expansion and reform of unemployment 
insurance. We need unemployment insurance on steroids. Some are calling 
it ``employment insurance.'' It must be easier to access. It must cover 
many more Americans during this crisis, including Americans who have 
nontraditional employment.
  It must provide more generous benefits. Workers who are laid off 
should receive a paycheck equal to what they were receiving while 
employed. Workers must be protected, whether they work for businesses 
small, medium, or large.
  The plan we have would allow them to get unemployment insurance 
quickly. They would be furloughed. So they would stay as employees--
even though they weren't working--of their employer, so that when, God-
willing, this crisis ends, they can go back to their employer and the 
businesses that are now closed and decimated can start running again.
  We propose that this be not just a one-shot deal but a paycheck every 
work period, and it should go for as long as the crisis lasts. We want 
to fund it for at least 4 months, maybe 6. If the crisis ends more 
quickly, of course, we might be able to terminate it, but we need to 
give the workers of America the assurance that they will have 
paychecks. The same amount of resources that they had before this 
crisis they should have now, and it will occur ongoing until we beat 
this horrible disease.
  There are other things we must do for American families as well. We 
should greatly expand paid sick leave and family leave. We need to 
expand food assistance. The kids who go to school get their best meals, 
many of them, at the school lunch or school breakfast. They need to be 
fed. Others who lose work, they need food help right away.
  I believe our students are under strain. Many of their colleges are 
gone. Those who have just gotten out of school have difficult 
employment possibilities. We should cancel student loan payments during 
the course of the crisis, both principal and interest.
  I spoke to the President about this yesterday. He said he was 
sympathetic. He said at the podium yesterday that interest payments he 
would cancel, but I think we need to do more.
  We also must rescue small and medium-sized businesses with a generous 
loan program, so long as they protect their workers. They have other 
expenses. We will take care of their workers under the expanded 
unemployment program and on the small business program, but they have 
other expenses. We don't want them going under when these are good, 
ongoing businesses that did nothing wrong. They have to come back. So 
small business really needs help.
  And, if we are going to bail out any industry, particularly the big 
companies, we have to include strict conditions that put workers first: 
no layoffs, no salary cuts for workers or salary increases for 
corporate executives, guarantees that workers be rehired at their 
previous wages once the crisis abates, and no stock buybacks.
  I have heard the President mention that he is against stock buybacks 
in the past. So when I called him yesterday, I said: Make it clear. It 
is not in the bill that has been put before us, but Democrats will 
insist that it be in any proposal once we come together in a bipartisan 
way, as we are doing now.
  Democrats have several other priorities, as well, and we are working 
through each of them with our Republican colleagues even as we speak. 
As I said, I had a wonderful--well, I had a very good--conversation. I 
will not go too far, but I had a very good conversation with Secretary 
Mnuchin, and we are making good progress on many of the issues that we 
Democrats feel are important.
  One other need, by the way--because we do have other needs--is that I 
want to emphasize that one of the issues that is quickly emerging is 
that State and local governments are running out of cash and may soon 
be broke. Governors, mayors, county executives, county officials, town 
officials--Democratic and Republican alike--are clamoring for help. We 
must provide it. They are on the frontlines.
  So, in conclusion, I have no illusions about the difficulty of 
putting together legislation this momentous in this short a period of 
time, but all parties are working in good faith and as fast as possible 
to see that we accomplish the task at hand.
  Of course, far greater than our challenges here in Congress are the 
challenges that now confront the American people. Working families are 
at home without a paycheck, with no knowledge of when the next one 
might arrive. Small businesses are watching the labor of their lives 
teeter on the brink of collapse.

  I spoke to a small business owner. He had spent 8 years getting his 
business to be successful. It just had begun to be that way, and now 
his doors are closed and his employees are furloughed. We have to help 
people like that.

[[Page S1881]]

  Our healthcare workers, men and women who perform extraordinarily 
difficult jobs even in ordinary times, are now asked to bear additional 
burdens. But know this, healthcare workers: You are our heroes. America 
stands with you, and Democrats are fighting to help every one of the 
emergency workers during this crisis.
  So, to our healthcare workers and to every American out there finding 
their way through these challenging times: Stay strong. We are working 
to provide you the relief to see you through the crisis. We will get it 
done--Democrats, Republicans--together. Once the scourge of this virus 
has passed, we will come back stronger and even more resilient.
  President Franklin D. Roosevelt told a generation facing its own 
national crisis:

       This great Nation will endure as it [always] has endured. 
     It will revive and it will prosper . . . [because there] is 
     no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously.

  With wisdom and with courage, we will endeavor to finish the job here 
in Congress--whatever it takes.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________