[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 6, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2277-S2280]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come for an additional reason, and 
that is to tell you that in my home State of Wyoming, we have reopened. 
We did that starting last Friday. Many States across the country are 
continuing to do so, and people all across my home State are ready, 
willing, able, and needing to get back to work. We are doing it safely, 
we are doing it smartly, and we are following the guidelines set out by 
the White House.

  States all across the country are doing it. Governors and local 
leaders are reopening, and they are doing it in a responsible way. As 
of today, over 30 States have reopened. On Thursday, Michigan will 
reopen. On Friday, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, as well as California 
will begin to reopen. By this time next week, nearly 40 States will 
have opened again.
  Now, we do hear, on the other side of the aisle, Democrats 
complaining about wanting to do significant amounts of additional 
spending. Americans are busy getting back to work. That is where our 
focus should be. People are packing their lunches. They are taking 
proper precautions. They are putting on their work gloves. They are 
earning their keep. They aren't looking for favors. They are not 
looking for frills from Washington. They just want to do their jobs, 
and they want to make sure that we do ours as well.
  We have spent close to $3 trillion in this country over the last 2 
months, and we have a duty to make sure that money is spent properly 
and that we got it right. We need to make sure we are here and focused 
on work-friendly policies, and this doesn't necessarily mean additional 
spending. It means making it easier for the 30 million people who 
currently are out of work and who have lost their jobs to get back to 
work sooner.
  Our priorities are America's priorities: rebuilding the economy and 
jobs, addressing the coronavirus, and helping our health systems. 
Plenty of dollars have started to go out the door. Many more dollars, 
already approved, are still slated to go to the American people, to 
small businesses, to States, and to our healthcare system. The $3 
trillion doesn't get spent overnight. The support we have provided is 
finding its way through the economy, through the healthcare systems, 
and through the States to the men and women of America. States are 
looking at the dollars coming in, and they are figuring out how best to 
use the resources. They are asking for more flexibility, and I believe 
they need to have more flexibility in how the money is spent.
  Senators and committees are here to make sure that we get this right. 
We

[[Page S2278]]

need to do that through hearings, through oversight, and through 
confirmations. Just this week, the Senate will be having COVID-19-
related hearings in the Banking Committee, in the Homeland Security 
Committee, in the Commerce Committee, and in the Health and Education 
Committee. We are just getting started.
  Importantly, this is not the time to reshape America along some 
liberal wish list of ideas that the Democrats have suggested. It is not 
time to legislate from either Brooklyn or San Francisco. It is not time 
to veer to the left. It is time to stay focused. The Senate Republicans 
are here, and we are going to stay focused on the future of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). The Senator from Tennessee
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I so agree with the comments that the 
Senator from Wyoming was just making, and I hear them repeated every 
day in Tennessee by my constituents.
  I thank my colleagues who have asked me this week how Tennessee is 
doing. You know, we had another terrible storm. It was our third this 
year. We have had two tornadoes, and we had lots of power outages and 
damaged trees that were down in Middle Tennessee. The tornadoes, the 
storms on Sunday evening, and COVID are a lot for anybody to handle, 
but I think the Senator's point is so well taken.
  Wyoming and Tennessee--these are States that are saying: We can do 
this. We are going to use the resources that are there for us because, 
yes, we want to get back to work, and we want to get back to normal.
  What is normal is a question and the right question for people to be 
asking because what is it going to look like and how is that daily 
routine going to be reshaped? How do we give up these worries that we 
have about health and wellness and safety and protection for ourselves 
and our families, our employers, our employees, and healthcare workers? 
All of this goes into the shape of a new routine for the day--the 
things you worry about, the things you are focused on, about your jobs, 
about businesses, about the future.
  Another point that comes up regularly from Tennesseans was well made 
by a Wall Street Journal article that ran on Monday, and it was 
discussing that the U.S. Government would borrow $4\1/2\ trillion this 
year for this fiscal year. Now, that is something that I think 
legitimately could be added to the worry list for those of us who are 
fiscal conservatives, and we are looking at $25 trillion in debt. We 
are looking at this debt load and thinking about that in relation to 
our GDP and thinking about the importance of federalism. We are very 
concerned about this. We are going to have--CBO says our annual deficit 
is going to be the highest it has been since World War II.
  When we think about that, we have to think about the fact that the 
``greatest generation'' looked at that, and they said: Let's get in 
behind this, and let's get that debt down. They were good about that. I 
think about the parents and relatives and grandparents, and what did 
they say? If there is a task to be done, let's go do it. That is why 
they lined up and they fought in World War II, and they reshaped the 
way our communities worked. They planted victory gardens. They changed 
their daily routines, and they went to work. They said: Let's get in 
here, and let's get this job done. They then put their focus on 
economic growth when they came out of the war, and look at what they 
accomplished.
  So while we think about the economy shrinking and jobless numbers 
growing and our vulnerable citizens, we have to think about the high 
price that is being paid there. We also have to think about what it 
does to our children and our grandchildren because our forebears 
certainly thought about that for us, and our children and grandchildren 
deserve no less.
  When I am talking with Tennesseans who are stuck at home, and they 
are watching the news every night and they are listening to what we are 
saying--they are in on Zoom meetings, and we are communicating with 
them daily--they have a tendency to say: How did we get here with a 
situation that is this bad that occurred this quickly? Should we not 
have seen this coming?
  In February, we had some of the best numbers we have ever had 
economically, and now you look at what has happened in this short 
transition. And what they will ask is, what kind of breakdown took 
place in our international order that could have allowed COVID-19 to 
spread beyond China's borders and into our neighborhoods and our 
communities?
  I have to tell you, they are upset about this. They are angry that 
lives have been disrupted.
  I had a call from a lady who has high school children, and she said: 
You know, Marsha, I have to tell you, I went to the grocery store, and 
I looked at where every product was made before I put it in my cart.
  The reason she is checking where products are made--she said: I am so 
angry with China. I am angry with the lies, the deceit, and the lack of 
information. I am angry that lives have been lost and livelihoods have 
been lost, and I am angry that my children have missed class days, 
field days, school sports, graduation, prom, summer camp, and summer 
jobs. It is a season of their lives that they are not going to recover. 
It is a loss of life and livelihood.
  The order that we had is the reason that Tennesseans are turning to 
us and they are saying: We expect you to investigate what happened, to 
review it, to oversee it, and to make certain that our preparation is 
better and that more forethought is given to how we are going to 
address this--addressing all of these Federal agencies and making 
certain that the bureaucracy doesn't get in the way of the 
decisionmaking.

  At this point, we do know that there are a lot of unknowns, but what 
we do know is this: The Chinese Government--the Chinese Communist 
Party--the Chinese Government spent the early days of the COVID-19 
outbreak destroying testing samples, intimidating doctors, expelling 
journalists, hiding information, and lying to the world. You know, it 
is so interesting that they still have not let the scientists from the 
CDC into that Wuhan virology lab. They still don't want anybody in 
there. They lied to everybody about how dangerous this was, and they 
did that on purpose. Think about it--an intentional act of deception, 
repeated acts by the Chinese Communist Party to hide something that was 
an outbreak and try to keep it from the world.
  This seems inconceivable, that a permanent member of the U.N. 
Security Council and a former and likely future member of the Human 
Rights Council would be so careless with the lives and livelihoods of 
billions of people, but they did it. If you consider their track 
record, it does start to make sense because China is not a new problem; 
it is just a newly recognized problem.
  I fear America has forgotten the lessons we learned as we watched the 
Communist dogma burn its way through Eastern Europe, Russia, and Asia, 
twisting the minds of ambitious men who leveraged political mass murder 
as a messaging tool, killing tens of millions of innocent people in the 
process.
  During the Cold War, the divide between the Soviet bloc and the West 
was pretty clear. We could see that alignment with the Soviets would 
derail our global fight for democracy. We also caught glimpses of Mao's 
China, where upwards of 30 million people died of starvation and 
disease directly at the hands of party officials--not an appreciation 
for the sanctity of life--one of our first principles and tenets.
  Today, the Chinese Communist Party is still following that Soviet 
playbook, and it is time for the world to remember what that means 
before time runs out. Although Xi Jinping and the CCP have modernized 
their methods--they are all about cyber, and they are all about 
technology--here is what we have to remember: Their philosophy and 
their goals are exactly the same. They want to dominate the world 
militarily, economically, and politically. They are wanting domination, 
and they will step over and run over whatever gets in their way.
  What we have to do is to remember that China is capable of funneling 
mass amounts of cash, equipment, and physical support to developing 
countries. They are doing it all in exchange for loyalty to the Chinese 
Communist Party's agenda. For example, debt diplomacy schemes--that is 
their new thing--debt diplomacy schemes have

[[Page S2279]]

ensnared Sri Lanka and Djibouti and other countries in Africa and Asia. 
Those countries have in turn opened doors to strategically important 
ports and waterways and granted access to valuable natural resources. 
To be clear, these are not aid programs; they are tools of manipulation 
offered to nations in desperate circumstances.
  For nations not in desperate circumstances, Beijing has to work a 
little harder, but they still are working to get the job done. They 
count on the promise of cheap labor and production and low cost 
products to open doors with nations that normally are not going to work 
with somebody with such an abysmal human rights record as China has.
  The world is recalling some very hard lessons right now, but there is 
a path forward. We must secure our supply chains, and we must begin to 
return these critical infrastructure supply chains to the United States 
to make certain that we can bolster ourselves and that we are not 
completely dependent on China for some items that are essential for us.
  The pharmaceutical supply chain is one on which I have focused, with 
Senator Menendez, with our SAM-C legislation. This week, Senator 
McSally, Senator Daines, and I introduced the Stop COVID Act to hold 
China legally liable for the damage caused by the spread of the novel 
coronavirus. Our colleagues have other pieces of legislation that have 
the same focused accountability for China and making certain this 
doesn't happen to us again. I encourage all of my colleagues to look at 
those.
  I also encourage my colleagues to accept that our relationship with 
China is broken right now and that it was never that great to begin 
with. But right now, it is broken. It is time for us to realize that we 
have to treat China as an adversary and we have to protect ourselves as 
we move forward
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mrs. LOEFFLER. Mr. President, my first priority during the COVID-19 
pandemic has been to do all I can to keep Georgians and all Americans 
safe and healthy. But while at home in Georgia these last few weeks, I 
have seen that the measures we needed to take to fight this 
unprecedented health crisis have created dramatic economic and societal 
impacts.
  One in five Georgians is unemployed. In the last 6 weeks, the Georgia 
Department of Labor has issued more unemployment payments than in the 
previous 4 years combined.
  Hotels in the Golden Isles were seeing 80 to 90 percent occupancy 
rates at the beginning of March, the start of beach season for our 
beach communities. As the number of tourists plummeted, the president 
of our visitors' center described the economic impact as ``absolutely 
devastating.''
  School districts, like Forsyth County schools, are organizing meal 
pickups and food delivery for students who typically rely on eating 
breakfast and lunch at school.
  Then there is the emotional toll combating the virus has taken. A 
local law enforcement officer told me that his department has seen a 
dramatic spike in domestic abuse calls. An emergency hotline run by the 
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration saw a 1000-
percent increase in calls last month compared to last April.
  The full cost of this pandemic remains to be seen, but it is clear we 
need to look ahead and plan for a future that protects Americans' lives 
and livelihoods.
  As a member of the President's Opening Up America Again Congressional 
Group, I am putting to work my nearly three decades of experience 
building companies and creating jobs.
  Over the last few weeks, I have held more than 100 calls to hear 
directly from Georgia hospitals, State officials, first responders, 
food banks, small businesses, farmers, large employers, nonprofits, 
chambers of commerce, as well as the President and his administration, 
to address the needs of Georgians.
  With my experience and the feedback I have heard from Georgians, I 
have developed the USA Restoring & Igniting the Strength of our Economy 
Plan--USA RISE. This is a plan to bring back our thriving economy. It 
offers a four-pillared framework for investing in America, growing 
jobs, and helping families without expanding the grip of the Federal 
Government. It builds on the success of President Trump's America First 
agenda.
  The USA RISE Plan calls on all of us in Congress to ensure that the 
more than $2 trillion of relief already passed in the CARES Act and in 
phase 3.5 is targeted to the areas of the economy that need it most 
while providing prudent oversight.
  The first pillar, Made in the USA, addresses the fact that for too 
long, our manufacturing has moved overseas. Now more than ever, we are 
reminded of how dangerous it is to rely on other countries, especially 
competitors like China.
  The USA RISE Plan calls for incentivizing companies to return to the 
United States, investing in infrastructure to spur economic 
development, and having a competitive tax and intellectual property 
framework to promote hiring and capital expenditures. We need to ensure 
that America remains the best country in the world to do business.
  The second pillar, Grown in the USA, is aimed at supporting our 
farmers and helping Americans who are seeing empty grocery shelves or 
local food banks that are depleted.
  I grew up working in the fields as the fourth generation working on 
my family's farm, and I know firsthand the challenges that farmers face 
even in the best of times. Today, fruit and vegetable prices are down 
about 50 to 60 percent, and cattle and pork producers have been 
affected by meat processing plant closures and limitations. At the same 
time, the Georgia Food Bank Association told me they have seen roughly 
a 40-percent increase in demand for their services. We need to ensure 
that the relief in the CARES Act is making its way to our farmers and 
agriculture businesses.
  Any future trade deals with China must hold the Chinese Communist 
Party accountable for their role in spreading the coronavirus and 
should focus on shifting supply chains back to the United States.
  Farmers account for just 2 percent of America's population, but 100 
percent of us eat. It is time to harness our agriculture advantage to 
support our farmers who put their businesses on the line every single 
day to feed Americans and the world.
  The third component of my plan, Hiring in the USA, proposes removing 
regulatory barriers and cutting taxes to help small businesses keep 
employees on the payroll and to create jobs. Half of all Americans are 
employed by small businesses, and these are the small businesses that 
have been particularly hurt by COVID-19.
  Congress has already taken extensive action to provide loans and 
grants to small businesses like Globalus, a small trucking company in 
Fulton County, and Jan's Family Daycare in Dalton. I recently talked to 
daycare owners Bill and Jan Whetstone, who received a PPP loan. This 
will allow them to keep their doors open and to serve working families. 
Our economy cannot recover without our small businesses.
  My plan also calls for reducing the temptation for trial lawyers to 
use COVID-19 lawsuits to drain profits from employers at the expense of 
productive jobs. Local shops and restaurants are the lifeblood of our 
communities, and there is more we can do to help them.
  Finally, we must support families in building strong futures. Right 
now, too many families have lost their incomes and are struggling to 
afford their rent and to put food on the table.
  The fourth component of my plan is ``Families in the USA.'' It aims 
to provide targeted relief for families and for children. Among other 
things, it supports churches that are helping families during this 
difficult time and other organizations, like YMCAs across our State, 
which are the largest providers of childcare in Georgia, and they are 
providing thousands of meals each day to families across our State.
  In the last several weeks, we have made great strides in expanding 
testing for COVID-19. This is a crucial tool for getting back to work. 
Over 7 million Americans had been testing through Monday. As President 
Trump noted, no one else, no other country in the world has even come 
close to this level of testing. This is something we are proud to build 
on. In fact, the President has

[[Page S2280]]

also announced the Testing Blueprint, which is a partnership to help 
States build out their testing capabilities.
  In my State of Georgia, Governor Kemp has partnered with our 
universities and private companies to expand testing capabilities, and 
that is now at record levels. Anyone who thinks they may have the virus 
can use an app developed by Augusta University to screen their symptoms 
and schedule a test at one of the 66 testing centers in our State.
  Testing is a key component to restarting our economy safely, but we 
must start to adapt to this new reality now. Before this pandemic hit, 
we saw job creation and opportunity that lifted up all Americans. The 
four pillars I have outlined are critical to reigniting our economic 
engine. The USA Rise Plan offers solutions to grow our economy without 
unnecessarily growing the Federal Government or our deficits.
  Americans want to get back to work and back to their lives but 
safely. While we continue to fight COVID-19 on the health front, we 
also must look ahead and make plans to rebuild now. I am confident we 
will because I know that when Americans unite, we rise to meet any 
challenge.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio

                          ____________________