[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 95 (Wednesday, May 20, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S2518]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Madam President, before we vote here in just a few minutes, I want to 
just make a couple of remarks with respect to coronavirus legislation. 
We have heard some of our colleagues on the Democrat side come down 
here and attack Republicans for not wanting to do more legislation and 
more spending, which is, as they know, completely not accurate. 
Republicans are prepared to do whatever it takes to help America 
recover from the coronavirus effects and to deal with the health 
emergency, which is why we have invested tens of billions of dollars in 
vaccines and antiviral therapeutics and testing--all the things that 
are necessary to get this healthcare crisis dealt with in a way that 
would allow Americans the confidence to get back out in the economy.
  Secondly, dealing with the economic impacts, which have been many, 
the bills that we passed so far--we passed four--and the combined 
amount of the spending in those four bills are almost $3 trillion. It 
is focused on families, getting direct assistance into the hands of 
American families. It is focused on workers, keeping workers employed. 
This Paycheck Protection Program has clearly been one that has allowed 
a lot of small businesses to continue to operate and to continue to 
keep their workers employed. It is focused on those who, through no 
fault of their own, have lost jobs, with a significant plus-up in 
unemployment insurance accounts, supported at the State level but 
significantly increased in terms of funding from the Federal 
Government.
  Of course, as I said earlier, it is focused very directly on those 
healthcare professionals or healthcare workers on the frontlines, to 
make sure that they have PPE and ventilators, all the things not only 
to protect themselves but to care for the patients whom they are 
entrusted to care for. As I said before, investing heavily in those 
things will help us fight and win and beat the coronavirus--the 
vaccines, the antiviral therapeutics, and the testing. Those are all 
things that we have done already.
  Now, what you saw last week was the House of Representatives blow 
into town for a 24-hour period to pass a massive $3 trillion bill 
filled up with all kinds of goodies in a gift bag for special interest 
groups that they care about but that have little to do with addressing 
the fundamental challenges facing this country with respect to the 
coronavirus.
  I would argue that not only do they not know what the need is but 
that many of the dollars we have already pushed out are still in the 
pipeline and haven't been used. We don't know what our State and local 
governments need in terms of revenue replacement, and we have lots of 
dollars that are still going out to hospitals, healthcare providers, 
and nursing homes, much of which hasn't been spent yet. Of course we 
have the Paycheck Protection Program, which we are burning through 
fairly quickly but hasn't run out of funding yet either. As I said, 
those are all the things--the almost $3 trillion--that have been 
disbursed and distributed already to address this crisis.

  What Democrats did last week in the House of Representatives is that 
they came in with a philosophical, ideological wish list--a fantasy, if 
you will--of all of the things they would like to get done, very few of 
which actually deal with the crisis at hand, so much so that their 
bill--1,800 pages long, $3 trillion in new spending, again, without 
knowing what the effect is of dollars already spent or what the need is 
out there for additional spending--included things like funding for 
studies on diversity and inclusion in the marketing of cannabis. Is 
that really something that is relevant to fighting and battling the 
coronavirus? They included in there tax increases for small businesses. 
The one tax cut they included in their bill dramatically cuts taxes for 
millionaires and billionaires. In fact, 56 percent of that tax cut 
would go to the top 1 percent of wage earners in this country. Those 
are the types of things that were included in that bill. It really was 
an ideological wish list--nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.
  So for Democratic leaders to come down here and suggest for a minute 
that what the House did somehow ought to be something that the Senate 
contemplates or considers doing here is just completely missing the 
point of what the American people need in this crisis, and that is 
certainty. They need to know that we are dealing with the health 
emergency. They need to know that there is going to be support there 
for our small businesses, for our workers, for people who are 
unemployed, and for our families. They need to know that we are 
committed to seeing that we have the vaccines in place, the 
therapeutics in place that will enable us to fight and win this battle 
against the coronavirus. That is what we ought to be focused on, not 
this crazy wish list of things that the House, in a short amount of 
time--24 hours--came in here to vote on and, as I said earlier, much of 
which was focused on an agenda--a more permanent agenda--rather than 
the task at hand, which is addressing the crisis in front of us.
  I hope my Democratic colleagues will work with us in a constructive 
way and in a bipartisan way to deal with the very real challenges that 
are being faced by the American people and not continue to come down 
here and advocate for an ideological wish list that, one, can't become 
law, and two, doesn't deal with the task at hand.
  I yield the floor.