[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 129 (Wednesday, July 22, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S4414]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Congress, our States, and the 
administration talk about ways to handle the immediate consequences of 
COVIV-19. We must also talk about the aftermath, and Steve Case has 
written a provocative op-ed about the future.
  Those of us in Congress should read and discuss it It has to be 
considered in future planning.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of this article be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, July 19, 2020]

  There's No Going back to the Pre-Pandemic Economy--Congress Should 
                          Respond Accordingly

                            (By Steve Case)

       This week, Congress will likely take up the next steps in 
     the economic response to the covid-19 pandemic. If the 
     package is like previous efforts, it will focus on trying to 
     turn back the clock to February 2020: treating the economy as 
     if it were Sleeping Beauty, merely needing to be awakened to 
     be fully restored. This strategy is a mistake: Congress needs 
     to stop solely backing efforts to restore the old economic 
     reality and focus on how to develop a new one.
       Most of the $1 trillion that Congress has put into business 
     support so far during the pandemic has been directed to 
     preserving existing firms through the Paycheck Protection 
     Program and the Main Street Relief Fund. Helping those 
     businesses and their workers is vital, but that alone won't 
     fuel the economic recovery the country needs.
       The problem is that many of the businesses backed by PPP or 
     Main Street are going to wind up shutting down. Even when 
     they aren't facing a global pandemic or economic crisis, 
     about 100,000 small and medium-size businesses fail in the 
     United States every year. New businesses will be needed to 
     replace the ones that permanently close. Moreover, the 
     failure rate is likely to be higher, as many firms were on 
     the wrong side of trends--such as the move to online 
     shopping, convenient food delivery or watching streaming 
     content at home--that the pandemic lockdown has accelerated.
       Another consideration: The protests stirred by the killing 
     of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody have made clear 
     how many Americans were left behind in the pre-coronavirus 
     economy; restoring the way things were before the virus hit 
     won't address these needs.
       Here are three ways Congress can help launch a new, more 
     equitable era of entrepreneurship.
       First: Make it easier for the earliest-stage start-ups to 
     receive PPP dollars and for all start-ups to access the Main 
     Street Relief Fund. PPP loans go to existing businesses to 
     maintain jobs but not to new businesses that want to create 
     them. Main Street loans go only to companies that are already 
     profitable; most start-ups are not. That approach is 
     backward: Studies show that nearly all net new job creation 
     comes from start-ups, not established businesses.
       A PPP revision should allow start-ups to obtain loans based 
     on their plans to create jobs--with loan forgiveness granted 
     only if those jobs materialize. If they don't, the start-ups 
     should be required to repay the loans before any other 
     obligations. And the barrier in the Main Street lending 
     program that makes businesses ineligible for aid if they were 
     not profitable in 2019 should be removed.
       Second, the government needs to be a counterweight to 
     private capital that exacerbates geographic disparities in 
     opportunity as the country responds to the crisis. The 
     pandemic is a devastating tragedy, but adversity tends to be 
     met by the creation of new industries and new businesses. 
     This crisis will stir innovations in medicine, goods and 
     services delivered at home, remote work and learning, and 
     more. Where will these new firms grow? If the decision is 
     left to the private sector alone, almost all of them will be 
     in three states: New York, California and Massachusetts, 
     which attract 75 percent of all venture capital.
       Great ideas to respond to this crisis are spread widely 
     across the country--but capital is not. Business assistance 
     programs created by Congress should have a special focus on 
     getting startups off the ground in places that have lacked 
     venture capital backing in the past. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-
     Minn.) and others have already proposed such legislation; 
     members of Congress from these neglected areas should insist 
     it is part of any Phase 4 bill.
       Finally, lawmakers should step in to address unintended 
     inequalities of opportunity for female and minority 
     entrepreneurs caused by the earlier relief bills. Because 
     these programs fund only existing businesses, they reinforce 
     opportunity gaps. Communities with thriving businesses get 
     more PPP and Main Street aid; those that have lacked capital 
     to get businesses off the ground in the past see little help 
     now.
       The solution would be for Congress to direct unused PPP 
     funds to start-ups led by female entrepreneurs and 
     entrepreneurs of color, creating opportunities where they 
     have not existed before. The Main Street Lending program 
     could be modified to extend special debt options to community 
     development groups and minority-focused accelerators to back 
     a new wave of startups founded by historically 
     underrepresented entrepreneurs.
       There's no going back to the pre-pandemic U.S. economy. Too 
     much has changed; too many new needs exist. This is a rare 
     opportunity to break with the past and create a better 
     future. Congress should grab it.

                          ____________________