[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 135 (Thursday, July 30, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4601-S4602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Madam President, as COVID-19 continues to spread through dozens of 
States, our country is dealing with multiple crises at this time.
  We learned today that the most recent quarter was the worst on record 
for our economy. The problem is not new or surprising. Millions of 
newly unemployed Americans cannot go back to work, cannot afford the 
rent, cannot put food on the table. Small businesses are waiting to see 
if the Federal loan program that kept them alive will be renewed. 
Parents are worried sick about their kids returning to school in the 
fall. The State and local governments that fought this disease on the 
frontline when the Trump administration refused to give them help are 
deep in the red and are slashing public services, teachers, 
firefighters, and more.
  Throughout America, people wait days and days--even weeks--for the 
results of their tests, which renders the tests almost useless because 
we don't have an adequate testing program at the national level. This 
is the greatest public health challenge and crisis and the greatest 
economic challenge in at least 75 years. We need to confront all of 
these crises.
  Senate Republicans hardly want to address any of them. They dithered 
for months and then produced a half-baked, halfhearted proposal of half 
measures--a proposal that their own caucus and their own President 
didn't fully support. Just last night, the Republican leader confirmed 
that 20 Republican Senators want to do nothing in the face of the 
historic problems we face, and because the Senate Republicans haven't 
gotten their act together, 2 weeks have now gone down the drain and 3 
months went down the drain before that because the Republicans have 
been wedded to a twisted ideology that the Federal Government shouldn't 
help people even in a time of national emergency.
  As the country is about to careen over several cliffs as a result of 
Republican delay, dithering, and disunity, our friends on the other 
side are now scrambling. It is dawning on them now--not a week ago, not 
3 weeks ago, not 2 months ago--that we are facing a cliff with 
unemployment--although we face cliffs on other issues, as well, right 
now.
  I understand that, today, a few of my colleagues on the other side 
will ask the Senate to pass a reduction of the enhanced employment 
benefit from $600 a week to $200 a week or, even worse, a smaller 
percentage of a worker's wages than the Republicans proposed in their 
bill earlier this week. An already stingy Republican proposal has 
gotten even stingier as the week has gone on.
  I have made it very clear why the proposal by the Senator of 
Wisconsin is terrible policy for four main reasons.
  First and most obviously, it would hurt the unemployed as 1.4 million 
Americans filed new claims for unemployment last week, and the number 
is going up again. Our economy is still shedding jobs, and Americans 
are losing their paychecks through no fault of their own. Yet the 
Republicans want to take $1,600 out of their pockets every single 
month. They want to give people who lost their jobs through no fault of 
their own a 34-percent pay cut. It is shocking, inhumane, wrong.
  Second, it would exacerbate poverty. Our enhanced unemployment 
benefits have prevented nearly 12 million Americans from slipping into 
poverty. The Republicans want to slash and burn that poverty-preventing 
policy. Let's have more people go into poverty. That is what this 
amendment would do.
  Third, it would devastate our economy. One of the few bright spots 
over the past few months has been consumer spending, in no small part 
because these unemployment benefits go to those Americans who need to 
spend them as soon as they get them. No wonder respected economic 
forecasters project that the Republican policy on unemployment 
insurance would cost us over a million jobs this year and 3 million 
more next year.
  Finally, we know that this policy is impossible to implement. When 
our office called State unemployment offices to ask them about the 
Republican proposal, they said its implementation would be a 
catastrophe. One office simply said: ``This would cause chaos.''
  This is not a serious proposal. We all know it will never pass the 
House and that it doesn't have enough votes to come close to passing in 
the Senate. Large numbers of Republicans will vote against it. This 
effort appears to be an effort to provide the Republicans some 
political cover because they can't get their act together and force the 
country over these cliffs.
  We are trying to negotiate with the White House and would welcome 
negotiations with our Senate colleagues, but the reason negotiations 
are going nowhere right now is that the Republicans are divided. Who is 
leading the effort on the Republican side--Chief of Staff Meadows and 
Secretary Mnuchin? Is Senator Johnson and Senator Braun's effort to 
pass reduced unemployment benefits a real offer from the Republicans or 
just a stunt?
  Leader McConnell has said that the Democrats will not engage. I would 
remind him that he refuses to go into the room when Speaker Pelosi, 
Secretary Mnuchin, Chief of Staff Meadows, and I sit in there. Once 
again, Senator McConnell engages in ``Alice in Wonderland'' tactics and 
speeches and words. What he says is exactly the opposite of what is 
true. We are trying to negotiate, and the Senate Republicans are not.
  Next, it is clear that the Senate Republicans don't have a unified 
position on anything. The main thing we hear from Leader McConnell is 
that he would torpedo all of the relief that the Americans are counting 
on unless there is a giant corporate immunity provision attached, and 
he says he will not even negotiate on it. Who is holding things up? Who 
is standing in the way? Leader McConnell and his Republican caucus are, 
certainly, at the top of the list.
  And President Trump is all over the lot. He himself called the 
Republican Senate proposal ``semi-irrelevant.''
  When your own President says your proposal is semi-irrelevant, as 
Trump has said to the Senate Republicans, you know that they are tied 
in a knot and can't get anything done.
  The President seems to endorse a different policy every time he finds 
a microphone. The one thing we are sure he supports is spending 
taxpayer dollars on a new FBI building to boost the value of his hotel.
  Yesterday, we learned the President asked for nearly $400 million in 
renovations to the White House in the Republican COVID proposal. 
Seriously? The President proposes no help for Americans to stay in 
their houses but wants the taxpayers to fork over nearly $400 million 
to help him renovate the White House?
  Simply put, negotiations with the White House and Senate Republicans 
right now are like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. We are trying to 
work with our counterparts, but it is immensely frustrating to deal 
with a negotiating partner who can't say what they support on nearly 
any issue.
  Now, we are hearing the President and his representatives have 
floated the idea of a skinny bill to address one program, to extend 
unemployment insurance at much lower rates, which hurts the unemployed. 
But while the Nation waits, desperate for comprehensive relief, they 
leave everything else out.
  What about improving testing, where people have to wait in line--wait 
for hours, days, and weeks to get their

[[Page S4602]]

tests back? What about helping State and local governments, who have to 
lay off firefighters and busdrivers? What about dealing with people who 
might be evicted? What about dealing with people who can't feed their 
kids? The list of issues goes on and on and on, and they are all 
immediate and urgent.
  So to have this bill, which is inadequate on employment benefits 
alone--cuts them to the bone--and not include any of the other issues, 
in a hope to escape and then do nothing more? Forget it. It will not 
pass the Senate. It will not pass the House. It is a stunt.
  Even if the White House would agree to another extension of enhanced 
unemployment at its current level, which many, if not most, Senate 
Republicans will refuse to support, there are just too many things left 
out--opening up our schools safely, healthcare testing and reducing the 
wait to get test results, State and local governments, so much more.
  And even if the White House finally comes around to the position that 
we should extend the moratorium on evictions, that wouldn't be enough. 
It makes no sense to extend the moratorium on evictions without helping 
Americans actually afford the rent. We can prevent landlords or banks 
from kicking Americans out of their homes for another few months, but 
then what? The same Americans would be 6 months behind on the rent and 
have no hope of making up the difference.
  So let's look. Here is where we are. Americans are worried as this 
awful pandemic rages on. The lifelines we passed here in Congress to 
protect families, small businesses, renters, school kids, and so many 
more are expired, and our Republican colleagues dither. We have a 
comprehensive, bold proposal. They have virtually nothing.
  Let's remember recent history. That may give us some hope that we can 
get something done. Back in March and April, Republicans were late to 
the game, just as they are now, and proposed stingy, insufficient 
legislation in response to COVID-19, just like they are doing now. Each 
time, Democrats were not bullied by Republicans into passing something 
that wouldn't work and be insufficient, but we demanded that our 
colleagues sit down with us and negotiate a bill that meets the needs 
of the American people--and that is what we did.
  In the second, third, and fourth phases of COVID relief, our 
negotiations produced much better legislation--legislation that passed 
both Houses with near unanimity. It is never easy, and it is never 
painless, but it can be done. We just need our Republican colleagues to 
get their act together, roll up their sleeves, understand the gravity 
and breadth and depth of this problem and negotiate with us in a 
serious way.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.