[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 138 (Tuesday, August 4, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4719-S4721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HEROES ACT AND HEALS ACT

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I also want to talk this afternoon a 
little about the Heroes legislation, the HEALS legislation, and some of 
the commonalities I see between the two. On the floor of the Senate 
this week, there has been some discussion about the need for us to come 
together in a bipartisan way to put together a package to deal with the 
coronavirus. Some call it the COVID 5.0 package. It is really probably 
8.0. We have done a lot of legislation already, but there are things 
that still need to be done and some urgent matters, including dealing 
with the expiration of the unemployment insurance.
  I am on the floor today to talk about how I see the opportunity for 
us to move ahead by looking at some of the commonalities between the 
Democratic support and the Republican support for different 
legislation. As we all know, the discussions over the past week have 
not moved forward as quickly as we would like. In fact, it is pretty 
discouraging. Despite the fact that many people thought the Heroes Act 
was really a messaging bill--POLITICO wrote a story, one of our news 
media sources up here--and said: ``a messaging bill that has no chance 
of becoming law.'' Others made the same comments. Why? Because it was a 
$3.5 trillion pricetag for legislation, which would make it by far the 
most expensive bill ever passed by either House of Congress. But also, 
at a time when we had $1.1 trillion leftover from the CARES package and 
States have only allocated an average of about 25 percent of their 
CARES Act funding, it seemed like pushing taxpayers to foot the bill 
for the costliest legislation in history maybe wasn't the right way to 
go.
  Also, it had virtually no support from Republicans. Also, this 
legislation included a lot of stuff that had nothing do with COVID-19. 
The sense was: Yes, it is an important messaging bill for Democrats--
that is out there--but that we needed to figure out a way now to come 
together as Republicans and Democrats.
  Leader McConnell also introduced legislation. That legislation is 
called the HEALS Act. It is time for us to figure out how to come 
together and figure out a solution going forward. Particularly with 
regard to some of these

[[Page S4720]]

urgent matters like unemployment insurance, we are already past time. 
Unemployment insurance already expired last Friday. We have to move 
forward with that. We should not be playing politics with people's 
livelihoods and making this a political football.
  Last week, and again today, my colleague from Arizona, Senator 
McSally, introduced what I thought was a great commonsense idea: Let's 
extend the existing unemployment insurance, $600 per week Federal 
supplement, for another week while we continue these negotiations so 
that people are not going to see their unemployment insurance checks 
decrease substantially. They would lose all the Federal benefit unless 
we do that. They would still have the State benefit but lose the $600 
per week
  Unfortunately, Senate Democrats said no, objected to this commonsense 
idea. I don't quite get that. I think we ought to keep the $600 in 
place while we negotiate for the next week, and we ought to be sure and 
put the interests of the American people first and come to a 
commonsense solution. Now isn't the time for games. It is the time to 
get it right.
  I also note that with regard to unemployment insurance, there are 
lots of ideas out there. For the last few months, I have been proposing 
the idea of a return-to-work bonus. Maybe that is not the best idea. 
Maybe people have better ideas. The notion there would be the $600, 
which is the current Federal benefit, allows people on unemployment 
insurance, in many cases, to have more income on unemployment than they 
would working.
  According to the studies that have been done, including by the 
University of Chicago, about 68 percent of the people on unemployment 
insurance are making more money on unemployment insurance than they 
were making at work.
  Most Americans, including most Members of this Chamber--Republicans 
and Democrats alike--think that is not right. You shouldn't make more 
not to work. Unemployment insurance is meant to give you a little help. 
In Ohio, it is about 50 percent, up to a certain cap, but it is not 
meant to replace your wages, plus--which is what is happening--on 
average, 134-percent increase in wages if you are on unemployment 
insurance.
  There must be a way for us to come together and to solve this 
problem. There are Democrats and Republicans alike who have talked 
about perhaps lowering that amount from $600. I heard one of my 
Democratic colleagues on the floor today--the Senator from Oregon--talk 
about maybe you can tie it to the unemployment in the State. Others of 
us, again, and I have talked about the return-to-work bonus. You could 
take some of that $600 with you and go back to work, which would deal 
with, on a voluntary basis, the need for people to go back to work 
because employers are looking for folks.
  Right now in Ohio, we have a lot of jobs open, a lot of manufacturing 
jobs, as an example. I was at a plant recently--a Ford plant--where 
they are looking for people. They have a 25-percent absenteeism rate 
right now. They attribute a lot of that to the fact that people can 
make more money on unemployment insurance, but they need the workers 
badly.
  There are Honda plants in Ohio--that is another one of our 
manufacturers--where the white-collar workers are going to work on the 
assembly lines because they can't get enough workers coming in.
  I hear it across the board. I have heard it from those who are 
involved with developmental disabilities trying to get their workforce 
back. I have heard it from people who are involved with the treatment 
for opioids, so the alcohol and drug addiction boards are trying to get 
their people to come back to work. I have heard it from our small 
businesses that are trying to figure out how to reopen and reopen 
safely but have a tough time getting people to come back to work. There 
is a need for us to figure this out.
  For the workers themselves, it is much better for them to be 
connected with their employer again, isn't it? After all, that is where 
they are likely to get their healthcare. If they have it, they are 
likely to get their retirement savings. They are likely to get the 
training there to be able to keep up with the times.
  It is good to have people at work. The dignity and self-respect you 
get from work is something that is of value. We should all want that. 
All of us in this Chamber should focus on this issue and say: OK. The 
$600 was put in place during a tough summer. Let's be honest. A lot of 
people had a really tough time, and some people are still having a 
tough time. There should still be, in my view, a Federal supplement, 
but it can't be paying people more not to work than to work. That makes 
no sense, as we are starting to open this economy and open it safely. 
We have to figure out a way forward here.
  There are some Democrats who have worked on this issue. Timothy 
Geithner is an example of one who was Secretary of Treasury under 
President Obama, who put forward, along with other Democrats and 
Republicans, a proposal that said: Let's lower the amount, and let's 
tie it to the unemployment.
  This is something that, in talking to my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle, including some Democratic colleagues who have talked to me 
privately, that, you know, they get it; this is not working, and we 
need to fix it. Let's do that. It seems to me there is a lot of 
commonality there, and we should be able to figure out a way forward.
  Let me mention some of the other places where I see a lot of 
commonality. First, both Republicans and Democrats agree that it is 
absolutely essential that as people return to work they do so safely. 
In the legislation we talked about earlier, the HEALS package, which 
Senator McConnell introduced, there is a proposal that is called the 
Healthy Workplace Tax Credit Act. Basically, what it says is, if a 
business is willing to put in place safety measures like a Plexiglas 
shield or do testing or have the PPE--the gloves and the masks and, in 
some cases, the gowns that are needed to stay safe--they should be able 
to get a tax credit for that. It not only encourages more employment, 
but it encourages employers to open in a safe way.
  I spoke to a bunch of restaurants yesterday from Ohio. They called in 
to talk about the legislation. They love this because they have a lot 
of costs associated with making their places safe during the 
coronavirus pandemic. But this legislation, again, is stuck because we 
can't seem to get to a negotiation. That is one where Democrats and 
Republicans could come together.
  There is another one that I think makes a lot of sense. It is called 
the Work Opportunity Tax Credit Expansion. That also is in the HEALS 
legislation. This has always been a bipartisan issue--the work 
opportunity tax credit. We have said simply that just as you can get a 
tax credit to hire veterans or to hire second-chance individuals who 
have come out of the prison system, you should be able to hire people 
from unemployment insurance who have lost their job because of COVID-19 
and get a tax credit. This is something that, again, Democrats and 
Republicans should be able to work on together.
  Finally, in the HEALS package, we also have legislation that has a 
lot of appeal to Republicans and Democrats that is an expansion of the 
employee retention tax credit from the bipartisan CARES Act. This is 
legislation that passed 96 to 0 around here. We say, let's make this 
employee retention tax credit work better. We expand the amount you can 
get in terms of tax credit, expand the amount of time that has to be 
covered. It makes it a much better package for small businesses to use 
to be able to attract employees and to retain the employees they have. 
Again, this is nonpartisan, I would say, and certainly one that can be 
bipartisan
  Historically, these tax provisions have had bipartisan support. I 
worked with my friend Ben Cardin in designing the employee retention 
credit in March, expanding the opportunity tax credit, which has always 
had bipartisan support, and the healthy workplace tax credit. Senator 
Sinema actually has a very similar bill.
  Second, there is agreement on both sides of the aisle, we have to 
support our schools and our businesses so our kids can get back into 
the classroom and our parents can get back to work.
  With regard to schools, there is supposedly a big partisan divide 
over this issue. When I see it, I see schools,

[[Page S4721]]

money being practically identical in the HEALS package and the Heroes 
Act that passed the House of Representatives. In fact, House Democrats 
provided around $58 billion for K-12. The HEALS Act actually increases 
that to $70 billion. There is actually more money in the HEALS 
legislation.
  On the business front, both Democrats and Republicans have seen value 
in the Paycheck Protection Program we introduced in the CARES Act, 
which is why both bills seek to expand it. Albeit in somewhat different 
ways, but there is greater consensus here than one might think. We just 
need to sort out the details.
  My colleague from Louisiana is here with me tonight in the Chamber. 
He has talked a lot about the need for us to improve the way we provide 
funding to local governments, municipalities, and to provide more 
flexibility. I don't think there is much disagreement about that on 
either side of the aisle. There may be a disagreement the numbers, the 
amount of funding, but, again, the HEALS package has funding. The 
Democrats have more funding. But flexibility--that is one where I think 
there is a lot of bipartisan consensus.
  I know it is a popular right now to say that we are so far apart we 
can never get together, but as I look at this, when you actually look 
at the individual pieces of this, I see a lot of commonalities. The 
final one I want to mention is one where I would think all of us should 
be together. That is addressing the underlying health crisis we face.

  Both the HEALS package and the Heroes Act provide increased funding 
for research into vaccines and antiviral treatments for this disease. 
Both acts also recognize the importance of increasing funding for 
testing, which is critical in making sure we can safely and sustainably 
reopen.
  There are more points of commonality between the Republican and 
Democratic approaches that I could touch on, like providing another 
$1,200 in stimulus checks for all Americans who make less than $75,000 
a year. That, I understand, is something that both Democrats and 
Republicans support. That would be a huge part of this new package.
  The House-passed Heroes Act has, again, a pricetag that is just too 
high--$3.5 trillion. I think most people would acknowledge that. I also 
know there is a big difference between that and the $1 trillion that 
was in the proposal from Senator McConnell--$1 trillion. That used to 
be a lot of money.
  Again, when you look at the actual details of this, when you look at 
what is actually in these two pieces of legislation, there is so much 
commonality. I think it is critical that we get this legislation right. 
We have time to do that. In the meantime, as Senator McSally has 
proposed, let's continue the $600 for the next week.
  Let's be sure that we can build on these commonalities we see between 
these two pieces of legislation. Retreating into partisan corners at 
this critical time doesn't benefit any of us. It certainly doesn't 
benefit the United States, and it doesn't benefit us as an institution. 
It certainly doesn't benefit the people I represent.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). The Senator from Louisiana.

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