[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 140 (Thursday, August 6, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5253-S5254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CORONAVIRUS
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, here we are--another Thursday
afternoon in the Senate. It is pretty quiet around here. It is amazing
how quickly this place gets quiet when the Senate majority leader, the
Republican leader, Senator McConnell, tells people: We don't have any
more work to do today. By the way, we don't have any more work to do
tomorrow, Friday. By the way, don't worry about Saturday or Sunday.
Monday, you know, I will be here, says the Majority leader, but the
Senate doesn't need to be here doing its work--maybe not Tuesday or
Wednesday either.
I want to thank the Senator from Michigan, Ms. Stabenow, for being
down here, standing up for working men and women and families and small
businesses because, for them, it is not business as usual. It is not
business as usual for all the folks who are out of work.
Thirty million Americans are on unemployment insurance, but here in
the Senate, for the Senate majority leader, it is business as usual.
Take a day off. Take the weekend off. Be on standby next week. Maybe we
will start doing something real.
I can tell you the coronavirus is not on standby. The coronavirus is
not taking a day off or 2 days off. It is continuing to spread in many
parts of the country. We don't have enough testing equipment. We are
not able to test people quickly. It takes people days and days and days
and, in some cases, weeks to get their results.
We hear the President of the United States saying he wants to open up
the economy and open up schools. We all want to open up the economy. We
all want our children back in school, for classrooms are the best place
for learning. But do you know what? You can't just wish for that to
happen, just like you can't wish for the coronavirus to go away, and
that makes it go away. You need to do real work. You need the testing
equipment so that we can test people in realtime and make sure that we
prevent further outbreaks. We don't want bonfires to turn into brush
fires to turn into prairie fires. You need to catch the virus and
contain it. You can't do that if you don't have testing equipment.
So the virus is not taking a day off or 2 or 3 or a week, and we
shouldn't either. This Senate needs to do its job. We are in the middle
of a pandemic. This is not a normal August. This should not be business
as usual, and as Senator Stabenow said, we should not be here, at this
moment, with important protections having already expired. This Senate
sat by and did nothing while the protections against evictions expired.
The eviction moratorium that was protecting millions of Americans--
gone. The extra $600 a week in unemployment--gone. Yet here we are with
the majority leader saying: Take Friday off. Take Saturday off.
Business as usual.
Well, that is a difficult thing to tell families and workers and
small businesses around the country, and it cannot be business as
usual.
The House of Representatives passed the Heroes Act more than 2\1/2\
months ago. It realized that after we passed the CARES Act in a
bipartisan way, important protections were going to expire, and it
acted. The House made sure it passed legislation to extend the enhanced
unemployment of $600 a week. It passed legislation to extend the
eviction moratorium. It provided additional food assistance for our
kids. It provided important funds for rental assistance, which not only
helps tenants stay in their apartments and homes but provides the
payments to the landlords so the landlords can make the payments to the
people they owe money to and on up the economic food chain.
The House did all of that, and what did the Senate do for 2\1/2\
months? Nothing. Nothing. It is like a train is heading right for you,
and you stand in the middle of the tracks until it hits you when any
commonsense person would do what the House of Representatives did,
which was to take action to make sure that we didn't cross these
deadlines and cause unnecessary harm to millions of American families,
workers, and small businesses. That is what the Senate has done.
Now, even after we are into those deadlines--we have crossed those
deadlines--what does the majority leader here, the Republican leader,
say? Take tomorrow off. Take the weekend off. Take Monday off. In fact,
the Senate may not come in for a while. I mean, we will come in, but
there will be no voting, no real business.
Let me tell you what I am hearing from my constituents, because I
know it is not different from what other Members are hearing from
theirs. Here is a letter I received from a single mom.
I live . . . with my 15-year-old son as a single mother. I
am asking for your help in voting to extend the $600 Federal
unemployment benefit. I understand a lot of politicians do
not want this extended due to the thought that the benefit is
too great and will prevent Marylanders from wanting to return
back to work, in that they make more money from staying at
home off of the State/government this way. Now, we all know,
if your job calls you back during this time and you choose
not to return, your benefits are going to be cut off anyway.
As for me, I am losing thousands of dollars each month
being out of work and am barely scraping by as it is now with
the extra $600. I desperately WANT TO RETURN to work and make
my regular salary, which is more. I am very thankful for the
extra $600 a week and have no idea how I would have survived
without it during this time. I have zero other means to any
money or credit. I have been able to pay my rent, feed my
son, and pay some bills. I have deferred my car payment until
August and am behind on car insurance. I am desperately
asking for your help
[[Page S5254]]
and the help of the government to extend this extra $600 a
week benefit for a little while longer. Not to sound
ungrateful, but an extra $100 or $200 per week is just not
enough to help pay rent and other bills. Cutting this benefit
abruptly will cause such economic hardship and devastation to
so many Americans.
This is a single mother, with a 15-year-old son, who is pleading with
the U.S. Senate to do its job. And what does the majority leader say to
Senators? Take tomorrow off. Take Saturday off. Take Sunday off. Take
Monday off.
I want to read another letter I received on this subject. Here is
what my constituent wrote:
I am emailing in hopes of asking for your support to extend
the $600 Federal assistance in addition to unemployment.
While I realize that the country has to spend more and more
during this pandemic, many of us are learning our temporary
layoffs are now permanent (I received the call yesterday) and
our industries are still completely shut down. I have always
worked in the hotel industry and have no further education or
experience than that. The hospitality industry is the hardest
hit during this pandemic. While I search multiple times a day
for jobs, they simply are not open because the industry has
not yet recovered. In fact, our industry is downsizing
immensely
I am a single mother to one 5-year-old boy who will start
kindergarten in the fall. We do not receive any financial
assistance through the State, such as housing assistance or
child support. Maryland unemployment of $430 per week will
not even cover the rent costs, and we will quickly be evicted
with no options for housing.
I am not looking to make more money than I was at my job.
That is not possible. I grossed $75,000 in 2019, but I am
looking to be able to pay my rent and bills and part-time
childcare because it is in the best interest of my son to
have social interaction and education during the pandemic
even if I am not working. Please--I beg you--please support
the extension of the $600 per week benefit.
Now, I have heard a lot of Senators on this floor over weeks and
months talk about how we just cannot extend $600 a week. Yet we hear
from these moms and parents who are pleading for that help so that they
can simply pay their bills and get by. Even with that, they are not
able to pay all of their bills.
The Republican leader says to the U.S. Senate: Take a day off. Take 2
days off. Next week, I will be in, says the majority leader, but I
don't need for the Senate to be in, doing its work.
What are we all here for? We should be here 24/7, working around the
clock together to resolve these issues.
We have a lot of multi, multi, multimillionaires in this U.S. Senate,
and it is really rich for all of us to be telling families out there
that the extra $600 per week is too much. That is just too much.
These are individuals who want to go back to work. I just read to you
a letter from someone who works in the hospitality industry. That is
her experience. That is what she knows.
I don't know if our Republican colleagues have checked recently, but
the unemployment rate is around 15 percent. There are a lot of people
out there who are looking for work who can't find it. They can't find
it because we are in the middle of a pandemic, and that has caused a
lot of small businesses and others to shut down in order to make sure
that we stop the spread of the virus.
These are people who want to get back to work. They want nothing
better than that. They want their children back in school. All of us
do. Yet we have a failed, botched Federal response, starting with the
White House--starting with the President, who has made this a political
issue when it has to be a health issue. It has made the problem a lot
worse, and we all know it. We all know that this pandemic is lasting
longer in the United States and has killed more people in the United
States because of a totally failed response right from the top, and we
should not be complicit in that. We should do our job.
We have the majority leader, the Republican leader. What is he
saying? He is not even part of the negotiations, right? He says: You
know, I am in my Republican caucus lunches, and, reportedly, only half
of the Republican Senators want to do anything.
I don't know if that is true or not, but that is what Republican
Senators are saying on national television. That is what we are hearing
from the Republican caucus. So, if that is not true, it would be great
to hear all of the Republican Senators come down to the floor and talk
about what they are willing to do, not what they are not willing to do.
Because there are not the votes there, the majority leader has
contracted out his negotiation authority to the White House, and he has
told the Senate to go home.
Let's just start doing our job here in the U.S. Senate. Nobody should
be contracting out his job and his vote and his negotiating authority
to the White House. This is the U.S. Senate. I don't know what people
ran for if they just want to say: Oh, I can't deal with this because my
caucus doesn't support any response. Go talk to the White House.
In the meantime in the Senate, take Friday off. Take Saturday off.
Take Sunday off. Maybe take Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off, too.
That is a hell of a message to send to the American people in the
middle of a pandemic during which so many people are hurting.
I will end with this. Instead of the majority leader's coming down to
the floor today and telling everybody to go away, we should stay here.
We should stay here, and we should do our job. Doing our job means
coming together with the next round of emergency legislation to slow
down and then stop the spread of the virus and help the millions of
Americans who are in tremendous economic pain right now. This is not
business as usual. The Senate needs to do its job. Let's stay here and
get it done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
____________________