[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.

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