[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 140 (Thursday, August 6, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5256-S5258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Senator Stabenow said some time ago that 
this is not just another Thursday. She and my eloquent colleagues, 
Senator Coons and Senator Hassan, who has just left the floor, have 
shown how painfully true Senator Stabenow's statement is about letting 
this not be just another Thursday here in the Senate.
  With Republican colleagues headed home for the weekend, perhaps for 
weeks, I want to take stock for a moment of all of the very crises the 
country faces while American families and communities don't have the 
luxury of a weekend. There is the COVID crisis, which Senator Stabenow 
and Senator Coons just talked about, with more than 50,000 newly 
confirmed cases and 1,000 or more deaths a day with a total of 4\1/2\ 
million cases in our country to date.
  There is the joblessness crisis. Enhanced unemployment benefits have 
expired. Tens of millions of Americans are out of work, with millions 
walking on economic tightropes.
  My colleagues are reading the letters. This is not based on some 
kinds of media reports. They are reading directly from what their 
constituents are saying, and I want to make sure everybody knows this, 
having listened now for days to our colleagues saying that the big 
problem is that somehow the American worker doesn't actually want to 
work. Senator Stabenow and I have heard that repeatedly in the Finance 
Committee room. I think it is insulting to the American worker.

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  We had a nationwide townhall sponsored by the Town Hall Project on 
unemployment issues recently, and people would say things such as this: 
If I heard about a job on Monday night, I would be there at the crack 
of dawn on Tuesday morning to get that position.
  So, as we take stock of these crises, the COVID crisis, the 
joblessness crisis, I think what we ought to do is add the crisis of 
legislative malpractice that we are seeing with this Senate Republican 
walkout today, heading home instead of working, as Senator Coons has 
said, in a bipartisan way to get the coronavirus rescue bill.
  I have not seen anything like this in my time in public service: The 
biggest public health disaster in over a century, the worst level of 
unemployment since the Depression, an economy that barely holds on, and 
tomorrow's jobs report will almost certainly show that any hope for a 
V-shaped recovery that Donald Trump talked about is long gone.
  Republicans delayed and sat on their hands for months. I think the 
Presiding Officer heard me walk everybody through the calendar, how 
weeks passed, months passed. We made offer after offer for negotiation. 
Senator Schumer and I developed a proposal that to a great extent was 
based on some of the thinking of Senator Thune.
  I always think of my friend from Delaware, who is the champion of 
bipartisanship. That proposal was based on Senator Coon's--excuse me, 
Senator Thune's thought that, you know, if unemployment is high, people 
need a benefit so they can make the rent and pay for groceries. Then 
Senator Thune said: But, you know, when unemployment goes down, the 
benefits should reflect that as well. He said that.
  So Senator Schumer and I wrote the unemployment insurance bill to 
reflect that. The unemployment benefits would be tied to economic 
conditions on the ground.
  Yet what we have seen is that somehow Senate Republicans can now 
leave in good conscience for the weekend, possibly the August recess, 
when the Senate hasn't passed a bill to help all of those Americans who 
are sick and jobless.
  Our job is to legislate on the big issues, not to run home and 
campaign. Our job is to sit down, negotiate, and find solutions. Mitch 
McConnell, on the basis of this morning's newspaper, doesn't seem to 
even show up at the negotiating table.
  Now, as I mentioned, we have been warning for days and weeks and 
months that enhanced unemployment benefits were going to expire at the 
end of July. Republicans sat on their hands.
  Earlier, we heard Senate Republicans talk about how they had a 1-week 
proposal which, of course, wouldn't--based on the unemployment 
experts--get any real help to people who need that money for rent and 
groceries anytime soon. The Senate Republicans said: You know, workers 
are going over the cliff.
  Well, the fact that Republicans have sat this debate out is what 
pushed those workers over the cliff--pushed them over the cliff--as we 
warned week after week after week that the economy was cratering and 
permanent layoffs are increasing.
  Senator Merkley has joined us. We hear all the time at home and in 
the Pacific Northwest about people who got laid off once, things seemed 
to be getting better, they got brought back, and they were laid off 
again. So it seems--when Senator Stabenow points out that this is not 
just another Thursday in the Senate--that the economy is headed in the 
wrong direction.
  I am just going to spend a couple of minutes, as we talk about this 
issue of how things are definitely not right here on this Thursday in 
the Senate, on the question of what would it take for Senate 
Republicans to get serious about working with us on a coronavirus bill 
now? How bad would it have to get? One-quarter of a million Americans' 
lives lost? Half a million? How many jobless? 40 million? 50 million? 
Does the economy need to contract even more than it did in the second 
quarter before Senate Republicans say they are going to work with 
Democrats to help the economy and help the Congress?
  Back in March, there was a basic deal between the American people and 
the government to try to make sure that there was an effort to try to 
provide help for people as the pandemic took hold in this country. 
Senator Stabenow and I were sort of the point people as it related to 
the big issues in the Finance Committee. Senator Stabenow, doing her 
usually terrific job on the big health issues, and I spent days and 
days hearing essentially from the Labor Secretary, Secretary Scalia, 
about how he really wasn't going to push hard for much of anything 
except business as usual. But after that difficult period that went on 
for days and days in the Finance Committee, we actually got the $600 
extra per week, each week, and modernized the unemployment program. As 
Senator Stabenow knows, back when the program began in the 1930s, 
nobody knew about a gig worker or the self-employed, or the independent 
contractor, or freelancers, and the like. There was a sense that we 
would be working on unemployment for a long time, particularly the way 
it was administered, because the States have these kinds of bronze-age 
technologies. One of the frustrating parts of this period is that even 
though millions and millions of Americans have gotten those extra 
benefits, that is really cold comfort to the many people who haven't 
been able to get through the system and who haven't been able, call 
after call after call, to get their claim resolved. Yet there was the 
beginning, based on that vote, of a strategy to help people get through 
the economic hardship.
  Right now, the Trump administration and Republicans in the Congress 
are breaking that deal. The virus is out of control, spiking in so many 
States. The key economic lifeline for jobless Americans is getting 
yanked away. It is just unconscionable.
  And, now, just in the last few hours, there is talk that Donald Trump 
is looking at possibly tomorrow, Senator Stabenow, tearing up the 
Constitution and ordering a cut in the Social Security and Medicare tax 
on his own. This will not give a dime to the millions of families who 
have lost jobs during the pandemic but will put thousands of dollars in 
the pockets of every lawyer and wheeler-dealer who can pay themselves a 
salary while sitting at home.
  What really concerns us--and I have been involved in these issues 
since my Gray Panthers days--is one thing that Donald Trump is talking 
about, Senator Stabenow, and that is draining the Social Security trust 
fund and bringing closer the day when Social Security benefits will be 
cut. So for all of those people who are, say, in their late fifties, 
and they have worked so hard and done difficult labor year after year 
after year just hoping--hoping--to be able to get Social Security, now 
Donald Trump is talking about draining the Social Security trust fund, 
cutting the Social Security and Medicare tax on his own. It sure seems 
like he has a monopoly on bad ideas.
  He is also talking about some kind of Executive order on enhanced 
unemployment benefits, which he actually doesn't have the authority to 
issue--one more Donald Trump ``con'' oil, an additional bit of snake 
oil.
  With respect to the unemployment issue and his idea of an Executive 
order, what he would do there is throw State workforce agencies into 
chaos. As we talked about, so many States have faced real challenges in 
getting benefits out to all the deserving Americans.
  We have been trying, on the Finance Committee. Senator Stabenow has 
been a big champion of improving technology. We got $1 billion for the 
State agencies. We are trying to get more. Donald Trump's proposal 
would just end up hurting the jobless Americans counting on benefits 
even more. If Donald Trump were serious about extending enhanced 
unemployment coverage, he would be working with Democrats on extending 
the benefits instead of fighting them.
  I am going to close with this, and it is a response to something I 
have heard from many of my Republican colleagues who seem to have 
recovered their sense of fiscal conservatism that disappeared when 
Donald Trump was inaugurated. I heard some of them say that passing 
another COVID bill would amount to sacrificing our children's futures.
  Here is what is worse for American children: growing up at a time 
when their parents can't find good-paying jobs because of double-digit 
unemployment, getting evicted from their homes

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in the middle of a pandemic and becoming homeless, having to skip meals 
because their family can't afford enough food each month, going to 
school in a district that laid off teachers and staff due to the 
coronavirus recession, which means packing too many kids into 
classrooms, which can be dangerous.
  Let's forget about all of that same old Republican deficit talk. It 
is the same old routine from a decade ago and a decade before that and 
a decade before that. The Republican deficit talk was nowhere to be 
found when they passed--over the opposition of Democrats on the Finance 
Committee--a $2 trillion tax handout overwhelmingly benefiting 
multinational corporations and the wealthy.
  Americans struggle with the pandemic and the joblessness crisis right 
now. The Senate needs to deal with it right now.
  As Senator Stabenow said--she eloquently launched this important 
discussion, and I know my friend from Oregon is here to be part of it--
it is certainly not another Thursday in the Senate, not another garden-
variety, end of the week when you have enhanced unemployment benefits 
expiring, and 160,000 Americans dying. It is unthinkable--unthinkable--
that anybody could be going home when there are so many challenges 
right in front of us.
  I hope the majority leader, Senator McConnell, and my Republican 
colleagues understand the power of what Senator Stabenow has basically 
outlined, because there are times on a Thursday afternoon in the Senate 
where I think you could say you wouldn't have the kinds of challenges 
we are talking about. This is not one of them. This is one where, on 
issue after issue, there are crises: the COVID crisis, the joblessness 
crisis, and now we have a legislative malpractice crisis by Senator 
McConnell leading his Senators.
  I urge him to come back, work with us, bring about the negotiations 
we need, as I said again and again, on unemployment.
  I am not going anywhere--not anywhere. This is one of the most 
important causes I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. Even 
with all of the challenges with unemployment, I can only imagine, 
Senator Stabenow, how much more hurt there would be in America without 
those millions of people getting the money for groceries and rent and 
paying medical bills and car insurance and keeping the lights on.
  We need the majority leader and Republican colleagues in the U.S. 
Senate to work with us. There is no time to waste. They ought to be 
recognizing the power of what Senators have said here today. That 
negotiating needs to take place now rather than having yet another 
break for Senators to pursue other kinds of matters
  I thank my colleagues.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

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