[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.
[[Page S5257]]
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
[[Page S5258]]
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.
____________________