[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 142 (Monday, August 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5362-S5365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I thank you. I want to thank the 
minority leader--the Democratic leader, Mr. Schumer--for his remarks.
  There are not many of us around here in the Senate today. It is 
pretty quiet. If you walk through the halls, there is virtually nobody 
around. That is what it was like last Thursday afternoon. That is what 
it was like here in the Senate on Friday and again on Saturday and 
again on Sunday. Here we are again on Monday, and this Senate is 
virtually a ghost town--a few people here, but for the most part, 
everybody was sent home by the majority leader, by Senator McConnell.
  He told Senators: Go home until further notice. Go home. We are going 
to put the Senate on standby. No need to be here doing the people's 
business.
  Well, the coronavirus is not on standby. The coronavirus is very much 
alive and well and spreading throughout the country--more severely in 
some parts than others but spreading throughout the country--and with 
it has come the spread of economic pain and economic harm. So COVID-19 
is not on standby, and neither is the economic pain and fallout that it 
has caused.
  But here in the U.S. Senate, the Republican leader, the majority 
leader, has said: Go home and be on standby. That is not leadership at 
any time. It is certainly not the kind of leadership that the American 
people need and should expect during a global pandemic and recession-
era unemployment levels.
  So why did the majority leader tell people to just go home and be on 
standby? It is because he wanted the Trump administration to negotiate 
an agreement. Last I checked, the U.S. Senate was a separate branch of 
government with its own responsibilities. Yet we have the Republican 
leader, who runs the U.S. Senate from the floor, telling people to go 
home and be on standby because he wants the President of the United 
States, the Trump administration, to negotiate an agreement and then 
come back to us. In other words, the Republican leader wants to 
contract out his responsibilities and the responsibilities of the U.S. 
Senate to the executive branch.
  If you look at the U.S. Constitution, there are three separate 
branches of government. Yet the Republican leader has decided to give 
his proxy to the President of the United States, to the executive 
branch, rather than stay here in the U.S. Senate and do our work.
  Now, why is that? Why is it that the majority leader has decided to 
contract out his responsibilities and those of the Senate to the 
executive branch of government? Well, we don't have to guess because 
Mr. McConnell has told us. He told PBS NewsHour: ``About 20 of my 
Members think that we have already done enough.'' Let me read that 
again. This is from the Republican leader: ``About 20 of my Members 
think that we have already done enough.''
  He is obviously referring to Republican Members of the Senate caucus. 
These are Members of the Senate Republican caucus. They think all is 
well; we have done enough; we don't need to do any more to expand 
access to testing, don't need to expand access to personal protective 
equipment, don't need to do anything to help our schools. We have done 
enough. We don't need to do anything more on unemployment insurance, 
where the additional $600 a week has expired.
  Senator McConnell said that 20 of his Members thought they have 
already done enough. The eviction moratorium is coming to an end, both 
nationally and in many States, but 20

[[Page S5363]]

Members of the Senate Republican caucus, their leader says they have 
done enough.
  Here is what Senator Lindsey Graham said on FOX: ``I think, if Mitch 
can get one-half of the conference, that would be quite an 
accomplishment''--referring to the Republican conference. So Senator 
Graham of South Carolina is saying that if Mitch McConnell--if Mr. 
McConnell, the Republican leader, can get half the Members of the 
Republican Senate caucus to do anything, that would be quite an 
accomplishment.
  I want all of us to think about what that means. What it means is 
that many of our colleagues are happy to have packed up and gone home 
and that we are not doing anything because they don't think we need to 
be doing anything. That is really why we are not here.
  That is also why you saw the Trump administration emissaries, 
Secretary Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, walk away from the 
negotiating table. They understood that, if they reached what was truly 
a compromise, a principal compromise, Senator Graham said that half the 
Republican caucus would oppose it because they would oppose anything.
  So that is why you had the Trump administration walk away from the 
negotiating table and refuse to come to a sensible agreement. What did 
we get instead? Because they walked away from an agreement, we had the 
President of the United States throw together a press conference at his 
golf club in New Jersey. He put the American flags up at his golf club, 
put out a podium with the Presidential seal, invited club members to 
witness the signing of an Executive order and some memos.
  Here is the really sad truth about the matter: It was mostly show 
rather than real substance. It was something that we would come to 
expect from somebody who is really good at reality TV but somebody who 
did not understand the painful realities being experienced by Americans 
throughout this country during this health pandemic and the economic 
pandemic. I say that because, if you begin to look at what the 
President actually signed, it is both inadequate and also unworkable in 
almost all its parts.
  Let's put aside for now the question of whether or not the President 
had the legal authority to do what he did because, clearly, in some 
parts of his Executive order and his memos, he does not have the 
constitutional authority to do that. We have heard that from some of 
the Senate Republican Members already. But let's set that aside and 
just see whether it will actually deliver meaningful relief to 
Americans or whether it is more like the degree that was given to folks 
who attended so-called Trump University, which turned out to be a fraud 
and is now shuttered. Let's take a look at what the President did.
  First, with respect to extending the $600 a week of unemployment 
insurance benefits--and let's remember the starting point for this is 
that neither the President of the United States, Donald Trump, nor the 
Republican Senate want to extend the $600-a-week unemployment 
compensation. They say it is too much for Americans who are out of 
work, through no fault of their own, because of this pandemic and even 
though there are poor people looking for work right now in America for 
every job that is available. I hear from constituents every day--I read 
some of their stories last Thursday on the floor of the Senate--people 
who badly want to get back to work, but their former job is gone, and 
there is no new job to replace it, and they need that additional $600 a 
week to make ends meet.
  In fact, I want to read to the Senate some additional letters I 
received from constituents on this point: Please act to extend the 
$600-a-week unemployment enhancement. I am requesting it both in my 
name and on behalf of my wife. We both lost our jobs. And the 
additional $600 is significantly helping keep us afloat and purchase 
the needs of life. My job was supposed to restart in late June, but the 
owner has pushed it back to November, December, to be determined. My 
wife was put on furlough and told the company hoped to bring everybody 
back but has heard nothing yet. Without the additional $600, a time 
will come in the next few months when we will be unable to pay our 
bills.
  Here is a note I received from another constituent: Respectfully, 
Senator Chris Van Hollen, I would like to write to you about the $600 
unemployment. I understand that the other party is fighting you all the 
way. This is painful because I am a diabetic, and, at this point, 
because that benefit was taken away, I have to choose between paying my 
bills or my insulin. I applied sometime in June, since I was thinking I 
would be back to work. Gone are my savings to pay rent, car loan, 
insurance, and other bills. From this week on, because of losing the 
$600, I will have to stop paying bills so I can pay for my insulin. I 
never thought that I would be in a situation like this in America, 
where if you work hard, pay your taxes--to be able to have a roof over 
your head, health insurance, and human dignity.
  I, like I am sure many of my colleagues, have received hundreds--
hundreds of notes like that from our constituents, people who will not 
be able to make ends meet without the additional $600 a week, but the 
President doesn't want to continue that, nor do Senate Republicans.
  And so what did the President say up in New Jersey? He came up with 
this plan that, unfortunately, will not deliver. Essentially, what he 
said was: Take the funds that were provided in the CARES Act to the 
States--the U.S. Congress provided about $150 billion to States to help 
during the early stages of this pandemic, both to help purchase things 
like PPE and also to address the economic fallout.
  I should remind my colleagues that Senator McConnell was dead against 
that, even in the earlier version. If you go back and look at the 
debate in the Record, you will find that he was dead set against 
providing any funds to State and local governments. That was the result 
of a compromise that he succeeded in pushing in those negotiations. But 
in these most recent negotiations--these most recent negotiations--both 
the White House and, again, Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans 
took the position of no funds for State and local governments.
  I remember a few months back when asked, the Republican leader, 
Senator McConnell, said: Let them go bankrupt. Let them go bankrupt. 
Well, there is a productive solution. He may have walked those comments 
back a little bit, but he did not walk back his opposition to any funds 
for State and local governments.
  What did the President say in New Jersey the other day? OK, States, 
take the earlier emergency funds that Congress provided and use those 
as a 25-percent match to the 300 Federal dollars so we can provide $400 
per week in additional employment insurance.
  Here is the problem with that. We provided that $150 billion 
emergency assistance to the States because of the emergencies they were 
facing then and continue to face because they are facing both increased 
costs with respect to helping frontline healthcare providers and 
hospitals and providing them with personal protective equipment
  The Federal Government has been pretty much AWOL when it comes to 
testing. The President said to the States, you-all set up testing 
regimes. And so they are using some of those funds we provided for 
that. They are using those funds to try to open schools safely or help 
provide distance learning when schools can't be open safely.
  Many of the States--especially those hardest hit--have already 
allocated the great majority, if not all, of those funds. And now the 
President is saying: Oh, well, use those funds that we provided to you 
earlier for this other purpose.
  No. 1, those States and other areas have already allocated most of 
those funds. I noticed that if you look at the Treasury tables, the 
data they released, it was for the end of June, and that money was 
already spent--not today. The money was already allocated.
  So, first of all, for many States, that money is already spoken for, 
but let's say in some cases there is some money left over. What is the 
President of the United States saying? He is saying he wants to take 
from one American to give to another one. The President wants to pit 
these needs against one

[[Page S5364]]

another. He wants to rob constituent Peter to pay constituent Paul. 
Those moneys went to the States. Those moneys went to States to pay for 
real needs.
  OK, Governor; OK, State legislature, you are going to have to fire 
that emergency responder who will now both be out of a job and unable 
to provide emergency assistance so that you can give a $100 match to 
help somebody who has lost their job a little bit more. That is what 
the President is saying to those States that do have something 
leftover. We don't even know how much that is.
  If you think about it, that is not how a country should be responding 
in the middle of a pandemic. Governors, you have to hurt that person to 
help that one. That is what the plan of the President of the United 
States says, and that is when it is working the way he wants it. That 
is if it works as advertised.
  From the President's perspective, best case scenario, when this plan 
is working, he is asking Governors to take from one set of constituents 
of Americans who are hurting badly, could lose a job--they need the 
PPE; they need testing; they need to open the schools, but take it from 
over there, and put it over here. That is what the President is saying.
  That is assuming it works at all, whether that money is available and 
whether there is a way you can actually do all of this through what is 
a pretty cumbersome administrative process.
  I don't know if any of my colleagues saw the Sunday shows in realtime 
or reruns or read about them, but here is what Larry Kudlow was asked 
on the CNN ``Morning Show'' by Dana Bash, simple question: Have you 
checked with the States? How many of the 50 States and DC and other 
territories say that they are going to be able to pony up $100 a week 
per unemployed citizen?
  Larry Kudlow: Good question. Good question. We will probably find 
that out today or tomorrow as we make our canvas.
  If there wasn't another sign that what happened in New Jersey was a 
total show, this tells it all. They laid out a plan asking States that 
have run out of money, but if they have some money, to rob Peter to pay 
Paul, but they didn't even ask the States if it was doable. They didn't 
even ask the States if it was doable. That is a reflection of this 
entire plan.
  Let's look at what the President said about the second piece--payroll 
tax deferral. A lot of Americans might have heard that and thought: I 
am an employee. I am working, and now the portion of my check that is 
withheld for payroll taxes--like Social Security--I am not going to 
have to pay that anymore, and that will be money in my pocket.
  That is not what it did. What it did was say to these people who are 
working--by the way, as we all know, deducting payroll taxes from 
paychecks doesn't help the 30 million who don't have a job. They are 
not getting a paycheck. They have nothing to deduct something from. 
People who are working and thought this was going to be extra money 
that they can pocket forever, that is not the case.
  What the President was saying is that we will withhold those payroll 
taxes from your paychecks through the end of the year, but it is going 
to come due and owing.
  These are people who are working. These are people who have their 
jobs. Maybe they want to defer that for a little while or not, but at 
the end of the day, they are going to have to pay it back to Uncle Sam.
  Here is the other problem. Employers are the ones who are legally 
responsible for the delivery of those payroll taxes, not just for the 
employer but for the employee as well. They are going to have to take 
the risk that if one of their employees doesn't want their Social 
Security taxes paid--in other words, they want them withheld--
ultimately, they will be paid back. But what we are hearing from lots 
of employers is they can't guarantee that. First of all, what if that 
employee leaves? How am I going to repay that portion of the payroll 
taxes?
  Here is another example of something that may have sounded good to 
some people when they heard it, but it really is a shell game in the 
first instance and, in many ways, a sham.
  By the way, whether it is a deferral or if it is ultimately 
forgiven--that would require an act of Congress--then, the Social 
Security system takes a hit. Then the Social Security system takes a 
hit unless you refund it, but that is not in the President's plan. The 
President's memo doesn't talk about refunding it if, in fact, it were 
ever forgiven, which he can't do either.

  Let's look at the eviction moratorium. That is a real mirage. I urge 
my colleagues just to read the Executive order. The Executive order 
tells Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control to 
``consider'' whether an extended eviction moratorium is reasonably 
necessary to protect the public health. He is asking two Federal 
agencies to consider a question he posed to them.
  I imagine a lot of people who may have watched the President with the 
American flags up in his country club thought: Wow, the President just 
said that no one can get evicted.
  That is not what he said at all. It was a sham. He said HHS and CDC 
should ``consider'' whether an extended eviction moratorium is 
reasonably necessary to protect the public health. Then he asked HUD 
and Treasury to look around in their bank accounts to see if they have 
money to help people who might be evicted.
  Do you know the way to help people who may be evicted? First of all, 
don't let them be evicted in the first place, and help them and the 
landlords by passing the rental assistance provision that is in the 
Heroes Act that passed the House.
  Whether you look at the unemployment insurance provision or the 
payroll tax provision or the so-called eviction moratorium provision, 
this really is show and not substance. I am only talking about what the 
President put into the plan, not everything that got left out--
everything that got left out that is in the Heroes Act: helping people 
go back to schools safely; helping to expand realtime testing so that 
we can open our economy and schools safely; food assistance for those 
who are struggling; rental assistance; money for State and local 
government, whose needs have only risen dramatically since the last 
down payment that Congress passed in the CARES Act.
  Now the President is saying that we want you to go poach that fund 
and hurt people by taking things away from them in order to help other 
Americans. Those are some of the things that were totally left out of 
here.
  I have often heard, when talking about State and local governments, 
that the President tweets all the time that this is just a question of 
blue States wanting to be bailed out for bad economic decisions or bad 
budget problems they had and that red States are just doing great. 
Anybody who looks at the State financial affairs knows that is not 
true. Take a look at my State of Maryland. Most people would consider 
us a blue State. We have the AAA bond rating. The last I checked, the 
State of Kentucky was a single A bond rating. This isn't a question of 
whether we want to help States that somehow had difficult financial 
situations before the coronavirus hit. The reality is that right now 
this is not a red State or blue State issue. This is an American issue. 
We all know that the virus has spread throughout the country. Nobody 
can totally escape it. It doesn't matter whether you are a red State or 
a blue State. This is a red, white, and blue moment, and we need to 
treat it as a national effort, not a State by State effort but one also 
where the Federal Government plays a very important role and is not 
AWOL in the middle of a pandemic, and not playing politics in the 
middle of a pandemic. Listen to the healthcare experts about whether or 
not to wear a mask instead of making that a political statement that 
puts people at greater risk who follow the President's political advice 
rather than the healthcare advice of the healthcare experts.
  I hope we will get back to the negotiating table. But to do that, the 
President has to be serious about reaching a conclusion, and he is 
going to need help from the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, and 
from that more than half of the Senate Republican conference that both 
Senator McConnell and Senator Graham say do not want to do anything at 
all. Let me clarify that. The Republican leader said 20 Members don't 
want to do anything at

[[Page S5365]]

all, and it was Senator Graham who said about half. If that is the 
case, our country is in even bigger trouble than we might have thought 
because there is a failure to recognize the immediacy of the need and 
the depth of the problem that we face. Let's get back to the 
negotiating table.
  I remember some of the President's top priorities when he first 
presented his plan. He wanted that tax break for three-martini lunches 
for business executives--no food assistance for needy families but yes 
to tax breaks for three-martini lunches. That is what the President 
said. I think we were all surprised to see he wanted $1.6 billion or 
$1.7 billion to build a new FBI headquarters at its current site, 
rather than follow through with the original plan, which was to move 
that headquarters to a suburban campus for security needs and to 
consolidate. But I guess if you rebuild it at its current site, there 
really is no risk that someone will buy that land and end up building a 
hotel that competes with the nearby Trump hotel. That was part of the 
President's set of priorities in the middle of an emergency. American 
people need to understand that.
  Let's get back to the negotiating table. What the President did was 
show and not substance. We need to work together in order to do 
something meaningful. Don't walk away. Come on back and let's work.
  And, finally, when I say come on back--again, I will end where I 
started. It is awfully quiet around here. We are in the middle of a 
pandemic. The virus hasn't taken a vacation. The virus hasn't taken any 
time off. The economic harm isn't taking a vacation or any time off. 
Yet here we are in the Senate, all quiet. Talks break down with the 
administration. We are a separate branch of government under the 
Constitution of the United States. Let's get back here and do our job 
for the American people.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________