[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 143 (Tuesday, August 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5385-S5386]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, there has been a lot of focus lately on 
the drama here in Washington. For weeks now, as leading Democrats 
blocked more pandemic relief over unrelated liberal demands, the press 
has covered their stonewalling like any ordinary political standoff. 
Who talked to whom? Who said what in which meeting? What new metaphor 
did Speaker Pelosi use today to explain that she was blocking progress? 
But it does the Nation a disservice to act like the last several weeks 
were just another routine political standoff. It does struggling 
families and laid-off workers and stressed-out school principals and 
healthcare professionals a disservice to act like this has just been 
more Washington gridlock.
  The New York Times proclaimed a few days ago that ``[Speaker] Pelosi 
is playing hardball on coronavirus relief.'' Well, that is one way to 
put it. You could say it is ``playing hardball'' to refuse any outcome 
for the country. You could say it is ``playing hardball'' to insist on 
non-COVID-related liberal policy changes that the Speaker and the 
Democratic leader know would never pass the Senate or be signed into 
law by the President.
  But if Democrats are ``playing hardball,'' their opponents aren't us 
Republicans--not really.
  They are playing hardball against kids, workers, and vulnerable 
Americans who need help.
  They are playing hardball against our medical system when the Speaker 
and the Democratic leader say they won't allow another dime for 
testing, treatments, or vaccines unless they can bring home a massive 
tax cut for millionaires in San Francisco and New York City.
  They are playing hardball against our Nation's ability to detect and 
fight the virus.
  They are playing hardball against science when the Speaker and the 
Democratic leader say they will not allow another cent for schools to 
reopen or for the job-saving PPP unless they get $1 trillion for a 
State and local slush fund that is completely out of proportion to 
actual needs.
  They are playing hardball against children and parents when the 
Speaker and the Democratic leader say they will not allow any 
resolution on any issue unless Democrats can pay people more not to 
work.
  They are playing hardball against millions of households that ought 
to get another stimulus check and against the ability of jobless people 
to get any Federal benefit whatsoever.
  There are life-and-death matters at stake, but Democrats have treated 
this historic national crisis as a political game. Just look at the 
redlines the Democratic leaders have drawn around these negotiations. 
Imagine sitting down with a working family at their kitchen table and 
explaining that these are the kinds of issues over which the Speaker 
and the Democratic leader are refusing--refusing--to let them have 
relief.
  First, as I mentioned, the Democratic leader has made clear he 
doesn't want any pandemic relief to become law unless--unless--it 
carries a special State and local tax carve-out for high earners in 
places like New York.
  Just imagine these Democratic leaders from New York and San Francisco 
going anywhere in the middle of the country and telling a working 
family of four, earning $40,000 a year, that they aren't getting a 
relief check that could increase their income by 10 percent until 
millionaires in Manhattan get a tax cut.
  Economists on all sides have panned this. A huge, costly tax cut for 
wealthy people in blue States is not the life raft that struggling 
people need. Even liberal economists have jumped ship. Here is what one 
self-identified progressive told reporters: ``This is not a good idea. 
. . . It would not help the economy heal and it would not benefit the 
people who need help.'' These are the economists on their side? But 
forget about the experts. Forget about laid-off people. Forget about 
Middle America. The Speaker and the Democratic leader want to cut off 
funding for our war with the coronavirus unless they get this special 
carve-out.

[[Page S5386]]

  Here is another one of those dead-on-arrival demands: Democrats 
insist that working families, small businesses, and healthcare 
providers will not get any more help unless a new trillion-dollar slush 
fund for poorly managed States tags along. Bear in mind that States and 
localities have only spent about a fourth--a fourth--of the money we 
already sent them last spring.
  Even Senate Democrats seem to acknowledge this, for example, by 
sponsoring legislation that would extend the deadline for the States to 
spend down their CARES Act aid. The States need extra time to spend 
what we have already sent them, and the serious estimates of the COVID 
shortfall that State and local governments may face are a fraction--a 
fraction--of the Democrats' trillion-dollar demand. Their demands 
aren't based on math. They aren't based on the pandemic. They want a 
massive slush fund to make up for decades of mismanagement.
  It is just how the Speaker explained her view of the crisis. This is 
what she said:

       This is an opportunity. Every crisis is.

  That same opportunism leads them to another absurd demand. Democrats 
say nobody should get any more help unless--unless--the Federal 
Government sends out jobless benefits that pay more than what people 
made working. Republicans support extending a Federal supplement for 
unemployment--make no mistake about that--but we share the view of 
Democrats like the House Democratic majority, the senior Senator from 
Maryland, the Democratic Governor of Connecticut, all of whom indicated 
it should be doable to land somewhere smarter than a flat $600.
  This is not complicated. Both sides want to help unemployed people. 
Republicans never wanted the Federal benefit to lapse to zero and tried 
to extend the money. But as our economy tries to reopen, there is no 
reason Uncle Sam should take taxes out of essential workers' paychecks 
to pay other people more to stay home.
  This is just a flavor of the Democratic demands. The two parties 
should have been able to agree on a huge sweep of subjects--from 
testing to school money, legal protection to direct payments and more. 
Republicans wanted to reach an agreement everywhere we could and then 
continue to fight over the contested questions later. Democrats said no 
because they know their unrelated wish-list items would have no 
prayer--no prayer--of standing on their own merit.
  Only these hostage tactics could possibly get their bad ideas across 
the finish line. So struggling people have waited and waited and gotten 
nothing. That has been the Democrats' decision. Reporters can call it 
``hardball,'' like this was some ordinary standstill, but families are 
suffering. Americans are dying. This is not a Washington game; it is a 
national crisis. It would serve the Nation better if the Democratic 
leaders would act like it is a crisis

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