[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 143 (Tuesday, August 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5386-S5387]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Now, Mr. President, America is living through a crisis 
that exceeds anything we have seen in generations. Other countries were 
able to test their populations, isolate cases, and contain the spread 
of the disease, but here the failure of the Trump administration to 
develop or implement a national strategy to defeat COVID on the health 
front and economically has meant that the disease has raged through our 
country for 7 months, is still spreading, and the economy is in very 
bad shape.
  We have over 5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. It just took 17 
days to go from 4 million Americans with COVID to 5 million. 
Unemployment is higher than it ever was during the great recession. 
More than 150,000 Americans have died. Small businesses every day are 
closing, and those that are still open are struggling. Families can't 
afford to feed their children. Americans can't pay the rent and will be 
thrown out of their homes. Millions are out of work, and many more 
worry that they will be out of work in the month or two to come. This 
is a huge crisis.
  In this time of national emergency, Democrats believe we must focus 
on the health and economic security of the American people. If we don't 
address the health crisis, nothing else will matter, but we have to 
focus on economic security as well.
  We have to keep Americans in their homes, put food on the table, 
prevent them from slipping into further hardship and poverty. That is 
what animated Democrats to develop a $3.4 trillion plan to finally 
crush the virus and rescue American families. It was based on the needs 
of our country, both health and economic, the needs of our schools and 
businesses and workers and our healthcare system. We Democrats tell 
America, We have your back. Unfortunately, our Republican friends do 
not.
  In our negotiations with the White House, Chief of Staff Meadows and 
Secretary Mnuchin were unable to go above $1 trillion, and their $1 
trillion was far short of the country's needs. Democrats offered to 
come down by $1 trillion. We asked our counterparts--Secretary Mnuchin, 
Mr. Meadows--to come up by $1 trillion, meet us in the middle. They 
said no.
  So last Friday, after our negotiating session with the White House, I 
made it clear that the reasons our talks had stalled was that the White 
House had basically declared ``my way or the highway.'' They were 
unwilling to meet us in the middle. They said that in the room. I guess 
imitation is the sincerest form of flattery because now Leader 
McConnell is blaming Democrats for the breakdown in negotiations, using 
the exact same language. He said Democrats are the ones saying ``my way 
or the highway.'' Seriously, that is what the Republican leader, who 
wasn't even in the room and will not dare go in the room, claims.
  Let's go over the facts--the facts. We said to the White House: We 
are willing to come down by $1 trillion. Will you come up by $1 
trillion and meet us in the middle? The White House said: No, we are 
not budging. So to whom does this logic apply? Who is intransigent? Who 
is really saying ``my way or the highway?'' The answer is obvious. This 
is not a ``both sides to blame'' situation.
  Democrats are willing to compromise. Republicans are being 
intransigent and will not move from their position, which is totally 
inadequate for the needs of America during the greatest economic crisis 
we have had in 75 years and the greatest health crisis in 100. That is 
where we are: Democrats willing to move and meet in the middle, 
Republicans intransigent. Republicans declared ``my way or the 
highway,'' and rather than defend their position, they falsely accuse 
Democrats of doing the same.
  Now, rather than trying to break the logjam, as a true Presidential 
leader should, President Trump sits on the sidelines and just issued a 
bunch of weak and unworkable Executive orders. He slashed the enhanced 
unemployment benefits, asked the Americans who are out of work, through 
no fault of their own, to take a pay cut. He deferred the payroll tax, 
which even Republicans admit will do nothing to help our workers and 
the economy and would undermine Social Security and Medicare to boot. 
And the President's Executive order on evictions is more like an 
Executive suggestion. It doesn't

[[Page S5387]]

even guarantee a moratorium on evictions. It merely instructs Federal 
agencies to ``review'' or ``consider'' one and does nothing to help 
renters actually afford the rent.
  Here in Congress, the Senate Republican majority delayed for 4 long 
months, failed to come up with a proposal that had the support of their 
own caucus, and then gave up and left it for someone else to figure it 
out. That is why McConnell is not in the room. Facing the greatest 
domestic crisis in the 21st century, where Americans are hurting 
healthwise and economically, the Senate Republican majority ran down 
the clock, tossed up an air ball, and then subbed themselves out of the 
game.
  Even now, as Leader McConnell claims that Democrats are blocking 
relief, there are 20 Members of the Republican caucus, according to 
their own leader, who will not vote for anything--no more relief. A 
group of Republican Senators came to the floor last week to warn 
America about the national debt, not the health crisis, not the 
economic crisis, not the looming housing crisis but the national debt. 
It is something that concerned those same Members very little when 
adding nearly $2 trillion to the debt in order to give big corporations 
a giant tax cut in 2017.
  Listen to this one: The Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Johnson, said 
yesterday:

       From my standpoint, the breakdown in talks is very good 
     news. I hope the talks remain broke down.

  Let me repeat that. Senator Johnson said:

       From my standpoint--

  Reflecting the views of many Republican Senators--

     the breakdown in talks is very good news. I hope the talks 
     remain broke down.

  Why did he say that? Because he doesn't want to spend one more 
nickel. Despite the huge health crisis, the huge economic crisis, 
people losing their jobs, small businesses closing, we shouldn't spend 
a nickel. This is not both sides. This is one side only.
  When President Trump called COVID-19 a hoax and told the country to 
go take bleach and other quack medicines, some of my friends here made 
disappointed noises. But when the President said the virus would just 
disappear, it seems the Republican Senate bought it.
  After we came together to pass the CARES Act, Republican Senators 
pushed all their chips to the middle to bet with President Trump that 
the virus was going to miraculously disappear. The Republican leader 
said: I am going to put the Senate on ``pause'' and see what happens. 
Last week, he actually defended that position, saying that his delay 
``allowed us to learn the coronavirus didn't mysteriously disappear.'' 
Millions more people out of work, hundreds of thousands of small 
businesses closing, many more people getting COVID and some more people 
dying, and, now, after all that, the Republican leader says his delay 
``allowed us to learn the coronavirus didn't mysteriously disappear.''
  So while President Trump and his aides have certainly been an 
impediment--an awful impediment to an agreement, the Republican Senate 
is equally culpable, and the American people know it. They know that 
Democrats have their back, healthwise and economically. Republicans, so 
many of them, are saying: Don't do a thing. Don't do a thing. They are 
glad the negotiations have broken down. We are not

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