[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 145 (Thursday, August 13, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5403-S5404]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Senate was supposed to spend this 
week finalizing another bipartisan rescue package for the American 
people. Millions of laid-off workers needed more Federal assistance to 
weather the storm. Small businesses needed more support to make 
payroll. Schools and families need more funding, tools, and certainty 
with reopening dates fast approaching. Doctors, nurses, and healthcare 
workers need more backup as they hold the line against this disease. We 
all need more gas for the race toward more testing, better treatments, 
and the vaccine that will finish this fight. So last week I canceled 
the first week of our August State work period in the hope that the 
Speaker of the House and the Democratic leader would put aside their 
ideological demands with no relation to this pandemic and finally let 
Congress legislate.

  Unfortunately, the Democrats have continued to let working families 
down. They are still rejecting any more relief for anyone unless they 
get a flood of demands with no relationship to COVID-19.
  It has been more than 2 weeks since Senate Republicans put out a 
trillion-dollar plan to help America reopen, recover, and stay on 
offense against this virus. Republicans did the same thing that worked 
back in March. We set up the same process that built the unanimous 
CARES Act in a matter of days. We laid out a strong marker built by our 
chairmen and our committees, fitted to real, fact-based needs of our 
Nation and then invited the Democrats to negotiate.
  We want another round of direct cash payments for American families. 
We want to send $105 billion to help schools and universities safely 
reopen and billions more to help working parents with childcare. We 
want to create new incentives for retaining and rehiring America's 
workers and for businesses to improve workplace safety. We want to 
create the smart legal protections that small businesses and university 
presidents are pleading for, so they can reopen safely for students and 
workers without paying a ransom to the trial lawyers.
  These are the strong policies we proposed because these are the 
policies our

[[Page S5404]]

Nation actually needs. We want to take second runs at the best and most 
successful parts of the bipartisan CARES Act while adding in bold new 
steps for this new phase of our Nation's battle.
  But as I said right from the outset, Republicans had no illusion that 
our initial marker would become law. That isn't how divided government 
operates. There was never any question that bipartisan compromise would 
be needed to get an outcome. So I expected that, just like in March, 
the Democratic ranking members would sit down with our chairmen, bring 
some of their own serious ideas to the table, and work together to 
build a bipartisan bill. That is what happened back then. But, instead, 
the country got something else entirely.
  Instead of working with our serious framework, the Speaker of the 
House and the Senate Democratic leader spent weeks insisting on a 
completely--completely--unrealistic, far-left proposal that even their 
own Democratic Members mocked as a go-nowhere messaging stunt the 
instant it was first released.
  Instead of letting their committees and their Members discuss 
substantive issues across the aisle, they said nobody could negotiate 
but them. And instead of staying focused on the real needs of our 
Nation, these two Democratic leaders have held the talks hostage for 
weeks now--weeks--over nonCOVID-related ideological items, which the 
political left has wanted since well before this virus hit our shores.
  You know what I am talking about. By now, the whole country knows 
what I am talking about: the absurd issues the Democrats have turned 
into sticking points; the bizarre, parochial leftwing favors that 
Democrats have put ahead of the help that working families need right 
now, like the massive tax cuts for the highest earners in the bluest 
States--an idea that even supposedly progressive economists have said 
is ``not a good idea''; the trillion-dollar slush fund for State and 
local governments that have only spent 25 percent--25 percent--of the 
billions that we sent them back in March, totally out of proportion to 
any estimate of urgent pandemic shortfalls; the socialist insistence on 
the Federal Government paying people more not to work--not to work--
than essential workers earn when they are on the job.
  Go to any kitchen table in America, outside of a few skyscraper 
penthouses, and put these bizarre demands up against the trillion 
dollars of real, practical relief that Republicans wanted to get out 
the door weeks ago. No family in Middle America is saying: Thank 
goodness. Thank goodness the Democrats are blocking cash payments to 
me, money for my kids' schools, and money for vaccines until Manhattan 
millionaires get a tax cut.
  No working people are saying: Thank goodness the Democrats are 
blocking the next small business rescue plan, money for testing, and 
rehiring incentives until Malibu, CA, gets Federal money to keep buying 
more electric cars, which they wrote to the Congress demanding.
  Families aren't saying this. Outside of Speaker Pelosi and Leader 
Schumer, even Washington Democrats aren't saying this.
  While the press tries its hardest to praise Speaker Pelosi for 
``playing hardball,'' her own House Democrats are rebelling. They say 
they are ``frustrated'' and ``angry'' that relief is being held up over 
what they themselves acknowledge is a ``political wish list.''
  ``[T]he HEROES Act went too far,'' is another quote.
  These are Democrats talking about the Heroes Act.
  Even the Speaker's own members are not buying their political spin. 
They want what Republicans want, what the administration wants, what 
America's families everywhere want. We need to get an outcome.
  The Secretary of the Treasury and the White House chief of staff have 
given ground. They have put new issues on the table that Democrats 
wanted. They have worked to find commonality. But the Democrats are 
barely even pretending to negotiate--barely even pretending. The 
Speaker's latest spin is that it is some heroic sacrifice to lower her 
demands from a made-up $3.5 trillion marker that was never going to 
become law to an equally made-up $2.5 trillion marker. She calls this 
meeting in the middle.
  That is not negotiating; that is throwing spaghetti at the wall to 
see what sticks. People who have serious policy proposals that are 
fitted to actual needs cannot breezily knock off a trillion here and 
add a trillion there.
  Heck, by the Speaker's logic, they should have just opened with their 
entire $93 trillion Green New Deal. Then they could have blamed the 
President for not meeting them halfway at the cut-rate bargain sum of 
$45 trillion.
  Come on. In point of fact, the Speaker and the leader have not 
conceded anything at all. They haven't budged on their absurd demands. 
They just moved the expiration date a few weeks on the exact same crazy 
wish list, so the pricetag comes down without moving an inch on the 
merits.
  They have refused Republicans' offer to pass everything that we can 
agree on. The administration has said: Let's pass things we can agree 
on right now.
  The Republicans don't think that a disputed issue should hold up the 
most urgent aid for working families, but the answer so far from the 
Democratic leadership is no. The partisan games continue, so the 
Nation's pain continues as well.
  Laid-off workers and kids and parents and doctors and nurses are 
waiting for help. Our people are waiting for help. Republicans have 
been at the table for weeks. We just need seriousness on the other 
side. American families' livelihoods are at stake. American lives are 
at stake. Democrats must rerun their political calculations and 
finally--finally--let Congress act

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