[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 156 (Thursday, September 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5534-S5538]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, thank you. I am on the floor today to 
talk about the coronavirus pandemic and what we can and should do here 
in the U.S. Senate and in Congress as a whole to actually address the 
ongoing problem.
  We are not out of the woods yet. We still have a healthcare crisis 
and, of course, an economic crisis that is a consequence of that.
  We have done some good bipartisan work over the past 6 months. In 
fact, not many people realize that we have actually passed five or six 
bills with strong bipartisan majorities. The one people know about most 
is the biggest one, the CARES Act. I think it got 97 votes here on the 
floor of the Senate--97 to nothing.
  We have in the past been able to figure out a way to come together as 
Republicans and Democrats and as Americans to be able to address this 
crisis. We need to do it again because we still do have a crisis. We 
still do have unacceptably high levels of people getting infected, 
hospitalized, being in the ICU, fatalities, and, of course, our economy 
is not where any of us would like to see it although it has improved 
significantly, in part because of the legislation we passed here.
  I am convinced that we would be at over 10 percent unemployment still 
if not for the legislation we passed here. Instead, we are beginning to 
come down--8.4 percent last month. That is faster than anybody thought 
it could. Still, of course, it is unacceptably high.
  So more help is needed, and we can't let the upcoming election and 
the politics around that keep us from getting together and continuing 
to do the work that we have to do. We haven't been able, in the last 5 
or 6 weeks, to do that. Instead, we have been working kind of on 
opposite sides of the aisle on our own projects.
  Today we voted on a bill that had a majority of the U.S. Senators 
supporting it. That is not how you pass something around here; there 
has to be a supermajority--60 votes. But a majority of the Senators in 
this Chamber just voted for legislation that has strong bipartisan 
appeal I would think because, as we will talk about in a second, almost 
every element is supported by the Democrats, Republicans, and, most 
importantly, by the American people.
  What we have done is we have kind of fallen into camps. So the 
Democrats passed a bill in the House called the Heroes Act. It is a 
$3.5 trillion bill. Remember, we have already spent about $3.5 
trillion, making this the largest deficit in the history of our country 
and making our debt now, for the first time since World War II, the 
size of our entire economy. That concerns all of us, and it should. I 
hope it concerns all of us because our fiscal situation going forward 
for our kids and grandkids is something we should be concerned about 
too.
  Anyway, the $3.5 trillion bill is a grab bag, to be honest. Some of 
it is related to COVID-19, but some of it is not. As an example, there 
is a provision in there that I hope would be a nonstarter that changes 
our tax laws and repeals the State and local tax deduction cap that was 
put in place just recently. This gives a huge break to wealthy 
Americans. In fact, 40 percent of this benefit, according to the Joint 
Committee on Taxation, goes to the top 1 percent of wage earners. What 
does that have to do with the coronavirus? It will help millionaires

[[Page S5535]]

on both coasts a lot, but it really does not affect the crisis that we 
are in.

  They also want to use this $3.5 trillion package as a way to make 
changes in our immigration policy. Now, that is pretty controversial 
stuff as it stands, and that is going to make, of course, that bill 
hard to pass because of the immigration policy. People have strong 
views on it. It has no place in a COVID-19 bill.
  One that also concerns those of us who are concerned about the 
election coming up is it puts Federal mandates in place on the States 
that are unprecedented with regard to their election system. Now, that 
is something we have always left to the province of the States, but, 
instead, it puts mandates in place on the electoral system. That is 
not, again, something that is going to help us in terms of the 
coronavirus.
  So my hope is that those House Democrats who passed that bill can now 
see what we passed over here. This is a targeted bill that focuses on 
the coronavirus. It is less than $500 billion, which used to be a lot 
of money around here, but as compared to the $3.5 trillion. So it is 
obviously a lot less money, but it is also more targeted and more 
focused.
  Again, I think so much of it is policy that can be supported by both 
sides of the aisle. It will really help to continue the efforts we 
started here to help address the healthcare crisis but also help with 
regard to the weak economic performance as a result of people being 
isolated from the economy.
  I heard someone this week say we have a K-shaped recovery. What does 
that mean? Well, think of the letter ``K.'' A lot of people say you 
want to have a V-shaped recovery, where you go down steeply through a 
recession and you come back up just as steeply. That is where I think a 
lot of America is. In other words, a lot of families and a lot of 
businesses have seen a pretty rapid recovery here in the past few 
months, but there are others who have not.
  So the top part of the K is true for a lot of people and a lot of 
businesses--think of the businesses that provide food, the grocery 
stores; the businesses that are involved in construction, businesses 
like Home Depot or Lowe's that provide building products. They are 
doing well. They are at the top of the K. They are in the V.
  But there are others that are in the bottom. That would include 
travel and hospitality. It would certainly include the airlines and bus 
companies. They are having a tough time. Many of our smaller retail 
businesses--certainly our bars, movie theaters, and bowling alleys--
they are having a tough time. So there is a bottom end to that.
  This is an uneven recovery, and we have to acknowledge that. 
Therefore, to my colleagues on my side of the aisle who might say, you 
know, we have done enough; the recovery is on; everything is good, 
unfortunately, that is not true. I wish it were. I wish we had turned 
the corner on the economy and also begun to turn the corner on the 
virus. We can't say that yet. We have made progress. No question about 
it. I think we are on the right track, but we are in a K-shaped 
recovery, I believe.
  By the way, it is the same thing with individuals. Think about it. If 
you own your own home, the value of your home has probably gone up. You 
are probably in pretty good shape, particularly if you are trying to 
sell your home right now. It is a good time to sell, I guess. If you 
invest it in the stock market, which a lot of the people who own their 
homes are, it has been darn good. The market increase has been 
substantial. I was on a program this morning where they were talking 
about how the Nasdaq was back up again, and the tech stocks, if you are 
in the tech world, are doing great.
  But let's say you don't own your own home. Let's say you are a 
renter. Your rent is likely to start going up if it hasn't already, and 
then, you are not invested in the markets, so you are not taking 
advantage of that, and yet your job is at risk and may be gone. So, 
again, K-shaped isn't it. Some people are doing quite well, and others 
are still having a rough time and need help to be able to deal with the 
issue of the coronavirus and the economic fallout from that.
  By the way, this K-shaped recovery, I believe, has increased 
inequality in terms of our income in this country, and income 
inequality was something we were making progress on. In February, we 
had the 19th straight month of wages increasing over 3 percent in this 
country just in February, not long ago. And, by the way, most of that 
increase was among lower and middle-income workers. Now, that was 
positive. That was where we wanted to head as a country. That is why so 
many of us pushed for tax reform and regulatory relief thinking that 
would get this economy moving and help those workers who are in the 
lower and middle-income bracket the most, and, guess what, it did.
  That has changed now so we have to, here in Congress, in my view, 
continue to help, continue to do things that will help with the 
healthcare crisis and with regard to the underlying economic situation 
that is affected by it.
  One thing that I think was very positive about today is that we were 
able to pass legislation that has many, many bipartisan elements to it. 
I think the vote we just had--again, where a majority of Senators in 
this Chamber voted for a targeted COVID-19 approach--I think this gives 
us a chance to reset, a chance to get back to the bargaining table, and 
a chance to say: OK. Now the Republicans have put forward a proposal 
that has a lot of very reasonable provisions in it.
  The Presiding Officer here today was part of that. He put provisions 
into the bill that has to do with our schools. It is widely popular. 
There are other provisions in there that I think there is very little 
disagreement on. Let me highlight a few of them
  One is on the healthcare response, particularly on our testing 
capacity. Republicans and Democrats alike know that testing is 
critical. We need it. In Ohio, we are looking for more funding for 
testing because we know that is how you stop the spread of the 
disease--testing, contact tracing, getting to the hotspots and trying 
to contain it. That way people will feel more comfortable returning to 
work, returning to shop, and returning to school. This is something 
that is in this legislation, $16 billion alone for testing. The 
legislation that was voted on this afternoon in this Chamber was voted 
positively by a majority of the Senators.
  Just last week, in Ohio, I visited The Health Collaborative, which is 
a multiagency coalition approach to dealing with COVID-19. It includes 
hospitals, county commissioners, health commissioners, and even nursing 
homes. They are utilizing the $19 million they have received through 
the CARES Act to fund and design and execute a testing strategy for 
people in the Southwest Ohio area. I am really pleased to see them take 
the funding and using it in this way because now more and more people 
are getting the opportunity to be tested, and, by the way, they are 
doing it on a no-needs basis. There is no need to pay for this testing 
with your insurance. If you don't have it, everybody is welcome to get 
a test.
  These kinds of initiatives are a big help, and I am glad that in this 
legislation we voted on this afternoon, we added another $45 billion in 
total to HHS to go toward testing and vaccine development to get this 
vaccine as quickly as possible, and distribution of the vaccine, 
helping on the antiviral medications. This ``Shark Tank'' concept that 
the Presiding Officer and others are involved in is brilliant because 
it sort of tells the private sector: Look, we are going to provide you 
the basic funding to go out there and compete to come up with a safe 
way to develop a vaccine or antiviral therapy, and that has encouraged 
competition in it, and in unprecedented speed, we are developing these 
alternatives--thank goodness--and we need them. Hopefully, by the end 
of this year, we will have them.
  Second, I think we agree that Congress should double down on any 
COVID-19 policies in previous legislations that have worked well, and, 
one, of course, is what is called the Paycheck Protection Program. That 
is in this legislation we voted on today too. Back on August 8, it 
ended. So if you are a small business out there and you have not 
already taken advantage of the PPP program that many of your peers have 
and you have seen them be able to keep their doors open because of it, 
you are out of luck right now because the program is not accepting new 
applicants. So we need to extend that program. I think everybody agrees 
with that. I don't know a Senator in

[[Page S5536]]

this Chamber who doesn't have an experience back home of a small 
business saying: I couldn't have stayed open without this. I visited 
three or four businesses just in the past few weeks in Ohio, and all of 
them had the same story.
  Different timing, different businesses, some in construction, some in 
the restaurant business, some in manufacturing, but what they all tell 
me is they needed that influx badly. It provided them a low interest 
loan--1 percent. They converted it into a grant, effectively, because 
the loan was forgiven if they used it for their salaries or for their 
utilities or for their mortgage or rent. They would have had to close 
their doors and let a lot of people go. They were able to hang on.
  For some of these businesses, like the manufacturer I visited, thank 
goodness, because they would have let go 30 percent of their workforce. 
They didn't have to do that. They kept everybody on. Now they are going 
great guns. They are looking for people. By the way, they are having a 
tough time hiring people. They are looking for people. That is a good 
sign that you have businesses out there trying to pull people into the 
workforce. That is in this legislation.
  My hope is that we are going to see Republicans and Democrats agree 
on this. I think they do agree. Reinstating the PPP for the foreseeable 
future so that more small businesses can take advantage of this smart 
loan program is a smart thing to do. It is more targeted, and it does 
require you to show a loss of revenue. That is OK. That is good. We 
want this to be targeted and focused. We don't want to waste money.
  Third, the bill reflects that Members on both sides of the aisle 
recognize that Congress should give additional support to our schools. 
I mentioned this earlier, but $105 billion in this bill goes to 
education--about $70 billion to K-12, our primary and secondary schools 
and high schools, and that is needed right now. We are trying to reopen 
around the country, and many of these schools are telling me: Rob, I 
have got additional costs. I have got these Plexiglass shields I have 
to put up. I have to reconfigure the classroom. I have to hire more 
teachers because I want smaller classrooms so that if someone gets 
sick, it will be infecting a smaller group. There is funding that is 
needed for remote learning. So this is good for us to provide funding 
for these schools because that will enable them to reopen and reopen 
safely and stay open. That is in this legislation.

  There is also funding in here for colleges and universities. I think 
there is about $30 billion for that. Again, it is the same thing I am 
hearing back home from our colleges and universities, some of which are 
having a tough time staying open. They do need more help, more testing, 
more PPE, personal protective gear, so this is important too. Again, 
that is all in this legislation.
  Interestingly, I mentioned the Heroes Act earlier, the $3.5 trillion 
bill that the House Democrats passed not too long ago as kind of their 
alternative, that had funding for schools also. Guess what. This bill 
that was passed--well, not passed but voted on by a majority of 
Senators today in the U.S. Senate--actually has slightly more money 
than the Heroes Act has for education. What is the big issue here? Why 
can't we get together and figure this out?
  There are so many opportunities here. Finally, I would just say that 
one thing that this bill does and one reason it is called a targeted 
bill is it repurposes funding that we have already appropriated here in 
the first four or five bills but that has not been used and is not 
likely to be needed. So isn't that smart? I mean, as taxpayers, don't 
you want to be sure that we are not just throwing money at this problem 
if is not needed?
  The Treasury Department, in particular, has been helpful in working 
with us, saying they have a bunch of money that they could use for a 
loan program that they haven't had much takeup on because, frankly, the 
commercial lending is going pretty well right now. People are able get 
the money from their bank. They don't need to come to Treasury or the 
Fed as much as we thought they might, so there is money left over. We 
are talking hundreds of billions of dollars. So that should certainly 
be used to offset the cost of any new program. I think that is just a 
commonsense idea. I can't imagine anybody in this Chamber, if they 
think through this, would be against us repurposing the funds we have 
already appropriated toward new uses that are more targeted. That is in 
this legislation too.
  I think those things all have bipartisan appeal, and it seems to me, 
again, this is a reset. Let's face it, the Democrats have been saying 
over the past several weeks: Well, fine, we have got our bill we 
passed, the Heroes Act. What have you guys put out showing that at 
least a majority of the Senate and pretty much every Republican can 
support? Now we have done that.
  So we have our stake in the ground, and they have their stake in the 
ground. There is a lot of overlap. I just talked about four areas where 
there is considerable overlap, but there are many others as well. We 
should be able to figure this out on behalf of the American people.
  We have a campaign ongoing for President, for Senators, and for 
Members of Congress. We have to look out for the interests of the 
American people here. We can do both. We can campaign and also be 
working on our legislation that is absolutely needed right now for the 
healthcare and economic future of our country.
  By the way, only about one-third of the Senate is up for reelection, 
so for two-thirds of us, we don't even have an election to worry about, 
and yet it seems like this place has become way too political too 
quickly. Let's focus on taking this bill that was voted on today where 
the majority of Senators supported it and figure out ways to work with 
Democrats to come up with a new approach that enables us to continue 
the effort to help with regard to this K-shaped recovery and to help 
with regard to the ongoing healthcare crisis we are facing.
  I want to mention, if I could, three or four other things I would 
love to see in the final bill that did not make it into the so-called 
targeted bill. I understand why they didn't, and, in part, because we 
weren't looking to put a lot of tax provisions in there because it is 
not a tax vehicle, but I do think there are other things that have 
broad bipartisan support that we ought to include.
  First, I think we would all agree it is important that the taxpayer-
funded research that is supported by this legislation, research into 
antiviral medications and research into vaccines, is protected from 
other countries, in particular, China coming into our country and 
taking that research. This is taxpayer-funded research, and we know, 
from what the FBI has told us and what the Department of Justice has 
told us, that this is currently at risk. It is currently at risk.
  With that in mind, we need to include legislation that safeguards our 
American innovation. This was actually in the legislation that was 
introduced by Senator McConnell a few weeks ago called the Heals 
legislation, and the legislation that I am talking about is called the 
Safeguarding American Innovation Act. It stops this kind of theft of 
research and innovation at our research institutions, our colleges and 
our universities. That is one where Republicans and Democrats have come 
together. It is a bipartisan bill. It is the result of a committee 
process. It is the result of an investigation that took over a year. It 
is the result of a lot of hearings and a lot of work. It is solid 
legislation to encourage us to be able to protect the research we are 
doing, including on the coronavirus.

  Second, for a while now, there has been a bipartisan consensus that a 
smart coronavirus response should include tax incentives to help our 
economy to not just open and reopen but to do so safely and 
effectively. Small business owners I have spoken to during this 
pandemic, especially in recent weeks, have told me they are eager to 
reopen, but they want to do it in a safe manner. And we want them to do 
in a safe manner. Let's provide some incentives for that.
  One example of how that process can be helped along is an expanded 
tax credit for new hiring called the work opportunity tax credit. It is 
already out there. It is legislation that passed years ago. It helps, 
let's say, veterans, returning citizens, who are looking for a second 
chance. It gives them the

[[Page S5537]]

chance to get a job because the employer gets a tax credit for a while, 
and then almost always that person ends up getting a job.
  Let's include the COVID-19 unemployed in that--people who have lost 
their jobs because of COVID-19. That makes all the sense in the world 
to get people back to work.
  There is also something that is in law now based on the CARES 
legislation called the employee retention tax credit. I think this is 
very important. Companies that couldn't access the PPP because they 
didn't qualify or didn't want to will have access to this program kind 
of as an alternative. It gives companies a tax credit against their 
payroll taxes--the employer side of the payroll taxes--if they keep 
people on or bring people on. Again, this makes all the sense in the 
world right now to encourage more hiring to ensure we can get this 
economy moving again and do so safely.
  Speaking of safety, I have also introduced a new tax credit that was 
part of the HEALS legislation that was introduced a few weeks ago. It 
is called the healthy workplaces tax credit, which helps businesses pay 
for this protective equipment, like the plexiglass shields and like the 
PPE that they now need, which is expensive. Just the gowns and the 
masks and the gloves--those expenses add up, particularly for 
businesses that are having a tough time because of the weakening 
economy out there.
  These credits will help them not just reopen again but reopen safely. 
I think getting these kinds of tax credits into the coronavirus 
legislation would be very smart. Again, these should be bipartisan 
efforts.
  Third, while I am pleased we are revitalizing the successful PPP 
program, I think there are steps to improve it that we ought to take up 
in whatever our final package is.
  For example, one oversight in the original PPP legislation is that 
people who have been convicted of a felony going back 5 years are not 
able to accept a PPP loan.
  One day, I get a call from a guy back home. Troy Parker is his name. 
Troy said: I can't get a PPP loan. I am a guy who had a financial 
issue, a financial fraud issue. I had a felony conviction. I got out of 
incarceration, and I started my own business. I took my second chance.
  He said: I did everything that you are always talking about, Portman, 
which is that you want to encourage people to take that second chance. 
You want to give them that opportunity to get the training to be able 
to do that.
  Then he went out and hired a bunch of other second-chance folks, and 
he started a cleaning business. It is quite successful. But obviously, 
with coronavirus, a lot of the offices he cleaned and others said: We 
can't have you come in. He lost his businesses. He was about to shut 
his doors. He couldn't get a PPP loan. Why? Because within the last 5 
years, he had a felony conviction.
  That is not what we should be doing here. We shouldn't be penalizing 
people who have turned their lives around and have done all the right 
things and are hiring other second-chance individuals. We should be 
helping them to stay on their feet and to continue to do what they are 
doing for themselves, the community, and the workforce. So we worked 
with the Treasury Department, and to their credit, we got them to put 
forward a temporary solution, which was a change in the rule so that 
Troy could get his PPP loan and others like him around the country. We 
now need to make that permanent. That is an example of something we 
should do--totally bipartisan.
  I worked with colleagues on the other side of the aisle on this 
issue, and I will continue to because this is one where, again, 
Republicans and Democrats alike, as Americans, would want this to be 
part of the legislation.
  Fourth, while I am glad this bill reflects the bipartisan support for 
educational funding, I had hoped it would also reflect that Republicans 
and Democrats alike have come out for additional support and 
flexibility for State and local governments.
  Ohio has been particularly hard hit here because our cities in Ohio, 
unlike your city--wherever you are in America, probably--can use income 
taxes as a revenue source. I think 90 percent of cities can't do that, 
but in Ohio, we can, and we do. Obviously, income taxes went down with 
this coronavirus, and the economy fell short, so they suddenly find 
themselves with less revenue coming in and then additional expenses: 
fire, police, EMS, coronavirus expenses for public health.
  It has been tough for a lot of our cities in Ohio, so I have been 
pushing for not just more funding on a targeted basis, showing need, 
but also more flexibility to be able to use the funding for closing 
that revenue gap, which is caused by the weak economy, which is caused 
by the coronavirus. So it is related. Certainly, we ought to be able to 
do that on a bipartisan basis. That is what a lot of Democrats have 
said they would like to do. I am not the only Republican who wants to 
work with Democrats on that. We could get that into a final bill, and 
that would help all of our cities. Let's move forward on this.

  Finally, I think all of us agree that we need to have better access 
to telehealth. Telehealth medicine has been one of the few silver 
linings in this dark cloud. A lot more of my constituents are using 
telehealth. One way they are using it is for behavioral health, mental 
health services, and another is for addiction services, but also, just 
generally, telehealth has been something that has been very helpful.
  A lot of people say that in the last few months, we have gone 5 years 
ahead of where we would have been in terms of telehealth. I think the 
same is true with regard to teleworking and with regard to 
telelearning. But with regard to telehealth, based on a poll I recently 
saw--a survey by Morning Consult--one in every four adults--25 
percent--has used telehealth recently during the pandemic. It has been 
a lifeline for so many people, particularly for some people who are 
fighting addiction and can't get in-person care to help their recovery 
or people who have mental health challenges and are able to access 
telehealth to help them.
  I have worked with the Trump administration to expand telehealth and 
delivery options, which in some instances has, for instance, allowed 
addiction specialists to reach new patients they hadn't been able to 
reach before.
  There have been some positives here, but these reforms are only 
temporary. We need to make these permanent as well. We don't want to 
lose ground on this issue, so Senator Whitehouse, on the other side of 
the aisle, and I have introduced legislation called the TREATS Act. We 
want that to be part of the final legislation as well.
  We have an opportunity to help with telehealth by expanding broadband 
access as well so that more Americans can access these services from 
home. This also relates, of course, to education when schools are 
telling us they are going to go to partly in-person classrooms, partly 
remote, and some altogether remote. If you live in a rural area of 
America, you may not have access to broadband, and you are at a 
disadvantage. Also, in a lot of our urban school districts, there may 
be the infrastructure for broadband, but it is not in the home.
  We need to help more in terms of broadband. I am the Senate sponsor 
of a bipartisan, bicameral bill called the Rural Broadband Acceleration 
Act, which basically speeds up the FCC's distribution they were going 
to make anyway of $20 billion in rural digital funds to go toward the 
building of broadband networks. This will help spread high-speed 
internet over more than 400,000 miles of internet fiber cables, 
bringing about 3 million new households online immediately if we can 
get this done. By the way, it employs thousands of workers as well. I 
think it is a great investment in infrastructure that is needed right 
now. So people talking about infrastructure--this is one we could do 
right now that helps with regard to telehealth, telemedicine, 
telelearning, and teleworking.
  The Nation will be looking to Congress in the coming weeks to work 
together to make sure that we can improve our response to the 
coronavirus and to help get this economy through a tough time. Now more 
than ever, we cannot revert to the norm, which is partisanship these 
days. We cannot do that with regard to this issue.
  Using this new targeted bill as a base--the one that, again, got a 
majority of Senators in this Chamber to vote

[[Page S5538]]

on today--and voting on some of the areas of agreement I have outlined 
today, we need to come up with an appropriate and effective bill that 
responds to the challenge.
  I am going to continue to work with Republicans and Democrats alike 
to insist we put the partisanship aside and work on behalf of our 
constituents to take the necessary steps to get us through this 
unprecedented healthcare crisis and to get us on the other side of the 
economic crisis. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
work together to do the same.
  Thank you.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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