[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 166 (Thursday, September 24, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H4888-H4889]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REPUBLICANS ARE FAILING THE PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am going to make some comments, but I want 
to just briefly remark about the gentleman from Pennsylvania's remarks 
about the PPP.
  That program was, of course, a bipartisan program that was negotiated 
between Mr. Cardin, Mr. Rubio, and Nydia Velazquez, the chair of the 
Small Business Committee here, who played a role.
  We passed the HEROES Act. We are 4 months-plus from passing the 
HEROES Act, and the Senate has taken no action.
  Now, one could say, well, the Senate hasn't taken action because they 
can't get the votes of the Democrats for a bill that we believe is 
woefully inadequate. I didn't hear the gentleman talking about those 
people in food lines or the families who need that payment of $1,200 
and dollars for children. I didn't hear him say anything about the 
testing capability so we can stop this virus.
  I do not criticize him for mentioning the Chabot bill. I will tell my 
friends on the Republican side, I am hopeful that they are going to get 
the opportunity to vote either for an agreement between Secretary 
Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer and others who choose to 
participate in the negotiations.
  I am very hopeful that we will have either an agreement or a bill 
that we can pass that I hope everybody on this floor votes for, which 
will deal with the problems I mentioned, with the challenges the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania mentioned. But, of course, the response to 
HEROES was, from the Republican leader in the Senate: Let the States go 
bankrupt.
  I don't know whether anybody has any thoughts on, if the States go 
bankrupt, the impact that that will have on the fight against COVID-19. 
I think it would be substantial, including cities and localities and 
counties.
  So we have some time to go before we are leaving here, and we have 
time to address not only the challenge that Mr. Joyce brings up, but 
the challenges of families and children, of people who are sick.
  All of us ought to be motivated by the fact that 200,000 of our 
fellow citizens have died as a result of COVID-19. I am going to speak 
to that now.
  Mr. Speaker, this week, Democrats are coming to the floor to 
highlight the work we have been doing over the past 2 years governing 
for the people, in sharp contrast with the way President Trump and 
Republicans have failed the people.
  First and foremost, they have failed our country by responding 
inadequately to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  Now, we started out with bipartisan action, and that was good, 
overwhelming bipartisan action, Republicans and Democrats responding to 
a crisis that was killing our people; and then, unfortunately, that 
bipartisan process fell apart.
  First and foremost, our Republican colleagues have failed our country 
by responding inadequately to the COVID-19 pandemic by not having the 
Senate respond to our bill and come to a conference and try to get an 
agreement. In addition, when we tried to have negotiations, as we had 
successfully had four times, they refused to come to the table.
  In February, President Trump told the American people that the virus, 
like a miracle, would disappear. He called criticism of his response to 
the virus a hoax. More than 200,000 Americans have now died from that 
hoax.
  There has been no miracle. Criticism of that failure is no hoax. 
Other nations' governments have figured out how to slow the spread of 
the virus, yet this administration keeps failing and keeps 
contradicting our health providers and our experts.

  Based on our population, Mr. Speaker, if we had the same fatality 
rate for COVID-19 as Australia--listen, my friends, to this figure. If 
we had the same fatality rate for COVID-19 as Australia, fewer than 
11,000 Americans would have died, if we had had the same success rate. 
And if we had had the same rate as Japan, fewer than 5,000 Americans 
would have lost their lives.
  Yet our President says we have handled it the best of anybody in the 
world. The facts, of course, do not interfere with his conclusions.
  The Democratic-led House passed the HEROES Act in May--May 15, to be 
exact--more than 4 months ago. More than 110,000 Americans have died of 
COVID-19 during the 4 months that President Trump and the Republicans 
blocked the HEROES Act from helping us defeat this pandemic.
  In that same period, President Trump, who in 2011 criticized 
President Obama for playing golf, in that same period, President Trump 
left the White House to play golf as many as 30 times--fiddling while 
Rome burned. That is eight times per month on average.
  What did President Trump say when asked in August about the rising 
fatalities? ``It is what it is.''
  How recklessly irresponsible, how callous and dismissive of people's 
pain, and how indicative of a lack of decency and leadership.
  At the same time, President Trump and congressional Republicans have 
been working hard to eliminate access to affordable healthcare for 
millions of Americans and remove protections for more than 133 million 
people with preexisting conditions. And they say, of course: Oh, no. We 
are for preexisting conditions. We are just trying to get rid of the 
law that gives protection for preexisting conditions.
  Their lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act comes amid a deadly 
pandemic worsened by their own failures.
  For 4 years, President Trump and Republicans have been promising to 
unveil a secret plan that they say covers everybody. The President 
says: I am going to cover everybody--lower cost, higher quality.
  We have seen no such plan in 3 years and 8 months of this Presidency. 
That is because there is no Republican healthcare plan. They tried one 
early on. It failed. It failed because they couldn't get a Republican 
vote--John McCain, who thought it wasn't a real bill.
  As a matter of fact, the President, who hailed the bill at the White 
House as the most wonderful thing in the world, 2 weeks later, said: It 
was a mean bill.

                              {time}  0915

  There is only the unyielding drive to get rid of the Affordable Care 
Act and

[[Page H4889]]

tell tens of millions of Americans: You are on your own. Sixty-five-
some-odd votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, no alternative have 
the Republicans, even when they were in charge, adopted.
  As a result of President Trump and Republicans hitting pause, the 
minority leader of this House said: Let's wait and see what happens. We 
have seen what happens, 110,000 additional people have died.
  As a result of President Trump and Republicans hitting pause on 
responding to the pandemic, tens of millions are out of work, critical 
support in the form of expanded unemployment insurance was allowed to 
expire in July, and the unemployment rate has jumped from 4.7 to 8.4 
percent.
  The Federal deficit has also skyrocketed as a result of these 
failures. During President Obama's last full year in office it was $585 
billion. Too high? Yes. But what is it now? $3.3 trillion. It was the 
pandemic. Yes, certainly that is the case.
  It was the $1.5 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest in America. It 
was the pandemic.
  But it was the failure to respond in an effective way to what the 
President, in January, knew was a critically important health risk, and 
told the American people: Don't worry, it is going to go away in just a 
few days.
  Our health and our economy are not the only things that are under 
threat from President Trump and his allies in Congress, our democracy 
is under threat as well. Even before he was sworn into office, the 
President had shattered the democratic norms that have made America 
strong and stable.
  As a candidate, he solicited campaign help from Russia. Send me those 
emails, Russia. Send it, in public, brazenly. Help me Russia.
  And while in office, of course, he was impeached for soliciting help 
from Ukraine to help his reelection.
  Numerous Trump administration appointees and campaign officials have 
been convicted of crimes relating to Russia's interference in the 2016 
election and lying to law enforcement. I guess we rationalize that if 
you are an ally of Trump, lying to law enforcement is no problem. Paul 
Manafort. Michael Flynn.
  The President has refused to divest himself of his businesses and 
created massive conflicts of interest. Since 2015, more than $16 
million of taxpayer funds have been spent at President Trump's own 
properties.
  This is a President for whom the law appears to mean little, for whom 
democratic norms appear to be nothing, and for whom personal power and 
enrichment appear always to come first.
  Not America first, as he likes to say. Not for the people.
  Trump first. Himself above others and above the law.
  And Republicans in Congress, unfortunately, and sadly, have been 
unwilling to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes.
  Mr. Speaker, we have been working every day. We passed hundreds of 
bills. Minimum wage. You are on your own. Violence against women. You 
are on your own. Equality for all Americans. You are on your own. 
Voting rights for Americans. You are on your own. Sitting unattended, 
unconsidered on Mitch McConnell's desk.
  Mr. Speaker, America is struggling, and what we ought to be doing is 
working together. And I am hopeful, as I said, in the next 5 to 6 days 
we get either an agreement or a bill passed in this House that the 
Senate will pass. I am for either one of those options, but we must 
take one of them.

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