[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 178 (Monday, October 19, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6304-S6305]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, COVID-19 has changed just about every 
aspect of American life--every aspect. The bottom line is very simple: 
The way Americans work, the way we send our kids to school, and the way 
we run our businesses have all changed. COVID has derailed the economy.
  Millions of Americans have missed the rent, missed the mortgage, 
applied for unemployment, been forced to skip meals. American poverty 
is beginning to increase more dramatically. More than 8 million have 
gotten sick. More than 220,000 have died.
  The response here in Congress to a pandemic that affects our country 
in a way we haven't seen in decades should be to comprehensively 
provide relief. Our mission is not to pick out one or two industries 
and say ``maybe later'' to the rest. We can't privilege a small issue 
here or there and ask everyone else to wait. Our mission is to deliver 
big for a country and a people who are suffering direly. Our mission is 
to meet the needs of the country and leave no one--and leave no one--
behind.
  But Leader McConnell and the Republican majority have failed to grasp 
the gravity of this situation from the beginning. They put the Senate 
on pause for more than 5 months, while cases went up and the death toll 
mounted. When the time came for them to pull together in August, they 
couldn't even get Republican Senators to agree on one. Eight months 
into this long and brutal crisis, the Republican leader is filled with 
stunts and playing the smallest of small ball, when so many are 
hurting.
  Today, the Republican majority will try to force a stunt--not even a 
real vote on a bill--but it leaves almost the entire country out of the 
picture. They are holding the vote over a backdrop of a dire increase 
in cases. The majority of States are seeing spikes right now. Half of 
all States have had their highest single day ever in total cases in the 
last month.
  Experts say we have hard months ahead of us. It is possible the worst 
is yet to come--a second wave. We must act now to provide relief to the 
whole country, and our Republican leader and the Republican Senate are 
up to a stunt and not even negotiating or putting a bill on the floor, 
and the American people know it. They know who is to blame. They blame 
President Trump and the Republican majority. We know that.
  We know, when it comes to COVID, that the blame correctly falls on 
the shoulders of Leader McConnell and all his Republican Senators, who 
are afraid to do anything, who are divided. Anytime Mr. Mnuchin gets on 
the phone with them, they say: Don't do anything. We are too divided.
  Everyone knows that.
  We must provide real relief. That is what Democrats want to do. But 
in the Republican proposal today, there is no funding--zero funding--
for testing or tracing, the best way to stop this COVID menace.
  And in the Republican bill tomorrow, the funding for testing and the 
plan for testing is so completely inadequate that it is laughable, 
especially given the recent spike in cases.
  In the Republican proposal today, there is nothing for American 
families, schools, daycare, or food assistance. They are left behind--
all of them. Renters, homeowners, folks struggling to keep a roof over 
their heads--they are left behind. Americans who have lost their job 
through no fault of their own and need unemployment insurance--they are 
left behind in these Republican proposals.
  State and local governments that are being forced to slash critical 
public service in the middle of a recession--they, too, are all left 
behind.
  Even on the issue of small business, the issue on which this bill is 
focused, it lacks specific funding for restaurants, for independent 
theaters and venues, for local newspapers, TV, radio stations, 
critical-need hospitals, minority-owned businesses, and all of our

[[Page S6305]]

nonprofits. In each of those areas in which the Republican bill is 
deficient, so many are left behind.
  We have bipartisan support for programs that are not even being 
considered here today. And why is that? Why is McConnell doing stunts? 
The truth is, because the leader can't pass anything on the floor, he 
is resorting to a series of political stunts. That is all. Everyone 
knows it.
  The Republican leader himself admitted that as many as 20 Republican 
Senators don't want to vote for ``a dime more''--``a dime more,'' his 
quote--of relief for the American people--so out of touch, so callous, 
so cruel.
  So what we have here is a series of show stunt votes designed to fail 
because the Republicans want them to fail. It is not going to get the 
job done for the American people. They can't even put a real bill on 
the floor. The only bills that they can pass are filled with poison 
pills that they know no Democrat will support in the House or Senate.
  That was the only way they could get them to vote even for this 
meager amount in tomorrow's bill--by telling the big corporations: No 
liability for you if you egregiously hurt a worker who has COVID; by 
telling wealthy parents: You can pay for private school education with 
a complete tax break--free, free, but public schools get left out, 
middle class people get left out, poor people get left out. Wealthy 
people who send their kids to private schools--that is it--while they 
refuse to give money to the public schools that need the money.
  If Leader McConnell were serious, you know what he would be doing. He 
would be negotiating. He wouldn't be saying: I can't negotiate; my 
caucus is divided. He would be leading instead of following the 20 
hard-right, cruel, callous thoughts of those who don't want to spend 
any money because their wealthy paymasters don't want to pay taxes: Let 
people suffer. I don't want to pay taxes. Let people suffer. I don't 
want government to do anything--when we all know the only real hope 
here is for a strong, active, and bold government-led program. The 
private sector can't fight COVID alone. The private sector can't get us 
out of this deep recession alone. We know that, but not the hard-right 
Republicans. They are stuck in their narrow ideological prison.
  So instead of stunts, Senators will actually have a chance today to 
vote on a real comprehensive bill to address the current state of the 
country. For months, Democrats have been pushing for the Heroes Act, a 
second installment of the kind of comprehensive COVID relief we passed 
in the first bill that brought so much to people, helped them stay in 
their homes, brought pandemic unemployment insurance, helped our 
hospitals, helped our local governments, helped do some testing--
testing money, by the way, and tracing money, which the Trump 
administration hasn't even distributed to the States.
  This bill passed the House over 3 months ago, and since then, 
Democrats have modified the bill to move closer to our Republican 
counterparts. Still, Leader McConnell refuses to even bring it up for a 
vote in the Senate. So today Democrats will move to have the Senate 
take a vote on the Heroes Act, a comprehensive bill that does so much, 
that doesn't leave all the people behind that this proposal does. We 
will see where every Republican Senator stands on real COVID relief--
not a stunt, a fake that leaves people out.
  Unlike the partisan, emaciated Republican COVID relief bill, the 
Heroes Act will not leave large portions of the country behind. It will 
not include poison pills like sweeping corporate immunity provisions 
that Leader McConnell has insisted on in every version of Republican 
legislation. It will deliver actual relief to American workers, 
American families, American States and localities and Tribes. It 
provides assistance for food, rent, and housing; real funding for 
testing and tracing; unemployment insurance and aid to small businesses 
of all kinds, not just a few.
  This morning, a poll conducted by the New York Times and Siena 
Research showed that 72 percent of Americans, including a clear 
majority of Independents and Republicans, support another $2 trillion 
stimulus package. In other words, 72 percent support the Democratic 
plan to provide COVID relief. Even President Trump has told our 
Republican Senate colleagues to ``go big or go home.''
  If my Republican colleagues were listening to the American people, 
they would not be playing these partisan games around small-bore, 
stunt-driven COVID bills. They would be working with Democrats on 
something that absolutely meets people's needs. Instead, the Republican 
leader is wasting the American people's time on a vote he knows will 
fail, and he doesn't even seem to mind.