[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 202 (Tuesday, December 1, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7128-S7131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am here on the floor today to, once 
again, talk about the need for this Senate and this Congress to pass 
legislation to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. I think we have to do 
this now before the end of the year--certainly, before we leave the 
Congress to go back home for the holiday recess.
  We just got back from a weeklong recess for Thanksgiving, and all the 
Members of this body--all of them--had to have seen what I saw, which 
is an up-close look at the crisis that is upon us.
  In Ohio, our daily new cases are four times what they were just 1 
month ago--four times. I see the numbers every single day, and they are 
discouraging.
  And it is not just new cases. It is more people hospitalized. It is 
more people in the ICU units. It is more people, tragically, who are 
counted among the fatalities.
  This morning, I tried to call a friend of mine who is in the hospital 
in Columbus, OH. He is there because of COVID. And I am just thinking 
probably of the people watching tonight, most either have had COVID 
themselves or have a friend or a family member who have had COVID.
  This friend was unable to talk to me because he had taken a turn for 
the worse. His organs were starting to malfunction. He had slipped into 
unconsciousness. I was able to speak to his wife. I told her, of 
course, that he is in our prayers. But I also told her that he is in my 
thoughts as we look at whether we should do something more here at the 
Federal level to help with the coronavirus pandemic.
  Of course, we should. It has been a long time since we took action. 
You really have to go back several months. The last big package was 
passed in March, about 9 months ago. It is time for us to act again.
  And there is some good news out there. With all of the negative news 
about the cases and hospitalizations, ICUs, and, tragically, the 
fatalities increasing, the good news is that there is hope on the 
horizon, and that is the vaccines.
  I have been a big supporter of providing the Federal funding for the 
vaccines. And I applaud the administration for the work they have done 
on this Operation Warp Speed because I believe that while masks are 
critical--and I wear mine, and I hope you are wearing yours--the social 
distancing is very helpful; the work that people are doing on the 
therapies is really important; and we need more testing, and that is 
good to know where we stand, but nothing can take the place of these 
vaccines.
  Think about the other diseases we have tackled with vaccines--measles 
and small pox and polio. My dad had polio as a kid. It was fairly 
common. Today, we don't even think about it.
  These vaccinations, if they work well, can be amazing. And guess what 
we learned over the past several weeks. We learned that the early 
results from some of these vaccines, including the early data we have 
from the Moderna and the Pfizer candidates are incredibly effective. We 
are talking over 90 percent efficacy or effectiveness.
  I am participating in one of the trials. It is the Janssen-Johnson & 
Johnson trial. That vaccine shows promise also. I joined the trial, by 
the way, for a few reasons: One, because I really want to understand 
better how this system is working, and I had received a briefing from a 
company that manages trials around the world, and they indicated to me 
that they were having trouble getting people to sign up. So another 
reason I entered was because I asked them: If I sign up, will that 
help? They said: If you are willing to go public, yes. So I did, and I 
am.

[[Page S7129]]

  But I also joined the trial because I am concerned about the numbers 
I see about people's concerns about the safety and effectiveness of 
these vaccines--because, I know, through Operation Warp Speed, that the 
science is calling the shots; that these scientists, the best in the 
world here in America, are working around the clock to get these 
vaccines out as quickly as possible, and we have to be sure people 
actually use them, that people are willing to get vaccinated.
  When I joined the trial only a few weeks ago--several weeks ago, 
maybe 4 or 5 weeks ago. This is before the election--Gallup had 
recently come out with a survey which said that only 50 percent of 
Americans were willing to be vaccinated. That is not good.
  Again, this is a vaccine that is very effective. The flu vaccine is 
probably about 30 percent effective, and I have friends who say: I am 
not going to take the flu vaccine. I took one last year, and I got the 
flu anyway. Well, that is because it is about 30 percent effective, on 
average.
  That is not true with these vaccines. From the early indications, 
again, 90, 95 percent, 94 percent effectiveness or efficacy.
  So I urge people to do their own research, to look at what the 
scientists are saying, look at what Dr. Fauci is saying, look at what 
those who are the professionals are saying. They are saying that 
corners are not being cut here. In fact, it is going quickly, but they 
are being more careful than ever to get this emergency use 
authorization, which is what the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine 
candidates are trying to get right now. They actually have to go 
through more hoops than normal. So my hope is that this willingness to 
be vaccinated changes.
  By the way, there was another Gallup poll 2 weeks ago, and it didn't 
show 50 percent, it showed 58 percent are willing to be vaccinated. 
That is good. That is progress. I think that is because we are beyond 
the election, and the irresponsible people who were saying publicly: 
Gosh. I don't know if I trust this because it was during the Trump 
administration, if they were Democrats, perhaps, have stopped saying 
it. I hope they have because this is not something that is political. 
We should never politicize this. This is about saving lives. It is 
about getting our economy back on track. It is about dealing with a 
virus that has caused so much devastation and dislocation in our 
families, in our communities, in our businesses.

  So my hope is that everyone will be encouraged to, again, look at it 
yourself, do your own research but get yourself and your families 
vaccinated because it is going to help you protect you and also protect 
the community. It is the only way we are going to get to the kind of 
community immunity rather than community spread that all of us hope 
for.
  Leader McConnell spoke on the floor here yesterday, the Republican 
leader, the majority leader. He said that we need a new COVID-19 bill 
to continue investing in the distribution system for these vaccines so 
we can get them in circulation as soon as possible.
  I couldn't agree with him more. That is part of why we need another 
COVID-19 bill. We actually need more money for ensuring that we are 
going to have these vaccines broadly available with a distribution 
system that makes sense, that is fair but also gets this out as quickly 
as possible.
  You know, this Operation Warp Speed did something extraordinary. It 
is a public-private partnership. I think it is very innovative. They 
said: The government is going to subsidize your production of these 
vaccines, and while you are going through the approval process, which 
takes several months, you can go ahead and start producing what you 
think is the right vaccine that you are testing, and then, if you get 
the approval--boom--the vaccine is ready to go; as compared to getting 
the approval and then waiting several more months for the vaccine to be 
produced.
  That means we are going to probably end up discarding some vaccines 
that don't work, that don't get the approval. That is OK because the 
benefit is that much sooner we are going to have a vaccine out there 
now in record time. Unprecedented. This has never happened in the 
history of the world that one has been created so quickly and will be 
distributed so quickly.
  I expect we are going to have vaccines circulating in our communities 
within a few weeks, and I suspect that they will go first to, as the 
CDC will determine--and they are meeting next week to talk about this, 
as I understand it--but it will probably go first to our healthcare 
providers, to the healthcare workers who are on the frontlines. It will 
probably go first to people who work in nursing homes because so much 
of that problem in our long-term care facilities comes from people 
going in and out of the facility. Those people should be vaccinated, 
the residents of those long-term care facilities. And I believe our 
first responders need help as quickly as possible because we are 
putting them in impossible situations. And then the most vulnerable 
among us--those who are immunocompromised or have other healthcare 
problems that are preexisting, those who are older and out in 
concentric circles from that to the point that, by March and April, we 
would hope that everybody would have the opportunity to step up and 
become vaccinated.
  That is something all of us want to see--Republicans and Democrats 
alike. A COVID-19 bill passed now will help make that happen. It will 
also help us to get over the valley. The valley, to me, is between now, 
where we have this surge in the virus that has not abated--in Ohio, I 
am told by the experts, including talking to our public health 
officials and our Governor, we do not believe that we have peaked. I 
don't know about your State, but I believe the same thing is probably 
true.
  So there is a valley here between now and the March-April timeframe. 
During those 4 months, we have to have a bridge, in my view. It is not 
forever. It is a bridge between now and March and April, when the 
vaccinations are broadly available, and we can have the kind of 
community immunity we talked about earlier.
  That bridge is going to be extremely important to the people I 
represent and the people whom every Member on this floor represents.
  We had some earlier successes coming together to pass legislation 
around here. When the coronavirus first hit, we were all together. In 
fact, the CARES Act that passed in March, 9 months ago, passed 
unanimously--not a single negative vote. We got together, actually, for 
four or five different bills that were bipartisan, and we were all 
together. Then something happened. We started to sort of split apart.
  But when we were together, we did some great things. Was every penny 
spent exactly right? Probably not because it was a lot of money, but we 
saved so many small businesses. I know of them because they are all 
over Ohio, and I talk to them.
  The PPP program was a great success. Again, did some get it who 
shouldn't have? Of course, but, overall, it was extremely successful in 
keeping the doors open in these small businesses that otherwise would 
have closed and keeping these employees working and connected to work 
rather than on the unemployment lines. That was very important.
  CARES Act funds also were critical to those who lost their jobs 
through no fault of their own. You remember, we had a lot of shutdowns 
in the March and April timeframe. People were just out of work for the 
first time in their lives. I have friends who lost their jobs for the 
first times in their lives, and they had to go to unemployment 
insurance. They had never done that before, but it saved them. They 
could make their car payments. They could make their rent or pay their 
mortgage.
  There were other important steps that were taken at that time to be 
sure that we didn't have a more devastating impact. I am proud of the 
way we came together, but, again, that was 8 or 9 months ago.
  And I have been frustrated that that sense of urgency and that 
willingness to sort of set aside the partisanship or whatever our 
specific concerns were to come together for the good of the country 
seems to have dissipated. It, particularly, seemed to disappear as we 
got closer and closer to the election. There seemed to be more and more 
politics finding its way into the discussion.
  Well, the election is over. Republicans here in the Senate have 
offered a responsible, targeted bill focused on funding our healthcare 
response, supporting our small businesses, making

[[Page S7130]]

our schools safe for students to return to class, helping those 
unemployed through no fault of their own. We have actually twice had a 
majority of this Senate, in the last month and a half, stand up and 
vote for such a bill--a targeted, focused bill on COVID-19 response--52 
Senators.
  (Thereupon, Mr. SCOTT of Florida assumed the Chair.)
  Unfortunately, here in the Senate, that wasn't enough because you 
need 60--a supermajority--in order to pass it. So although we had 52 
out of 100, we didn't get to 60. Democrats opposed it but didn't offer 
an alternative here in the Senate and didn't even allow us to get on 
the bill to debate it to come up with alternatives. Instead, they 
supported the House-passed bill, which is called the Heroes Act, which 
not only is a lot more expensive--the original version was probably 
$3.5 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the most 
expensive legislation ever passed by any body of Congress--but also it 
included a number of provisions that had nothing to do with the 
coronavirus. That was not something that a lot of us could support. 
There are immigration law changes, tax breaks for wealthy individuals, 
and other provisions unrelated to COVID-19.
  My hope is that now, the election behind us, the crisis upon us, the 
year-end looming, the vaccines coming online, now we can provide that 
bridge on a bipartisan basis. And I am not just hopeful; I am 
encouraged. We have made some recent progress towards what I think 
could be a good COVID-19 relief package.
  This morning, a bipartisan framework was put forward by what is 
called the Problem Solvers Caucus, with four Members on the Democratic 
side and four Members on the Republican side. Their proposal--we have 
all had a chance to look at it now, during the day, and I think it is 
the basis for getting something done before the end of the year. I have 
been in discussion with those eight Members as recently as this 
afternoon. I have been in discussion over the past several weeks with 
many colleagues on both sides of the aisle about, how do you come 
together on this? And I think what was proposed today by this Problem 
Solvers Caucus is a good start. It is not exactly what I would write. I 
have some ideas that I think are really good that aren't in there, and 
there are some things in there that I wouldn't support. It probably is 
not what any individual Senator would write. In fact, I am confident in 
that. But, again, it is a good starting point.
  It has about $300 billion to help bolster the PPP program, to keep it 
going and to help struggling small businesses. A lot of them are on the 
edge right now; I can tell you that. There is $16 billion for the 
vaccine distribution we talked about and also for more testing and more 
money for therapy. There is $180 billion to help Americans who have 
lost their jobs during this downturn in the economy, in addition to a 
lot of other important provisions for our schools and for our 
healthcare providers. It doesn't do everything Republicans want; it 
doesn't do everything Democrats want; but it does what the American 
people need.
  I hope this starting point will result in our getting the same kind 
of broad bipartisan support that we have had for previous bills that 
have been offered here on the Senate floor.
  Again, I would like to add some things to it that I think make a lot 
of sense. Specifically, there are some tax incentives to boost our 
economic recovery, like the healthy workplaces tax credit to help 
businesses reopen and stay open with the current safety and social 
distancing guidelines. I would like to expand and repurpose the 
employee retention tax credit and the work opportunity tax credit from 
the CARES Act into something that is more encompassing for companies 
that don't qualify for PPP but that are willing to retain their 
employees, again, keeping them connected to work, which I think is so 
important.
  Again, we need to act soon because I am concerned about some of the 
new reports coming out on the economic impact this pandemic is having, 
especially on certain sectors of the economy and particularly on middle 
and lower income Americans. After the initial economic shutdown that 
created the record unemployment numbers we saw in the early weeks of 
this pandemic, unemployment claims began to fall. The Paycheck 
Protection Program helped small businesses stay open and keep employees 
on payroll, which was good. As more businesses found ways to reopen and 
reopen safely, hiring picked up, and as of October, national 
unemployment was moving in the right direction--not near where it was 
prepandemic but still in the right direction.
  But then we have seen more troubling signs as the pandemic--the 
healthcare crisis aspect of the pandemic--has increased. One problem is 
that the partial economic recovery we were seeing was not evenly 
distributed across different sectors of our economy. That is pretty 
obvious to people. If you are a manufacturer in Ohio that closed your 
factory floor this spring, you were able to figure it out--reconfigure 
the workspace, perhaps, allow for social distancing--and demand started 
to go back up, and it looks like our manufacturers are in pretty good 
shape now. But if you are in the hospitality business, travel business, 
personal care business, you have been hit really hard. Our restaurants, 
bowling alleys, music venues, coach companies, and many more have had a 
much tougher path to reopening their doors in a safe way.
  I had a very sobering call with members of the Ohio Restaurant 
Association last week. It is troubling to me that more than half of all 
Ohio restaurants say it is unlikely they will be in business 6 months 
from now in the absence of more help. So without a new PPP and other 
help, half of them said they are going to close their doors. I am in 
the restaurant business. It is a tough business. People are hanging on.
  We have to do something to help the economically disadvantaged also. 
At the start of 2020, thanks to consecutive years of strong growth in 
the pre-COVID economy, under the Trump administration's Republican 
proposals--tax cuts, tax reform, regulatory relief, allowing our energy 
resources to be used in this country--things were going pretty darn 
well.
  The national poverty rate over the last few years--before COVID 
started in February of this year, the national poverty rate had fallen 
to the lowest rate since the government started tracking this statistic 
60 years ago. Let me repeat that. The poverty rate had fallen to its 
lowest level since it was recorded--10.5 percent.
  The economy was good--not just low unemployment but also higher 
wages. We actually had in February the 19th straight month of wage 
increases of 3 percent or more. That was compounded. People were 
saying: My gosh, if I work hard and play by the rules, I can get ahead. 
Things were good particularly because that wage increase was primarily 
focused on lower and moderate-income Americans. But that all changed as 
we hit COVID.
  The early economic stimulus actually helped drive that poverty rate 
lower that I talked about in the March-April timeframe. But since then, 
a lack of Federal action and this sluggish economic recovery we have 
seen have reversed that process, with nearly 7 million Americans 
falling into poverty since May. That means the poverty rate has now 
risen 2 percentage points to 11.4 percent. That represents 7 more 
million Americans who have fallen into poverty.

  So people say: What has the coronavirus done to the economy? There it 
is. Among other things, it has driven the poverty rate back up after we 
had so much success. What is worse, the longer these individuals stay 
in poverty, the harder it will be for them to get out of poverty. That 
is one of my concerns--long-term unemployed, long-term problems with 
regard to the poverty rate.
  A big part of the problem is that those who are most vulnerable to 
sliding into poverty--these low-income Americans we are concerned 
about--have been the hardest hit by the waves of layoffs that started 
in the spring. Nearly half of all lower income adults now report that 
either they or someone else in their household lost a job or took a pay 
cut as a result of the economic slowdown--half. In comparison, only 
about one-third of higher income Americans report being affected in 
this way. Maybe that is obvious to you, but the woman who works in the 
kitchen for that restaurant who lost her job,

[[Page S7131]]

maybe making $15, $16 an hour, compared to maybe somebody who works in 
a factory making $25 or $30 an hour--those restaurant workers have been 
more affected. That has been played out through so many different 
industries around the economy where lower income individuals, often who 
cannot work mobile--they can't virtually work, unlike someone, say, who 
is in the financial services industry. They have been some of the 
hardest hit.
  Another economic slowdown caused by our failure to act here in 
Congress would only exacerbate those real hardships being felt by those 
who can least afford it. Do we have a magic wand here? No. We can't 
solve all the problems, but we can help.
  With so many challenges to contend with, it is concerning to me that 
the Senate will be in session for only 11 more days before we adjourn 
for the holidays. We have to act, and we have a very short window to do 
so.
  By the way, we should not leave Washington without acting. We should 
not leave Washington for the holidays without passing a COVID-19 
response bill. If we do, we will be risking even more devastation from 
the virus and even more economic impacts, where millions of Americans 
could lose their jobs, their homes, their cars, and more.
  We can help avoid this if we provide the necessary resources to 
continue to combat the ongoing pandemic as well as addressing a lot of 
the important provisions created under the CARES Act way back 9 months 
ago that were set to expire at the end of this year.
  Of these provisions, one of the most concerning to me is the cliff 
that we face with regard to unemployment benefits for those who have 
lost their jobs due to COVID-19. Both the Pandemic Unemployment 
Assistance Program and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation 
Program will expire at the end of this month. These are supplementary 
Federal programs designed to help the self-employed, gig economy 
workers, and those who need extra support while on unemployment during 
the pandemic. I know some of these people. I have talked to them. They 
are nervous. They are looking at this year-end and thinking: My gosh, I 
am on unemployment now. Even though I am self-employed and I wouldn't 
have been on it under the State system, now the Feds are going to pull 
out, and I am left with nothing.
  Even with the economic rebound we have had since the spring, we are 
still down 10 million jobs in this country since February. Think about 
it. Again, the economy was going great, the policies we put in place 
were working, and we are still down 10 million jobs. A further slowdown 
of the economy is going to be tough for those long-term unemployed, and 
my concern is that some of them may never reenter the workforce. So we 
need to act and act quickly to get them back in the mix.
  With the latest round of stricter social distancing measures and 
closures in some States in order to counter the coronavirus, more jobs 
will vanish. We are seeing that already. Look at the States that are 
doing shutdowns--higher unemployment, more people without a job. Losing 
that unemployment insurance lifeline will be devastating for lots of 
those Americans. Let's not let that happen.
  The end of 2020 also means the end of other important COVID-19 
response programs. Many individuals who had their incomes affected by 
this pandemic are also renters. The current national moratorium on 
evictions has allowed these individuals to keep a roof over their head 
while they look for work and try to hold their lives together, but this 
moratorium expires at the end of the year. So you will see a lot more 
people losing their apartment, losing their home, and ending up without 
anyplace to go. We need to act here in Congress to make sure that 
doesn't happen.
  Same goes for the millions of individuals who are currently relying 
on student loan deferrals to free up money to cover expenses during the 
pandemic. Come the start of next year, these student loan payments will 
be due if we don't act. A lot of people relied on this. It is not that 
they won't have to pay, but it has been deferred. That ends at year-
end.
  My hope is that laying out everything we stand to lose in just a few 
weeks at year-end will encourage Congress to act on targeted 
coronavirus legislation to serve as that bridge--just as a temporary 
bridge between now and when we have widespread vaccine availability 
next spring. Failure to act could mean further economic suffering that 
puts millions more Americans in a tough spot.
  In the face of a virus that seems to be getting more and more out of 
hand every day, it just seems like common sense to me that we should 
act. We should come together to expand and extend these important 
programs.
  Again, I agree with Leader McConnell, who spoke on the floor 
yesterday, talking about the importance of providing support for, as an 
example, our hardest hit small businesses by having a second round of 
Paycheck Protection Program targeted at those companies that are 
actually losing money, year-to-year showing this month as compared to a 
year ago or this quarter as compared to a year ago that they are seeing 
a significant drop in the revenue. These are the ones that need the 
help the most.
  In addition, we should consider other important provisions, again, to 
provide funding to keep our kids safe in school--we want them in 
school; it is a good thing for them, but we have to be sure they can be 
safe--facilitate vaccine distribution, support our healthcare 
providers, and funding and flexibility for State and local governments 
that truly need it. They have to show the need.
  American lives are at stake, and we are in danger of losing whatever 
ground we gained on the coronavirus as this third wave threatens my 
home State of Ohio and the States of so many of my colleagues in this 
Chamber.
  Let's not wait any longer. Let's come together and get something done 
that is good for the American people before the end of the year. And 
let's stay here. I am committed to staying here. Let's stay here until 
we do that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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