[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 205 (Friday, December 4, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H6842-H6848]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1315
                          LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the 
majority leader the schedule for next week.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my 
friend and the majority leader of the House.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for 
legislative business. Members are advised that votes are expected as 
early as 2 p.m.
  I want to repeat that. We are going in at 12 p.m. Votes can be as 
early as 2 p.m.
  This is unusual for the first day of the week. I have advised and 
urged Members to stay here this weekend--most of them I have talked to 
are--because, clearly, we are trying to get two critical pieces of 
legislation done, which we will speak to, I think, in a little bit.
  On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-

[[Page H6843]]

hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
  On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
  I advise Members that we still have to pass an omnibus and we have to 
pass a COVID-19 relief bill, and we will not adjourn the Congress until 
such time as we can accomplish those two objectives.
  I was hopeful that we would accomplish those objectives by next 
Thursday. Unfortunately, things are not moving as rapidly as I think 
they ought to--I would like them to, but as they ought to be moving--so 
that Members need to be advised that they need to keep their schedules 
very, very flexible until such time as we pass both of those pieces of 
legislation.
  We will, in addition, consider several bills under suspension of the 
rules. The complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close 
of business today.
  I will say something further on suspensions. Somebody said: Oh, well, 
we are not passing important bills.
  That is not accurate. Somehow, when we have agreement, it is not 
looked as important. On suspensions, it simply means we have an 
agreement between the parties that we can pass those bills because they 
are bipartisan and the overwhelming majority of Members agree on them. 
So we are passing bills that are good bills but not controversial, and 
that is a good thing.
  But we will consider several bills under suspension. As I said, the 
complete list will be available at the close of business today.
  The House will consider the fiscal year 2021 National Defense 
Authorization Act conference report. I am very pleased that we have a 
bipartisan, bicameral agreement on NDAA and look forward to it 
overwhelmingly passing both Chambers next week and, if necessary, 
overriding a threatened veto by President Trump.
  This is a critically important bill to pass. It always passes, and I 
am hopeful that we will come together on this bill. It was a tough 
conference but a good conference, and the result, I think, can be 
supported by both sides of the aisle, signed, obviously, by the Senate 
Republican chairman and our chairman here in the House.
  As Members know, the continuing resolution expires on December 11; 
therefore, the authority for spending to keep government running will 
expire on the 11th. The Committee on Appropriations is hard at work on 
reaching an agreement on an omnibus, and I hope to bring that to the 
floor as early as possible. I am hopeful that will be next week.
  Frankly, I have had a discussion with Senator McConnell. I am told 
there is no agreement that we cannot make on the 11th that will be 
easier to make on the 18th, which is the end of the following week. I 
would urge Members, however, to ensure that they are available for the 
week of the 14th if we have not completed our business by next week.
  The House may also consider additional legislation to address the 
coronavirus pandemic, as I have already said. The House has passed two 
different Heroes bills.
  We passed the bill on May 15th, 6 months ago, to deal with this 
extraordinary crisis placing millions of Americans at risk, causing 
deep emotional and physical distress and a challenge not only to their 
health, but also to their psychological welfare, and to educating our 
children and keeping our schools safe and providing the resources 
necessary that, if we can get children back in school--which I think 
all of us want to do--that we can accomplish that objective.
  The House has also passed, on October 1, some 2 months ago, a $2.2 
trillion bill. That was not taken up by the Senate. The Senate has 
passed no legislation since May 15th. They did not consider our bill 
either time, neither the Heroes 1 bill nor the Heroes 2.
  It is unfortunate, in my view, that Senate Republicans have failed to 
act, even if they didn't act on what we wanted to do. I am pleased that 
the Speaker and Senate majority leader spoke yesterday. I have spoken 
to him three times this week, and I hope that we can get an agreement. 
The House stands ready to act next week.
  Lastly, as everybody understands, when you get to the end of a 
session, we don't contemplate everything that might be on the agenda, 
so other pieces of legislation may be on the agenda next week or the 
week thereafter.
  Again, I reiterate, I am very hopeful that we can get this business 
done by next week.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason I scheduled the 11th as the CR day is because 
I wanted to make sure we could get Members home. With the COVID crisis, 
the pandemic has exploded.
  Members ought not to be aggregating here on the House floor or 
aggregating here in Washington. They ought to be home. And if we got 
out on the 11th--I want to get through on the 10th so we can send a 
bill to the Senate. However, if we left on the 11th, it will be 14 days 
before Christmas, and, therefore, if Members leaving Washington had to 
quarantine themselves, they would have sufficient time to do so so that 
they could be with their families on Christmas Day.

  I would hope that everyone on the Committee on Appropriations, the 
leadership--myself included--would feel the urgency of passing this 
needed legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  There are a few items relating to legislation that I want to bring up 
with the gentleman, but before that, I did want to mention that it is 
my understanding that the floor director for the majority leader, Ms. 
Shuwanza Goff--the last thing I would want to do is embarrass her here 
on the House floor, but it is my understanding she may be leaving.
  Mr. HOYER. It is a vicious rumor that has been spread abroad in the 
country.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield time to her if 
she would like to deny that rumor, but while that may create some 
issues, I would like to say that, if this is the last time that we do 
this colloquy before the end of this year, it has been a true pleasure 
to work with Shuwanza Goff.
  My whole staff has enjoyed working with her, and especially on those 
areas where we agree--the CARES Act and USMCA come to mind as recent 
major accomplishments that this legislative body has done together, 
Republicans and Democrats--and she, I know, has been that conduit who 
works with our staff on the Republican side. We considered it a true 
joy to work with her. She doesn't schedule every bill I ask her to 
schedule, but I will blame that on the majority leader, not on 
Shuwanza.
  Mr. Speaker, if I can, in all seriousness, say, it has truly been a 
treat and a joy, and she is one of the people who makes this place work 
when it does work.
  We can always talk about the things that we would like to achieve 
that we can't, but there are many important things we achieve, like 
those important pieces of legislation I talked about and many others 
that don't get that same kind of attention, but they wouldn't happen 
without the work and the great leadership that Shuwanza has 
demonstrated here. She will be missed here, and I just wanted to 
mention that.
  I know the gentleman feels probably even stronger, because she has 
worked for him for the whole time I have been in leadership, but, I 
think, going back to maybe 2008.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I may get into this next week, and I am 
hopeful that the gentleman is right that we don't have a colloquy next 
week, that we would have completed our business, as I have been talking 
about.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been blessed, the House has been blessed, the 
country has been blessed by Shuwanza Goff's leadership on this floor on 
my behalf and on the majority's behalf, working closely with the 
minority. And I know that Shuwanza would want me to say that she looks 
forward to the same kind of cooperation in her new job that she has 
gotten in her old job, and if the gentleman wants to assure her of 
that, I will yield to him.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I will give this assurance to the majority 
leader, that if you are looking for a replacement, I would be happy to 
provide recommendations and even participate in the interview process, 
if that would be helpful to the gentleman from Maryland.

[[Page H6844]]

  

  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is most generous.
  Mr. SCALISE. I think the generosity probably ends there with today's 
colloquy. I am sure we will have that opportunity next week to have a 
longer conversation, but I truly do want to pass that on to Shuwanza, 
and not just on behalf of myself, but on behalf of the minority leader, 
Mr. McCarthy, and his staff, as well as mine, and all of us in 
leadership who get to work with her.
  Mr. Speaker, I do want to mention, on the schedule next week, one of 
the items that I know we have worked on together and talked about that 
I believe the gentleman has scheduled for next week is S. 578, which is 
the ALS Disability Insurance Access Act, something that we have worked 
on, a number of these items, for people with ALS.
  The Steve Gleason Act was one of those items we worked on a few years 
ago, passed to help people with ALS, and has been a tremendous, 
tremendous benefit to people struggling with ALS.
  Steve Gleason is a constituent and a dear friend, somebody whom we 
have worked with on many things. He received earlier this year--it 
seems like years ago, but just January of this year, he was the 
recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, and deservedly so.
  He and I were communicating earlier this week about this legislation, 
which I am a cosponsor of, and I just want to thank the gentleman for 
scheduling that for the floor next week.
  One of those areas, as you were talking about earlier, that might not 
get a lot of attention but an issue that both Republicans and Democrats 
have worked on is to help people with ALS who, right now, under current 
law, even after the diagnosis with ALS--as we know, it is just a 
devastating diagnosis--have to wait 5 months to get the normal benefits 
that they are entitled to. And time is very, very critical to people 
with ALS. This eliminates that 5-month gap where they would have to 
wait, one of those additional occasions where it takes an act of 
Congress to fix this.
  The Senate acted, and quickly, now, the House will be acting to 
address this deficiency that needs to be fixed. I think you will see 
both sides come together with a very large vote, but I thank the 
gentleman for scheduling that for the floor next week.
  I yield to the gentleman, if you have anything to add on that.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, I was pleased to schedule this. Obviously, as you 
know, it passed the Senate the other day. Hopefully, we will pass it on 
suspension next week and it will be sent to the President. Hopefully, 
the President will sign it.

  Obviously, ALS is just a terrible, terrible disease, and a disease 
that acts very, very quickly, which means that there is a premium on 
the government's response to assisting people with ALS be quick as 
well.
  Mr. Speaker, as we know, what this bill does is it provides an 
acceleration for people who are suffering from and afflicted with ALS 
to get assistance. So, hopefully, the House will pass it and will send 
it to the President.
  I appreciate the gentleman's cosponsorship of the bill.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, as relates to the schedule next week, as well as the 
schedule we have had this week, I want to bring up a piece of 
legislation that we have talked about here in this colloquy and in 
other venues for months now, and that is the bill by Congressman 
Chabot, H.R. 8265, which is the Paycheck Protection Program Extension 
Act.
  We have seen over these last few months our small businesses have 
struggled tremendously. Some industries have done better during this 
pandemic where they have seen increased sales for various reasons, but 
we have mostly seen and heard from so many of those businesses and 
industries that have been devastated, some harder than others, but so 
many devastated to the point of bankruptcy. Daily, we see stories of 
businesses that closed their doors for good.
  Mr. Speaker, in the State of New York alone, it was reported that 
one-third of all small businesses--one-third--will never open again. We 
came together to do the CARES Act, to pass that lifeline to so many 
small businesses--saved probably 50 million jobs in America, saved 
millions of small businesses--but it expired; and when it expired, we 
learned a lot more about where our economy was at that time.
  When we passed it, it was at the very beginning of the pandemic. We 
now saw over those months which businesses were doing better, which 
weren't, and came back in September with a piece of legislation that 
would free up money that is not going to have to be borrowed, money 
that is actually sitting in that account, frozen, $137 billion that we 
already appropriated. But the program expired so it can't be used 
anymore unless we change the law.
  So, we are not talking about creating a new program. We are talking 
about going back to a program that was maybe one of the most successful 
things that we have done to help people in need--not just those small 
businesses, but the millions, 50-plus million people whose livelihoods 
depend on those jobs.
  The bill was brought forward, had a lot of bipartisan interest, but 
for various reasons hasn't been scheduled on this House floor. And 
there were reports that maybe it was tied to waiting on the election or 
whatever other things.
  In fact, the Speaker of the House, just today, made a comment that 
one of the reasons a certain relief package bill wasn't brought to the 
House floor is because she was waiting on a ``new President.'' I hope 
that was a quote that was made out of context or maybe needs to be 
revised.

                              {time}  1330

  There are millions of people that are literally facing the 
elimination of their livelihoods, and we have a bill that, if it was 
put on the floor today, yesterday, or September, when we first had this 
conversation, there would be hundreds of thousands of businesses still 
open today that are now bankrupt, that will never open again. Every day 
we wait, more businesses don't reopen.
  Clearly, we are negotiating to try to get an agreement on bigger 
issues. We are not there. We weren't there last month; we weren't there 
the month before. The Senate has tried to take up votes on things. It 
wasn't the Republicans; it was the Democrats that blocked those bills 
coming up. This, by the way, was one of those in the package that would 
have been voted on by the Senate, if not for Senate Democrats blocking 
even the debate on the Senate floor. So they never had that debate.
  On this floor, just today, we saw a bill to legalize marijuana. You 
saw items in there where it would give additional money to people in 
the marijuana industry. This is something that Congress, I am sure, 
will continue to debate.
  But there is a pandemic where, today, we have businesses that are 
shutting their doors. Tomorrow, businesses will go bankrupt forever, 
small businesses. We can help them. Not with a new program that we need 
to negotiate the details over, but something we already did that was so 
highly successful that we have a track record to show what it can do.
  Our small banks, local community banks, were part of that process and 
are ready to go again. Again, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. 
This is an existing program that has got existing, remaining money, but 
the program is frozen and expired. This bill just renews it and could 
pass on the suspension calendar, and it still hasn't been brought up.
  While we are negotiating other things, why not release this hostage 
and let this bill pass. It could have been done today. It wasn't a lack 
of time. When we are debating legalizing marijuana instead of saving 
small businesses, that is a misplaced priority of this Congress. We 
should have come together months ago. September 16, it was introduced. 
September 17, I brought it up to the majority leader at this colloquy. 
The following week brought it up again.
  Then we filed a discharge petition. You had, I think, 23 Democrats 
sign a letter saying they would sign that discharge petition if we 
didn't get a bipartisan agreement, recognizing that the Heroes Act is 
not a bipartisan agreement. Unfortunately, not one of those Members who 
signed the letter saying

[[Page H6845]]

they would sign the discharge have signed the discharge. Talk is cheap 
around here.
  Livelihoods are being lost. Businesses are shuttering for good. Why 
can't this bill be scheduled for the floor while we work on the other 
things that we are not in agreement on? This is something we are in 
agreement on. But it won't be scheduled for the floor.
  Maybe we can get an agreement to schedule that Monday when we are 
coming in at 2 o'clock to vote on other items. This would be something 
that would get 400-plus votes, if it was just scheduled.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observations. 
He is right; we are for this.
  We are also for making sure that children have food on their tables. 
We are also supportive of making sure that education facilities have 
the money to keep their venues safe and to keep education flowing. We 
are also for making sure that childcare is available to parents who can 
go back to work, when and if their children go back to school.
  We are also for having critical money for testing and tracing and, 
yes, for delivering the vaccinations. Yes, we are for that, and we are 
also for States and localities that are hemorrhaging revenue to have 
the resources to continue to be on the front line of fighting the 
battle against COVID-19.
  We are also for resources, not only to have created the vaccine--
almost all of which is being funded by the Federal Government--but we 
are also for making sure we can deliver that vaccine and have 
vaccinations as well as having a vaccine.
  We are very strongly for helping the extraordinary number of 
unemployed, who are on unemployment insurance, and who, at the end of 
this month, are going to find it goes away. We are for having an 
additional enhancement of that unemployment insurance, which so many 
economists will tell you from the CARES Act, was absolutely essential 
to keep the economy afloat.
  And the fact that we have kept the economy afloat, as shown by--
apparently, the stock market thinks we are okay--the millions and 
millions and millions of families who are in deep distress and are not 
okay. I am appalled by the fact that we have not acted.
  We have acted twice. You say it was partisan. That is true; you chose 
not to vote for it. It wasn't much different than the CARES Act, which 
you did vote for. But, apparently, shortly after we passed the Heroes 
Act, your leader, Mr. McCarthy, said, Let's wait and see what happens. 
And Senator McConnell said, Let the States go bankrupt.
  Well, they are on that road. And we have seen what happened by 
waiting. We have thousands of our fellow citizens dying every week, now 
over 260,000 Americans; millions afflicted.
  So I tell my friend, Mr. Speaker, that we care about PPP, and we took 
care of it in both bills we passed. It wasn't a question that they were 
partisan or not partisan. They weren't taken up in the United States 
Senate. We passed them. They were not taken up.
  Yes, the Senate leader offered a bill that every economist with whom 
I have talked said was not substantive enough, not sufficient resources 
to stop the hemorrhaging, and to help fight COVID-19.
  So I tell my friend, we are for that bill. What we are not for is 
forgetting the kids, the families, the hospital workers, the 
researchers, the States, the localities. We are not for forgetting 
them. We believe that if we pass one part of a multifaceted response to 
COVID-19 and the implication for our economy, that will not be what our 
economy, nor our people, need.

  We would ask you to talk to the Senate or to offer your own bill. 
Offer your own bill that deals with all of those millions of people 
that I just referenced that are in deep, deep distress. We need to deal 
with the small businesses, and we do. We need to deal with the 
unemployed and we do.
  We have a lot of things expiring on December 31, PPP--your bill, does 
not deal with any of that. We need to deal with all of it. We ought to 
do it. Mr. Chabot's bill ought to be a part of that, and it will be, 
because we are committed to that. But we are also committed to not 
forgetting all of those people and elements that I mentioned.
  I want to help the airlines. And, hopefully, that will be in any deal 
that we come to. I want to help the restaurants. These are people who, 
through no fault of their own, are devastated.
  So I tell my friend, he is right, but only partially so. He is right 
that we ought to be helping the small businesses. But I don't think 
there is a small businessman in America that would say let the 
nutrition issue go, as we see lines of cars and lines of people getting 
food boxes so they can put food on their table for their kids and 
themselves, people who never, ever, expected in their lives to be in a 
food line. I think the small businessmen would say, take care of them. 
I think the small businessmen would say, I haven't been able to pay 
taxes, and I know the State is still operating hospitals, still fixing 
the roads, still hiring police and fire, and hiring nurses in public 
hospitals. They need help, too.
  We are all in this together. That is my response to the gentleman, 
Mr. Speaker.
  We want to have a comprehensive bill that will deal with a 
comprehensive threat to our economy and to the health of our people and 
to the welfare of our people. We think that is the responsible thing to 
do.
  I am hopeful that we can get an agreement in the near term. When I 
say, ``the near term,'' by next week. I have been talking to Senator 
McConnell towards that end. The Speaker is talking to Senator McConnell 
towards that end.
  The Senators are working on an effort to get that done. I am hopeful 
they are successful. The Speaker and Mr. Schumer said it was a place 
that they could negotiate from, which means we are closer than we have 
been, and I hope it gets done.
  Mr. SCALISE. Let me remind the gentleman that in the CARES Act, we 
addressed many of those issues that the gentleman already brought up, 
starting with the States.
  In fact, I don't know of a single State in this country who has spent 
all of the money we sent them. Educational opportunities for schools to 
reopen safely and educate kids are being denied in some places but not 
in others, but it is not from a lack of money. There is not a single 
school system I have heard from, where we sent them the money--and by 
the way, they still have millions, and in some cases, billions of those 
dollars sitting in their account, idle, that can be used today to 
safely reopen schools.
  If the State chooses not to do it or if the school system chooses not 
to do it, that is on them. But they are denying those kids 
opportunities. We are seeing report after report, scientific studies, 
the American Academy of Pediatrics, talking about the damage that is 
being done to our young children by being denied the opportunity to go 
back to school in classroom and learn. It is devastating to those kids.
  Suicides are up and opioid abuse is up, because of all of these 
things, and it is the small businesses that are paying the biggest 
price.
  If you look, people that are getting unemployment insurance at the 
State level--we did enhanced unemployment insurance for a period of 
time, and in most cases we were paying people more money not to work 
than they were making before they lost their job.
  What they ask me is not that they want to stay on unemployment. They 
want to go back to work. They want their business to be alive when they 
go back to work. But if a small business closes for good, the cost to 
us is going to be dramatically higher.
  If we can right now throw that lifeline, again, to those businesses--
not with a new program, not with things that we don't agree on, like 
$900 billion to bail out failed States, which is the Heroes Act. We 
already spent hundreds of billions of dollars that we gave to States. 
Like I said, I think every single State has some of that money left. 
Some have billions of dollars of that money left.
  So the idea that we are going to hold up relief to small business, 
who are closing every day, hundreds of thousands--a third of every 
small business in the State of New York is gone for good. How many more 
need to die before this problem is recognized by this Congress?

  So those States are sitting on money, and the gentleman wants to hold 
up relief to small businesses to give another

[[Page H6846]]

$900 billion to bail out States, not for the COVID damage, but the 
problems they had before. That is what the Heroes Act disagreement was 
about. We agreed on giving States money. They still have some of that 
money, and it can be used to reopen schools safely, still today.
  What is not there right now is relief for those small businesses. So 
when you look at all of these different things--the vaccine, they are 
not waiting on approving a vaccine based on more money coming in. We 
put money in the CARES Act, and President Trump spent it effectively on 
Operation Warp Speed to get us to the point where we have not one, but 
two--Pfizer and Moderna--ready to go.
  The FDA is about to approve two different vaccines, and it is being 
mass produced today. We are not waiting on money to mass produce it. 
The Department of Defense is actually involved in helping distribute 
it. Airlines have already been contracted to get it out. Some need to 
be air-conditioned more than others. All of that is put in place.
  If we need more money, we will come together and get more money. But 
a vaccine is not waiting on us to send them more money. We need to get 
it out. We need the FDA to follow their process, which they are doing. 
They are the gold standard in the world for approving vaccines, and it 
is unheard of, in the history of mankind, for a virus, that we didn't 
even know of until a year and two days ago in the world, to now be on 
the brink of not one, but two FDA-approved vaccines. That is happening 
because of what we did coming together with the CARES Act and then 
President Trump's Operation Warp Speed.
  These aren't items that are waiting on our relief. What is waiting is 
relief for small businesses.
  Now, the Heroes Act, again, it was a partisan exercise, not because 
it was mostly like the CARES Act. It was very different from the CARES 
Act. In the Heroes Act, there are billions of dollars in that bill to 
give checks to people here illegally. That wasn't part of any 
agreement. It wasn't in the CARES Act. That is new policy that is not 
going to be signed into law.
  If you want to negotiate and hold small businesses hostage on that, 
we may never get relief for small businesses. But that was one of the 
items in the Heroes Act where we had no agreement.

                              {time}  1345

  But the areas where we had agreement, can we at least agree to pass 
the things we have agreement on?
  And what did we have more agreement on than anything? The PPP, proven 
to be so successful that literally every day we hear from small 
businesses that say they would not be alive today if not for the PPP. 
But we also hear from small businesses every day who are about to 
close.
  Some States are talking about shutting their whole State down again.
  We know that is going to lead to businesses that will never come 
back. And we have a bill ready to go that would get massive bipartisan 
support without a new dime of money, money sitting frozen in an account 
that would help those small businesses. The criteria is you have to 
have at least 25 percent loss.
  So your small businesses that are doing well today--again, we know 
there are some that are doing better today than they were a year ago, 
but we also know some are about to close for good. We can help them, 
not with new policy that we are not in agreement on. That is where the 
negotiations are continuing to go back and forth on.
  But if there is something we all agree on, do we really need to hold 
that hostage, when that means that many of those businesses will never 
come back?
  We could have done this in September. It was brought up in September. 
It is not a new item.
  How many thousands of businesses died from the day that that bill was 
introduced to today and will die again between now and Monday?
  It can be put on the schedule Monday. It is not going to stop the 
negotiations on the other things. There are other things that we are 
both in agreement on that aren't part of that bill. Bring that as a 
stand-alone. Let's bring each of those items that we are in agreement 
on.
  But the idea that we hold everything hostage to things that aren't 
going to happen, hundreds of billions to failed States, giving checks 
to people who aren't here legally, is that really a priority?
  Is that really the things we are getting called on every day?
  The folks that are on unemployment want to be able to go back to 
their job. If the company is dead and gone, there will be nothing to go 
back to. And so we are working on so many items that we are in 
agreement on. We have given money to our health experts to continue to 
focus on the virus, to continue to get the vaccine, and we may have 
another two--could be four--vaccines by the end of this year. That is 
something we all ought to applaud because of what we did when we came 
together.
  But here is an area where we already came together. It was so 
successful that that money now is frozen, and those businesses that did 
well are still doing well. The ones that aren't will or will not be 
alive in a month from now, based on whether or not we confront this. It 
is not new policy. It is something we already agreed on, and something 
we already celebrated as a success. Let's do that one more time while 
we negotiate on the things we are in disagreement with.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just suggest that, and I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for suggesting that. I 
didn't hear him talk about the children who are having trouble getting 
food on their tables every morning and every evening. I didn't hear him 
talk about the unemployed, the 12 million American workers who are 
going to run out of unemployment as of the end of this month.
  Mr. Speaker, I did hear him talk about the failed States. Let me tell 
you, Maryland is not a failed State, and our Governor is a Republican. 
His name is Hogan. His father served in this body. He, along with Mr. 
Cuomo, the Governor of New York, said the States, meaning all the 
States, need substantial assistance or they are going to have to make 
substantial cuts. In my State, we have made cuts, and we are a wealthy 
State. We have made cuts, which have undermined the States's ability to 
respond as robustly as they need to do to COVID-19.
  Now, the President wants to talk about failed States. What he really 
means is blue States, Mr. Speaker. That is what he means--large States 
like New York; large States like California. By the way, Florida and 
Texas are in the same position. Now, Texas has a greater surplus. But 
failed States is a fake news item.
  Mr. Speaker, what we should do is come together and have an 
agreement. Now, we can pass something here, and we did pass something 
here. The Republicans chose to join us, Mr. Speaker, on the first three 
bills. One was an $8.3 billion bill responding to $1.2 trillion or $2.2 
trillion that the President asked for. In other words, four times what 
the President asked for. In terms of what we have done, that seems like 
small potatoes, a lot of money.
  But it was clear that the administration's response to this crisis 
was woefully inadequate, represented by that first bill that they sent 
to us, knowing full well that it would not even come close to meeting 
the needs. So we increased it about 400 percent. The Speaker then 
negotiated with Mr. Mnuchin and came up with two additional bills that 
were passed in a bipartisan fashion.
  And, very frankly, the President told us this was about to go away. 
Not to worry. It is going to go away. It will go away tomorrow maybe or 
next week. It is going to go away when the weather gets warm. And Dr. 
Fauci said: No, Mr. President, that won't happen. So, essentially, the 
President dismissed Dr. Fauci as a principal adviser. Thankfully, Mr. 
Biden, President-elect Biden, is going to bring him back as the 
principal adviser, one of the great experts in the world on vaccines 
and on infectious diseases.
  So I am somewhat frustrated that we focus on one facet. But I will 
tell you, if those 12 million people become unemployed without 
assistance, they won't have any money to spend on small businesses. If 
those States don't have the ability to operate properly, that will hurt 
small businesses. If the transportation system faltered, it will hurt 
small businesses.

  Mr. Speaker, my point is that we are e pluribus unum: Out of many, 
one. We

[[Page H6847]]

are a nation reliant upon one another, and the harm to one results in 
the harm to the other. Therefore, we believe that there ought to be a 
comprehensive piece of legislation, as there was overwhelmingly 
supported.
  But the Republicans, after CARES, and when we passed the Heroes Act 
in May, passed it on May 15, they thought everything was hunky-dory and 
they walked away.
  Mr. McConnell said the States can go bankrupt. Think of the 
consequence that would have had. And, yes, we gave them some money 
under CARES. Nobody, when we voted on CARES, thought we would be where 
we are today. Nobody, except Dr. Fauci, and some other experts, 
scientists, medical personnel, said: Look, this thing is going to come 
back, that is what happens with these pandemics. They have an original 
assault, and then they come back. And they came back with a vengeance, 
and people are losing their lives.
  And the failure to pass a comprehensive bill--we agree, we want to 
help these small businesses. Heroes 1 helped small businesses. Heroes 
2, you didn't vote for those. You said they were partisan. I am not 
sure what was partisan about them. They were no more partisan than the 
CARES Act was partisan. Mr. Speaker, the difference was, very frankly, 
the Republicans decided they were going to vote for CARES, and then 
they decided, we have done enough. And we have been twisting in the 
wind now for 6 months since we passed Heroes.
  I don't want to make a speculation of how many hundreds of thousands 
or tens of thousands of lives may have been saved had we passed Heroes 
1, or we acted much sooner out of the administration. But I am hopeful 
we can get rid of all this ``who struck John, you did it, I did it, who 
did it,'' and come to grips in the next 7 days, maybe 14 days. There is 
no reason why we can't come to an agreement.
  There is a bipartisan group in the United States Senate, Republicans 
and Democrats, who have come up with a bill, $908 billion. Now, that is 
a lot of money. But what they try to do is deal with all of the issues 
that I have raised, and they do. Maybe not as much as I think we ought 
to do, maybe not as specifically targeted as I think, but it is a basis 
for agreement. And I hope the Senate passes it. I hope they pass it 
next week and send it over to us.
  I guarantee you when they send it over to us, we will act on it. We 
won't leave it sitting, as Heroes 1 and Heroes 2 have sat in the Senate 
for 6 months, or 2\1/2\ months. We won't let it sit.
  Why?
  Because the country is at risk. Our people are at risk. Our children 
are at risk. Our families are at risk.
  Mr. Speaker, as you so correctly point out, the whip points out that 
our businesses are at risk. He is absolutely right and we need to act. 
But if we only act on small businesses and we don't take care of the 
other problems, the small businesses ultimately will not be able to 
survive either. We are in this together.
  We do not have a policy on this side of the aisle saying: You are on 
your own, children; you are on your own, unemployed; you are on your 
own, States, localities, municipals, small towns, small counties.
  That is not our policy. We are in this together, and we want to help 
all of those in distress.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't know that I will have anything more to say on 
this particular item, but I am appreciative of Mr. Chabot's bill. I 
hope that his bill is included, and I hope that we can pass something 
next week to help all of those in deep distress. That would be good for 
our country. It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do, 
and I hope we do it. I will facilitate it when we get to an agreement. 
I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, too. In terms of our 
children, we know sending them back to school safely, the protocols are 
out there. Child nutrition programs are administered in our schools. 
That is not happening because the kids are in those systems where they 
are not safely reopened. Those kids aren't able to get the school lunch 
programs.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I don't know about your school system, but my 
school system is still providing meals for kids either as a pick-up at 
the school or delivery at some site, because that is a critical 
problem, but they need money to do that. We know that food banks are 
stretched, and we need to deal with that program. That is my point. It 
is not just small businesses. It is that nutrition program.
  I just wanted to clarify that in my school districts, we are 
delivering meals, notwithstanding the fact that schools are shut down.

  Let me say something else just as an aside. Three of my counties have 
a majority, if not unanimous, county commissioners who are all 
Republican. They have all voted to keep the school systems virtual, as 
have my other counties.
  I represent five counties, essentially, or parts thereof. They have 
all voted. Hearing from parents and teachers, and perhaps some 
students, they are all virtual. They will need as much money to 
continue virtuality as they will to get kids back in school. They need 
extra resources to do that.
  The $908 billion bill that is agreed or proposed by a bipartisan 
group in the Senate has money in that bill for those programs.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, those schools already have access to the 
$150 billion that we sent the States that they haven't even already 
spent. If I gave you money to do something and you haven't even used 
all that money, you can't use that as an excuse for not doing it, and 
saying: I am waiting for you to give me more money, when you still have 
money remaining.
  And I agree with the gentleman on the school lunch program. The thing 
there is that we don't give a supplement to schools in normal times. 
These are not normal times. But in normal times, schools feed kids at 
lunch with the existing budgets they have. They don't wait for us to 
send extra money to them to feed the kids.
  If they are not educating the kids in the classroom, they are still 
taking that money. I haven't seen them rebate the money to those 
families in communities.
  So what are they doing with that money?
  If you bring the kids back and educate them safely in the classroom, 
which the protocols allow for in any community, high risk, low risk, if 
you have got a high outbreak, there are different ways to handle each 
community. The CDC has given them guidelines. The Academy of Pediatrics 
have given them guidelines. Some school systems have chosen not to 
follow them and leave the kids at home, but they are still taking the 
money.

                              {time}  1400

  There has never been a better argument for school choice and letting 
parents choose. If one school system is willing to educate your child 
safely and the other is not, why shouldn't you be able to take that 
money and send your child to the place that is willing to do it safely 
for you?
  It is not a question of the money. It is a question of the will to do 
it.
  But when we talk about those businesses and what was in the CARES Act 
and what wasn't, the CARES Act was not the Heroes Act. I think the 
gentleman knows some of the differences. I will tell the gentleman a 
few of the differences.
  What is in the Heroes Act that is not in the CARES Act that we all 
voted for was letting thousands, an unknown number of thousands, of 
criminals out of prison. I have never gotten a straight answer on how 
many thousands of criminals would be let out of prison or why that even 
needs to be in a COVID relief package. But that is in the Heroes Act, 
which was not in the CARES Act, and we are completely in disagreement 
on that.
  Why it hasn't been dropped out, who knows, but that is a choice the 
majority made. Again, sending direct checks, billions of dollars in 
direct checks, to people that are here illegally was not in the CARES 
Act; it is in the Heroes Act. If we wanted to make it bipartisan, drop 
those things out. But they haven't been dropped out by the majority, 
and here we have a program that we agree on.
  But in terms of the small businesses, the small businesses are dying 
on the vine because some States are giving

[[Page H6848]]

mixed signals, changing rules, going backward, forward. In States like 
California, they are saying you can operate as a liquor store or as a 
strip club but not as a church. Even the Supreme Court stepped in and 
said that is ludicrous and that you can't keep doing it.
  But you go to New York and so many of these States where they are 
saying for safety protocols you have to shut down and you can't go to a 
restaurant, and then you see the Governor of the State at a restaurant 
without a mask. But you can't go. You see mayors in communities telling 
businesses they can't stay open or it is not safe to have Thanksgiving 
with your family, and you find out they are flying to other States to 
have Thanksgiving with their family.
  This blatant hypocrisy by some of these leaders who are telling you 
that you have to live your life one way and they are living their lives 
a different way, and hiding behind protocols that don't exist, that is 
driving people nuts. The businesses are dying because of it.
  The trust in government gets depleted in those places because they 
are watching. And it is not isolated. I wish it was just once or twice. 
I wish it was never going on. But it is over and over again, yesterday 
and today another story comes out of a local leader or a governor 
telling you that you can't do something, and they are doing it. They 
didn't think they were going to get caught doing it. My God, that has 
to end. The hypocrisy has to end.
  Let's get back to saying things that make sense, working with the 
protocols, working with the experts and the scientists. But don't use a 
scientist selectively and say something that is not really true and 
you, yourself, know it is not true because you are doing it. That is 
what some of those folks are doing. It is driving people nuts, and it 
is driving their businesses under. They will never come back.
  Those families that are struggling and the kids that are going to 
have trouble eating are having that trouble because the businesses that 
their families work for are being bankrupted by crazy, radical policies 
that have to end. We can help them in the short term. We ought to help 
them in the short term.
  Some of the stuff I mentioned that we are not in agreement on ought 
to get dropped out. But in the meantime, don't hold them hostage. Let's 
bring those things that we agree on to the floor and save the 
businesses that we can because every day we don't, more will never come 
back.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, this business about 
illegals getting money, let me just give you an example. You have a 
husband and wife and three children living in an apartment. The husband 
does not have authorization to be here. What the bill provided for, 
that the gentleman talks about, is making sure we feed those children 
even though somebody who is illegal is living in the household.
  What they want to have done is nobody in that household got help. It 
is just a difference of perspective. And I get it.
  But let me tell you something. What you can't get away from is, Mr. 
Speaker, they have not passed a bill through the United States Senate. 
Why? Because it would require compromise. Because you don't have the 
votes, Mr. Speaker, in the Republican Party to pass a bill without 
compromise. So they have sent us no bill.
  Now, Mr. McConnell can say all he wants: Well, we need 60 votes, and 
they won't give us 60 votes.
  He is right. And he won't compromise.
  Your side, on a regular basis when you were in charge, couldn't pass 
a lot of pieces of legislation that had to be passed, and what did John 
Boehner do? Walked over here and said: Madam Leader, Mr. Whip, can you 
help us?
  And we did. President Bush asked for TARP. He couldn't get the votes 
on your side. Where did he come? To our side. We passed it, which saved 
the country from a depression.
  So when you are talking about all this stuff, we sent two bills. You 
didn't like them, fine. Pass something through the Senate. But it would 
have required compromise, and Mr. McConnell offered no such compromise.
  I think, frankly, we ought to move on because I don't think we can 
beat this horse anymore. We are not going to agree. But pass a bill. 
Have a comprehensive bill that helps those children, that helps those 
unemployed, that helps those renters who can't pay their rent and are 
going to be evicted.
  Do you think that helps small businesses? Do you think it helps 
grocery stores? Do you think it helps barbershops? Do you think it 
helps gasoline stations? It does not because they are going belly up, 
and they don't have any resources.
  We are in this together. What I keep telling him, Mr. Speaker, and 
what I keep telling my side, as well, we are in this together, and we 
need to help everyone who is in such distress, not just small 
businesses. We need to help small businesses.
  The airlines continue to say they are going to stop flying. This 
doesn't help them.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, if we wanted to pass another CARES Act-type 
piece of legislation, as we have seen in both other CARES Act bills, 
you have a lot of willingness and interest on this side of the aisle, 
which was there on both of those votes. Clearly, there are things in 
Heroes that there is no bipartisan consensus on.
  So, our party is willing and ready to go another round on those items 
we agree on, and not months from now, not months ago, as it should have 
been done. It should be done today. Hopefully, it will be done when we 
return. I would be happy to work with the gentleman on those items.
  If the gentleman has nothing else, then I would be happy to yield 
back.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing else.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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