[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 206 (Monday, December 7, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7227-S7228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, we have reached the time of year when 
the Senate has more important outstanding business than we have days to 
complete it. Delivering for the American people will take focus, 
dexterity, and genuine bipartisanship. On government funding, as I have 
said for weeks, it is my hope that our committees' work will bear fruit 
and a full-year funding package will come to the floor in both 
Chambers.
  I anticipate that the Senate will take up a 1-week extension this 
week so the government does not close on December 11 and work can 
continue through the end of next week.
  The Nation needs our Democratic colleagues to resist the temptation 
to play brinksmanship with long-settled policy issues or push poison-
pill riders that they know would tank the process.
  We also expect to receive and pass a conference report on the annual 
Defense authorization. And we need to continue confirming nominees to 
vacancies in the judiciary and the executive branch.
  We Senators are no strangers to the end-of-year drama, but this time 
the stakes are far higher. We are up against another, even steeper 
surge in COVID-19 than we saw back in the spring. Workers and small 
businesses are once again struggling to make ends meet as States and 
localities step up precautions.
  And while the latest news on the vaccine trials suggest that victory 
over the virus may soon be within reach, our work in that area is far 
from complete. As one recent article put it, ``State [and] local 
officials plead for vaccine distribution funds.''
  Our Nation's historic sprint to victory through vaccines seems poised 
to succeed in record time, but the critical last step--hundreds of 
millions of doses out to the American people--is still in front of us. 
Congress cannot stay on the sidelines.
  Yesterday, our colleague from Illinois, the Democratic whip, gave an 
interview in which he named three examples of highly urgent matters 
that need to be addressed for our Nation right now. This is the 
Democratic whip of the U.S. Senate.

  Here are the three things Senator Durbin mentioned as flashing red, 
urgent priorities: ``The millions of people who are going to . . . lose 
their unemployment insurance the day after Christmas''; ``the 
businesses that are trying to decide . . . whether or not they can 
continue''; and ``the [vaccine] logistics . . . to make sure that this 
vaccine is on the road and vaccinating people across America as quickly 
as possible.''
  Those are the three things he mentioned. Those are the three urgent 
issues he named as examples: extending unemployment insurance, helping 
small businesses, and funding vaccine distribution.
  Well, I do not question the sincerity of our colleague, who I believe 
is engaged in these discussions in good faith. But these comments 
illustrate perfectly a point that Republicans have been making for 
weeks. These three urgent issues are issues where there is almost total 
bipartisan consensus, no real disagreement whatsoever.
  In fact, the framework for a small, targeted relief package that I 
put forward last week--something Democrats quickly attacked--would have 
resolved all three of those subjects. The targeted Republican framework 
extends unemployment insurance programs that will otherwise expire; it 
creates an entire second round of the Paycheck Protection Program for 
the hardest hit small businesses; and it lays groundwork to distribute 
the vaccines that appear to be on the horizon. Check, check, and check.
  The Democratic whip is right to recognize these three subjects as 
especially urgent because they are especially urgent. That is why 
Republicans have been trying over and over to get them passed. That is 
why Republicans have been saying for months that Speaker Pelosi and the 
Democratic leader should let Congress get outcomes in all of the places 
where we already agree rather than holding everything hostage over 
their most controversial, partisan demands.
  But month after month after month, it has been the Democratic leaders 
who have said that no relief whatsoever can pass, no consensus items 
can become law unless multiple controversial areas where we don't agree 
are resolved to the Democrats' liking.
  That is why the Democratic leader had every single Senate Democratic 
vote to filibuster a targeted COVID-19 relief package back in September 
and again in October. That bill would have taken care of small 
businesses, unemployment insurance, and vaccine distribution months 
ago. Senate Democrats blocked it.
  I think, if the Senate Democratic leader would allow it, the three 
things that the Democratic whip mentioned just yesterday--small 
business aid, reupping unemployment aid, and setting up vaccine 
distribution--would pass the Senate in a landslide.
  A targeted compromise on the most urgent items would pass by a 
massive bipartisan margin. We could easily put together a whole slew of 
commonsense policies--including those three and other things, like 
legal protections that universities and the American Council on 
Education have been pleading for--bring it to the floor, and pass it.
  Everyone knows why this hasn't happened. There is one reason the 
Speaker of the House and the Democratic leader have spent months tying 
the most bipartisan, most commonsense policies to their most 
controversial requests and saying that the country can't get the former 
unless they get the latter. Their strategy has been all or nothing, so 
struggling Americans have, of course, gotten nothing.
  Well, we are down to the wire. The light at the end of the tunnel is 
in sight. Operation Warp Speed seems poised to deliver vaccines on a 
historic, almost miraculous timetable. We have seen some hopeful signs 
of engagement from our Democratic colleagues, but

[[Page S7228]]

we have no reason to think the underlying disagreements about policy 
are going to evaporate overnight.
  Republicans and Democrats do not need to resolve every one of our 
differences to get badly needed relief out the door. We just need both 
sides to finally do what Members of Congress do when they are serious 
about wanting an outcome: Drop the all-or-nothing tactics; drop the 
hostage-taking; and make law in the many places where we have common 
ground. That is what the country is counting on. That is how we can do 
right by the American people before Christmas. Let's get it done.

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