[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 35 (Wednesday, February 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S837-S839]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last week, I was home, as most Members of 
the Senate were, but I was asked to participate in a Zoom call with two 
people I highly respect, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Collins, with the 
National Institutes of Health. While sitting at my dining room table in 
Springfield, IL, there were about a dozen Senators who had access to 
Zoom to be a part of that conversation. I felt like I was privileged to 
really hear some information which most Americans wanted to hear, and I 
knew it had to be important for them to ask for a briefing in the 
middle of the week.
  What they were talking about during the course of that hour were 
variants, what is happening to this coronavirus as it replicates over 
and over and over again millions of times. What they told us--and I am 
a liberal arts lawyer, so I don't profess any sort of medical expertise 
here--was that there were dominant variants that were starting to 
emerge, and they told us the shorthand description that they used in 
the laboratories.
  I just remember that the first one was the UK, United Kingdom, 
variant. They said, by the end of March, which is not that far away--4 
weeks plus--it will be the dominant strain of coronavirus in the United 
States. I was taken aback by that to think that a variant could become 
that dominant that quickly, but it was fair warning that it was about 
to occur. Then they talked about the South African variant, which is 
just starting to appear.
  The good news is they have done enough testing to believe that both 
of the major vaccines we are now using across America, which are 
Moderna and Pfizer--I have Pfizer, and my wife has Moderna--are 
effective against the UK, United Kingdom, variant. The jury is still 
out when it comes to the South African variant. There is a third 
variant, and I won't venture into trying to remember exactly what that 
was about, but I remember it had some origin in South America.
  I heard that news, and I thought to myself, this is an ongoing 
battle. We haven't run up any kind of score against this coronavirus. 
We can't sit back and relax. We are in a very busy third quarter in 
trying to vaccinate America and in watching for each and every new 
threat.
  So, in that circumstance, if you were the President of the United 
States, what would you do?
  Well, Joe Biden, President Joe Biden, decided that we needed to be 
aggressive, that we needed to face reality, not only with regard to the 
half a million Americans who have died but that we need to put together 
the tools to fight this coronavirus as we know it and as it is likely 
to evolve. He needs an army to do that. It is that big a war. He came 
to us with a proposal to start that effort, in a substantial way, under 
his leadership. He calls it the American Rescue Plan. I hear my 
colleagues come to the floor and really raise the question as to 
whether this is needed, and I just heard the speech of the minority 
leader, Senator McConnell.
  What President Biden wants to do to deal with this pandemic, as we 
know it and as it is likely to evolve, is to provide $20 billion more 
for our vaccination program. Does anyone doubt the need for that? I 
don't. I think it is the key to getting America back to business.
  He provides $50 billion for testing, lab capacity improvements, and 
genomic sequencing of this virus mutation. Again, I am not an expert in 
science, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me, after listening to 
Drs. Fauci and Collins, to make that investment right now.
  President Biden wants to invest in 100,000 community health workers 
to help with the vaccinations and contact tracing--100,000. It seems 
like a lot, but in a nation of 350 million, I am not sure it is that 
overwhelming a number. He wants to fund the community health centers so 
that they will be able to tackle this issue and particularly address 
the issue of health disparities;

[[Page S838]]

use the Defense Production Act to provide $10 billion for America's 
manufacturer of the key equipment we need to fight this pandemic and 
the next one, God forbid, whenever it may be; and to expand healthcare 
coverage for Americans in this time of pandemic by subsidizing COBRA 
coverage. What does it mean? If you had health insurance with your job 
and you lost your job and you lost your health insurance, we allow 
people to buy that health insurance that the employer offered, but they 
have to pay for the whole ride, both the employer's and employee's 
sides of it, and it turns out to be prohibitive. It doesn't work unless 
we give a subsidy for that coverage to be extended into your 
unemployment situation.
  And then $4 billion, which sounds small when we are talking 
trillions, but $4 billion for community health--pardon me--behavioral 
health and addiction services and counseling services.
  I learned the hard way over that break as well that we are ignoring 
the opiate crisis in America, but it is not ignoring us. It is 
dramatically increasing, primarily because we are not devoting the 
resources to it. And the mental health situation of many Americans is 
aggravated by isolation and social distancing, and addiction is even 
worse.
  So I have just described for you the health side of President Biden's 
American Rescue Plan. I would like to hear any of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle argue with me--I am ready to take them on--that 
that is not needed. Of course it is needed. It is needed now, and it 
needs to be an investment we make because if we don't break the back of 
this pandemic, we are not going to get this economy reopen again, we 
are not going to get our kids back in school, we are not going to get 
to see our grandkids the way we want to, our children or grandkids, and 
we are not going to see America return to what we all desperately want 
it to return to.
  The reason I raise that this morning is when I heard the Senator from 
Kentucky raising skeptical observations about this plan, I thought 
back. It was a year ago on the floor of the Senate--nothing short of a 
political miracle--that the first CARES Act, under President Donald 
Trump, the first CARES Act passed this Senate with an overwhelming vote 
of 96 to nothing. That doesn't happen much around here, even for 
resolutions on motherhood. But 96 to nothing--bipartisan support for 
the relief bill proposed by President Trump and the Congress in March 
of last year. It was a good feeling, and we knew we had to do it. We 
were in it together, and we knew we had a challenge.
  Then came last December, just a few weeks back, and again under the 
Trump administration a proposal for a $900 billion relief bill for 
COVID-19. It passed the Senate with 92 votes, 92 out of 100 Senators. 
It just showed the bipartisanship that we mustered, thank goodness, 
when we needed it because the Nation needed it, and we did it 
together--96 in March, 92 Senators in December. We stood behind that 
plan even though it had the blessing of a President of a different 
party at a controversial moment in history. We stood behind it because 
the American people needed it.
  Now comes President Joe Biden, 5 or 6 weeks into his Presidency, and 
says: Let me take my leadership opportunity and responsibility 
seriously, and let me come with a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. 
Where is the bipartisanship that we saw last year?
  I do want to dispute the conclusion of Senator McConnell when it 
comes to the state of the economy. I did take a few economics courses. 
I don't profess to be an expert. Let's listen to someone who is: 
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, testifying on Capitol Hill. 
What did he have to say? Well, he told us that we are in a situation 
that is far from over. We have an economy that is still challenging.
  Here are some things that were left out of the rosy analysis by the 
Senator from Kentucky:
  ``There are still 10 million more unemployed people than before the 
pandemic began.'' Ten million unemployed American workers. ``While many 
parts of the economy have recovered,'' Chairman Powell said, ``the 
unemployment rate for the lowest-paid quarter of the labor force is 
probably above 20 percent.'' Above 20 percent. ``There's a long way to 
go,'' Chairman Powell said.
  Economic activity rebounded in the summer after much of the economy 
reopened from spring shutdowns. But that momentum ``slowed 
substantially,'' in the words of Chairman Powell, with sectors that 
rely on person-to-person contact, like hospitality and entertainment, 
enduring the worst blows. ``That burden has also largely fallen on low-
wage workers, Black and Hispanic Americans, and other minority 
groups,'' Powell said.
  I don't believe we are out of the woods yet. I believe we have got a 
long way to go. The American people believe that too.
  President Biden believes it, and when he starts talking about getting 
us back on our feet, he is suggesting extending unemployment insurance 
programs that expire in just 2 weeks. On March 14, unemployment 
programs will start to expire, and he wants us to move quickly to make 
sure that doesn't happen.
  I support that effort for two reasons. First, it is humane. We are 
talking about fellow Americans out of work through no choice of their 
own. Secondly, putting money into unemployment benefits for unemployed 
workers is the single best investment when it comes to revitalizing the 
economy. They do not turn to the Wall Street Journal when they receive 
those checks; they turn to the mailbox and try to figure out how they 
are going to pay the rent and pay for the food on the table. They spend 
the money. That is what unemployment is all about.
  So to have the other side question President Biden's proposal to give 
unemployment benefits beyond March 14 really says that they are turning 
their backs on millions of Americans who have no place else to go.
  Oh, there is a fear on the other side that we just may be paying 
people too much. You know, if you give them a little too much money on 
unemployment, they just might sit home and binge on Netflix and 
chocolate-covered cherries. Well, I suppose that is always going to 
happen no matter how you write the laws, but I think a lot more of 
American workers. I believe they want to get back to work anywhere near 
the salaries that they left behind. I think they are desperately 
looking for those opportunities, and we ought to help them in the 
meantime keep their families together.
  Emergency paid leave is still an absolute necessity in light of this 
coronavirus and the way it deals with us.
  I want to also make a plea here for the minimum wage, and I know 
there is some controversy associated with it.

  Mr. President, glad to have you. You are new to the Senate.
  Back at that desk there, a fellow named Ted Kennedy used to stand. I 
used to love to come to the floor when Senator Ted Kennedy of 
Massachusetts would give his speeches. When he got into it, he was 
amazing. His booming voice could be heard all over the Senate Chamber, 
and I never heard him more energized than when he argued for increasing 
the minimum wage.
  Oftentimes he was a lonely voice--there were no proposals before us 
and none likely to appear--but he never failed to come to this floor 
and remind us on a regular basis of how we had failed year after year 
after year to increase the minimum wage.
  He would tell the story of people in America getting up and going to 
work every single day, sometimes two jobs a day, to try to keep their 
families together and still qualifying for food stamps and assistance 
from our government. He would ask us when we were going to give them 
the dignity of passing an increase in the minimum wage.
  I can still hear him thundering across the Chamber. I wouldn't want 
to be in the place of arguing a different position than the one he held 
because he took it over. I don't have that skill; I wish I did. I am 
glad to have seen him use that skill so effectively to help people who 
were just doing their best to get by and struggling.
  How many times do all of us give speeches about inequality in America 
and why we have to do better for the working people? We do it all the 
time, and everybody knows it is a fact. Wages in America, salaries have 
not kept up. People at the top have done quite well, thank you, but 
those at the bottom have struggled to get by.
  Try to make it on $7.25 an hour. I was trying to do a calculation 
earlier on

[[Page S839]]

just what that is. Is that $15,000 a year? Is that $1,200 a month? Is 
that $300 a week? Could you make it on $300 a week? I am talking about 
everything, now. I am talking about rent and mortgage and car payment, 
food, utilities--the basics. I couldn't. I don't know how anyone can, 
and most can't. They fall deeply into debt and into despair.
  So when President Biden talks about us reopening the conversation 
about our Federal minimum wage, it is long overdue--long overdue--and 
it is an easier issue for me than some because our Governor, J. B. 
Pritzker, when he took over the State of Illinois, set us on course to 
reach $15 an hour as a State over the same period of time that Joe 
Biden has suggested, by 2025.
  I just want to say that those people who are really struggling with 
the notion of increasing the minimum wage in all fairness really ought 
to think about the people out there who are struggling to get by week 
to week and month to month.
  There is another proposal that is in this bill that is currently 
being debated, and it is the $1,400 addition to the cash payment for 
many families. I put it in the same category in order to restore equity 
and opportunity to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't have it. This 
is the second installment. The first was $600 in the bill we passed 
last December. This $1,400 payment will help many families.
  I want to add one element that was debated a few weeks ago. Senator 
Todd Young of Indiana, whom I respect and is a friend, had offered an 
amendment at what was known as a vote-arama as to who would receive 
this $600 payment. I think the payment amount has been increased in the 
latest Biden proposal.
  But the point I tried to make and I think he and I agree on, although 
I won't speak for him, is that if a child legally in America, a citizen 
of this country, with a Social Security number, lives in a household 
with parents who are undocumented--they may be working and paying taxes 
with something called an ITIN--but that child should not be 
discriminated against or at a disadvantage because of the parents' 
immigration status. If the children qualify, the children should be 
receiving those payments. I believe the House reconciliation bill does 
that, and I hope that any measure that we consider will do the same.
  So let me close. I see the Senator on the floor asking for an 
opportunity to speak.
  Yes, I support the American Rescue Plan. Is it possible that I would 
have written it differently? Yes. Are there provisions I would change? 
Yes. But I want to tell you, when we passed the CARES Act measure last 
December, that was true as well.
  We are in a time of a national challenge and a national crisis. We 
have a President who is facing it squarely, taking it on, accepting 
responsibility, and asking for our help. Can we do anything less?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.