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[Pages S1976-S2006] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] LEGISLATIVE SESSION ______ MIDDLE CLASS HEALTH BENEFITS TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2019--MOTION TO PROCEED--Resumed The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 748, which the clerk will report. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: A bill (H.R. 748) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the excise tax on high cost employer-sponsored health coverage. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip. Coronavirus Mr. THUNE. Madam President, at this very minute, across the country, families are wondering how they are going to survive financially now that mom or dad is out of a job. Hourly workers whose businesses have closed temporarily are praying that they will still have a job to go back to when this is all over. Small businesses are facing agonizing decisions about whether they will have to lay off employees or close their businesses altogether. And Democrats? Well, Democrats have been focused on fuel emissions standards and early voting. That is right. In the midst of an unprecedented health and financial crisis, Democrats have been delaying a major relief bill in hopes that they can include a laundry list of their pet projects--projects that have absolutely nothing to do with providing financial relief to Americans or ensuring the medical professionals have the resources they need to fight this virus. Republicans developed this legislation in conjunction with Democrats. It was teed up, being written up Saturday, Saturday evening, ready to vote Sunday morning, when Democrats voted to block even getting on the bill--even getting on the bill. They said: Well, we need to block it now because we may not be able to block it later--not, of course, acknowledging that there is yet another 60-vote hurdle that we would have to get over before we get to final consideration of the bill. But it has been teed up and ready to go now since Saturday night. We made a lot of changes since then to the legislation to address the Democrats' priorities. I thought we were very close to agreement on a final bill. Of course, then the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate stepped in. They apparently decided this was a perfect opportunity to implement a bunch of Democratic pet projects that have nothing to do--nothing to do with fighting the coronavirus or helping the American families who are suffering financially at this very minute. I know my Democrat colleagues have come to regard ``bipartisanship'' as a bad word in the past 3 years, but I had hoped--I really, sincerely had hoped--that in this hour of serious need, the Democrats would be able to put aside their prejudices and work with Republicans to pass this critical legislation. Apparently, that was too much to hope for from the Democrat leadership. Neither my colleagues nor I have given up on reaching an agreement. We are still working, and I am still hoping we will arrive at a final bill sometime later today. We should already have passed this legislation 3 days ago. The blame for not passing it lies squarely on the Democrats' shoulders. I really hope [[Page S1977]] they will rethink their decision to hijack this relief bill for their political purposes, because the American people deserve better. The bill before us is filled with resources to help struggling families, provide relief to workers, and enable businesses to retain their employees during this crisis. Americans need this bill today, not tomorrow, not next week, not when Democrats are finally satisfied that they have scored enough political points--today. I hope my Democrat colleagues will urge their leadership to come to the table and pass this legislation. American workers and families need relief, and they need it now. We can't afford to let them down. All we need is a few Democrat Members who are willing to go against their leadership and vote with us to pass legislation that addresses all the fundamental issues that I just mentioned: assistance to families displaced, people who need cash, people who need to pay bills; assistance to those who are unemployed in the form of unemployment insurance, increasing the States' unemployment insurance that people already get by $600 per person per week for 3 months; checks of $2,400 for married couples and $500 per child on top of that, to go out immediately upon passage of this bill. For small businesses, there is $350 billion set aside to pay their payroll, to keep employees working, hopefully, to keep those jobs there so that they don't go away, and, when this thing is over, to ensure that those jobs are still there for people. Those are all provisions in this bill that are designed to help working Americans, families, and employees to keep their jobs and keep their livelihood until we get to a better place, which, hopefully, will be very soon. In the meantime, we need to deal with the healthcare crisis, which this also addresses. Look at this. There is over $240 billion in relief in this bill dealing principally with the challenges that our healthcare community has: $75 billion directly for hospitals and another $25 billion would come in reimbursements under Medicare to hospitals, so $100 billion for hospitals; $20 billion for veterans healthcare; $11 billion for vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other preparedness needs; $4.5 billion for the Centers for Disease Control; $1.7 billion for the Strategic National Stockpile; $12 billion for America's military, also an important component in this fight; $10 billion for block grants to States; $12 billion for K-12 education; $6 billion for higher education; $5 billion for FEMA disaster relief; $10 billion for airports; and $20 billion for public transportation emergency relief. In all, just in this particular provision of the bill, there is $242 billion in assistance--$186 billion, I might add, which would run through and be administered by the States. All told, between the amount that is going to families, workers, employees, and small businesses, there is about $1.1 to $1.2 trillion that could be on the street today helping address the healthcare and economic crisis that is being felt and experienced by the American people. But no, we are still here. We are still here waiting for the Democrats to conclude, at some point, we hope, all these political games that they are playing. It does seem like a big transaction for them--political winners and political losers. The only loser we know is the American people in all of this because the longer this goes on, the harder it becomes for them to get back to where they were, and the harder it becomes for that small business to stay open or keep those employees employed. Every single day is costing the American economy and American workers jobs, resources, and wages they could be putting forward to take care of them and their families. The Democrats have said they want more money for hospitals. That is negotiable. They want more conditions on the loan fund that larger businesses would be able to access in order to keep their businesses afloat. That is a negotiable thing. There are many of our Members here who support those very things. They say they want more money for State and local governments, which is probably something that could be negotiated. I keep having rank-and-file Democrat Members come up to me and say: This is the list of things we want to negotiate on and get in this bill. Those are all things we are willing to negotiate on and, frankly, many of our Members would support some of the things some Democrats want to do there, too. What is the holdup? I don't think rank-and-file Democrats even realize what their leadership is demanding just past those doors and trying to get done in this bill: getting the Green New Deal into effect; requiring, basically, federalization, nationalization of our election system in this country; and all kinds of new requirements that benefit their special interest groups. That is what this is about. This is the hijacking of a crisis to try and get permanent changes on a political agenda they haven't been able to get and normally wouldn't be able to get under those circumstances. We are happy to debate all of those issues. We are happy to have the debate about all those other things they want to talk about. That is what we do here. That is what we do in the Senate. If you have a good idea and you think something needs to be changed in this country, let's come here and let's debate it. Let's get a piece of legislation to talk about and see if we can come up with a solution. Right now is not the time to be debating ancillary, unrelated issues. Now is the time to put out the fire, and there is a fire burning in this country right now. It is affecting every American. Every single American is being affected. Today is the day. I hope and pray that when the Democrat leadership comes out here on the floor, they will announce that today is the day they are going to work with us on a bill which they had input in. Two of the great fallacies about this legislation is, one, that this is a partisan bill. They know that isn't true. Their rank-and-file Members who have participated in the working groups all know that isn't true. Yet their leadership keeps coming out here announcing this is a partisan bill. This is not a partisan bill. This was constructed in a way that gave both sides input, which includes many of the priorities both sides brought to the table. That is what this bill represents. It represents the very things they said they want: an emphasis on workers, an emphasis on unemployed people, and an emphasis on businesses. And the other great fallacy that they raised is somehow that this is a bailout for big businesses--big businesses that have been forced to shut down. Look at the airlines. They have 10 percent to 20 percent capacity. Why do you think that is? That is not their fault. That is not their choosing. They have been forced to shut down. There are industries in industry sectors all across this country that are being affected in the same way. All this bill includes is a provision that allows them to access credit so that they can keep their operations going, so that they can continue to pay the millions of employees who are employed by big businesses across this country. The Democrats continually come to the floor and say: This is a bailout for big corporations; we need more emphasis on workers. Who do you think employs the workers? As I mentioned, all the provisions in this bill--this is a pro-worker bill. This is about getting paychecks in the hands of American workers. That is what this bill does. That is what this bill is about. It is a sad and regrettable chapter in this time of enormous crisis--something we haven't seen, certainly, in my lifetime. You have to look back in the annals of history a really long time to find a time where we are facing the kind of circumstances, the kind of crises, and the kind of hardships we see, both in terms of people's health and livelihood, as well as their economic livelihood in our history. Today is the day to get this done. We can't wait any longer. The time for political games is over. It is time to act. I hope and pray that, by the end of the day, we will see the kind of cooperation, the kind of bipartisanship that will let us address the needs of hard-working Americans who are fearful for themselves and their families. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming. Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I would like to associate myself with the [[Page S1978]] remarks of the Republican whip. The time for political games is over. It is time to get this piece of legislation passed and signed into law. The American people need it. They want it, and they are watching. Yesterday, the U.S. Surgeon General warned us. He said: ``This week, it's going to get bad.'' He was talking about the healthcare aspects of it. I was on the phone last night, along with my colleague, Senator Enzi, in a telephone townhall meeting, talking to people all around Wyoming. It is not just the healthcare side of it that is going to get bad. The economic side of it is going to get bad, as people who every day want to get up and go to work are now, for the first time in a long, long time, told they can't do so, not by their employer but by the government. I have been visiting with doctors. Our healthcare providers are expecting more patients today and tomorrow and through the week. Some healthcare systems are being overrun. We need to get this done today. Americans are doing their part in preventing community spread of the virus, but the men and women on the frontline taking care of those patients need resources that would be included in this bill, and we need to get this passed today. The private sector mobilized to provide more tests, more masks, more respirators, and more ventilators. They are doing their job. This Senate needs to do its job today. The administration has green-lighted scientific breakthroughs and flexibility for our healthcare system. The Senate has had a bipartisan process throughout this entire process, as the Senator from South Dakota has just outlined. Working groups have been coming up with bipartisan solutions. Together we have put together the largest economic and healthcare rescue package in the history of this country. It is time to pass it today. Today--at least at the end of last night--we were still at a standstill, being blocked and delayed by, basically, the Speaker of the House. We are blocked from providing relief for the American people by the Speaker of the House and the Democrats who are doing her bidding. They continue to play politics with the lives and livelihoods of the American people. It is distressing because, just within the last hour, the Speaker of the House was on national television. She is talking about what her options are--her political options--with no sense of urgency at all. I did not hear a sense of urgency in her voice. I didn't get the sense that she understood the gravity of the situation when I listened to her voice talking about this. She talked about a number of things on her wish list and talked about leveraging opportunities. This isn't about political leverage. This is about the American people and the needs of our Nation at this time of healthcare crisis and economic crisis. She talked about calling the House back in session as one of her options and then having a House-passed bill and then going to a conference. We need action in this body today, and we need this bill on the President's desk tonight. Today, in this country, we have over 46,000 people who have had the test for coronavirus and have tested positive. There is a lack of testing. So even though 46,000 people tested positive, the total numbers may be beyond that. We have nearly 600 deaths in the United States from this virus that is raging around the world. In New York, where the minority leader is from, they are turning the Javits Center into a field hospital. Men and women in the military know what a field hospital is all about. Physicians, who have gone through medical school, understand the history of field hospitals. According to some estimates, the New York healthcare system could be overrun in a week. This bill needs to pass today. When you will look back on this in a day, in a week, in a month, you will just ask: How many deaths could have been prevented if this bill had been passed yesterday instead of today? If one thinks that delaying this even beyond today is an option, it is not. The bipartisan bill that the Senators have worked on needs to pass today, be accepted, and moved from the House to the White House. It is hard to defend the indefensible, but that is where we find ourselves with so many Democrats coming to vote against even the motion to proceed to debate on the bill--an unnecessary delay that blocks the surge in supplies that our hospitals need; that blocks the access to healthcare; that blocks the medical innovation; that blocks the support for our healthcare workers. Every one of those ``no'' votes was a block to assistance for communities all around the country. The votes to block the move to the motion to proceed delayed over $240 billion in emergency funding. That vote to block the motion to proceed blocked $100 billion for hospitals, $20 billion for veterans' healthcare, $11 billion for vaccines and therapeutics. The list goes on and on. Why? It seems to me the Speaker of the House has come back here with her own bill that we had on the floor yesterday, having just been made aware of what was in it. We looked at this wish list while the American people waited and watched and worried. It was a liberal wish list of things that had nothing to do with the disease or the treatment or the recovery of the economy. In their liberal wish list, they block the list of things that would help to save people's lives--resources that, as a doctor, I know are needed in a healthcare crisis. Why are they holding this up? We had a productive, bipartisan process in putting a bill together that seemed, on Saturday night, to be right on its way to being a successful, bipartisan effort. Yet, at the direction of the Speaker of the House, they all voted no. She said she wanted more in it and came out with her own bill. I will get to that wish list in a moment. We told the American public and Governors and mayors and hospitals that we were doing everything we could, and over the weekend, I believed that as this bipartisan group worked together. Yet to have seen all of the Democrats come to the floor and vote no has made me rethink that. We have an opportunity to do something the American public needs. We could have done it and should have done it yesterday. The demands we are looking at really have nothing to do with saving lives and nothing to do with combating the coronavirus. The list that I have seen in the House bill has everything to do with capitulating to the extremes of Nancy Pelosi's party--the far left of her party--and in making good on the deal that she cut so that she could remain as the Speaker of the House. Yesterday, she seemed to be more interested--and was more interested in terms of the press reports--in reliving the passage of ObamaCare 10 years ago than in the crisis that we are facing today. She seemed to be more interested in reliving a law of 10 years ago instead of in what law needs to be passed today and should have been passed yesterday. It is ironic that one of the architects of ObamaCare, Ezekiel Emanuel--one who celebrated it--wrote a book when ObamaCare was passed. He wrote in the book that we have too many hospitals in the United States. He actually wrote that we have 1,000 too many hospitals in the United States. Since ObamaCare has passed, 120 hospitals have closed, and many of those have been rural hospitals. ObamaCare has also blocked the expansion of physician-owned hospitals. Yet I hear from the same folks that, today, we need to expand our healthcare capacity--that we don't have the hospital beds and the facilities to provide for the care that may be necessary in what the Surgeon General has said will be a week during which things are going to likely get much worse. I don't understand why the Senate Democrats have chosen to align themselves with Speaker Pelosi on this leftist list of all of their wants that override the needs of the American people. The House bill that Nancy Pelosi just put out--1,100 pages--is one special interest giveaway after another. This came up last night during the telephone townhall meeting that Senator Enzi and I had with the folks in Wyoming. I said: Really? There are tax breaks for solar panels? for wind turbines? They are holding up voting for this emergency bill that will help the American people in terms of the economy and in terms of our healthcare [[Page S1979]] over solar panels, wind turbines, and a Green New Deal about airline emissions? In this bill, this emergency rescue package for the American people, there is a student loan giveaway, a bailout for the U.S. Postal Service, new same-day voter registration, and early voting requirements. Those have no place in an emergency rescue package for the American people. That is why we were astonished on this side of the aisle when the Democrats--one after another, after another--came to the floor and voted no for even a motion to proceed to this rescue legislation. The American public needs relief--healthcare relief. The American public needs to know that there is treatment on the way; that there is research being done for vaccines; and that the things they need for testing are on the way. That is what the American people need to know. If they can't get paychecks at work because their workplaces have been shut down and they can't go to their jobs--whether they are at restaurants or stores or whatever has been shut down--they need to know they can pay for food to put food on the tables for their families. Instead, what the Speaker is asking for in her bill is to increase collective bargaining for Big Labor; requirements for racial and gender diversity for corporate boards; an automatic extension of nonimmigrant visas; money for Planned Parenthood; and money to maintain the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts--the Kennedy Center? These are all worthy topics for discussion but not on this bill, which is a rescue bill for the American public. Let me be clear. This list that came to us from the House is a special interest wish list. It is not a list for people who are suffering from the coronavirus. This is why we have 150 million American workers who are watching and waiting and worrying. If those on the other side of the aisle thought they could just slip some of these items that the Speaker of the House wants into this Senate bill in an emergency, they are wrong. The President said last night that he will not approve such a list. So they are delaying, and they seem to be blocking the bill for something that will never become law. We know what is going on here. The media even understands well what is going on here because one major outlet, CNN, said the Democrats are engaging in political gamesmanship. This is about the future of our country, the future of the people of our country. Yet we are seeing political gamesmanship being played by the other side of the aisle. The American people get it as well. They see through it. They know that valuable days are being lost here. We need to pass this today with no more delays. The bill has been written in a bipartisan way in the Senate, and it should pass with overwhelming numbers. I see no reason we can't vote today. I see no reason to delay. This is the time to get healthcare capacity online to deal with this healthcare crisis during a week that, as the Surgeon General said, is going to get much worse. We need today to prepare our hospitals and our healthcare systems for the surge of patients that is coming. They need to be ready. The men and women who are working in those hospitals are ready. They are in the fight of their lives. They are the heroes in hometowns all across America because the coronavirus is in every State and in many, many communities. So those men and women are there, and they need to hear that the Senate and the House and the President and this Nation-- the government--are standing behind them and not standing at a distance. They need to know the government is right there in the fight with them by providing what they need--the testing, supplies, the equipment--one thing after another--so they can do what they are trained to do, which is to save lives, to heal the sick, and to prevent disease. That is why people go into medicine. That is why they go into the profession. Doctors and nurses and therapists and all of those people who work there go to school to learn to save lives. They learn to treat disease, to heal the sick, and to prevent disease. That is what this coronavirus has put them all in a position to do--to do their best work. We have to make sure they have everything they need. For that reason, we need to pass this bill today. There is no reason to delay, no reason to wait another day. The bill provides them with what they need, and it provides the economy the sort of certainty and security that the entire country needs. I appreciate the opportunity to share these thoughts. My final message is, this bill needs to be passed today. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Loeffler). Without objection, it is so ordered. Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, as we are all facing this, we are hearing from our Tennesseans; we are hearing from small businesses; and people are trying to hang on to every piece of information they can get. It helps them to stay informed, and we encourage everyone: Stay informed. Stay up to the minute. Talk to us. Be on our websites and social media. We all want to get to you the information you need as quickly as we get it because that is how we are going to defeat this--by realizing that we are all in this together, and it is going to take every single one of us doing our part to get past it. In my family, we had this mantra that we grew up with, and it was kind of my mother's way of saying: Don't sit around and wait. Do things. And it was--there were two things she would always say: Leave things in better shape than you found them. In other words, always be helping to improve a situation. Leave things in better shape than you found them. She would always say ``Give back more than you take,'' stressing to us the importance of being a giver to our community, to our family, to our society, and not being a taker, sitting around feeling like you are entitled and you want people to bring things to you. So in our family, as we approached situations that may have been less than wonderful or if there had been a hurricane--I grew up in South Mississippi--or a terrible storm or some other event, we would always look at it and say ``Leave things in better shape than you found them'' and ``Give back more than you take.'' It was important that action be a part of the solution, not only for our family and our community but right now. Taking the right actions, exercising good judgment, is something that is important for our entire Nation, and Tennesseans are hard at work helping to address this coronavirus--COVID-19--crisis that we are under. Right now, there are 166 members of the Tennessee National Guard who are training to provide support to the Tennessee Department of Health. All together, the State currently plans to activate 250 guardsmen to help out at clinics across the State. They will be helping with assessments and screening. To these National Guardsmen, Guardswomen, to these members and their families who are going to activate in this crisis, bless you--God bless you--and thank you for once again stepping up to help defend our Nation and to meet our Nation's needs. The Tennessee Air National Guard assisted in transporting 1 million testing kits. They put these on the C-17s that are housed there in Memphis and flew them from Aviano Air Base in Italy to Memphis, and then those kits were divided out and sent to healthcare providers all across the Nation to get testing into communities where our citizens are fearing they may have contracted COVID-19. In finding solutions, our scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are working hard in participation with other labs to find a vaccine for this, the Denison Lab--and I had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Denison last week. We know that, in conjunction with other labs, they are expediting the testing that is necessary and finding therapies, anti-virals, vaccines. This is something they are focusing on, and they are working as hard as they possibly can, around the clock, to find these solutions. Of course, we do know if China had been more forthcoming, if they had not tried to keep this a secret--imagine [[Page S1980]] trying to keep this a secret, which is exactly what they tried to do-- we would be further along in this process, but we are so grateful--so, so grateful--for these brilliant minds that are researching this and are building off past research from coronaviruses and from SARS, and they are whittling down what can be used to fight this. Indeed, the supercomputer at Oak Ridge and the team of scientists there, working with the supercomputer, the Summit, were able to put in a lot of information and distill down to 77 drugs that could be effective in this fight against COVID-19. You may remember that just as we identified our first case of COVID- 19 in Tennessee, that was the week that West and Middle Tennessee were struck by a devastating series of tornadoes. TEMA, our emergency management agency, and all of the volunteers who have worked on this have done an unbelievable job in the midst of dealing with unprecedented devastation. Again, we thank President Trump for his attention to this, and the people of Tennessee are so grateful for his attention to the concerns of those hit with the tornado and his visit to the State and FEMA and TEMA working together to address that. So our State has had a full plate, and I say thank you to every Tennessean who has looked at the situation that we are in and decided that they are going to do whatever they can to help. We have a lot of distillers in our State, and, God bless them, they are stepping up and instead of distilling whiskey, they are moving to sanitizers. And, yes, to those distillers, we know there is an excise tax problem, and we are on it, trying to resolve that for you. I have to give a shout-out to our singers and our songwriters, our musicians. While they cannot go fill the audience at one of the clubs on Lower Broad or one of the concert venues in so many places around our State and up in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, what they are doing is hosting virtual concerts on their own Instagram and Facebook, and they are doing this every single day, trying to bring a bit of joy to lift our hearts during a time when we are quarantining and staying separate and apart. How wonderful that we have this technology that will allow us to walk through this entire process of this pandemic together. Here in DC, we are doing our best to be as positive as we possibly can and to be productive because we know, as I said on this floor yesterday, that this is a very difficult time for small businesses, and it is why I have worked so very consistently and diligently through this process of negotiating our legislative solution to be sure that it includes a small business definition that is going to include the self- employed and the sole proprietors and the independent contractors so that they are not left in the lurch. We are continuing to do that. We are hearing from people every day. I heard from the manager of a YMCA that is outside of Nashville, and they have 65 part-time employees who work in that facility. This manager is concerned about how nonprofits and small businesses are going to end up being treated in this legislation. He is certainly wanting to keep those people on the payroll. And do you know what? I agree with him. We want people to stay on the payroll. When we get past this 15-day period--we are about halfway through it right now, 15 days to slow the spread that the President and Vice President have put in place--we want people to be going back to work. I heard from another business owner. It is a family-owned business, and they do maintenance services like plumbing and electrical work, and they have employees who have been with them since 1993. They have never had to lay off one single employee, and they are concerned about where uncertainty is. We have retail--fabulous, homegrown retail--entities in Middle Tennessee, around Nashville. One of those employers has five stores. They are headquartered in Franklin, TN, right outside of Nashville. He is keeping people working even though they are barely bringing in revenue, and he needs us to pass this bill, this rescue bill, so he can keep those employees on the payroll. Then a company that has stood itself up in the last several years--and they are a valuable asset in working with the vulnerable population, moving people from poverty to work--is wanting to keep people working. We are hearing from all of these about the importance of having this bill that will be a bipartisan bill to address the concerns of businesses, large and small, and to address the concerns of workers who are working for those businesses, large and small. What we have had in the bipartisan bill--and hopefully this will move forward--is $350 billion in loans for small businesses, and if people stay working, those become grants; $500 billion in emergency relief through low-interest loans that could go to businesses and hospitals; $242 billion in emergency appropriations across Federal agencies. Seventy-five percent of that money would go to State, local, and Tribal governments, which are much better at managing their affairs than the Federal Government. There is $250 billion in increased and expanded unemployment benefits. I talked about this yesterday. If you normally are going to get $300 in unemployment, with the $600 plus-up, you are at $900 a week. These are all things to keep the economy going. There is an additional $75 billion for hospitals and our healthcare workers. So there is much that is in there. Imagine a bipartisan bill including this--including tax rebates for Americans, $1,200 for individuals, $2,400 for joint filers, $500 per dependent child. There are student loan deferments for those who are affected by COVID-19. All of that--all of that is in a bill. It is so incredibly disappointing to know that we had a failed vote--not once but twice--to get cloture to move forward to get on this bill. With all of these good-faith negotiations, I have just been appalled, as I said yesterday, with the comments to restructure this bill to meet the progressive vision. You know, there is a season for everything. There is a time and place for everything, and this is neither the time nor the place to have a debate about things like collective bargaining powers for unions and making our airlines meet emissions standards--the Green New Deal emissions standards by 2025. For goodness' sake, let's keep the airlines flying right now. Wind and solar tax credits have nothing--nothing--to do with COVID-19. Come on, I say to my friends across the aisle, let's set these aside for the appropriate season to discuss this, but it is not now. Election assistance funding? That has nothing to do with COVID-19. Corporate board diversity? It has nothing to do with COVID-19. Same-day voter registration? The list goes on and on. There is a time and a place, there is a season, and right now, dealing with the crisis in front of us is what should be the center of our attention. I think that yesterday my fellow Republicans and I made it abundantly clear. We do not have time. At this point in time, we do not have time for political games and antics based around a progressive policy wish list. It is disrespectful of the American people. It is hurtful to those who are directly affected by COVID-19, which, indeed, is everybody. It is important for us to move forward. I didn't get everything I wanted. I would have preferred a payroll tax holiday. I would have preferred rebating income taxes that have been paid for businesses and for individuals. I would have even liked to have seen more of my bipartisan SAM-C Act, Securing America's Medicine Cabinet. But adults realize you are not going to get everything you want, and reasonable people realize you are not going to get everything you want. This is a time where we should be respectful and we should be reasonable and we should apply common sense. We know the American people are expecting our best efforts, and they are looking forward to a solution. As I said yesterday, I had talked to someone who said: You know, I am scared to death. This is a small business owner who struggled. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act allowed them to move forward with growth. There are teenagers in the house, and homeschool is starting today. She said: I am screaming inside silently. I do not want the kids to know that I am afraid. So I encourage my colleagues to lay down your progressive policy wish list. Lay it down. Set it aside. There is a season to everything. There is a time, [[Page S1981]] there is a season, and I encourage you to realize that this is neither the time nor the season. Let's address the critical issues in front of us. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, first let me say a word to my colleague from Tennessee. It is good to see you, and it is a good social distance. I thank you for your presentation. We may not agree on everything, but we do agree on some things, and we are working together on the issues that affect Tennessee, Illinois, and many other places, to increase the number of medical professionals available in small towns and rural America. As we go through this public health crisis, it reminds us that we need to keep focused on that, and she and I will continue to work on that. I thank her for her bipartisan cooperation. That is a timely issue with or without the current crisis we face, and I look forward to her successful completion on that bipartisan issue. Madam President, my daughter called me yesterday from New York and talked about her first day in the classroom. You see, our grandkids go to public schools in Brooklyn, and they are, of course, closed, and the kids are back home. Well, yesterday was the first day there was to be remote learning using laptop computers. So my son-in-law took my grandson and my daughter took my granddaughter into separate rooms and spent 3 or 4 hours in that made-up classroom. My daughter said: This is harder than I ever imagined. So it is a reminder, No. 1, of how much we owe it to teachers every single day, and not with 1 child, usually with more than 1-15 to 30 in a classroom. Let us also remember that the learning process is critically important as we go through this health crisis. I hope all parents will try--I know my daughter and her husband are trying--to help the kids keep up with their learning process. In some places, it is hard. Kids don't have access to computers or may not have remote- learning possibilities. But it is something that is essential, and I thank the teachers and school districts that are trying to put it together. Janice Jackson, who is the head of the Chicago Public Schools, called me just a few days ago, and we talked about how they were implementing this in the city of Chicago and how they are trying to distribute school lunches. It is an awesome responsibility. Let's give special thanks to those who are working overtime to try to make sure our kids can keep up with the learning process and some of the basics in life, like feeding them to make sure they have something for lunch and breakfast, if not more. I can go through the long list of people to thank, which I have done before, starting with those in healthcare--nurses, doctors, lab technicians, and others working in senior citizen facilities, our first responders, and many like them. Let us not forget that every single day while we isolate, they are forced to break isolation and to come to help those in need, and we can never thank them enough. So what is going on in the U.S. Senate? If you hear the other side of the aisle, there is a suggestion that we lost our opportunity, that we are wasting time and nothing is happening. They argue that we have had two votes in a row--Sunday afternoon and then yesterday--to decide not to debate on the floor the McConnell bill which was produced. The argument is that we can't waste a second, that we need to get to the serious business of helping people across America and turning our economy around. I just want to say for the record that I left the office not 30 or 40 feet away of the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer. I didn't go and see him because he is in active negotiations at this minute with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, representing the White House. He is in communication with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, about the progress being made, and, as he said on the floor yesterday, he feels positive and optimistic about the outcome. I do too. This is an awesome undertaking. Consider for a minute that the bill we are trying to style and craft literally is larger than 1 year's Federal budget for domestic discretionary spending, and we are doing it in a matter of days. When it comes to the Federal budget, we spend a year--sometimes longer--putting it together. In this case, we are writing a bill of that magnitude in a matter of days because it is a compelling challenge and should happen. The argument on the other side of the aisle is that we wasted our opportunity here, that we should have agreed to the McConnell bill that was brought forward for a vote on Sunday and got on with it. But many understood that there was a fundamental flaw in the process Senator McConnell started. When he suggested that we needed this third bill, it was after we had passed two previous bills. The first one, the President asked, if you will remember--it seems like ancient history--about 3 weeks ago, the President asked for $2 billion to deal with coronavirus. Many of us thought that was totally inadequate, and we put our heads together on a bipartisan basis with the President and raised it to $8 billion. We did it in a timely way, and we did it in a bipartisan fashion. It probably shocked people across America who have limited high regard for Congress to start with. Quickly thereafter came a need for another bill. We upped the amount from $8 billion to $100 billion in that second bill. It passed in the early morning hours of last Saturday--just last Saturday. What happened in the Senate? Well, the Senate didn't move on the bill until Wednesday of last week. So we are talking about waiting 4 days when we could have considered the bill in the Senate and didn't move forward with it because we didn't have consent requested or given. But it has been done that way before. It doesn't have to physically make it across the rotunda. So 4 days passed, and last Wednesday, Senator McConnell called for this vote, and it passed--$100 billion. Then he announced we would start crafting this third bill. If you notice the calendar days we are facing here, it hasn't been a week since that announcement, and we are considering a bill of the size and magnitude the likes of which we have never seen in a single undertaking. It is a bill for authorization and appropriation that may range somewhere north of $1.5 trillion. Why is it that big? Because the problem is that big, if not larger. That is why we are trying to do this the right way. When Senator Schumer was told by Senator McConnell we were moving toward this third bill, his first response was the right one: Let's do it as we did with the first two. Let's have a bipartisan, bicameral approach. He suggested bringing together the four corners, as we call them here--the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, together with the White House, sitting down at the table to craft this bill. Senator McConnell refused. He said: We will start this as an exclusively Republican Senate bill. We will ask our task forces to write something. We will get back to the Democrats in the Senate later. No mention was made of the involvement of the House. Well, after some 48 hours, we were presented with the proposal from the Republican side. In fairness, there were parts of it that were bipartisan in the McConnell bill. I think of the effort that Senator Cardin of Maryland and Senator Rubio of Florida put into the whole question of dealing with small business and the problems that they are facing with this massive public health crisis. They have come up with what I consider a good approach--a good approach that literally could help 50 to 60 million small businesses across America. There were others involved in the conversation--Senator Wyden, Senator Graham, and others. It was bipartisan--start to finish--and I believe we are this close to coming up with this bipartisan proposal. However, the other provisions in the McConnell bill were not as bipartisan, and there reached a point where Senator McConnell announced that that was the end of the story. He was bringing the McConnell bill to the floor without further negotiation. That came as a surprise because there were elements that the Democrats were asking for and insisting on that really were fundamental. [[Page S1982]] So a vote was taken this last Sunday afternoon, and we decided, as a caucus, to argue on the Democratic side that there were fundamental elements missing in the McConnell proposal and we wanted to include them. So we voted no in going forward on the McConnell proposal. At that point, we didn't stalk off and fold our arms and say: That is it; we are not part of the process. Senator Schumer and the leaders in our caucus did exactly the opposite. We sat down with the White House, with the Treasury Secretary, and started engaging on those issues of importance, and, within a few hours, we involved the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Time and again, I have noticed over the last several days that Senator McConnell and others have come to the floor and complained that Speaker Pelosi was part of this negotiation process. If you go back to that pamphlet of how laws are made, you understand that this is not a unicameral legislature. Both the House and the Senate need to pass a measure for it to be sent to the President. So the involvement of the House leaders--starting, of course, with the majority, Speaker Pelosi, and including Mr. McCarthy of California, representing the minority--is an integral part of this process, and it should be. I don't understand why it is so unnerving for so many Republican leaders to consider sitting down at a table with this woman from California who happens to be the Speaker of the House and the leader of the majority, who is essential if we are going to get this done in a timely way. I think she should be part of it. She has been following the progress that is being made with Senator Schumer, Mr. Mnuchin, and Senator McConnell. She has made positive statements in the hopes that we can reach a point where we have a bipartisan agreement, and that would speed this up, as it should be. So we involved the House of Representatives in this conversation at the earliest stage, not after we have finished the Republican measure that Senator McConnell wanted to bring to the floor, but after we have completed a bipartisan measure that is one that she may be able to take to the House of Representatives for consideration and maybe even a unanimous consent on the floor. So what are the items that we are now negotiating, and where do they stand? The first item--and we made it clear on the Democratic side-- that is essential is that we deal with the healthcare system across America. The Governor of New York, Governor Cuomo, announced yesterday that he wishes that every hospital in New York would increase its capacity by 50 percent. Then, he went on to say: I really mean 100 percent. But 50 percent is so that they have enough bed space for those who are likely to come in seeking help facing this COVID-19 virus. We can understand that if a great State like New York--and even Illinois, for that matter--has to anticipate this dramatic increase in patients, our system could be easily overwhelmed. So the Democrats have said from day one that we want to make that the highest priority in this third bill. We want to make sure we put money in there for hospitals and for healthcare to respond to this crisis, and I will tell you that progress has been made. Since the negotiation between Senator Schumer and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has been under way, we have made progress, and I hope that if we can hold it, we will have a dramatic increase in the amount of money that was originally in the McConnell bill for this purpose when it comes to hospitals. I also want to say a word about the unemployment insurance. This is a proposal that comes from the Democratic side but has been embraced by many Republicans as well, and the notion behind it is that those workers who cannot go to work, because there is no work to be done or they have been furloughed or lost their jobs, would have access to the highest levels of unemployment compensation in our Nation's history. Now, we think that this is a significant change and even a significant restructuring of unemployment insurance to reflect the current crisis we face. I don't run away from this issue of restructuring. I have heard many Republican critics, but when it comes to unemployment insurance, we are, in fact, restructuring it. The payments that were generally made in my State of Illinois and in other States were just not sufficient for those to maintain a family and pay their bills during times of economic crisis. So we have started moving toward an amount for individual workers closer to what they were paid at work, and we believe that this should be done over a long period of time. To say 3 months is enough may be a rosy scenario, which we hope will occur, but it may not. We want to give these workers the assurance that they can keep their families together and pay their basic bills, even if they are not going to work because of this public health crisis, which we are facing. Is that restructuring? I think it is. Is it necessary? Certainly, it is, and it has been agreed to on a bipartisan basis. That is one of the things that we don't believe the McConnell bill, originally proposed to us on Sunday, really addressed in a fulsome and complete way. We have made it our kind of standard on the Democratic side to make certain that we measure every proposal for economic recovery against the workers and working families of America--not what it does in the boardroom but what it does in the family room of individual families who still get those bills in the mail and still face the pressures of being out of work and wondering if there is enough money to get by. We know that a majority of Americans do not have savings of $400 or more. Many of them live week to week, not paycheck to paycheck, and we want to make certain that they have that peace of mind. We have measured every proposal for economic recovery against working families in America and against the individual workers and the challenges they face. There has been a complaint that we raised the issue of collective bargaining. We want to make certain that when we give money to corporations, it does not change the status of the workers whom they have bargained with over the years. We are going to wait, of course, for another day to consider future contracts and work contracts, but for the time being, we want to make certain that whatever money is going into the corporation respects the existing rights of workers under their collective bargaining agreements. I don't think that is a radical notion. Corporations are going to continue to operate under the laws of America. I think that the workers should be entitled to the rights that have been granted to them under their collective bargaining agreements, and that is basically the bottom line for us when it comes to collective bargaining When it comes to loans to corporations, that is where we have a serious problem with the McConnell bill. There was a provision in Senator McConnell's bill, which he calls a bipartisan bill--and I acknowledge that, in part, it was--but there was a provision that was far from bipartisan. It was a provision which said when it came to loaning money to corporations, the Treasury Secretary could waive the disclosure of that loan for up to 6 months. That is unacceptable to me, and it was to most of us on the Democratic side. We believe that if billions of dollars are flowing through the decision of the Treasury Secretary to individual corporations, there should be transparency and accountability: Who is receiving the money, under what conditions, and what is going to happen with the money that is being sent--taxpayer money that is being sent--for this purpose? So we have insisted, as we sit down in negotiation here, for this accountability and transparency when it comes to these massive amounts--billions of dollars--that could be transferred by the decision of one person in the administration. I don't think that is too much to ask. We should be held accountable as Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives for the money that is appropriated when we allocate it, and the administration should be held to the same basic standard. We also believe that when it comes to the basic standards, we have been burned once and don't want to be burned a second time. For those of us who voted for past legislation to give money to corporations, we want to make certain that that is for the good of the economy and the good of the [[Page S1983]] workers. Sadly, in the past, we have seen, under tax bills and other provisions that were supposed to benefit the economy, that they ended up being a windfall for executives and corporations in terms of stock buybacks and dividends. Yes, we are holding a standard that buybacks should not be part of the future of any corporate assistance. We should be dealing with this to help the workers and help the economy but not to line the pockets of those who are at the highest levels of corporate governance. I don't think that is a radical idea. I think most Americans agree with it, and it is one of the things that we continue to argue for. I see my friend Senator Carper has come to the floor. We served in the House of Representatives together, and then he took a little vacation and became Governor of the State of Delaware and then returned to service at the Federal level in the Senate. He knows, as all of us do, that Governors across the United States and mayors and presidents of county boards, for example, are making exceptional sacrifices to fight this battle against this coronavirus. They are spending a lot more money on public health matters than they ever anticipated. They are seeing more claims at our State level for unemployment insurance than they have seen in history, and many of them are facing fiscal budgetary problems because of it. It is so obvious. We have seen dramatic leadership when it comes to the Governors. One of our colleagues of the House, Mike DeWine, now the Republican Governor of Ohio, has made some, I think, significant, important, and good decisions for his State. Some of those have involved more spending by the State of Ohio than he ever could have anticipated. The same thing is true for J.B. Pritzker in the State of Illinois. I talk to him virtually every single day. We text many times during the day, and I know that he is spending money that he thinks is necessary to save lives in Illinois. So the point I am making is that we want to make sure that the bill that emerges helps State and local governments with the fiscal problems they face because of this economic and healthcare crisis. I don't think that is unreasonable. I think it is the right thing to do, and I hope that we can include it. That is why the original proposal in the McConnell bill did not go far enough and why we have continued to negotiate up to this minute I might raise an issue of difference between myself and the Senator from Tennessee, who was on the floor just a few moments ago. She had suggested that we shouldn't involve ourselves in issues that really have nothing to do with COVID-19, and she used as an example the administration and execution of elections. Well, I will tell you, we went into a debate just a week or so ago in Illinois as to whether to go forward with the primary election. We decided in Illinois to do it, and it wasn't easy at all. They decided in Ohio to postpone the primary election. The point I am getting to is that the conduct and timing of elections relates directly to COVID-19, whether there are enough people who will be able to vote and enough people to serve as judges in polling places. So I don't know if that is being debated in the other room, but we should bring that issue up, because we want to make sure that, in this democracy, the most fundamental element of a free and democratic election is going to occur. I encourage all of my friends and family to vote by mail and vote early. We can do it in our State. In some States you can't. I hope we can find a mechanism to guarantee that elections really do reflect the sentiment of the American populace. Is that related to COVID-19? You bet it is. It is basic. And whether it is included in this bill or in a later bill, I don't think we should ignore it. Finally, let me say a word about the President's press conference last evening. I watched it, and I watched it because the news reports leading up to it raised a question as to whether the President was going to change America's strategy when it comes to dealing with this coronavirus. The current strategy, of course, is social distance, to make sure that you are isolating yourself as much as possible, and when in the presence of others, you don't stand too close, and wash your hands over and over. Those are the fundamentals. I mean, we hear those recommendations, and I think they are sound. But now there is a suggestion from the President that we may take a different course. I don't know what he will finally decide, but I will stand with the public health experts--Dr. Fauci and others--who believe that the best way to slow the growth of this infection rate in our country is by using some form of social distance and isolation of individuals and families. It is a great personal sacrifice and burden for many families to go through this, I know, but if, at the end of the day, we can reduce the number of people who suffer or die from this virus, it is worth the sacrifice, as far as I am concerned. Presidents, in times of national crisis, are expected to be credible, with clarity and consistency. I hope the President will remember that as he makes his decision on policy. Don't follow somebody talking on cable TV and their recommendations. Follow the experts in public health who have dedicated their lives to saving the lives of others. Even though it may not be politically popular to continue with this current social distancing, it is an approach which I believe has been proven in many other countries around the world to work successfully. The notion that we are doing damage to our economy, of course, is being heard. The number of unemployment claims may reach historic and record-breaking highs, but the fact is, if we don't deal with the underlying cause of our economic chaos, and that is this virus, and deal with it effectively, sadly, we are going to see the economic situation in this country deteriorate even more in the future. I am going to close my bottom line with this: We believe that the first two measures passed related to COVID-19 were done in a timely and bipartisan manner. They have been done in an effort to make sure the American people know that we can overcome our political differences and actually come together in a bipartisan way to serve this Nation, as we were sworn to do. There have been differences along the way. This bill that we are currently considering is one of such magnitude that we have never seen anything like it in the history of Congress in terms of the dollar amounts that are being debated now. We want to make certain that we do everything in good faith that we can to have a good negotiation and a bipartisan negotiation involving the House, the Senate, and the White House in the hopes that we can get this done and come up with a truly bipartisan package. The original bill--I mentioned four or five particulars--was lacking, from our point of view. I am happy to report that, in most of these, we have made progress since the early decision not to move forward with the McConnell bill. But there is more work to do. I think it is naive to believe this is the last piece of legislation that will be needed. We don't know where America will stand in 30, 60, or 90 days. But whatever it takes--whatever it takes--we need to come together as a nation, put aside political differences, and agree on a strategy that serves the best interests of families across our country, red and blue States alike, and do it here in Washington as well. Engaging the House of Representatives in the earliest stages of these negotiations just makes common sense. Whatever we agree to here has to head over to the House of Representatives for approval as well. So let's involve the Speaker, involve the Republican leader in the House-- the four corners that Senator Schumer asked for at the earliest stage of this conversation. To me, that is the best way to achieve it. For those who see an empty Chamber and wonder if work is being done, as I mentioned earlier, just across the hallway, Senator Schumer, who may come to the floor in a moment to give us an update, has been negotiating around the clock with the White House and with Senator McConnell to come up with a better bipartisan package to move forward from this point. I am going to close now with just one point I would like to make, and that is that many of my colleagues are joining Senator Portman and me in cosponsoring what we have called the remote voting amendment in the Senate rules. It is complex because it is the first of its kind where we are discussing using [[Page S1984]] modern technology to meet our constitutional responsibilities and obligations. The reason, of course, is obvious. We shouldn't be gathering on the floor in groups. We have been warned by the Centers for Disease Control not to do that. Yet we do it because we have very few alternatives. So I am hoping we can work with the Parliamentarian and with the officers of the Senate to come up with something that is bipartisan, makes sense, and protects the integrity of voting on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We need to do our jobs, even in times of national crisis, whether it is a public health crisis or a threat of terrorism. Let us devise a way--let's work hard on it--that both the Senate and, I hope, the House can agree on that respects the rules and traditions of the Senate but gives us options that make more sense in this time of special peril. I yield the floor. Recognition of the Minority Leader The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized. Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, I want to thank my good friend, the Senator from Illinois, for his outstanding work on this issue. He has been such a strong voice for the working families of America, for the people who need help. And his empathy and understanding of how average folks are suffering is very, very important. In fact, I just spoke to his Governor, J. B. Pritzker, and told him that Senator Durbin is working very hard on something we Democrats believe is important, and that is money for the States and localities because they are getting clobbered economically by this crisis. They have new expenses, and without tax returns being filed until June, much of their income is not going to be there because of States filing in concert with the Federal Government. Now, I will be brief. I just finished a very productive meeting with Secretary Mnuchin, the White House congressional liaison, Eric Ueland, and Mark Meadows, the President's Acting Chief of Staff Last night, I thought we were on the 5-yard line; right now, we are on the 2. As I also said last night, at this point, of the few outstanding issues, I don't see any that can't be overcome within the next few hours. Here are the things that we have been fighting for, we Senate Democrats. First, a Marshall Plan for our medical system. Our hospitals, our nursing homes, our community health centers--our whole healthcare system--need desperately needed dollars. They need them fast, and they need them in a very large amount. Hospital beds have to expand. Expanding capacity is not easy. The need for ventilators, for PPEs for the workers, for masks, even things as simple as swabs are not always available. And in New York City, New York State, and around the country, hospitals are going to be overwhelmed. Our big hospitals, our medium-size hospitals, our small hospitals, and the small and rural hospitals actually face the risk of closing if we don't help them. So we Senate Democrats have been pushing very hard for an increase, a significant increase, in money for the healthcare system. We are very, very pleased with what seems to be moving forward in the bill, in the bipartisan bill, that we hope will be brought to the floor. Second, workers first--the title of our Democratic plan has been ``Workers First.'' We believe we have to put working people--families, average Americans--ahead of anybody else. They are losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Their kids are staying home because there is no school. There are so many--so many--problems that are befalling average people, so we wanted to put them first. That has been our No. 1 goal, along with the Marshall Plan for hospitals. This bill, as it comes forward, as it is now at least being agreed upon, has a lot of that. It has unemployment insurance on steroids. This is a great plan. What it says is that if you lose your job in this crisis, you can be furloughed by your employer. That means you stay on that employer's payroll. If you have health benefits with the employer, you can keep getting them. But, and most importantly, the Federal Government will pay your salary, your full salary, for now 4 months. We had asked for 4 months, and 4 months looks like what we are going to get when we come to this agreement. It will mean two things. Most of all, it will put money into the hands of those who need it so much because they have lost their jobs, as I said, through no fault of their own. So that is vitally important, and that will pump money into the economy probably in a better way than anything else could do. It also has a second benefit. It will keep companies intact. The small restaurant owner, the middle-size business, even the large businesses worry that if they just had to remove their workers, fire them because they don't have any money coming in, those workers would scatter to the winds, and they would look for other jobs, and when, God willing, this awful crisis is over, these businesses would not be able to reassemble. But with our plan, since they stay on the payroll of their employer, as soon as the crisis is over, they all can come back together, and that small restaurant, that middle-size manufacturing facility, and the service business will be able to reassemble quickly, and we can get the economy going again. That is another thing we have been fighting for. We have been fighting very hard that any bailout funds--money to industries that have trouble--have real oversight and transparency. That is vitally important. We cannot have the situation where, when a company is getting money from the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, we don't know about it. And we have been pushing hard that for any contract the Federal Government makes with a company to give it loans, we know of that contract in a very short period of time so that we can examine it. And we, in the Senate, those in the House, the press, and the American public will see if those things are on the level because we all know there was a load of dissatisfaction with TARP. In addition, we are fighting for oversight, a new inspector general, to be able to look into these contracts. We would like very much, and believe we should have, a congressional oversight board as well. We are fighting for transparency, oversight, and disclosure when the Federal Government gives corporations money. We also want to make sure that workers are put first in these situations so that when there are direct Federal grants and direct Federal loans to these companies, they either have incentive or mandate to keep their employees and their benefits. We are making very good progress in that direction as well. Small business--we all ache for these small business owners, probably second to the people who have illness in their families. We ache for these folks. My father was a small businessman. He had a little exterminating business. It was never very successful. He would pace the floor Sunday night at 2 a.m. because he hated going to work. So I know what people go through. You put your blood, sweat, and tears into your small business, and all of a sudden, it looks like it is blown away. Well, there is a very fine proposal, bipartisan, on small business that I believe will be in this package as well. So there are lots of good things here. We all know that not everyone is going to want every provision. We all know there are many things that so many of us want that are left out, but we all know we must do these things. We are not looking for things that are extraneous to this crisis, and I don't believe they are in this package. We are looking at things that deal directly with this crisis, and that is what we have proposed here as Democrats in the Senate. Whether it be workers first, helping our medical system, providing oversight and transparency in the boards, and helping small business, those are all directly related to the crisis. We need them soon. We need them desperately. In the last few days, we have made huge progress in achieving these goals. Again, I hope, I pray, that we can come together very quickly and pass in large numbers the bipartisan bill that will help the American people, who so badly, badly, badly need our help. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia. Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I am glad to be on the floor right now to hear the Democratic whip and the [[Page S1985]] Democratic leader talk about the principles of a bill that we want to pass and wanted to pass 2 days ago. The principles of helping workers first, the principles of helping small business, the principles of looking after the healthcare system in its entirety--these are the fundamentals of the bill that we have worked on together, in a bipartisan way. Both the Democratic whip and the Democratic leader said that this is and has been a bipartisan bill. I just got off the telephone with my local radio station, and I had to fight back the notion that the bill that was before us yesterday and Sunday was a strictly Republican bill; it was not. The bill that has the small business provisions that the Democratic leader just said was worked on in a bipartisan way, which we all know was and is a great idea. Jointly, we agree on that. So I am glad to see the acknowledgement that, yes, we have been working together; yes, we have had conversations across the line; and, yes, we have worked on issues that we know are going to put workers and families across this Nation first. So I have spent a lot of time, as all of us have, talking to county commissioners, our mayors, the Governor, health professionals, small business owners, individuals, moms and dads, wondering, Is it safe to have somebody help me with the kids? What kind of contact should I have with my grandchildren? This is something I am in constant debate on myself with my own grandchildren. So I think what I get from everybody--more than anything--is not just the urgency of now but the urgency of yesterday and the day before. So I am glad to hear the leader say that we are close, on the 5-yard line or the 2-yard line. But let's not get into too many football analogies. We have all been to football games where we have been on the 2 and people have fumbled the ball. We can't do that because it has been fumbled long enough. So, for the past few days, I have been very frustrated, as have many of my colleagues. I know my fellow Senator from Iowa, who is here on the floor with me, and, certainly, the Presiding Officer from Georgia have had great angst and great frustrations that care has been delayed when Americans need it the most--both economic and healthcare. My West Virginians, they want to make sure that our hospitals, our community health centers, and other providers--our nursing homes, our extended-care facilities--have the resources that they need to provide the best coverage. That has been in this bill. I heard the urgency of PPE. We hear that all over the country, certainly in our State, and, also, swabs and other testing equipment. This is part of that bill but also our hospitals, which are hurting because they don't have the elective surgeries; they don't have the revenues to keep them going. The $75 billion that we have in it--sounds like it may be more--fine, good. Let's keep our hospitals going, particularly our rural hospitals in rural areas where they don't have the availability of healthcare like they have in other places. But, I tell you, we want our hospitals to be open. What West Virginians don't want is a delay in getting them the help they need just to score political points. The other things West Virginians want are the best medical care for our veterans. We have four medical centers. We have a very patriotic State that has some of the highest per-capita military and veterans in the entire country. We want help for our veterans. What we don't want is to use a crisis to advance a partisan or ideological agenda, which we have seen. West Virginians want to make sure that we have protective equipment for doctors, nurses, and first responders on the frontline. I talked to some of my volunteer fire departments. You don't think how deep this goes or how deep the need is for personal protective equipment until you start thinking about all the different ways people have contact. I tell you what--they don't want a Green New Deal in this bill; they want blue masks. West Virginians want research into new vaccines and treatments to help fight the coronavirus and end this epidemic. When we think about how we are going to get out of this, stopping the flow of the virus is certainly No. 1. But we also have to get confidence back that, if this comes back later, we have the vaccines or the therapeutics that are going to help people be healthier and fight the spread of the virus. What they don't want are regulations and bureaucracies that get in the way of action. Our bill helped a lot with alleviating some of those regulatory burdens that we see our healthcare providers fighting--at least in times of an emergency, alleviating those regulatory burdens. West Virginians want to allow more medical visits to be done by telemedicine during this crisis to keep our patients and our providers safe. What they don't want is to read tomorrow morning a newspaper article that says who are the political winners and losers in this because they know, essentially, people are the ones who are losing by the stall tactics that we have seen. West Virginians want to help small businesses. We are probably 99 percent small business in our State--a small State. We want to stay afloat and keep our employees on the payroll. What we don't want is for others to not realize the urgency that small business is feeling. As I said, not the urgency of now--the urgency of yesterday. We just had a shelter-in-place put in place in our State. Think of all the impacts this has across our State and the State of Iowa and others. West Virginians want a financial boost to our families during this uncertain time. This is in the bill. I heard the leader talk about it like it was a new concept. It has been there. It has been in the bill. They don't want us to leave our communities without the tools they need to confront this crisis West Virginians, we always really band together. We really do everywhere, but I have a particular pride, I think, in my State around neighbors helping neighbors. West Virginians want us to assist workers who have been laid off as a result of the emergency by extending unemployment benefits. Again, it is in there. It has been in there. They don't want for us to fail to show compassion for our fellow citizens during an emergency. West Virginians want to keep educating our students. We have a particular issue here with our tele-education because we don't have the broadband. That is a subject for a different day. I know part of that is in this bill, but if anybody joins with me in this fight, which many of us have, the urgency of yesterday is here on the delivery of broadband services into rural America. What we don't want is a Federal takeover of our election system that requires same-day registration and places Washington bureaucrats in charge of our local officials. West Virginia has a primary on May 12. I am working with the Secretary of State and the Governor to make sure that our State formulates how we can get as many people voting by mail as possible within the parameters of the way we want to conduct our elections. We don't need a one-size-fits-all here. We need to keep the States in charge. West Virginians want to stabilize our economy and do everything possible to avoid a long-lasting economic recession. What we don't want is to enact Speaker Pelosi's Christmas list that includes new regulations on carbon emissions, wind, and solar tax credits, corporate board diversity reports, and a cap-and-trade program for our airlines. We have a bill before us. We have had it before us for several days. It is appropriately called the CARES Act because it takes care of a lot of the priorities and issues that we have been talking about, that we hear about in our tele-townhalls or in talking to our neighbors and talking to our constituents, the urgency of not now--yesterday. We face a great public health threat, and we face a severe threat to our economy. I am a total optimist about everything. My glass is always half full and I know we are going to get through this and I know we are going to survive it. I know we are going to be better for it because we are going to learn lessons, [[Page S1986]] but it sure is tough when you are in it. Even a full-blown optimistic person, I admit to myself and to you today, I have had some pretty low points during this whole thing, where I have wondered, where are we going? The last thing we need is the political debate that we have had over the last 2 days over programs and the parameters that were just laid out by the Democratic leader that were in the bill, have been in the bill. So we must come together--bipartisan. All of us work together. I work with the Senator from Delaware. We are on EPW together. He was born in West Virginia, so he can't get too far away from me, and we work together a lot across party lines. This is an example, and I think we are seeing that now. I think that, with the leader's comments, we see we are making great progress here. So I am encouraged that the deal is almost closed and that today might be the day that we will join together and that we will stop delaying care. Because today is the day--yesterday could have been the day, but today is the day--because I am an optimist, and I am always looking forward--today is the day we come together and take bold action for the American people. I know that is what Americans want, and I know that is what my West Virginians want. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The Senator from Delaware Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I would say to my colleague, my West Virginia colleague and friend: Don't lose that sense of optimism. It is going to carry us through this and, hopefully, well beyond. I live in Delaware. My wife and I live in Delaware. We live in the same house we have lived in for--gosh--33 years, and we raised our sons there and sent them off into the world. Every morning that I get up and I come here, I go to the train station. It used to take maybe 15 minutes from my house to get to the train station. Today there were just a few cars on the road--no buses. I got to the train station, and most of the doors were closed. Up on the platform, I think two people were on the platform to catch the train that ultimately brought me down here. A lot of people whom I passed by on the way to the train station, some people had slept out overnight--destitute, asking for money. Then, off the train station here, an hour and a half later, in Union Station, walking through the train station, it was almost empty. The train I had been on was almost empty. A number of the people whom I did run into walking through the station and out of the station, came out Delaware Avenue to the Capitol, where people were, again, destitute and begging for money. There are a lot of people who showed up last week and the week before in this country to ask for and sign up for unemployment benefits. They never imagined in their life that they would be in this situation. A lot of people who signed up in the last 2 weeks for food, what used to be food stamps--SNAP--food benefits for their family, they never imagined they would face this situation. My colleagues call me a recovering Governor. I was privileged to be Governor of Delaware for 8 years. I chaired the National Governors Association. The Governors who met on the 50-State conference call several days ago, I was fortunate enough to talk to some of them afterward and ask them what their priorities were. They said, among other things: We want to make sure, when people file for unemployment insurance, if they are eligible for it, that it will actually be there; and these State funds that were created, contributed to by employers in 50 States across America, when they are depleted, there needs to be a backup. They were pleading with us to make sure that that backup is there. I am encouraged that the package that is before us today will provide that liquidity, if you will, for unemployment insurance so people will actually be able to get not necessarily their full payroll or full salary--full paycheck--back but at least maybe enough to get by. The Governors asked that we--they use the term ``plus-up'' the SNAP program. We used to have food stamps. We now have something called SNAP cards, and they can be plussed-up or down remotely, electronically, and the Governors were asking that we do something about that to make sure that not only people have at least some kind of payment coming in, through unemployment insurance, to their homes but also something--some additional benefits for the SNAP program. I don't think we are going to get that. We made some progress on SNAP in the last package that came through a week or so ago. And we probably, especially, need to focus on food benefits for families who have kids in schools. Schools are closed. Those kids used to get their lunch--maybe their breakfast--at their school. They are not getting it now. Those families, especially, are going to need some help. The third area I want to mention is health benefits--health benefits. A lot of people who have very good health insurance benefits through their employer are going to lose them or face the possibility of losing them. There are going to be people--millions of people across the country--who are going to sign up for Medicaid who never thought they would be in a position to have to do that. The Governors are asking that we do a little bit more to help make sure that Medicaid, which is partly funded by the Federal Government and partly by the States--that there are sufficient dollars to meet the demand for healthcare through Medicaid that certainly would not have been imagined a month or so ago. I want to just mention a couple of things. I see a colleague from Iowa is here, and I don't want to take too much more time, but I am asking indulgence for just a couple of minutes. One of our colleagues mentioned today looking ahead to the elections and thinking about the elections. We have great concerns about election security these days, with the Russians trying to interfere with our elections again. We have a Postal Service that is in dire straits. The Postal Service, as we know it, has faced great challenges in recent years because of the lack of first-class mail. People have moved off first-class mail into email to do business and personal communications. The Postal Service is in dire straits. One of the ways we could help them is to expand vote by mail. Every State with counties and cities that have primaries and general elections would be a source of revenue for the Postal Service going forward. It actually helps address the concerns we have about the Russians interfering in our business. In the last week or so--I know my colleagues did as well--I called really smart people I know who have been leaders in this country-- people like Leon Panetta, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, John Kasich, and any number of other people--Democrats and Republicans--just to pick their brains as to what they thought we should do. Some of the best advice from people like Leon Panetta, Mark Sandy, and several others used the three Ts. I said: Well, what are the three Ts? He said: When you are putting together this package, always remember the three Ts. What are they? He said: They are timely--whatever we do should be timely; targeted-- it should be targeted; and it should be temporary. I believe that is what we are trying to do with this huge package-- enormous package. I never imagined we would be dealing with one bill of this size and magnitude. Timely, temporary, targeted--we have added one to that. Democrats suggested this, and I think the Republicans embraced this idea. It also should be transparent--transparent. I have a bunch of quotes I carry around with me on my cell phone. Sometimes I need some inspiration, and I pull out my cell phone and look at a couple of quotes. In anticipation of saying something today, I looked at a few of my favorites. One is John Kennedy. I think it is especially timely right now. One said: ``Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer''--the right answer. Another quote I carry around on my phone is one by Churchill. Churchill used to say: The worst form of government devised by man is democracy. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. What he was saying there is this is a hard way [[Page S1987]] to govern. It sure is, especially in the midst of a pandemic, the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetime. The third one that comes to mind is actually an African proverb. It goes something like this: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Think about that. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I think what we have coming together here is our Democrats and Republicans--and maybe an Independent or two--who have decided over the last several days that despite our differences, there is not a Republican answer and there is not a Democratic answer; they are the right answers. Hopefully, we get more right answers in this package-- which I expect we will be considering later today--than wrong answers. The American people are counting on us to pull together, and I think we are beginning to do that. I would close by saying that this is not the first package-- legislative package--that we prepared to adopt in the last 2 weeks or so. This is No. 3. People smarter than me say there will probably be a No. 4 and maybe No. 5 as we learn more going forward. The first one is pretty small, $3 billion. The second, which focused on a lot on testing, was over $100 billion. This one is many, many, many times that amount. I hope folks across the country will be encouraged that we were able to get it mostly right in the first legislative package and get it mostly right in the second legislative package. This one is huge. It took another week or so to pound it out, but I think it is probably better because we have gone slowly. I say to the American people, take heart. We have been through a lot worse than this in our lifetime--a civil war that killed about 800,000 men: families against families, brothers against brothers. Hundreds of thousands of other women, children, and old people were killed. After the Civil War was over, President Lincoln was assassinated. A short while later, his successor, Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, was impeached. We somehow made it out of that century to get into the 20th century just in time to fight not one world war but two world wars--fought them, led them, won them. The Cold War--led it, won it. And when the sun came up on January 1, 2001, here is where we were as a nation: We had the strongest economy on Earth. We had the most productive workforce on Earth. We had four balanced budgets in a row. We hadn't balanced our budget since 1968, but we ended up in the last 4 years of the Clinton administration with four balanced budgets in a row, with a Republican-led Congress. We are the mightiest force for justice and the most admired Nation on Earth. If we can get through everything from the Civil War through the first day of 2001, we can get through this as well. People are looking to us to lead. I hope and pray that later today that is exactly what we will do. I want to thank everybody who is working very hard on our side, our leadership, our caucus and the Republican side, their leadership. I was sitting in Chuck Schumer's vestibule earlier today, and Secretary Mnuchin was going back and forth, and Mark Meadows, who is the new Chief of Staff, was going back and forth. Chuck Schumer and others-- there was lot of activity and, I think, a little more optimism than I have seen in the last several days. America, take heart. We will get through this. I yield the floor The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa. Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, we have a clear objective right now, which is to get additional, immediate relief into the hands of the American worker and to do it fast. That is what we are focused on, folks. That is what we have been focused on since passing the phase 1 package, and then the House-led phase 2 relief package last week. The phase 2 bill was not perfect, but I was happy to support it because it was the right thing to do. It was the support that Iowans needed. Since President Trump signed that package last Wednesday-- nearly a week ago--I have continued to hear from Iowans--those in our hospital industry, those in the restaurant industry, agriculture, trucking, retail, childcare, biofuels. I have heard from all of them, one-on-one conversations about the need for additional and immediate relief--relief for the young families in Iowa right now who are feeling very anxious about how they are going to make that end-of-the-month rent payment come April 1; relief for the nurses, like my cousin, and the doctors who are fretting about going into work because they don't have the personal protective equipment they need to prevent them from getting and spreading the coronavirus; and relief for the small business owner who so badly wants to able to keep her employees on the payroll so that when we get through this pandemic--and folks, we will get through this pandemic--she can get her business up and running and can keep sending her employees those paychecks. We have a lot of those small business owners all across our Main Streets and all around our squares in Iowa. I also think about the seniors across my home State of Iowa who are probably worried about access to the medical services and the care they might need during these very challenging times or the middle-aged couple who have been looking at the market and seeing those markets spiraling down every single day and wondering, What does that mean for our future and for our retirement plans? Folks, the American people are hurting right now. They are very anxious. And now, more than ever, they are looking to us. Iowans and, of course, all Americans need to know that we have their back and that their livelihoods are our top priority. What we have seen over the past several days is a very sad attempt by folks across the aisle to stall and exploit this crisis as an opportunity to jam through their political wish list. Folks, we can have those policy debates. We can have those another day. But with each passing minute we waste, more lives are at risk, more jobs are lost, and more communities are turned upside down. We are not going to play games anymore in the U.S. Senate. The American people have made it quite clear: They need relief, and they need it now. This phase 3 relief package is not and will not be a ``Christmas tree'' bill. In fact, folks, it has been the product of hours and hours of bipartisan negotiations from five different groups. Those working groups have worked late into the night and over the weekend to come up with a good bill for the American people. This bill is squarely focused on getting immediate relief to millions of hard- working Americans across our great United States. Just a while ago, the Democratic leader was on the floor, and he was touting a number of these provisions. As my colleague from West Virginia pointed out, those provisions the leader is touting have been in this package. These are not new provisions. These are not new provisions, folks. We should have, and we could have, advanced this bill days ago. This bipartisan phase 3 package includes billions of dollars for our Nation's healthcare workers and our healthcare system as a whole. This has been a big priority of mine--something I have heard from time and again from Iowa's hospitals and healthcare professionals and something I have called on Congress to respond to: billions of dollars for additional personal protective equipment and other materials. Healthcare workers are depending on us to help increase the supply of the PPE they need so that they can continue to battle the spread of the coronavirus and care for their patients, some of whom are our most vulnerable. There are billions of dollars for small businesses across our States to be able to keep employees on the payroll and pay their bills. Again, that is a huge priority for Iowa. Again, as my colleague from West Virginia stated, about 99 percent of her businesses in West Virginia are small businesses. That is true in Iowa, as well, with 99 percent of our businesses being small businesses. There are billions of dollars to provide direct financial assistance to individual Americans to ensure access to testing and a future coronavirus vaccine is covered at no cost--at no cost--to the individual and dollars going to expanded telehealth and to increase care for our veterans and also to provide unemployment insurance and to defer student loans. [[Page S1988]] Folks, the list goes on and on and on. This bipartisan phase 3 relief package is focused on the American worker and our American family. Again, many of these provisions have been in the bill since the beginning. These are not new provisions. We need to stop these stall tactics. It is not time for long, drawn-out policy debates on the floor of the Senate. Folks, now is the time for action. It is time for Congress to step up, put aside our partisan wants, and show up for the people of our States. I am an eternal optimist, and I have hope that we will be able to come together and reassure the American people that they are our top priority. Each and every one of us in this body has an obligation to the men and the women who elected us to do our jobs, and right now our job is to get Americans the relief that in some instances they are literally crying for. To my friends across the aisle, I believe you know what the right thing to do is. Join us. Put the people ahead of party. Help us deliver additional relief to the men, the women, and the children of our great Nation. Let's pass this phase 3 relief package today. Folks, we all want you to stay safe and stay strong. God bless you all. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, with every day that passes, the number of COVID-19, or coronavirus, cases continues to tick up, up, and up. A report by the World Health Organization last week noted that while it took more than 3 months to reach 100,000 cases worldwide, it took only 12 days to hit another 100,000. It doubled in 12 days. Now we know it took less than a week to add the next 100,000. Some of this is because of increased access to testing--something we knew we were not ramped up to do. More and more people are getting tested. That is good news. Those who have the virus can be isolated and treated, if necessary. Those who don't have the peace of mind knowing that they do not carry the disease and they can--by virtue of good personal hygiene and social distancing--remain healthy. But if we are going to have any success at slowing the trajectory of this virus and minimizing the economic harm, the time to act is now. The eyes of the Nation are upon us. They want to know if partisanship can be set aside in the face of a pandemic. They want us to know that partisanship is an indulgence we cannot afford. If you are trying to figure out the answer, let me recap what has happened in the Senate recently. For weeks, our Democratic colleagues agreed that this is indeed a crisis, that we need to act promptly and we need to shed our partisanship because our country can't wait. I agree. Our country is in dire need, and this is no time for politics as usual. Indeed, this has always been our custom. This has always been our instinct as Americans during crises like 9/11 and like the great recession of 2008. We would have every reason to expect that in the face of another national crisis, like the coronavirus, Democrats and Republicans would work together, but that has not been the case. We now need Republicans and Democrats to come together as we have in the past to deliver on our shared priorities to support our country during this unprecedented time. There is, in fact, broad bipartisan agreement about the result. We need to get relief directly from Washington to the American people as soon as possible. We need to provide small businesses with help so they can survive this storm and so that once the virus is defeated, they are still around to provide jobs to people they have now had to furlough or lay off. There seems to be broad bipartisan agreement that we need a freeze on student loan payments to provide peace of mind to tens of millions of borrowers. Employees who have been impacted by the virus should get support now, and they should have jobs to come back to later. Over the weekend, it seemed like we were making good progress. There had been negotiating between the parties, compromising. As of Sunday morning, it looked like we were just about there. Then the Speaker of the House and the minority leader of the Senate decided the crisis should not be wasted. They claimed all of a sudden that the deal was not good enough even though they themselves helped to write it. The Speaker in particula