MIDDLE CLASS HEALTH BENEFITS TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, this is a time of extraordinary crisis for our Nation.

In this time of crisis, I call upon each of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to rise above--rise above paid partisanship, rise above the bickering that so often consumes Washington, rise above and put first the priorities of the millions of Americans who are hurt.

Look, there is a time for political disagreements. There is a time for policy disagreements. I am no stranger to robust political and policy disagreements. But we are in this midst of a global pandemic. People are dying. People are suffering.

Last night, when this Senate voted on whether to move forward with emergency relief legislation for the millions of people being devastated by the economic disaster we are seeing as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, every single Democrat in this body voted to block consideration of this bill

Now, for those of you at home who are not poring over a Senate procedural matter, what does it mean to vote to block consideration? It doesn't mean they voted against the bill. It means they voted against even starting to take it up.

The New York Times headline, moments afterward, said: Democrats block $1.7 trillion stimulus bill. Of course, that headline had the fault of being accurate, and so within minutes, the New York Times changed it to: Democrats block $1.7 trillion stimulus bill citing worker concerns. That was headline No. 2.

But then apparently the partisan leanings of the New York Times were too strong for that, and so they revised it a third time to say: Partisan division halts discussion of the bill.

No, it wasn't partisan division. It was one party--the Democratic Party--saying to this Chamber and the American people: Hell, no. We will not even take this up and discuss it.

At a time of crisis, at a time when people are dying, that is wrong. That is shameful.

When we awakened this morning, following the Democrats' obstruction, worldwide there were 372,563 reported cases of the coronavirus. In the hours since then, just today, there have been an additional 23,352 cases reported today. While the Democrats are blocking the bill, 23,000 new cases today.

In the United States, when we started this morning, there were 35,224 cases--this morning. Right now, as of the latest numbers, there are 41,708 cases in the United States today. That means we have had an additional 6,484 cases today while the Democrats are blockading--and by the way, where are the Democrats?

C-SPAN doesn't show this whole Chamber often, but it would be nice if they did because that entire side of the Chamber is empty. They are not showing up for work. They are not doing their job.

In Texas this morning, there had been 668 cases. As of right now, there are 722--54 more cases today while the Democrats are blocking consideration of this bill.

How about deaths? Look, as we look at this crisis, there are people right now gasping for breath. You and I, we have friends who have been diagnosed with this disease. We have read stories. We have talked to people who have struggled under it.

I heard from one individual who is hospitalized right now that breathing felt like a belt strapped across his chest; that he could barely breathe.

As of this morning, worldwide, there had been 16,381 deaths. I am sorry--that is the number now. This morning it was only 15,308. That means today, while the Democrats have been blocking this bill, 1,073 additional people died.

In the United States, as of this morning, there were 471 deaths reported due to coronavirus. As of right now, it is 573. That means today 102 Americans died while the Democrats were blocking consideration of this bill.

In Texas as of this morning, there had been eight deaths. Now there are nine. One Texan died while half this Chamber refused to show up and do their job.

Now, this morning when we voted again, we saw the first signs of cracks. There was one Democrat, a Senator from Alabama, who had voted no yesterday, decided this morning, well, maybe we should take up the bill. One. One Democrat. Where are the rest?

There are a lot of Democrats who like to hold themselves out as moderate Democrats. Where are they?

Right now, what the Democratic leadership is doing is they are playing games. They are playing games in a way that is irresponsible.

Listen, this bill has a lot of important elements for a lot of people who are hurting. You have not only the people who are hospitalized, the people who are suffering, but you also have economic devastation, as much of this country has ground to a halt.

We have people who work in restaurants, waiters, waitresses, bellboys who haven't gone to work in over a week. We have people in hotels. I have spoken to business owner after business owner after business owner for the last week.

One hotel owner described how he currently had 6 percent occupancy rates. You can't keep a hotel running with 6 percent occupancy rates.

I talked to one hotel owner who described how he had made 5,000 layoffs in the last week. Another hotel owner had made 6,000 layoffs in the past week.

I talked to an oil and gas business owner who had laid off 5,000 workers in the past week. I talked to another oil and gas business owner who had laid off 5,000 workers in the last week.

You know, today I am thinking about people like my friends, the Republic Country Club. Now, Republic Country Club is a bit of a misnomer. It is a barbecue joint outside of Houston. It is owned by my friend Michael Berry. It is often the venue of country-western concerts. The venue is sometimes for comedy shows.

I went and took my dad to Larry the Cable Guy at Republic Country Club. I have had multiple election night parties at Republic Country Club. It is a big old honky-tonk. You have never seen so many confused national reporters as they walked in and looked around and didn't know what to make of the place.

Father's Day a year ago, I did a Father's Day party at Republic Country Club. My dad--we roasted up two whole pigs. The cook staff at the barbecue place, they made them up and had a big party. We invited people there. It is a Cuban tradition to roast a whole pig.

Now, why am I telling you about Republic Country Club? Because yesterday, which happened to be my father's 81st birthday--yesterday Republic Country Club announced they are closing their doors.

Yesterday Michael Berry sent out a tweet telling first responders, telling police officers and firefighters and everyone on the frontline, he said: Drive by Republic Country Club today--March 23--drive by during the day, and we will give you free barbecue. We are going to cook everything we have, and we are just going to give it away and to go. You can't come in, but we are going to give you to-go boxes.

And he went on to say they are emptying out all of the liquor from the storeroom and from behind the bar, and they are giving it to the employees because the employees are all being laid off. And he said he doesn't know if he will open again.

Now, I will tell you, those employees--the bartenders, the bouncers-- many of them are veterans. Many of them are big guys, covered with tats. They are salt of the earth, and right now they don't know where the rent check is coming from next week.

That is happening all across this country. That is happening not just at one barbecue place in Houston. That is happening at bars. That is happening at nail salons. It is happening at movie theaters.

You know, I love Sunday night to go with a buddy of mine and go watch a movie. Movie theaters are shut down all over this country.

Retail stores--people laid off. Nobody is going to the mall right now, and for the people who are hurting, they are scared. They don't know, No. 1, if they are going to get sick, but No. 2, they don't know how they are going to make ends meet.

This is a time of crisis, and we ought to be coming together.

Now, listen, this bill that we were moving to, I don't necessarily agree with every word of it, but there are a number of elements in this bill that are designed to provide real help to people who are hurting.

One element of this bill is to give cash--an immediate check for $1,200--to every person in this country, every adult in this country earning under $75,000 a year, $2,400 for every couple earning under $150,000 a year, plus $500 for every child they have.

Now, you want to talk about real relief for people who are scared and they say: What do I do next? Those are checks that are coming in the mail. And what have the Democrats said? No. Halt the checks.

Right now, those checks aren't coming, and they aren't coming for one reason: because the Senate Democrats are blocking taking up that bill.

In many circumstances, that would not be the right policy outcome, to just send checks to people, but at a time of crisis, where you need people just to be able to make it to tomorrow, putting some resources in their hands makes a big difference.

Another element of this bill that is being blocked by Senate Democrats is $350 billion in emergency loans to small businesses--to small businesses like Republic Country Club, to small businesses like restaurants and bars, and small businesses like nail salons and barber shops and movie theaters and dress shops and hardware stores, small businesses that are right now putting up the signs saying: ``Closed for coronavirus.''

Those emergency loans are designed to be given with the condition that they keep their employees on payroll. A lot of these small business owners want to keep their employees on payroll, but they don't have the cash. Under the terms of this bill, those loans are forgiven if--if--if they keep their employees on payroll.

By the way, the Democratic talking point is, oh, this is just cash to businesses. Tell that to the owner of the barber shop who takes an emergency loan to not fire all of her employees. That loan, under the terms, is forgiven if the employees stay on the payroll. The Democrats are blocking that right now.

What about unemployment insurance? The job numbers coming out shortly I expect to be massive in terms of the job losses. I think we will see north of 2 or 3 million people who lost their jobs, and the numbers are getting worse. Every phone call I have is with more people who are losing their jobs. It is bad. It will come back, but it is bad right now. We need emergency support to get people through this dark time.

This bill has $250 billion for additional unemployment insurance. What does that mean? That is an additional $600 per week for an additional 13 weeks. If you are one of the waitresses right now who have just been told their jobs have gone away and you applied for unemployment insurance, if this bill passes, you get an extra $600 immediately. But you know what--you don't right now because Senate Democrats are blocking this. If they have reasonable concerns, they are welcome to raise them.

By the way, this bill was drafted with the participation of nearly a dozen Senate Democrats who were actively part of the task force's submitting suggestions. One of the suggestions the Democrats submitted during the drafting was to plus-up those unemployment insurance numbers, and they got agreement. This was drafted in a bipartisan manner.

What happened? I will tell you. Yesterday, Sunday, most of us thought we were going to move with this, but then Nancy Pelosi decided it is time to play politics, decided to throw a grenade into this whole process. She had a list of demands--an over 1,000-page bill she drops out of nowhere--and the demands she is pushing, I ask you, do these have anything to do with the coronavirus epidemic?

A number of people have cited the famed quote of Rahm Emanuel: ``Never let a good crisis go to waste.'' Sadly, we are seeing the embodiment of that cynical approach right now because all of the people out of jobs, the Democrats are using to push--what are they pushing for? Changing the emissions standards for airplanes. What the hell do the emissions standards for airplanes have to do with millions of people out of work during the coronavirus epidemic? Don't treat this bill like a partisan Christmas.

Republicans have things we would like to advance, too, things I believe in deeply. You want to talk about what I would like to do? I would like to abolish the IRS. I campaigned all over the country for that. I will continue fighting for that, but I am not standing here with an amendment, saying: As part of this emergency relief, let's abolish the IRS. There is a place for that political and policy discussion.

The Democrats are pushing wind and solar tax credits. What in the hell does a windmill have to do with this crisis, other than some Democratic lobbyists getting fat and rich, and they are willing to extort a crisis to try to advance their political agenda?

There are mandates on corporate board diversity. So these are Democrats who want to social-engineer. Listen, I actually have a lot of problems with corporate boards. We have far too many corporate boards that are docile and do what management wants. That is a serious problem. There is a lot of discussion about stock buybacks. I tell you, what I am concerned about with stock buybacks is when you have compensation agreements in place that the executives get rich if they get a short-term boost in share price, and it ends up hurting the shareholders. I would love to see more vigorous boards of directors that make sure you are not creating incentives to gain a stock price. That is a reasonable question. But they want to mandate, effectively, quotas on boards of directors. What in the hell does that have to do with this crisis?

The Pelosi wish list wants to restructure the debt of the post office. Last time I checked, our postal workers go through wind and rain and snow, but they haven't been laid off.

I call upon both sides--don't play games with this. This crisis isn't going to end tomorrow. It is not going to end the next day. It is going to last for a considerable time. It is going to require adults to step up and lead.

On the pandemic, we need to follow the science. We need to listen to the doctors. We need to listen to the physicians. We need to take the steps we are taking to keep people safe.

On the economy, we need to give people who are hurting immediate relief, and we need to make sure a liquidity crisis doesn't become a solvency crisis.

It is interesting--many Democrats are saying they don't want corporate bailouts. I agree. I am passionately opposed to corporate bailouts. One of the things I was gratefully relieved about as far as how this bill was structured is that it is structured as loans and not condition-free grants. It is structured primarily so that it is not picking favored companies that happen to have a big lobbying presence in Washington.

What does it mean to not have a liquidity crisis become a solvency crisis? Let's take, for example, the airlines. I have spoken with every major airline CEO in the past 2 weeks. The airlines are losing billions of dollars every month. They didn't cause this problem. Unlike the financial crisis in 2008, this crisis was not caused by misconduct of one industry or another. It is not the airlines' fault that the Federal Government has shut down flights to Asia and to Europe. That is not their fault. It is not the fault of the owner of a restaurant in downtown Houston that the city of Houston has shut down the restaurant. It is not the small business owner's fault.

What we don't want is, when the bills come due for all of those businesses, for them to have to sell their assets in a fire sale. We don't want the restaurant owner who has a pizzeria, who has saved to buy this fantastic pizza oven, to have to sell the pizza oven for pennies on the dollar because a liquidity crisis has become a solvency crisis. We don't want our U.S. airlines to put up a garage sale effectively to sell all their airplanes because they are going bankrupt in the midst of a crisis. We want to come out of this with a strong, robust commercial airlines sector. We want to come out of this with small businesses thriving. We want to come out of this with a thriving energy sector. We want to come out of this with jobs.

I will close this the way I started--by calling on Democrats and calling on Republicans to rise above petty partisan games. The Democratic leaders are playing these games to every one of you Democrats. Listen to the men and women in your States. Don't give in to the games. Most of the Democratic Senators say they don't even know what their side wants. But it is just their leadership that is willing to hold the American people hostage for unrelated, political, partisan objectives.

By the way, one of the reasons I think Senate Democrats are so willing to engage in this is they expect the media to be utterly complicit in their cynical gamesmanship. So we stand here this afternoon--and it is not only the Democratic side of the Chamber that is empty, but as I look up to the press, nobody is there. There is not a single reporter sitting in the Chamber. I have seen the New York Times--actually, nobody is sitting in the Chamber, so they may have closed the Chamber, in which case that may have been an unfair assault. But it is not an unfair assault to say that the New York Times is changing its headline to give political cover to Senate Democrats

This is a time of crisis, not a time to play games. It is time to rise above. It is a time to stand for the American men and women. It is a time to stand for jobs. It is a time to help protect people's lives.

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