MIDDLE CLASS HEALTH BENEFITS TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we are at an odd spot right now not just as a Senate but as a nation. We have millions of people who are gathered in their own homes, trying to figure out what is going to happen next, waiting for a virus to die down. We have people in a hospital who are afraid because there is no tested treatment yet. We have firefighters; we have law enforcement; we have hospital workers all with not enough personal protection equipment because they do not know who is a citizen without the virus and who is a citizen with the virus.
The most basic elements of decision making of how you take care of your neighbor have become a distraction across the country as Americans have become afraid of a stranger and of a friend. This is a huge shift in where we are as a country. What this demands is immediate action. Three weeks ago, the Senate and the House passed $8.3 billion, and we did it with an overwhelming bipartisan support, to add additional funding for diagnostics, for testing, and for rapid work on a vaccine. All of that work is advancing quickly. We have human trials on a vaccine happening right now because we came together, and there weren't extra things added to it. We focused in on the problem, which is the virus.
This body has a lot of things we disagree on, there is no question. There are lots of moments to debate the things we disagree on, but this is a time we need to focus in on what is the problem, and the problem is dealing with COVID-19. There was a bipartisan bill that was put together in the Senate.
A week ago today, Senator Schumer released a 10-page list of--here are the things the Democrats would like from the Senate. It was a 10- page, very detailed list. Twenty-eight of those items on that list are included in this bipartisan bill--28 items from it, of that 10-page list of items. So much of that list that was released a week ago is included in this bipartisan bill.
Republican chairmen and Democratic ranking members of the committees of jurisdiction met and talked about this. The chairman and the ranking member of Appropriations worked together on an appropriations package for a quarter of a trillion dollars on just that one section that they worked on together to get resolution. Put all of those items together, and let me tell you what I mean by that: $250 billion dealing with things as distant to believe as things like getting Peace Corps volunteers back home, away from where they are now. We have to get them back home and away from harm's way. There is funding in there for that as well as $88 billion for hospitals, trying to help them through this; help for nursing homes; help for individual firefighters and their departments; $10 billion for community development block grants to help cities as they are rapidly trying to work through this process--$250 billion allocated just to things like that to help people get testing, personal equipment, travel and additional expenses, teleworking capabilities that have to be done for cities and communities and Federal entities. All of those things were put together and agreed upon.
There is a lot of work on the medical side, rightfully so. Testing makes a world of difference on this. Getting access to a vaccine--there are billions of dollars in that particular area. All of that is included in this proposal.
In addition to that, there are direct payments that we had agreed upon to send out, literally, to every American. We had set up $1,200 for every American to receive. That is a stopgap method to help folks who are having trouble with their utilities or whatever it may be, or extra expenses so they will have something.
It was not just that for the individuals. It was also unemployment insurance. This is something the Republicans and Democrats had worked on together, to do a plus-up of unemployment insurance because we have millions of people suddenly unemployed with no advanced warning at all.
There is a significant increase of unemployment insurance that is built into this, about $250 billion additional that is put into that amount. Small businesses--the goal is not to have people on unemployment; the goal is to have people employed. A very creative thing was built into this that I happen to be a part of in the design, and that was small businesses--a business with 500 or fewer employees--could actually apply for a rapid loan. That loan would be given to them quickly. If they used it for payroll, it would be forgiven entirely. If they used it for their lease, it would be forgiven entirely. The goal was to not have small business go out of business and to keep employees currently connected to their company, not to put them out on unemployment but to keep them employed so they have the same system. So when we get through this virus, which we hope we do soon--they still have the same job, they are not on unemployment and later looking for a job. They are able to keep their same job. We thought that was very significant. It is a brandnew strategy for how to do this. It is a much better idea than just pushing people on unemployment--although, we do have great aid for unemployment. That program is $350 billion.
As I have already laid out: healthcare, hospital, first responders-- that is the first piece of this--working on testing, vaccines. The second piece is direct payments to individuals, direct payments for unemployment insurance, and then assistance for small businesses to stay in business and help their employees stay connected to their business, and then, on top of that, loans for the largest businesses in America. It is not a bailout--loans for the largest businesses in America.
My Democratic colleagues keep saying over and over again that this is a bailout for the biggest companies. It is loans for the largest companies because--you know what--they employ a lot of people, and we would like those businesses to also stay in business.
All of that seemed to be going well and negotiating well until the last 36 hours when it suddenly blows up. Here is what I heard first: It is not enough. It is $2 trillion. It is $2 trillion. It is suddenly: Well, it is not enough. We need to plus this up to be even bigger.
And then suddenly it has become this whole transition into the most random of things: Well, if a corporation gets a loan from the Federal Government, then someone here in Washington, DC, should determine how that corporation is run. We should have a member on their board or a union representative on their board. We should have some kind of stake in their board to do that. This was my favorite one. We should be able to tell the board, if they are considering layoffs, someone here in DC should be able to go to the company, evaluate the rest of their portfolio and tell them other ways they can do their business besides laying people off. Are you kidding me? We are now going to create a whole new Federal bureaucracy that goes to every company, and if they take out a loan in this program, they are able to tell them how to manage the day-to-day operations of their company.
There was a requirement that every company had to do a $15 minimum wage for their company. There was a requirement they couldn't do stock buybacks. By the way, I have no problem with prohibiting the use of these loan dollars to use for stock buybacks, but that is not the concept. The concept was for the next 10 years, you can't ever do stock buybacks on anything, regardless if it is with these loan funds.
It became this bizarre shift into--oh, we have an opportunity to run every company in America and tell them how to operate, and that became the goal. Then it became--we need to also add solar grants. The latest proposal that just came out today was $600 million for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanity--$600 million. It is not connected to anything COVID; it was just that they need a plus-up of an additional $600 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities.
The other one was that we need to have a forgiveness of all debt for the post office, ever--all post office debt. That was just released today.
The list is going on and on. My frustration is that I have people at home who are suffering, with small businesses teetering on the edge, about to go out of business, trying to figure out if there is going to be a proposal to come out of the Senate while folks are discussing whether we need to do more solar grants and if we are going to take over corporate boards and require a $15 minimum wage at the end of this.
Can we just deal with COVID-19? Can we just deal with one thing, with COVID-19, to say, Let's help businesses and workers and families who are struggling? That is what I thought we were trying to do with this bill, but now suddenly it seems to be everything but. Let's just do that, and then there is plenty of time to argue about the other issues. We can do those in the future. We will have the debate on solar panels, I promise, but let's deal with COVID-19 and the families and individuals who are struggling and stop holding everything up, trying to add one more thing in to say: It is a really big bill. I am going to try to get my one piece.
One thing we worked on in a bipartisan way--Senator Coons and I--was this one area of not-for-profits. The not-for-profits are part of our social safety net. Our communities are put together by our families, and the people who walk alongside our families are local nonprofits. When those can't meet the needs, then government steps in to meet the needs. Our nonprofits are teetering on the edge right now. This bill allows the nonprofits to be a part of this whole focus on small businesses being able to get a loan and sustain their personnel. It also allows individuals who want to donate to local nonprofits to write that off as an incentive for folks to be more engaged in that. This is a reasonable proposal on how to help. It is a bipartisan solution that Senator Coons and I have, but we can't get to it and vote on it because we being held up by some bizarre new thing that is thrown in every couple of hours that is unrelated to COVID-19 or the perpetual statement of: It is only $2 trillion. It is not enough.
This government is not even set up to distribute $2 trillion. Let's get this out the door. Let's get something started, and let's keep the battle going for the other things. But for the sake of our nonprofits, for the sake of our small businesses, for the sake of people who want to stay employed, the people who are small business and restaurant owners and coffee shop owners and retailers--for the sake of them, why do we not just go ahead and get this vote on and stop delaying it, trying to add one more special interest something into it?
I move that we get going and get this done. I encourage my colleagues on the other side to stop trying to renegotiate everything we have already negotiated and to stop adding one more thing. Let's make the one more thing a vote.
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