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

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just heard my friend and colleague from West Virginia say there is no reason to vote today. There are a lot of reasons to vote today. There is a country affected by disease. People are waking up anxious, scared, afraid of the disease and the economic consequences that are there. There are a lot of reasons to vote today.

Every Member of this Senate needs to stand up and be counted, and for the Senator from West Virginia to say: I wouldn't be for this, and I don't know where that is coming from--well, just read the papers that are coming out of the Democratic House. Just read the papers of the demands by the Democrats to muck up the bill that is designed as a rescue operation for the American people. That is where the problem is. We need to vote today, again and again and again, until we provide the relief, the rescue that the American people need.

That is why we have a dozen Republicans on this side ready to speak, standing at podiums ready to speak, and there hasn't been a single Democrat on the floor to defend their position because it is indefensible. That is where we are.

We have Nancy Pelosi flying back from California because she sent the House home a week ago--they are not here--to defeat the work that we have done in a bipartisan way, and to say: Well, all of you have done nice work. Now look at our laundry list of things we are demanding: tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines, a bailout of the Postal Service. And when you go through this list, there are portions of the Green New Deal.

I am a doctor. I have been on the phone with doctors around the country, with my colleagues at the Wyoming Medical Center. They are working double time, through the weekend, day and night--the nurses, the doctors, the healthcare providers--and they need help. They are looking to us for help. They need tests, they need masks, they need respirators, and they need hope--hope that there will be a vaccine, hope that there will be a treatment. Those are the things that are in this bill that the Democrats voted to block last night and the Democrats voted to block again today, and that is only the healthcare component of it.

Our economy cannot be unleashed again until after we get the healthcare component behind us. But our colleagues, our friends, our neighbors, people we know in our home States woke up today not being able to go to work, not being able to know if they are going to have a paycheck, not being able to pay their bills, not being able to know if they are going to feed their families, not being able to know that they are going to get food, if it is available, if they could have the money to pay for it. Yet we are not ready to provide relief.

They need it immediately. They don't need it after the Democrats block it again and again and again. The Senator from West Virginia said: I don't know why we voted today.

That is why we voted today, and that is why we need to keep voting, because the American people need relief and they need it now.

This is our duty station, and I am prepared to stay here until we get this done--but to go through this.

I talked to a small business owner who has a restaurant and has been there for 37 years. She doesn't know how she is going to make payroll. She never closed the doors except for snowstorms in Wyoming. It is a successful restaurant. She doesn't know how she is going to pay for the food that was delivered last week. She doesn't know how she is going to pay for healthcare. This bill takes care of so much of that. It was blocked by the Democrats today.

We have a good program for small businesses. It is really good. It was worked on in a bipartisan way, but yet it is being blocked by the Democrats. They blocked even the motion to proceed to the bill.

Businesses all across the country employ people, regardless of the size. It is the people who need the jobs, the people. A job is part of somebody's identity. It is who they are. The people who work realize how important it is to who they are. They feel a sense of productivity. People I know aren't looking for a check. They just want a job. They want to work. They are ready to produce, and they can't. Why? Because a disease has struck America, and the government--not the economy--the government has said ``We are going to shut down this economy,'' and the government has the responsibility to provide relief--to rescue those people and to provide immediate relief. Every Democrat came to the floor and voted against doing that last night and again this morning. We need to continue to vote.

This bill is about our healthcare system. It is about our economy. It is about money in the pockets of people who, through no fault of their own, are finding themselves in a position they have never been in before--ever--where they can't go out and knock on the door and say: Will you hire me? I am ready to go to work.

Whether it is a farmer or a rancher--anyone--they can't do that today because the government says: You may not. You stay home. You might have had a good job, a job you love, and you can't go to it today. Monday-- we want everyone to work on a Monday but not in America on this Monday.

So there is a role and responsibility for us to step in and do what the role of government ought to be in this case of crisis, a crisis caused by both a disease and the economy, the government's action to shut down the economy. Yet Democrats, one after another, continue to block it.

They are not blocking it for things that have to do with actually helping the American people. It is a wish list--a liberal wish list. It is astonishing that they are delaying direct assistance so they can play to their liberal left--the extremists, the environmental extremists, the labor special interests. We are here trying to fight for the men and women in the street and our hometowns, yet they are fighting for the Green New Deal. Bernie Sanders may have lost to Joe Biden, but the Green New Deal of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and that entire crew is alive and well in the Democratic cloakroom and is controlling the actions today on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

They want to put up an entire cap-and-trade system for the airline industry. That is a worthy debate to have, but not on this bill. They want to expand tax credits for wind and for solar power. That is a debate that is worthy of being held, but not on this bill today. That is not going to help one person who is having problems breathing to get a respirator that they need. That is what is holding this up.

We know Nancy Pelosi has been pushing this extreme environmental agenda from the moment she cut the deal to remain as Speaker and said to the liberals: I will do what you want if you just allow me to be Speaker again. And, now, through a letter that she has written to the Democrats, she is bragging that she is carrying the flag for the Democratic agenda. The Speaker is pushing for diversity on corporate boards, for collective bargaining, and for election reform. There are proposals here in her proposal--she said: I am going to go write the bill requiring early voting and requiring same-day voter registration. Where does that fit into a bill to rescue the American people who, right now, find themselves in the throes of a disease that may kill them and in an economy that has been shut down? That is why the Democrats aren't on this floor, because what they are doing cannot be defended.

So, I would just say and I would appeal to my colleagues: Let us do the work of the Senate. It is time for everyone to stand up and be responsible. Let us get this done. Let us get this passed. The days for political games are now behind us.

Everyone who is watching should understand the House of Representatives is not in town. They have been gone for a week. Only Nancy Pelosi just flew back from California to throw a monkey wrench into the works, and we need to get this done.

We failed the cloture vote last night, blocked by the Democrats, and at that time, we found that one of our colleagues had tested positive for coronavirus. We failed a cloture vote today, blocked by the Democrats again, when we learned that the spouse of one of our colleagues is hospitalized, on oxygen, with this same disease that is hitting the entire country.

We can litigate the Green New Deal another day. Americans' lives and livelihoods are at stake. That is the situation we are in today for the Nation. We can litigate election reform another day. We can debate diversity on corporate boards and airline fuel standards; we can do all of that another day. We can talk about cap and trade another day.

America needs now to know how we, as a nation, will survive from the standpoint of our health and our economy. We need immediate relief. The bill on the floor accomplishes that. We need to make sure that, when Americans wake up tomorrow, they don't have that same fear and trepidation about the disease, as well as their families' well-being. We need to take that decisive action today. The time for politics is beyond us. We need to vote today, and we need to pass this today.

I know my colleagues are on the floor. I know Senator Portman is here after me and Senator Cotton after him. We have a dozen who are ready to speak, but I thank you for your indulgence.

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