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

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAINES. Madam President, the health and livelihoods of the American people are at risk; they are in danger. We cannot afford to keep squabbling and arguing in the U.S. Senate. Time is not on our side. Each day matters. In fact, every hour matters.

As we look at the stats coming in terms of those who have been infected with COVID-19, it is literally hour by hour. This is a logarithmic kind of scale. This is a doubling-every-day kind of scale that is going on. Hours matter; minutes matter.

Like many of my colleagues in the U.S. Senate, I have been talking to Montanans around the clock to get their feedback--hospital leaders, ag groups, Tribal leaders, small business leaders, construction workers.

We are in a public health and an economic crisis. I have not sensed fear like this from the American people anytime in my life. I remember 9/11. I remember the crisis of 2008. I remember the 1987 crash. Those pale in comparison to what we are seeing today at this very moment in our country.

This is a time that we need to come together. This is a time we must get this done for the good of our country. Neither side is going to be happy with the final product. That is part of negotiations. It is give, and it is get. The Senate bill before us provides relief for workers, for families, for small businesses, and for healthcare professionals.

I have heard some things said today on the U.S. Senate that are flatout not true. Let me set some of the facts straight--what this bill before us does do. It provides $250 billion of unemployment insurance for those who have lost their jobs during the coronavirus outbreak-- $250 billion. What that means in Montana is $600 a week. That is twice as big as what is currently paid per week. It is $4 billion for masks, for gowns, for gloves, ventilators. It is the PPE discussion I just had a couple of hours ago with some of my hospital leaders and doctors and medical leaders across Montana. They are scared. There is a shortage of PPE. This bill provides $4 billion to CDC to address that. I will tell you what: By dinking around here over this today, we lost another day when we could be moving forward to get it in the hands of our healthcare professionals.

It provides $350 billion to allow our small businesses survive and rebound. We have had some very healthy, prosperous, good small businesses employ a lot of people in Montana. These are good jobs. Now they are not just worried about liquidity; they are worried about insolvency. These are ranchers. These are restaurant owners.

It provides $10.5 billion for drug development to treat and prevent the virus. Listen, we will not stop the panic we see right now in our country until we stop the pandemic. We will not stop this pandemic until we have drugs available for the American people that will provide immunity to them.

There is great hope on the horizon. There are amazing vaccines. There are amazing monoclonal antibodies through incredible ingenuity and innovation that we can provide to the American people before the second wave hits this fall.

You talk to the doctors, our best leaders at NIH, at the FDA, at the CDC; they are telling us there is probably a second wave pandemic coming in the fall of 2020 if we don't act now because, as is true with most of the world, we don't have the immune systems here to combat this virus--this coronavirus--that produces COVID-19. You either get the immunity from catching the disease or getting a vaccine or these other drugs that can provide the antibodies.

There is good news on the horizon. What did we do in this bill? We are going to allow the acceleration of manufacturing so we can get this into a widespread distribution for the American people to protect them in the next flu season when most scientists believe we will probably get hit with this again.

We just lost another day here in the U.S. Senate. Every day matters. We have vaccine trials going on, as we speak, in Seattle. They started on Monday. There are 45 individuals who received a vaccine that we believe can protect you from the coronavirus. Can you imagine the good news for the American people if we found out we have a vaccine that will protect us; we have a drug that will protect us; we have therapeutics that will help us if we contract the coronavirus. We just lost another day that could be a day we could have been closer to getting that into the hands of the American people.

We are in a race for time. We are now into the end of March. We have to get this available by September to the American people. This is literally an all-of-government, Manhattan Project kind of approach. And we just lost another day here because we couldn't get this passed in the U.S. Senate.

This also provides $75 billion for our hospitals and our healthcare providers. Those are the men and women on the frontlines right now, saving lives. God bless them--$75 billion for them.

If you heard the Democrats talk about this bill, you would think there is nothing here for the average, hard-working person in this country. That is absolutely false, and we can lay it all out.

There are parts of the bill that I don't like. There are parts of this bill that I would change. But we have to be satisfied now with a good 80 for 20 because speed matters. It matters to get something done. The American people are looking here. The dysfunction in Washington they don't understand. Frankly, I don't either.

This bill before us was written by Republicans and Democrats. I will tell you why I know that--because I was part of helping negotiate to get $10 billion for this acceleration of vaccines and drug program. I went in this weekend. We were sitting, looking at spreadsheets that said here is the Republican ask; here is the Democrat ask. There are spreadsheets. We can show them to you. We were going back and forth in a bipartisan way to try to craft a bill that we could pass in the Senate last night.

In fact, the American people are watching, both sides, in this ping pong match where one side says one thing, and the other side says the other.

Sometimes I look to people like Susan Collins and Lamar Alexander at moments like this. I think few Americans, few Senators, would claim that either Lamar or Susan are hyperpartisan Senators. They have a pretty good temperature of the Senate. They have a good sense of finding ways to make things work. When you hear Senator Susan Collins outraged at what happened when Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi basically put the brakes on the discussions, we lost another day--maybe two--by demanding that this bill include an ideological wish list. Susan Collins is outraged. Lamar Alexander was shocked.

Let me tell you something: When Susan Collins is outraged and Lamar Alexander is shocked about what is going on around here, that tells you something. You can discount what I am saying here--and many Republican Senators and Democratic Senators--but those two Senators are viewed as some of the most bipartisan Senators here, and when they are outraged and shocked, that tells you what is going on in terms of one of the low levels of partisanship we have achieved in the U.S. Senate over the course of the last couple of days. This obstruction will create a devastating impact on American workers, on families, and small businesses. They are pushing for things that have nothing to do with the public health and economic crisis we are facing today. The issues they are pushing have nothing to do with overcoming this pandemic.

In a global pandemic, some have tossed aside bipartisanship to push for airline emissions standards.

I was told there is no such thing as a House bill. That is false. Here is Nancy Pelosi's House bill. She is part of the discussions. Why? Because we need something that can pass the Senate quickly now and then go to the House even more quickly.

Let me tell the American people something else. The House is not here this week. I was just speaking with a Montanan on the phone off the floor of the Senate a few minutes ago. I was describing what is going on. He was despondent, by the way, fearing both the pandemic and also the economic panic because he is losing his business.

I said: Do you realize the U.S. House is not even in town right now?

He said: I didn't know that.

They are not. They left town last week. They are not here. At a moment when the country needs us, the House left town. They are not here as we speak. I think that has been lost in the discussion.

We can debate some of their ideological requests another time down the road. I mean, here is one from Pelosi's bill: the full offset of domestic airline emissions by 2025 for airlines that need assistance. This is section 1 of the Pelosi bill. It is right here. We can have a debate another time whether they should have part of this New Green Deal to offset emissions. Now is not the time for that debate. Now is the time to save the American people both economically and with their health.

We need to get our priorities straight. That means putting the American people first. This is not a stimulus package. That is the wrong name for it. This is not a recovery package. That is the wrong name for it. This is a rescue package. What we are debating right now is a rescue package. We must come together on both sides.

The coronavirus is not partisan. It crosses party lines. It crosses country boundaries. This is a global challenge on the shores of our country. It was time for both sides to come together and vote this bill out of the Senate yesterday, but that didn't happen. The next best time is today.

I urge my colleagues on both sides to set aside the perfect and move forward with this to restore the confidence of the American people for their health and their economic well-being.

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