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

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, first let me say thank you to my colleague, the former Governor of Virginia, the Senator from Virginia now. As a former Governor, we have a real interest in making sure that there is a good, cooperative spirit between the Federal Government and State governments.

But this evening, as we have gone through an entire day--which is rather unusual in the Senate to have one Senator speaking after another with others here--at a time in which we should be exercising separation, as they say, to have had so many colleagues on the floor shows just how seriously the U.S. Senate is taking this issue.

Perhaps the frustration laid out by Members of my conference is that we really want this to move forward as quickly as possible, and we understand that it is very difficult to put together the resources in order to buy those additional pieces of equipment that our friend from Colorado laid out unless we have a long-term plan here in which to also pay for it.

So what I would like to do is to share a little bit of what is in this just in terms of a summary of what is in the proposal right now and that we believe is an appropriate, major step in taking care of funding to respond not just to the medical emergency but also to the economic emergency that we have in front of us right now for men and women who are worried about where they are going to get the next paycheck.

First of all, under the appropriations section, we have $75 billion for hospitals that is included in the proposal; $20 billion additional for veterans' health that is included; $11 billion more for vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and other preparedness needs.

There is an additional $4.5 billion for the CDC--the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC. The reason we have put that in there is we want to be ahead of the game when it comes to making sure they have the resources to take care of the emergency needs that we know are showing up right now

There is also an additional $1.7 billion to add new medical equipment to the strategic national stockpile. As my colleague from Colorado was suggesting, this is an area where we need to beef it up, and we need to be able to provide that additional equipment. That is included in this bill that, right now, has been here for 2 days.

Also, we understand that at the State level there are other needs as well. There is $20 billion in here for public transportation emergency relief. There is $10 billion built into the bill right now for block grants to the States. That is the broadest type of resources that we provide to the States today.

There is an additional $5 billion to be added to FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund. Remember that FEMA is now at a level 1, which is basically their highest level. They are coordinating now on a 24-hour basis with every single State in the Nation directly, back and forth, to provide an avenue of communication and logistics so that when parts are found or equipment is found in one area, it can be coordinated to get to an area where it is needed--not so much because we always have all the supplies that we need available right now but because we want the supplies that we do have to get to where they are needed as quickly as possible. That is in operation today.

Now, there are other pieces to this that are also really important. One of the reasons you have seen the frustration on the Republican side of this discussion is that there are men and women right now who don't have a paycheck coming in; they have been laid off through no fault of their own. They are being laid off because of COVID-19 and because their businesses have been asked--or in some cases, directed--to close. And when that happens, we feel an obligation to try to at least allow them the opportunity to make it through the next few months, to get ready for the recovery that we are convinced can happen if we properly manage the emergency before us.

I would like to just go through them briefly so that after an entire day of discussion, there is at least an understanding of what is in the bill today just for men and women who are hurting today.

On a per-person basis, we are offering about $250 billion in additional resources. For a child, there is $500 for every child in a family, but that is on top of $1,200 for a mother and a father. What we are suggesting with that is, it doesn't mean that you have to have made that much. This is a refundable tax credit, and it is available to individuals regardless of if they even made that much or paid taxes on that in the last couple of years.

This is really important because this is an immediate, upfront payment from the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, back to individuals. And the sooner we pass this legislation, the sooner those dollars can get out to people who, right now, are hurting, and they need this additional assistance at this time, not a month and a half or 2 months from now, but as soon as we can get it to them.

Additionally, we have an unemployment proposal that increases the amount of money that goes into the unemployment funds in the amount of about $250 billion as well.

How does that break out and what does that mean to an individual? If an individual is on unemployment today, what we are offering, besides what they are getting from the State is, first of all, first dollar coverage with no 1-week wait period. Second of all, we are adding an additional $600 per week--per week--for the first 9 weeks that they are eligible for.

Now, that doesn't mean that unemployment stops at that point, but there is $600 additional during that 9-week period of time. This is very important for individuals who have no place else to go and have already been laid off of work because we have told those businesses that they have to shut down.

Another piece of this product right now I think is an excellent piece, one that not only offers emotional support for men and women who are struggling, but it also shares through small businesses an amount-- about $350 billion--that goes to small businesses, businesses that are under--that are under--500 employees in size. When we define an employee, we are talking about an FTE or full-time equivalent of 40 hours. So if you have two half-times, you have one FTE.

But what we have offered to small businesses in this is a very simple loan and loan forgiveness program for which they can go down to their local lender and apply. The local lender is the person who puts the papers together and so forth, but what it allows them to do is to go down and say: Look, I have just been told that my business is shut down. I don't want to lose my employees. What they can do is borrow the money to continue to pay the payroll and benefits for those individuals they would be laying off otherwise. And if they keep them on for a period of up to 8 weeks, we forgive the loan. It becomes a grant. But the reason for that is if we don't do that, those same individuals are going to be on the unemployment rolls, so why make them go through that emotional distress and why have them in such a position that they may not get the benefits back that the small business is offering today.

We have done something else as well. We have said for that small business owner: We know many of you have mortgages; you have ongoing payments. So we will also let you include your mortgage payments, as well, and your ongoing rent, lights, and so forth. And if you keep open, you can also apply to have that part forgiven, as well, up to a grand total of $10 million per business. Why? Because we want stability in the marketplace, and we think that is what a lot of employees want.

We would like to have that out this week. That is one of the reasons you see the frustrations and the irritation on the Republican side of the aisle here--because we really thought we were negotiating on these items in good faith with Members of the other side in working groups that had both included in such a fashion that we could move through this fairly quickly. In fact, I think you have heard Members on the other side of the aisle talk about the fact that they are not disagreeing with those things.

There is another part too. There are the larger businesses, over 500 in size. When we have businesses that are bigger than 500 in size, what we have said is: Look, we are not going to give you a grant program. We are not going to be in the position of bailing you out. But what we do want to do is to make liquidity and loans available to you--loans that you can afford.

We are going to ask for some conditions on that, yes, but the idea here is to allow them to survive and to be ready to go back into business.

This seems to be the place where we have the most dissension and disagreement between the two parties because, while we are proposing that they can't use this to buy stock back, I think some of our Democratic colleagues thought we had to strengthen it. Fine. That shouldn't take 2 days to work out. They think we should have some more guidelines. Fine. But that shouldn't take 2 days to work out.

The goal here is to keep as many people employed and to keep those businesses operational so that as we move through this health emergency, those businesses continue to do business in the future.

There is a larger portion in this that we also talk about, which is for the airlines and so forth. We have a frustration, as well, with our Democratic colleagues because of some of the suggestions that have been made. We don't think they should have to remake their board of directors if they are going to get a loan.

We think the airlines are critical--not just to save the airlines but because business relies on airlines and people rely on airlines now to get from one place to another throughout the United States.

We have also included about $17 billion to take care of those separate industries on which we have national defense-specific issues. We think this has been well thought out.

It doesn't mean that there isn't room for more negotiations, but time is of the essence. As we sit here this evening, more people will die; more people will get sick; more men and women will find themselves wondering where they are going to get their next paycheck. Every single day matters.

So our request to the Members on the other side of the aisle, who have twice now said ``No, we don't want to take the first procedural step to get onto the bill,'' what we say is: Look, you have to push hard on your leadership to come to a consensus. And, please, this is emergency legislation. This should not be a Christmas tree. It should not be a piece of legislation that, since it needs to pass, we can now put a wish list of other things that one party or the other has been trying to get into law but does not have consensus on. This is where the areas of contention are this evening.

So to the men and women who are out there and are concerned, I can share with you that I think we have a very good plan, one that will come close to $1.9 trillion dollars in terms of what we are offering. But at the same time, it needs to get out as quickly as possible, and it has to be as simple as possible for those men and women to be able to apply for in an unemployment line or the businesses to apply through a local bank so that they can keep people employed or for that larger business to understand that liquidity is available to get them through a very difficult time, but it is not going to be a grant; it is going to be a loan.

Finally, there is an area which is important that perhaps can have some additional thought put into it, and that is that not just the hospitals at the local level need our support and our assistance right now because they can't do this by themselves, but we are going to find that State after State is going to be knocking on our door, saying: You shut down businesses in our State. You have told us that we need to in order to quell this emergency, but in doing so, the revenues that were generated because of those business activities we don't have.

So you are going to find State revenues that are down significantly, and they are going to be coming in, and they are going to be visiting. I am convinced that between this package and perhaps the next package we have to also recognize the impact to State governments that provide so many of the services that men and women rely on on a daily basis.

So I would like to thank you for your time, Mr. President. I think this is important, and I think the message that we have to have as responsible individuals, Members of this body in which today we truly did have debate and discussion on the floor--we have to finish this, and we have to do it in such a fashion that it reaches men and women who are counting on us as soon as possible.

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