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

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I had not intended to speak today. Yet, in my office, as I was alternately talking to Virginians and colleagues about our goal to find an economic package that will backstop workers and the American economy, I had the TV on. I was watching what was happening on the floor, and I decided I would come and just speak for a few minutes.

Frankly, I think that what has been happening on the floor today has sort of been artificial and hasn't really shown the American public what is truly going on. There were a lot of speeches that were taking place wherein it was sort of a blame game, and I don't think that is what Americans wanted to see today. Just as there was yesterday, there was another vote today that failed, a vote that was destined to fail. I don't think that is what Americans deserved to see today. What Americans didn't see yesterday and today is the intense dialogue and debate and discussion around the third coronavirus response bill--by far, the largest.

It is important to get the details right. We spent time getting the details right, in a bipartisan way, to pass an $8 billion supplemental appropriation just 2 weeks ago. We spent time getting the details right to pass an extension of paid childcare and unemployment insurance that had a cost of about $100 billion. We are now talking about an economic stimulus package that could be as high as $2 trillion. The American public wants us to get the details right.

As I look at the stimulus discussions, there are sort of five pillars, and this is the way I describe it to Virginians. It is the workers and their families; it is small business; it is the large business and industry sectors; it is State and local governments; and it is our healthcare network.

As for the workers, we are all hearing from people in our States who are so significantly affected. They are without salaries and wages. How are they going to pay their rents or their mortgages? They are in danger of eviction and foreclosure. How are they going to pay childcare and other expenses? This has to be the heart of this bill. I think the White House accepts that and that we should too.

This package has to be right for working people, and the details matter. Only about 26 percent of American workers are covered by the unemployment insurance system. We can't just rely on that old system if we really want to backstop all of the people who have lost income and be able to protect them and their families.

I saw, over the week, that the Government of the United Kingdom decided to just make a guarantee to all working people that they will backstop you for 80 percent of your lost earnings during the time period of this national emergency. We should hold ourselves to that standard and try to provide a package that backstops workers and their families, those who are of low and middle income. That is pillar 1.

Pillar 2 is small businesses, and I think there is huge agreement on this. Small businesses are the engine of the American economy, the employer of first resort for Americans. Yet those small businesses-- including nonprofits, cultural, and service organizations--have significant challenges, and we need to get them through this tough time. If we get them through the tough time, primarily with loans and then if we come out of this public health challenge into a challenged economy and they just have more debt on their books, we are not really going to help them. So the small business pillar of this is very important in order to get them through this challenging time and to do it in a way that does not just saddle these small businesses with more debt.

The third is the large business and industry sectors. Of course, we need to provide protection for them. That is not the issue. Frankly, the issue is not even, really, the amount of the protection that must be provided. It must be significant. However, we learned through the stimulus package in 2009 and through the tax bill in 2017 that dollars given without conditions to many of the large businesses can be spent in very economically unproductive ways, so it is important to get those details right. There are limits on using these Federal funds for executive compensation. There are limits on using the funds for stock buybacks. We can get the details right so that the dollars that are provided to our large industry sectors and businesses are used to protect their employees.

As for States and local governments, we are all on the phone with our Governors and with our mayors and with county health officials. We have all watched them close down school systems, close down universities, deal with extra healthcare challenges, and deal with skyrocketing unemployment insurance applications in every jurisdiction in the country. We should provide them with the resources to deal with those challenges.

My hope as a former Governor--and we have other former Governors in the Chamber--is that, when we provide assistance to State and local governments, we will do it in a way with maximum flexibility so they can use those funds in ways they see fit to meet the local needs they have experienced.

The last pillar is the key, important one--I will close here, and this is to continue my colleague from Colorado's passion and plea on behalf of our healthcare industry--which is the appropriate level of resources to our healthcare infrastructure. There won't be any amount of economic stimulus that will work if we don't handle the public health crisis in a very smart way going forward. We could make it $3 trillion, or we could make it $4 trillion, but we would be pouring the money away if we were not to get the public health crisis right. If we get it right, that will be the single most important thing toward restarting the economy.

So the last pillar of the five pillars that we are spending time on is in the support for hospitals, community health centers, other health clinics, healthcare professionals, and supporting childcare for them. We have to keep our frontline healthcare workers at work, but many of them have children in schools that have now been closed. We don't want them having to stay home with their kids because there is no childcare when we want them at hospitals and clinics. So part of that fifth pillar has to be to protect these healthcare workers, not only their physical health but their ability to go to work every day.

I believe we are close on the negotiation. I don't like watching stem-winding speeches from the floor, blaming who one thinks is responsible for not being able to pass a vote, when I know, 20 yards away, the White House is sitting down with the Democrats, and we are getting closer and closer and closer to coming up with a package that can gain bipartisan acceptance as it should.

The American public needs action. The American public needs big action.

But if we are going to spend $2 trillion and we spend it the wrong way, we will regret it for years. If we spend it the right way, we could get through this crisis in a way that will do minimum damage to our economy.

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