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

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, it is so interesting to sit here and listen to our colleagues because the thing that touches me the most is that we are all talking to, talking with, and listening to our constituents, and certainly Tennesseans are talking with us and expressing some of their fears.

Earlier today, I had a call from a small business owner who is in Tennessee, and she said: I am going to throw one of your lines back at you.

I said: Well, what is that?

She said: I have heard you say before that sometimes so-and-so was on your last nerve.

I said: Yes, you have heard me say that.

She said: Well, you people in Washington now are on my last nerve.

I said: Really?

She said: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You know, I don't want my children to know that I am afraid. I don't want them to hear me be fearful. But inside, I am screaming in silence because I need you all to get something done.

See, this is a typical small business owner. She and her husband started a business. They struggled until the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act came along. What happened? They saw growth. This Main Street business became their embodiment of the American dream. They were excited. Things were good. Today she is saying: I don't know if we should hang on to our employees. I don't know if we should close the doors. I don't know what we should do, and you all can't make a decision.

I told her I fully understood where she was because it makes me anxious too. It disappoints me tremendously. I think there is a lot to be said about negotiating in good faith and exercising good faith and honesty with the people whom you want to work with. And certainly, the majority leader and the task forces felt that they were working in good faith. What they had structured sounded really good to a lot of Tennesseans.

You had a bill that basically was healthcare assistance, food assistance, and financial assistance--different pockets. But most importantly, they were components that would meet the needs. We discussed some of these. For small businesses and independent contractors and sole proprietors and the self-employed--and I do thank Marco Rubio and Susan Collins for working with me on making certain that we included those entities. You are talking about $250 billion that would be there through unemployment insurance. These sole proprietors and small businesses would be able to go into that and stand themselves up by drawing that money down, keeping people employed, and then having it serve as a grant.

Also for our rural communities, for telehealth and for our hospitals, there is $75 billion. It was a good thing. Let's take healthcare to the person instead of the person having to move to the healthcare. Great. That is the common sense in this bill that our friends across the aisle walked away from. They walked away from it. They said no to the unemployment benefits, no to small business, no to telehealth.

There were also additional funds that would be there for employers to keep people working so that these jobs would be there.

I will tell you this. Most folks, like the small business owner whom I talked about today, are offended when they hear about backroom negotiations and private negotiations. What they want to see is action. They want to see us on this floor. They are probably a little bit amused that there is not one single Democrat coming down here to defend their vote--not one. They are not down here. They are not speaking up as to why they do not want to help.

What are they willing to do? The House is gone. They have been gone now for 10 days. They are not here. They are not working. Speaker Pelosi came back. Nancy came right back into town and threw a grenade into the negotiations. She wants to write her own bill.

That bill is something. I have to tell you, I looked through it before I came down here because I thought, surely, they are not as far off the reservation as I was beginning to hear. Yes, they are. They want tax credits for solar energy and wind energy, which has no place in negotiating a package to address the issues from COVID-19. It has zero connection to that. Tax credits for solar energy is one of their big wishes in the Green New Deal. They have been all about it. This is where they are going to put their emphasis.

They had one of their Members of leadership say the global coronavirus pandemic is a ``tremendous opportunity to restrict things to fit a progressive vision.'' There they go. There they go again. Don't let this crisis go to waste. Let's load this up. This is the vehicle that is moving. Here we go. This is a way we can get the Green New Deal. This is how we can realize our socialist dreams. This is how we go for government control. You got it, baby. This bill is moving. Let's load this up.

Also, they have provisions in here to force employers to give special treatment to Big Labor. That has nothing to do with solving this crisis that we face right now. It has nothing to do with the small business owner figuring out if they are going to lay people off or they are going to be able to meet payroll.

Since I have been down here on this floor, I have had two phone calls. One was from somebody in the hotel business and another from somebody with a real estate firm saying: Help me. Help me with this. Should we lay them off? Are you all going to get something done? Is this going to be something that will help us?

Another of her dreams is early voting. She wants to have early voting and day-of voting. Yes. Let's pack the ballot box. Here we go.

And all these States, by the way--California, Illinois, New York-- States that cannot manage their affairs; States that are running up their State income tax; States that have more debt than revenue--come on, let's bail them out. This is the vehicle. We can go ahead and help these blue States. Send them the money because they have been reckless with the taxpayers' dollar. Bail them out.

New emission standards for the airlines. Let me tell you something. Wanting to make the airline industry carbon neutral by 2025 is a debate to have another day. I want to tell you something right now. You have heard people talk about being the only person on the plane or 1 of 14 on the plane, 1 of 5 on the plane. Right now, keeping the planes flying is the issue because until we have answers for this health crisis, people are not going to go back to work and planes are not going to fly. Common sense would go a long way in these discussions.

They also want to micromanage corporate boards. They want total and complete student loan forgiveness. They wanted $20 billion to bail out the Postal Service. I could go on and on.

It is the socialist progressive wish list. Throw it all out there and then blame it on us when they don't get it. Try to force some of it onto the bill. There were Democratic Senators that helped to negotiate this bill. They got many provisions in this bill that they wanted.

I didn't get everything I wanted. I thought, my goodness, I prefer to see that we would refund all of the income tax you paid this year for individuals and businesses. The system is set up, and money could be backed out.

I like the payroll tax holiday. That is something that, as a conservative, I have supported for quite a while. Why should anybody have to pay the Federal Government for the privilege of hiring somebody and why should an employee have to pay the Federal Government for the privilege of working? It is common sense.

I also would have liked to have seen us use the employment security system for getting money to employees. It is set up. It is coordinated with the States.

These are all things I would have liked to have seen. I knew I wasn't going to get everything I wanted.

But I will tell you this. When I read that there is a letter, a ``Dear Colleague'' letter that has gone out in the House from Speaker Pelosi, and she has boasted that the majority leader had to postpone the vote on the motion to proceed and thanks to the minority leader, they didn't get the 60 votes required--I look at that, and I think, what kind of joy do you take in that? Here was a measure that had bipartisan support in the Senate. It was a measure that would bring relief to small businesses and to families and to friends who are receiving a diagnosis--a positive test for COVID-19--and people who are worried about how they are going to be payrolled this week, workers who are worried if they are going to have a job, small business owners who are crying inside because they do not know what we are going to do. Yet our colleagues across the aisle are absent from the floor and the colleagues on the other side of the Dome have been away for 10 days, and they are not offering a rational solution.

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