Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I ask permission to speak for up to the full 10 minutes.

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Mr. KAINE. I rise to discuss the next steps the Senate should take in dealing with the COVID-19 global pandemic.

I applaud the bipartisan result Congress has shown in passing four important pieces of legislation to provide trillions of dollars of aid to Americans in the midst of this catastrophe.

My heart goes out to people who are suffering. When we were last here voting sort of near midnight on March 25 or early in the morning on March 26, 675 Americans had then died of coronavirus. Now, more than 72,000 have. In the few weeks we have been away, the number of deaths has increased by more than 70,000. Millions have been diagnosed. Those numbers are rising every day.

The crisis has been the most severe economic shock our Nation has experienced in decades, even more severe than the economic collapse of 2008-2009.

Madam President, just a personal privilege. I know four people who have died of coronavirus.

Jeanette Galliano, my brother Steve's mother-in-law, died in a senior facility in New Orleans in the last few weeks.

Lois Shaver. Lois is the mother of one of our closest friends, the godmother of our middle son. Lois died in a nursing home in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia in the last few weeks.

Gerald Glenn was a minister, a bishop, and pillar of the Richmond faith community. He was somebody I appointed to boards when I was Governor. Senator Warner did the same. Bishop Glenn passed away of coronavirus right after Easter.

Dolson Anderson was a longtime friend. His wife Linda was one of my agency heads when I was Governor. As Dolson was providing care for Linda after knee surgery, he contracted coronavirus, and after 16 days on a ventilator, he died.

There are two other names. My next door neighbor, Dean DeForest. My wife Anne and I have lived next to Dean and Mary Ruth for 28 years. Dean died after 2 weeks, after a long battle with lung cancer, not coronavirus. But what coronavirus meant for Dean and so many like him was he couldn't have family with him in the normal way. He couldn't have a funeral or a memorial service or family gathered to grieve in the normal way because of people's worry about infection.

Then there is Lorna Breen. Lorna was a Charlottesville native who was working as an emergency room physician in New York Presbyterian and was so stressed out by what she saw. She developed coronavirus. She went back to the hospital to work as soon as she could, and it was too much for her. She went home to be with her family in Charlottesville, and about 10 days ago, she died by suicide after facing the tremendous burden of being a first responder.

I want to mention all of them. All of us--everyone in this Chamber, everyone who works here--have direct personal connections. The suffering is massive, and it is likely to continue. Because it is, Congress should do more. The American public expects us to, and we shouldn't let them down.

What should be our next priorities? One way to look at the legislation we already passed is that Congress has provided aid to five basic pillars: aid to individuals and families; grants to small businesses and nonprofit organizations; loans to medium and large size businesses; aid to local and State governments; and aid to hospitals, healthcare providers, and the healthcare system.

The three bills we passed in March made major investments in each of these five pillars. By April, we realized that the depth of the crisis was so great, we needed to do more. While we realized that our action was going to be partial rather than comprehensive, we did step up to do more to provide support for two of those five pillars--small businesses, hospitals and healthcare providers.

After providing $350 billion in forgivable loans for small businesses under the CARES Act, we added another $370 billion in April for small businesses through additional loans, through the PPP program, SBA's EIDL grant-loan program, and a new set-aside directing resources to small businesses through smaller financial institutions.

And, recognizing that this is fundamentally a public health emergency, we also added $100 billion in new health funds--$75 billion for healthcare providers and $25 billion to enable the United States to finally support development of a competent and comprehensive testing program.

We did not hesitate to act in providing more resources to two key pillars--small businesses and our health system--and that tells me what our next step should be. We should show the same willingness to direct more resources to individuals and families, as well as State and local governments.

Individuals and families are hurting. Thirty million Americans have filed for unemployment. People have lost jobs. Some have businesses that may never reopen, and they have seen other unplanned expenses for healthcare or childcare, as local schools have closed. Rent and mortgage payments, car payments, utility bills, food and medicine-- these expenses continue, and the pressure on working Americans is intense.

When we passed the CARES Act in March, I was struck by the fact that the PPP program for small businesses was $350 billion, but the total direct payments for families was only $295 billion--about 85 percent of the business grant program.

Given that we just added another $370 billion in aid for small businesses, I think we should add an equal amount for individuals and families. Whether this is a second round of direct payments or a combination of direct payments and other supports--childcare, rent and mortgage assistance--we should show the public that we value the needs of families and individuals as much as we value small businesses.

And the second thing we should do is to provide more assistance and flexibility to State and local governments. The CARES Act provided $150 billion in block grant funding to States and localities, but this $150 billion was limited for use to only deal with unanticipated costs connected with COVID-19.

Here is an odd thing. The funds for businesses were specifically designed to help them deal with revenue losses so that they could remain in operation and avoid layoffs. The hospital and healthcare provider funding was designed to help deal with revenue losses experienced as we postponed elective surgeries and clinical visits. The funds were designed to avoid layoffs. The aid to individuals was designed to help families cope with lost wages and lost salary.

But the CARES bill would not allow State or local governments to use funds to backstop lost revenue, and that is having serious consequences.

I was a mayor and a Governor. I know that 46 States have a fiscal year that starts on July 1, and that means that most States and local governments are working on their budgets right now. They have to project income and expenses for the next year and write their budgets accordingly.

So what are State and local governments seeing? Massive declines in tax revenue. Sales taxes are declining. Meals taxes, lodging taxes, income taxes--all are declining. Jurisdictions are trying to figure out the extent of the likely decline, and though it is hard to know with certainty, the revenue drops are sizeable.

In Virginia, the town of Abingdon is predicting a revenue loss of about 15 percent; Fredericksburg, more than 10 percent; Blacksburg, nearly 18 percent. The list goes on and on. The Commonwealth of Virginia is predicting revenue losses of $2 to $3 billion over the next 2 fiscal years.

If cities, towns, counties, and States lose revenue, what are their options? Since most government costs are personnel, here is what they will be forced to cut--teachers, police officers, firefighters, EMTs. That is already happening in Virginia and all over the country.

Staunton is proposing furlough days for all city employees, including first responders. Prince William County has removed 31 police, fire, and sheriff positions from their budget. Abingdon is laying off 13 full-time and 64 part-time employees.

Every State, city, county, and town in this country is making the same decisions right now, and it shouldn't be this way. We provided funds to businesses to backstop revenue losses so they could avoid layoffs. We provided funds to hospitals to backstop revenue losses so they could avoid layoffs. We need to allow our State and local governments to backstop revenue losses so they can avoid layoffs.

It is never a good time to lay off teachers, firefighters, police, sheriffs, EMTs--never. But I can tell you that the worst time to do it is a national health emergency. The overwhelming majority of our first responders work for State and local governments. Why would we want to lay them off?

President Trump has said he doesn't want to bail out States and local governments, and he has criticized them. He didn't name-call businesses that wanted help. He didn't say: We will not bail you out. Instead, he wanted to extend the helping hand. His attacks on State and local governments are particularly insulting since the American public is much more satisfied with how their State and local leaders are handling this crisis than how the administration is.

Senator McConnell advanced the idea that States and local governments should consider bankruptcy. He didn't say that about businesses that wanted aid. Promoting bankruptcy, which would mean layoffs and broken promises to pensioners, is heartless.

America needs its teachers and its first responders. This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing. There are as many Republican Governors as there are Democrats. There are as many cities and counties managed with Republican leadership as there are Democrats.

The CARES Act had $150 billion for general State and local government relief, but we have now done over $1.2 trillion in relief for businesses. I am glad we are helping our businesses get through this, but don't the communities where we live and work, send our kids to school, pray and play deserve help to get through this crisis too? Does anyone really believe that we will be better off as a nation in fighting this emergency if teachers, firefighters, police, sheriffs, and EMTs are laid off all over this country?

So I will close in just saying to my colleagues: We stepped up big to refill the tank for small businesses and hospitals. It is now time to step up for State and local governments and individuals and families.

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