Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4112

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues who will be joining me this evening--Senator Baldwin, Senator Hassan, and Senator Schumer-- to advocate for much needed action to protect workers, to provide relief to State and local governments, and to bolster our public health system.

I rise to speak about the steps we need to take to invest in childcare and education. COVID-19 has upended childcare and schools in a way that truly is unprecedented. It has created chaos across our education system.

Since we passed the CARES Act over 3 months ago now, Senate Republicans have not done anything to address the countless challenges that our childcare providers, our educators, our schools, and, of course, our students and families are facing. Instead, they have chosen to pretend that this crisis is over and that we should just return to business as usual, which for them means most often voting on partisan judges and not much else.

As my Republican colleagues continue to delay any response, urging Democrats to pump the brakes and ``wait and see,'' we are hearing from parents who aren't sure if they can go back to work because their childcare provider closed. We are hearing from teachers who aren't sure if they will even have a job to return to in the fall. We are hearing from college students who might be forced to drop out because they desperately need financial assistance during this economic downturn.

We don't need to wait and see to know we need to provide relief immediately. In our childcare system alone, we are now at risk of losing millions of childcare slots because providers across the country are struggling to keep their doors open.

As Senate Republicans are burying their heads in the sand on this, our K-12 schools are now facing some of the biggest cuts to State and local revenue we have seen in a long time, all while struggling with the increased cost of dealing with how to reopen safely and to continue to provide quality education during a pandemic. We know this crisis is hitting, especially hard, students of color, students from low-income families, students who are experiencing homelessness, students with disabilities, and many other students who are marginalized in our education system.

Our higher education system is under serious financial pressure as colleges across our country, especially our Nation's HBCUs and our Tribal colleges and our minority-serving institutions, struggle with the consequences of this pandemic. Many students have been forced to drop out of higher education because they lost their job or they can't meet their basic needs. To address all of these problems, we need a massive investment in our childcare system, in our schools, and in our students and families now.

This is why, today, I am introducing the Coronavirus Child Care and Education Relief Act. This bill creates a Child Care Stabilization Fund, which will provide grants to make sure providers can stay open and that working families get the tuition relief they need. It will provide K-12 schools with the funds they desperately need to help students with increased academic and social emotional supports to address learning loss, to put in place public health measures to make our schools safer for students and educators, to make sure specific funding goes to support students with disabilities, and to address the other growing inequities for students of color and many others.

The bill will also make a $132 billion investment in our higher education system to provide emergency financial aid grants to students for expenses like food and housing, childcare, technology supplies, and to help our colleges to confront the increased cost and financial pressures they are now facing during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, this bill will reverse Secretary DeVos's cruel attempts to prevent millions of students, including our undocumented students and DACA recipients, from receiving emergency aid, block her from giving special favors to colleges that don't need taxpayer dollars, and stop her from taking funding that was meant for public schools to advance her privatization agenda.

There is a long road ahead to fully address the education and childcare crisis, but this bill is an important step for childcare providers, our students, our families, and our educators. Our schools cannot wait any longer.

4112, the Coronavirus Child Care and Education Relief Act introduced earlier today. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am sorry that the Senator has objected this evening. This is an issue that is critical to every family in this country. We all want our economy to open. I assure everyone that if people can't get childcare, they cannot go back to work. Our schools are going to be looking immediately into how they are going to be opening. Without the additional resources they need, they will not be able to do it. Our kids and our families are worth this bill.

I know that several colleagues will be speaking here tonight on this, but I want the Senate to know that these are priorities that we are going to be fighting for. I urge the Senate to bring up the next COVID package. I am willing to work with everybody on it, to hear what everybody has to say, but our kids, our families, and the future of this country has to have our support at this critical time.

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