Coronavirus

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from New York. Many of the things he has said on the floor this morning reflect what I have seen back in Illinois in the last 5 or 6 weeks that we have been home, people I have spoken to who are genuinely suffering because of the coronavirus pandemic and the state of the American economy.

There was a moment here on the floor of the Senate earlier this year when the gravity of the situation brought us together. It was March 26--almost 6 months ago--when we voted 96 to 0 to pass the CARES Act, the $3 trillion effort to try to keep America's economy alive and breathing during this pandemic and the impact it has had on all of our lives. That is $3 trillion--money for the unemployed, substantial sums for those who are about to see their lives transformed overnight. Laid off and fired from jobs that may never return, they tried to keep their families together with mortgage payments, rent payments, automobile loans, the credit responsibilities they faced, and just putting food on the table.

It was a wrenching, disquieting situation for so many of those families, and we said that we should give them $600 a week--$600 a week--in Federal assistance to get through this period. What we did not only helped those families, but it helped the economy. The money those families received was spent almost instantaneously. That is understandable. They are struggling to survive.

But we knew that the program we enacted on March 26 had a termination date of July 31. We hoped that by then the pandemic would be behind us, our economy would be recovering, and we wouldn't need any further relief. We were wrong--terribly wrong. We still face this coronavirus in a way that we never expected 6 months ago. It is still a challenge-- a terrible challenge that has claimed over 180,000 American lives to date.

I could speak for a few minutes here about our response as a nation to this pandemic and talk about the lack of leadership from the very top in Washington when it came to dealing with this public health crisis, but suffice it to say for the moment that two numbers tell the story. The United States has 4 percent of the world's population. Sadly, we have 20 percent of the COVID-19 deaths in the world.

The United States has not responded as expected. Innocent people have died. The situation was chaotic in the White House. The leadership we needed wasn't there.

Where are we today? Here we are in the second week of September. Where are we now as we reflect on the situation? Many of us believe we still face a grievous, serious challenge and need to respond accordingly, but others see it differently.

Senator McConnell, the leader on the Republican side, is going to offer a proposal tomorrow that is a fraction--a fraction--of what was offered on March 26 to deal with this crisis. Many people, obviously on the Republican side, feel that America is headed in the right direction and therefore we don't need to make a substantial investment in people, in businesses, and in the health and resources of this country.

For those who come to the floor and argue that America is headed in the right direction, three-fourths of the American people disagree with them. You see, in a survey taken just 2 weeks ago, 75 percent of the American people said America is headed in the wrong direction. So when the Republicans come up with a modest--almost immodest--proposal that they are going to bring to the floor tomorrow, they disagree with three-fourths of the American people.

Many of them obviously believe that we don't have to make a massive investment in helping families who are fighting unemployment, helping businesses to survive. They must believe that the worst is behind us. Well, it turns out that two out of three of the American people disagree with them. That is right--two out of three in a recent survey in America said the worst is still ahead. Wrong direction, 75 percent; the worst is still ahead, two-thirds.

What is the response on the Republican side? First, it was silence. You see, it has been almost 4 months now since the House of Representatives, under the Democratic leadership of Speaker Pelosi, passed the Heroes Act--a $3 trillion investment to make sure that we stood by the families who were unemployed, to make sure that we put money into the hands of businesses that needed to survive, to make certain that we had adequate testing across the United States, to give money to schools so that they could weather this crisis as they readjust to the challenges they face, and to put money in the hands of hospitals and providers that in some cases are just hanging by a thread because of the state of the economy and this medical challenge. That is what Speaker Pelosi did almost 4 months ago.

In the meantime, in that 4-month period, the Republican leader of the Senate has done nothing--nothing. He didn't bring a bill to the floor. He didn't pass a bill and call for a conference committee. In fact, during this entire period of time, the Republican leader in the Senate has refused to personally attend the negotiations between the White House and congressional leaders. Both he and House Republican Leader McCarthy have boycotted any negotiation sessions. Any persuasion they want to bring to the issue, they bring to the floor of the Senate in speeches, not behind closed doors, where compromise is reached and where, in fact, we were successful last March, passing the CARES Act.

So now we face a challenge as a nation. Which party will stand up for America to weather this crisis and come out strong? The Democrats have a proposal. We have had it for 4 months.

The Republicans, tomorrow, will offer a skinny--some say emaciated-- version of that proposal. They want to take the assistance to unemployed Americans--800,000 of them in my home State, millions across the Nation--and cut it in half. Did Senator McConnell get a news flash that I missed that mortgage payments will be cut in half as of tomorrow, that rental payments will be cut in half as of tomorrow, that car payments will be cut in half, that the cost of food will be cut in half? Not at all.

We know these families will face the same obligations and, under the Republican proposal, receive a fraction of what they were given and have received between March and the end of July. That is unfair to these families.

I know what is happening in food banks across Illinois, and I am sure it is the same case in Kentucky, perhaps in Georgia, perhaps in New York. People are flooding these food banks asking for help. Some of them are embarrassed by their situation. They shouldn't be, but they are. Many people who used to volunteer at these same food banks are now standing in line, looking at their shoes, hoping to take enough food home to make it through a week.

That is the reality, but it is not the reality that is reflected in the Senate action this week. What we have from Senator McConnell is a small effort at a time when America needs a substantial effort to deal with not only the situation facing our economy but also the coronavirus.

I am troubled, too, because I represent a State that is so diverse, with the great city of Chicago but all the way downstate--my roots-- smalltown America, rural America. Many of the hospitals and healthcare providers in those areas are literally struggling to survive. They are looking to Washington for a helping hand. Do you know what it means to smalltown America to lose a hospital? It is devastating, not only from the viewpoint of healthcare and emergency care, which is unavailable on a timely basis in many places, but also because it is hard to keep a business or attract a business if you don't have quality healthcare nearby. Many of those hospitals are struggling to keep the lights on and survive, and they will not make it unless we step up.

So what is included in the Republican proposal when it comes to these healthcare providers, to increasing Medicaid assistance to them, for example? Virtually nothing. I can't understand this. I have to believe that the Republican leadership representing States with small towns and rural populations are hearing exactly what I am hearing in downstate Illinois. Yet, when it comes to a proposal on the floor, they are doing nothing--nothing.

Let me just add, in closing here, if we don't take testing seriously in America, we cannot be serious about reopening the economy, reopening schools, from colleges to kindergartens. That is the reality, to be able to test in an effective, cost-effective way people who are positive for this virus so that they are notified and stop from circulating among those who are, at that point, healthy.

The testing investment by this bill on the Republican side doesn't meet the challenge at all. They can't call for opening the economy on one hand and ignore the responsibility for testing on another.

So where do we go from here? Well, tomorrow is a symbolic, partisan vote on the Republican side when it should be much more. After it is finished and we know the outcome, perhaps then the Republican leader in the Senate will be willing to sit down and negotiate. Will he be willing to occupy that empty chair in that negotiating room with the White House and Democratic congressional leaders? Will he be willing to sit down and actually work on a compromise comparable to the CARES Act that passed here in March, earlier this year?

That is what it takes--not a speech on the floor, not a press release, not a symbolic vote but something much more significant: the willingness to sit down and acknowledge the obvious; that America is heading in the wrong direction, and we should be heading in the right direction.

Many people worry that the worst is yet to come. We want them to be more hopeful and optimistic because we care, and if both parties do care to help the unemployed, to help businesses, to make sure that our healthcare providers have the resources that they need, then we can start to address this coronavirus, this pandemic, with the leadership that has been so lacking in the months that we have faced it this year.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) are necessarily absent.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source