Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the American people are hurting. We are in the thick of one of the worst national crises in modern memory, and people's eyes are fixed on Congress. They need the House and the Senate to stop chasing our tails and make a law.

There are small business employees who have held onto their jobs all this time because of the Paycheck Protection Program but are facing the prospect they might be laid off now, with vaccines just around the corner, because Washington fumbles the ball in the red zone.

There are medically vulnerable Americans who have watched Operation Warp Speed appear to succeed at a historic pace, but Congress can't even agree to fully fund the distribution efforts that will get the vaccines to people.

There are Americans who have been thrown out of work, through no fault of their own, who are watching Federal aid programs tick toward expiration in a few weeks, even though neither side in Congress opposes extending them.

Senate Republicans have made one offer after another after another to try and make law on all the significant areas where nobody even disagrees. We spent July, August, September, October, and November trying different ways to create common ground, but the Speaker of the House and the Senate Democratic leader have been just as consistent. At every turn, they have delayed, deflected, moved the goalposts, and made the huge number of places where Congress agrees into a hostage--into a hostage--of the few places where we do not agree.

Back in the summertime, I pointed out the obvious. I said leading Democrats simply just didn't want any more help to reach American families before the election occurred. The other side claimed great offense; how insulting to even suggest that such cynicism might be at play.

And now they are admitting it out loud. Yesterday, on CNN, the Democratic whip was asked point-blank why the Speaker and the Democratic leader were so unwilling to play ball back in the autumn. The No. 2 Democrat responded: ``[Well], there was some exuberance involved because an election was coming.'' Well, he gets points for candor: ``because an election was coming.''

A few days ago, Speaker Pelosi told reporters why she reversed months of statements and suddenly began discussing comparatively more reasonable sums of money. Her answer was simple. She thinks the Presidential election went the way she wanted. The Speaker of the House views it as a success that she denied struggling people relief they badly needed for months because she thinks she got the political result she was after.

I count no fewer than 10 separate times that top Democrats rejected or blocked various Republican efforts to jump-start the process, so here is just a partial sampling.

In July, Republicans sketched a comprehensive plan for safe schools, jobs, and healthcare. We could have made law in July, but the Democratic leader wouldn't even engage with it. Just before August, Republicans tried to at least extend unemployment aid before it expired. Democrats blocked that as well.

In September, we tried something else: a targeted effort to spend hundreds of billions of dollars for PPP, vaccine development, and other priorities. Every Democrat who voted blocked us from even debating it, and they did it a second time a month later in October.

Last week, after speaking with the administration, I made yet another overture. The Democratic leader said: No thanks. And just yesterday, the Speaker and the Democratic leader brushed off two different overtures in the space of about 2 hours.

I suggested that both sides drop what seemed to be the most controversial demand in the eyes of our counterparts. Democrats continued to oppose commonsense legal protections that university presidents have been begging for, and Republicans see no need to send huge sums of money to State and local governments whose tax revenues have actually gone up--gone up.

Negotiating 101 suggests we set those two controversial pieces aside and plow ahead with a huge pile of things that we agree on, but that would require both sides to truly want to get an outcome.

Just hours after Democrats poured cold water on that, Secretary Mnuchin tried another new tack and sent over an offer, and in a bizarre and schizophrenic press release, the Speaker and the leader said the administration was obstructing negotiations by negotiating. Two more brush-offs in about 2 hours. More deflection, more delay, and more suffering for innocent Americans.

Can anyone point to a single sign--a single sign--from April through now, that Democratic leaders have seriously wanted another bipartisan deal to become law? Can anybody name one way--just one--the Democratic leaders would have behaved differently if their singular goal was to kill any compromise? That hypothetical world looks suspiciously like the world we have been living in.

Think of it. We have a Speaker of the House from San Francisco who has spent months ensuring that unemployed Californians can't have jobless aid extended and California restaurants can't get another round of PPP unless the Governor of California gets a Federal slush fund out of proportion to any proven need.

Do working families agree they should not get any more help themselves unless the Governors and State legislators get a controversial bailout? Are struggling Americans saying: Thank goodness the Democrats are bravely--bravely--blocking help for me and my family unless my State politicians get some more cash? I would say not.

Our people need more help. There is a huge list of helpful policies that both sides agree on. This need not be rocket science. But we can't do a thing unless the Democrats decide they actually want to make a law.

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