Coronavirus
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first, I heard the remarks of the Senator from Illinois. It is a hope that we can change the way the Senate operates and do more amendments and do more debating on the floor. We haven't seen much give from some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but hopefully that could and will happen.
Now, about remarks here, every day, it seems, for the past week or so, I have come to the floor ready to talk about the merits of bipartisan legislation we have been drafting, not wanting to be critical at all. Then I listen to the Republican leader. The leader's remarks just about every day this week as he has opened the Senate have been so nastily partisan and in so many ways false that I have no choice but to correct the record as the Democratic leader.
The Republican leader's accusation that the blame for this bill's delay lies totally on one side is just ridiculous. It is ``Alice in Wonderland'' thinking. It defies all the facts as to what we have seen. Then his comparison--that the agreement we are voting on today and the most recent Republican offer are so similar--is absurd. The two bills are nothing alike, and I had to point that out several times.
I have a chart here.
$300 per week $0 enhanced UI and enhanced UI and program extensions other program end on January 31, extensions through 2021 March 14, 2021 Direct Payments............. Additional round of $0 payments--$600 individual, $1,200/ married couple, and $600/child dependent Corporate Immunity.......... Excluded McConnell/Cornyn Corporate Immunity ``Red Line'' SNAP........................ $13 billion $0 Rental Assistance........... $25 billion $0 Transportation.............. $45 billion $0 Support for Small Businesses $284.5 billion $257.7 billion (PPP)...................... Support for Community $12 billion $0 Development Financial Institutions and Minority Depository Institutions.... SBA Grants.................. $20 billion $0 Debt Relief Payments and $5.5 billion $0 Enhancements for SBA Lending Programs........... SAMHSA Funding for Mental $4.25 billion $0 Health and Substance Use Disorder................... NIH COVID Research.......... $1.25 billion $0 Broadband................... $7 billion $0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Mr. SCHUMER. I am just going to read from it, comparing the new, bipartisan relief agreement to the December 1 GOP proposal of Leader McConnell.
How about direct payments? This bill has $600 per individual, $1,200 per married couple, $600 child dependent. Many of us didn't think that was enough, but it is in the bill. Do you know how much was in the Republican leader's proposal? Zero.
Unemployment insurance. This bill that we are voting on has $300 per week of enhanced UI and other program extensions through March 14. What does the Republican leader's bill have? Zero enhanced UI. Program extensions end January 31.
This bill has $13 billion in SNAP; the Republican leader's bill, zero.
This bill has $25 billion in rental assistance; the Republican leader's bill, zero.
This bill has $45 billion in transportation for airlines and mass transit and buses and airports and highways. What does the Republican leader's bill have? Zero.
This bill has, very importantly, money for community development financial institutions and minority institutions, $12 billion. What does the Republican leader's bill have? Zero.
SBA grants, $20 billion this year; Republican leader's bill, zero.
Debt payments and enhancements for SBA. This bill, $5.5 billion; Republican bill, zero.
SAMHSA funding for mental health and substance use disorder. This bill, $4.25 billion; Republican leader's bill, zero.
NIH COVID research, $1.25 billion; Republican bill, zero.
Broadband so homes can get broadband. This bill, $7 billion; Republican leader's bill, zero.
The list could go on. There is a complete difference between the two bills.
We all know as well that the Republican leader, who blames Democrats for delay, said for several months that the Senate should be on pause. As Democrats were demanding more action, the Republican leader was unmoved. The Republican leader's answer was that 20 Republican Senators wanted to do nothing more at all. When he finally proposed legislation, it was completely partisan, insufficient, and littered with poison pills.
I forgot to add one thing that was in the leader's bill but not in this bill--the broad corporate liability immunity provision, which the Senator from Illinois tried to straighten out. Another huge difference--a poison pill.
So when the leader finally proposed legislation because of public pressure to do something, it was partisan--no Democratic input, zero-- insufficient, much too little in so many areas, as I mentioned, and littered with poison pills designed to ensure the bill would fail. Most notably was a provision to give corporations, no matter how egregious their behavior, sweeping immunity from legal accountability. Leader McConnell said on the floor that for Republicans, corporate immunity was a red line.
And he blames the Democrats, as he did again today, for why this bill is being debated now? It is just turning truth on its head. It is like ``Alice in Wonderland.''
Even in the recent negotiations, the Republican majority made an eleventh hour demand that had nothing to do with helping people during this pandemic but, rather, sabotaged the incoming Biden administration's recovery effort and restricted the Federal Reserve's ability to save jobs and right the economy in a time of crisis.
Thankfully, the agreement we reached contains neither the leader's corporate immunity provision nor Senator Toomey's last-minute provision to handicap the Fed's authority to stabilize the economy in a crisis. And it will do a whole lot of good, besides, some of the programs I mentioned.
Look, after months of tense and difficult negotiations, we have this agreement. It is not as large as Democrats want. It is certainly larger than what many Republicans want. That is the nature of compromise. It does us no good to end the year with the kind of bitter, partisan fighting that has defined too much of the year. In a new session and under a new administration, we can and should do better because our job is far from over.
The bill today is a good bill. Today is a good day, but it is certainly not the end of the story. It cannot be the end of the story. Anyone who thinks this bill is enough doesn't know what is going on in America. Anyone who thinks this bill is enough hasn't heard the desperation in the voices of their constituents, has not looked into the eyes of a small business owner on the brink of ruin.
By all rights, there should be direct assistance in this bill for State and local governments. The checks should be larger. While this agreement includes a new and larger forgivable PPP loan for restaurants, we need to do much more for restaurants. We have bipartisan legislation to deliver the relief that is truly needed, the RESTAURANTS Act, which, regrettably, did not make it into this legislation. We must do all we can to save restaurants, and I will not stop fighting until we pass the RESTAURANTS Act into law. This bill cannot and will not be the final word on congressional relief from the coronavirus pandemic. This is an emergency survival package.
When we come back in January, our No. 1 job will be to fill in the gaps left by the bill and then get the economy moving with strong Federal input. Still, the significance of this package should not be underestimated. It will be the second largest bill--the second largest Federal input--in the history of our country. It will be the second largest amount of Federal dollars going to the people ever. The times demand it. Even some of our conservative Republican friends will vote for it, and it is good we have it. For much of the year, it looked unlikely that it would ever get done, and our success today, our ability to pass this bill today, should give us confidence we can do more. We can end the year on a rare note of optimism.
Now, Queen Elizabeth, every year, gives a talk to her subjects about the status of the monarchy and the British royal family. In a very challenging year, she called the year annus horribilis--a horrible year. Unlike in 1992, which was the year Elizabeth referred to the problems with Charles and Diana, this year has been an annus horribilis not just for Great Britain and the royal family, which she was talking about, but an annus horribilis for the entire world.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has infected more than 70 million people across the globe. Another 500 million have gone, likely, undiagnosed. There are 1.6 million people who have died, 20 percent of whom have been Americans, more than 315,000--more than the entire population of Pittsburgh or St. Louis, more than all of the American combat deaths in World War II. The September 11 attacks to my fair city shaped much of the first decade of this century. In 2020, our dear country has suffered the equivalent of a 9/11 attack every day for 106 days in a row.
We have lost so much. We have missed holidays and reunions, retirements and graduations, bar mitzvahs and confirmations, weddings and funerals. Trapped in our homes, our companions were isolation and loneliness and the faint glow of tiny screens. The image of seeing people on the screen, watching their loved ones pass away when they couldn't be with them, will stay with us forever. Doctors had to stack iPads in waiting rooms for end-of-life conversations--how tragic, how awful. There were cars lined up, bumper to bumper, for food assistance. Grandchildren, wrapped in protective gear, waved goodbye to grandparents from across the silence of a hospital room.
It has been a horrible year--annus horribilis. Yet here, at the very end, finally, there is hope--not just one, not just two, but three strong beacons of hope. One, soon many Americans will have the vaccine. Two, Joe Biden will become President. He has the experience and the empathy to handle the COVID crisis and will replace a man who has shown no capacity or even interest in doing so. And, three, we are on the verge of passing another historic, bipartisan relief bill to deliver emergency assistance during a time of national emergency. So there are three beacons of hope: the vaccine, a new administration, and a bill that will help in an emergency.
Very soon, our country will close the book on the most chaotic President in recent history. Joe Biden, an experienced leader and a person of fundamental human decency, will become the 46th President of the United States. Kamala Harris, my good friend and hard-working colleague, will become the first woman, the first Black person, and the first Asian American to ascend to the Vice Presidency of the United States. Together, they will return competency and compassion to our government after 4 long years of division and demonization, which far too many people have tolerated and gone along with.
Even though this disease has not been vanquished yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a vaccine. Everyone should appreciate how miraculous that truly is. It usually takes between 5 and 10 years to develop a new vaccine--5 to 10 years. It took American doctors, biochemists, and medical researchers less than 10 months to produce not one but two viable vaccines for the coronavirus. The discovery of a vaccine in a single calendar year is the crowning scientific achievement of the 21st century--the medical Manhattan Project of our times. It is a reminder that, when we work together and persevere and sacrifice for one another, nothing--nothing--is beyond our capacity as a nation.
The same resilience and innovation and fortitude that saw our country through its darkest hours has emerged once again. COVID-19 has changed our country, but it has not changed our character. America is the night-shift nurse fashioning protective equipment from shoelaces and sheets of vinyl. America is a restaurant owner who sent meals to frontline workers for free. America is the home-stitched mask sent to friends and families. It is the metallic clang of pots and pans that celebrates essential workers. America is the grocery store clerk and the busdriver and the plasma donor and the lab technician, late at night, poring over the results of a clinical trial. It is the Brooklyn doctor, 62, on the verge of retirement, who, for 2 straight weeks, worked day shifts at the ICU and night shifts at the nearby hospital before finally succumbing to the disease himself.
Last week, the first American--a nurse in Queens--was vaccinated against COVID-19. Many millions will soon follow. Eventually, our businesses will reopen, our economy will reopen, and life will reopen. We will travel and worship and send our kids to school and see our friends and be together again. It won't be tomorrow or next week or even next month, but it will happen, not because we merely waited long enough, not because we were patient, but because we persevered.
Our job right now is to help the country get from this stormy present to that hopeful future, to survive this dark winter until spring thaws the ice. Our job is to do what is necessary--pass this bill, pass another stronger bill next year--whatever it takes to hold our country together until we eradicate the awful scourge of this disease.
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