March 18, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 52 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S1800-S1802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I congratulate the Senator from 
Kansas on his eloquent remarks, expressing the feelings--certainly mine 
and those, I believe, of virtually every Member of this body--that we 
are here not as Democrats or Republicans but to work together to do 
whatever we can to address the concerns that are literally 
unprecedented.
  This is an unprecedented time in our country. I cannot remember a 
time in my life or in our history when the government has literally 
closed down the country in order to contain a disease. That is 
literally what we are doing. Whether it is the Federal Government by 
its travel restrictions, or whether it is the State governments 
suggesting that schools be closed, or whether it is mayors saying that 
restaurants must be closed, we are closing down the country to contain 
a disease. Because the government is doing that on behalf of all the 
people, we are going to have to pay the costs of closing down the 
country to contain this disease.
  Today, the news is that the auto industry across the country is 
closing down, at least temporarily. There are layoffs.
  I have watched over the last 40 years as Tennessee has gone from 
almost no auto jobs to proudly calling itself, in many ways, the No. 1 
auto State. One hundred forty thousand Tennesseans work in auto jobs in 
Tennessee; that is one-third of all of our manufacturing jobs. They are 
spread through 88 counties. And over these 40 years as textiles and 
other industries moved away from the United States and out of our 
State, the auto companies moved in--virtually into every county--and 
our family incomes went up. So if we are, in many ways, the No. 1 auto 
State, then we are the No. 1 State to be hurt when the auto plants 
begin to close.
  We are also hurt, as are citizens in every State, when the 
restaurants shut down. Fifteen million Americans work in restaurants. 
It is one of our largest industries, if not our largest industry. 
Almost all of those workers are being laid off in Tennessee and in many 
other places in the country and even more will be.
  Not all of those affected are working for big auto companies or 
medium-sized restaurants. I received an email yesterday from friends in 
Tennessee who run a kennel. Well, you may say that is not so important. 
Well, it is important to a lot of us. They say:

       We are . . . suffering a massive drop off in our business 
     as a result of the Coronavirus. I fear we may have to close 
     our doors for a month or two (hopefully not that long), as 
     our wonderful customers are forced to curtail travel. I am 
     currently trying to secure around $50,000 in loans to 
     supplement our dwindling reserves to see us through until May 
     [or] June. I am currently applying . . . for SBA disaster 
     relief. This precipitous drop in business comes on the heels 
     of major flood damages to our fencing [caused] by the 
     [recent] floods . . . our flood insurance refuses to cover 
     [that]. We are not seeking charity, just a business loan from 
     $30,000 [to] $50,000 to secure our business until it passes. 
     We always pay our way.

  This couple has two young children and maybe a couple of employees in 
their kennel. They are awfully good people. They are salt-of-the-earth 
Tennesseans. They are like many Americans who are suddenly confronted 
with this disease that just came out of the blue and has caused our 
government to shut our country down.
  Now, what shall we do about it?
  Well, a couple of weeks ago, Congress and the President reacted with 
$8.3 billion to help beef up our public health system. We have the best 
public health system in the world, and we wanted to help it get 
started.
  Today, we passed a bill that some people have estimated at $100 
billion, which includes a whole variety of other steps from Democrats 
and Republicans that includes encouraging more testing, that creates a 
new system of paid leave for businesses of less than 500 employees, and 
family leave.
  As Senator McConnell said, we are going to stay here this week until 
we take step 3. And step 3, according to the President's proposal, 
would include direct financial payments to Americans; it would include 
support for essential businesses that need stabilization like the 
airlines; and it would include loans to small businesses so they can 
keep their employees working. Perhaps that proposal would be good for 
that small kennel I talked about.
  That is said to cost perhaps another trillion dollars. A trillion 
dollars is a lot of money, even in the United States. Our gross 
domestic product is about $22.3 trillion. We have 25 percent of all the 
money in the world in this country just for 5 percent of the people. 
But the idea that we would have to spend a trillion dollars or more to 
contain a disease would be unthinkable a few weeks ago, but what we 
have learned very quickly is we are going to have to pay the cost of 
containing the disease because the way we are containing it is that the 
government is shutting down major parts of our economy. I don't believe 
that what we do today or what we propose to do later in the week will 
be enough because, as I look at the number of people being laid off in 
this country, our State unemployment agencies are not going to be able 
to deal with that.
  In Tennessee, for example, where unemployment has been very low and 
where people have found it easy to find a job, there were only 2,000 
applications for unemployment insurance last week, but already this 
week by 2 p.m. on Wednesday, in the middle of the week, there were four 
times that many applications, 9,177. If you are successful in 
unemployment compensation in our State, you get $257 per week for 26 
weeks.
  So we are going to have to do even more than the Congress has done, 
even more than the President has done, and I think we have to recognize 
that the President was wise on January 31, when we only had six cases 
of coronavirus detected in the United States, to impose the strictest 
travel bans on people coming into our country in 50 years. Dr. Fauci, 
whom all of us respect, said if he hadn't done that, we would have many 
more cases today.
  Still, we have a disease that is causing the governments--this one, 
the State government, the local government--to shut major parts of our 
economy down. That is why I voted today

[[Page S1801]]

for the legislation that was phase 2 in our effort to respond to that, 
even though I have significant issues with the sick leave and family 
leave proposals that are part of it. I believe those provisions, while 
well-intended by the administration and by the House of 
Representatives, will hurt many employers and will shortchange many 
employees.
  First, to be fair, I want to try to make sure that what the Treasury 
intends to do is on the record. I have had several conversations with 
the Secretary of the Treasury and with other officials to ask them just 
what they intended to do and to list the problems that I had. So here 
is what they say--and I am characterizing the conversations and the 
writings we have had.
  They pointed out that what many businesses have read is in this bill 
was what was in the draft of it that the House passed on Friday before 
technical corrections were made over the weekend and that the technical 
corrections greatly improved the bill from the point of view of 
employers.
  The Treasury Department writes that, under the legislation, employers 
receive a dollar-for-dollar refundable tax credit for the COVID-19-
related sick and family leave payments made to their employees. As 
amended--they made the technical corrections over the weekend--the 
credit is carefully calibrated, in the Treasury's words, to ensure that 
there is no sick or family leave requirement in excess of the credit. 
The legislation now also includes explicit grants of regulatory 
authority to both the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of the 
Treasury to ensure consistency between the leave requirements and the 
credit provisions.
  In addition--and this is what the Treasury officials have been saying 
to us over the last few days--the legislation now provides that the 
sick and family leave payments are not considered wages for employment 
tax purposes. The legislation now extends the employer credit to 
include costs for the maintenance of health benefits that are paid by 
the employers while employees are on leave.
  Lastly, the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service are considering 
options to provide an advance payment for the refundable credit to ease 
any tax flow burden that a small fraction of employers may experience. 
I will have more to say about that in a minute, but in plain English, 
what that means is that they are considering a way to make sure that, 
before the employer has to pay this required family leave to an 
employee, the Federal Government has given the money to the employer.
  Besides this, the legislation now includes an explicit grant of 
authority, the Treasury writes, to the Secretary of Labor to exempt 
small businesses from the only long-term leave requirements it contains 
where those requirements would result in financial hardship.
  In its conversations with me and in the writings that it has sent 
out, the Treasury makes the argument that, far from imposing special 
burdens, the net effect of this legislation is to provide an important 
benefit given that many already provide sick leave and that many more 
will need to do so in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Moreover, by 
structuring coverage for paid sick leave as a credit, the legislation 
ensures that employers generally receive relief immediately rather than 
having to wait for refunds.
  In the event the amount of the credit exceeds an employer's tax 
liability, the credit is made refundable to ensure that the employer is 
fully compensated for all payments made under the leave requirements. 
The Treasury goes on to write that the Treasury and the IRS are working 
on options to provide an advance payment of the credit in order to get 
cash in the pockets of small businesses and their employees 
immediately.
  The intent of the legislation, the Treasury argues, is to fully fund 
the payments employers make to their employees who experience 
employment interruptions related to the COVID-19.
  In summary, according to the Department of the Treasury, the amended 
legislation does not require employers to make payments in excess of 
amounts eligible for the refundable tax credit and does not require 
employers to pay employment taxes on those amounts. To the contrary, it 
provides an important and immediate benefit to small businesses and 
their employees for whom financial assistance is needed as quickly as 
possible. That has been the argument of the Secretary of the Treasury 
and his subordinates in conversations with many of us over the last few 
days. That is their intention.
  Now, I read that in detail because, in the Dakotas, in Tennessee, and 
in many places all across this country, if my figures are right, there 
are about 6 million businesses that could be affected by this mandate, 
businesses that employ 51 million employees--or at least that did 
employ 51 million employees until all of the problems that have been 
created by this virus.
  In my having tried to be fair in giving you what I understand the 
Treasury's intention to be, which I think will be useful to the owners 
of small businesses, to their accountants, and to their lawyers, who 
are trying to figure out the law that was passed today, here are my 
problems with it.
  No. 1, I am not sure that the Treasury can live up to its promise to 
make sure that the employer has the money from the Federal Government 
before the employer has to pay the sick leave to the employee.
  Here is my principle. I think, in these circumstances, sick leave and 
family leave are a good idea. I mean, if someone is quarantined for 2 
weeks, I think all of us should have to pay the cost of that and, for 
another 10 weeks, some of the cost of the medical and family leave. I 
buy that, and I can support that. Yet I believe, if Washington, DC, is 
going to require it, Washington, DC, should pay for it. If Washington, 
DC, is going to require a small business--many of which are struggling 
and many of which are going out of business--to pay a mandate, 
Washington, DC, should pay for it
  This is no time to be imposing on small businesses an expensive, new 
mandate--an unexpected new cost--when they don't have money coming in 
to pay for the normal costs that they had. I know it is the Secretary's 
goal to let it work this way, for he has told me this, and he has told 
all of us this. He has said it in public and has put out a statement.
  Under the sick leave proposal, every couple of weeks, a businessman 
will put aside enough money for withholding and social security taxes. 
That adds up to about 15 percent of an employee's salary. What the 
Treasury is saying is that the employer can use that money. Instead of 
setting it aside for the government, the employer can use it to pay 
sick leave.
  There are two problems with that. One is that I don't like the idea 
of the employer's using the employee's tax money. You usually get in 
trouble for that. If I were to set aside the Senator from North 
Dakota's tax payment and then use it for some purpose, you could go to 
jail for that in some cases. At least it is inappropriate. I am 
uncomfortable with that. A business might only have 7.5 percent of the 
salary set aside for that purpose, but even if it is 15 percent, I am 
not sure it is enough.
  The Treasury Secretary said the Treasury understands that, so it will 
allow advance payment, and it hopes that it can come up with a system 
that would get it there immediately. He hasn't promised that it would 
come in 1 day. I am sure, if he were here on the Senate floor, he would 
like to say his objective would be to get it there on the same day. 
Well, wanting to get it there on the same day and getting it there are 
two different things.
  If I am a small business person in Tennessee and know that I am going 
to have to cut a payroll check on Monday and that I have no money 
coming in to pay for it and that there is not enough money in my escrow 
account to pay for it, I would want my money from the Federal 
Government before I would cut the check.
  So I intend to try to amend the legislation that we passed this 
weekend to say that, with sick leave and paid family leave, since 
Washington is requiring it and Washington is paying for it, then 
Washington will need to make sure the employer has the money before the 
employer has to write the check. That is No. 1.
  No. 2, I want to make sure that the employer doesn't have to pay more 
on sick leave than the Federal Government's cap. There is a cap that, I 
think, is about $132,000 annualized pay on sick leave. If an employee 
makes more than that, that employee is going to have to take a pay cut 
or he or she

[[Page S1802]]

might use the private right of action to sue the employer and say: I 
want you to pay the gap between the $132,000 and whatever I made.
  You may say, I am not too sympathetic to the employee who makes that 
much money. Yet I am not talking about being sympathetic to the 
employee; I am talking about being sympathetic to the employer who may 
not have any money. Remember, this is a Washington mandate, and 
Washington should pay for it. Through technical changes this past 
weekend--and it said so in the information I just read--the Treasury 
Department has amended the bill to try to make that clear, and I hope 
that it is successful.
  No. 3 is with regard to layoffs, and I mentioned the restaurant 
industry. There are 15 million people who work in the restaurant 
industry. If they are not laid off now, they are going to be mostly all 
laid off before very long. Unfortunately, none of those men and women 
who have been laid off are eligible for this sick leave because you are 
going to have to work for 30 days for this small business, for this 
company with fewer than 500 employees, in order to be eligible for the 
paid sick leave.
  I am afraid, as a result of this, many employers who are worried 
about this provision may have an incentive to lay off more of their 
employees. The truth is that one doesn't need much more incentive 
because you are a restaurant and have been told by the local health 
board to close down. You don't have any money coming in, and you can't 
pay your employees anyway, so you don't have any choice. My point is 
that this is a very limited benefit in the restaurant industry and, 
probably, in many other industries because it does not help the laid-
off employee.
  Finally, there has been a lot said with regard to the smallest 
companies--those with fewer than 50 employees--in that they can apply 
to the Secretary of Labor and he will make you exempt from the mandate. 
I think that is a good idea because this is the small mom-and-pop diner 
or it might be the kennel that I just talked about that might have 
three or four employees and that is not accustomed to dealing with all 
of this Washington legalese and its requirements and regulations. It is 
not geared up for that.
  As I read the language in the law, it is a much narrower exception 
than that, so I am going to attempt to amend the law that passed today 
in order to broaden the exception so the Secretary of Labor has more 
authority to waive the mandate for businesses with fewer than 50 
employees
  As I said, there are a number of important benefits in the bill that 
we passed today, especially on testing. We have seen a great increase 
in the number of available tests over the last few weeks. The Governor 
of Tennessee said yesterday that we have sufficient testing. Well, that 
is for today but maybe not for tomorrow or the next day.
  One of the greatest steps forward has been to finally allow 
commercial testing to be used. I mean, why shouldn't the Mayo Clinic or 
the Cleveland Clinic be able to go ahead and develop tests and move 
ahead with them? Now, they can. While we have done a great deal, there 
is a great deal more that we must do.
  I am convinced, even if we do as Senator McConnell has said and pass 
our phase three legislation this weekend, which would include loans to 
small businesses, direct payments to individuals, and stabilizing 
payments to airlines, for example, and maybe to other industries, that 
there is more to do.
  My guess is that the next step after that--phase four, let's call 
it--will be to look to our State employment compensation systems and 
make sure they are able to handle the large numbers of people who are 
losing their jobs because the government is shutting down the economy 
in order to contain the disease.
  I voted for the Johnson amendment today, which was to the bill for 
which I later voted, because I thought it was headed in the right 
direction. Rather than Washington's issuing mandates, I would rather 
Washington work with the States in an existing program and make sure 
that States have sufficient funding on top of their own funds to deal 
with the large numbers of autoworkers, restaurant workers, and workers 
at the small kennel that has two or three employees. In addition to 
that, I believe the figure in the weekly fund is going to have to be 
higher than the $327 that it is in Tennessee.
  This is unprecedented. We are closing down the economy in order to 
contain the disease. Because we are doing that, we governments at all 
levels are going to have to pay the bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). The Senator from Delaware.

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