July 20, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 127 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
CORONAVIRUS; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 127
(Senate - July 20, 2020)
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[Page S4252] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] CORONAVIRUS Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, it has been half a year since the deadly coronavirus began to spread from China throughout the world. Now, 3.7 million cases have been recorded on American soil. More than 140,000 lives have been lost. Today, our Nation stands at a challenging crossroads. States and localities are trying to balance the need to reopen and foster economic recovery with the need to stay on offense against the virus. Back in March, the American people began a period of historic disruption and heroic sacrifice in order to stunt the spread of the virus. Life as we have known it was simply put on ice. Daily routines were reinvented, not as a permanent solution but as a short-term emergency measure to save our healthcare system. The American people stepped up. The sacrifices saved lives. Nowhere in the United States did hospitals suffer the fate of the medical system in places like Italy. Our Nation met new kinds of American heroes: doctors and nurses, who worked double shifts, washed their hands raw, and endured physical separation from their loved ones so they could continue to treat ours; essential maintenance, delivery, and grocery store workers, who kept clocking in to keep families, communities, and entire industries supplied and functioning; teachers and parents, who tried their best to keep school in session for our Nation's children, from virtual classrooms and kitchen tables all across our country. No generation before us had ever had to pull the emergency brake on national life in quite this way. This historic challenge required historic support so the Senate wrote and passed the largest rescue package in history. The CARES Act puts financial assistance in the pockets of American families. It sent hundreds of billions of dollars so that employers could keep paying workers. It mobilized unprecedented resources for the medical response. Economists and experts across the spectrum agreed that the Senate's bold, bipartisan policies have made a tremendous difference these past months. The question before the Senate this week is, Where are we now? Where are we now? On the one hand, our healthcare fight against the virus itself is very obviously unfinished. New spikes in large and economically central States show that we are nowhere near out of the woods. At the same time, neither economics nor our Nation's sanity would sustain an indefinite total lockdown until there is a vaccine. So even as we continue to fight the healthcare battle, cautious reopenings will need to proceed in ways that are as smart, safe, and data-driven as possible. This is the situation facing the Senate as we discuss and consider the possibility of another recovery package. It would neither be another multitrillion-dollar bridge loan to make up for a totally shutdown economy, nor an ordinary stimulus for a nation ready to get back to normal. The need now lies somewhere in between. We need to continue supporting our healthcare system and harbor no delusion that this virus is behind us because it isn't, while also taking strategic steps to help laid-off American workers get rehired and American families get their kids back to school this fall. That is why Senate Republicans will be putting forward a strong starting point for additional recovery legislation, hopefully, as soon as this week. It will take good-faith, bipartisan cooperation from our Democratic colleagues to actually make a law. That productive spirit is what got the CARES Act across the finish line unanimously, but last month, that spirit was absent. A political determination from our Democratic colleagues led them to block the JUSTICE Act and block the Senate from even turning to the subject of police reform, even as millions had taken to the streets demanding change. So, for the sake of our Nation, if we want to continue helping the American people, the next several weeks will need to look a lot more like March and a lot less like June. Senate Republicans will put forward our proposal soon. I hope our Democratic colleagues will be ready to work together to get an outcome. First, this week, the Senate will complete two other important pieces of the people's business. First, we will confirm the President's choice to head the Office of Management and Budget. Then we will finish and pass the National Defense Authorization Act for the 60th consecutive time. As COVID-19 captured our Nation's attention, we knew our adversaries around the world would not ease up. We knew that those who seek to harm America, our interests, and our allies would use the commotion to show even more of their true colors, and, sure enough, the Russian military has flirted even closer to the boundaries of U.S. airspace. Iran has stepped up its meddling in regional conflicts. China has escalated both its international bullying and its domestic repression, such as in Hong Kong. So I am particularly encouraged that Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member Reed, and our committee colleagues put forward a robust, bipartisan bill. It will invest in the training and technology that will keep our fighting forces on the cutting edge. It will strengthen our alliances and partnerships with shared systems for containing threats. It will honor our servicemembers and their families with pay raises and top- notch services they deserve here at home. That means new investments in 5G systems and hypersonic weapons, the establishment of European and Pacific defense initiatives for greater cooperation to check Russia and China, and improving military family housing, education, and healthcare. This NDAA will build on the success of the last 3 years in rebuilding and modernizing the world's greatest fighting forces. It will continue to advance our new national defense strategy, putting aside the naive resets of the past administration and continuing to invest in strength instead. I will be proud to vote to advance and pass the NDAA, and I hope all of our colleagues will join me. ____________________