September 17, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 161 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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CORONAVIRUS; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 161
(Senate - September 17, 2020)
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[Pages S5696-S5698] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] CORONAVIRUS Mr. KING. Mr. President, I am sure you and I and all the Members of this body remember that night in late March. It was late at night. I remember standing in the back of the Chamber to see one of the truly historic votes. It was a unanimous vote of the U.S. Senate to pass the CARES Act. It was an amazing achievement to see the Senate and the Congress come together in that way with the White House, with the President, to help meet the needs of the American people. When we passed that bill back in March, September seemed a long way away. We thought we had provided enough aid for small businesses. It turns out we didn't. We thought we had provided enough aid for people, unfortunately, who have fallen into unemployment through no fault of their own but the fault of this dreaded COVID, but we didn't provide enough. We hoped that we had provided enough for first responders, for schools, for healthcare professionals, for testing, and for all the things that were necessary to get us out of this terrible pandemic. It turns out that wasn't the case. Here we are in September facing a renewed version of this virus that is now spreading in parts of the country that weren't affected back in March. I want to address, No. 1, that we must do something. We have to respond to the needs of the American people just as we did in March. I don't understand why this time it seems to be a partisan issue; why this time we can't have the same spirit that we had then of negotiation, of give and take, of compromise to reach a bill that all realize now was a really significant accomplishment. For some reason, now it just seems to be much harder. I understand the concern about the debt and the deficit. I used to be a Governor. I know about balancing budgets. States have to balance their budgets, but now is not the time. If we don't take further action to shore up the economy and protect the [[Page S5697]] people who are being impacted by this, the fiscal cost in the long run will be worse. The revival of the economy will take longer. The cost to the Treasury will be greater than what we are proposing to spend now. I believe and I hope that we are moving slowly toward some kind of agreement that will allow us to provide the support to the American people and the American economy that will make such a difference in how we are able to cope with this terrible disease over the next several months--at least through the end of the year. That is really the mission that is before us. The Democrats made a proposal back in May. They passed the Heroes Act of over $3 trillion. They have moved. The Speaker and the minority leader here have moved $1 trillion. They made a counteroffer a few weeks ago of about $2 trillion. The White House apparently, over the last couple of days, has said we are now talking about something at $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion as a solution. The parties are moving, and I hope today that they will continue to discuss and that the table will have people sitting at it trying to find a solution. I think there is hope that we can do that. I deeply hope that we can come to an agreement. Schools across the country are seeing, unbelievably, additional expenditures in all areas to try to get back to normal, to try to get back into the classroom. If they are going to do that, they need more buses. They are going to need more teachers. They are going to need more people. They are going to need more cleaning materials. They are going to need all kinds of additional expenditures they weren't anticipating. Small businesses are continuing to teeter. I hear awful stories about small businesses that between now and the end of the year are in danger of closing their doors forever. That would be a tragedy for our country. We are continuing to see people lose their jobs. We are continuing to see people on unemployment. We are continuing to see people who can't put food on the table because the aid that we provided in the CARES Act in March ran out at the end of July I am urging, No. 1, discussions. That is pretty obvious. I hope that the representatives of the two parties and representatives of the White House can come together and reach an agreement. Part of this agreement has to contain within it support for States, towns, and cities. They are suffering, too, and they are providing the very services that the people need in this pandemic. States can't borrow money the way we can. They have to balance their budget on a year-to-year basis. If they are being clobbered by the effects of this disease, not only in expenditures but in loss of revenues, they only have two choices. I have been there. They only have two choices. One is drastic cuts, and the other is raising taxes, neither of which is an acceptable alternative in the midst of a recession, and neither of which makes any sense for the American people. They have either to cut or raise taxes. Those aren't good options. By the way, I can only speak for the Maine budget. I don't know how other State budgets work. But in Maine about one-third of our budget-- between 25 percent and 35 percent of our State budget--goes back to our communities. It goes to the capital city of Augusta, makes a U-turn, and goes back into the towns and cities across Maine, mostly in the form of general-purpose aid to education, also in the form of revenue sharing, and in other kinds of grants and contracts. When we talk about the State, it sounds like we are talking about these big, impersonal entities, but we are really talking about towns-- small towns--and school districts. That is where a lot of this impact is going to fall. It is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. It is hurting people--the people who are being laid off, the people who are going to have to be laid off, whether they are in a town or city, a county or the State. That hurts the economy. Those are people who are buying things in the stores, going to restaurants, and going to grocery stores. They are going to places to buy clothes, and if they can't do that, then, the entire economy is pulled down. If we don't help the States and the cities and towns in this situation, the estimates are that it is going to hit GDP by 2 to 3 percent. That is huge. That is a huge economic loss that is going to translate into a fiscal loss for us and a tragic loss for the American people. The estimate in Maine is a $1.4 billion shortfall of our State budget over the next 3 years--a half-billion dollars in this fiscal year that we are in right now. Towns and cities across Maine are already starting to furlough first responders. Who is it that works for the towns? Who is it that works for the cities? Police and fire are the biggest components. They are not hiring people. I think we need to face the fact that those who are opposing aid to our cities and towns are the people who are defunding the police. That is who is defunding the police because their budgets are going to be cut if they don't get some assistance from this body and this government. Let's be real. Let's talk about facts. Let's talk about the real impact of our lack of attention to this issue. This is a personal tragedy for these families, and it is one more blow to the economy. By the way, this is not a blue State issue. Here are some States whose budgets have been hit by more than 10 percent by the loss of revenues caused by the COVID: Alaska, which is not much of a blue State; Indiana; Kansas; Kentucky; Montana; Oklahoma; and Iowa. Those States are hurting, too. This blue State-red State stuff bothers me. I don't know how many emergency appropriations for natural disasters, wildfires, floods, and hurricanes I have voted for. It never occurred to me to ask what color the State was. It never occurred to me. We are a community. This is one country. I don't ask how Florida voted if there is a hurricane that strikes that State or Georgia or Alabama, which is being hit right now. If they need help, we should provide it. But what we are seeing now is a slow-motion fiscal hurricane that is hitting many, if not all, of the States of the United States. We should come together and help them. As for this business about that, well, we don't want to bail out somebody's pension program, look, this is an easy calculation. The Treasury Department is capable of making the calculation. What were your revenues last year? What were your projections before COVID? What is the difference? That is what we are talking about. Make no mistake, we are talking about real, concrete, on-the-ground losses of jobs and losses of the services that those jobs provide. Whether they are public health workers, first responders, firefighters, or police--yes, police--they are who are being impacted here, and it is we as citizens who are the customers of those services who need the protection and who need the services they provide. They are who are being hurt. I hope that we can come to an agreement and that we can get over this nonsense that this is somehow a blue State-red State thing and that we are bailing out States that were not prudent. I am tired of hearing that. We are talking about people's lives here. We are talking about the protection of public services. We are talking about teaching our kids. We are talking about people who are providing the basic protections that we all take for granted in our daily lives. Really, I have two simple messages: One, let's make a deal. Two, that deal should include support for those people and institutions in our States, in our cities, and in our smallest towns so that they will have the wherewithal to be able to help us all get through this thing together. That is what this is all about, and those are the people on the ground who are helping us get through this together. We can do this. We proved in March that we could do it. I think we must and can and will do it again. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah. (The remarks of Mr. Lee pertaining to the introduction of S. 4608 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'') Mr. LEE. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland. [[Page S5698]] ____________________
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