What people know about most is the biggest one, the cares act. I think it got 97 votes here on the floor of the senate. 970. Weve in the past been able to figure out a way to come together as republicans and democrats, as americans to be able to address this crisis. We need to do it again because we still do have a crisis. We still do have unacceptably high levels of people getting infected, hospitalized, being in the i. C. U. , fatalities, and of course our economy is not where any of us would like it see it, although it has improved significantly in part because of the legislation we have passed here. Im convinced we would be at over 10 unemployment still if not for the legislation we passed here. Instead were beginning to come down, 8. 4 last month. Thats faster than anybody thought it could. Still, of course, unacceptably high. So more help is needed, and we cant let the upcoming election and the Politics Around that keep us from getting together and continuing to do the work that we have to do. Now we havent been able in the last five or six weeks to do that. Instead weve been working kind of on opposite sides of the aisle on our own projects. Today we passed a bill im sorry. We didnt pass it. We voted on a bill that got a majority of the United States senators supporting it. Thats not how you pass something around here. You have to have a supermajority of 60 votes, but a majority of senators in this chamber just voted for legislation that has strong bipartisan appeal, i would think, because as well talk about in a second, almost every element is supported by the democrats, republicans, and most importantly by the American People. But what weve done is weve kind of fallen into camp. The democrats passed a bill in the house. Its called the heroes act. Its a 3. 5 trillion bill. Remember, weve already spent about 3. 5 trillion making this the largest deficit in the history of our country and making our debt now for the First Time Since world war ii the size of our entire economy. That concerns all of us, and it should. I hope it concerns all of us because our fiscal situation Going Forward for our kids and grandkids is something we should be concerned about too. Anyway, 3. 5 trillion bill. You know, its kind of a grab bag to be honest. Some of it is related to covid19 but some of it is not. As an example there is a provision in there that i hope will be a nonstarter that changes our tax laws and repeals the state and local Tax Deduction cap put in recently. This gives a huge break to wealthy americans. 40 of this benefit according to the joint committee on taxation goes to the top 1 of wage earners. What does that have to do with the coronavirus . It will help millionaires on both coasts a lot, but it does not affect the crisis that were in. They also want to use this 3. 5 trillion package as a way to make changes in our immigration policy. Thats pretty couldnt verse stuff as it stands and that will make that bill hard to pass because immigration policy, people have strong views on but it has no place in a covid19 bill. One that concerns those of us about the election coming up is that it puts federal mandates on the states with regard to the election system. We left that to the province of the states. Thats not, again, something that is going to help us in terms of the coronavirus. So my hope is that those House Democrats who passed that bill can now see what we passed over here that is a very targeted bill that focuses on the coronavirus. It is less than 500 billion, which used to be a lot of money but as compared to the 3. 5 trillion, but its a lot less money but more targeted, more focused. So much of it is policy that can be supported on both sides of the aisle. We will it will help to build the problems we addressed, it will help with the Health Care Crisis and the weak Economic Performance thats a result of people being isolated from the economy. I heard someone say this week weve got a k recover recovery. What does that mean . A lot of people say you vant a v recovery where you go down and come back up just as steeply. Thats where i think a lot of america is. In other words, a lot of families, a lot of businesses have seen rapid recovery here in the past few months but there are others who have not. The top part of the k is true for a lot of people and a lot of businesses. Think of the businesses that provide food, the grocery stores, the businesses that are involved in construction, businesses like home depot or lowes that provide building products, they are doing well, they are at the top of the v. There are others that are at the bottom, it would include hospitality and airlines and bus companies, they are having a tough time. Many of our Small Businesses, retail, certainly our bars and movie theaters and bowling alleys are having a tough time. They are at the bottom end of it. This is an uneven recovery. Therefore to my colleagues on my side of the aisle who say, weve done enough, everythings on, everythings good, unfortunately thats not true. I wish it were. I wish we had turned the corner on the economy and also had begun to turn the corner on the virus many we cant say that yet. Weve made progress, no question about it. I think were on the right track, but we have a kshaped recovery. Same with individuals. If you think about it. If you own a home, the value of your home has probably gone up. If youre looking to sell your home, its a good time to sell, i guess. If youre invested in the stock market, which a lot of people who own homes are, its darn good. I was object a program on a program where they said that the nasdaq is back up. If youre in the tech world, youre doing great. Lets say you dont own your own home and youre a renter, it has probably gone up and yet your job is at risk, maybe gone. So, again, kshaped, isnt it. Some people are doing quite well. Others are still having a rough time and need help to be able to deal with the issue of the coronavirus and the economic fallout from that. By the way, this kshaped recovery, i believe, has increased inequality in terms of our income. Income inequality was something that we were making progress on. In february we had the 19th straight month of wages increasing in this country, just in february, not long ago. Most of the increase was among lower and middleincome workers. That was positive and why so many of us pushed for tax it reform and we felt it would get us to help those workers in the lower income bracket but that has changed. We have to here in congress in my view, continue to help, continue to do things that will help on the Health Care Crisis and with regard to the underlying Economic Situation thats affected by it. One thing that i think was very positive about today is that we were able to pass legislation that has many, many bipartisan elements to it. I think the vote we just it, again, were a majority of senators in this chamber voted for a targeted covid19 approach, i think this gives us a chance to reset, a chance to get back to the bargaining table. A chance to say, okay, now the republicans have put forward a proposal that has a lot of very reasonable provisions in it. The presiding officer here today was part of that. He put in provisions into the bill that has to do with our schools, widely popular. Theres other provisions in there that that i think theres very little disagreement on. Let me highlight a few of them. One is on the health care response, particularly on our testing capacity. Republicans and democrats alike know that testing is critical. We need it. In ohio were looking for more funding for testing because we know thats how you stop the spread of the disease, testing, contract testing and getting to the hotspots and try to contain it. That way people will feel more comfortable returning to work, returning to shop, returning to school. So this is something that is in this legislation, 16 billion alone for testing. The lftion that was voted on this afternoon in this chamber was voted positively by a majority of the senators. This week in ohio, i visited the Health Collaborative which is a multiagency coalition approach to dealing with covid19. It includes hospitals, county commissioners, health commissioners, even nursing homes. They are ute utilizing the 19 million they received through the cares act to fund, design, and execute a testing strategy for people in the southwest ohio area. I am really pleased to see them take the funding and using it in this way because now more and more people are getting the opportunity to be tefd. They are doing it on a tested. They are doing it on a noneeds basis. There is no need to pay for it, everybody is welcomed to get a test. These kinds of issues are a big help. Im glad in this legislation that we voted on this afternoon, we added another 45 billion in total to h. H. S. To go towards testing, vaccine development, distribution of the vaccine, helping on the antiviral medications, this shark tank concept that is brilliant that tells the private sector, were going to provide you the basic funding to compete to come up with a safe way to develop a vaccine or antiviral terpy and that encouraged therapy and that has encouraged competition in an unprecedented speed. We need them and hopefully by the end of this year we will have them. I think that congress should double down on any covid19 policies in previous ltionz that have worked well. Legislations that have worked well and one is the paycheck protection program. If youre a Small Business and have not taken advantage of the p. P. P. Proposal that many of your peers have and you have seen them able to keep their doors open because of it, youre out of luck right now because the program is not accepting new applicants. We need to extend the program. I dont know a senator in this chamber that doesnt have an experience back home of a Small Business saying, i couldnt have stayed open without this. I visited three or four businesses in the past few weeks in ohio, all of them had the same story. Different timing, you know, different businesses. Some in construction, some in the restaurant business, some in manufacturing, but what they all tell me is they needed that influx badly. It provided them a lowinterest loan, 1 , that converted it into a grant because the loan was forgiven if they used it for their salaries or for utilities or mortgage or rent. They would have had to close their doors. For some of these businesses, like the manufacturer i visited, thank goodness, they would have had to let go 30 of their workforce and they were able to keep everybody on and now they are looking for people. They are having a tough time hiring people. They are looking for people. Thats a good sign that you have businesses trying to pull people in the workforce. Thats in this legislation. My hope is that were going to see republicans and democrats agree on this. I think they do agree, reinstating the p. P. P. For the foreseeable future so that more Small Businesses can take advantage of the smart loan program is a smart thing to do and it is more targeted and it requires that had you show a loss of revenue. We want this to be targeted and focused. We dont want to waste money. Third, the bill rebeing flects that homes on both sides of the aisle recognize that congress should give Additional Support to our schools. I mentioned this earlier, but 105 billion in this bill goes to education, 70 billion to k through 12, our secondary and high schools. Many of the schools are telling me, rob, ive got additional costs, i have these plexiglass shields i have to put up, i need more teachers. Theres funding thats needed for remote learning. So this is good for us to provide funding for these schools because that will enable them to reopen and reopen safely and stay open. Thats in this legislation. By the way, theres also money in here for colleges be and universities, i think about 30 billion for that. Again, the same thing im hearing from our colleges and universities some of which are having a tough time staying open, they need more testing, more p. P. E. This is important and, again, that is all in this legislation. I mentioned the heroes act, a 3. 5 trillion bill that the House Democrats passed not too long ago as kind of their alternative. That had funding for schools also. But, guess what, this bill that was passed well, not passed, but voted on by a majority of senators today in the United States senate, actually has slightly more money than the heroes act has for education. Whats the big issue here . Why cant we get together and figure this out . So theres so many opportunities here. Finally, i would just say that one thing that this bill does, and one reason its called a targeted bill is it repurposes funding that we have already appropriated here in the first four or five bills but that has not been used and it is not likely to be needed. So isnt that smart . I mean as taxpayers dont you want to be sure were not just throwing money at this problem thats not needed and the Treasury Department has been helpful in particular about saying they have a bunch of money for a loan program they havent had much takeup on because frankly the commercial lending is going pretty well, people are getting money from their banks so they dont need to go to treasury or the fed as much as we thought. Theres money leftover, hundreds of billions of dollars and that should be used to offset any new program. I cant imagine anybody in this chamber, if they think through this, would be against us repurposing the funds we appropriated toward new uses that we already targeted. Thats in this legislation too. I think those things all have bipartisan appeal and it seems to me, again, this is a reset. Because, lets face it, the democrats have been saying over the past several weeks, weve got our bill we passed, the heroes act, what have you put out, showing that the majority of the senate and pretty much everyone can support. Weve done that. We have our stake in the ground, they have their stake in the ground. There is considerable overlap. We should be able to figure this out on behalf of the American People. Yeah, we have a Campaign Ongoing for president for senators for members of congress. Weve got to look out for the interest of the American People here. We can do both. We can campaign and also be working on our legislation that is absolutely needed right now for the health care and Economic Future of our country. By the way, only about a third of the senate is up for reelection, so for twothirds of us, we dont even have the election to worry about yet it seems like this place has become way too political too quickly. Lets focus on the bill that was voted on today, a majority of senators supported it, and figure out with a way with a new approach that will enable us with a new effort to help with regard to the kshaped recovery and with regard to the ongoing Health Care Crisis we are facing. I want to mention, if i could, three or four other things id love to see in the final bill that did not make it in the so kald targeted bill. I understand why they didnt. In part we werent looking to put a lot of tax provisions in there because its not a tax vehicle. But there are other things that have broad bipartisan support that we ought to include. It is important that the taxpayerfunded research supported by this legislation, research into antiviral medication is protected from other countries, in particular china, coming into our country and taking that research. This is taxpayerfunded reserve and we know from research and we know from the f. B. I. Told us and the department of justice told us, this is currently at risk. With that in mind, we need to include legislation that safeguards our American Innovation. This was actually in the legislation that was introduced by senator mcconnell a few weeks ago, called the heals legislation and the legislation im talking about is the safeguarding American Innovation act. It stops the kind of theft of research and innovation at our research institutions, our colleges, our universities. Thats one where republicans and democrats have come together. Its a bipartisan bill. Its the result of a committee process. Its the result of an investigation that took over a year. Its the result of a lot of hearings and a lot of work and its solid legislation to encourage us to be able to protect the research were doing, including on the coronavirus. Theres been a bipartisan consensus that a smart Coronavirus Response should include tax incentives to help our economy, to be able to not just open and reopen but do so safely and effectively. Small Business Owners ive spoken to during this pandemic, especially in recent weeks, have cold me their told me theyre eager to reopen but we want them to do it in a safe manner. Lets provide incentives for that one example how that process can be helped along is an expanded tax record called the work opportunity tax credit. Its already out there. Its legislation that passed years ago. It helps, lets say, veterans, returning citizens who are looking for a second chance. It gives them the chance to get a job because the employer gets a tax credit for a while and then almost always that person ends up getting a job. Lets include covid19 unemployed in that, people who lost their job because of covid19. That makes all the sense in the world to get people back to work. Theres also something thats in law now based on the cares legislation called the Employee Retention tax credit. This, i think, is very important. Companies that couldnt access the p. P. P. Because they didnt wall identify or didnt want to have access to this program kind of as an alternative. It gives companies a tax credit against their payroll taxes, the employer side payroll taxes if they keep people on or bring people on. Again, this makes all the sense in the world right now to encourage more hiring to ensure we can get this economy moving again and do so safely. Speaking of safely, ive introduced a new tax credit that was part of the heals legislation that was introduced a few weeks ago. Its called the Healthy Workplaces tax credit which helps businesses pay for this protective equipment like the plexiglass shields, like the p. P. E. That they now need which is expensive. Just the gowns and the masks and the gloves, those expenses add up, particularly for businesses that are having a tough time because of the weakening economy out there. These crefds will credits will help not just to reopen again but to reopen safely. I think getting these kinds of tax credits into the coronavirus legislation would be very smart. And again, these should be bipartisan efforts. Third, while im pleased were revitalizing the successful p. P. P. Program, i think there are steps to improve it we ought to take up in whatever our final package is. For example, when oversight in the original p. P. P. Legislation is that people who have been convicted of a felony, going back five years are not able to accept the p. P. P. Loan. So one day i get a call from a guy back home and troy parker is his name. Troy said i cant get a p. P. P. Loan. I am a guy who had a financial issue, financial fraud issue. I had a felony conviction. I got out of incarceration and i started my own business. I took my second chance. He said, i did everything that you are always talking about, portman which is we want to especial courage people to take that second chance. We want to give them the opportunity to get the training to be able to do that. Then he went out and hired a bunch of other secondchance folks and started a cleaning business. And its quite successful. But obviously with coronavirus, a lot of the offices he cleaned and others said we cant have you come in. He lost his businesses. He was about to shut his doors. He couldnt get a p. P. P. Loan. Why . Because within the last five years he had a felony conviction. Well, thats not what we should be doing here. We shouldnt be penalizing people who have turned their lives around and done again all the right things in hiring other secondchance individuals. We should be helping them to stay on their feet and to continue to do what theyre doing for themselves, the community, their ework theyre workforce. We worked with the Treasury Department and to their credit we got them to put forward a temporary solution which is a change in the rule so troy could get his p. P. P. Loan and others like him around the country. We now need to make that permanent. So thats an example of something we should do, totally bipartisan. I worked with colleagues on the other side of the aisle on this issue and ill continue to. Because this is one where, again, republicans, democrats alike as americans would want this to be part of the legislation. Fourth, while im glad this bill reflects the bipartisan support for educational funding, i hoped it would also reflect the republicans and democrats alike have come out for Additional Support and flexibility for state and local governments. Now, ohio has been particularry hard hit because our cities in ohio, unlike your city, wherever you are in america probably can use income taxes as a revenue source. I think 90 of cities cant do that but in ohio we can. And we do. And obviously income taxes went down with this coronavirus and the economy falling short. So they suddenly find themselves with less revenue coming in and then additional expenses, fire, police, e. M. S. , coronavirus expenses for public health. So its been tough for a lot of our cities in ohio. And so ive been pushing for not just more funding on a targeted basis showing need but also more flexibility to be able to use the funding for closing that revenue gap which is caused by the weak economy which is caused by the coronavirus. So it is related. And certainly we ought to be able to do that on a bipartisan basis. Thats what a lot of democrats have talked about that they would like to do. Well, im not the only republican who wants to work with democrats on that. We could get that into a final bill and that would help all of our cities. Lets move forward on this. Finally, all of us agree, i think, that we need to have better access to telehealth. And telehealth medicine has been one of the few Silver Linings in this dark you cloud. A lot more of my constituents are using telehealth. One way theyre using it is for behavioral health, Mental Health services, another for Addiction Services but also just generally telehealth has been something that has been very helpful. A lot of people say that in the last few months, weve gone five years ahead of where we would have been in terms of hell health. I think the with respect to telehealth. With regard to telehealth, one out of four adults, a survey by morning consult, one of every four adults, 40 used telehealth recently. Its been a lifeline, particularly for some people who are fighting addiction and cant get inperson care to help their recovery and people who have Mental Health challenges and be able to access telehealth to help them. I worked to expand telehealth and delivery options which in some instances has allowed Addiction Specialists to reach knew patients they hadnt been able to reach before. There have been some positives here but these reforms are only temporary. We need to make them permanent as well. We dont want to lose ground. We have the act to be part of the final legislation as well. We have an opportunity to help with telehealth by expanding Broadband Access as well so that more americans can access these services from home. This also relates, of course, to education. When schools are telling us theyre going to go partly inperson classrooms, partly remote or some altogether remote, if you live in a rural area in america, you might not have access to broadband and youre at a disadvantage. A lot of our urban school districts, there may be the infrastructure for broadband but its not in the home. So we need to help more in terms of broadband. On the im the senate sponsor of a bipartisan, bicameral bill called the Rural Broadband acceleration act which basically speeds up the f. C. C. s distribution theyre going to make anyway of 20 billion in rural digital funds to go toward the building of broadband networks. This will help spread highspeed internet over more than 400,000 miles of internet fiber cables, bringing about three million new households online immediately if we can get this done. By the way, it Police Thousands of work employs thousands of workers as well. Its a great infrastructure thats needed right now. People talk about infrastructure. This is one we can do right now that helps with regard to telehealth, telemedicine, telelearning and teleworking. The nation will be looking to congress in the coming weeks to Work Together to make sure that we can improve our response to the coronavirus and help get this economy through a tough time. Now more than ever we cannot revert to the norm, which is partisanship these days. We cannot do that with regard to this issue. Using this new targeted bill as a base, the one that again got a majority of senators in this chamber to vote on today and building on some of the areas of agreement ive outlined today, we need to come up with an appropriate and effective bill that responds to the challenge. Im going to continue to work with republicans and democrats alike to insist we put the partisanship aside and work on behalf of our constituents to take the necessary steps, to get us through this unprecedented Health Care Crisis, to get us on the other side of the economic crisis. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to Work Together to do the same. Thank you, mr. President. I yield call. The presiding officer without objection. Ms. Hirono mr. President , actions speak louder than words and by their actions, its clear that the majority leader and Senate Republicans have
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