I want to give him credit for helping me name today is. We were going to do road to recovery but weve got to do at itabout advancing the economy. Its a different. I want to acknowledge this and thank you for giving us the idea. Why dont you share with us for a minute how this pandemic has helped you think about recovery and advancement . Backroads means go back to a place that youve been, and i want us to be better when we get out of it. One area we can do much better. Something ive been working on for my time in congress we have seen a the tools we need to move quickly dont exist. So much given that the state agencies were not able to handle the workload. We should be able to do that. How do we make sure the number of kids are online learning. I talked with a Charter School in new york, 98 of the students are on every day. I talked to some here in texas. One of 3 of the students were logging on and part of that problem is the Digital Divide often times between the urban and rural areas but how do we make sure we have the infrastructure people can take advantage of . Talking about how does everybody have the quality of access and that is you would think in 2020 that would be the case, but it is actually not. One of the things people do like naming conferences they make it hard for people not to go their way. You were not supportive of the heroes act which is surprising and i would like to get your take on why you voted against it. I actually believe the way you solve problems is an empowering people. The heroes act made people rely on the government. Thats not what this country has built on. That isnt how we are going to solve this problem. Is there going to be Additional Support needed, absolutely. Cities and states we all know the holes their budgets are going to have. My home state of texas they will probably have a 40 billiondollar in their budget and thats going to impact the ability so there is going to need to be some help there. Healthcare professionals are going to probably need some additional help. Making sure to provide care better. There will be a new piece of legislation that the reason it worked is they were negotiated in a bicameral and bipartisan way. Youve shared with me the other day something i didnt know. I assume they want to do this everywhere but part of your district which is huge, san antonio, and theres a testing facility and produce producer aa youve got more tests than you need. As new kind of look at the country and this uneven patchwork about the availability where youve got a doctors referral and all this other stuff but then we know we need ever present testing. Thats also got to be part of it, how do we get ever present over and over again so we have a vaccine . The citys big enough and responsible for it if you are in an area that isnt a very large then you have a state entity that is responsible for that. Thats how Public Health has been designed and so my hometown because the city, the county and the state is cooperating very closely, you are able to see things faster than some other areas. The onesizefitsall solution to the problem that isnt the way we are going to solve this, but that also means you have to address those local problems. In South Carolina of all places i got testing because some of the entities were not talking to folks. They have an understanding of what the needs o in the state ae but in my district it takes almost 2 Million People in the area at the new house ill pass out thats why we are not seeing some of the problems but you are right, increased testing, increased ability to do Contract Tracing and apple Just Announced a weekend have a solution and protect privacy at the same ti time. I get to decide what i do with the data and who i share it with and who alternately has access to it. In a few minutes im going to have them on hand i know you are a foodie so to focus the spotlight on restaurants, restaurant workers, food, nutrition, what they need to do. Honestly, before i begin doing the center use every day for the hill, i kind of underestimated how staggeringly large that is as both a part of the economy, how important it is to affordable communities, how its important to the middle class of america. I know youve been doing some work in your district on food and provisions and i want to give you an opportunity because the topic is going to come up here and probably let me just ask this way what have you been able to get right when it comes to the nutrition and food chain and restaurants in that sector . The ability to move quickly. They are successful and people cant access that shouldnt but we were able to move on the first charge 350 billion in eight days and that is pretty significant but usda is the ability to get money. The problem that ive been focused on specifically is malnutrition for children and the inability to get access to food. There are so many people, so many kids the only time they get a square meal is at school and if so now when you have kids not at school, the numbers and again some of them were tested in my district only 20 of the kids on the free and reduced lunch are actually able to access food through that School District and they have the herculean effort to still continue to provide that. Something we were working on here in texas. Its basically food stamps and so what it says is if you have a kid on free and reduced lunch, we will put more money in texas it is called the lone star card, to go to the Grocery Store to buy food because that is what the system is designed forher, thats why weve seen an impact on food banks. They need more people so why cant we hire some of the folks that are in the Restaurant Business and we keep the economy going so we are able to open up our economy. I hope you succeed. It makes a lot of sense to me. And welcome to the ninth virtual discussion for him the series of online gatherings that explores the farreaching impact of this pandemic. We are so thankful to senator murphy and the jackson senior fellow for joining us this afternoon. We will introduce them in just a moment. As a reminder, attendees have their volume and video that we are eager to incorporate the questions to the extent of time allows. You can submit those using the qanda feature on zoom
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