Of life, theres a looming economic catastrophe. There are now more than 30 million newly unemployed americans, over onetenth of the population in the United States. The highest number since the great depression. Many believe this number underestimates the real total. Once this crisis is over, theres no guarantee that these millions of newlye unemployed americans will be able to resume their old jobs. How many people will find new jobs . At what salary . Even the most optimistic scenarios predict the period of extended high unemployment. Others suggest we look at the kernels of a second great depression. Here on the senate floor for the second week in a in a row were living in theep alternative reality of the republican leader mcconnell is making. He has scheduled the legislative business here on the floor related to covid19. None. No measures for the unemployed. No relief for renters are homeowners. No legislation to increase Testing Capacity. No proposals to state and local governments retain teachers and firefighters, us drivers and police officers. Looking at the senate calendar, you would never know that we are working in the midst of a national crisis. It looks like any other session, a few executive nominations, hearings on rightwing judges, legislation from previous months that the leader should not have delayed. Its just totally, totally divorced from reality. Despite the obvious health risks, senators are ready to do our jobs. Why dont we actually do our jobs and focus on covid19 . For the sake of common sense and the good of the nation, the senate should be focused on covid19. We should be holding multiple, serious oversight hearings every week. Several of my colleagues on the other side, including the republican leader have said they want to see of the legislation we have already passed is working before doing anything else. At the same time the republican majority is slow walking the hearing process. Finally, after aro lot of democratic pressure from myself and many others, the leader is sort of eking out week by week hearings. We just heard was her from on the 19th. That would be almost two t monts after a bill that let 4 trillion of Lending Authority be released before theres a hearing. Why did we hold a hearing through weeks ago, last week . Its just outrageous. How can the republicans senators said we want to see how this is working, and not have a whole bunch of hearings to examine how its working . Instead of squeezing the mat under direct pressure from we democrats. Now tomorrow in the h. E. L. P. Committee it will be a hearing conducted remotely with dr. Fauci. This is the kind of hearing we need. Not once a week but several a day. The American People need to hear from experts in a fair, open, and truthful setting. Until now we mostly heard from the members of the Coronavirus Task force through the distorted lens of a White House Press conference, where the president often prevented them from answering fully, interrupts their response, or even contradicts their factbased advice. This will be one of the first opportunities for dr. Fauci to tell the American People the unvarnished truth without the president working over his shoulder. Dr. Fauci, let it rip. But it shouldnt be this one Committee Hearing tomorrow. And it shouldnt be dr. Fauci alone testifying or even with the two he is testifying with. This is routine oversight business of congress, and now were in a crisis. It should occur inur every committee, every week. There should be testimony from the Administration Officials ranging from dr. Birx to secretary mnuchins, to secretary devos and others. We should also be debating another major emergency relief bill as we speak. More and more businesses are going under. More people are losing their jobs. E are losing moreover, families dont have enough food to feed their children or sitting for hours in car lines to get to food banks. Speaker pelosi and i completely agree, the new bill should be big and it should be bold. And thats what the house is working on right now, while the senate under leader mcconnell under leader mcconnells leadership dithers. Already, however, we have heard Congressional Republicans arehe telling everyone they want to slow down. Leader mcconnell says he wants to hit the pause button. President trump and Administration Officials are saying we might not need to do anything more to help the country. This would be a catastrophic mistake. At the outset of the great depression, president hoover was also reluctant to use National Resources to attack the problem. He, too, was ideologically opposed to a vigorous and strong response from the federal government. President hoovers failure was likely responsible for extending the length and deepening the severity of the great depressio depression. It President Trump and our republican colleagues go the way of herbert hoover, if they oppose or slow off Government Intervention to save the economy thats hurtlingar downward, i fr the nation could suffer a similar fate, a second depression. We must avoid that at all costs. Now is not the time for timidity. Now is not the time for small thinking. Now is the time for action, big, bold, continued action. There are so a many issues that deserve our attention. On a daily basis President Trump talks about the need to reopen our country. Well, President Trump, the only way we can safely reopen the country is if we have testing. To finally beat this disease we need testing. To reopen businesses safely, we need testing. To reopen schools and sporting events, we need testing. To contain a resurgence in the fall or early next year, we need testing. Testing is by far the number one priority from a Public Health standpoint, and maybe from an economic standpoint as well. For many countries mastering the challenge of testing and contact tracing, its population was its first priority. Here in the United States, unfortunately, we are still, the Trump Administration still trying to catch up. Three months ago, three months ago President Trump said, quote, anybody who wants the tests can get a test, unquote. Thats still not even close to being true. Americans have gotten sick, because they could not get tested, they never knew if they passed it on to loved ones, colleagues, workers or friends. For many that could get tested they had to wait weeks for an answer, long after the disease had run its course and potentially spread to others. We may never know the full extent of the human consequences that resulted from President Trumps administrations failure to rapidly develop a testing plan in the early days of coronavirus. But we do know that countries who did it successfully such as south korea and germanye and australia and new zealand were able to deal with the virus much better than we have. And to think the United States always has been the leader in Public Health is lagging behind these other countries because of the president s denial and ineptitude should bother every single american, no matter what your politics. Congress provided 25 billion in the most recent relief legislation to increase Testing Capacity and contact tracing, and were going to need to do more. If President Trump is so keen on speeding up the process of reopening the country, he should endorse what democrats have urged him to do, create a National Testing regime immediately. One final matter. Education. In thees Cures Act Congress provided a little over 30 billion to help states, School Districts and Higher Education systems respond to the coronavirus after many schools were forced to close to move to remotely. It has come we need more money about, of course anything democrats in both houses agree. It has come to our attention that secretary devos has been using a portion of the existing funding, not help states or localities cope with the crisis, but to augment her push for voucher like programs, a private initiative that it nothing to do with covid19. Weve also learned that secretary devos has added restrictions to the fund that were not included in the law including guidance that doctor recipients cannot receive aid. Shameful. Theres no other word for it. Secretary devos is exploiting emergency relief funding to further her own rigid ideological agenda and to deprive students of desperately needed federal assistance. The secretary of education should reverse course immediately. Subsequently, she should testify in congress as soon as possible. As someone who is habitually skip congressional hearings, secretary devos has a lot to answer for. If our students have the same attendance record as secretary devos, they would have flunked out of school. Secretary devos needs tocl come clean about how her department is exploiting congressional relief e efforts intended to hep schools recover and reopen