Confident, yet humble, wise, yet dependent on your guidance. Give them the wisdom to cultivate a faith that preserves, keeping them from growing weary in doing what is right. Strengthen their ability to see among their colleagues your divine image. May our senators increase in favor with you and humanity. Fill them with a passion to live for your glory. We praise you for being our helper and we desire to magnify your holy name. Amen. The president pro tempore please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Grassley madam president. The presiding officer the senator from iowa is a recognized. Mr. Grassley i ask one minute in morning business. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Grassley quite often in our newspapers you can read about a lot of city, state Pension Funds that are in trouble. Theres
It is phenomenal. We have the latest out of the United Kingdom right now. They are battening down the hatches because a resurgence in cases has them closing pubs earlier urging people to for the better part of valor quit congregating in large groups. Good luck on that. Meantime were looking at a spending bill that could be in disarray. Could be the fault of the whole Supreme Court. It was in the president s favor but, because of differences that some democrats have put up, to make it a more harder fight than that. Chad pergram, hey chad. This is not a fivealarm fire until funding the government, they still have the end of the month to do that but there is concern. I was told the house of representatives was scheduled to vote on the interim spending bill might pull back on that. They are negotiating with some members and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin is testifying today, indicating he is negotiating with the speakers office. You have moderate democrats, a freshman democrat on iowa co
Mr. Portman mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from ohio. The presiding officer mr. President , im here on mr. Portman im here to talk about the steps congress should take with respect to the coronavirus pandemic. Im start with the legislation that majority leader senator Mitch Mcconnell introduced yesterday, one of the aspects of it that hasnt gotten much attention and i think is very positive and an effective way to get the economy moving in a safe way is some tax legislation. These are tax credits and Tax Deductions that help to encourage the hiring of new workers but also to do so in a safe way. These are the kinds of things that make a lot of sense and have a lot of bipartisan support and appeal. So i think it should be part of whatever final package we end up with. The goal of these tax incentives is to say that we want people to reenter the workforce but do it in a safe and sustainable way. For example, in the mcconnell proposal is legislation i introduced called
Benefit pension, and now they are seeing the possibility that that could result in up to a 90 cut in their benefits. Over the past several years weve been working on this, ive been involved with it. Ive been working on the finance committee which is the committee here in the senate that has responsibility for this issue. In 2018, going back two years ago now, iowas participating in hearings as a member of the joint committee on solvency of multiemployer Pension Plans. It was a oneyear committee. House and senate, republican and democrat. Woe were we were supposed to get to a solution for this problem before it gets worse. We spent countless hours trying to do that. I spent countless hours in meetings, with beneficiaries, retirees, spouses. Ohio is one of the states thats hardest hit. I have heard their stories about how years of mismanaged Pension Plans have put them on the hook for unthinkable cuts into pensions that they just assumed were going to be there. Let me spell out how preca
Prevent that. So i think traveling still is a good idea, within the United States of america, and we do have a great country, but our Health Care System still has holes in it. Congressman shakowski, thank you for talking to our viewers this morning. Thank you. And live today, here on cspan 3, well be hearing about the u. S. Response to the coronavirus before a house subcommittee, with testimony from the director of the centers for Disease Control and prevention, and other officials. The hearing starting later than scheduled, should begin in about 40 minutes or so. That will put us at 2 45 p. M. Eastern time. While we wait, well take a look at more details on the coronavirus outbreak from todays washington journal. Welcome to the table, congressman Warren Davidson, a republican of ohio. A member of the Financial Services committee, also the freedom caucus, lets begin with the coronavirus, and then we will talk about fisa courts as well. The president has asked for 2. 5 billion. The demo