MIDDLE CLASS HEALTH BENEFITS TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I know we are talking about the unprecedented times that we are facing in our Nation, but I want to talk about something that we have in common, something that is pretty remarkable and that I think we all need to remember that we have in common. We represent incredible people, the American people, who are doing so much right now--in Alaska, in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Montana, and in Connecticut--to help each other so much.

I frequently tell my constituents, as we are talking about getting through this crisis, that everyone has a role to play--young, old, business leaders, elected leaders, union members--and everybody is playing a role. So I am very proud of my constituents in Alaska, and I know that everybody in this body is proud of what their constituents are doing right now, the best of our Nation is doing right now.

We talk a lot about how we are teleworking. I would like to remind folks that there are some Americans, a lot of Alaskans--thousands, millions--who can't telework. Our healthcare professionals who are on the frontlines, our first responders, our truckdrivers, port workers, Alaskans who are stocking the grocery store shelves, picking up our refuse, parents who are teaching their children at home, local restaurants who are working day and night to continue to provide takeout food--so many people are doing such good work.

There is an incredible outpouring of generosity from all of our citizens, all Americans, and we are hearing about it, from our small businesses donating their time and services to help people in their communities, to volunteers, and to our nonprofits. That is what Alaskans are doing, and that is what Americans are doing around the country at this very moment, despite this enormous adversity and the challenges we are facing--one of the most unprecedented challenges in our history.

These are extraordinary and precarious times right now. People are obviously concerned about their health. People are obviously concerned about their economic health, their jobs, losing jobs, retirement accounts, life savings. People are being told to stay at home. They are hard-working Americans, Alaskans who have worked their whole lives, who don't even know how they are going to pay for their groceries or rent. And they are taking these actions at a difficult time because local and State governments all across the country are making tough decisions, working with their communities to help make sure that the collective whole of our societies, whether in Anchorage or Fairbanks or other places in America, are going to get through this health crisis. The bottom line is that they are coming together in a shared sacrifice.

I am so proud of the people I represent, and I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are as well. It is something we have in common.

There was an article in the Washington Post just the other day, like 2 days ago. It said something like, you know, America has gotten through a lot of challenges before: World War II, the Civil War. But this article went on to say: But perhaps the American people don't really have the mettle or the resiliency to get through this one.

That was kind of the gist of this article--classic, clueless, inside- the-beltway reporting--that we are not the same America that got through other challenges; that we don't have the mettle. Well, I would suggest that these Washington Post reporters need to get out of DC. Maybe they should go to Alaska. Maybe they should go somewhere else in America. Come to my State. I guarantee you, we have the mettle-- Alaskans and other great Americans--to get through this crisis.

I always say that my constituents are some of the most resilient people in the world. Let me just give you a couple of examples. Our Alaskan Native communities have been thriving for thousands of years in some of the harshest conditions anywhere on the planet. We are a State full of the ancestors of rugged pioneers who came to Alaska looking for promise and stayed to build a great State.

Throughout our history in my State, we have had extreme challenges before. Earthquakes have flattened our buildings. Tsunamis have wiped out cities. Floods have swept away our homes and entire communities. Wildfires have singed our cities. Volcanic eruptions have dimmed the Sun. The price of oil and the market have dropped before, as we are seeing now. And now we have another unprecedented challenge, a pandemic facing my beloved State and my beloved country.

As I mentioned, we have a lot in common here, and I think a lot of us--all of us--take pride in what our constituents, our fellow Americans, are doing to come together to fight this. And we will fight it. We will emerge stronger and more resilient, and those Washington Post reporters who doubted the will of Americans, maybe in a couple of years, will be writing a story about how wrong they were.

Until about a day ago, I was actually proud of the work of this body in responding to this crisis. For the past 3 weeks, we have come together, putting together bold, bipartisan pieces of legislation to address this pandemic in a quick amount of time. There is what we are calling phase 1 just 2 weeks ago, where Congress passed an $8.3-billion package--I will not go into all of the details--to address the healthcare needs that we are starting to see with the spread of this pandemic. That was phase 1.

Phase 2--just last week, again, Members of this body came together. It wasn't a perfect bill, that is for sure, that came over from the House that provided Federal funds so that individuals exposed to the virus could get healthy and so that our hospitals have more resources to combat this health crisis. The President passed it the day we passed it here in the Senate. That was just last week.

It was bold, bipartisan work. For example, this legislation expanded emergency food assistance, including for children who rely on free and reduced lunch, lunches from school cafeterias where they could no longer access those meals because schools are closing, new paid sick leave--100-percent dollar for dollar--that would be paid and reimbursed by the Federal Government. So we acted. We acted.

These weren't perfect pieces of legislation. I didn't like every provision in them, but we got together--Democrats and Republicans--and we acted quickly and boldly. And that is what our constituents want us to do.

But we knew we had to do much, much more--much, much more--because every day, there is a new development we are seeing, not just on the health side but on the economic side.

So what did we do? Last week, everybody here rolled up their sleeves and worked around the clock. Again, I was proud of the work that we started on. By the way, this was bipartisan work.

I was talking to Democratic Senators all weekend. When you listen to the chairman of the Finance Committee, he talked about the task force that we had--Democrats and Republicans--putting together legislation-- big, bold legislation--coming together like we had on phase 1 and phase 2 to really focus in on four key areas: putting cash directly in the hands of hurting families in Alaska and throughout the country, delivering rapid relief to the small businesses that are being crushed by this pandemic and laying off their workers, stabilizing key industries to avoid massive layoffs that are now very quickly coming on the horizon and starting to happen in America, and sending new resources to medical professionals who are on the frontlines. Those were our goals, and we needed to do it in a big way.

We completed this, the Senate--Republicans and Democrats--in less than a week. Why? Because all of us knew the people we represent were hurting and are hurting. They need hope, and they are looking to us for that hope.

Again, it wasn't perfect. This bill isn't perfect, but it is pretty remarkable work to do in less than a week. This bill represents a huge and massive effort to help the people we represent.

Now, a lot of my colleagues have been coming down on the floor talking about what this bill will do for the people we represent. I am not going to go into all of the details, but let me just name a few because some of them were ideas from our Democratic colleagues. Where we had certain amounts in the bill, they came and said: No, we want more.

We said: OK, all right, we will work with you, just like we did on phase 1 and phase 2.

I will just mention a few. I have been talking to a lot of the elected leaders throughout my State, making a lot of calls and asking: What do you need? What is happening? How can we help? I had a phone conversation just a few days ago with the mayor of Anchorage. That is my hometown. Everybody is working hard. The mayor is. The Governor is doing a good job, a really good job, and his team. We are all working together. The mayor is a Democrat. The Governor is a Republican. I am reaching out to everybody. It doesn't matter the party at this moment, that is for darn sure.

What did the mayor say to me? He said: The priority has to be that people need cash, Senator, to pay the rent, to buy food, and to make their car payment. There is so much uncertainty.

Can we do that? Yes, we can do that. We did it. It is in the bill. There is $2,400 per couple and $500 per additional child. That is going to help. That is going to help families who need cash. That is one thing.

Another thing is we had a massive increase to the unemployment insurance program, a quarter of $1 trillion--$250 billion. Why? Because we are seeing massive layoffs.

Now, I am going to give credit to my colleagues. A couple of Democratic colleagues, friends of mine, are on the floor right now. This was a big idea that they wanted to push. It is big number. It is a big number--a quarter of a trillion dollars. This is going to significantly expand the number of individuals who are eligible to receive benefits. This is really important for my State, particularly the self-employed--the fishermen, who have never been covered under the UI programs in the past.

And, once more, the bill provides a flat increase in benefits, $600 per week to all State programs in the next few months. So workers who are forced to file unemployment--unfortunately, we are seeing hundreds of thousands across the country--have the financial security to pay their bills and stay afloat. So this is another big element of this bill.

Let me provide one more that I think is one of the most important. And I think there is really strong bipartisan agreement on this one. I know it because I talk to my friends who are Democrats. It is a small business rescue package and relief package of about $350 billion to enable small businesses to access credit and have the liquidity to stay afloat and weather this storm, not creating a new bureaucracy but an expansion of the Small Business Administration's 7(a) loan program so you can do it through local banks in your State. The idea here is to make sure the worker and the employers of our small businesses stay connected.

Small businesses can take out a loan of up to $10 million under this program, and if they use that loan to pay for payroll and rent and other fixed costs, this loan is going to be completely forgiven.

Whenever I describe this to my fellow Alaskans, they say: This is exactly the kind of thing we need, Senator, right now, as businesses are closing.

So that is in. That is in the bill--cash in the hands of small businesses so they can keep workers employed and be ready to get back up and grow and prosper again when we get through this pandemic. That is in the bill. Everybody agrees with that.

Finally, another element--and I am just describing some of the elements, but I wanted to highlight some of these things--is getting more resources to the men and women on the frontlines of this pandemic who are, every day, out there in the healthcare industry trying to keep Americans and Alaskans healthy and alive.

How much? There is a lot in it, but the number is $100 billion for hospitals, for healthcare providers. Let me say that again: $100 billion.

The minority leader was on the floor the other day. I was kind of stunned when he said something along the lines of this partisan bill-- and, by the way, it is not partisan, OK; this was written by Republicans and Democrats, and a lot of these ideas are from both sides--doesn't do anything to help hospitals. We need a Marshall Plan to help them.

Well, I think $100 billion is a pretty good start. That is in the bill.

So, as I mentioned, I have been proud of the work of this body. I have been proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. No one has wisdom on how to fix all this. No one knows what is coming in the future. But I think all of us know that we need to act, and we need to act boldly, and we need to act in a bipartisan way. And we did it. We did it, again, in less than a week.

It is not a perfect bill--that is for sure--but it is going to provide help to my fellow Alaskans, to Americans. It is massive. It is bold. It is bipartisan. It is timely. And, as of yesterday, I thought we were going to get another bill out to the American people quickly. Hope--that is what they need. Yes, the Senate is working.

Then, for whatever reason--and I am not going to point fingers--the wheels started to come off on this one, the one that we really need. And the bill has been filibustered. That means we can't even get on the floor to debate it. We can't start debating it.

Now, look, I have been listening to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. There has been a lot of anger on this floor, a lot of back- and-forth. My good friend from Nebraska just talked about this idea that somehow my colleagues on the other side filibustered this bill that the Senate has been working on to make room for Speaker Pelosi's bill. I really, really, really hope that is not true. I really hope that is not true. I don't think there is one Member of this body, Republican or Democratic, who could defend now what Senator Sasse just read on the floor.

Then there started to be talk about, well, the bill that we had, that we are focused on, is all about bailouts. That is a charged term. But you could talk about the 2008-2009 Tart bill--I wasn't a Member of the Senate then, during the financial crisis--as a bailout. I think that is a good description.

Why was that a bailout? Because you had people on Wall Street taking risky actions that eventually cratered the financial system--by the way, they made a ton of money doing it--and cratered the economy. Then they had to be bailed out because the banks were going to go under, and it was going to ruin the U.S. economy. That is a bailout. That is a classic bailout.

What we are seeing right now is much more like a natural disaster, much more like a war. There is no one to be blamed right now. The airlines shouldn't be blamed for what is happening right now. This is a pandemic. So this term being thrown around of, oh, it is a bailout-- what we are trying to do is help the American worker, help the American family.

It is not a perfect bill, but we are dealing with a natural disaster. Something came over from overseas onto our shores, and we are now all trying to deal with it.

I am going to conclude by saying: I am on this side of the aisle. I am a Republican with principled views on certain issues. I certainly have strong views about protecting my State. But I have also tried to work, throughout my time in the Senate, with my colleagues on both sides. Some of my closest friends are my Democratic friends. I am proud of that work. That is how you get things done in this body. Some I have been working with all weekend.

This issue should not be about partisan politics, so my point was not to come down here on the floor and make this a partisan speech. We are facing one of the most unprecedented challenges in the history of the United States of America. We certainly need to move beyond politics. If you looked at what was going on in the Senate until yesterday, that is exactly what we have been doing for the past 3 weeks.

Are there areas of compromise in this bill that hopefully can unlock things? Sure. Two that I have been working on and supporting, again, with my Democratic colleagues, pressing my colleagues on: Could we have more transparency on this Federal facility program? Sure. Absolutely, I would be very supportive of this. Are there ways to help shore up distressed pensions for the great working men and women who build things in America? Yes. But we are running out of time. We are running out of time. We need to pass this bill now. Why do we need to pass this bill now? Because it is going to help the people we represent. It is going to help people in Connecticut and Virginia and Colorado and Montana and Alaska. And they need hope. They need hope right now.

Again, this bill isn't perfect. It has got a lot of hope. Once we pass it, then all of us are going to need to do the hard work of making sure that the implementation of this bill goes as effectively and as smoothly as possible. Then, when we see mistakes in it, which there will be, we need to come back here and act to correct this. That is what we need to do.

These are exceptional times for our country. We had an influenza outbreak in 1918 that ravaged the world, and it particularly ravaged my State. As Senator Murkowski said earlier today, one of the things that has got a lot of us troubled in Alaska is, 100 years ago when the influenza came through, it did finally get to some of our Alaska Native villages. I have over 200 communities, not connected by roads, with very limited healthcare facilities. During the Spanish influenza, many of these communities were completely wiped out.

It is a scary time--a scary time--but we are going to get through it. We are going to get through it stronger, more resilient, and the way we are going to do it is if we are all working together, which we had been until about 24 hours ago.

So I think the provisions outlined in this bill, while not perfect, are what the American people are looking for. They can help minimize the damage done by this pandemic.

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