Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, let me join our friend and my friend, the Senator from South Dakota, and say that I am glad to be back in this Chamber doing the work of 29 million Texans. I see the Presiding Officer and my partner, my fellow Senator from Texas, joining us as well.
I was listening closely to the Senator from South Dakota's recitation of all the things we have to do. There is no shortage of work for us to do, and there is no reason for us to continue to curl up in a fetal position in some undisclosed location and be afraid to go outdoors.
The fact is, the experts at the Centers for Disease Control, people like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, whom we have seen on TV on a nightly basis, tell us what we need to do in order to function safely. It is the same thing that our grocery clerks and our doctors and nurses and, frankly, our law enforcement personnel are doing. We know how to do this and how to do it safely.
At the same time, we simply cannot hide out and not show up for work. What kind of message does that send to the American people?
We know this is an extraordinary crisis, an unprecedented crisis, and we have done some things we would never consider doing under normal times--appropriating more than $3 trillion at warp speed. I, frankly, think it is a good time for us to tap the brakes and to consider what it is we have already done and where we need to make some corrections.
Anytime you do anything this big and this fast, you are going to make some mistakes. We have seen that, and there have been corrections both in terms of the way the Treasury is administering the program, but also we have heard about gaps. For example, I have done a number of video conferences with our chambers of commerce around the country, and they ask me: Why did you leave the chambers out of the support under the Paycheck Protection Program for nonprofits? I, frankly, don't have a good answer for that. I said that is something we need to go back and fix. If we can't do it by Treasury guidance, then we need to do it by future legislation.
I have no doubt we will continue to legislate, but we need to do it smartly. We need to be here in person so we can have the interaction and deliberation and debates that are so important to coming up with a good product.
We have done some pretty extraordinary work in the last 6 weeks or so. Both Chambers have come together and quickly passed four separate pieces of legislation to strengthen our response to the coronavirus.
We sent vital funding to our hospitals. Ironically, at a time when our hospitals were the frontline of defense dealing with people with COVID-19, many of them were laying off employees because we had asked them to forgo elective surgery, which is one of the ways that they end up paying the bills.
Then we learned, in the global competition for personal protective equipment, literally every mayor, every Governor, every President, every leader of every country around the world was in a global rush to try to come up with personal protective equipment.
One of the things I have told my constituents and friends that I think we have learned is we can't depend on China and on these uncertain supply chains for things as important as personal protective equipment--or pharmaceuticals, for that matter. So these are some of the lessons and some of the feedback we have gotten as we have interacted with our constituents.
We know that testing has gotten much more widespread, and we have made tremendous advances in terms of treatment with all the clinical trials that are underway--well over 70 of them--and now the hope of a vaccine, hopefully sooner rather than later. Once we get a vaccine, then hopefully this will be relegated to the same status as the seasonal flu, for which we typically do have a vaccine, so the particularly vulnerable individuals--the elderly, people with underlying chronic disease--can be protected first and foremost.
We also sent funding to our State and local Governors: $150 billion. Now, we have all talked to our mayors and our county judges--in Texas, that is what we call our county leaders--and Governors. Obviously, the sales tax revenue has fallen off a cliff because there is not much business going on in our retail stores, to be sure, although there is a lot going on online with deliveries and those sorts of orders.
But we know our State and local governments provide for law enforcement and other essential services, so we felt it was important to throw them a lifeline, too, to help them meet their budgets and maintain those vital services.
Perhaps the most ambitious and the most popular thing we did is to try to help our small businesses stay afloat through the Paycheck Protection Program. Obviously, this was successful--or it is certainly popular in that $350 billion was spent in 2 weeks. Then we had to come back and replenish that with another $320 billion. But we know that money is flying out of our local community banks and credit unions, helping small businesses keep their employees on the payroll. And, if they do that, then this low-interest loan will turn into a grant.
The goal, of course, is, once we defeat this virus--as we will--we will then be in a position for those businesses to bring their employees back, if they have furloughed them, to help us build out of this recession in which we are currently involved.
We also provided critical funding for our farmers and ranchers and other producers so they can keep our country fed. We have taken unprecedented steps to minimize the impact of this virus on the American people and our economy and tried to provide some modicum of certainty amid so much uncertainty.
I don't think there is a single event in my lifetime that rivals the breadth and depth of the crisis that we have reached. Certainly, 9/11 was a different type of crisis. The 2008 great recession--with the meltdown of the banks on Wall Street and the great recession, those were significant events to be sure, but nothing quite has rivaled what the coronavirus has done to our public health and to our economy.
The cascading consequences of this virus have reached every community, every sector of our economy, and every corner of the globe. Every single American has experienced some sort of shift in their daily routine as a result of the virus. Maybe ``shift'' is too tentative a word. Actually, many of us have had our lives turned on their head.
For some, the changes were very significant. Think about those who contracted the virus, the loved ones who couldn't be at their side, the healthcare workers who were there and are helping them, those who are sick. Then there are billions of Americans who have lost their jobs, small business owners wondering whether they are going to cease to exist and whether they can survive this current crisis, and then the farmers seeing a glut of supply and reduced demand.
Now, many people have been able to safely work from home, and that is wonderful, but often they end up pulling double duty as teachers for their children with the schools having been closed, and others have continued heading out to work every day to keep the cogs of our society running--so-called essential workers.
By the way, I really don't like the designation between essential and nonessential. I think, really, what we ought to call it is safe and unsafe because all workers are, I believe, essential.
In ways big and small, this virus has affected everybody in this country. While we must continue working to slow the spread and reduce the economic impact, we cannot ignore the profound human impact it has had. Many people have been isolated under very difficult circumstances, not knowing whether they will still have a job to go back to. Many are living with the uncertainty of this pandemic, perhaps in a crowded house or apartment with children, maybe elderly parents and others, cut off from the rest of society.
It is no secret that this pandemic is taking a toll on America's mental health. Last weekend, the family of a New York City emergency room doctor released some devastating news. Dr. Lorna Breen had been in the trenches battling this virus for weeks. She was working long hours, as many of our healthcare providers are, and told her family about the devastation that she was seeing every day.
She contracted COVID-19 and took a week and a half off to recover, but then she went back to work, eager to help where she could. Shortly after, Dr. Breen's family intervened and brought her home to Charlottesville, VA, to rest and to spend a little time with her family and for R&R.
Sadly, tragically, the struggles Dr. Breen was facing felt untenable. After overcoming COVID-19, she ultimately took her own life by suicide.
Dr. Breen was a hero who devoted her entire life to caring for others, to putting others before herself. While her tragic death cannot be reversed, it should serve as a warning signal about the broader impact of this virus.
In a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly half of Americans reported that coronavirus is having a negative impact on their mental health--one-half. That is up from one-third in March. The number of texts to the Federal Disaster Distress Helpline skyrocketed in April--more than a 1,000-percent increase.
As we continue to discuss what future coronavirus legislation could look like, we cannot ignore the mental health impact. Nationwide, we rely on the community mental health centers and community behavioral health organizations to support those battling mental health and substance abuse disorders. As the need for these services has increased, resources have actually decreased. More than 90 percent of the community behavioral health organizations nationwide have been forced to reduce their operations--reduce their operations at a time of increased need and demand--and more than 60 percent of behavioral health organizations project they can't survive financially for more than 3 months under the current COVID-19 conditions.
Congress tried to do something to help. We provided $175 billion for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund to support healthcare providers on the frontlines of this crisis. As this funding is being distributed, mental health providers cannot be forgotten.
Along with 24 of our colleagues, Senator Stabenow and I have sent a letter to Secretary Azar and Administrator Verma, urging them to quickly allocate this funding and ensure that these mental health organizations are included. Not only do they provide vital care and support for individuals struggling with mental health issues; they also are key to fighting addiction and substance abuse
Those struggling to overcome addiction are often living in a fragile state, fighting each day to stay the course, but the current circumstances have made those daily battles much more difficult. They are isolated from their friends and loved ones, and they are dealing with the anxiety caused by the virus and possibly--probably--facing financial struggles.
The new stressors brought on by this virus are compounded by reduced capacity for treatment. In-person support meetings are canceled, treatment clinics and counselors are curtailing appointments, and the barriers to overcoming addiction loom even larger. For those individuals, treatment cannot simply be delayed.
Our country has made serious inroads in our battle against the opioid epidemic. In 2018, overdose deaths were down 4 percent from the previous year, the first decrease in nearly three decades. We can't let the coronavirus derail the progress we have fought so hard to make.
The CARES Act--I am glad to say--does expand access to telehealth. I think many Americans are experiencing the benefits of telehealth, and I predict at some point this will change a lot of the ways that we receive consultation by healthcare providers: not having to drive our car and make appointments, pay for parking, spend a lot of time out of our day. We can simply do it through video conference, conveniently and effectively. But more must be done to support those battling addiction and mental health challenges.
For those who are transitioning from the criminal justice system, the need for additional resources and support is especially dire. Earlier this year, Senator Blumenthal and I introduced the Crisis Stabilization and Community Reentry Act to support those who have been a part of the criminal justice system and to provide stable treatment for those with mental illness.
Most prisoners who are receiving treatment for a mental health or a substance use disorder are released without a plan to keep them on their regimen. This often leads to higher recidivism rates, unsurprisingly, which could be avoided. It also means that law enforcement is, all too often, left to be the first responders for those suffering a mental health crisis, which can escalate those confrontations and put both the officer and the individual in that crisis at risk.
This bill creates grants to connect law enforcement, State and local, and community resources to help individuals who are either engaged in the criminal justice system or have been released from prison and makes it possible for them to access the resources they need to have a successful reentry into civilized society. These grants connect those services to make sure that people suffering from an acute episode can access treatment without the risk of being reincarcerated.
We are facing a battle unlike any we have seen in my lifetime, and the stress and the anxiety that come with it are taking a tremendous toll on the American people. It is not just the virus and the threat of catching the virus that are taking the toll. We need to look at this holistically and realize, if you are a victim of domestic violence and you are forced to be confined with your abuser and have nowhere else to go and maybe have no money coming in the front door, only to have your abuser abusing alcohol and perhaps becoming even more violent--there are a whole catalog of problems associated with this virus and the virus itself, the risk of infection being just one, and we need to look at this holistically.
As our discussions continue this week on how to support the American people during this unprecedented time, resources for mental health and substance abuse treatment providers cannot fall by the wayside.
(Mr. CRUZ assumed the Chair.)
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