That my colleagues on the other side of the aisle chose to vote no on even the ability to move forward with debating this legislation tonight. And to my colleague, the democratic leader who said this is a highly partisan bill, thats just not the case. Lets put the partisanship aside. Lets do whats best for the American People. I will tell you that over the past several days, through a bipartisan process, we sat down democrat and republican in four Different Task forces and put together the elements of this legislation. As a result, the bill before you tonight, the one were talking about, reflects republican priorities and democratic priorities. And im going to take the time to walk through it and to talk about some of those who people understand whats in this legislation. I was pleased to see the democratic leader say at the end he believes we can figure this out over the next several hours. He said 24 hours. I hope its not 24 hours. We cant the way that long. We need to move and move quickly. We see what the markets are doing globally. We know what the markets are going to do here. Weve seen what the futures are. Weve seen the impact in our states for our citizens. The democratic leader said more money needs to be put to our states and workers. There is an unprecedented amount of money for that. We are in a crisis. But to say theres nothing here to help hospitals, oh, my gosh, im going to talk about this with specificity, but 100 billion 100 billion, a pretty good start, 75 billion of which goes to hospitals. To say theres nothing for workers, the Unemployment Insurance provisions in here come from the democratic side of the aisle. Its the most generous Unemployment Insurance plus up by far ever in the history of our country. It actually adds more money to Unemployment Insurance than the Current System has. By the way, it adds eight times more funding into the unemployment system for the rest of this year and that is currently being spent. Think about that. Thats not generous . And, by the way, we republicans also agree that those who lose their job through no fault of their own should be able to get a generous unemployment check while we work through this coronavirus and get our economy back up and going again. Let me walk through some of this. This coronavirus is something that is urgent for us to address. Its closed businesses, its closed schools, its changed every aspect of our daily lives. Its left us uncertain and for many americans, its left them isolated, literally, selfisolated. Its put tremendous strain on our Health Care System, and thats why this legislation addresses that. Our amazing first responders, our e. M. S. , our Police Officers are doing their part as well as our physicians, our nurses, other medical professionals on the front lines combating this disease. God bless them. It has done damage to a strong and growing economy. Only a few weeks ago we had unemployment numbers that were at a 50year low. We had nine straight months of unemployment decreases. Now now we see businesses shuttering. We see thousands, and now millions of americans, unemployed through no fault of their own. The purpose of this legislation is to allow people to get back on their feet, to allow us to get back to normalcy. Extraordinary times like this requires that we unify. I see it in my state of ohio and around the country. Everyone has a role to play. Everyone needs to practice social distancing. Being safe, using hand sanitizer. Part of the strategy of flattening the curve as you see when you see dr. Fauci and others make presentations is we need to reduce our overall risk for exposure so we dont overwhelm the health system. It will help save lives of our Family Members, of our neighbors, of our friends and people we never meet but come in contact with and the most vulnerable in our society if we follow the guidelines by the c. D. C. , were going to be safer. Were going to save lives. It always depends on us. All of us doing that. But it also depends on what we do here in the United States congress, both in slowing the spread through the legislative efforts ill talk about tonight, but also in getting this economy back on its feet so people can get back to work and get a paycheck and begin to make ends meet. In ohio weve been taking the lead on this. We had been pretty aggressive at saying people need to social distance, that restaurants and bars need to close. We were one of the first states to say that. Schools needed to be closed, dr. Amy atkins and the department of health have done a good job in responding to this unprecedented crisis. As of this morning we had 247 confirmed cases and three deaths. By the way the first person to die in ohio was a man i know. I knew him and i respected him. His name was mark wagner sr. From toledo, ohio. He contracted this disease and succumbed to it. Unfortunately were going to see more cases, were going to see more deaths, but were doing the things to begin to contain this, to begin to slow the spread and that needs to happen at every level, including here and thats why this legislation is so important to pass tonight. Two weeks ago congress started this effort by passing the first major relief effort called phase one which was 8. 3 billion to address the Health Care Needs associated with this pandemic. Ohio has received 15. 5 million from the first phase one legislation. But, of course, much more needed to be done. By the way, one way to find out what needs to be done is to listen to the people most affected by it and weve been doing that. I was joined by an Infectious Disease expert from the university of cincinnati on a Facebook Live town hall to answer questions from ohioans about this crisis. He told us what the Health Care System needs. We know what it needs and were responding in this legislation. Last week i hosted Conference Calls while i was here in washington with a number of heavily impacted groups, including the hospitals back in ohio and other people in Health Care Health care providers with our food banks, with our Small Business owners, with workers, with nonprofits from all around the state, the charities who were out there on the front lines doing all they did to help. We spoke to employers of all sizes, conferences with hotels, strawnts, restaurants and more, this helped us to understand their needs are and this legislation reflects what the needs are in our communities. Weve got to continue to listen to people because things are changing and as there is an evolving threat out there, Congress Needs to be evolving as well. So last week, we passed the second major bill called the phase two package which provides federal funds to individuals to the virus can get healthy. As an example, if you want to get tested for the virus, that is now free. Our hospitals needed more resources to combat the Health Crisis so we provided more care, for funding for the health care network. Im glad the president signed that bill immediately into law. We also provided Additional Resources to state Medicaid Programs for hospitals concerned about losing revenue with no elective surgeries and concerned about being overwhelmed by individuals suffering from the virus. Phase two provided more masks, more gowns, other protective gear and more funding for the antiviral therapies that are coming. Thats incredibly important that people know if they get the virus they can have Something Like tama flu for the regular flu, that giches them a lot of re gives them a lot of reassurance and comfort is necessary to protect our citizens. It puts more money to getting the vaccine going. It will not be here soon. It takes a while to get the vaccine. It will be done at unprecedented speed. It provides for expansion of emergency food assistance, including children who relied on the school for free lunch from the school cafeteria, it provided paid sick leave and family leave benefits because of a Family Member who has to leave because of coronavirus can now pay the bills. This paid leave is provided 100 from the federal government dollar for dollar, not on the Small Businesses. Thats really important. Larger businesses tend to have paid leave, but now we have a way for everybody under 500 employees to be able to get that paid leave through the federal government reimbursement. Its good we acted on phase one and phase two, as i talked about, but its clearly not enough. Things have not gotten better in the meantime in the last few days. Theyve gotten worse. A lot more has to be done to contain this virus to help people weather the storm in the meantime. The crisis is unprecedented. In the best interest of Public Health we have effectively chosen to pump the brakes on our economy. We decided to do that as a country because it is in the best interest of our Public Health, but unfortunately that means that businesses of all sizes, small, medium, large are having to either shutter their doors or slow down their production letting people go, so many parts of our economy now are feeling the pain of this rapid slowdown. Applications for unemployment in ohio this week as compared to last week increased 20 fold, that means there was a 2,000 increase in ohio on claims for unemployment. Obviously, thats overwhelming the system. Ive worked with my colleagues nonstop over the past three days to put together this phase three package that will provide some relief to the millions of American Workers and Small Businesses who have made our country and our economy the strongest in the world. Our goals are simple. First, slow the spread of the virus. Again, if that doesnt happen, Peoples Health is at risk, and the negative Economic Impact that is hurting so many families will continue. So slowing the spread of the virus is not just about the virus, its also about our economy. Second, we need to help employers to continue paying their employees through this crisis. Our objective should be to keep people at work, keep them connected to their employer as much as possible. Thats where they get their health care. Thats where they get their retirement for the most part. That enables us to be able to ensure that as we ramp up our economy, it can ramp up more quickly because people will be there at work. There wont be the process of hiring and retraining. So one of our objectives in this legislation is not just to slow the spread of the virus but also keep people at work to the extent possible. And third, recognizing that not every employer is going to be able to keep employees, even those who have some business going dont have enough business. We want to be sure were providing the resources to help those individuals. These are the people who are falling between the cracks. They cant stay at work because their work no longer has any revenue. We need to assist those people. Again, as we have talked about, ohios unemployment claims have skyrocketed, but so have Unemployment Office claims all around the country. The bottom line is that our country is not going to be able to come back until we slow the spread of this virus. Im pleased to say the phase three package we have negotiated by the way accomplishes all three of those objectives, all three. We do it through four major policy areas. We do it now, right away, to bring relief to the people were representing, which is why weve got to pass this legislation and pass it now. First in terms of helping people, this phase three package provides direct payment. These are direct payments, checks to individuals. 1,200. Per person. If youre a couple, its 2,400. And then its 500 per child. That check getting out to people will give people some extra dollars to make the difference in being able to pay bills, paying a car payment, paying rent, being able to put food on the table. It will give people some comfort to know there is at least a little help coming directly and quickly. For those who are out of work, these checks also serve as a bridge to getting into the new Unemployment Insurance system ill talk about now. Because the checks are going to be necessary. In most states, its going to take a couple of weeks, a few weeks, in some states several weeks to set up this new system. In ohio, they say two weeks. This is the most significant expansion of our Unemployment Insurance system in history by far. Its going to significantly expand the number of individuals who are eligible to receive benefits, particularly selfemployed, so it broadens those who qualify for Unemployment Insurance. These folks, by the way, have never been covered by Unemployment Insurance before. Whats more, it provides a flat increase of 600 per week per person in the Unemployment Insurance system. This means that for low and low, medium income folks, lets say 40,000 to 50,000 a year, they will essentially have wage replacement now through notre dame insurance. This is a big difference. In ohio, unemployed insurance is onethird of your wages for those same individuals. Now it will be topped up. So to the point earlier that this is a highly partisan bill, im sorry. This legislation reflects the priorities of democrats and republicans, and this is an example of that. And we have to acknowledge it. Is the bill perfect . No, no bill is perfect, certainly not when were trying to respond to a crisis like this and were pumping out more of our federal tax dollars and borrowed federal treasury dollars than ever in the history of our country through this process when you add up phase one, phase two, phase three, but this is a bill that represents ideas from both sides of the aisle. Are there some things that might need to be adjusted by the democrats in order to support it . I guess so because thats what we have heard tonight from the democratic leader, but we cannot start over, folks. This legislation does exactly what so Many Democrats have called for, and republicans, to be able to help people, to have the Financial Security to pay their bills and to stay afloat. By the way, we also provide funding to the state employment offices so that they can have federal funding to deal with their administrative costs as they shift to this dramatically new system thats being provided through this legislation. So thats for people directly. Second, the stimulus package is going to provide relief for Small Businesses that are trying to stay afloat by ensuring they are going to have access to credit and liquidity needed to adapt and retool their businesses to weather this storm. Were going to accomplish this in a couple of ways. One is through a major expansion of whats called the Small Business administration 7a loan program. This is going to go through businesses that are currently providing funding to Small Businesses, so its a community bank. Its the savings and loan. Its the credit union. Its the regional bank. Wherever people are banking, they will be able to get these loans directly. Specifically, were providing hundreds of billions of dollars in loans to small and mediumsized businesses that they can use for a variety of expenses, including payroll. Including paying rent, paying mortgages. By the way, if they use it for that, the loan is forgiven. It really converts into a grant. If they use it for payroll again, let me repeat to keep workers, because thats one of the objectives here, if they use it for rent, if they use it for mortgage payments, the loan is written off entirely. It essentially is a grant to those Small Businesses. This is why the Small Business community is excited about this because they want to keep their employees. They want to keep their doors open, but they are waiting, and they are waiting. They are on the edge of their seats seeing what we do tonight and tomorrow. Ive talked to many businesses back home who are saying i can wait until monday, but i cant wait any longer. Im bleeding cash. I have no revenue. I want to keep my people. I want to try to keep the doors open. Youve got to give us some help. S a i said before, the best way to protect workers to get our economy back up and running is to enable employers to keep paying their employees. This new program for small and mediumsized businesses does just that. For businesses that might not be eligible for these s. B. A. Loans, phase three stimulus helps provide immediate liquidity through a number of different ways. These are larger businesses, say over 500 employees. One is through the tax code, specifically our bill includes provisions that allow businesses to put cash in the hands of companies so they can even their workers employed and be ready to get back and running when the crisis is over. By the way, these tax incentives are things like not having to pay the employer side of the payroll tax, a 6. 2 fica tax. Thats incredibly important to these businesses. They told us that, give us a break on that for this year, 2020, and we can keep more people, keep our doors open. That is probably the biggest single one here. But guess what . In 2021 and 2022, they have to pay that back. So the best part of these tax incentives is that a large majority of them are simply timing changes meaning that while there are direct reductions in taxes now in 2020 when they need it, much of that reduction is going to be paid back in coming years. These tax provisions could provide up to 500 billion in immediate cash flow increases, again with more than half of that paid back to the federal government during the budget wind