Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate Sens. Blunt Kaine On Cor

Together. Mr. President , i yield the floor. The response to the coronavirus has made it clear that there are lots of things that other responsibility of individuals, things like staying home if you are sick, frankly staying home if you are more likely than others to be sick, practicing the kinds of hygiene are mothers taught us we should follow all along. Personally i may have set a new personal record for just washing my hands in the last two weeks. Ive never been adverse to wash my hands but but i dont know t ive ever watched them half a dozen times a day or more before, but those kinds of things are left up to us. And then there are things that are left up to the local level, things to determine in a local Community Whether things should be open or not, what kind of activities should be the activities where you draw the line in terms of crowds. Much likely to be better decided at a local level by even the state or even more likely by a mayor or account executive than by somebody here in washington. And then at the National Level we are moving toward our third package now in the last few days to try to deal with this. The first package was about 8 billion, really focused at the Meeting Health response, supplies, developing a vaccine, trying to figure out what the right therapies were, understanding the things we needed to do to further help hospitals get ready and to further encourage people to go places other than hospitals when that works. All of those things were part of that first package. In the package that we sent to the president that the president signed last night, about 100 billion almost any standard, a huge amount of money to put together in just a short period of time, that 100 billion was, while they continue to work on healthcare side, also was very focused on just heaping people on a payroll if they are on a payroll. That 100 billion focused to a to a great extent on how you keep people who have decided they needed to be quarantined or who were quarantined by a doctor or by a business that was quarantined because it was closed up. Keeping those people on that payroll, continue to keep that part of our economy going. And now today we moved to the third package, which is 1 trillion, 808 billion, 100 billion, now a trillion, that trillion dollars designed to continue to all the other things i talked about, but also designed to keep this economy at a point where we get through this, we will be as nearly to where we would have been otherwise. Interestingly, try to we are going into situation where we are trying to protect an economy that didnt have any systemic problems with it. It was an economy that was by all measures unbelievably good and then suddenly people are encourage come sometimes required, to back away from that economy, to cease participating in lots of that economy, partly because weve encouraged part of that economy to cease being part of the active economy and what do we do there . This is going to be a different kind of response, more focused in many cases where in the past people said we need more of your money. Many of the questions we just need to have an access to more money that we can easily pay back when we get through this, we are willing to securitize loans, willing to have lots of things figure out how to deal with that liquidity issue. And then there are some things we need to put in this package that simply the government is going to have to look at in ways we havent looked at before. Want to spend a few minutes talking about one of those things today, which is just frankly securing our medical supply chain. In the past the idea that we would worry about the supply chain with that event at the top of the list of the things that the American People would be thinking needed to be on the first list they needed to look at when you think about Public Health. But what we see happening now is a direct reminder that medical supplies we use can come from all over the world. And in a pandemic, everybody in the world may think they need what you think you would have received and expected to get more than they think they should send it to you. We depend on manufacturers in other countries, proximally 40 of the finished drugs, and 80 of the active pharmaceutical agreements are manufactured overseas, primarily in china and india. The ongoing global coronavirus outbreak has really highlighted for the first time in the day supply chain what happens if you might not be able to get what you need when you need it. Theres also a spotlight on our supply chain challenges generally, and i think as a result of this were going to look at that sooner than we would have. But right now in this bill, im hoping we include an immediate look, because we have quickly gone through a series of warning signs now that make us understand why we need to look at this and look at it now. On february 27, the fda announced the first coronavirus related drug shortage, that grew at 27th. On march 10, the fda halted its routine overseas inspections of drugs and devices. Last week, state Health Departments and the center for Disease Control and prevention raised concern about the looming shortage of coronavirus extraction kit reagent needed to actually conduct the diagnostic tests. Not to mention some concerns about the swab you might need in some cases to take just the normal flu exam. Its more and more clear that protecting our nations medical supply chain is both a priority for Public Health and for National Security. Obviously, the supply chain has become more and more global. Now, economic efficiency makes sense being more competitive makes sense. Its fine to buy things from other countries, but its better if you have multiple options. Its better if you have other options, including domestic production. Its especially true when it comes the vital options like medical devices, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, products we need for Public Health and safety. Now, we see now that this is a problem. Its a problem that has sort of, parnas in this pandemic environment in a way that we had not thought wed have to deal with it before here but we do have to do with it and were hoping in this bill, this is one of the places we can deal with it. You know, in our supply chain generally, if youre making something, mr. President , and it takes 300 parts that you can, you have to wonder 99 of them, you are in really good shape except you cant make what you hope to make because you dont have that one essential 300 park. If you are relying on factories in china or south korea or some other place to shut down temporarily, suddenly your factory has become too dependent on a partner that is no longer there. So a Bipartisan Group of senators, including myself and senator alexander and senator durbin and senator murray, have written legislation to figure out how to access our gullibility in the Global Supply chain for medical supplies. We want the National Academy of sciences, medicine, and injurg to look at this issue and to look at it now, to look at this issue and determine how dependent we have really become on supplies from other countries, and then to make recommendations as to what some of our options might be. We also would like to their views on how we can make our supply chain more resilient for critical drugs and equipment, what kind of backup plan we need to always be thinking about that our front line plan may continue to be that of the partner in another country, whats our quick go to backup and how essential is it that we had that backup. That would include asking how we can encourage domestic manufacturers of some things to be able to step up and reorient what they do when they need it and in a crisis. The president , to some extent, addressed this idea yesterday by talking about a defense manufacturing strategy. That defense manufacturing strategy may be need to be more robust in some areas just simply because whether its Component Parts to a medical device or pharmaceutical ingredients, or simply the gloves and masks and swab sticks and things that you need for basic health care when youre trying to determine what your healthcare environment is competent deal with it, are out there and we need to look at it. One example may be that, just again, the daily dependence on the Daily Protective equipment that our Healthcare Providers have. We are interested to know what we need to do and what we need to do over the next 60 60 to 90 days, what we need to do over the next two or three years. But what we are going to be asking this commission to look at is, we want them to look at it quickly. This is a priority. It has become an immediate priority if we need to know as we now look at another one of these in a series of epidemics where this has been a concern, whether its ebola or swine flu or bird flu or zika or sars weve had too many of these into short a period of time, and at that same period of time, the globalization of the supply chain has dramatically changed. So as we prepare for future hazards, we want to assure that the supply chain is in place to allah as to provide the kind of health care we need, the kind of response we need, the kind of protection we need. They should be part of the bill. We sent to the president hopefully between now and no later than the end of next week. Its one of the things that will begin to set us on a better direction and create greater security, Greater Health security as we look at our other security concerns. And with that, mr. President , i would yield the floor. Mr. President , the senator for virginia. Mr. President , also rise, like my colleague from missouri to address the nations response to the covid19 virus. The capital, here working under tough circumstances i notice the pages are not here and that is because the senate wisely decided that while we are to be doing the peoples business even at the risk to ourselves, the young people who would normally be here should be home with their families. I thank healthcare workers across the United States, they are doing very difficult work right now under very stressful circumstances. So many people who work in our Healthcare Facilities are trying to protect patients, they have kids in schools that are closed and are grappling with where their own children are during the day, can they find childcare during what would normally be the school day. I want to thank the american public. I will return to this point at the end of my comments. We are not an authoritarian nation. There are steps other nations are taking with respect to this virus where they can order or quarantine, ways that we cant hear. What we do here depends on the consent of the governed. The guidelines about social distancing, for example require some significant sacrifice. Overwhelmingly i see americans taking steps to make that sacrifice. I applaud the bipartisan Work Congress has done in the past two weeks to pass important laws, the submental appropriations bill providing 8 billion to invest in our Public Health response with resources for states, territories, and tribes and other key Health Priorities and yesterday the Senate Passed the second piece of legislation to provide emergency relief to workers and their families, paid sick leave. Mass shootings, the h1n1 epidemic, the economic collapse of 20089. Those give me a perspective. I have to acknowledge the current challenge is bigger than any i have seen in my life. It will require degrees of innovation and cooperation and the need is urgent. I got off of the phone call this morning and im sure all 100 of my colleagues are making calls like this. I got on the phone with senator warner to talk to hospitals. Virginia is a state that is pretty welloff, per capita income, significant metropolitan areas but stories from my hospitals were shocking. They cant get tests, to test patients with symptoms of covid19. If they have tests they dont have swabs to administer the tests or some of the chemical components needed so that once a swab is taken they can run the test to determine if somebody has the virus or not. They dont have masks which they would normally buy for about one dollar apiece are now being charged at 9 apiece was severely limited quantities. Major hospitals in a major metropolitan area like virginia on the testing front said they have enough tests from their main supplier to test 40 people. That lasted two days. When they said we need more tests the supplier said we only have so much we can distribute around, that is all you get. When i heard this story, one after the next, i live in a nation with not only the best Healthcare Providers but the best healthcare institutions in the world i had to ask where am i . Is this the United States of america where a hospital treating people on a Global Pandemic cannot get a mask, cannot get a swab, cannot get a test . Why do nations like south korea, australia and the united kingdom, why are they so much more able to do things which this country should be able to do . I dont think we should become normalizer accept that. This is so profound the question why this nation with the best Healthcare Providers and the best healthcare institutions in the world is so far behind other nations so let me offer these recommendations for the road ahead. First coming in the words of the hippocratic oath, do no harm. The administration lost 6 to 8 weeks in responding to this crisis, critical time that was used productively by other nations because the president continually downplayed the threat of covid19. No american has a louder microphone than he does and he downplayed the threat, suggesting it was contains, suggested everyone would be tested, suggested it was a hoax, suggested the democrats or the chinese or the media were blowing it out of proportion. Whether his comments were due to ignorance or political desire to hide bad news is irrelevant. I was so shocked he summitted a budget on february 10th when the viruss global spread was clear to all that dramatically cut funding for key Public Health agencies, the nih, cdc, hhs and our investments in global partnerships like the world health organization, the white house foolishly you limited the global Health Security team at the National Security council that was set up after the ebola crisis to deal with pandemics like covid19. I remain stunned that the president s lawyers are still in court all over this country attempting to repeal the Affordable Care act and take healthcare from millions of americans. There is never a good time to take an act of Public Health infrastructure and scheme to take Peoples Health insurance but there is surely no worse time to do it, to take the Public Health infrastructure, during a Global Pandemic. My recommendations are pretty simple. With downplaying the threat. Trust in scientists and Public Health leaders in your imagination take center stage. In recent days the president seems to have adopted this approach and it is long overdue. Congress should ignore the budget. Urged cuts to the Public Health infrastructure and the administration should cease efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care act. Quit the inflammatory china bashing. Did virus originate in china . Yes. But mister president , that does not excuse weeks and weeks of tweeting lies and information misinformation about the virus when the leaders of other nations were taking steps to make sure their populations would be safe. The fact the virus originated in china does not excuse the massive missteps that led to the United States being so far behind other nations of the world and the ability to provide asic testing to citizens including citizens who have serious signs of illness. The president s decision to call this china virus or other epithets he and members of his team used are a crass effort to deflect blame away from the acceptance of responsibility president should do. The buck stops with you, you cannot blame this on anyone else. You have to own responsibility. You should stop inflammatory china bashing that is exposing Asian Americans in this country to prejudice. The second thing we need to do is to focus first and foremost on managing the Public Health crisis presented by covid19. The economic dislocation is significant. We are working on a package on that now that i will talk about in a minute. No economic intervention will work if the American People lack confidence in our Public Health response and a strong Public Health response that will effectively manage the spread of this virus and coordinate medical care for those affected will be the single best strategy for enabling the economy to get back on track. To accomplish this we need to have strong policies at the federal level to make sciencebased recommendations in the timing of social distancing guidelines. We need to overcome the shockingly poor start to testing americans, that helps us flatten the curve. It also helps reduce anxiety by giving people information about their status so they know what to do. Americans are used to being tested if we feel ill we go to a doctor, get a test to see if we have the flu, to see if we have pneumonia, to see if they have strep throat. We are used to this. When we see it happening around the globe and we hear the president and Vice President say everybody will get tested but then people call their Community Whether<\/a> things should be open or not, what kind of activities should be the activities where you draw the line in terms of crowds. Much likely to be better decided at a local level by even the state or even more likely by a mayor or account executive than by somebody here in washington. And then at the National Level<\/a> we are moving toward our third package now in the last few days to try to deal with this. The first package was about 8 billion, really focused at the Meeting Health<\/a> response, supplies, developing a vaccine, trying to figure out what the right therapies were, understanding the things we needed to do to further help hospitals get ready and to further encourage people to go places other than hospitals when that works. All of those things were part of that first package. In the package that we sent to the president that the president signed last night, about 100 billion almost any standard, a huge amount of money to put together in just a short period of time, that 100 billion was, while they continue to work on healthcare side, also was very focused on just heaping people on a payroll if they are on a payroll. That 100 billion focused to a to a great extent on how you keep people who have decided they needed to be quarantined or who were quarantined by a doctor or by a business that was quarantined because it was closed up. Keeping those people on that payroll, continue to keep that part of our economy going. And now today we moved to the third package, which is 1 trillion, 808 billion, 100 billion, now a trillion, that trillion dollars designed to continue to all the other things i talked about, but also designed to keep this economy at a point where we get through this, we will be as nearly to where we would have been otherwise. Interestingly, try to we are going into situation where we are trying to protect an economy that didnt have any systemic problems with it. It was an economy that was by all measures unbelievably good and then suddenly people are encourage come sometimes required, to back away from that economy, to cease participating in lots of that economy, partly because weve encouraged part of that economy to cease being part of the active economy and what do we do there . This is going to be a different kind of response, more focused in many cases where in the past people said we need more of your money. Many of the questions we just need to have an access to more money that we can easily pay back when we get through this, we are willing to securitize loans, willing to have lots of things figure out how to deal with that liquidity issue. And then there are some things we need to put in this package that simply the government is going to have to look at in ways we havent looked at before. Want to spend a few minutes talking about one of those things today, which is just frankly securing our medical supply chain. In the past the idea that we would worry about the supply chain with that event at the top of the list of the things that the American People<\/a> would be thinking needed to be on the first list they needed to look at when you think about Public Health<\/a>. But what we see happening now is a direct reminder that medical supplies we use can come from all over the world. And in a pandemic, everybody in the world may think they need what you think you would have received and expected to get more than they think they should send it to you. We depend on manufacturers in other countries, proximally 40 of the finished drugs, and 80 of the active pharmaceutical agreements are manufactured overseas, primarily in china and india. The ongoing global coronavirus outbreak has really highlighted for the first time in the day supply chain what happens if you might not be able to get what you need when you need it. Theres also a spotlight on our supply chain challenges generally, and i think as a result of this were going to look at that sooner than we would have. But right now in this bill, im hoping we include an immediate look, because we have quickly gone through a series of warning signs now that make us understand why we need to look at this and look at it now. On february 27, the fda announced the first coronavirus related drug shortage, that grew at 27th. On march 10, the fda halted its routine overseas inspections of drugs and devices. Last week, state Health Departments<\/a> and the center for Disease Control<\/a> and prevention raised concern about the looming shortage of coronavirus extraction kit reagent needed to actually conduct the diagnostic tests. Not to mention some concerns about the swab you might need in some cases to take just the normal flu exam. Its more and more clear that protecting our nations medical supply chain is both a priority for Public Health<\/a> and for National Security<\/a>. Obviously, the supply chain has become more and more global. Now, economic efficiency makes sense being more competitive makes sense. Its fine to buy things from other countries, but its better if you have multiple options. Its better if you have other options, including domestic production. Its especially true when it comes the vital options like medical devices, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, products we need for Public Health<\/a> and safety. Now, we see now that this is a problem. Its a problem that has sort of, parnas in this pandemic environment in a way that we had not thought wed have to deal with it before here but we do have to do with it and were hoping in this bill, this is one of the places we can deal with it. You know, in our supply chain generally, if youre making something, mr. President , and it takes 300 parts that you can, you have to wonder 99 of them, you are in really good shape except you cant make what you hope to make because you dont have that one essential 300 park. If you are relying on factories in china or south korea or some other place to shut down temporarily, suddenly your factory has become too dependent on a partner that is no longer there. So a Bipartisan Group<\/a> of senators, including myself and senator alexander and senator durbin and senator murray, have written legislation to figure out how to access our gullibility in the Global Supply<\/a> chain for medical supplies. We want the National Academy<\/a> of sciences, medicine, and injurg to look at this issue and to look at it now, to look at this issue and determine how dependent we have really become on supplies from other countries, and then to make recommendations as to what some of our options might be. We also would like to their views on how we can make our supply chain more resilient for critical drugs and equipment, what kind of backup plan we need to always be thinking about that our front line plan may continue to be that of the partner in another country, whats our quick go to backup and how essential is it that we had that backup. That would include asking how we can encourage domestic manufacturers of some things to be able to step up and reorient what they do when they need it and in a crisis. The president , to some extent, addressed this idea yesterday by talking about a defense manufacturing strategy. That defense manufacturing strategy may be need to be more robust in some areas just simply because whether its Component Parts<\/a> to a medical device or pharmaceutical ingredients, or simply the gloves and masks and swab sticks and things that you need for basic health care when youre trying to determine what your healthcare environment is competent deal with it, are out there and we need to look at it. One example may be that, just again, the daily dependence on the Daily Protective<\/a> equipment that our Healthcare Providers<\/a> have. We are interested to know what we need to do and what we need to do over the next 60 60 to 90 days, what we need to do over the next two or three years. But what we are going to be asking this commission to look at is, we want them to look at it quickly. This is a priority. It has become an immediate priority if we need to know as we now look at another one of these in a series of epidemics where this has been a concern, whether its ebola or swine flu or bird flu or zika or sars weve had too many of these into short a period of time, and at that same period of time, the globalization of the supply chain has dramatically changed. So as we prepare for future hazards, we want to assure that the supply chain is in place to allah as to provide the kind of health care we need, the kind of response we need, the kind of protection we need. They should be part of the bill. We sent to the president hopefully between now and no later than the end of next week. Its one of the things that will begin to set us on a better direction and create greater security, Greater Health<\/a> security as we look at our other security concerns. And with that, mr. President , i would yield the floor. Mr. President , the senator for virginia. Mr. President , also rise, like my colleague from missouri to address the nations response to the covid19 virus. The capital, here working under tough circumstances i notice the pages are not here and that is because the senate wisely decided that while we are to be doing the peoples business even at the risk to ourselves, the young people who would normally be here should be home with their families. I thank healthcare workers across the United States<\/a>, they are doing very difficult work right now under very stressful circumstances. So many people who work in our Healthcare Facilities<\/a> are trying to protect patients, they have kids in schools that are closed and are grappling with where their own children are during the day, can they find childcare during what would normally be the school day. I want to thank the american public. I will return to this point at the end of my comments. We are not an authoritarian nation. There are steps other nations are taking with respect to this virus where they can order or quarantine, ways that we cant hear. What we do here depends on the consent of the governed. The guidelines about social distancing, for example require some significant sacrifice. Overwhelmingly i see americans taking steps to make that sacrifice. I applaud the bipartisan Work Congress<\/a> has done in the past two weeks to pass important laws, the submental appropriations bill providing 8 billion to invest in our Public Health<\/a> response with resources for states, territories, and tribes and other key Health Priorities<\/a> and yesterday the Senate Passed<\/a> the second piece of legislation to provide emergency relief to workers and their families, paid sick leave. Mass shootings, the h1n1 epidemic, the economic collapse of 20089. Those give me a perspective. I have to acknowledge the current challenge is bigger than any i have seen in my life. It will require degrees of innovation and cooperation and the need is urgent. I got off of the phone call this morning and im sure all 100 of my colleagues are making calls like this. I got on the phone with senator warner to talk to hospitals. Virginia is a state that is pretty welloff, per capita income, significant metropolitan areas but stories from my hospitals were shocking. They cant get tests, to test patients with symptoms of covid19. If they have tests they dont have swabs to administer the tests or some of the chemical components needed so that once a swab is taken they can run the test to determine if somebody has the virus or not. They dont have masks which they would normally buy for about one dollar apiece are now being charged at 9 apiece was severely limited quantities. Major hospitals in a major metropolitan area like virginia on the testing front said they have enough tests from their main supplier to test 40 people. That lasted two days. When they said we need more tests the supplier said we only have so much we can distribute around, that is all you get. When i heard this story, one after the next, i live in a nation with not only the best Healthcare Providers<\/a> but the best healthcare institutions in the world i had to ask where am i . Is this the United States<\/a> of america where a hospital treating people on a Global Pandemic<\/a> cannot get a mask, cannot get a swab, cannot get a test . Why do nations like south korea, australia and the united kingdom, why are they so much more able to do things which this country should be able to do . I dont think we should become normalizer accept that. This is so profound the question why this nation with the best Healthcare Providers<\/a> and the best healthcare institutions in the world is so far behind other nations so let me offer these recommendations for the road ahead. First coming in the words of the hippocratic oath, do no harm. The administration lost 6 to 8 weeks in responding to this crisis, critical time that was used productively by other nations because the president continually downplayed the threat of covid19. No american has a louder microphone than he does and he downplayed the threat, suggesting it was contains, suggested everyone would be tested, suggested it was a hoax, suggested the democrats or the chinese or the media were blowing it out of proportion. Whether his comments were due to ignorance or political desire to hide bad news is irrelevant. I was so shocked he summitted a budget on february 10th when the viruss global spread was clear to all that dramatically cut funding for key Public Health<\/a> agencies, the nih, cdc, hhs and our investments in global partnerships like the world health organization, the white house foolishly you limited the global Health Security<\/a> team at the National Security<\/a> council that was set up after the ebola crisis to deal with pandemics like covid19. I remain stunned that the president s lawyers are still in court all over this country attempting to repeal the Affordable Care<\/a> act and take healthcare from millions of americans. There is never a good time to take an act of Public Health<\/a> infrastructure and scheme to take Peoples Health<\/a> insurance but there is surely no worse time to do it, to take the Public Health<\/a> infrastructure, during a Global Pandemic<\/a>. My recommendations are pretty simple. With downplaying the threat. Trust in scientists and Public Health<\/a> leaders in your imagination take center stage. In recent days the president seems to have adopted this approach and it is long overdue. Congress should ignore the budget. Urged cuts to the Public Health<\/a> infrastructure and the administration should cease efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care<\/a> act. Quit the inflammatory china bashing. Did virus originate in china . Yes. But mister president , that does not excuse weeks and weeks of tweeting lies and information misinformation about the virus when the leaders of other nations were taking steps to make sure their populations would be safe. The fact the virus originated in china does not excuse the massive missteps that led to the United States<\/a> being so far behind other nations of the world and the ability to provide asic testing to citizens including citizens who have serious signs of illness. The president s decision to call this china virus or other epithets he and members of his team used are a crass effort to deflect blame away from the acceptance of responsibility president should do. The buck stops with you, you cannot blame this on anyone else. You have to own responsibility. You should stop inflammatory china bashing that is exposing Asian Americans<\/a> in this country to prejudice. The second thing we need to do is to focus first and foremost on managing the Public Health<\/a> crisis presented by covid19. The economic dislocation is significant. We are working on a package on that now that i will talk about in a minute. No economic intervention will work if the American People<\/a> lack confidence in our Public Health<\/a> response and a strong Public Health<\/a> response that will effectively manage the spread of this virus and coordinate medical care for those affected will be the single best strategy for enabling the economy to get back on track. To accomplish this we need to have strong policies at the federal level to make sciencebased recommendations in the timing of social distancing guidelines. We need to overcome the shockingly poor start to testing americans, that helps us flatten the curve. It also helps reduce anxiety by giving people information about their status so they know what to do. Americans are used to being tested if we feel ill we go to a doctor, get a test to see if we have the flu, to see if we have pneumonia, to see if they have strep throat. We are used to this. When we see it happening around the globe and we hear the president and Vice President<\/a> say everybody will get tested but then people call their Healthcare Providers<\/a> and are told there are no tests or seek drivethrough testing site like the one we had in Hampton Roads<\/a> shut after a day and a half because they ran out of tests, it tremendously raises their anxiety. We need to continue the good work being done to accelerate the vaccine. We need to make your hospitals and Health Providers<\/a> have the resources to protect their Frontline Health<\/a> workers. Finally, federal policymakers should try to develop, looking down the road a bit, important to think about it now, policymakers should develop the sciencebased criteria that will enable them to confidently tell americans when it is time to return to normal social and economic activity. I remember president bush doing that at some point after 9 11, it is now safe, time for americans to go back to normal everyday activity. A strong signal, when it is warranted by science will be critical to our recovery. That may be weeks or months away but developing the criteria we can agree on should be the signal for return to normalcy, something we should be working on right now. Make use of state and local governments. Americans are skeptical about what they hear from donald trump and washington but the same polls show they have trust in our state and local officials are handling this crisis. Use the network of state and local officials to communicate clear messages. Continuously seek their input on how their schools, hospitals, Nursing Homes<\/a> and local economies are affected. That is what im doing and i suspect every member of the senate is doing the same thing. Conference calls with leaders around my state to make sure we are doing things that are most helpful and we should reality test legislation especially an economic package with these leaders to make sure it is responsive to the real needs they are seeing on the ground. Force, Congress Needs<\/a> to pass the strong economic passage backstopping the American Economy<\/a> from being ravaged by covid19. In 2008 structural issues like the accumulation, bad public policy, huge swaths of economic transactions and predatory mortgage practices helped bring down not only the american but Global Financial<\/a> system. Today the American Economy<\/a> has been performing relatively well and now labors under a severe healthcare shock. There is reason to believe once we get the healthcare strategy right we will be poised for the economy to resume its upward trajectory but we must provide protection and support in the meantime. I believe the focus of an economic package should be workers and Small Businesses<\/a>. They are the most vulnerable to the current challenge and most in need of intervention. This is the message im hearing as i talk to virginia residents and business leaders. I had a conversation with the president and he said more of our members are medium and Large Businesses<\/a> but the most important thing you can do is focus on the needs of Small Businesses<\/a> and their employees and i appreciated he was advocating even for business sector that isnt the core of his membership but this is what he was hearing and most of us are hearing. I support direct Cash Payments<\/a> to low and middle income americans to help them through this crisis and it is nice to hear there may be some agreement on that and i support strategies to provide grants and loans to Small Businesses<\/a> particularly if they use those resources to keep employees on the payroll. Direct support to individuals and Small Businesses<\/a> will be the heart of the economic package the senate and white house in the house put together. For the larger businesses and Industry Sectors<\/a> who need federal help we need to stand ready to assist but if we are to invest in these businesses yet again after providing them with unnecessary tax breaks, we must not to be rescue them but demand that they reformatted our investments must be designed to keep workers on payrolls to the maximum extent possible. The business roundtable, an influential voice for the Business Community<\/a> said businesses need to expand their priorities beyond shareholder concerns and invest in employees are compensating them fairly, providing important benefits and supporting communities they work in. I couldnt agree more. These businesses employ Many Americans<\/a> and deliver important goods and services but if american taxpayers are stepping in to cover their losses it is fair to expect and require that these businesses channel the benefits toward people on their payrolls who work for wages and salary, not those who live off of investment income. I will do all i can to shape our economic package to make it responsible to these goals. Fifth, i echo the comments made by my colleague from missouri, the crisis raises longterm questions that must be addressed going forward. We must have real discussions about the virtues and disadvantages of global interconnectedness. Modern travel leads to Economic Growth<\/a> and better understanding of the world but also facilitates the spread of viruses. Instantaneous Global Communication<\/a> networks are in economic plus but increased vulnerability to cyber attack. How do we increase american resilience without inhibiting our economic prospects. There are elements of our supply chains, pharmaceuticals and medical products and supplies in particular that must be viewed through a National Security<\/a> lens and progressively brought to enhance safety and inadequate supplies in times like these. The second longterm question that has been raised for years by senator warner deals with a new reality of how americans work. Many of the people most affected will be parttime and gig workers. Their safety nets mechanisms our policies provide time workers who get a w 2 every year are not as available to the increasing percentage of the American Workforce<\/a> in parttime jobs without benefits but work as independent contractors or are otherwise selfemployed. In addition to making sure the Economic Relief<\/a> package provides assistance for this large group of americans we have to examine our workforce policy so these workers have a social safety net to fall back on during times of crisis. Finally, every american needs to do their part to confront this crisis. The best way to slow the spread of covid19 and minimize its impact to individuals and the Healthcare System<\/a> into our economy is to adhere to sciencebased social distancing and personal hygiene recommendations in our daily lives because america is not an authoritarian nation their options used by other nations that will not likely be used here. Our Public Health<\/a> measures will depend on the cooperation and adherence of everything a person. Sacrifice is hard but a modest sacrifice in the nearterm can help save the lives of people we love. I implore every virginian and every american to follow recommendations from Public Health<\/a> officials and find ways to reach out and connect in this challenging time. We must rise to meet this challenge. This is one of the moments for which we were destined to be in the senate. The people in the senate are relying on us to address a grave Health Crisis<\/a> with the tools needed to keep families safe and protect the American Economy<\/a>. It is a serious responsibility and we all live up to it. With that i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. A nation confronts this Health Crisis<\/a> and the economic crisis it is spawning said","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia802903.us.archive.org\/8\/items\/CSPAN2_20200320_144700_U.S._Senate_Sens._Blunt__Kaine_on_Coronavirus\/CSPAN2_20200320_144700_U.S._Senate_Sens._Blunt__Kaine_on_Coronavirus.thumbs\/CSPAN2_20200320_144700_U.S._Senate_Sens._Blunt__Kaine_on_Coronavirus_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}