I first want to express my appreciation to our leadership. I have been in daily, almost hourly communication with senator schumer, and i know how hard hes worked to make sure that package really reaches the medical emergency that we have, that deals with the workers to make sure that they are protected and they are protected and whatever we do that provides the help for state and local governments, that provides the much needed attention to these particular issues and that we have accountability on any of the moneys that are going particularly to our Largest Companies in this country. So i want to express my appreciation. And i am very pleased that our First Priority, our very First Priority is to deal with the Public Health challenge. This is included in whats happening in my state of maryland and whats happening in every state in our nation. So i am pleased that in our state its team maryland. Our congressional delegation is working very closely with Governor Hogan and his cabinet, and were working very closely with our county executives and our mayors and our private sector to do everything we can to protect the Public Health of the people of our state. Weve done what we can locally to make sure testing is available so we understand the dimensions of this problem. And the governor has taken extraordinary steps in order to increase our medical capacity in the likelihood that were going to see a significant increase number of those people that have the coronavirus. Yes, we need to stay at home unless it is an urgent reason for us to be outside of home. And im frequently asked by my friends why dont we do as much as we can in the United States senate remotely . I think we should, including voting. So we need to distance ourselves and minimize social contact in order to prevent the spike of this disease which would test our medical capacity to handle it. So i was pleased that the third supplemental, the agreement thats been reached that we will vote on hopefully today, that it does have a surge in our medical capacity, a Marshall Plan to deal with our health care needs. I could go through a lot of the specifics. I think some have already gone through but i particularly appreciate the fact we have a hundred billion dollars for our hospitals and health care facilities, including clinics in this bill. I am pleased that there is a 20 increase in hospital reimbursement rates, and i want to thank senator grassley and senator wyden for including in that provision a unique clause for the maryland hospitals so that they can be qualified for this. Maryland has, as i think some of you know, an allpayer rate structure and we had to make sure these provisions would apply in maryland, and i thank them for their attention to that detail. Theres also money in here for our hospitals to be ready for preparedness which i think is extremely important. And there is a separate line appropriation for our Community Health centers and our federallyqualified health clinics. Thats critically important. They are being stressed as the needs are increasing and as the cost of treatment is increasing. We need to replenish the National Stockpile. We know that concerns on protective gear, we know that. We know that ventilators and respirators are in short supply. We have to make sure we have adequate replacement of whats been taken out of our National Stockpile and available now to deal with the surge that is coming under any scenario so that our Health Care Workers have the protective gear that they need and our patients have the medical facilities and the respirators that they need. We also have plussed up the work being done to deal with the development of a vaccine. Im pleased that n. I. H. Is getting the moneys that they need in order to do the work. We know that were not going to have a vaccine in time this year, but we want to make sure we get it as soon as possible and its on a fast track and these funds will help us develop that vaccine for the future needs of controlling this type of a virus. But in the meantime, were also putting resources into therapeutic drugs, drugs that can help people that are sick today. Those drugs are not yet available, but we want to make sure we do everything we can to make them available as soon as possible. Fema has been bumped up substantially in this bill for good reason. The federal Emergency Management agency. And that brings me to the point that is a major improvement thats been brought in this legislation to help our state and local governments. Theyre the front lines of providing these Public Health needs and we need to provide them the resources they need. So fema needs to be properly appropriated and we had the money in here to help fema, but we also need direct help to our local governments to deal with this problem and we see that our state and local Public Health officers are getting extra money, federal reporting so we know exactly what the status is in each of our communities. All that is important for our Marshall Plan to control this disease and get it under control. But i wanted to take this time to talk about a matter that i was working on on Small Business. And i mention that recognizing weve got to get our economy back on track. The best way to get our economy back on track . Get this virus controlled. Get people able to get out, to work, and to buy and participate in our economy. Thats the best thing we can do. But this package also recognizes that unless we help businesses and workers today, were not going to be prepared for our economy when we are able to rebound. My role as the senior democrat on the Small Business committee working with senator rubio, the chairman of that committee was to make sure we had a robust provision to preserve the Growth Engine and innovation engine of our economy, and that is Small Businesses. Theres more job growth for Small Companies. Theres more innovation in Small Companies. We need to preserve the ability of Small Companies to get through this time. And quite frankly, they dont have the same deep pockets that Large Companies have. They dont have the same availability of credit that Large Companies have. They dont have the same banking arrangements that Large Companies have. They dont have the same flexibility that Large Companies have. So we have to provide special attention to Small Businesses and this package does that in a very, very robust way. So first, i already mentioned senator rubio. I thank him for his leadership. The two of us were working together well before this week. And thats why we were probably further along on helping Small Businesses than the other parts of this package dealing with the various economic areas. Senator shaheen was a valuable member of our team. Ive worked with senator shaheen on Small Business issues for a long time. She was a key player in putting together the package that we have to present to our colleagues here in the United States senate. I also want to acknowledge senator collins. It was the four of us that were meeting regularly, communicating regularly that recommend this package that you will shortly be voting on as it relates to Small Business. So i also if i could id like to acknowledge members of my own staff that have worked literally 24 7. Ive talked to them at various times during the night and day and its been very stressful for all of us, but our staffs get no rest whatsoever. So to sean moore and the entire staff on the democratic side of Small Business committee, thank you on behalf of americas Small Businesses and workers and on behalf of our country. And to ron storhoff who has been doing a lot of these provisions on my staff in regards to the tax issues, in regards to a lot of these other issues, thank him for all of his work and to lauren jea who has not only helped us put together the Small Business package but shes been available to help Maryland Health providers and patients to try to get through where we are today. All thats reflected in the bill that we will be voting on later. And i know on the republican side theres been dedicated staff who have done equal work to make sure that we have a bill that we can present today. So let me go over, if i might, some of the provisions that we have in here for Small Businesses. We have three new programs, three new programs to help Small Businesses in our community. Theyll have different titles, but every one of them provide grant help to Small Businesses. Im going to repeat that. You might hear this is a loan. No, these are going to be funds that go to Small Businesses that do not have to be repaid. These are grant money. Why . Because a Small Business owner cant incur more debt today when they had no idea how they are going to be able to survive in the future. Weve got to provide immediate help, immediate help. Its got to be substantial. And its got to be in a way that they know that theyre not incup bettering their future incumbering their future. Weve got to get that message out. This is going to be immediate help to help americas Small Business. One Program Provides 350 billion of relief to Small Companies under 500 employees. 350 billion. It is triggered by going to your Financial Institution and getting whats known as a 7a loan. Let me caution you. Its going to be forgiven if you follow the rules here. But you go to a bank, a Financial Institution. You do a 7a loan, a hundred percent guaranteed by the government so the bank has no risk factor. There are no payments due for a year. Even getting into this loan, there are no obligations for cash outlays on behalf of the borrower. The fees have been waived. So this is a costfree opportunity to get the cash you need to keep your Small Business open. Thats the purpose of this new program under the Small Business administration. The amount of the loan. You take your average payroll before the coronavirus was here, and you take your Monthly Average payroll and multiply it by 2. 5. Basically, what youre getting is two months of payroll for your workers, plus an extra it comes out to an extra 25 of your payroll because its two months of that. Now, what eligible expenses what can you use this for . Well, you can use the two months for payroll. Pay your workers. Keep them employed. It saves you the cost of rehiring if you had to furlough or lay off workers. You can keep them employed. You can use the extra funds to cover their expenses that you have on their health care or held expenses. You can use the extra 25 for rents or mortgage payments or utility bills. So it gives you a cash to conduct your business for the next two months. It gives you the ability to keep afloat so that youre ready to rebound when the economy rebounds. Who is eligible . Companies under 500, but we went beyond the traditional 7as eligibility. We are also allowing nonprofits to be able to get into this program so that they will also be able to stay afloat, because we know the important work that nonprofits do for our community. They are also eligible. We gave some relaxation to the 500 rule for locations that were for restaurants or hotels that have multiple locations. This is a program thats aimed at keeping businesses open and ready, Small Businesses for when we get through this coronavirus. And then this amount of money that you borrowed is totally forgiven. Totally forgiven if you maintain your workforce to the precoronavirus level or bring back your workforce to the precoronavirus level during the stated period of time of this bill. So if you keep your work force, bring back your work force, the governments going to help you maintain your ability and make sure your workers get paid and their benefits are maintained. It works very well with the other provisions that are in other parts of this bill such as the Unemployment Insurance benefits. Yes, if you furlough workers, can you collect Unemployment Benefits at basically full salary for the next four months, so thats also available to Small Businesses. But we want you to also know that you can keep your employees employed, there, ready for the business to rebound, as we hope it will shortly. Thats just one program. We have other programs available. We have a new program which is labeled as a grant, a 10 billion Grant Program for emergency cash availability for Small Businesses. There are businesses that have a hard time going to a bank and getting a commercial loan. There are many Small Businesses that need cash today. They cant wait for that process to work its way through to get that check from the Small Business administration through one of their Financial Institutions. Its going to take a little bit longer for them to be able to get that done. So we have emergency Disaster Relief loans in the first supplemental. We made it clear that Small Businesses qualify for emergency Disaster Relief loans if they have been adversely impacted by the coronavirus. These are direct loans coming out of the Small Business administration. These are not loans that are from Financial Institutions. We have included that in the first supplemental. We have now we now allow you to make that application and with that application if you need to get cash immediately, the s. B. A. Can write you a check for up to 10,000. And we want that done within three days. We want that money out in days, not weeks. We hear that all the time from Small Businesses. We need help now. Well, this program and i was pleased to work on this program. I filed legislation on it. This is a need thats out there today and will be available to Small Business owners. Now, we have a third program. Thats two programs. You can get this basically twomonth help from the federal government to pay your payroll and related expenses. You can get a 10,000 immediate cash advancement on that through applying for Disaster Relief loan and showing a need at this stage, and then there is a third program. There are many Small Businesses today that have existing loans under the Small Business administration. These are 7a loans or 504 loans. 7a is the traditional lope. 504 are the larger loans. What this bill does is provide 17 billion of relief so those who had these existing loans do not need to make any payments on those loans, theyre forgiven for the next six months. I particularly want to acknowledge senator coons work on this. This is a bill that we have been working on and is only reasonable to relief. We are asking others to relief debt. Let us do it for our Small Businesses under the 7a and 504 programs. So you see, mr. President , there are a lot of provisions here that help our Small Businesses. I want to tell you that there are others in addition to those three i just mentioned, im pleased that we do have contract protection in this bill. Let me explain what that means. This applies to all businesses, not just Small Businesses. But Small Businesses that are particularly impacted by it. But you cant perform that government contract because you cant get access to the facility because its shuttered as a result of the coronavirus. This bill allows you, the federal government, to make sure you have adequate Funds Available to pay your workers so that those individuals who should have been working at the federal facility will get paid during this period of time. We also provide money in the Minority Business Development centers. They are there in our community. Why . Because we have to get the message out to Small Businesses about these new tools, how we can access banks to get the 7a loans that are forgiven that are actually grants. How they can apply to the Small Business administration for Disaster Relief loans and get a cash advancement. How they can get relief from the current 7a and 504 loans. So we give money to these institutions so that these entrepreneur Service Groups so they can help women businesses and minority businesses get access. I must tell you, madam president , we have also put a clear intent that we expect Financial Institutions to make loans to all sized Small Businesses in all communities so that all communities can benefit from this legislation. We have increased the size of express loans under this. And i just want to compliment the work of other working groups, particularly on the tax provisions. I was very pleased to work with senator wyden. The two of us worked on whats known as a retention credit which allows companies to bring the furloughed workers back and get get a credit up to 50 of that wage up to 10,000 as a tax credit in order to bring back those workers. Well, for some Small Businesses, that may be a better option than what i have outlined before in regards to the two and a half months of aid based on payroll. You have a choice. You can do better under retention credit. Its a new credit. If not, use the other. Small businesses are given more flexibility. Thank you, senator wyden, for helping us. I also want to acknowledge senator warner who was very instrumental in getting that provision adopted. So, madam president , you see there is a whole range of tools in here to keep Small Businesses operating, paying their workers so they dont have to reinvent their employers after this crisis is over. They can keep qualified people. Mr. Reid, they get the paychecks, and our economy is ready to get back into shape. There are many other provisions in this bill, including the Cash Payments under the i. R. S. , 1,200 per taxpayer that will help in this regard. When you put this all together, this is a robust package to bring our economy, to hold our economy so that it can perform at a level that its ready to take off again without the dire consequences of people not having income in order to pay their bills. Through these Small Business provisions, Small Business owners can keep their businesses intact. Through Unemployment Insurance, those that are laid off or furloughed could get their salaries. Through the i. R. S. Checks, people will have some cash. Through some of these other programs, we are providing relief like delaying the time and paying the employers share of the fica taxes. You put that all together, there is a lot of help out here to keep our economy going during this crisis, with particular focus on the workers and on Small Business. The last point i should point out, the selfemployed, the gig economy are fully covered under the Small Business provisions. They are fully covered under the u. I. Provisions. We are trying to make sure that we preserve our economy, that we preserve workers and their families and their abilities to pay their bills. I think when you take a look at this whole package, the challenge will be to get the information out to our commits, to these businesses, to these workers so they know whats in this package so that they can act now, because, quite frankly, people are desperate, companies are desperate. When malls are closed as they are in maryland and you are operating a Small Business in that mall, have no business at all, you dont know how you are going to make your next payroll. You have to make decisions today. Thats why its important we vote on this bill today, get it to the president as soon as possible, get the information out to the Small Businesses and to the workers and to all businesses that we are here to help keep them open, to keep the paychecks flowing, to keep our economy moving, that were in this together, were going to get through this period of time, our economy is going to come back, but we want you to know to take advantage of these tools so that we can minimizeford mr. P. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Lankford mr. President , were in the process of passing a very large economic package to help stabilize our economy through the middle of all thats happening with covid19 globally and in the United States. The heart of the package were passing today is almost identical to what we brought sunday night which was a bi
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