Behalf of the more than 19 Million People in our nation and half a Million People in michigan who show us every day what service and sacrifice and love of country is really all about. These patriots landed on beaches in normandy and their pacific theater, crept through jungles in korea, shed blood in vietnam, survived attacks in iraq, and fought terrorists in afghanistan. These people are heroes. They love our nation so much, theyre willing to put their lives on the line for our democracy, our people, and our way of life. Thats why it is so incredibly shocking and infuriating to hear the president of the United States, the commander in chief of our armed forces, disparage our veterans. President trump called them losers and suckers. Losers and suckers. He said he couldnt understand why anyone would join the military, because whats in it for them . He said veterans who have lost limbs shouldnt be in parades. Why . Because he couldnt handle seeing them, didnt think people would want to see them. People in michigan want to see them and thank them, and do every day. And we all remember what he said about our former colleague and friend, the late senator john mccain. President trump said he prefers veterans who didnt get captured my own dad served in the navy during world war ii. He signed up because he believed in a cause bigger than himself. Perhaps President Trump doesnt understand that my dad was a sailor, not a sucker. About one in four people who have served in our Armed Services now live with a serviceconnected disability. President trump, these veterans are leaders. They arent losers. President trump wonders whats in it for them. Well, maybe he should ask them because we all know what they would say. We all know what they would say. Pride, duty, honor, the feeling that comes from putting something or someone above yourself. Its becoming increasingly clear that these arent feelings that the current occupant of the oval office understands. My dad once told me something i have never forgotten. In fact, its influenced my whole life as an elected official. He said that a veteran should never stand at the back of any line for a job, for health care, for education, or for the military recognitions they earned. My dad came home after world war ii and went to school on the g. I. Bill. And i dont know what would have happened to our family if he had not had that opportunity. And so my dad said over and over again that a veteran should not stand at the back of any line. They certainly shouldnt be put at the end of the line by their own president. Its appalling that this even needs to be said actually. When i heard these comments and i heard them verified over and over again, in every media outlet from right to left verifying that in fact these were his comments, it was stunning, it was appalling, and it made me very angry. Our veterans deserve a place of honor, at the front of the line. At the front of the line. And they deserve a commander in chief who respects them, who honors their service, and, frankly, who gets it. Thank goodness we have people who see things and believe in things beyond themselves. Thank goodness we have people who are willing to stand up for all of us to keep us safe and stand up for our values and our country. So on behalf of the people of michigan, i want to say thank you to everyone who has served, everyone who is currently serving, currently serving our country and our Armed Services. We are truly grateful for your sacrifice and service and your willingness to stand up and support and defend our country. Mr. President , i yield the floor. Of i suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. The senator from ohio. Mr. Portman thank you. Im on the floor today to talk about the coronavirus pandemic and what we can and should do here in the United States senate and in congress as a whole to actually address the ongoing problem. Were not out of the woods yet. Weve still got a Health Care Crisis and, of course, an economic crisis thats a consequence of that. Weve done some good bipartisan work over the past six months. In fact, i think not many people realize that weve actually passed five or six bills with strong bipartisan majorities. What people know about most is the biggest one, the cares act. I think it got 97 votes here on the floor of the senate. 970. Weve in the past been able to figure out a way to come together as republicans and democrats, as americans to be able to address this crisis. We need to do it again because we still do have a crisis. We still do have unacceptably high levels of people getting infected, hospitalized, being in the i. C. U. , fatalities, and of course our economy is not where any of us would like it see it, although it has improved significantly in part because of the legislation we have passed here. Im convinced we would be at over 10 unemployment still if not for the legislation we passed here. Instead were beginning to come down, 8. 4 last month. Thats faster than anybody thought it could. Still, of course, unacceptably high. So more help is needed, and we cant let the upcoming election and the Politics Around that keep us from getting together and continuing to do the work that we have to do. Now we havent been able in the last five or six weeks to do that. Instead weve been working kind of on opposite sides of the aisle on our own projects. Today we passed a bill im sorry. We didnt pass it. We voted on a bill that got a majority of the United States senators supporting it. Thats not how you pass something around here. You have to have a supermajority of 60 votes, but a majority of senators in this chamber just voted for legislation that has strong bipartisan appeal, i would think, because as well talk about in a second, almost every element is supported by the democrats, republicans, and most importantly by the American People. But what weve done is weve kind of fallen into camp. The democrats passed a bill in the house. Its called the heroes act. Its a 3. 5 trillion bill. Remember, weve already spent about 3. 5 trillion making this the largest deficit in the history of our country and making our debt now for the First Time Since world war ii the size of our entire economy. That concerns all of us, and it should. I hope it concerns all of us because our fiscal situation Going Forward for our kids and grandkids is something we should be concerned about too. Anyway, 3. 5 trillion bill. You know, its kind of a grab bag to be honest. Some of it is related to covid19 but some of it is not. As an example there is a provision in there that i hope will be a nonstarter that changes our tax laws and repeals the state and local Tax Deduction cap put in recently. This gives a huge break to wealthy americans. 40 of this benefit according to the joint committee on taxation goes to the top 1 of wage earners. What does that have to do with the coronavirus . It will help millionaires on both coasts a lot, but it does not affect the crisis that were in. They also want to use this 3. 5 trillion package as a way to make changes in our immigration policy. Thats pretty couldnt verse stuff as it stands and that will make that bill hard to pass because immigration policy, people have strong views on but it has no place in a covid19 bill. One that concerns those of us about the election coming up is that it puts federal mandates on the states with regard to the election system. We left that to the province of the states. Thats not, again, something that is going to help us in terms of the coronavirus. So my hope is that those House Democrats who passed that bill can now see what we passed over here that is a very targeted bill that focuses on the coronavirus. It is less than 500 billion, which used to be a lot of money but as compared to the 3. 5 trillion, but its a lot less money but more targeted, more focused. So much of it is policy that can be supported on both sides of the aisle. We will it will help to build the problems we addressed, it will help with the Health Care Crisis and the weak Economic Performance thats a result of people being isolated from the economy. I heard someone say this week weve got a k recover recovery. What does that mean . A lot of people say you vant a v recovery where you go down and come back up just as steeply. Thats where i think a lot of america is. In other words, a lot of families, a lot of businesses have seen rapid recovery here in the past few months but there are others who have not. The top part of the k is true for a lot of people and a lot of businesses. Think of the businesses that provide food, the grocery stores, the businesses that are involved in construction, businesses like home depot or lowes that provide building products, they are doing well, they are at the top of the v. There are others that are at the bottom, it would include hospitality and airlines and bus companies, they are having a tough time. Many of our Small Businesses, retail, certainly our bars and movie theaters and bowling alleys are having a tough time. They are at the bottom end of it. This is an uneven recovery. Therefore to my colleagues on my side of the aisle who say, weve done enough, everythings on, everythings good, unfortunately thats not true. I wish it were. I wish we had turned the corner on the economy and also had begun to turn the corner on the virus many we cant say that yet. Weve made progress, no question about it. I think were on the right track, but we have a kshaped recovery. Same with individuals. If you think about it. If you own a home, the value of your home has probably gone up. If youre looking to sell your home, its a good time to sell, i guess. If youre invested in the stock market, which a lot of people who own homes are, its darn good. I was object a program on a program where they said that the nasdaq is back up. If youre in the tech world, youre doing great. Lets say you dont own your own home and youre a renter, it has probably gone up and yet your job is at risk, maybe gone. So, again, kshaped, isnt it. Some people are doing quite well. Others are still having a rough time and need help to be able to deal with the issue of the coronavirus and the economic fallout from that. By the way, this kshaped recovery, i believe, has increased inequality in terms of our income. Income inequality was something that we were making progress on. In february we had the 19th straight month of wages increasing in this country, just in february, not long ago. Most of the increase was among lower and middleincome workers. That was positive and why so many of us pushed for tax it reform and we felt it would get us to help those workers in the lower income bracket but that has changed. We have to here in congress in my view, continue to help, continue to do things that will help on the Health Care Crisis and with regard to the underlying Economic Situation thats affected by it. One thing that i think was very positive about today is that we were able to pass legislation that has many, many bipartisan elements to it. I think the vote we just it, again, were a majority of senators in this chamber voted for a targeted covid19 approach, i think this gives us a chance to reset, a chance to get back to the bargaining table. A chance to say, okay, now the republicans have put forward a proposal that has a lot of very reasonable provisions in it. The presiding officer here today was part of that. He put in provisions into the bill that has to do with our schools, widely popular. Theres other provisions in there that that i think theres very little disagreement on. Let me highlight a few of them. One is on the health care response, particularly on our testing capacity. Republicans and democrats alike know that testing is critical. We need it. In ohio were looking for more funding for testing because we know thats how you stop the spread of the disease, testing, contract testing and getting to the hotspots and try to contain it. That way people will feel more comfortable returning to work, returning to shop, returning to school. So this is something that is in this legislation, 16 billion alone for testing. The lftion that was voted on this afternoon in this chamber was voted positively by a majority of the senators. This week in ohio, i visited the Health Collaborative which is a multiagency coalition approach to dealing with covid19. It includes hospitals, county commissioners, health commissioners, even nursing homes. They are ute utilizing the 19 million they received through the cares act to fund, design, and execute a testing strategy for people in the southwest ohio area. I am really pleased to see them take the funding and using it in this way because now more and more people are getting the opportunity to be tefd. They are doing it on a tested. They are doing it on a noneeds basis. There is no need to pay for it, everybody is welcomed to get a test. These kinds of issues are a big help. Im glad in this legislation that we voted on this afternoon, we added another 45 billion in total to h. H. S. To go towards testing, vaccine development, distribution of the vaccine, helping on the antiviral medications, this shark tank concept that is brilliant that tells the private sector, were going to provide you the basic funding to compete to come up with a safe way to develop a vaccine or antiviral terpy and that encouraged therapy and that has encouraged competition in an unprecedented speed. We need them and hopefully by the end of this year we will have them. I think that congress should double down on any covid19 policies in previous ltionz that have worked well. Legislations that have worked well and one is the paycheck protection program. If youre a Small Business and have not taken advantage of the p. P. P. Proposal that many of your peers have and you have seen them able to keep their doors open because of it, youre out of luck right now because the program is not accepting new applicants. We need to extend the program. I dont know a senator in this chamber that doesnt have an experience back home of a Small Business saying, i couldnt have stayed open without this. I visited three or four businesses in the past few weeks in ohio, all of them had the same story. Different timing, you know, different businesses. Some in construction, some in the restaurant business, some in manufacturing, but what they all tell me is they needed that influx badly. It provided them a lowinterest loan, 1 , that converted it into a grant because the loan was forgiven if they used it for their salaries or for utilities or mortgage or rent. They would have had to close their doors. For some of these businesses, like the manufacturer i visited, thank goodness, they would have had to let go 30 of their workforce and they were able to keep everybody on and now they are looking for people. They are having a tough time hiring people. They are looking for people. Thats a good sign that you have businesses trying to pull people in the workforce. Thats in this legislation. My hope is that were going to see republicans and democrats agree on this. I think they do agree, reinstating the p. P. P. For the foreseeable future so that more Small Businesses can take advantage of the smart loan program is a smart thing to do and it is more targeted and it requires that had you show a loss of revenue. We want this to be targeted and focused. We dont want to waste money. Third, the bill rebeing flects that homes on both sides of the aisle recognize that congress should give Additional Support to our schools. I mentioned this earlier, but 105 billion in this bill goes to education, 70 billion to k through 12, our secondary and high schools. Many of the schools are telling me, rob, ive got additional costs, i have these plexiglass shields i have to put up, i need more teachers. Theres funding thats needed for remote learning. So this is good for us to provide funding for these schools because that will enable them to reopen and reopen safely and stay open. Thats in this legislation. By the way, theres also money in here for colleges be and universities, i think about 30 billion for that. Again, the same thing im hearing from our colleges and universities some of which are having a tough time staying open, they need more testing, more p. P. E. This is important and, again, that is all in this legislation. I mentioned the heroes act, a 3. 5 trillion bill that the House Democrats passed not too long ago as kind of their alternative. That had funding for schools also. But, guess what, this bill that was passed well, not passed, but voted on by a majority of senators today in the United States senate, actually has slightly more money than the heroes act has for education. Whats the big issue here . Why cant we get together and figure this out . So theres so many opportunities here. Finally, i would just say that one thing that this bill does, and one reason its called a targeted bill is it repurposes funding that we have already appropriated here in the first four or five bills but that has not been used and it is not likely to be needed. So isnt that smart . I mean as taxpayers dont you want to be sure were not just throwing money at this problem thats not needed and the Treasury Department has been helpful in particular about saying they have a bunch of money for a loan program they havent had much takeup on because frankly the commercial lending is going pretty well, people are getting money from their banks so they dont need to go to treasury or the fed as much as we thought. Theres money leftover, hundreds of billions of dollars and that should be used to offset any new program. I cant imagine anybody in this chamber, if they think through this, would be against us repurposing the funds we appropriated toward new uses that we already targeted. Thats in this legislation too. I think those things all have bipartisan appeal and it seems to me, again, this is a reset. Because, lets face it, the democrats have been saying over the past several weeks, weve got our bill we passed, the heroes act, what have you put out, showing that the majority of the senate and pretty