350 billion to small businesses to keep workers from ever being unemployed in the first place, to keep them on the job. so small businesses will have an opportunity to receive a cash infusion and this could happen as early as this coming week. and they would be able to use this money to pay the salaries, and those people would never have to go on unemployment insurance because they would still be on the job. that's what's in this bill. that's what we need to get to a conclusion about and send on over to the house of representatives tomorrow morning. it of course involves checks from the government, massive checks, a massive amount of checks to middle-class americans to just give them a little something in their accounts so that they can pay the bills in response to this economic downturn that we've had. and then it involves loans to

keep americans working, and this is something that i in particular was working on with my republican colleagues and with democrats on this working group. the airline business in this country is about to shut down. passenger rates are single digits. they can't stay afloat with this. and so it pains me to hear our solution to this problem, to keep airline workers working, it pains me to hear this described by my democratic friends as a bailout. that's what would happen if we were just going to hand over cash to the airlines to keep them afloat, but that's not what we're doing. what we're doing is offering to pay loans, quick loans to the airline companies so that they can continue to pay their employees and keep them on the job and not put them on the

unemployment rolls. these loans would be made at market rates. there would be no loan forgiveness. and they must be paid back. not a grant, not a bailout. it's just offensive to me to hear some of my friends that perhaps have not read the bill and are not as thoroughly versed on its provisions as -- as we are that actually wrote the bill to describe this as a bailout for corporate america. nothing could be further from the truth. there were some people asking us to make grants to the big airline companies. we rejected that on a bipartisan basis, mr. president. we said no, these must be loans. once the airlines get back on their feet and once this coronavirus outbreak has

subsided, they will be in good shape again. and they will be able to pay it back, with market interest rates, just like any other business that has to take out a loan. but we've got to get this money to them in a hurry. and so i just object and have to come down here and say that perhaps they are confused, perhaps they haven't read the bill as i have, but it makes available loans to the airline industry, and to other related industries that are critical to national security. and if i might, mr. president, let me just read a sentence or two from the bill itself. this is bill language that i'm quoting. the secretary may enter into agreements to make loans or loan guarantees. to one or more eligible businesses. the applicant must be a business which is -- for which credit is

not reasonably available. then you go out and borrow money from banks. this doesn't apply to them. our airlines are going to need more money than that, and so this says that they must be paid back. the loan or loan guarantee must be sufficiently secured. again, i'm reading from bill language, the duration of the loan or loan guarantee is as short as practicable. now, my friend from illinois, i appreciate the tone that he and my friend from ohio used in their exchange just a few moments ago, and i do think there is a real possibility that minds of goodwill can come to an agreement tonight. the realities on the ground in our country demand that and cry out for it, but again, i must

take issue with -- with my friend from illinois saying that there were no restrictions on the loans that we're giving to the airline industries that we're going to allow the secretary of the treasury to give. and he mentioned specifically we need to prohibit stock buybacks. these airline companies are going to get these loans. we need to have a provision in the law that prohibits stock buybacks. as a matter of fact, mr. president, that is in the bill that we wanted to take up and we were unable to get a vote on -- unable to get the requisite number of votes just an hour or so og. we prohibit in the bill -- an hour or so ago. we prohibit in the bill loans being used by the company to buy back their stock. here is bill language. subparagraph e, except to the

extent required under contractual obligation in effect as of date of the enactment of this act, the agreement prohibits the eligible business from repurchasing any outstanding equity interest while the loan or loan guarantee is outstanding. so no corporate buybacks. we have answered one of the concerns that the democratic whip mentions in his remarks. none of this money can go to increased executive salaries. it must be repaid and it must be repaid with interest. our bill has explicit prohibitions against any loan forgiveness for any of the loans in this entire section. this is hardly a bailout, mr. president. we are offering a lifeline -- again, this is bipartisan language hammered out by republicans and democrats, offers a lifeline to critical companies who would probably not

survive, and we do it by providing carefully crafted and restricted loans to protect the taxpayers. without these loans being available in the very next few days, some of these companies will file bankruptcy. many thousands of these employees will lose their jobs. and we are trying to pass this bill to keep that from happening. 128,000 workers in one company. 92,000 workers in another company. 79,000 workers in -- in yet another. and so i -- i would just say to my friends let's negotiate these last few details and get this done, but don't misrepresent this as a big giveaway to corporate america. this is designed to help average americans who are suffering and threatening the loss of their

jobs. now, the majority whip mentioned the appropriations portion of this, and again, this is money that's needed. americans need to know what is in the discretionary appropriated part of this bill, and so let me just tell you. more than 75% of it, $186 billion in the total will go to state and local governments to help them get over this -- over the hump in this terrible crisis. i was -- i have been contacted by -- by officials from state and local government, and i had told them that this bill has $186 billion to help them get through this crisis. i thought i was going to be able to tell them that -- that they -- that this would be enacted in the next day or two.

unfortunately, i was a little overoptimistic on that. but $186 billion for state and local government, $75 billion for hospitals. clearly they need it. $20 billion for the veterans administration. $11 billion for vaccines, therapeutic, diagnostics and other preparedness needs. now, if there are larger needs, come and tell us that and we'll work with people, but this is a generous bill. $4.5 billion for the centers for disease control. $1.7 billion for the strategic national stockpile. $12 billion to assist the military in -- in addressing this coronavirus. $12 billion for k-12 education. $6 billion for higher education. $5 billion for fema disaster relief funds. there is $10 billion in it for airports. my colleagues have heard from

airports, and $20 billion for public transportation. this is an injection of appropriated money to keep this economy going until this virus subsides. it is an injection of long -- loan money to large businesses and also an opportunity for the federal reserve, within their discretion under a program that's been established for decades and decades, to loan money not only to big companies but medium sized companies and small companies under a federal reserve program commonly known as section 13, subparagraph 3. so i would just say to my colleagues, mr. president, before we come down here and make inaccurate statements, read the bill. understand what we're doing. understand that this is to get money to workers who need to

stay on the job. this is a bill to get unemployment benefits to workers who are already off the job. and an injection of cash into our economy and a propup on a loan basis with interest that could be repaid to keep the airlines and related businesses afloat. i hope we pass it. i know americans are hoping and praying for this tonight, and perhaps by the early right of -- light of morning, we'll have good news on this. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. menendez: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i come to the floor, i've been listening for the better part of well over an hour to my colleagues talk about the vote

that we had a little earlier and why it didn't pass and why, from their perspective, it should have. let me start off that there is a sense of urgency, but there's also a sense of getting it right and getting our priorities right the wealth of the nation will only improve when the health of the nation improves, and this package as presently designed falls far short of what is necessary to make the health of the nation whole. we need a surge at the end of the day to ensure that in fact we can have the front lines, the hospitals, the medical workers, the nurses, all of those be able to achieve the

most fundamental goal, which is to make the american people safe, safe from this virus. this in the first and foremost instance is a fight against covid-19. first and foremost. because if we do not get the health of the nation right, we will not get the wealth of the nation right, no matter how much money we spend. so there's a lot of talk here about markets. i heard for the last better half of the last-plus hour, about markets. and yes, the markets are important. i don't underestimate that. but what's really important is the health of the american people. because when they are healthy, we will prosper. but when they are not, we will not prosper. when we meet the challenge of the pandemic, we will prosper. when we don't meet the challenge of the pandemic, we will not prosper. very simple. very simple. so first and foremost, this is

about having a robust figure for the hospital and health frontline workers. this package as it presently is devised fails to do so. secondly, this is about making sure that not just big corporations get the moneys that they need, but that average working families and individuals get the robust assistance that they need to get through this period of time. and you know, when you have a $425 billion -- billion -- fund that has total discretion of the secretary of the treasury, no guardrails, no guarantees for workers, no guarantees that despite how much

money we spend and give to large corporate entities, that they will not guarantee the well-being of workers, then something's wrong. i was here. i've been through september 11, i've been through super storm sandy in new jersey, in the northeast, i've never seen anything like this. but i also remember after the great recession, the errors we made on the tarp and other related programs. in our desire to overwhelmingly respond, which we still have that desire today, there were great mistakes made. how many times are we going to get a shot at a $1 trillion-plus program? how many times? so we need to not only have a sense of urgency, we need to get it right in order to effect

the well-being of the american people in their health, in their economic well-being and in the future economic well-being of the nation. so this rush in a way that doesn't get it right is dangerous because i don't know how many trillion-plus packages we're going to have. and then when i look at the language in this present legislation, my god, it's shameful, shameful that in the midst of a pandemic, the ideological views are seeking to be incorporated in a way that has nothing to do with dealing with covid-19. nothing. the denial of certain health groups of being able to access at a critical time in our country, nothing to do with

covid-19. a $425 billion slush fund that basically the secretary of the treasury can say, i like you, you get this. i don't like you, you get nothing. there's no transparency, no way for the congress to know. six months after you give the loan is when we might finally find out. that's unacceptable. we have to know that when we're making these investments that they protect workers, that we're not going to have all this money in part be used for stock buybacks, that we're not going to see corporate executives have big increases in their salaries and benefits. that's not what the american people's taxpayer money is for. that's why there were votes against proceeding, because we have to get it right.

we have to get it right. how is it that there are no provisions in the present bill in foreclosures and evictions? people are going to face unprecedented consequences not because of their own making, not of moral hazard. they're fired. they're left without any money. are we going to evict them from their homes? does that serve the public health in the midst of a pandemic? no. there are no consequences for that. how is it that we have no parameters of how the treasury would structure loans? how is it that we have no worker protections to ensure that the very essence of why we want companies to be able to sustain themselves -- and we do, both small, medium, and big.

we want them to sustain themselves but we want them to sustain themselves for what? to be able to keep workers employed, to be able to keep the economy going. not to improve simply the bottom line. why is it that we can't have solid stock buyback language which could be waived under the present legislation by treasury? why when we do talk in this limited way in the bill that is existing that we're debating, that we voted not to proceed, worker protections to the extent to be or practicable, i should say. to the extent practicable. that means anything. that's not a protection. why do we have no loan transparency? we're talking about giving average americans a morsel when

we are spending billions of dollars with no transparency whatsoever, with no guardrails, with no conditions. that's simply wrong. without warrants to be able to ensure, warrants that can ensure that the government will recover. the government meaning the united states taxpayer will recover its money. these are simply just not ways that we can -- how come there is no student loan forgiveness? not a delay. not a delay. forgiveness. why is there no direct grant assistance to small businesses? you know, it's great to get a loan if you're making money. but if you're not making money, a loan doesn't do anything for you because you can't pay it back because there's no revenue coming. so the small businesses, which are really the backbone of the nation, the backbone of who

ultimately employs americans, oh, we're going to give you a loan. that's great but i have no income coming, i'm shut down. how is it that a loan is going to ultimately be able to have me survive so that i can have americans return back to a job? i need some direct grant assistance. who's on the front line? i learned on september 11, when i was in the other body, in the house of representatives, it wasn't the federal government who responded on that fateful day. it was the states, it was the local municipalities. we lost 700 citizens in new jersey on september 11. we triaged people from downtown manhattan into new jersey hospitals. it wasn't the federal government that responded. it was the states and local municipalities. how is it that you cannot be forceful in giving a significant amount of money to states and

local municipalities who are at the front line of covid-19? is the federal government there? no. it's the states burning up enormous amounts of money of their state treasury to do what is right by their citizens. but we're not giving them any money. there's nothing virtually in this bill for that. the national governors association, republican and democratic governors, said we need at least about $150 billion to $200 billion. we got a pittance in this bill. how are they, the frontline defense, going to continue to meet this challenge? they'll go bankrupt. they'll go bankrupt. how is it that there's no snap increase, the most vulnerable in our society? we have never seen a downturn in our economy in which we have not considered snap as a critical element of being able to feed

people, to feed people. so, mr. president, that's why i voted no. that's why i voted no. i'm all for helping businesses be ultimately capable of surviving but i want them to survive because i want their workers to be able to survive as well. above all, i want the american people to get healthy, and i can't get them healthy unless we have a marshal plan for our hospital and first providers at front line. i can't solve a problem if i don't have the states and municipalities to be able to achieve what they critically need as the federal government waits. can't have the health of the nation unless we have a surge on testing protective equipment for

our first line of defense and then ultimately for those who face the greatest risk under this virus be able to have a shot at surviving life or death with ventilators. this bill falls short in all those regards. none of us want to vote no to proceed but we can't proceed to something that is a false -- a false hope to the american people. we have to do what is right. what is right is to protect the health care of the american people, be able to beat covid-19, be able to stand up individuals, families, workers, and companies that will honor their obligation to workers as part of the federal response to them and that will help the states and municipalities in their front line challenges.

that is why we could not vote to proceed. that's why exists a precious moment. you know, we had an opportunity -- every other bill started off with both houses and the leadership of those houses negotiating a bill. the first two iterations had bipartisan support because they were done that way. this one was done where the republican majority in the senate decided, well, we're going to decide what we're going to see and we'll offer it to you and maybe we'll change some things or not. that's the way in the midst of a pandemic to ultimately work the we lost nearly a week instead of doing the bipartisan efforts that we could have had nearly a week ago. and then we are pressed and create this drama that, in fact, it is not done right now, it's a consequence. that is unacceptable. we have to get this right. we're not going to get multiple

shots at million dollar programs. we have to get this right. we have to help the american people survive the critical challenges before them much that's what's before the senate now. i hope that the minds prevail here to work towards a bipartisan agreement that brings all of these elements together. yes, no side has a better view of how we achieve this, but both sides have critical views necessary. and from our perspective, this is about beating covid-19 first. it is a surge for our hospitals and front line health care workers, it is a surge for workers and to protect individuals and families, it is a surge for small businesses and the opportunity to make sure they survive so that at the end of the day people can go back to work. that's what this is all about. and that's why i feel compelled to come to the floor. with that, mr. president, i

observe the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. toomey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that we dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. toomey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm here because i am absolutely shocked at what happened on this floor a little while ago and i'm going to try to convey to my colleagues a sense of the urgency that i think this moment demands, and they apparently don't understand because our democratic colleagues all voted to prevent us from considering this legislation. so let me start with the context that we're operating in, mr. president, because it's unbelievable. i -- i wouldn't think i would need to go through this but just to be clear, we've been invaded by a potentially lethal species, a virus that is infecting americans, now by the tens of thousands, growing numbers every day. it's killing americans, including in my state.

we have infected people in every single one of our states and the numbers are growing rapidly. in response to this threat, we've been taking progressively more serious measures because of the degree of the danger, the disaster, the illness, the death that we fear if we don't try to stop this virus. so we have gone to an extreme that i will just candidly acknowledged i never could have maidged. what i'm talking about is -- imagined. what i'm talking about is my state, the state of pennsylvania, and many states across america, they are closed. i could have never have imagined that i could have put that sentence together. my state is closed. what does that mean? i'll it will you what that means. it means it's not legal to

operate a business in pennsylvania -- it's not legal to go to work tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. there's only a very small percentage of pennsylvanians who are even allowed to go to work. we have shut down the state. i'm not talking about restaurants and bars and nightclubs, i'm talking about all businesses except those deemed essential and a very small handful of others. i'm talking about factories, distribution centers, warehouses, all kinds of producers, manufacturers, services, across the board, it's closed. so what does that mean, mr. president? well, it means an all lot of things, but the most important thing that is means is the guy who wakes up tomorrow morning and can't go to work, what's he supposed do? how is he going to support his

family? he can't -- it -- it's not that he doesn't want to get a paycheck, it's not that he doesn't want to go to work, it's that he's not allowed. he's not allowed. so he's going to have no income pretty soon because, guess what, the company that he works for is not allowed to have any sales. they are closed. by order of the government. and it's not just pennsylvania. this is, i think more than half of all of our states at this point. more than half of the country and the number's growing every day. so this guy, like -- like almost everybody across my state, men and women, are beside themselves. they are terrified because they know they still have to put food on the table, they still have to pay the rent or a mortgage, they still have to clothe their kids. they still have all the ordinary expenses of living and they are

not allowed to earn a living because of the extreme measures we are taking to try to avoid an absolute catastrophe with this disease. so, mr. president, that's why so many of us in this body have worked so hard for several weeks now, but very, very intensively in these last few days, to try to deal with this fact that we have a potentially lethal threat and an economy that is disappearing. i mean, literally the bottom has fallen out, it is going away, and that is enormously devastating to the people we represent. so we have quite sensibly said, we need to focus on these individuals first, the men and women, the families that are, as i said, terrified and understandably. so what did we do? last week we passed a bill that went right at first and foremost

the people most directly affected by this, paid medical leave at full salary for a couple of weeks. paid leave thereafter. paid family leave if you're looking after someone who is affected by this, including if it's your kids because they can't go to school because the schools are all closed. but that wasn't all we did. we also bumped up the federal share of our medicaid program, the program that pays for health care for low income and poor people. we increased the share that the federal government would pay for that. we increased food stamps. i mean, we were trying to find ways -- and we did. and we passed it. it was an overwhelming bipartisan vote. that's done. that was last week. but we recognize that that's not enough under these circumstances because not only -- things just keep getting worse. so we took up the bill that we put on the senate floor today. and this had a huge section --

sections designed also to help these individuals, these families, these men and women who just can't even go to work. one of the things we did was we made the unemployment insurance program much more generous. we dramatically increased the payments that you're able to get if you're unemployed because we realize there's going to be huge numbers of people who have -- they are not legally allowed to be employed, in a way. so several hundred dollars a week or more above and beyond what's already there, that's in this bill that our democratic colleagues voted against. several hundred dollars of additional every week payments to someone who's unemployed. but that's not all we did for individuals. we recognized it's going to take a little while for those changes to work their way through the

system, and so we said what's the fastest thing we can do to get money in the hands of these folks, these poor folks who are wondering how are they going to make the next car payment? and what we did is we said we're going to send a check in the mail, that's what we're going to do, to low and middle-income wage earners, a significant check. $1,200 per person, per adult. so a married couple would get $240,000 plus -- $2,400 plus for any married couple they have. so wage earners who had middle or low income, they get $3,900. that's the check that would be arriving in a couple of weeks. if the check doesn't get there, let me just make it clear why. it's because our democratic colleagues voted no. they voted against sending that check. we thought that was important, to get that in the hands of the people who needed it. but that's not all we did.

we also felt like, you know, we don't really solve this problem until we defeat the virus. we've got a health care issue at the heart of this. we recognize that. and so we have all kinds of provisions in this bill, and many of the provisions were priorities of our democratic colleagues because this was a bipartisan process from the beginning. they know that. like the plan to boost unemployment insurance. by the way, not just the payments were increased but we expanded eligibility. we may allow people to qualify for unemployment insurance who in the past have not qualified. people like self-employed folks who historically have never qualified for unemployment. under this bill, the one that our democratic colleagues voted against, they would have qualified. but as i say, mr. president, we

also focused on health care, and some of the things -- i mean, 20% increase virtually across the board for our medicare payments to hospitals. you know what? hospitals are in trouble. one of the reasons hospitals are in trouble is they have to decide to discontinue elective procedures, so those surgeries that you'd like to have but they're not absolutely essential, they're not happening. well, that's how the hospitals pay the bills, those kinds of procedures. and they're not happening because they need to keep the beds available for a surge, a potential surge if it should happen in coronavirus victims. so we recognize that 20% increase virtually across the board for medicare. big expansion in telehealth. why is that important? so we can get the professional advice we need without having to show up in an office and potentially infect a whole lot of other people. it's a no-brainer, right?

a lot of money for some of the materials that we need to do the testing. tests themselves. money to create the swabs that are necessary to get the sample to run the test. free tests. it's all in the bill, the bill that our democratic colleagues voted against. and that's not all. we have $75 billion for hospitals in other forms. other than above and beyond the 20% increase in medicare. $75 billion. i can tell you for sure every hospital in pennsylvania wants that, needs that. actually, i know that's the case for hospitals all across america, but our democratic colleagues voted against sending $75 billion to our hospitals at a moment when they desperately need it. $11 billion for vaccines and treatment. look, this is the ultimate solution, right, when we have an ability to treat this virus so that if you're infected, you're not really harmed because there

is a medicine that will take care of it. that's -- that's ultimately a really important goal. but we don't have that yet. we don't know what that is yet. we need to fund the research and development of that medicine that will turn this into a minor nuisance rather than a threat against our lives. and how about vaccines? one day we'll have a vaccine. i want that day really, really soon. and so we have got $11 billion in this bill to accelerate the development of therapies and vaccines. that would be the bill that our democratic colleagues voted no on earlier today. $5 billion for fema disaster relief fund because they have got all kinds of expenses that they are incurring as they try to address this. $10 billion to keep our airports open because they're not getting the revenue that they normally get in the form of a tax that's on a ticket, because nobody's flying. there are no flights. there are no passengers, so

there is no revenue. but we need to keep those airports viable for the moment we can begin our restoration, our recovery. so we have got $10 billion. we have $20 billion for public transit. i have been hearing from the folks who operate the public transit across pennsylvania. they have got the same problem everyone else has in one form or another. they are hemorrhaging cash because they are trying to pay their workers, but they don't have the revenue coming in. so we have $20 billion to help out with the public transit, which is absolutely essential in our big cities but it's vital all across our country. $20 billion. they voted against that. so we focused on individuals and families first and foremost. we focused on what can be doing, everything we can, from many of

our colleagues on the other side about how we can improve our ability to defeat this virus, and yet there is another thing in this bill. the other thing in the bill is to make sure there is a job to go back to, for the men and women who wake up tomorrow morning and don't have a job to go to when this finally passes, i think it would be a good idea if the company that has been employing these folks still exists. now, how is that going to happen when they are not allowed to have any revenue? they are closed. well, we have developed a plan in this bill to address this, so it's really kind of two components for small businesses. there is a program that has the effect at the end of the day. what it means is that the federal government is going to pay for payroll for small business. that's amazing when you think about that. nobody has ever imagined this before. the federal government is going

to pay for the payroll for small businesses as long as they keep their employees on the payroll. the mechanism is alone, which they will use to make the payments -- is a loan which they will use to make the payments, and then they don't have to pay back the loan so long as they keep their workers on the payroll. so we have offered in this bill to pay to keep people on the payroll of small business, and our democratic friends voted no. no, they didn't want that. now, for large businesses, we took a different approach. we said all right, we can't actually pay for the entire payroll of the entire american work force that's like 150 million people, but here's what we can do. a big company, if it's solvent, if it's viable business but it's in a cash crunch because, have i mentioned, they are not allowed to have sales, they are not allowed to have revenue, they have no customers in many cases

if they could, the airlines, there is nobody flying. think of hotels. there is nobody staying in hotels. but it's all across the entire economy. so what we did is we said look, if you have a viable business, we're going to have a program where we're going to lend you some short-term money, because this should not last long. you're going to have to pay it all back, but we want to keep you alive, this employer, so that when this is behind us and when we no longer have statewide shutdowns and when we're able to go back to work and go back to producing and living normally, it would be really nice if these employers still exist. so that's what we created. the minority leader derisively called that a bailout as he -- to explain his vote against this. this is not a bailout. it's ridiculous to characterize this. first they have to pay back

every time that they borrow, every dime. it's explicit in the bill, in the law, that there can be no forgiveness, none of this can be written off. the companies that borrow this money have to pay back every dime. and let me stress this is not their fault, okay? you're operating a business somewhere in pennsylvania, and the governor says by the way, close your doors at 8:00 monday morning, and you don't reopen them until i say. look, i'm not trying to attack my governor. i understand why he is doing this. but the point is it's not possible for a business to survive. and we're seeing this manifested, sort of easy visual view on this that some of my colleagues have mentioned are financial markets because they reflect what the world thinks about the future of our economy, and it's really, really grim. some have suggested maybe we shouldn't focus on that.

that's not the focus. that just gives us a reading of just how bad things have gotten, and it's really bad. and when my democratic colleagues came down here and voted against all of these programs and all of these efforts to rescue american workers and families, advance our fight against this disease and keep employers viable, i've just -- i'm just -- i was just shocked. i just can't believe that they would do that, that they would come down here. and i can only conclude that they don't understand the urgency of this moment. the -- i think they have got to understand the nature of the disease, the severity of the disease, what that is doing. maybe there is a lack of appreciation for the fact that at the same time our economy is

being destroyed. many of the -- if they continue this obstruction and they refuse to let us pass this because they dismissively refer to keeping alive employers as a bailout, then a lot of these companies will fail and they won't come back. you don't just flip a switch and have a company that failed, that went bankrupt and think you're going to turn it back on. it doesn't work that way. it could take years or decades to rebuild an economy, and that means how many millions of americans lose out on so much opportunity, on so much of life? that's what we can't let happen. we have got to stop this as quickly as we can, and that means i am convinced these three elements -- focusing on individuals who are adversely affected, and now that's virtually everybody. we've done that, done that massively. unprecedented scale in this bill. focus on killing this virus,

defeating this. developing the therapies, the cures, the ability to treat, the hospital capacity. it's in this bill. look, there will be more to be done, but for now, this is huge and we got these ideas from democrats and republicans, we put them in the bill. and then finally if it's a fundamentally solvent business, just an extension of credit for a few months, a loan that they have to pay back so that there is a reasonable chance that they will still be there. mr. president, this is exactly what this moment calls for. this is what we need to do for our country, so i am hoping that our democratic colleagues will frankly come to their senses and conclude and understand that there is -- there is no time for games here. this is getting worse by the day. we've got to act now. so i hope before the clock strikes midnight tonight, we will vote in favor of cloture on the motion to proceed, the procedural vote that allows us to pass this bill as soon as

possible. mr. toomey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate stand in recess until 10:00 tonight. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate stands in recess until 10:00 p.m.

senator cory gardner has been 14 days after meeting with a constituent who tested positive and florida senator rick scott put himself in isolation last week after meeting with him and a room with multiple people that later tested positive. the senators are not able to vote and make it difficult for leader mcconnell to round up the votes to get the virus response plan through. live coverage when the senate returns on c-span2. senators have now spent days. i hosted a produ