coercing hollywood studios. the chinese communist party spends billions and billions of dollars to lead americans -- mislead americans about china. all of these activities are part of china's whole of state approach to a mass influence around the world through information warfare and we need to stand together to stop it. that's why i will be momentarily ask for unanimous consent on the script act which would cut off hollywood studios from the assistance they currently receive from the u.s. federal government if those studios allow the chinese communist government to censor what they are producing. we've seen this pattern over and over and over again, hollywood be complicit in chinese censorship. bohemian rhapsody, story of the

band convene, the chinese -- qeern, the chinese government was upset that he was -- freddie mercury was homosexual. and hollywood those great social warriors that they are compliantly said we're more interested in the money than in artistic integrity, then in telling freddie mercury's story to they will edit out the scenes. "dr. strange," another movie -- comicbook stripping. they changed the ancient one's character from being from tibet, which is how it is portrayed in the comicbook to celtic. they don't want to recognize tibet, another area subject to persecution and oppression from china and hollywood meekly complied.

in the sequel to "top gun," the back of maverick's jacket, if you remember the first "top gun," maybe the greatest navy recruiting film ever made -- the back of maverick's jacket, you find the taiwanese flag and the japanese flag. the taiwan censors didn't like that, so hollywood meekly removed the flags. what does it say to the world when maverick is scared of the chinese communists? and i would point out, unfortunately, the chinese censorship is being carried out by hollywood billionaires who are getting richer in the process. in recent days, it's been reported that one of joe biden's top potential choices to be

ambassador to china is the former c.e.o. of disney, who happens to be a major democratic donor. disney just came out with the movie "mulan," in which the director described it as a love letter to china. at the credits, they thank the oppressive forces who are running concentration camps right now with over 1 million uighurs in prison. disney thanked the jackbooted thugs who are carrying out murder and apparently the leader of that effort is one of the top candidates to be america's ambassador to china. the senator from illinois, the senator from connecticut said, we need to stand with people who are oppressed. i agree. look, hollywood can say whatever they want, but there's no reason the federal government should

facilitate their censorship on behalf of the chinese communists. and the script act simply says, if you are going to let the chinese communists censor your movies, you're not going to get access to the jet planes and to the ships and to all the different materiel of the federal government that is used in movies. moments ago the senator from connecticut said they want to be tough on china. well, we're about to see how tough they are on china. i will happily yield for a question. mr. durbin: can you tell me if you were successful and if you hit hollywood hard, how that provides any solace to the 6,700 chinese and hong kong students in america who are facing the deportation back to prison in china? mr. cruz: the senator from illinois asked a question. let me tell you how it provides solace. because people who are in hell holes, they listen to what we're saying. they hear the voice -- some time ago i had the chance to sit down

with the famed soviet dissident. he and i sat down and visited in jerusalem. natan told me how when he was in a soviet gulag, that in the cell, from cell to cell they would pass notes, did you hear what ronald reagan said? the soviet union is an evil empire. marxism will end up on the ash heap of history. mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. and i'll tell you how people hear -- because the senator from illinois will remember, i introduced legislation to rename the street in front of the chinese embassy in the united states after the nobel peace laureate -- let me finish answering your question. if you want to answer a second one, i'm happy to answer that, too. the nobel peace laureate wrongfully imprisoned in china. the strategy of renaming the

street is one used by reagan renaming the soviet embassy -- the street in front of the soviet embassy. the senior senator from california stood up and objected. if we do this, it will embarrass the chinese government. to which i responded, you are understanding correctly. that's not a bog. it's a feature. that's the purpose. and let me tell you what happened to that. twice democrats objected to the legislation. i then placed a hold on president obama's nominees to the state department. and the obama administration came to me and said, how can we move these nominees forward? how can we move them forward? very simple. pass my legislation and i'll lift the hold. the democratic caucus didn't like that, but they ultimately agreed. and so the legislation i introduced to rename the street in front of the chinese embassy

passed this body unanimously. now, ultimately the house didn't take it up and pass it up. but i'll tell you how that story ends. that ends in 2017 when i was sitting down in rex tillerson for breakfast at foggy bottom. the new u.s. secretary of state. when he spoke to his chinese counterparts, he said, they have come back and said, among their top three diplomatic objectives with us is stop your bill to rename the street in front of the embassy. they are terrified by the sunlight on the dissidents. at the time liu xia. bo had passed. but i told tillerson, you tell the chinese. if they relewis his wife, if they let her get out, i'll stop pressing this particular bill and if they don't, i'll keep pressing it and we'll pass it again because we've already done

it. within weeks, china released liu xiabo. by not having media moguls spreading chinese propaganda. very directly, you want to know how people are helped, a second bill called the shame act which if our democratic colleagues want to be tough in china, we could pass right now. what the -- what does it do? it focuses on human rights atrocities. it focuses on over a million uighurs in concentration camps and other religious minorities and the falun gong practitioners who are cappitude and murdered and organs -- and captured and murdered and organs harvested. the chinese communist party engages in another horror. my democratic colleagues like to say on the the question of abortion they are pro-choice. well, the chinese communist government right now is engaging in forced sterilizations and

forced abortions. taking uighur mothers and forcing them to abort their children against their will, whatever the democrats' views on abortion in the united states is a matter of a woman's choice, surely they must be united in saying a government forcing a woman to abort her child to take the life of her unborn child is an unspeakable atrocity. so the shame act does something very simple. it imposes sanctions on the communist government leaders responsibilities for implementing this the horrific policy of forced sterilizations and forced abortions. now, i had intended to seek unanimous consent for the shame act as well, but my democratic colleagues have said they're not yet able to find a democrat to object, although my understanding is they intend to. i hope they reconsider that.

a terrific ending for today's debate would be passing the shame hackett and saying we're all -- passing the shame act and saying we're all against forcing abortions. but let's find out where we are on the question on on on -- on the question of the script act. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: reserving the right to object, i think we've gone a little bit far afield from the six pro-democracy activists living abroad, but i do not object. mr. cruz: i am about no ask unanimous consent. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: mr. president, as if

legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on homeland security and governmental affairs be discharged from further consideration of s. 3835 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. further, that this bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. blumenthal: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. reserving the right to object on the scripts act, which i understand is the only measure so far on which the senator from texas is seeking unanimous consent, very simply, he knows -- i know, we all know -- that measure will never reach the president's desk. there's simply no way it can pass both houses of congress in the next few days before the end

of this congress. the only way we can do something for the freedom fighters and democracy advocates in communist china is to pass this measure that the he has objected to the -- that he has objected to which has unanimously passed the house of representatives. only h.r. 8428 offers that opportunity. and, frankly, only this measure that he's objected to does anything for the dissidents or the democracy advocates or the freedom fighters directly. he's talking about movies. we're talking about human lives. he can draw all the kind of hypothetical connects between the so-called movie moguls in

hollywood and china, but i think his scripts act actually works against the goal that he is advocating. censorship in china is a legitimate concern. no question about it. and i would welcome the opportunity to work with him on a bill that does something about it. but actually his bill not only takes away the support for the movies that may be made, it takes away support from documentaries about the repressive regime in china, it takes away classification and other security screening that is necessary for those kinds of movies to be shown in this country. i think that kind of obstacle may be inadvertent on his part, but i welcome the chance to work with him. on a bipartisan bill.

a truly bipartisan bill that in fact in the next congress could reach the president's desk. this one that he's offering -- the scripts act -- goes nowhere. but i just want to bring us back to the reality that really is at issue here. just last wednesday afternoon this week two of the activists among the six pro-democracy fighters living abroad charged under china's new national security law were before our committee. i'm wondering what they are thinking when they hear my colleague from texas pounding the table about being tough on china but objecting to a bill that guarantees them protection?

as i say, i'm talking about their lives and tens of thousands of others. i'm not talking about movies. i'm not talking about hollywood moguls. let's stand up for the lives of those chinese, hong kong freedom fighters now in this country seeking protection through a bill passed unanimously by the house of representatives, the only bill that will go to the president's desk if we approve it. thank you. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: is there objection? the objection is heard. mr. cruz: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: three brief observations. number one, the senator from connecticut said multiple times that the house bill in question passed the house unanimously. i am sure this is inadvertent. but what the senator from connecticut said is simply

wrong. it passed the house by voice vote, which is a very different thing from passing unanimously. it simply means the vote tally was not recorded. secondly, the senator from connecticut said the script act is not going to pass this congress. well, that appears to be correct, but that is for one reason and one reason only, which is the final two words uttered by the senator from connecticut -- i object. quite literally by doing nothing , quite literally by giving the identical speech he had just given and then closing his mouth before those final two words, had that occurred, the script act would have passed this body manual. so the only reason the script act isn't passing is because the senate democrats are objecting, and it should not be lost on

anybody that the hollywood billionaires who are enriching themselves with this chinese propaganda are among the biggest political donors to today's democratic party in the entire country. the senator from connecticut said, well, the script act might make it possible to have documentaries on the human rights abuses in china. oh really? that argument staggers the mind. it so defies reality because you know what? hollywood doesn't make movies about the human rights abuses in china. earlier this year i had the opportunity to meet richard gere. richard gere is not someone you

would ordinarily imagining palling around with a conservative senator from texas but richard gere was up here. he was up here actually standing up against chinese abuses and urging anyone who would listen to stand up with him. you know richard gere has not made a single hollywood movie in decades. why? because he dared stand with tibet, and the hollywood billionaires blackballed richard gere. if you speak out for tibet, if you do what the senator from connecticut just suggested and discuss the human rights abuses, it doesn't matter that richard gere used to be an a-list hollywood blockbuster actor. boom, his career is dead because no studio would produce a movie with him because he spoke the truth. and, by the way, my bill presents zero barriers to someone actually making a documentary on the human rights abuses in china because

presumably if you're making that documentary, you wouldn't allow the chinese communist government to censor it. i don't know what kind of documentaries the senator from connecticut is familiar with, but i'm not family with documentaries done on tyrants and concentration camps where you let the concentration camp guards edit out the stuff they don't like. that ain't a documentary. the senator from connecticut said perhaps we can work together in a bipartisan manner to address this. i hope so. standing together against the oppression of the chinese communists would be a very good thing for the united states senate. it would be a very good thing for our country. unfortunately, at least today that hasn't yet happened. i yield the floor. mr. blumenthal: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: mr. president, the only ones happy with the outcome of today's debate are the chinese government.

and i regret this outcome because there probably was a time when we would have cooperated in a bipartisan way on both of these measures. and it may not have been unanimous. there may have been a few contrary votes in the house. but clearly it came here with bipartisan support. and i regret that the outcome today is not bipartisan agreement to protect those freedom fighters who came before the judiciary committee and who have risked their lives. this is -- this issue is not going away. it will be back because fortunately the activists from hong kong will persist in their

fight. and we ought to do everything we can to make sure they have a safe haven in this country and that they are protected here. so my closing plea to my colleague from texas is that maybe there remains time even in this session. but if not, we need to take a stand as a nation against chinese censorship, against repression by the chinese, and come together and work together. thank you, mr. chairman. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: the first thing i'll do is comment on the discussions we just had. i've been up here a little less than two years, and the thing that surprises me is invariably the democrats won't stand up against the communist party of

china. the case that we're dealing with now is they don't want, they're going to stand up for hollywood rather than rights, rights that we have here that i'm going to talk about in a second, whether we ought to be standing up against people, communist chinese party stealing our jobs, our technology, attacking the communist party for what they have done to the uighurs, organ harvesting, taking away the basic rights of chinese citizens. i watch my democratic colleagues, they won't stand up against communist china. i don't understand it. this is a party that clearly wants to dominate our society, our way of life. they are -- disagree with our way of life. i want to thank senator ted cruz for his continued fight for rights, for all the rights that we have in this country, but fighting for those rights so people whether in hong kong or in communist china or in taiwan

have the same freedoms we have. i want to thank senator ted cruz today for showing up today and doing this. today what i want to talk about is religious freedom. religious liberty is our first freedom under the constitution of the united states. americans have the right to freely exercise religion, a sacred right that i will always fight for. there is no pandemic exception to the first amendment. unfortunately we've seen liberal governors and mayors across the country use the coronavirus pandemic to go after churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship. for months they've argued that houses of worship should not meet and congress -- congregants could not sing, all while they applaud massive political protests. we saw it happen right here in the nation's capital. mayor bowser refused to grant a waiver to the capitol hill baptist church for religious gatherings but supported mass

protests that violated her own orders. the church had to sue the city in federal court for the right to gather, and the court ruled in favor of the church. it's simply hypocritical and unconstitutional to target religious institutions while letting other businesses operate. we know those on the left will take every opportunity to infringe on americans' first amendment rights, but we won't let it happen. this year has been challenging, and for many of us our faith and our community have helped us through it. government doesn't have a right to take away, take this away from american citizens. i'm proud to lead a resolution today with 15 of my colleagues to call out those who have wrongly tried to prevent americans from practicing their faith. this is about rights granted to americans under our constitution, what's the one thing every american believes in and has agreed to uphold is our constitution, which we have each sworn to uphold as elected

officials also. we each took the same oath of office. i do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. that i will take this obligation freely without mental reservation or purpose of evasion and hold the duties of the office of which i'm about to enter so help me god. there is no reason to object to upholding our constitution. i'll always fight for the religious liberty of all americans and look forward to the passage of this resolution today. however i'm going to waive because i understand one of my democratic colleagues is going to object to upholding the constitution and the first amendment, the bill of rights. it's just shocking to me.

the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 806 submitted earlier today. further, i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, reserving the right to object. my colleague, senator scott, has chosen an interesting point in this pandemic to object to public safety measures intended to protect human life and ensure scarce resources are not squandered.

over 17 million americans -- 17 million -- have contracted covid, that we know of. and over 300,000 of our friends and our neighbors and loved ones are no longer with us. think about that. september 11 was a great national tragedy. i know because i lost 700 of those 3,000 citizens on that fateful day in new jersey. this is 100 times more than what happened on september 11. the people woof lost are not just some nameless numbers, but mothers and fathers and grandparents, essential parts of our hearts are gone forever due to the pandemic that has been mishandled and mismanaged from the start. and now when this virus is

running unchecked through our communities, we have before us this resolution that is riddled with misstatements of fact that i find deeply concerning. no governor wants to see their constituents cut off from their daily lives. and i think we can all agree that the administration here in washington, their inability to guide us through that crisis has left our governors holding the bag when it comes to securing resources, providing guidance, and making the difficult calls about the right public policy to prevent covid-19 from rampaging like an unchecked bull in a china shop through our states. because they know that the governors of our states, that the lives of their residents, our neighbors, brothers, sisters, children, and parents rest in their hands. and these difficult decisions

they must make. we are still losing americans from covid-19 at an unprecedented rate. hospitals throughout the country are providing an amazing level of care with exhaustive providers and continued resource issues and our economy is cratering because we cannot fully reopen it until is it safe. now, i'm deeply troubled to see a false claim about my state and the governor banning indoor religious services. let me be clear. houses of worship were never ordered closed. never. in fact, today religious gatherings are allowed to have substantially higher capacity limits than most other gatherings. while new jersey restricted the capacity of indoor religious services as they did with all indoor gatherings, religious

gatherings were never -- never designated as nonessential or essential as this resolution suggests. that distinction was only applied to retail businesses. perhaps religion is different in florida, but our houses of worship are not retail businesses. houses of worship and religious organizations have been subject to neutral restrictions that equally burden religious and nonreligious entits. they -- entities. they were put in place to do what? to save lives. not under the guise of doing so and certainly not for the purpose of targeting religious group. now, i am a man of strong faith and conviction. i have always found deep solace in the rituals and shared worship of my church. i know many of us have.

perhaps the most important part of my religion is to care for people up and down the state of new jersey. we must be concerned about the health and safety of americans. i'm reminded of james 2:14. it is, what good is it my brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but do not have works. can faith save you? if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says, go in peace, keep warm, and get your fill, and you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? so faith by itself, it has no works is dead but someone says you have faith and i have works. show me your faith apart from my works and i by my works will show you my faith. as for me, i'll continue to work

for the people of new jersey, our health care workers struggling to care for the thousands filling i.c.u. hospital beds, for the families who don't know how they will pay next month's rent and keep food on the table, for the small business owner trying to keep his doors open and, yes, for churches who want to see their parishioners safe. i, however, do not intend to play these partisan games and for those reasons i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. scott: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: freedom of religion shouldn't be controversial. in is a fundamental right. congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. with this resolution -- what this resolution does it says it a -- the senate afimples its support for the rights, liberties, protections enshrined in the united states constitution. there is no -- there is no

pandemic exception to the first amendment. for months across this country liberal politicians have targeted churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship. to let this happen undermines the principle of our nation and the constitution. i don't know why my colleague would object to a resolution that reaffirms our commitment to upholding the constitution. we are blessed to live in a great nation that respects religious liberty and the right to worship especially as we see countries around the world like communist china and iran deny their citizens these same rights. americans have the right to worship and government doesn't get to decide for them. i'm clearly disappointed that my colleague doesn't want to protect the first amendment which i will to stand against targeting religious institutions. i'm never going to stop fighting for the religious liberty of all

americans, even during a pandemic. thank you, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i know that my colleague, i understand, is going to be the next chair on the senate republican campaign committee, and he has every right to do, but what he has no right to do is misrepresent in this resolution what at least in my state is going on. you cannot say that churches were designated by the state of new jersey as nonessential or essential. that's simply not true. it's simply not true. you cannot suggest that somehow these purposes are to target religions. they are out to save lives. now, maybe if my colleague and others here had spoken up when the administration was asleep at the switch as this pandemic was

raging, maybe if my colleagues had spoken up when we found out that the president knew back in january or early february of this year of how vicious this pandemic could be, how contagious it could be, how it was transmitted but said nothing to the american people and that silence was echoed in this chamber. well, maybe then we wouldn't be in the position that we are in. maybe we wouldn't have lost 300,000 of our fellow americans. so i -- i find it really, really upsetting that in the midst of a raging pandemic one would seek to obtain a political value out

of something that is simply not the case. simply not the case. i think there's a lot more to be done in this chamber to stop this pandemic, to stop more lives from being lost, to save our brothers and sisters, to help those who have been ravaged by the pandemic, but not to pick a few states that happen to be democratic. please. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. scott -- mr. scott: so if my colleague from new jersey's concern is paragraph four on page three, i would ask if he would object if we take that paragraph out and he would be willing to affirm that the senate believes in religious freedom.

mr. menendez: the resolution -- the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: the resolution is replete with inaccuracies and therefore i object. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: so let's remember the concern was that he didn't like the section about new jersey and said that was inaccurate, but the idea that we're going to support -- the senate will support religious freedom, he is not willing to stand behind. thank you. i yield the floor.

ms. stabenow: i ask suspension of the quorum call. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. the senator from michigan.

ms. stabenow: thank you. mr. president, we truly don't have any time to waste. the american people are in desperate need to help. i want to start by thanking all of my colleagues who have been working so hard together across the aisle to bring us to a point where we can actually provide some help, albeit temporary, to the american people. so thank you. i'm pleased to have been involved in elements of that negotiation and appreciate it. but we're stuck right now. i just want to remind people of a few numbers. more than one in three american adults in a recent survey said they are struggling to pay household expenses, including rent and mortgage. if we don't get something done in the next hours or days, we

are going to see thousands of people in michigan lose their homes in the middle of the winter. 7.8 million americans have fallen into poverty since june. 7.8 million people have fallen into poverty since june. the number of people applying for unemployment keeps rising. 885,000 people filed initial claims last week. and thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are self-employed who are contract workers, others will find themselves with zero support right after christmas. unless we take action. a recent survey found that one in four small businesses are in danger of closing if the

economic conditions don't improve. one out of four. i've talked to so many friends, so many people in michigan, vibrant small businesses. they put it all on the line for that business they always wanted to have. and now they're barely holding on. and they need help, and they needed help before now. they need help now. they are waiting and waiting and waiting and holding their breath. up to 50 million americans are struggling to feed their families right now. one out of four american households have experienced food insecurity in this last year, so one out of four focus holds. people who volunteer at the food bank. people who have always contributed to the food bank now find themselves waiting in their car for hours and hours for a box of food in the united states

of america. now we have a health pandemic. we have a hunger crisis going on, and people need help now. and on top of that, this past wednesday, 3,638 americans died in one day of coronavirus. and we're now looking at government services shutting down in less than 12 hours. the backdrop of everything that is happening for americans, despite all the good work that has been going on on a bipartisan basis, we're now within less than 12 hours of services for people and to our country shutting down. and why? because my colleague, the republican senator from pennsylvania, thinks it is more important to take away the

federal government's ability to help people and help businesses and create jobs than it is to actually help people. now, i want to say senator toomey and i had a wonderful committee this week, and we have been working together, doing very important, meaningful things on alzheimer's disease, and i very much enjoyed doing that. but on this issue, on this issue at this time, with so many people in pain and so much hardship at this moment, i don't understand when he said that preventing the next treasury secretary and the federal reserve from relaunching the emergency credit facilities that support manufacturers and others is, quote, the most important thing in this covid-19 package. really?

really? the most important thing in this package is to take away the trools of the treasury and the federal reserve that have been used when we're in crisis and we need to be a back stop for our businesses and the credit market, when we need to be supporting job providers and jobs? really, really that is the most important thing. tell that to a mom who is afraid her kids will end up on the street because she can't pay her rent in january, which is two weeks away. tell that to the small business owner who is having to lay off their entire staff a week before christmas. tell that to a senior citizen who is risking his health by waiting in an hours-long line to get a box of food.

tell that to the health care workers who are literally putting their lives on the line right now fighting this pandemic. really? taking away economic tools for the treasury and the fed are more important than people in our country, small businesses, farmers who have been hanging on? really? tell that to the thousands of american families who are preparing for their first holiday without loved ones who have been lost to the virus. just yesterday, another loss in michigan, so many losses, thousands of losses, but a dear friend, a sheriff of wayne county.

today a funeral for a friend as well in detroit. so the most important thing is not supporting families, is not helping people at least get through the winter, at least get through the next several months to put food on the table and a roof over their heads and help their businesses and make sure the vaccines can be distributed and support our health care workers and put money into education and all the other things that are needed right now. the most important thing is to have a fight with the treasury and the feds because you want to limit what they can do in terms of their powers to help people and to help businesses in a crisis. our nation is in a crisis. and we would be in an even deeper crisis right now if it weren't for the federal reserve. the federal reserve stepped in

early during the crisis. under the current administration, i might add, where nobody was suggesting that we provide these kinds of amendments or restrictions. then on the current administration, on the trump administration. i didn't hear that debate. maybe i missed it, but i didn't hear that debate. but thank goodness we didn't have that debate because they stepped in early, taking extraordinary measures to keep credit from freezing up for our businesses. this is the money that businesses use to provide services and keep people employed. and i have to say if someone's coming to a major manufacturing state like pennsylvania, like ohio, like indiana, like wisconsin, that having the capacity for the fed to step in and provide some confidence in the marketplace so that our auto suppliers, our other manufacturers could get what they needed in terms of

liquidity was critical to jobs. thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs. the emergency powers that the federal reserve has were put in place during the 2008 financial crisis so that the fed could respond quickly to the next crisis. well, here we are in the next crisis. the crisis is all around us, and yet some are laser focused on taking away the fed's ability to respond in the future with a new president. not the current president, but future presidents. this is like a fire department selling off its fire trucks while houses down the street are burning.

2020 has been brutal, really brutal on families and businesses and communities across the country, and this crisis is not over. i really wish it was. we have hope because of the vaccines and more aggressive testing and so on, but this isn't over, and things could get worse in 2021 if we sabotage the very things that helped us this year. if this is how you are setting up a new president to not have the tools to make the economy better, what does that say about the people that care about the people we represent? ultimately it's about people losing their jobs, it's about businesses. it's more than just about partisan politics. my friend, senator schatz, who has a way with words on twitter, put it this way.

we almost have a bipartisan covid package, but at the last minute, some republicans are making a demand that was never even mentioned as key in the negotiations. never even mentioned until the last minute. he said they want to block the fed from helping the economy under biden. it's the reason we don't have a deal. is that really the reason we don't have a deal to help people in our country right now? just cross-partisan politics, wanting to set up a way for the next president to fail? because when colleagues take away tools that a president, any president and the federal reserve have to boost the economy and prevent economic collapses, they are saying they care more about that political

fight, make sure somebody looks bad, make sure somebody fails rather than caring about the people we represent who create the jobs, the businesses large and small, and the people who have those jobs, the people who need those jobs. michigan is the proud home to so many small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses who employ thousands of people. i know there are those same businesses across the country, including the state of pennsylvania where my colleague is advocating for this. i would urge, strongly urge at this moment in time, at the end of what has been such a horrible, difficult year for americans, i would urge my

colleague from pennsylvania and any others supporting him to stop trying to undermine american jobs and our ability as a country to respond to the economic crisis that is still happening. let's stop stalling. we need to do our jobs to keep our military going and health care and education and transportation and all of the other critical services that the federal government funds. and we need to pass this critical covid legislation today and give the american people the help they need and the help they deserve to survive the next few months of this health and economic crisis. a wonderful bipartisan effort brought us to this moment where we can provide a critical lifeline to americans across our

country. it would be a tragedy and an outrage if efforts to undermine our economy and the success of our incoming president stops this urgent help from being passed. we need to get this done now. i yield the floor, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator for vermont. mr. sanders: this country faces the worst set of economic and health crises that we have faced in over 100 years. as a result of the pandemic, more people are becoming infected than ever before.

right now hospitalization is higher than it has ever been before -- right now. and more people are dying than ever before literally day after day. now, we all hope and pray that the new vaccine will be distributed as quickly as possible and that it will put an end to this nightmare. but today the truth is that millions of low-income and middle-class families are suffering in a way that they have not suffered since the great depression of the 1930's. today the reality is that over half of our workers are living paycheck to paycheck. they are trying to survive on a starvation wage of $10 or $12 an hour. the reality is that millions of our senior citizens are trapped

in their homes, unable to see their kids or their grandchildren, unable to go to a grocery store, and many of them are trying to get by on $12,000, $14,000 a year social security and scared that they may come down with the virus and die. in addition, millions more with disabilities are suffering. further, in our country today, one out of four workers are either unemployed or make less than $20,000 a year. and in the midst of this pandemic -- because we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right -- in the midst of this pandemic, worst health care crisis in 100 years, over 90 million americans are uninsured or underinsured and

unable to go to a doctor when they need to. further, we have the worst eviction crisis in modern history, some 30 million families worried that because they cannot pay their rent, they may end up out on the street. that is, mr. president, where we are today economically. and if this country means anything, if democracy means anything, if the u.s. government means anything, it means that we cannot turn our backs on this suffering -- not in vermont, not in wisconsin, not in new york, not in any state in this country where people are hurting in an unprecedented way. it means that we cannot leave washington as senators for the holidays to go back to our

families unless we address the pain and anxiety of other families throughout this country. mr. schumer: mr. the senator from vermont yield for some support for his amendment? mr. sanders: i would be happy to yield to the minority leader. mr. schumer: i will speak briefly. i want to join senator sanders to support his amendment to give $1,200 in direct financial support to the american people in the year-end emergency relief bill. now, this effort should not subtract from any other program already in the bill, like enhanced unemployment, aid to small business, education, health care, or other provisions. we don't need to offset the cost or cut from anywhere else in the bill to make sure the stimulus checks are are $1,200 for each adult and then $5 00 for the children. over the course of this pandemic

working americans have taken it on the chin. millions have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. 26 million have had trouble putting food on table in the last five weeks. bread lines stretching down american highways. 12 million americans owe an average of $,000 inent are and mortgage. so we have an opportunity in this emergency relief bill to give financial aid directly to those americans. it can mean the difference between americans paying the rent or not, affording groceries or not, the difference between hanging on until the vaccine helps our country get back to normal. now, the only objection we've heard is this will add too much to the deficit. that's why a republican senator rejected a similar request earlier today to push a baseless agenda of austerity. please, by now republican objections over debt and deficit are comical. they added $2 trillion to the debt for a massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthy,

and that was during a steady economy. now the economy is on life support. americans are cueing up on bread lines just as a democratic president is about to take office, all of a sudden the deficit scolds are back. chairman powell, hardly a big liberal, of the federal reserve insists that the risk of doing -- the risk of overdoing it is less than the risk of underdoing it. the quickest way to get money into the pockets of the american people is to send some many their tax dollars right back where they came from. so let's step up to the plate, deliver the $1,200 survival checks to millions of americans before the holidays. i support senator sanders' fully and hope the senate will consent and yield back. mr. sanders: let me thank the senior senator from new york, the democratic leader, for his strong statement. he is exactly right. in this time of crisis, it is

comical that suddenly our republican friends once again discover that we have a deficit. this is a moment of emergency. of emergency. and we have got to respond to the needs of working families, and i thank senator schumer for his strong support for this legislation. mr. president, members of congress should also be aware that we are far behind other major countries in terms of protecting working families during this pandemic. not only does every other wealthy country guarantee health care to all people as a human right, almost all of them are providing far more generous benefits to the unemployed and the struggling in their countries than we are doing in our country.

mr. president, several months -- madam president -- sorry. madam president, several months ago, i introduced legislation along with senator kamala harris, now our vice president-elect, and senator markey, that would during the course of this economic crisis provide $2,000 a month -- $2,000 a month -- to every working-class person in this country and, frankly, that is exactly what we should be doing. but, unfortunately, given the conservative nature of the senate, i understand that is not going to happen. yet, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, as senator schumer just indicated, at a time when huge corporations were making record-breaking

profits, the republican leadership here in the senate was able to provide over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the one percent and large corporations. yes, at a time when climate change -- yes, climate change is real. at a time when climate change threatens the entire planet, this congress was able to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare to the oil companies and the gas companies and the coal companies who are exacerbating the climate crisis. yes, just the other day, here in the senate and in the house legislation was passed which would provide $740 billion to the military, the largest military budget in history, more

than the next ten nations combined. we spend more on the military than the next ten nations combined. so we can do all of those things -- tax breaks for billionaires, massive corporate welfare, huge military expenditures -- but in the midst of the worst economic meltdown since the great depression, somehow congress is unable to respond effectively to the needs of working families. madam president, as you may know, i have recently introduced legislation to provide every working-class american an emergency payment of at least $1,200, which is $2,400 for a couple and $500 for each of

their children. this is not a radical idea. this is an idea that is supported by president donald trump. it is an idea that is supported by president-elect joe biden. it is an idea, by the way, that according to a recent poll is supported by 75% of all americans. including 77% of democrats and 72% of republicans. further, importantly, this amount of direct payment is exactly what congress passed unanimously nine months ago, as part of the $2.2 trillion cares act. let me repeat --

in march, every member of the house and senate -- appropriately, including myself -- voted to provide a direct payment of $1,200 for working-class adults, $2,400 for couples, and $500 for their kids. madam president, that was the right thing to do nine months ago. and given the fact that the crisis today is in many respects worse than it was nine months ago, that is exactly what we should be doing right now. madam president, as a result of the pandemic, the government told restaurants and bars, retail stores, movie theaters, schools, malls, small businesses all over this country, shut your doors. it is too dangerous for you to be open now. and they did that because that

is what the public health experts said was the right thing to do in order to control this horrific pandemic. but what the government has not done, madam president, is to provide the workers who lost their jobs and lost their incomes as a result of those shutdowns with the help that they need in order to pay their bills and to survive economically. the $600-a-week in supplemental unemployment benefits that congress passed unanimously in march expired in july, over five months ago. and during that time, the republican senate has done nothing to help working families pay their rents, feed their

children, go to a doctor, or pay for the lifesaving prescription drugs they need. and the senate has not done anywhere near enough to provide help for the struggling small businesses in vermont and all across this country who are desperately trying to stay afloat. further, madam president, as bad as the economy has been, in general it has been far worse for african americans and latinos. during the pandemic, nearly 60% of latino families and 55% of african american families have either experienced a job loss or a cut in pay. madam president, for nine months

we have asked tens of millions of working people in this country to survive on one $1,200 check, with no help for health care, no support for hazard pay, no assistance for rent relief. absolutely nothing. meanwhile, madam president, i should mention that over this same nine-month period, 651 billionaires in the united states became over $1 trillion richer. $1 trillion in increased wealth for the very richest people in our country. one $1,200 check for tens of

millions of americans desperately trying to survive. that is unconscionable. that is immoral. and that has got to change. now, madam president, let us recall that way back in may the house of representatives passed a $3.4 trillion heroes act which, among other things, included $600 a week in supplemental unemployment benefits and another direct payment of $1,200 for working class adults, $500 for their kids, and generous support for small businesses, hospitals,

education facilities, and state and local government. in other words, the house passed a $3.4 trillion bill that was in fact a very serious effort to address the enormous crises facing our country. i should also add that in july, several months later, the house passed another version of the bill, so-called heroes 2, and this legislation was for $2.2 trillion. that same month in july, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell proposed a $1.1 trillion bill that also provided $1,200 direct payment for working-class adults and $500 for their kids. and then in october, secretary

mnuchin, in negotiations with speaker pelosi, proposed a covid relief plan for $1.8 trillion. that's mnuchin representing the trump administration. so in the last number of months we have had major proposals of $3.4 trillion, $2.2 trillion, $1.8 trillion, and from majority leader mcconnell, $1.1 trillion. and yet today, right now, alfa months of negotiating by the so-called gang of eight, we are now down to just $908 billion in legislation, and that includes $560 billion in offsets in

unused money from the cares act. so what we are talking about now is going from an original house bill passed in may calling for $3.4 trillion in new money down to today $348 billion in new money, roughly 10% of what democrats thought was originally needed. madam president, in my view, the $348 billion in new money that is included in the proposal now being discussed is totally inadequate given the nature of the unprecedented crises that we face. the american people cannot wait any longer.

they need economic relief right now. their kids are going hungry. they are being evicted from their homes. they can't go to the doctor. they need help, and they need it now. every working-class american needs $1,200 at least, $2,400 for couples and $500 for children. and let me be clear to emphasize a point that senator schumer made, and that is what i am talking about now is money that must not be taken from other important priorities like 16 weeks of supplemental unemployment benefits, aid for small business, nutrition, housing, education, and the other important provisions in

this bill. we need adequate funding to address the unprecedented crises that we face. we should not and cannot and must not take from peter to pay paul. we cannot cut on unemployment benefits in order to help small business. we have got to do it all right now. madam president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. s. 5063 whii introduced earlier today that would provide a $1,200 direct payment to every working-class adult, $2,400 for couples, and $500 for their children, that the bill be considered read three times and passed, and the

motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. mr. johnson: reserving the right to object. the senator from vermont made a couple statements that i'd just like to repeat the words. that we're in a crisis. this is an emergency. we can't turn our back on the suffering. i agree. i've agreed for months. but he also said something that's complement -- incorrect. you might call it a lie. he said republicans have done nothing. that's not true. i was on daily calls during the august recess after we had attempted and were debating internally a $1 trillion package in the tail end of july before the august recess. i was one of those pointing out

the fact that had we, we had already passed, as the good senator from vermont said, over $3 trillion in different, four different covid relief financial packages early in the pandemic. at that point in time there was $1.2 trillion of that unspent. a big chunk of that wasn't even obligated. today as we stand here debating this now, we still have a little under $600 billion unspent and unop -- unobligated. the point i was making to my colleagues in the last few weeks in july and the cmps in -- conference in august, before we authorize more money, mortgage our children's future, why don't we first redirect what we already passed. because what we passed, we

passed very quickly because we had to. we had to do something massively, and we did something massively so that will markets wouldn't cease, so businesses that were shut down through no fault of their own could get financial relief. so we came together unanimously and we did that. but doing it fast, doing it massively i certainly knew was going to be far from perfect. what we found out is the federal government has a hard time spending $3 trillion because over the course of a number of months they didn't spend it all. they couldn't even obligate it. so what republicans did during the august recess, because we couldn't come to agreement by the end of july, we worked long and hard on a targeted bill. more than $600 billion -- $300-plus up for people on unemployment, $260 billion for

small businesses, $100 billion for education, tens of billions of dollars for vaccines and testing and agriculture and child care. we offered that on the floor. 52 republicans voted to proceed to that bill. democrats just said no. i felt it was a crisis, an emergency, and we shouldn't have been turning our backs on these people that are suffering, in september. democrats said no. all they had to do was say yes. they couldn't take yes for an answer. madam president, i often use the analogy, if i go up to you because i know you're a generous person and say madam president, give me $200. kind of look at me a little shocked and say well, i won't give you $200 but i'll give you $1010 and i -- give you $100 and

i go $200 or nothing. that's what democrats did for emergency relief for the people we don't want to turn our backs on because they're suffering. if they were serious, if they wanted a result, if they wanted to relieve the suffering, wouldn't the logical thing would have been to say yes, take $600 billion, pocket it, get that relief flowing in september and then come back and argue for more. but they said no. they were cynical. they take politics with it. and that's what they're doing here today. i'm sure, to paraphrase a widely known saying, that the road to total national bankruptcy is paved with good intentions. i'm sure that's true. i don't question the good intentions of any member of this

body. we all want to provide the relief. we all want to relieve suffering. we all want to help fellow americans that are hurting through no fault of their own. we talked about suffering, we use words action we don't look at numbers very often. the senator from vermont cited a few numbers. let me quote a couple of. i didn't have enough time to do a chart so i'll try to go through this slowly but i think it's important to put this all in perspective. prior to the covid recession we had a record number of employed, under 159 million americans were employed. by april, two months into the pandemic, three months into the pandemic, employment had dropped to 133 million, a loss of over 25 million jobs. 25 million, which is why we acted, why we acted in a bipartisan fashion to provide

relief for those people, 25 million, who lost their jobs. the good news, it's hard to keep the american economy down when you don't overtax, when you don't overregulate. so in november, the latest figures we have, there are now 150 -- just shy of 150 million american employed again. i realize some are underemployed, but still we have 150 million americans employed, down about 9 million jobs from that record high when unemployment was only 3.5%. we had a record economy because we stopped overregulating and we had a competitive tax system. now unemployment rate is 6.7%. in the cares act, which i supported because i want to help people, part of that was the economic impact payments. basically what the senator from vermont is proposing here in this bill he wants to pass by

unanimous consent. spend $274 billion, paid to just under 166 americans for an average check of about $1,673 per person. if you break that down into households, because according to the federal reserve bank in new york, the average check per household is $2,400. that's 115 million households that got a check. 115 million. now remember, at the low point, 25 million americans had lost their job. we sent checks to 115 million households, four and a half times the number of people that lost their jobs. my problem with the cares act, with the first four packages is it was a shotgun approach.

we just spent money. we just opened up the spigot and we sent it all over the place. we didn't have time to target it to those that really need it. as a result, and we're seeing today, businesses that needed it, business owners, small business owners have been wiped out of their life savings. they didn't get relief. it wasn. it wasn't well targeted. and we proudly spent hundreds of billions of dollars and spent it to people that didn't need it. madam president, we're $27.4 trillion in debt today. that's 128% of the size of last year's economy. if this bipartisan deal goes through, about a trillion dollars, we'll be in $28.4 trillion in debt, 132% of g.d.p. i remember the good old days when i first got here, i ran because we were mortgaging our kids' future, we were a little over $14 trillion in debt and our economy was over $15 trillion and we were under

120% debt to g.d.p. the senator from vermont is duplicating without any reforms that i know of, the economic impact payments from the cares act, another $175 billion, a half trillion dollars. sent out again to 115 million households when right now we've only -- not only, this is tragic, every job lost is a tragedy, we have nine million jobs less than we had when we had a record level of employment before the recession. nine million jobs lost, that's 12.6 times the number of jobs that have been lost. i think the question needs to be, if we're going to do this again, is there any sense, any information in terms of how the $275 billion was spent?

well, we have an answer from the federal reserve bank of new york. they do a monthly internet-based survey called the survey of consumer expectations. they did two special surveys, one in june, one in august. the june survey took a look at how those households spent the 2,400 checks. here's the results, 18% of those checks were spent on essential consumption, essential. 8% was on nonessential, the fun stuff, i guess. 3% donations, americans are still generous. for a total 29% spent on consumption, the marginal propensity to consume was 29%. the remainder 71%, half of it was put to savings, sphent on increasing -- spent on increasing savings, the other half was paying off debt. they also studied how the unemployment plus up was spent.

pretty similar results. 24% of those dollars went for essential consumer goods, 4% nonessential, 1% donations for, again, 29% was consumed, 71% was either saved or used for debt reduction. they did another special survey in august asking those same 1,300 households that they surveyed, how would you spend a $1,500 check, not $2,400, $1,500, the response was 14% on essential items, 7% on nonessential, 3% on donations for only 24% of a new check would actually be spent on consumption, 76% would either be saved or pay off debt. that's not very good economic stimulus. and, again, the numbers are

without any reforms without trying to target the dollars to people who really need it. i would want to do that. i would like to work with anybody to try and get that relief flowing as quickly as possible to the individuals that need it and i'm sure the need is still great. it's greater than nine million. i understand that. let's look at some figures. i do want to point out a past stimulus in terms of its effectiveness. in 2009 we had the great recession. let me quote some employment figures from that. in january, 2008, we had 146 million americans employed. remember, today we have 149 million, our record was 159 million. but 146 million before the great recession. by december 2009, that had dropped, hit a low point of 138 million people working, eight million people lost their jobs. in january of 2009, president

obama was inaugurated, had total control of government, a filibuster-proof senate. control of the house. he could pass anything he wanted, and they did. they passed the $787 billion american recovery and reinvestment act of 2009. they did that in february 2009. at that point there were 141.6 million americans working, 141.6 million americans, and the unemployment was 8.3%. again, throughout 2009, that stoims dispense -- stimulus didn't work too good. it took three years -- three years until january 2012 because overregulation and overtaxation to return to february 2009 levels of 141.6 million americans working. three years. that's what we call a slow,

nonexistent recovery. oh, a quick aside. senator sanders is -- the senator from vermont is talking about, we need the $600 plus up for the unemployed because of the suffering. president obama with speaker pelosi and majority majority led with a filibuster-proof senate, they provided a $25 per week plus up to state unemployment when they had total control. now they are demanding $600. i know that's not part of what the senator from vermont is asking for in terms of a unanimous consent request. i thought it was just somewhat noteworthy. so, again, madam president, i'm not heartless. i want to help people. i voted to help people. i voted for the $2.2 trillion cares act, but i also am concerned about our children's future and the fact that we are mortgaging it.

we do not have an unlimited checking account. we have to be concerned about these things. so my complaint about the senator from vermont's bill, and quite honestly the bipartisan effort, we have $600 billion unspent, unobligated, let's work long and hard. let's look at economic data, let's target is it properly. let's not just shot it out in the economy again, wasting ten, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. let's focus on that. let's pretend like it's real money, like it's our money and spend it well. we don't need to mortgage our children area future by another $300 billion or $400 billion. we don't need to do that. we can alleviate suffering, we can help our fellow americans. we could have done it in september but the good senator from vermont and all of his colleagues on the democratic

side simply won't take yes for an answer, and my guess is they are taking that same stance today. so, madam president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: the senator from wisconsin talks about democrats not taking yes for an answer. so let me tell you what we did not take for an answer. we did not take for an answer the republican bill which did not have a nickel for unemployment benefits. we did not take yes for an answer for a bill that did not have a nickel for direct payments. the senator from wisconsin talks about the deficit.

yet the senator from wisconsin voted for over a trillion dollars in tax breaks for billionaires and large profitable corporations. that's okay. the senator from wisconsin voted for a bloated military budget, $740 billion. that's okay. the senator from wisconsin supportses hundreds and -- supports hundreds and hundreds of billion dollars in corporate welfare. the senator from wisconsin threw out some numbers. let me throw out some other numbers. half of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck. millions of workers are trying to survive on starvation wages of $10 or $12 an hour. 90 million people are uninsured or underinsured, captain afford to -- can't afford to go to a doctor. 19 million families spending

half of their limited incomes on housing. madam president, today we have the most severe hunger crisis in america that we have had in decades. children in this country are going hungry while a half million people are homeless and many millions more fear eviction. today, as a result of the pandemic, not only do we have the worst health care crisis in 100 years, but the worst economic crisis since the great depression. so, madam president, i say to my colleague from wisconsin, yeah, i will not support proposals that do not provide a nickel in unemployment benefits, not a nickel in direct relief to tens of millions of low-income and middle-income families. so, madam president, i would hope very much that this

congress appreciates the pain that is out there and that instead of worrying about tax breaks or billionaires or corporate welfare, let's pay attention to the needs of working families and let us pass legislation which includes $1,200 direct payment to working-class families as we did in the cares act,s dz 500 to their -- $500 to their kids and not taking anickel away from un -- a nickel away from unemployment and other issues currently being negotiated. thank you, madam president. mr. portman: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: madam president, to my colleague from vermont, my understanding is in a room somewhere near here right now those negotiations are ongoing and there certainly better be unemployment insurance. that was part of the bipartisan framework i worked with the

presiding officer on. there should be not just federal assistance for self-employed workers, gig economy workers and those benefiting from the 13-week extension, but also additional funding. it is my understanding that direct payments are also in the mix. i wish they would get their work done. you know, it's been nine months since the cares act was done and i hope we can figure out a way to get through the hurdles that remain. i spent much of the day, as my colleagues i'm sure, talking to colleagues trying to figure out how to you -- do you fix the last couple of issues that are out there. my hope is that even if it's not a perfect bill for me, and it won't be. i know it won't be. we spent three or four weeks that is bipartisan that not what any of us would have crafted individually but it provides for the help now. we need it, both for the economic crisis caused by this virus but also the health care

virus, which is getting worse in my home state, not better. the vaccine is on the way and that's very exciting. i believe the vaccine development and now the distribution are actually quite impressive and i think the administration deserves credit for that as do so many hardworking scientists that have been sleeping in their offices to make sure that we have this vaccine available. but there's going to be a bridge here. there's a time period between now and march and april when it's not going to be readily available to everybody we represent. and during that time period we need a bridge. we've needed it for a while. so my hope is that we'll get that done tonight. i also want to mention briefly i just came in on the underground subway from the offices and ran into a woman who has spent 41 years working here for us. one of these selfless hardworking employees of the united states capitol.

her name is teresa simms, many of you know teresa. she always has a smile on her face. she's always optimistic. she always has a focus on providing the best service to all of us, staff, other employees, members. she started in the cafeteria. she then went to the night cleaning crew. so cleaning offices here in this place at night. and then she was promoted to be one of the drivers of the subway and for 41 years, again, she's done that job dutifully with great commitment. and so she's going to retire and spend more time with her family and particularly take care of her mom who is ill and tonight we want to offer our thanks and gratitude to her and our best wishes to her in retirement. another thing that's going on tonight, i will say, i guess it's obvious, is that we're about to hit the government shutdown time period again. i mean, we are only about six

and a half hours from another government shutdown. that is totally unacceptable. we should never have these shutdowns. they don't make any sense. by the way, two of my republican friends who think the shutdowns are good because you shutdown a lot of government and it seems like you save money. we never save money. the taxpayers always end up paying more. you go back and provide back pay, even for services that are not provided. i think we have to figure out a way when we can't get our work done here -- and this is why this is happening. we have not gotten our spending bills and appropriations bills done, therefore we are facing a government shutdown again. at midnight, we turn into pumpkins. it means the government starts to get shut down. by the way, it creates confusion and uncertainty for federal worker, of course, who are wondering, you know, are they going to have their job and are they going to get paid, but also confusion and uncertainty for a lot of citizens who are depending on the services that otherwise would be provided. and it is so inefficient. if you believe in the efficiency

of government and you believe in, you know, not wasting money, you shouldn't want these government shutdowns. so my hope is that we do pass a continuing resolution at least to kick us into the next couple of days so that we don't have a shutdown tonight. that would be just such a disaster for so many people. and it could last a long time, by the way, as these shutdowns did over the last couple of years. it doesn't just mean it's a few days. let's just not go into shutdown at all. i have introduced legislation called end government shutdowns for ten years now. i have introduced it in five different congresses. we have 33 different cosponsors. there are other ideas out there, and i am open to them, just some way for us to get away from these shutdowns. our bill says we just can't shut it down. when you are going for a shutdown, instead you just do a continuing funding from the previous year. by the way over time you reduce that by 1%. every 90 days and every 60 days to get the attention of the appropriators to get them back to work. now, other people have other

ideas. our bill has been bipartisan in the past. i don't believe it is today, but it does have 33 cosponsors. so my hope is that we can figure out a way to end these government shutdowns with simple legislation that says let's just not do it. i don't this i it provides healthy leverage. i think it provides again uncertainty and confusion. so 2020 has been a tough year. let's face it. and unfortunately it looks like the challenges haven't ended. i came to the floor tonight primarily to talk about some shocking and disturbing news we just heard over the last few days. that's that there has been a massive, highly sophisticated, and ongoing cyberattack that has compromised the networks of multiple federal agencies and the private sector. according to reports, for months now, months, hackers, our intelligence experts think they are most likely connected with the russian government in some way. that's what they tell us.

but these hackers have engaged in an espionage effort to access information at some of our biggest federal agencies that hold some of our most sensitive data. and our most sensitive and important national security secrets. also again, many u.s. private companies were hacked as well. these hackers are smart. they targeted some of these agencies that do handle things like national security, the state department, for instance, the department of homeland security, the department of energy and its nuclear security administration. this is scary stuff. others, like the national institutes of health, were hacked. of course, they are closely involved with our work to respond to the covid-19 pandemic, so also a lot of important, sensitive information could have been hacked. they are a treasure-trove of information. these are agencies that protect our homeland, promote our freedom abroad, and are on the front lines battling this pandemic. but what we know today may be just the tip of the iceberg, we

are told. experts expect there are a number of agencies as well as private companies victimized by this attack who only continue to grow. the main i.t. monitoring platform believed to have been hacked was used across the government and by 33,000 private companies. shockingly, we also know that fireeye, the preeminent cyber incident response firm, was also breached. so think about this. fire eye, which is a company that people call when they are hacked, was hacked. we're still learning the details about this attack, but what we know is chilling. federal investigators from the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agencies -- that's cisf homeland security, the f.b.i., and also the office of national intelligence, the odni, are all working to determine how this happened, what the extent of it is, but it looks like the main

vulnerability was a solar winds platform, which is an i.t. monitoring platform widely used by the government and private sector to oversee the operation of other computer networks. the hackers disguised their entry into these federal agencies systems in a troubling way. they exploited vulnerability in a security patch sent out by solar winds to update its software. i want to emphasize that. the security patches that we all advocate to be installed as soon as possible to protect our networks as basic good cyber sigh halloween was actually a security breach. this technique and the breadth of this hack are both unprecedented and it shows that the federal government is still far from where we need to be to handle the cybersecurity challenges of the 21st century. as the permanent subcommittee on investigations did in its investigation and report, these alarms that we have been raising

over time are ones that we should have paid attention to. in 2019, last summer, senator carper and i issued a shocking report that detailed the unacceptable cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the federal government. vulnerabilities that may very well have played a role in the extent of this breach. our report looked back at how well federal agencies complied with basic cybersecurity standards over the past decade. every agency we reviewed failed. and we know that four of those agencies, the department of homeland security, the state department, the department of agriculture, the department of health and human services, are among those that have been breached in this current cyberattack. that report from the permanent subcommittee on investigations made clear that federal agencies were a target for cyber criminals and other nation state adversaries. in 2017 alone, federal agencies reported 35,277 cyber incidents.

it's the most recent data we have. in one year, the number of cyber incidents in 2019 was a little bit less, 28,581. but 2020 will bring what is likely the biggest, most comprehensive breach across the federal government in our history. we have also found we're not equipped to handle this threat. many of the agencies we reviewed didn't even know what applications and platforms were operating on its systems. that begs the question, how can you protect something if you don't even know what you need to protect? if federal agencies fail at meeting basic cyber standards, there is no way they are equipped to thwart the kind of sophisticated attack that apparently happened over the past several months. here the attackers were meticulous and had a detailed understanding of how to evade intrusion detection practices and technologies, and because the federal agencies involved were unprepared, the attackers had ample time to cover their

tracks, which means evaluating the extent of the damage and kicking them off our networks is going to be incredibly difficult and time consuming. given how widespread this attack is and how much wider it's expected to become, it certainly seems like the federal government's current cyber resources are going to be spread incredibly thin. congress and the executive branch have failed to prioritize cybersecurity and now we find ourselves vulnerable and exposed. we have to do better than this. this breach has to be a wake-up call for all of us. over the years, i've worked across the aisle with senator peters, senator cornyn, senator hassan and others on legislation to beef up our federal government cyber capacities, including the risk-informed spending for cybersecurity act, the federal system incident response act, the d.h.s. cyber hunt and incident response team act and others. we're proud of this legislation, but let's be honest. it wasn't enough. we need to do more.

we need to not only defend our networks but go on the offense to defer nation states like russia and nonstate actors from even considering a future attack like this. that means there needs to be consequences for cyberattacks significant enough to prevent them from happening again, and a willingness to act preemptively when warranted. congress has to take a hard look at the cybersecurity capabilities of our federal agencies. in the next congress, i will be the top republican on the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. which means i will either serve as its chairman or its ranking member, depending on the outcome of a couple of races in georgia. senator peters will be the chair if the democrats take the majority. i will tell you here tonight, whether i'm chairman in january or him, we intend to hold in-depth hearings on cybersecurity. with what's happened, we will also, of course, focus on the origin, scope, and severity of this breach. actually, three weeks ago, even before this attack was revealed,

we met and decided to hold these cybersecurity hearings and we are already working on comprehensive legislation to improve our cyber defenses in the federal government going forward. we must now move with renewed sense of purpose and urgency to learn from this massive attack. we have got to remove these hackers from these systems and put in place protections to prevent it from happening again. as this cyberattack has made clear, we have got to redouble our efforts to shore up our defenses. we are two decades into the 21st century, but most of the federal government legacy computer systems are from the 20th century. federal agencies are simply behind the times when it comes to defending themselves against these threats posed in cyberspace. the government is trying to respond to sophisticated 21st century attacks with 20th century defenses. this attack has shown us the consequences of that and should be the catalyst for real bipartisan action here in the next congress to better defend

networks that contain sensitive personal information and other information critical to our economy, our health care, and the safety and security of all americans. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

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