mr. braun: could we lift the quorum call? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. braun: mr. president, i've been here a little over a year. i keep mentioning that often because what a year it's been. in that stretch, there's not been a period of time where i think there's been so much urgency for us as a senate, for the other chamber to do their job to deliver for the american people. we're in the midst of a crisis that in building a business over 37, 38 years, you've constantly got hurdles to jump. you never really know the clear outcome. you try to have a great strategy with good implementation, good tactics that would be your salvation through thick or thin. when it comes to the coronavirus, it's not like we haven't had other recent issues but nothing quite like this to where it started in another country. it's gone across the world. and it now looks like that vector into our country, we may be dealing with it on a broader scale. i'm a guy that believes in free enterprise. i don't like it when government has to step in. but i don't know what we would have done otherwise i

he politely, i was finally beating him down, he said, mr. braun maybe it should be like that. i don't know that we'll get there. david: senator braun thank you so much for being with us, we were waiting to see if we could see the beginning of that briefing from task force, we will conservative that but first a break -- we'll wors cover thae will go to a break, if it comes in whila break we'll come back from the break. stay with us. at fisher investments, we do things differently and other money managers don't understand why. because our way works great for us! but not for your clients. that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? nope. we tailor portfolios to our client's needs. but you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right? we don't have those. so, what's in it for you? our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. it's surprising how the bigger a city gets... the smaller it starts to feel. w

mr. braun: thank you, madam president. i want to thank my colleague, senator -- let me start again. i want to thank my colleague, senator durbin, for leading efforts this week to undo betsy devos' harmful rollback of protections for millions of americans with loans ripped off by shady for-profit colleges. this is an example where the senate stood up to the president, stood up to the billionaire secretary of education whose mission in that job is to privatize and turn big -- privatize public education and turn profits for her and her friends and her allies, and this senate bipartisanly stood up to her, stood up to the president, stood up to the majority leader and did the right thing. we've seen these for-profit colleges in ohio, schools like corinthian and i.t.t. they make big promises with fake -- this is the time the word fake is accurate. they make big promises with fake or deceptive job placement rates. they trick students into taking out huge loans only to close up shop and leave them with meaningless degrees or, worse yet, just credits but always mountains of debt. these are p

mr. braun: could we lift the quorum call? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. braun: mr. president, i've been here a little over a year. i keep mentioning that often because what a year it's been. in that stretch, there's not been a period of time where i think there's been so much urgency for us as a senate, for the other chamber to do their job to deliver for the american people. we're in the midst of a crisis that in building a business over 37, 38 years, you've constantly got hurdles to jump. you never really know the clear outcome. you try to have a great strategy with good implementation, good tactics that would be your salvation through thick or thin. when it comes to the coronavirus, it's not like we haven't had other recent issues but nothing quite like this to where it started in another country. it's gone across the world. and it now looks like that vector into our country, we may be dealing with it on a broader scale. i'm a guy that believes in free enterprise. i don't like it when government has to step in. but i don't know what we would have done otherwise i

mr. braun: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: been here a little bit over a year and have gone through several issues that tells me how this place works. never thought we'd come to the point where we've actually choked down the real economy with the valid effort to try to get rid of the disease and the american people has been caught in the cross fire already is suffering. the ones that early had to shutter their business, they were hoping that when they woke up today, they were going to see something. now you can see that's not going to happen. many others here have kind of gone after the other side. i think it's a valid argument. what i'm going to talk about here this evening, two things. in we do not get something done and done through unanimous consent and we have to wait until wednesday, we will all be held accountable and we're going to do what this place normally does and doesn't work for the people that sent us here to do the business. had a hotel owner in indianapolis called me earlier in the week. last week, 2% oc

[laughter] senator braun. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i've been here a little over a year and probably the first committee meeting that vividly stuck in my mind is when you were here roughly one year ago and of course, you said basically everything then that you are telling us now and i guess what amazes me most about this place is out we seem to shrug it off like it's never going to have impact in the present. healthcare costs undoubtedly are the driver. i took it on in my own company 13 years ago and there are dilutions. mostly, the reason we're not making any headway on healthcare costs, is i've never seen an industry more dog in and stubborn and wanting to maintain the status quo. when you have 80 u.s. senators that come up with some idea of how to fix your business that is like the two by four across the head and nobody is paying any attention from pharma to hospitals and the whole gamut, practitioners as well. then you have the health insurance industry which is like the darth vader out there that keeps everything behind closed doo

mr. chairman. senator grassley, senator braun, it's a pleasure to be here today to discuss our latest report on the fiscal health of the federal government. now as we convene this discussion today, our country's con fronting a pandemic that's threatening the health, safety, and economic well-being of our citizens, our businesses and our economy. and i make that point because it's relevant to our message today of why it's important to put the federal government on a more long-term sustainable fiscal path. because the federal government needs to have the bugetary flexibility to marshal resources to deal with emergency situations. now, i am concerned, as our report talks about, that our debt to gdp ratio as of the end of last fiscal year, was 79%. that's the highest it's been since world war ii when we hit the historic high of 106% of debt to gdp ratio. and that also contrasts with the debt to gdp ratio since 1946 of only 46%. so we're very heavily leveraged in debt at a time when we are going to be facing a steady annual deficit of a trillion dollars a year for as far as the high could see. this will

mr. president, there seems to be backlash building amongst congressional republicans and supporters about a corporate bailout. senator mike braun, this harkens back to 2008 we're picking winners and losers. he is indicating he and some of his colleagues may not be comfortable with that. what do you say to that? >> we don't want to pick winners and losers. we want workers to benefit. sometimes for workers to benefit you have to go through the company. they have thousands of workers f the company goes out of business, no fault of their own, those workers will not be able to receive a check. so we're, look, our ultimate goal are the people. our ultimate goal are the great people if this country. we'll have things worked out. it is very complex formula, you understand that very complex, but it is working out. i think we'll have pretty uniform support for it. please. reporter: mr. president, we're hearing state department putting out advisory telling americans not to travel overseas at all. are you putting in a overseas travel ban? >> we're speaking with the state department later. i can't say now because i haven't had the meeting y

mr. braun: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. braun: i ask that it be lifted, please. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. braun: discovery of thousands of fetal remains in indiana at an abortionist home last year horrified us all. highlighted a disturbing trend that indiana has taken the lead in rectifying. this bill is our chance to fix the problem nationally. i believe all human life deserves a dignified burial and fetal remains deserve to be treated with respect, not as medical waste. sadly, irref rans of -- irreverence, grotesque collection is not an isolated incident. for example, in 2015, a minnesota hospital threw out the body of a still-born baby with dirty laundry. indiana has led the way. governor mike pence signed a law in 2016 protect being the dignity of fetal remains, upheld by the supreme court, last year in box v. planned parenthood. this legislation, the dignity for a

mr. braun: first i would like to thank you for sparing me not having to be in the seat indefinitely, and i promise i will keep this short. what a day we have come through. senator cramer and i have been here a little bit over a year, and i can't imagine a little over a year being more filled with making this responsibility as a u.s. senator worth every effort it took to get here. it finds us in an interesting place. i'm from main street america. i spent 37 years building my own company, a company that three of my four kids, along with a great young executive team, run now. and here we are. we're confronted with coronavirus now in a sequence of h1n1, sars, mers, even a threat from ebola. this looks like the one that we have heard about a long time that could really test the mettle of our country. well, we're going through it. we've listened to the experts, and i think that idea of hitting this as hard as we can makes sense. you hear about flattening the curve. yes, we need to do that. in the pro

quorum call: mr. braun: are we in a quorum call? -- mr. brown: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. brown: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. president trump has had chance after chance -- , oh, mr. president, i'd ask to suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you. sorry. mr. president, had chance after chance after chance to get ahead of this coronavirus pandemic in the united states. he failed. congress can't make the same mistakes. senators should not leave town -- i just saw senator mcconnell on the floor. it is his decision, one senator from one state can make this decision to walk away, to fail to take care of the $12-an-hour worker who's sick, who has to choose between going to work and perhaps getting circum, perhaps -- getting sicker, perhaps getting infected, perhaps stay home and give up their $12-an-hour job. we've put in that position. senator mcconnell, whose office is down the hall, can make that unilateral decision on whether w