Unanimous Consent Request

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I thank my colleagues Senator Cardin, Senator Shaheen, and Senator Schumer for their leadership on this issue of seeking better transparency and oversight with regard to a program that involves now almost a trillion taxpayer dollars. I also join Senator Schumer in the sentiment that our colleague from Florida has been both sincere and bipartisan in his efforts on this program.

The fact is that this program, the Paycheck Protection Program, cries out for stronger oversight as does the entire CARES package. We will now be spending an authorized $3 trillion--the Federal budget and then half again--with little or no oversight. Yet we know that this program meets a need among small businesses that is absolutely critical. I have traveled my State via video conference and have had telephone calls and communications of all kinds with small businesses around Connecticut, and I have seen and heard firsthand how they are hanging by a thread-- struggling to keep their doors open and stay alive. This program gives them a lifeline.

It has, in fact, provided many powerful success stories, as my colleague Senator Shaheen said, but it has also produced some horror stories about big customers of big banks who have received favored treatment to the detriment of the smaller businesses that were supposed to have been the beneficiaries of this program. We need to make sure that these funds go to the small businesses, which really need it, and we should make sure that this program is adequately and effectively administered. We need to make sure there is transparency and disclosure about who is receiving these loans that can be converted and forgiven so that they can become grants and so that the real needs of those businesses can be met and their employees can continue to be employed. Those kinds of imperatives we must assure.

We know that the ripple effect of the closures of these businesses is tragic and traumatic. That is why we need to continue this program, but we need to do so with the oversight that assures that its purposes are met. For the businesses that have told me, for example, that they need more flexibility, those needs need to be met. Numbers of them have indicated they would like to extend the time provided to them to hire back their employees past the time in which the State is likely to allow them to open. They also need more funding for fixed costs. Basically, they need some flexibility because every business is different, and the oversight in this bill will help to alert the SBA and Congress to those needs.

Finally, the oversight needed here is simply one example of the accountability that should be imposed on the entire CARES Act. Real accountability demands a watchdog, not a lap dog, in order to stop the waste, fraud, and favoritism that seems all too common in this administration. That is why I have been working with my colleagues-- most prominently, Senator Warren--in the strengthening of the oversight of programs created by the CARES Act during this pandemic. We need to make sure there is effective enforcement and a hammer, which will be essential to deter wrongdoing, preserve resources, and conserve credibility.

Strong scrutiny is required to make sure that aid reaches the right hands. I know that all of us believe, for example, that conflicts of interest should be barred; that retaliation against whistleblowers should be prevented; and that the firing of the inspector general without just cause should be stopped, which means keeping an eye on these programs--not just a wandering eye but one of focused, strict scrutiny that will assure transparency and make sure this program serves the needs it was intended to.

The only people who feel threatened by that kind of oversight are the ones who are trying to game the system or hide something. The rest of us, which means the workers, their families, and small businesses, demand oversight. This bill is a good way to begin. It is a start, not a finish, to the task of the oversight ahead of us.

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