Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as we all know by now, yesterday brought even more great news on the vaccine front. The FDA has now issued an emergency approval for a second COVID-19 Vaccine. This one will be developed by the American biotech company Moderna and millions of doses will be distributed across the country. I should say millions more doses will be distributed across the country in the coming days.

As we know, the first vaccine approved, which was created by Pfizer and BioNTech, was approved just over a week ago, and already thousands of healthcare workers have been vaccinated. In my State, we expect a million people--a million Texans--to be vaccinated by the end of this month, which is a remarkable achievement and one we ought to celebrate.

Both of these vaccines will be extraordinarily effective, estimated to be 95 percent effective. If you think about the seasonal flu vaccine, for example, it is, generally speaking, no more than 60 percent effective and many times far less. So 95 percent represents an amazing accomplishment. So the American people have every reason to be optimistic about our ability to put this virus in the rearview mirror, once and for all.

As we now know, the first round of Pfizer vaccines were sent to major hospitals across the country, including more than 100 in my State. Unfortunately, rural areas were almost entirely excluded. This is largely because of the infrastructure required to use the Pfizer vaccine, which must be kept at a negative 94 degrees Fahrenheit, which is significantly colder than the average freezer. While you are likely to find these ultra-low-temperature freezers in major hospitals and major research labs, they are far less likely to be found in smaller, rural hospitals. So when the first round of Pfizer vaccines went out the door, they were only sent to hospitals with the necessary equipment and a large number of workers who needed the vaccine. As a result, the healthcare heroes in rural areas, who have been fighting the same virus, often with fewer staff, fewer resources, and fewer treatments, were left waiting. But we have every reason to believe that this will change with the approval of the Moderna vaccine. This doesn't require the same low temperature storage and can be kept at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 days. This will make it easier to safely transport these vaccines from manufacturing sites to rural parts of Texas and the rest of the country and ensure that all of our healthcare heroes, our frontline workers, and, eventually, the general public will not be left behind.

There is no reason why rural healthcare workers in Texas or anywhere should be denied this lifesaving vaccine when their peers in larger urban areas are already receiving it. This is yet another reason to celebrate the approval of the second successful vaccine, and I am eager for the Moderna vaccine to arrive in healthcare facilities across Texas.

Mr. President, that brings me to the business that remains before the Senate today and, likely, for the next couple of days. After months of trying to come together on coronavirus legislation--months--the last several days have given the American people a lot of reason to hope. First of all, it seems like, for the first time in months, there is actually bipartisan interest in achieving an agreement. That wasn't the case in the runup to the election, where we had at least three or more cloture votes fail in the Senate.

So for months additional coronavirus relief was defeated by our Democratic colleagues who weren't even interested in the runup to the election on providing additional relief after the CARES Act passed last March. But, hopefully, that has all changed now after the election. Negotiators are working around the clock to reach an agreement that will gain the support of both parties and reach the President's desk before we gavel out for the holidays. But the days are dragging on, the clock is ticking, and the time is running out.

I want to mention two things--one about the process, and the other is about the substance included in whatever the package will look like.

First of all, given the way that this is being negotiated, basically there are four people who are negotiating this massive spending package on behalf of the 535 Members of Congress, and essentially, because this has been pushed off until these last days of the 116th session of Congress, the only thing most rank-and-file Members will be able to do is to vote up or down. In other words, there is no opportunity to amend it through regular order.

I just have to say, this is a terrible way to do business, and in the future, I hope we do better because this is almost the worst of all worlds when it comes to legislating. But we know our backs are against the wall because of the politics leading up to the election, where we haven't been able to do more since March, and so we have to do what we have to do.

The second thing I want to mention, which is more about substance, is about the Paycheck Protection Program and the deductibility of ordinary business expenses. I believe the Paycheck Protection Program has been one of the most successful parts of our COVID-19 economic relief. The goal, of course, was to provide small businesses access to low-interest loans, which could be converted into grants based upon their willingness to maintain their payroll and keep their employees connected with the business.

The hope was that these businesses would survive and would rebound after we got the virus in the rearview mirror. We didn't know how long that was going to last, and, indeed, it has lasted longer than any of us would have wanted or had planned. But it is important that this Paycheck Protection Program be revived because time is running out.

In my State, roughly $41 billion has been granted or--excuse me-- loaned with potential for grants to about 417,000 businesses. This has been an essential part of our response to COVID-19 and the economic fallout associated with it. But when we passed the PPP program in March, we expected--the Congress expected that businesses that got the loans that were converted to grants would be able to deduct their ordinary business expenses in the year 2020.

Now, I know that may not be the best tax policy in the world, but we could choose one of two ways to get financial relief to the small businesses. We can shovel money in the front door, or we can allow them to deduct their ordinary business expenses even though they received a grant from the Federal Government.

The reason why I say I know this was part of the understanding in March when we passed the bill is because I have now--because of the Treasury Department's opposition to the deductibility of ordinary business expenses for the recipients of the PPP grant, because of the Treasury Department's position that those are not deductible, we have had to file legislation which will override the Treasury Department's guidance and allow for that deductibility.

Again, this is not an ideal way to write tax policy, but under the exigent circumstances here, I think it makes perfect sense. Again, you can either write more checks on the front end, or you can allow businesses financial relief by deducting their ordinary expenses on the back end.

What I fear will happen, because of the opposition of the Treasury Department, is that, come January, the businesses that have received this incredibly important PPP benefit will find themselves having to pick up--having a tax bill, which will reverse, if not negate, the benefit that we intended by developing the PPP program in the first place. This will happen as early as January when many businesses have to pay their estimated tax. There will be an incredible backlash, I believe, because I think the recipients of the PPP loans and grants have every reason to expect, as Congress intended, that they would be able to deduct their ordinary business expenses.

What is going to happen if we don't fix that in this underlying bill? Well, we are going to end up doing it next year, I promise you, because I think the backlash we are going to feel here from the businesses that have been suffering, have been hanging on by a thread--that all of a sudden, they have an unexpected tax bill of roughly, according to the Wall Street Journal, about $120 billion worth.

We ultimately are going to have to fix that, so we might as well fix it on the front end rather than on the back end after our constituents who have been the recipients of the PPP grants rise up in outrage, really, that we haven't taken care of this now when we should. So I hope that in the negotiations on this COVID-19 relief bill, we include the deductibility of ordinary business expenses for recipients of PPP grants

The funding we provided earlier this year for vaccine distribution has already been depleted, and States are dipping into other sources of funding to ensure they have the capabilities to carry out the widespread vaccination effort. That is another reason why we need to pass this COVID-19 relief bill as soon as possible.

Workers lost bolstered Federal unemployment benefits at the end of July, and they are set to lose additional benefits the day after Christmas.

Small businesses, as I said, are struggling to stay afloat, especially as the winter weather hampers outdoor dining and events. I saw the snow that hit New York, where many of the restaurants--because they have been shut down, indoor dining has been shut down. They tried to build up some infrastructure outside their restaurants, but now even those have been closed down because of the weather.

People are hurting and need help. Parents and teachers are wondering when their children will be able to return to in-person learning and how schools will be able to keep them safe when they do.

The list goes on and on.

Earlier this year, we made a $3 trillion investment in our war against COVID-19, and that funding has been critical, not only to get us to where we are today in terms of therapeutics and vaccines but also to keep our economy from tanking entirely. But those funds are drying up, programs are expiring, and the American people are counting on us once again to provide the support they need.

There appear to be a few remaining sticking points in the negotiations, but there is no reason why Congress shouldn't be able to reach an agreement. The steady drip of information from congressional leaders is encouraging, but progress doesn't pay the bills.

Enough time has been wasted this year on partisanship and political posturing. We have reached a make-it-or-break-it moment, and there is no room for inaction. The American people are looking to us to protect their health and their livelihoods, and we cannot let them down.

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