Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Cramer and my colleague Senator Rounds from North Dakota. North Carolina's businesses are struggling. I heard Senator Cardin and am sympathetic to most of what he said. Yet, as I have traveled across the State--and I have had 65 telephone townhalls since COVID started and have talked with citizens in North Carolina for an hour, spending 55 minutes hearing from them and answering their questions--I know we have a very difficult problem in North Carolina and across the country. I just talked with a hotel and lodging association and a restaurant association a few weeks ago. They said we have 18,000 restaurants in North Carolina, and 9,000 of them are at risk of closing permanently. When we passed the CARES Act, we knew we had to do something big, bold, and fast, and I think everyone at the Small Business Administration and in the banking industry mobilized to do something that was unprecedented. They got that money out and into the hands of businesses. The program is called the Paycheck Protection Program for a reason. We were doing everything we could to make sure that those businesses that were willing could make payroll--could keep people on their benefits, could keep people on their healthcare--and could weather the storm while closures were going on all across this country. They were closing down businesses or, certainly, dramatically reducing their business.…”