Political Quotes

“in the 3 weeks since the Senate last met, America eclipsed 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. Nearly 190,000 Americans have died, and those totals climb by tragic amounts each day. Too many businesses remain closed, schools begin the year under a dark cloud of uncertainty, and our economy faces the greatest crisis since the Great Depression. The United States is 11.5 million jobs short of where we were at the start of February, and the number of jobs that have been permanently lost is rising at an alarming rate. All of this reflects a tragic reality: President Trump has led the worst response to COVID-19 of any nation on Earth. It is what it is. The economic pain of the pandemic was mitigated by our action in March when Democrats insisted on a robust stimulus bill that became the CARES Act. One of our policies included in that bill, enhanced unemployment benefits, has kept nearly 12 million Americans from poverty. Those benefits have now mostly expired, and the stimulus provided by the CARES Act has been exhausted. The pandemic and economic hardship for millions of American workers and families, however, is ongoing and painful. Speaker Pelosi and I have been trying to negotiate with the White House in another round of relief. It has been arduous. Democrats offered to meet our Republican colleagues in the middle, but the White House has refused to make any significant compromise.…”