Sens. Coons, Roberts, Reps. DelBene, Walorski lead bipartisan, bicameral bill to boost federal investment in American R&D, including vaccine research

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), along with U.S. Representatives Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) and Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), introduced legislation to provide expanded tax support for American companies that invest in the research and development of new products and technologies.

“As the United States confronts this public health and economic crisis, it is critical that we do everything we can to support the American companies that will develop the vaccines, products, and technologies necessary to move our country forward,” said Sen. Coons.“By providing vital tax support to innovative startups and businesses, the bipartisan, bicameral FORWARD Act will help to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuild a stronger U.S. economy.”

“American startups and businesses driving research and development will help lead our nation’s growth out of the COVID-19 crisis,” said Sen. Roberts. “This bipartisan, bicameral legislation will provide targeted tax support to help our nation’s most innovative companies – from vaccine developers to equipment manufacturers – work through this challenging period and power our economy forward.”

“In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we need to harness our best ideas to develop vaccines, testing, treatments, and protection for frontline workers and vulnerable populations alike,” said Sen. Cortez Masto. “Nevada has been a leader in innovation, but our startups and small technology firms can struggle to access the funds they need for research and development that will save lives and help our economies rebound. This bipartisan legislation will make it easier for cutting-edge solutions to become reality.”

“The private sector will help America emerge from the coronavirus pandemic and prepare for future emergencies,” said Sen. Young. “Government should work to encourage our small businesses to conduct the research and development needed to produce vaccines and other critical technologies right here in the U.S.”

“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to drastically impact all aspects of American life, we must support innovative businesses that are working to develop solutions that will help our country recover from this crisis,” said Sen. Hassan. “This bipartisan legislation—along with my efforts to expand the R&D tax credit to support startups and businesses in New Hampshire and across the country—can play a vital role in ensuring that companies on the forefront of innovation have the resources that they need during this pandemic.”

“We must support American research and development to accelerate the development and manufacturing of critical drugs to treat and prevent the coronavirus,” said Sen. Daines.

“COVID-19 is having a devastating impact on our economy and draining resources for future innovations. To help spark the next generation of products and discoveries, and get our economy on track, we need to invest in research and development,” said Rep. DelBene. “We need to unlock the full potential of the R&D Tax Credit by making it more accessible to smaller businesses.”

“Our country is facing an unprecedented challenge, but I know we will emerge even stronger because of American innovation and entrepreneurial spirit,” said Rep. Walorski.“Boosting investment in research and development – including for new treatments and vaccines – will not only help in the fight against coronavirus, it will put America’s small businesses and manufacturers on the best path to rebuilding our economy.”

The United States spends far less supporting R&D than international competitors. This places American businesses at a disadvantage, undermining the U.S. economy and leaving the country ill-prepared for crises like COVID-19. In 2015, Congress passed legislation authored by Senators Coons and Roberts to make the R&D tax credit permanent and to expand access to the credit for more startups and small businesses. These changes addressed urgent problems, but – as the current crisis makes clear – further steps are needed. 

The Furthering Our Recovery With American Research and Development, or FORWARD, Act:

• Expands access to the research and development tax credit for new small- and medium-sized businesses. Firms with up to $20 million in gross receipts will be eligible to use the credit to reduce their payroll tax obligation during a span of 8 years—up from current thresholds of $5 million and 5 years. A new de minimis threshold delays the start of the 8-year window until gross receipts exceed $25,000.

• Strengthens the economy by incentivizing American manufacturing. The R&D credit is increased for companies that generate the majority of their gross receipts from manufacturing their products in the United States. 

• Targets specific activities that enhance economic productivity by spreading knowledge and work opportunities to the U.S. workforce. The full R&D credit is expanded to cover R&D-related worker training costs. For R&D performed in collaboration with industry consortia, academic institutions, federal laboratories, and other entities, the credit rate is increased by one quarter (to 25% and 17.5% for the Regular Research and Alternative Simplified Credits, respectively). 

• Activates the R&D credit by providing outreach, education, and training for businesses with limited accounting expertise, to be provided by the Small Business Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.

The bill text is available here.

A one-pager on the bill is available here.

The FORWARD Act is supported by the American Small Manufacturers Coalition, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Center for American Entrepreneurship, Third Way, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Intelligent Manufacturing Systems International, the Delaware Small Business Development Center, the Association for Manufacturing Technology, the Manufacturing Alliance of Communities, Cover & Rossiter, the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, the State Science and Technology Institute, the University City Science Center, AlliantGroup, and the Small Business Investor Alliance.

“In the midst of a global pandemic and economic collapse, we need to be doing everything possible to support our manufacturers,” said Gabe Horwitz, Senior Vice President for the Economic Program at Third Way. “We applaud Senator Chris Coons for working to modernize R&D incentives, expanding the support to more businesses and driving more manufacturing here in the United States. Coons’ leadership on this issue will not only keep more people employed here, it will also bolster our response to global shocks like the coronavirus.”

“Science and engineering-based innovation are critical for addressing a wide array of American challenges, including the COVID-19 crisis,” said Dr. Robert D. Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “But the main federal incentive for private sector research – the R&D tax credit – needs both modernization and expansion. The FORWARD Act does just that, and if passed would spur more American innovation, job creation and competitiveness.”

“We […] applaud and support Senator Coons and others’ continued effort to enhance the U.S. R&D tax credit,” said CPA Myunghee Geerts of Cover & Rossiter. “The newly proposed regulations will tremendously benefit small business taxpayers. Especially considering an economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the timing couldn’t be better.”

“We thank Senator Coons for his ongoing leadership at the intersection of innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Dr. John Younger, Vice President of Science and Technology at Philadelphia’s University City Science Center. “These enhancements demonstrate the Senator’s deep understanding of the needs of start-ups, particularly the need to quickly access and thoughtfully deploy capital. These proposals make it easier for life-changing and life-saving technologies to make it to market. In addition to spurring job creation and economic growth, they will save and improve lives.”

Bill Hanka, Director of the Manufacturing Alliance of Communities, applauded the introduction, calling it “exactly what the manufacturing sector needs. […] MAC commends Senator Coons for this intelligent and effective piece of legislation and calls on its members to promote the bill with their home state senators.”

“The vulnerability of our supply chain made evident during this crisis is a real wake-up call across the manufacturing sector,” said Amber Thomas, Vice President for Advocacy at the Association for Manufacturing Technology. “It’s going to take a coordinated national effort to make sure we’re prepared as much as we can be for future challenges.”

Dr. Dean L. Bartles, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), said: “On behalf of NCDMM, I am pleased to support this bill. By providing R&D incentives to small- and medium-sized manufacturers, legislative efforts such as this are directly aligned to the mission of NCDMM by enabling critical innovation efforts and worker training to keep U.S. advanced manufacturing globally competitive.”

“The FORWARD Act helps expand access to the R&D Tax credit to manufacturers at all levels,” said Dave Boulay, President of the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center and Board Chair of the American Small Manufacturers Coalition. “[This] will help spur industry innovation in technology, process and product. Continued investment in R&D is what the manufacturing industry needs to survive and grow in the future.”

Dan Nagy, Managing Director of Intelligent Manufacturing Systems International (IMSI), said: “The IMSI is pleased to support this bill as an incentive for small-to-medium sized manufacturers to grow their companies through payroll tax credits with additional incentives to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies. Providing the IRS and SBA funding to help manufacturers understand how to access these incentives gives this legislation the legs it needs to be effective.”

###

Senate Chicken Caucus leads letter urging USDA to support chicken farmers and processors

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), co-chairs of the Senate Chicken Caucus, led a letter to the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) highlighting the severe impacts of COVID-19 on the U.S. chicken industry and requesting direct assistance for chicken growers and continued support for processing facilities.

“When USDA allocates $16 billion in direct assistance for agricultural producers impacted by COVID-19, we’re strongly requesting that chicken farmers be included,” said Senator Coons. “As chicken processing facilities in Delaware and across the country have reduced production, chicken growers have been forced to depopulate millions of healthy birds. These growers need assistance to overcome unprecedented disruptions in demand and processing facilities require resources in order to continue feeding our nation and providing the safest possible working conditions for their employees.”

“As representatives of states with substantial chicken operations, we strongly request that USDA provide direct assistance for chicken farmers impacted by COVID-19 and continue to provide support for chicken processing facilities,” wrote the senators.

A bipartisan group of 16 senators joined Coons and Wicker in signing the letter, including Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

A copy of the letter is available here and below.

Dear Secretary Perdue:

Thank you for your commitment to supporting American farmers and our agricultural economy throughout the COVID-19 crisis. As you are well aware, COVID-19 is severely disrupting meat production operations essential to our country’s food supply, including chicken farming and processing. On April 17, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it will provide $16 billion in direct financial assistance to agricultural producers impacted by COVID-19. As representatives of states with substantial chicken operations, we strongly request that USDA provide direct assistance for chicken farmers impacted by COVID-19 and continue to provide support for chicken processing facilities. 

The U.S. chicken industry provides an essential service in feeding Americans, who on average consume about 100 pounds of chicken meat each year. As you know, chicken processing facilities across the country have been forced to reduce or suspend production as a result of workforce shortages caused by COVID-19. We appreciate USDA’s efforts to comply with President Trump’s executive order and work with processing facilities, local officials, and other federal agencies to keep these facilities operating and provide employees with the safest working conditions possible. As these facilities continue to experience challenges due to COVID-19, we ask that you continue to provide support to the fullest extent possible. 

The challenges faced by chicken processing facilities impact the entire supply chain, including the independent family farmers in our states who raise chickens. Chicken farmers across the country have been forced to depopulate millions of healthy birds in response to substantial reductions in processing capacity. As these farmers cope with changing and uncertain demand, we believe it is essential that they be provided with direct financial assistance. 

The impacts of COVID-19 on the chicken industry are becoming more serious and visible as the disease continues to spread throughout the United States. As an industry essential to American food security, we urge you to provide necessary support for chicken farmers and processing facilities.

Thank you for your attention to this request. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like more information or have any questions.

Sincerely,

###

Sen. Coons, colleagues call for tax credit expansion to help families during coronavirus economic downturn

Senators call for expanding Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit

Expansion would put money in pockets of low- and middle-income Americans, provide badly-needed financial resources as the COVID-19 economic downturn continues into next year

WILMINGTON, Del. — U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and 34 other colleagues in a letter to Senate Leaders calling for a temporary expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in the next coronavirus relief package. As the economic effects of COVID-19 are expected to last into next year, this would put money back in the pockets of low- and middle-income Americans as they continue to weather the economic downturn. 

“COVID-19 has presented our nation with an unprecedented public health challenge. This Congress has taken several bipartisan steps to address it, along with the resulting economic effects we’ve already seen. However, additional measures are critical to confront and reverse ongoing economic paralysis. The EITC and the CTC are proven and effective tools to increase financial stability for workers and their families. Expanding them will provide much needed support to families and boost our economy as our nation recovers from COVID-19,” the senators wrote.

The senators’ letter calls for filling gaps in the EITC and CTC that leave out some of the youngest Americans, people not raising children in the home, and the lowest-income families. Currently, the youngest workers – including those on the front lines of coronavirus like health aides, grocery store clerks, and truck drivers – are ineligible for the credit. Workers not raising children in the home are only eligible for a small credit. These gaps mean 5 million American workers are taxed into or further into poverty by our current tax code. Expanding the EITC for these Americans would fix this.

The letter also calls for making the CTC fully available to all children as a refundable credit and increasing the credit amount for kids under 6 years of age, to provide additional support to children and families at a time in life that is critical for cognitive development. As the economic effects of coronavirus continue, these changes to the CTC will benefit 26 million kids whose families currently cannot receive the full value of the $2,000 credit.  

Together, these expansions will provide support to the workers and families who will be hit the hardest and affected the longest by this crisis. 

This letter builds on the senators’ Working Families Tax Relief Act, which would cut taxes for workers and families by expanding the EITC and CTC. EITC and CTC are two of the most effective tools we have to put money in the pockets of people and pull children out of poverty. Expanding them will give millions more Americans a foothold in the middle class. Read more about the bill HERE. 

In addition to Coons, Brown, Bennet, Durbin and Wyden, the letter was also signed by Sens. Baldwin (D-Wis.), Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Booker (D-N.J.), Cardin (D-Md.), Casey (D-Pa.), Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Duckworth (D-Ill.), Feinstein (D-Calif.), Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Harris (D-Calif.), Hassan (D-N.H.), Heinrich (D-N.M.), Hirono (D-Hawaii), Kaine (D-Va.), King (D-Maine), Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Leahy (D-Vt.), Markey (D-Mass.), Menendez (D-N.J.), Merkley (D-Ore.), Murphy (D-Conn.), Murray (D-Wash.), Peters (D-Mich.), Reed (D-R.I.), Rosen (D-Nev.), Schatz (D-Hawaii), Shaheen (D-N.H.), Smith (D-Minn.), Stabenow (D-Mich.), Udall (D-N.M.), Van Hollen (D-Md.), Warner (D-Va.), Warren (D-Mass.), and Whitehouse (D-R.I.). 

A copy of the senators’ letter to Senate Leaders can be found here and below. 

Dear Leader McConnell and Leader Schumer:

The economic havoc brought about by COVID-19 will have wide-ranging and long-lasting effects, especially on low-wage workers, children, and their families. CBO expects unemployment to rise to 16% and then hold at levels of 10% through the end of 2021. More aggressive policy steps must be taken to get the economy back on an acceptable path. To help address this, we urge you to include a temporary expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in the next coronavirus legislative package, to take effect for tax year 2020.

COVID-19 has presented our nation with an unprecedented public health challenge. This Congress has taken several bipartisan steps to address it, along with the resulting economic effects we’ve already seen. However, additional measures are critical to confront and reverse ongoing economic paralysis. The EITC and the CTC are proven and effective tools to increase financial stability for workers and their families. Expanding them will provide much needed support to families and boost our economy as our nation recovers from COVID-19.

The EITC promotes work and provides a financial boost to low-wage workers and their families. However, gaps in EITC mean that millions of people are left out. Low-wage seniors over 64 and the youngest adult workers not raising children in the home are locked out entirely: their EITC benefit is zero. In all, five million workers without children are taxed into or deeper into poverty, receiving only a small EITC benefit. Across our country, we have seen the importance of people who do essential jobs but are paid too little. An expanded EITC would provide additional income to supplement their limited earnings. Among the people who would benefit the most from a robust childless adult EITC are cashiers, health-aides, and truck drivers – workers on the front lines of coronavirus.We must fill the existing gaps and increase the size of the credit generally.

The CTC provides a $2,000 credit to eligible families with children. Unfortunately, it currently leaves behind approximately 26 million children. That’s because their families either qualify for no credit at all, or because they qualify for less than the full $2,000. The time is now to fix these obvious flaws by making the CTC fully available to all children as a refundable credit. Doing so would provide the biggest boost to the poorest families, by simply providing them the same amount that more well-off families already receive. We should also increase the credit amount for kids under 6 years of age, to provide additional support to children and families at a time in life that is critical for cognitive development.   

We must respond to this unprecedented challenge with policies that provide support to the workers and families who will be hit the hardest and affected the longest by this crisis. Doing so also serves as effective economic stimulus, delivering efficient results to American taxpayers. Our Working Families Tax Relief Act, legislation that we are all sponsoring this Congress, provides the model for making these critical improvements to the EITC and CTC. Working families are depending on us to meet this extraordinary moment by providing them with the support they need to weather the ongoing economic effects of COVID-19 in the years to come. We must deliver for them.   

Sincerely,

###

[VIDEO] Sen. Coons: ‘We need to invest significantly’ in vaccine manufacturing capacity to be ready for COVID-19, next pandemic

WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined The Hill’s Steve Clemons this week to discuss the importance of expanding our domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity to not only prepare for COVID-19, but future pandemics.  

“This particular novel coronavirus that is producing COVID-19 is a double challenge in that it is something that is going to require us to develop an enormous number of individual vaccine doses,” Senator Coons said. “I think we will hopefully finally proactively invest enough [in vaccine manufacturing] because as bad as this pandemic is, it is nowhere near as bad as what has been predicted for many years, which is that we are due for a truly lethal influenza pandemic.”

“My hope is that this experience is bad enough that we finally mobilize globally the resources needed to ensure that we don’t have to endure a pandemic like this one, but dramatically more lethal,” Senator Coons said.

Full video available here. Full transcript available below.

Q: How is Delaware doing given news that this weekend was the worst in terms of infections and deaths from COVID-19 in the state?

Sen. Coons: I’m grateful for the very strong and engaged leadership of our governor, John Carney, and our head of our division of public health, Dr. Karyl Rattay. Because we finally recently got up to date test results about the breadth of the infection of COVID-19 in Sussex County and in particular in the communities immediately around our poultry processing plants, our number, in terms of the number of infections, has jumped fairly suddenly and a number of us spent the last couple of days working to support the governor and our public health infrastructure and the hospitals in Sussex County to make sure that we’ve got the testing capacity and the treatment capacity needed to respond to this sudden surge in the number of cases in our southernmost county. 

Q: You have been thinking ahead, before we have a vaccine, and have been emphasizing the need to get our manufacturing abilities in place. Can you tell us more?

Sen. Coons: Well, Steve, as you may remember, I was the chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee on Foreign Relations and met with the president of Liberia several times in advance of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2015 and actually traveled to Liberia during Ebola. I was the only member of Congress to visit West Africa during that pandemic, and it was a result of that direct engagement, that exposure to a country that was ravaged by a pandemic where American leadership helped scale up a global response and helped strengthen the Liberian people’s response to that tragic and challenging incident that got me very interested in pandemic preparedness and response. Bill and Melinda Gates have been real thought leaders, have really invested in this area, and, as you just referenced former Majority Leader and doctor, Bill Frist, former senator from Tennessee, is someone who was well ahead of his time in helping the U.S. think about and invest in pandemic response. 

BARDA [Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority] is a sub-agency of Health and Human Services that makes strategic investments in biologic response and disaster response capabilities. A number of years ago, they invested in four different facilities — in Texas and North Carolina and Maryland principally — that were designed to be ready facilities to rapidly scale up large numbers of doses of vaccines or therapeutics. … In the CARES Act, one of the things I advocated for was a significant increase in investment both in currently available private sector capabilities and in strengthening the innovation and the flexibility in our nation’s capabilities. One of the things I worked hard on, Steve, was so-called Manufacturing USA, which is a series of federal and private sector and academic partnership institutes around the country, and there happens to be one here in Delaware. It’s called the National Institute for Innovation in the Manufacturing of Biopharmaceuticals, or its better known by the more memorable acronym NIIMBL. It’s not really just the University of Delaware. It is dozens and dozens of academic research institutes and private sector partners that all told have put together more than $200 million in investment in trying to be flexible and agile in standing up rapid and high-quality responses to challenges like this current COVID-19 pandemic.

Q: So are you saying we should have confidence that we have a strong manufacturing infrastructure in place and can sit back and wait for all this to happen now. Or does the NIIMBL private/public network need more than it has to work and to generate vaccines and antivirals we need after they are discovered?

Sen. Coons: I have concerns that we need to invest significantly more for two reasons. One is that vaccine development is an exceptionally difficult and tricky undertaking. You have to have lots of quality control, both in the search for an effective vaccine in the human trials and then in the manufacturing of a vaccine. Second, there has never been an FDA-approved successful coronavirus vaccine. Coronavirus is an entire family of viruses. There are thousands of coronaviruses. There is obviously an annual flu vaccine, an influenza vaccine, so there is an existing backbone that is modified or developed every flu season. So how do those companies who manufacture flu vaccines do so? They work off of a known and approved backbone and then make adjustments every year because the flu mutates — it modifies. That’s how it becomes newly infectious is that it changes every year, every season. This particular novel coronavirus, that is producing COVID-19 is a double challenge in that it is something that is going to require us to develop an enormous number of individual vaccine doses. And we’re looking for a novel type of vaccine in that there’s never been a successful coronavirus vaccine before.

Q: As a legislator concerned with planning for the future, do you worry that we will forget now about the pain from this coronavirus and not make needed investments in future protection? When I interviewed in the past Anthony Fauci and recently talked to Sen. Frist, they both have said we need to be proactive. We need to begin thinking about vaccine development across a spectrum of possible viral risks for humans and not just be reactive to the latest attack. Your thoughts?

Sen. Coons: I certainly hope so. Steve. One of the things that really haunted me during the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was hearing that there had been a potential Ebola or Marburg virus vaccine in development in … the NIH but that it had been shelved due to budgetary constraints and budgetary concerns, due to a lack of proactive investment in the development of a vaccine. As you know, there’s been a significant Ebola outbreak in the northeastern corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was grinding away last year. A key difference in last year’s response to the Ebola outbreak in central Africa to the six years ago previous response is that now there are two functional vaccines that are in trials that are providing critically needed protection to public health workers who are responding to the current Ebola outbreak. What’s the point in response to this novel coronavirus outbreak? Yes, Steve, I think we will hopefully finally proactively invest enough because as bad as this pandemic is, it is nowhere near as bad as what has been predicted for many years, which is that we are due for a truly lethal influenza pandemic. COVID-19 is highly transmissive, like any influenza, and it is relatively lethal, but it is not very highly lethal. So, imagine something that spreads as easily as the seasonal cold or flu, but is as lethal as Ebola. If that were to happen, we would face massive human losses globally, as happened in 1918 where tens of millions of people died. I hate to draw your attention to an even more grim scenario.

Q: You’re saying this is a foreshock of some far worse pandemic — is what you’re saying?

Sen. Coons: That’s correct. My hope is that this experience is bad enough that we finally mobilize globally the resources needed to ensure that we don’t have to endure a pandemic like this one, but dramatically more lethal.

Q: What are your thoughts on how equipped President Trump, or former Vice President Joe Biden, are to deal with this kind of unconventional national security threat?

Sen. Coons: Well, Steve, remember that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States were, for the vast majority of Americans, a shocking, utterly unexpected wake-up call. But for those who had been in the intelligence community, in our national security community, there were plenty of warning signs. There was a previous attempt at attacking the World Trade Center. There were attacks on the United States Embassies in Nairobi and Dar Salaam, in Kenya and Tanzania. There was the attack on the USS Cole. There were a whole series of attacks that showed that al Qaeda was becoming gradually more competent, more lethal, and more intent on killing Americans in a spectacular style. But we had a variety of challenges and problems in terms of our ability to gather the intelligence and respond in a timely way. The 9/11 Commission, after the 9/11 attacks, looked backwards at how we failed to be fully prepared for and respond to all of those clear signals. And so we gradually made massive investments in changing the structures of how intelligence is coordinated, changing the training and the doctrine that a preparation of our military forces to respond to asymmetric attacks by terrorist groups. We must do the same thing in response to this pandemic, Steve. We need a similar commission that on a bipartisan basis will look at how our pandemic response was flawed. How this administration has failed to see the moment and to grasp it and to rapidly scale up highly effective testing, contact tracing, and then to manage the distribution of badly needed supplies from personal protective equipment to ventilators to other critically needed material that would have made our testing and tracing more responsive. We will have a much longer recovery from this pandemic and many more lives lost to the pandemic than was necessary because of a disjointed and at times chaotic federal response. So my hope and expectation is that in a bipartisan way, moving forward from here, we will see a competent federal response inspired by a broad review of the ways in which the response to date has left many governors in many states struggling to find the resources and the response material that they need.

Q: Senator, we did have a surprising moment last week when the president suggested that perhaps we could inject disinfectants to kill the virus. Do you think that that odd moment may be in the long run helpful in getting doctors and scientists more in the right policy tracks in our federal response?

Sen. Coons: Any of us in elected leadership who have served in executive posts get training in how to get out of the way. One of the things I’ve never forgotten about the training I got as a young county executive nearly 20 years ago — about how to handle incident response — was to be engaged and be responsive, but to also know what you don’t know, and to rely on the public safety experts, the public health experts to guide tough decisions. That’s what our governor has done here in the state of Delaware. He’s relied on critically needed professional advice and response, and that’s what our president should have done. But frankly, has not done — is to allow Dr. Fauci, Dr. [Deborah] Birx, Dr. [Robert] Redfield and others at the CDC, NIH, and in the Department of Health and Human Services federally to inform and guide response. He should be at these daily briefings. Our president should be at these daily briefings briefly to introduce the experts and to provide them with the support and coordination they need, rather than using daily briefings as a several hours-long running, feuding session with the media that is utterly unconstructive. So, my hope is that after this past week’s disconcerting incident that President Trump will allow his briefings to turn more towards the sorts of briefings that are science driven, public health led and will help us move towards a more fact and science based federal response — something that all Americans need as we make very challenging decisions about how and when to reopen. 

###

Sens. Coons, Perdue, Durbin, Young to introduce bipartisan bill addressing shortage of doctors, nurses

WILMINGTON, Del. —  U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Todd Young (R-In.) today announced they will introduce bipartisan legislation called the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act to provide a temporary stopgap to quickly address our nation’s shortage of doctors and nurses, which poses a significant risk to our ability to effectively respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

The senators’ proposal, to be introduced when the Senate reconvenes, would recapture 25,000 unused immigrant visas for nurses and 15,000 unused immigrant visas for doctors that Congress has previously authorized and allocate those visas to doctors and nurses who can help in the fight against COVID-19. The proposal will not increase current immigration numbers.

“American health care workers are on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, putting their lives at risk to care for our loved ones,” said Senator Coons. “This commonsense, bipartisan bill would provide reinforcements in the fight against the virus by targeting doctors and nurses stuck in the green card backlog for immediate relief. This narrow solution will not fix our broken immigration system, but it will help prevent its dysfunction from blocking medical professionals who can help give patients across the country the care they urgently need.”

“The growing shortage of doctors and nurses over the past decade has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis,”said Senator Perdue. “Fortunately, there are thousands of trained health professionals who want to practice in the United States. This proposal would simply reallocate a limited number of unused visas from prior years for doctors and nurses who are qualified to help in our fight against COVID-19. This shortage is critical and needs immediate attention so that our healthcare facilities are not overwhelmed in this crisis.”

“Consider this: one-sixth of our health care workforce is foreign-born. Immigrant nurses and doctors play a vital role in our health care system, and their contributions are now more crucial than ever. Where would we be in this pandemic without them? It is unacceptable that thousands of doctors currently working in the U.S. on temporary visas are stuck in the green card backlog, putting their futures in jeopardy and limiting their ability to contribute to the fight against COVID-19,” said Senator Durbin. “This bipartisan, targeted, and timely legislation will strengthen our health care workforce and improve health care access for Americans in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support these vital health care workers.”

“The U.S. Department of Labor has declared that we have a shortage of nurses and need the support of trained professionals from other countries. This is especially true in rural parts of our country that are too often overlooked. I have been working to remove unnecessary barriers for nurses to get visas to come to the United States and help us combat coronavirus, the opioid crisis, and other health challenges. This legislation will help address our immediate healthcare needs during this unprecedented crisis,” said Senator Young.

Specifically, the senators’ proposal:

Recaptures unused visas from previous fiscal years for doctors, nurses, and their families

Exempts these visas from country caps

Requires employers to attest that immigrants from overseas who receive these visas will not displace an American worker

Requires the Department of Homeland Security and State Department to expedite the processing of recaptured visas

Limits the filing period for recaptured visas to 90 days following the termination of the President’s COVID-19 emergency declaration

Read the text of the bill here.

###

Sens. Carper, Coons, colleagues press to include $50 billion childcare bailout in next coronavirus relief package

WILMINGTON, Del. — U.S. Senator Tom Carper and Chris Coons joined Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and 27 of their Senate colleagues in calling on Senate leadership to include a plan for a $50 billion childcare bailout in the next coronavirus relief package, saying it is indispensable part of the nation’s response to the pandemic.

Earlier this month, Sens. Smith and Warren unveiled a plan to stabilize the childcare system, keep providers in business, and ensure parents are able to go back to work when it is safe to return. The senators are calling on Senate leaders to prioritize this funding in the next relief package, as well as making sure small businesses and nonprofits involved in caring for children receive support from the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program.

“We write to strongly urge you to prioritize funding childcare in the next legislative package that responds to the public health and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic and emergency,” wrote the senators. “While the $3.5 billion for childcare included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) was an important first step in helping to fund childcare for frontline healthcare workers and other essential employees, since its passage, we have only learned more about the extent of closures required by this pandemic and the dire situation that childcare providers are in, which necessitates additional relief.  Accordingly, we urge you to provide at least $50 billion in emergency funding in order to stabilize the entire childcare industry, provide childcare for essential workers including healthcare workers, and invest in childcare for our long-term economic recovery.”

The letter to Senate leaders was also signed by Senators Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-Pa.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), and Mark Warner (D-Va.).

An analysis estimated that at least $9.6 billion is needed each month to preserve the nation’s childcare system during the coronavirus. The need for at least $50 billion in childcare funding was also echoed by a broad coalition of childcare advocates nationwide, you can access the full list here.

You can access a copy of the letter here or below: 

Dear Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer, 

We write to strongly urge you to prioritize funding childcare in the next legislative package that responds to the public health and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic and emergency.  While the $3.5 billion for childcare included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) was an important first step in helping to fund childcare for frontline healthcare workers and other essential employees, since its passage, we have only learned more about the extent of closures required by this pandemic and the dire situation that childcare providers are in, which necessitates additional relief.  Accordingly, we urge you to provide at least $50 billion in emergency funding in order to stabilize the entire childcare industry, provide childcare for essential workers including healthcare workers, and invest in childcare for our long-term economic recovery.

Childcare programs across this country have been pushed to the brink and many now find themselves making a difficult choice: stay open, providing childcare for essential workers and serving vastly fewer children with increased staffing and necessary cleaning costs and diminished tuition revenue, or close altogether to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.  And given the already high cost of childcare, most families cannot afford to continue to pay for childcare they are not using, thus providers have seen an enormous drop in revenue, almost overnight.  Initial survey data at the beginning of this crisis indicated that nearly 50 percent of childcare programs would not survive a closure of more than two weeks without an infusion of support.

This country has long neglected our responsibility to invest in childcare.  Even before this pandemic, the challenge of finding affordable, high-quality, safe, and nurturing care has been a massive burden on families.  The market for childcare was at risk heading into this crisis because even when their classrooms were filled before the pandemic, providers struggled to stay afloat on the thinnest of margins.  As anyone who has cared for small children knows, childcare is labor-intensive work that is hard to scale and cannot be automated.  So paradoxically, despite the fact that childcare often costs more than what families can pay, childcare workers are generally paid less than they deserve—workers who are often women and women of color.  In more than half the states in the country, the cost of a year of childcare is more than a year of in-state college tuition. The average cost of childcare for a single child is between nine percent to 36 percent of a family’s total income, and that share increases dramatically with multiple children. For single parents, the cost of center-based infant care could easily eat up between 27 percent to 91 percent of their average income. And even before childcare providers started laying off workers and closing their doors due to coronavirus, more than half of all Americans lived in childcare “deserts”—communities without adequate childcare options.  Childcare deserts are especially prevalent in rural, Native, and Latinx communities.

Providers throughout the market that are part of the subsidy system and the private-pay market are finding themselves unable to weather this economic storm without emergency help.  Closures have already begun, and without a clear end in sight, the widespread effects are already being felt.  We will not be able to rebuild our economy if this country’s childcare system has collapsed because of this pandemic.  When the economy can safely start to come back, millions of parents will not be able to return to work or reopen their own small businesses if they cannot find safe, affordable, and reliable care for their children.  If childcare providers, both centers and family-childcare, are allowed to go out of business, we risk permanently reducing the supply of childcare in this country.

A recent economic analysis estimates that at least $9.6 billion is needed each month to meet childcare needs for essential workers and to ensure existing providers who are forced to close during the pandemic can stay in business and reopen when it is safe to do so. The total economic impact of childcare is estimated to be $99 billion a year, and state childcare officials and local providers are in dire straits, clamoring for support beyond what Congress has already provided if they are able to come out on the other side of this crisis.

We urge you to provide at least $50 billion in emergency funding to bailout childcare, an amount which will stabilize the system, keep providers in business, and ensure a viable path for parents to go back to work when it is safe to do so.  We urge you to prioritize funding in order to: 

Keep childcare available to frontline and essential workers: Many providers across the country are risking their own health to provide emergency care for the children of essential workers, including doctors, nurses, grocery store workers, and first responders.  These providers are faced with the double whammy of increased costs (due to longer operating hours and the need for more intensive and frequent cleaning), and less revenue due to significantly reduced enrollment.  We must provide emergency funding to childcare providers that need to stay open for our brave frontline and essential workers.  This funding should also provide increased paid leave and hazard pay for childcare workers risking their own health to remain open and totally eliminate fees for essential workers during this crisis.

Keep all providers in business and all workers on payroll: Necessary closures have left tens of thousands of childcare providers without revenue to pay their workers or their basic operating expenses.  We must provide emergency funding to save the sector from collapse and to prevent more unemployment.  This funding should be used to maintain providers’ payroll, cover mortgage or rent payments, provide employee benefits, and other business expenses.  We must ensure that providers have the funding to train workers on new necessary health and safety procedures and to provide families with virtual learning opportunities and mental health support.

Invest in childcare long-term for when Americans can safely get back to work:  Beyond the immediate need to keep the industry afloat during this emergency, we must rebuild the system to ensure that more families have access to high-quality, affordable childcare.  This also includes improving childcare infrastructure and increasing wages for childcare workers, which would further boost our economic recovery when this pandemic is over.  Providers will also need funding to support social-emotional learning and mental health to address the mental health needs caused by the pandemic.  These structural investments are key to ensure the sector is prepared to care for the children of all Americans trying to get back to work once we are beyond this crisis.

We urge you to provide at least $50 billion in emergency funding in a manner that ensures that every state, territory, and tribal nation gets needed funding quickly to get money out the door to providers.  You can accomplish this through the Child Care and Development Block Grant by providing states with the flexibility necessary to immediately meet the needs outlined above and to gradually get the childcare system running again once parents return to work through an incremental approach that funds providers by classroom capacity rather than by child attendance.

Finally, childcare providers, especially those who encounter challenges in accessing support through state administered programs, need more certainty and more options.  In addition to emergency funding, we urge you to ensure that small businesses and nonprofits involved in caring for children receive support from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program.  We have heard directly from providers facing significant obstacles to accessing support from the Paycheck Protection Program, established in the CARES Act.  It’s clear that key improvements to the program are needed so that childcare providers and all small businesses involved in caring for children and supporting families, including afterschool programs and summer camps, can receive direct support from it.  We urge you to fully fund the Paycheck Protection Program and work with us to ensure that any qualifying small businesses and nonprofits involved in caring for children and supporting families can easily and reliably access it.

We have only two options as a country: we can either do what is needed to stabilize the childcare system, or we can watch childcare providers collapse, one by one in our communities, leaving children, families, and childcare workers with no system to return to and hamstringing our economic recovery.  We must act to save childcare and ensure that it can be an active engine in our eventual economic recovery.  Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely, 

###

Sen. Coons sends bipartisan letter to Treasury & SBA to prevent shutoff of small business credit program

WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations subcommittee and member of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, joined Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) in sending a bipartisan letter to Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Jovita Carranza, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), urging the agencies to provide an immediate administrative fix to ensure the continued operation of the 7(a) loan program. 

Due to a technical drafting error, the CARES Act and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act did not create separate authorization levels for the 7(a) program and the Paycheck Protection Program. As a result, the 7(a) program’s FY 2020 $30 billion lending authority will be voided until July 1, 2020 once the amount authorized for PPP is committed. That will leave numerous businesses seeking access to capital without access to the 7(a) loan program.

After the Paycheck Protection Program, the second largest small business support in theCARES Act is the $17 billion small business debt relief program, which provides six months of waived payments for all small business borrowers of SBA-backed loans. The debt relief provision, authored by Sen. Coons, is available to all 320,000 small businesses who held SBA loans prior to the pandemic relief legislation, as well as those who take out new SBA 7(a), 504, or microloans within six months of the legislation. This benefit allows small businesses to borrow long-term, with the reassurance that the SBA will make the first six payments on their behalf. If the 7(a) program shuts down, the debt relief program will be unavailable to prospective new small business borrowers.  

“The 7(a) program provides flexible capital to businesses that cannot obtain credit elsewhere, serving as a lifeline for many small businesses before this crisis, and fulfilling a vital role in this economic emergency,” the senators wrote. “The high demand for PPP loans will lead to a swift expenditure of the new funds, given the severity of the crisis and need for small business relief. We urge the agencies to provide an immediate administrative fix to reserve part of the authorized amount for the 7(a) program.” 

In addition to Sens. Coons, Rubio, and Cardin, 19 Senators signed the letter: Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Todd Young (R-Ind.). 

The text of the letter is below.  

Dear Secretary Mnuchin and Administrator Carranza:

The recently signed Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act (H.R. 266) allowed for the assistance provided through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to resume and continue saving millions of jobs throughout our country. Now, more than ever, America’s 30 million small businesses and the over 60 million individuals they employ, need access to the PPP. They also need access to the SBA’s existing core lending programs, such as the regular 7(a) Loan Guaranty program, to stay afloat through this unprecedented crisis. 

The 7(a) program provides flexible capital to businesses that cannot obtain credit elsewhere, serving as a lifeline for many small businesses before this crisis, and fulfilling a vital role in this economic emergency. The PPP stands on the foundation of the 7(a) program, which has allowed PPP to become operational quickly. Unfortunately, the CARES Act did not establish separate authorization caps for PPP and the 7(a) program. The 7(a) program was able to continue to operate after the PPP program expended its appropriated funds because the programs did not reach the statutory lending authority. However, in the most recent bill passed to fund the PPP, the 7(a) program would be unable to continue operating since separate authorization caps were not established and the amount appropriated in H.R. 266 provides funding to commit the entire authorized amount to PPP loans, leaving no lending authority for 7(a). This lack of separate authorization caps, first in CARES, and carried through in H.R. 266, effectively voids the 7(a) loan program’s FY 2020 $30 billion authorization cap until July 1, 2020.  

The high demand for PPP loans will lead to a swift expenditure of the new funds, given the severity of the crisis and need for small business relief. We urge the agencies to provide an immediate administrative fix to reserve part of the authorized amount for the 7(a) program. This will allow small businesses to access the capital they critically need for both SBA programs. 

We thank you for your continued service on behalf of America’s small businesses. We look forward to our continued partnership to help small businesses survive this economic hardship. 

Sincerely,

###

Carper, Coons, Democratic colleagues announce legislation to strengthen medical supply chain, increase national production and create an equitable and transparent process for delivery of necessary COVID-19 supplies

WILMINGTON, Del. — Today, U.S. Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons (both-Del.) joined Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), as well as Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, to announce legislation that lays out a framework for an effective COVID-19 response by requiring strong coordinate at the federal level, and adding critical oversight and transparency to the supply chain for critical medical supplies and equipment. The Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act requires the president to utilize all available authorities under the Defense Production Act to mobilize a federal response to the pandemic through an equitable and transparent process. 

44 other Senate Democrats support this legislation, as well as AFL-CIO, SEIU, the National Nurses United, and United Steelworkers. Representatives Katie Porter (D-CA), Jason Crow (D-CO), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Tim Ryan (D-OH) will introduce the House companion of this legislation.

“Since the coronavirus pandemic began plaguing our communities, I have urged President Trump to use his full authorities under the Defense Production Act to adequately address supply shortages that continue to put our health care workers and their patients at heightened risk. That has still not happened,” said Senator Carper. “It’s why, today, I am proud to join Senators Murphy and Baldwin to introduce the Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act, a bill that would require the President to exercise those authorities to immediately address the shortage of critical testing, personal protective equipment, and other medical supplies. It is past time for the Trump Administration to take all necessary measures to respond to this pandemic with the urgency it demands. If Senator McConnell wants the Senate to reconvene next week, legislation, like this, to address the urgent needs of those on the front lines should be what we are working on.”

“The lack of a clear, coordinated national supply chain strategy to help frontline health care workers respond to this pandemic is creating chaos and likely costing lives,” said Senator Coons.  “Hospitals and health care systems and even states and cities are competing with one another to get basic supplies to treat patients and contain the outbreak – that’s unacceptable. The federal government should lead a clear, nationwide strategy to acquire and distribute the life-saving medical equipment that is so desperately needed in communities across the country.”

The Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act would:

• Require publicly reported national assessments on a weekly basis to determine national critical equipment supply and requirements.
  • These reports will also identify industry sectors and manufacturers most ready to fill orders, stockpiles that can be refurbished or repaired, manufacturers that could expand production into PPE and medical supplies, and supplies and equipment that can be redistributed to new hotspots. 
• These reports would also include direct outreach with essential employees and health care workers.
  • Establish an Executive Officer to oversee acquisition and logistics for COVID-19 equipment production and delivery.
  • The Executive Officer will have all the authorities available under the DPA.
  • The Executive Officer is required to issue major purchase orders under DPA for supplies identified in the assessments, oversee all distribution of critical medical supplies, and make recommendations to the President on increasing national production capacity of supplies.
  • The Executive Officer will be a civilian position appointed by the Secretary of the Defense and will be authorized additional uniformed and DOD civilian personnel in supporting roles.
  • The Executive Officer will ensure that all unused supplies in excess of need will be turned over to the Strategic National Stockpile.
  • The Executive Officer will terminate after confirming to Congress that all State and territorial medical supply needs have been met and national stockpiles have been replenished.
• Increase transparency regarding the distribution of supplies and equipment.
  • The Executive Officer is required to publicly post all states’ requests for assistance, metrics and criteria for amount and destination of distribution, metrics for determining hotspots and areas of future concern, and production and procurement benchmarks.
• Require a comprehensive plan for COVID–19 testing, including viral and antibody testing.
• Establish a comprehensive plan to address necessary supply chain issues in order to rapidly scale up production of a COVID-19 vaccine.
• Require a GAO report to identify lessons learned and make recommendations on future pandemic response.
• Establish an Inspector General to oversee implementation of the Act.

The full bill text is available here.

An online version of this release is available here.

###

Sens. Carper, Coons, colleagues unveil bill to repeal GOP tax break to high-income earners in coronavirus relief legislation

Legislation would unwind GOP changes in CARES Act that cost taxpayers $160 billion; more than was given to hospitals and more than to state and local governments

Provisions allow a high-earning few to receive an average benefit of $1.6 million – dwarfing COVID-19 relief bill’s $1,200 payments for working Americans 

WILMINGTON, Del. — U.S. Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons (both D-Del.) joined their colleagues on bicameral legislation to repeal a massive tax break for a small group of high-income taxpayers that Republicans included in the coronavirus relief bill.  The legislation would do away with provisions in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates will reduce government revenue by $160 billion over ten years, and that would overwhelmingly benefit high-income taxpayers.

Together, the Republican provisions are among the costliest parts of the CARES Act, despite having no real connection to battling coronavirus or its economic fallout.

“During this unprecedented public health crisis, we have a responsibility to focus on the families who need help the most — not the wealthy or well-connected,” said Senator Carper. “This legislation will help get money to small businesses in Delaware that are in dire straits through no fault of their own, while also safeguarding taxpayer dollars. Our priority must be helping the people who are hurting right now and providing support to state and local governments that will otherwise have to cut essential services during this crisis.”

“Tens of millions of Americans are in the midst of a real economic crisis right now, so we need to ensure that the federal government’s response is focused on those in need,” said Senator Coons. “We have much more work to do to get our economy through this crisis, including additional support to families and desperately needed support for state and local governments. We should repeal this $160 billion tax break to high-income Americans and instead focus on families in need.”

Joining Senators Carper and Coons on the bill in the Senate are Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeff Markey (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Angus King (I-Maine), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).  In the House, the bill was introduced by Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and nearly 40 cosponsors.

The Republican provisions—sections 2303 and 2304 of the CARES Act—allow high-income taxpayers to use losses in certain years to avoid paying taxes in other years.  Among other things, the changes allowed high-income taxpayers to claim refund checks for the 2018 and 2019 tax years – before the coronavirus crisis hit.  And unlike programs in the CARES Act that required employers use benefits to maintain payroll and support workers, sections 2303 and 2304 let high-income taxpayers keep the benefits with no strings attached.

Only after the Senate had already voted on the CARES Act did the full cost of the Republican provisions become clear.  According to an analysis from the JCT requested on April 9, just 43,000 individual tax filers covered by one of the Republican provisions would see their tax liability fall by a combined $70.3 billion in 2020.  Nearly 82 percent of those who will benefit from that provision make $1 million or more, with 95 percent making over $200,000. 

The tax benefits from the Republican provisions dwarf payments flowing to working Americans.  Based on the JCT’s analysis, high-income tax filers benefiting from one of the provisions will see an average benefit of $1.6 million this year alone.  In contrast, direct payments to most Americans under the CARES Act are capped at $1,200.

This bill would repeal the Republican provisions and, in their place, add a provision designed to help small companies struggling to stay afloat.  This provision would be available to most companies with under $15 million in receipts.  Unlike the Republican provisions, the new provision would only apply to 2020 and would offer taxpayers advanced refunds of up to $100,000 now to give them cash when they need it.

Click here for expert analysis of these provisions recommending the approach taken by this legislation.

###

[VIDEO] Sen. Coons: ‘[D]ouble the size of AmeriCorps’ to help safely reopen, recover from COVID-19

WILMINGTON, Del. — Today, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined MSNBC’s Morning Joe. He highlighted his call to expand AmeriCorps and other national service programs to respond and recover from the COVID-19 crisis.

“Today there are 75,000 people all across our country working in locally-based, state-supervised AmeriCorps programs. There are state commissions all over the country that help supervise and fund – in partnership with local nonprofits and local governments – organizations that do all sorts of great things. Some of them are known to many of your viewers: Teach For America, Habitat for Humanity, City Year, Public Allies,” said Senator Coons. “Many of those folks, we know three things about them: They’ve already signed up to do national service at a very modest cost – they mostly get paid minimum wage – and they’re connected to communities that are interested in volunteerism and service, and most of their programs are on hold.”

Senator Coons concluded, “[A] bill that I’ve been advancing with a group of Democrats – and there’s been some strong interest by Republicans – would double the size of AmeriCorps, would recruit and fund and support a whole new generation of younger Americans dedicated to national service, and would rapidly stand up at the state-by-state level a national workforce of 150,000 people who could do the contact tracing and the test support that we so badly need in order to be able to reopen safely.”

Full audio and video available here. A transcript is provided below.

Q: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says when senators return to Washington next week, the focus will be on judges and not the coronavirus. Joining us now, Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. He is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees. Thank you for joining us.

Q: The focus on judges and not jobs. Senator, let me read you another paragraph from this Guardian article. Kevin Hassett, Senior Economic Adviser to the White House predicted GDP could fall at an annualized rate of 30% next quarter and Goldman Sachs expects a 15% unemployment rate by mid-year. What in the world can the United States Senate, what in the world can the White House, what in the world can the federal government do to help move us through this economic calamity? 

Sen. Coons: Well, Joe, what you are seeing right now is the consequences of a failure to respond promptly and to plan adequately two to three months ago to the emergence of this pandemic. And we’re now seeing a dis-coordinated, sometimes even chaotic federal response and a whole lot of states playing catchup and whac-a-mole trying to deliver the testing, the personal protective equipment, the ventilators that we should have had ready months ago. We should now – if we return next week to the Senate – be dealing with those issues that have to be addressed now in order for us to be in a better position months from now. We should not be coming back from Washington, 100 folks whose average age – just to remind everybody – puts most senators in the highly vulnerable category, and all the workers who would have to come to work in order for us to be in the Senate, we should be concerned about protecting the Capitol Police officers, the folks who work for the Architect of the Capitol who help make the complex work. We should be concerned about protecting them and reopening safely, and we should be focused on the things that have to be done now to prepare for six months from now. I have a bill with Senator Klobuchar and Senator Wyden to provide for safe vote-by-mail, so we can ensure that when the virus comes back more aggressively this fall – as is already predicted by the heads of the CDC, Dr. Fauci and others – we can vote safely and we should be rapidly turning on our national service network across the country, 75,000 young people dedicated to service through AmeriCorps who could be today deployed as the contact tracing workforce for our country. Those are just two suggestions. There’s lots more we could and should be doing about job creation, about economic revitalization, and about making sure our federal response is as coordinated as our workers and families deserve. 

Q: Senator Coons, it’s Willie Geist. It’s good to have you on the show this morning. We have a number on the bottom of the screen that the economy shrank by nearly 5% in the first quarter of the year. As Joe also said, that number in the second quarter is going to be much, much worse by all estimates, somewhere between 30% and 40% in the second quarter that the economy has shrunk. So, what are you saying in the short term – and I’ve asked this of a lot of legislators and lawmakers – what are you saying to people in your state: the small business owners who understand how serious this disease is, they understand the risks of going back to work, they understand the risk of opening their societies, but they say, ‘I can’t survive like this. I need my job. I need my small business to open.’ How are you talking to them about that, and where do you see the balance between public health and saving the economy? 

Sen. Coons: Well, first, Willie, I’m in regular contact with our governor, John Carney, who is doing an outstanding job and who is relying on the doctor, the public health official, who is the head of our Division of Public Health, Dr. Karyl Rattay. He made the hard decision to close our schools and our businesses early. He has been coordinating across our health providers a good response, but one that has been crippled by the lack of a federal coordinated response around PPE, a constructive role by FEMA, a coordinated response in terms of testing. I, like most other senators I’ve been talking to on the phone, am getting calls morning, noon and night from people who I’ve known back to my days in county government, small businesses, small nonprofits, who struggled to get access to the SBA program that we passed now nearly a month ago in the CARES Acts, or who are struggling to get unemployment insurance because of the antiquated I.T. systems of the federal and state departments of labor. We are working hard to make sure that folks get the resources we’ve already appropriated federally, but it’s frankly just not enough so far, so what I’m saying to them is, ‘we need to listen to science, we need to be patient and hopeful, but if we open too quickly and if we open in a way that we’re not prepared for, with full testing and contact tracing, the consequences for thousands of Delawareans could be catastrophic. 

Q: Senator, tell us about your push to expand national service, and how that enhances or contributes to the fight against the virus or this time that America is going through. 

Sen. Coons: Well, Mika, as you may recall, I launched and ran one of the first national direct AmeriCorps programs back in the ’90s. I had 150 members serving in 15 cities, and I saw how highly motivated and capable they were as they worked mentoring and tutoring kids in inner city schools. Today there are 75,000 people all across our country working in locally-based, state-supervised AmeriCorps programs. There are state commissions all over the country that help supervise and fund – in partnership with local nonprofits and local governments – organizations that do all sorts of great things. Some of them are known to many of your viewers: Teach For America, Habitat for Humanity, City Year, Public Allies. Many of those folks, we know three things about them. They’ve already signed up to do national service at a very modest cost – they mostly get paid minimum wage – and they’re connected to communities that are interested in volunteerism and service, and most of their programs are on hold. So a bill that I’ve been advancing with a group of Democrats – and there’s been some strong interest by Republicans – would double the size of AmeriCorps, would recruit and fund and support a whole new generation of younger Americans dedicated to national service, and would rapidly stand up at the state-by-state level a national workforce of 150,000 people who could do the contact tracing and the test support that we so badly need in order to be able to reopen safely. Most governors and mayors are looking for the right solution to this problem. I think in AmeriCorps, we’ve got it. And so far, in conversations with the head of the CDC and with the head of the corporation for national service that runs and supervises AmeriCorps federally, they’ve been very positive and quite interested in the solution. 

Q: Senator Chris Coons, thank you so much. 

###