Colorado Pubic Radio News, Cory Gardner, March 23, 2020
Station: KVOD, 90.1 FM and KCFR, 1430 AM
Show: Colorado Public Radio News
Guests: Gardner, Cory
Date: March 23, 2020
Topics: Tri-County Health Department, Jared Polis, Supplies, PPE, Personal Protective Equipment, Testing for COVID-19, Federal Government Fail, Defense Production Act, Local Government & State Government, Marijuana Industry, Coronavirus Stimulus Package, Direct Assistance, Means Tested, Unemployment Insurance, Forgivable Loans, Stalls and Delay, Remote Voting in Congress, Bailouts, Universal Basic Income, 23 Trillion Dollars, Strong Economy
HOST RYAN WARNER [00:00:05] Senator, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. I certainly want to start with how you were feeling.
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO, CORY GARDNER [00:00:10] You know, I feel great. There are millions of Americans right now who are self isolating or quarantined or just doing their part when it comes to staying home. And so, you know, I know how they feel. I know how frustrating it can be. But we’re doing this so that we can do our part, flatten the curve, and make sure we get out of this pandemic.
WARNER [00:00:27] Do you find yourself taking your temperature a lot?
GARDNER [00:00:30] You know, twice a day. That’s what the doctor recommended. That’s what’s Tri-County Health Department recommends.
WARNER [00:00:34] All right. I just talked with an E.R. doc. He’s concerned about having enough personal protective equipment. Governor Polis, meanwhile, fears Colorado could be 7000 ventilators short in policies case he’s quite clear he thinks the federal government has failed when it comes to supplies and testing. How do you see it?
GARDNER [00:00:55] Well, we’ve worked very closely with the governor to make sure that we get these supplies there. I have worked to not only get the stockpile shipments to Colorado, but worked with the White House on the Defense Production Act to make sure that we reroute supplies that are essential to Colorado. We have a higher than national average of positives when it comes to covered 19 to make sure that those are rerouted to the state that needs it more. And I believe that’s Colorado. We’ve been working with a number of industries across the state, the country, as has the governor, to make sure that we get additional resources and equipment directed to Colorado.
WARNER [00:01:28] What do you make of policies assessment that the federal government was not a leader on this early enough?
GARDNER [00:01:34] Well, look, I’m not going to look back. I’m not going to point fingers. I’m going to move forward. Right now, we know what we need and we have to secure it. We have to get it. We’ve been working with the marijuana industry, for instance, on personal protective equipment. I think we’ve found some good resources there. We found some hemp producers that can manufacturers that can make cotton swabs. And so this isn’t just the federal government has to respond. This is the local governments, the state governments and the federal government. We are all in this together. And I think what I’m trying to do is make sure that people are sticking together and that we’re not just stuck in the past pointing fingers.
WARNER [00:02:05] Congress is currently debating a corona virus stimulus package, essentially the third piece of legislation sticking points on this third giant package between Democrats and Republicans. What must it do in your mind?
GARDNER [00:02:22] The third thing we have to do, and this fits into making sure that individuals and businesses are able to survive, thrive and snap back when this is over. So our bill provides direct assistance to people. Twelve hundred dollars per individual. Twenty four hundred dollars for joint filers. This is means tested, but it also provides increased unemployment insurance up to six hundred dollars more a week in unemployment insurance. And you do not have to be fired or terminated or laid off to get this assistance. We’ve created a new covered 19 category in unemployment insurance. So if your hours have been reduced or you’re staying home because you have a child home at home, that you have not been laid off, so to speak. This would allow you to get benefits through the unemployment insurance office. And then we have the business assistance. If you’re a small business, that would allow a business of five other people or less to get a loan. And for eight weeks, the loan that is proceeds that are used to pay payroll to keep people on payroll, to bring them back on the payroll. Salaries, rent, mortgages, utilities, other debt expenses, that portion of the loan would be forgiven in its entirety. What we’ve heard as sticking points. There are some who want to put collective bargaining in this. There are some who want to put green New Deal emission standards on airlines in this. We provide $75 billion to hospitals in this. There are some who want more than that. And because of that, they don’t want this bill to even be debated. We need assistance now. The American people that they talk to each and every day in Colorado are terrified. I talked to a restaurant owner who doesn’t know how she’s going to survive. It is inexcusable for Congress to not pass this bill. We have to. And the American people expect nothing less.
WARNER [00:04:02] Where do things stand with the potential for letting members of Congress vote remotely?
GARDNER [00:04:06] It’s a good question. There’s a bipartisan bill that was introduced by Senator Durbin and Senator Portman to allow remote voting in the Senate. I’m not sure what they’re doing in the House. But, you know, it’s an right on that. The day that I was quarantined that morning, I had asked my chief of staff to give me a primer up on reminding me what we could do in the Senate with a majority of members voting present. You know, basically, if you had 60 members, what could you do with 31 members? Well, what you have to have 51 members for what you have to have 60 votes for. Little did I know hours later I would be isolated myself.
WARNER [00:04:43] OK. So it’s still not possible, but it sounds like that might change with some legislation. You’ve talked about direct payments to individuals, the possibility of grants and flexible loans for small business. There might be some who hear that and think these are the very approaches that six months ago, Senator Gardner would have slapped the ‘socialism’ label on. Have you come around on issues that were very much a part of the Democratic conversation — I think of the candidate Andrew Yang — prior to this.
GARDNER [00:05:18] The government has told people not to work, to shelter in place, to stay at home, to stop the spread. And what we’re doing is saying, hey, if you’re a small business and you keep your payroll, that small business is going to be able to pay its employees. So that’s the difference. And if you’re a big business, there’s loans, you don’t get cash grants or bailouts. This is not universal basic income. We’ve had unemployment insurance in this country for a very, very long time. I actually think that using the unemployment insurance model is pretty effective at this point because it’s existing, it’s already in place and it’s scalable. So this makes sense. But this has been a twenty three trillion dollars circuit breaker on the economy that has been tripped and we’ve seen nothing in our lifetimes like this. And so Congress has a responsibility to get this economy going again. And thank goodness we had resisted all of the bad ideas to go to our retirement. And we have good ideas prevail, which led to one of the strongest economies our country has ever seen, because had we had a weak economy going into this. Think about what would have happened, what we’d be doing right now, as bad as it is.
WARNER [00:06:21] In 2018, the White House dissolved its pandemic office. Was that the right choice?
GARDNER [00:06:28] Look, we have incredible experts like CDC experts. Sir Anthony Fauci, NIH, [inaudible], you name it. I think the White House, I’ve encouraged them to open up a couple new task forces on both pandemics as well as supply chains. And so we are going to learn they are going to learn a lot from this. And I think you’re going to see a lot of things different when we get back to business as usual.
WARNER [00:06:50] Is it okay that the president calls it the Chinese virus?
GARDNER [00:06:54] Well, certainly this virus did come from China. We all know that. I think China did some horrible things when they lied about to this happening. We had journalists arrested who were talking about it. I don’t think this is something that the American people are in tune with. I think the American people are in tune with what they can do to put food on the table. What are they going to do to pay for rent? Is their job going to be in existence? I don’t think they’re weighing in on the day to day conversation of should we call it this or should we call it that? They’re scared as hell for their lives.
WARNER [00:07:22] Senator, thanks so much for your time. Be well. Thank you.
GARDNER [00:07:25] Thank you.
