Senators take different steps to help businesses
The question in Washington these days is not whether businesses need financial help to get back on their feet. On that, there is general agreement. But how businesses are held accountable for keeping their workers safe and how federal financial support is structured — that’s where the political divide starts to show.
On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin questioned whether businesses that were following safety guidelines were losing out to noncomplying competitors.
Participating remotely in a meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Baldwin challenged panelists over whether businesses should be held accountable for not following guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Saying she was concerned about the rising coronavirus cases in Wisconsin and around the nation, she said: “Now, CDC and OSHA have issued recommended safety guidances for businesses, but this guidance is not enforceable.”
She pressed CDC director and task force member Dr. Robert Redfield whether all businesses were complying, and he acknowledged that wasn’t the case.
“So it’s an uneven playing field,” Baldwin said. “And it hurts businesses that are trying to do the right thing by adopting CDC and OSHA guidelines because their competitors don’t have to incur the same safety and health costs.”
Redfield answered that enforcement would depend on local jurisdictions and could vary from state to state and locale to locale.
This has been the case in Wisconsin, for example, where the question of whether Gov. Tony Evers or local governments can mandate mask-wearing, close businesses or take other measures to prevent the virus’ spread has become a matter of legal debate.
Later Tuesday, Baldwin asked for unanimous consent on the Senate floor to pass the COVID-19 Every Worker Protection Act, which she and Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth from Illinois co-sponsored in May.
The bill requires the Secretary of Labor to work with the CDC and National Institute of Health to create emergency enforceable standards for businesses.
Baldwin said that as the American economy reopens, many workers are returning to their jobs in addition to the “thousands of American workers” who “have been on the job from the start, keeping our economy running and keeping people safe . ... And yet, there is no federal, enforceable standard in place to protect American workers from getting infected with, or spreading, COVID-19.”
Republican Sen. Mike Lee from Utah blocked the measure, saying that states and localities, as well as individual industries, would be better suited to come up with individual COVID-19 standards.
“I am very disappointed,” Baldwin responded. “I think this is one of the most critical actions that our country could take in the face of this pandemic.”
Taking responsibility for themselves
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has echoed Lee’s sentiments and said businesses and consumers need to take responsibility for themselves. But the Wisconsin Republican indicated the government should take action in some cases.
“I always rejected the overall shutdowns. People would say… we’re going to identify and list essential businesses, and keep everything else shut down. From my standpoint, every business, every organization is essential to somebody,” he said in a recent webinar hosted by the Milwaukee Press Club and Wispolitics.com.
He added that the government should have focused on businesses “that posed a significant threat towards out-of-control spread” of the coronavirus.
Later he added that this might include “tightly packed bars... I know that hurts people to hear me say that, here in Wisconsin.”
While Johnson did not speak about applying enforceable safety standards to businesses across the board, he has emphasized that he supports wearing masks and social distancing in public.
“Hopefully, people will be rational,” he said. “We need to modify our behavior (compared with previously) and possibly shut some of those (businesses) down.”
Sharing payroll costs
Baldwin and other lawmakers, including Wisconsin’s Rep. Mark Pocan, introduced the “Rebuilding Main Street Act” last week that would provide grants to employers for rent and reopening, as well as “allow employers to share their payroll costs with the federal government,” according to a release from Baldwin.
And on Tuesday, she and other Democratic senators announced a bill meant to help with funding jobs and economic recovery through amending the Social Security Act.
Meanwhile, in a conversation on Wednesday with Axios news website, Johnson said many businesses that have needed to remain closed beyond the eight-week loan forgiveness period of the Paycheck Protection Program have lost all their capital. The PPP is the key program providing loans to small businesses hurt by the pandemic.
“We really need to be taking a look at some method … to potentially restore capital to viable businesses that can reopen,” he said. “But those same businesses will have to have some kind of game plan to mothball themselves ... so once the market actually allows them to open up, they’ll be able to.”
Johnson also reiterated his proposal to modify the PPP so that employers receive a $10,000 grant for each employee if the business is restructured into an “employee stock-ownership plan.” Johnson said that structure helps every employee participate and alleviates inequality gaps.
An extension of the PPP application deadline, originally June 30, passed the Senate on Tuesday night and passed the House on Wednesday afternoon.