WASHINGTON – In a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today spoke in support of the $900 billion bipartisan COVID-19 emergency relief package that was announced last night. The compromise package was based off the $748 billion, bipartisan COVID-19 emergency relief legislation that Durbin helped negotiate and introduce last week. The final package includes funding for unemployment insurance, small businesses, vaccine distribution and COVID-19 testing, health care providers, housing and education assistance, direct checks for American families, and more.

“It was about four weeks ago when a Republican Senator and a Democratic Senator invited six of their colleagues for dinner. It was a bipartisan group… for three or four weeks, we tried to write a relief bill. We did it by phone, by Zoom, and through staff work that was endless. And finally, Tuesday of last week, we were able to announce it—a $748 billion consensus bill for relief… much of which is included in this relief package which we’re going to consider today,” Durbin said. “I want to thank my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, for their patience and determination to reach this point. I really believe that we ended up opening the conversation. The Leaders, thanks goodness, moved in to follow on and make it a reality. And today, we are going to seriously consider a measure to keep America’s economy moving and to give us a fighting chance against the coronavirus.”

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Durbin continued, “We have more work to be done. We’re not out of the woods. We have to consider measures which will address the reality of the economy in the future. We want to make sure that Americans have a chance to get back to work and businesses have a chance to survive in this time of COVID-19.”

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Video of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.

Audio of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.

Footage of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here for TV Stations.

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