McConnell on Bill Hemmer Reports
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined Bill Hemmer today to discuss the bipartisan deal reached to supplement the CARES Act. See below for highlights or click here to listen to the full interview.
On Yesterday’s Senate Vote to Replenish the Paycheck Protection Plan:
“I think, the public is bored with this partisan back and forth, the facts are we tried to get relief for the small business package 12 days ago. It was in fact delayed by democratic maneuvers.
But look, I don’t think the public is particularly interested in that, what they are interested in is what we did yesterday, and we put $310 billion in to replenish the program for small businesses which ran out of money 12 days ago. We also added $75 billion for hospitals we know that are struggling. And probably even more important than that, $25 billion for testing.”
On Preventing Blue State Bailouts:
“What I’m saying is we’re going to take a pause here, we’re going to wait at least until May 4th which is the time we’re going to have everyone back in the Senate and clearly weigh, before we provide assistance to states and local governments, who would love for us to borrow money from future generations, to make sure that they have no revenue losses.
“Before we make that decision, we’re going to weigh the impact of what we’ve already added to the national debt and make sure that if we provide additional assistance for state and local governments, it’s only for coronavirus related, coronavirus related matters.
“We’re not interested in solving their pension problems for them, we’re not interested in rescuing them from bad decisions they’ve made in the past. We’re not going to let them take advantage of this pandemic to solve a lot of problems that they created for themselves, and bad decisions they made in the past.”
On Opening Up the Economy:
“The ultimate solution to this is to get the economy back up and running. I’m encouraging our governor, for example, and he’s already doing it, to begin to make steps in the direction of opening up the economy.
“The solution to the hospital problem is elective surgery, which is the only place they’re making any money. That’s a state decision. So all of us are going to be encouraging our states to begin to move in the direction of getting back to normal, bearing in mind the advice of Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx: Social distancing, the destigmatization of wearing a mask. Nobody should be embarrassed to wear a mask. And let’s ease back in and solve the problem by getting growth back in our economy.”
Related Issues: COVID-19, Small Business, Economy
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