McConnell on Democrats’ Partisan, Non-Targeted COVID Bill: “It Didn’t Have to Be this Way”
‘So we’ve gone from passing COVID relief with 80% and 90% bipartisan supermajorities last year… to the Speaker of the House ramming this through with just 50.7 percent of the House on Friday night. The bill contains all kinds of liberal spending on pet projects with no relationship to pandemic relief.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding COVID-19 recovery:
“At about 2 o’clock on Saturday morning, House Democrats rammed through the bonanza of partisan spending they’re calling a pandemic rescue package. Only Democrats voted for it. Both Republicans and Democrats voted against it.
“Last year, under a Republican Senate and a Republican Administration, Congress passed five historic coronavirus relief bills. Not one of our five bills got fewer than 90 votes in the Senate or less than about 80% of the House.
“But this time, Democrats have chosen to go a completely partisan route. Even famous liberal economists and liberal editorial boards are saying their half-baked plan is poorly targeted to what families need.
“So we’ve gone from passing COVID relief with 80% and 90% bipartisan supermajorities last year… to the Speaker of the House ramming this through with just 50.7 percent of the House on Friday night.
“The bill contains all kinds of liberal spending on pet projects with no relationship to pandemic relief.
“Remember, we’re almost to the one-year anniversary of a leading House Democrat admitting they see this whole crisis as ‘a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.’
“So, sorry to all the American families who’ve just been hoping to get their jobs back, their schools back, and their lives back. Democrats are more interested in some restructuring.
“That’s why only 1% of this huge package goes directly to vaccinations.
“That’s why it proposes another 12-digit sum of federal funding for K-12 schools, even though science tells us schools can be made safe right now. About 95% of that funding won’t even go out this fiscal year.
“That’s why they’re pushing economic policies that would drag down our recovery.
“Like the House’s vote for a one-size-fits-all minimum wage policy that would kill 1.4 million jobs. Or continuing to pay laid-off workers a premium to stay home that would extend well into a recovery where job growth and rehiring will be pivotal.
“Whenever their long-time liberal dreams came into conflict with what Americans actually need right now, Democrats decided their ideology should win out.
“It didn’t have to be this way. We could have built more practical policies to help the American people move forward.
“Some Senate Republicans literally went to the White House to propose that both sides work together, like we did five times last year. The Administration declined.
“So here we are. A bad process, a bad bill, and a missed opportunity to do right by working families.”
Related Issues: COVID-19
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