House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is pushing for a coronavirus relief bill straight out of “handout heaven,” one GOP critic proclaimed.
According to Fox News, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said this week that Pelosi “is still living on fantasy island” in attempting to make the case for a partisan bill packed with pork aimed at pleasing her leftist base.
“Spending at its worst”
“She is proposing truly runaway government spending not aimed at coronavirus but spending at its worst,” he added.
Barrasso’s comments are not the first from a Republican aimed at Pelosi and the Democrats over the perception that deficits are growing out of control during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Nevertheless, he offered specific points of opposition in his most recent remarks.
“She wants to spend money to bail out states that for a long time have been failing long before coronavirus,” he said. “She wants to send direct checks to illegal immigrants and pay people more for not working than they make to work.”
Pelosi and her party remain at a stalemate with the GOP while attempting to push through a $3 trillion plan called the HEROES Act.
“Supposed to be wage replacement”
Democrats, of course, say the spending is necessary to get the nation through its current crises. As evictions loom for many Americans and an additional weekly boost to unemployment benefits expired last week, Pelosi has described the bill as a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19.
“People should not be paid more to not work than they can get at work,” Barrasso countered. “But right now, in addition to unemployment insurance that people get, there is a $600 a week bonus check on top of that.”
He echoed the sentiments shared by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in an interview earlier this week.
“Unemployment is supposed to be wage replacement, so it should be tied to some percentage of wages,” he said. “The fact that we had a flat number was only an issue of an emergency where we had 30-year-old computer systems.”
Republicans have other disagreements with the contents of the HEROES Act, including funding for state and local governments struggling to make ends meet amid the ongoing pandemic and economic shutdowns. Barrasso and others are making it clear that they will not stand for it.
No comments: