House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has made it her mission on Capitol Hill to help push through a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal favored by President Joe Biden.
Now that the package is heading to the U.S. Senate for a vote, however, critics including Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) are describing the bloated bill as hopelessly packed with partisan “pork” spending.
“An incentive to people to come here illegally”
For his part, the Louisiana Republican declared that the only way to improve the proposed legislation is with a “shredder.”
Kennedy, known for his folksy phrases and quips, issued his latest denunciation of the proposal on Wednesday during an on-air interview with Fox News Channel’s Lawrence Jones. The segment began with a discussion of Biden’s immigration and border policies but quickly morphed into a review of the COVID-19 relief bill.
“He gives money to people in his bill who are in our country illegally,” the senator said. “Well, that’s obviously an incentive to people to come here illegally and a disincentive to people to follow the rules.”
Going on to denounce other aspects of the legislation, Kennedy said that the president claimed he was interested in meeting Republicans “halfway” in determining the specifics contained therein.
“If that’s the case, he’s a damn poor judge of distance,” the senator added. “He has rejected everything we’ve proposed.”
“Looting after a natural disaster”
Calling the bill “dreadful,” Kennedy said that it is “not even a coronavirus bill” because it is packed with unrelated spending proposals that read like a progressive wishlist.
“The only way I know how to improve it is with a shredder,” he said, adding that calling it “a coronavirus bill is like calling Harvey Weinstein a feminist.”
Kennedy went further in his colorfully worded opposition, decrying the bill as “an orgy of pork” that was “chock-full of spending porn,” comparing the Democrats’ effort to push through this package amid a public health crisis to “looting after a natural disaster.”
Of course, he is not the only member of his party speaking out against the bill in no uncertain terms.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) emphasized his disapproval by forcing a full reading on the Senate floor of the entire 628-page bill, complaining that lawmakers “rush these massive bills that are hundreds, if not thousands, of pages long” and which no member has sufficient time to read in their entirety.
The post ‘Orgy of pork’: Sen. Kennedy declares COVID relief bill can only be improved ‘with a shredder’ first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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