The House Democrats' coronavirus relief legislation should be called the "no liberal cause left behind act," and both sides remain "very far apart" when it comes to the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democrat-controlled House reaching an agreement, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Monday.
"It shows you where they really want to go," the Louisiana Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" about the legislation. "Our focus has always been on helping people get back on their feet and helping schools and businesses safely reopen. What they’re talking about — I mean, over a trillion dollars now they want to use to bail out states that were failing before COVID. You’re talking about mailing ballots — election ballots to people illegally on voter rolls.”
The Democrats' $3 trillion bill deals with numerous healthcare and economic needs, but Trump administration officials are pushing for a bill totaling about $1 billion, which touches on fewer issues. Some of the topics that are holding up passage of the bill are the expired moratorium on evictions and the enhanced unemployment benefit payments, both of which were approved by Congress earlier this year as stopgap measures aimed alleviating issues caused by a temporary shutdown.
But Democrats' plan to use the money to bail out states and for mailing out election ballots have nothing to do with COVID but shows their priorities, said Scalise.
"(There is) a very big difference between the sides," said Scalise. "There's over $500 billion of existing money that we already spent in the Cares Act that hasn’t been spent that can be more flexibly used for states to help schools reopen safely, or buying supplies, like masks and hand sanitizer, to help small businesses get back on their feet — to help people that are struggling...why do they need to add another $3 trillion of debt to do all of these things that have nothing to do with COVID?”
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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