The Democrats' coronavirus bill proposes to spend $3 trillion, but much of it is not related to the virus or helping Americans trying to recover from the economic impact of it, Sen. Tom Cotton said Wednesday.
"We need focus on Americans still working in industries, in businesses, that are hardest hit," the Arkansas Republican said on Fox Business' "Mornings With Maria," while noting that there are several sectors still suffering, including airlines, restaurants, and small businesses.
"We need to help our schools, our colleges, reopen," said Cotton. "We need to keep tightly focused on those needs, not all at once, but not the wants from special interests in Washington or the Democratic Party liberal wish list."
Cotton further added that he does support higher unemployment payments, but he thinks the extra $600 a week payments approved earlier this year are a little too high, as they are "paying people more not to work than to work."
He said he'd rather see the $600 be a cap, and that he'd like to add liability protections into new legislation, as he doubts schools and colleges will be able to reopen without worrying about "ambulance-chasing" lawyers waiting to find a plaintiff.
Cotton added that he is in favor, however, of helping cities meet some costs from the pandemic, but there is still a great deal of money that has not been spent from March's CARES Act.
Cotton further spoke out about the controversy concerning the TikTok mobile video app, and said he is pleased that Microsoft says they believe they can buy the company and completely sever its relationship with China.
"There can be no back-end connections to China or China's Communist Party, no algorithms, no source code, no nothing if possible that means, a new U.S.-based TikTok that will continue to operate as people see it on their phones without the Trojan horses behind the app," said Cotton.
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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