Political Quotes

“Madam President, the bill before the Senate this week is not really about COVID relief; it is about politics. Before this, COVID relief has not been a terribly partisan issue. In fact, we have passed 5 relief bills, each with at least 90 votes. That means they are overwhelmingly broad-based and bipartisan efforts. So if this one were to pass, it would be the first of those to have passed that has been highly controversial. Why? Because, in the first place, it borrows and spends another $1.9 trillion when there are still hundreds of billions of dollars of unspent relief money from past COVID-19 relief packages. The new spending authorizes money to go to projects in States and local governments, including many that may not even need it. The fight against the pandemic has, of course, fundamentally changed in the months since this plan was first devised and proposed. It is already outdated. Now, as we are here, into the month of March, the circumstances have changed, yet the plan remains largely the same as it was. So it feels a little bit, to me, like we are fighting the last war using the last war's battle plan, leaving us unprepared for the battle actually in front of us. This is a bill that will worsen our national debt and weaken our economy in the long run without even doing much to help small businesses and American families in the short term. This is not without consequence. In fact, as the book by Drs.…”