Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep disappointment on the bloated, partisan bill that my colleagues are calling a COVID relief package. That is the name on the bill, but the reality is far from it. The reality is that we just passed a $900 billion package in December. The package wasn't perfect, but it was bipartisan. This one is not. The reality is that hundreds of billions of dollars remain unspent. As of last week, there were unofficial estimates of unspent or non- disbursed relief that included $183 billion for another round of PPP; $199 billion for healthcare; $136 billion for expanded unemployment insurance; and $46 billion for direct stimulus payments. That is money we still have, unspent. The reality is that this administration can't or won't even give Congress an honest estimate of where that money is and what they will do with trillions more. The reality is that this bill is not for emergency relief, but for leftwing spending programs years from now. Nearly half of the funds under this bill won't be spent until 2022. There are billions of dollars for State and local governments, mostly to blue States that impose costly lockdowns, even though California is reporting a $10 billion surplus; billions to bail out multiemployer pension plans; billions for subsidies to cover the cost of rising ObamaCare premiums; and a massive expansion of Medicaid with no reforms to address waste, fraud, and abuse within the program.…”