Maria Cantwell: “The issue is this underlying bill has a lot of tax credits and programs to help corporate America. Many of them I…”

“The issue is this underlying bill has a lot of tax credits and programs to help corporate America. Many of them I support. But I think it is important for my colleagues to realize what is in this bill. As opposed to the cost of taking care of the unemployment in America, there is $9 billion in here for the oil and gas industry; $2.2 billion for the clean coal industry; $2.8 billion for synthetic fuel. Actually, this particular program is under investigation by two different agencies. There are $2 billion for green bonds, which I say and Taxpayers for Common Sense say could still inadvertently go to a Hooters Restaurant. These two programs alone would pay for the unemployment benefit program. We basically went ahead and authorized these in this legislation. I don't know where we found the money for those programs. Yet, we are taking money out of the unemployment insurance trust fund, a fund that is supposed to be paid into by employees, and somehow saying, out of the $13 billion that is there, we do not have enough money for working families who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, but, yes, we have money--$2.8 billion--for synthetic fuels, even though we are investigating whether the money should be spent there, and we have $2 billion for green bonds that could end up going to a Hooters Restaurant. Where are the priorities of my colleagues?”