House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) told colleagues late last week that the need for a massive stimulus bill to protect the economy and American families provided the Democrats a “tremendous opportunity” to “restructure” the bill to get them things that they want to advance their partisan agenda.
“House Democrats are indicating they want to go bigger and broader than the already massive economic stimulus package offered by Senate Republicans to blunt the coronavirus pandemic,” The Hill reported late last week. “On a Thursday conference call featuring more than 200 members of the House Democratic caucus, lawmakers one by one laid out a sweeping wish list of provisions they want to see included in the nascent package, including a boost in infrastructure spending, an expansion of Social Security benefits and funding for states to set up an all-mail voting system in the event the pandemic extends into November’s elections.”
The Hill reported that Clyburn told colleagues, “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”
Clyburn’s comments come as unemployment rates have skyrocketed amid the economic downturn that has come as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China.
The quote resurfaced on Monday after the Democrats sank a massive $1.8 trillion stimulus package that would have protected the economy and provided $1,200 to millions of Americans.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday that the Senate had accomplished a lot of bipartisan work before Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked in and ruined talks.
“Now I changed my vote which gives me the opportunity to move to reconsider at a later time. That’s all I can do in the face of this obstruction. Look, I can understand obstruction when you’re trying to achieve something,” McConnell said. “This obstruction achieves nothing. Nothing whatsoever other than prevent us from getting into a position where there are literally 30 more hours that they could use to continue to dicker. So at a time when the country is crying out for bipartisanship and cooperation — and we saw that over the last 48 hours when regular members of Senate, not in the leadership office, not in the speaker’s office for goodness sakes, she’s the Speaker of the House, not the speaker of the Senate. We don’t have one. We were doing just fine until that intervention.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) highlighted just a few things Democrats have tried to force in the bill:
- Corporate pay statistics by race and race statistics for all corporate boards at companies receiving assistance.
- Bailing out all current debt of postal service
- Required early voting
- Required same day voter registration
- 10k bailout for student loans
- For companies accepting assistance, 1/3 of board members must be chosen by workers
- Provisions on official time for union collective bargaining
- Full offset of airline emissions by 2025
- Greenhouse gas statistics for individual flights
- Retirement plans for community newspaper employees
- $15 minimum wage at companies receiving assistance
- Permanent paid leave at companies receiving assistance
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) highlighted that Democrats destroyed a bill that provided a long list of relief for Americans and for employers to whether this storm.
“Do Dems want a recession? A depression? How can they justify this?” Crenshaw added. “This bill is critical for the livelihood of millions. Our country will be devastated without immediate help. Dems can lie all they want about ‘helping workers’ but now they are destroying their lives.”
Do Dems want a recession? A depression? How can they justify this? This bill is critical for the livelihood of millions. Our country will be devastated without immediate help. Dems can lie all they want about “helping workers” but now they are destroying their lives.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) March 23, 2020