“Democrats want to call it the sixth coronavirus bill. In fact, that’s false…There’s only about one out of every 11 dollars being spent on this monstrosity that is really focused on coronavirus health.”
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s remarks.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Recently, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) spoke on the Senate floor about the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion spending bill that exploits the coronavirus crisis by focusing on a liberal wish list rather than public health.
Excerpts of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:
“I’d like to join my friend and colleague from Oklahoma as well as the Senator from Iowa, who has previously spoken, and the Senator from Indiana in opposing the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion spending bill.
“Democrats want to call it the sixth coronavirus bill. In fact, that’s false. It’s not a true statement.
“There’s only about one out of every 11 dollars being spent on this monstrosity that is really focused on coronavirus health. The rest is a partisan liberal wish list that the Democrats have wanted to pass for a long, long time. Long before the pandemic; long before anyone in this country had ever even heard of coronavirus.
“Remember President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, famously said, ‘never let a good crisis go to waste.’
“That’s what they did under President Obama. They saw a crisis. They passed laws that had nothing to do with what had caused it.
“Now here we are a dozen years later, President Biden is in the White House, and he is using that playbook once again. President Biden’s Chief of Staff calls this bill, the one coming to the floor right now, he described this on MSNBC the other day as ‘the most Progressive domestic legislation in a generation.’
“More progressive than Obamacare. More progressive than the Obama-Biden stimulus. That doesn’t sound like a coronavirus relief bill to me.
“As the White House Chief of Staff admits, this isn’t mainstream. This is radical. And he is absolutely right about that.
“In the House, not a single Republican voted for this bill. Actually, Democrats joined every Republican in opposing it.
“President Biden ran for President as being mainstream, as being a unifier. That’s how he got to the Oval Office. Ever since then, it has been scorched-earth partisanship – every day since that time.
“Last week President Biden gave a speech about the bill. He talked about Senate Republicans, those of us who are on the floor today and coming up next. He said, ‘what would they have me cut?’
“I’m very glad he asked.
“President Biden can start by cutting $350 billion bailing out states and local governments.
“State tax revenues are down less than one-tenth of a percent. Most states actually have more tax revenue than before the pandemic. Actually forty-four states, more tax revenue than before the pandemic.
“President Biden could cut the $85 billion that’s earmarked for union pension funds, to bail them out. This has nothing to do with coronavirus. Unions have been mismanaging their members’ money for decades.
“President Biden can cut the $4.5 billion for the New York City subway system.
“He could cut $111 million for a subway system in Silicon Valley for Nancy Pelosi, or $270 million in funding for the arts and the humanities. He could cut $200 million for museums and libraries. That’s not coronavirus.
“He can cut $12 billion in foreign aid.
“He could cut $36 billion in subsidized health insurance for people making over $100,000 a year. That’s a lot of income to additionally get health insurance subsidies.
“We all know President Biden loves Amtrak. Well he could cut $1.5 billion in funding for Amtrak in this bill. That has nothing to do with coronavirus.
“He could cut $1.5 million in funding for a bridge from New York to Canada – probably a pet project of the Majority Leader.
“To answer the President’s question, we can cut a lot.
“Thankfully, the Senate Parliamentarian already cut $67 billion from the bill. That is how much the Democrats’ national wage mandate was going to cost. Yet there is still a lot we can cut.
“Here’s the bottom line. The people of Wyoming who I visit with every weekend when I’m at home, they don’t want a liberal wish list. They want to make sure they can stay at work, that their kids can stay in school and they get the virus behind them.
“The kids in Wyoming have been in school since last August – despite of the fact that it seems like only half of the kids in America are back in school.
“What we see President Biden doing is saying yes to the teachers unions. He’s paid the ransom note. And this is the money being paid to them. Not to get our kids to school but to keep the teachers unions happy.
“I believe teachers want to get back to school. Teachers want to teach, but not the unions who pull the strings and are certainly pulling the strings of Joe Biden in the White House.
“Working families don’t want politicians to exploit a crisis for political gains. They want to protect their physical health and their financial health and well-being.
“So it’s time to stop trying to exploit a crisis, which is what I see every Democrat doing.
“Let’s give the American people what they really need all across the country: getting back to work, getting kids back to school who aren’t there already, and putting the disease behind us.”
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