Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., talks with reporters during a delay in work on the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, March 5, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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UPDATED 8:15 AM PT – Thursday, March 11, 2021
Republican senators have decried the passage of the Democrats’ relief bill as a lost opportunity for bipartisanship and a tragedy for future generations of Americans.
The massive package, which clocked in at $1.9 trillion, has been described as bloated by “liberal wish list” items to the point of devoting only a small fraction of its funds to items actually directly related to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), vaccines and health care measures together make up just about a tenth of the bill’s contents with the rest going towards the furtherance of the left-wing agenda as well as the bailing out of states and cities mismanaged into disrepair by years of Democrat fiscal policy.
“We all know that what we should have been doing and would have been done had this been a bipartisan discussion instead of a jam-the-other-side approach,” stated the Kentucky lawmaker. “But of course, the $1.9 trillion problem, as we said repeatedly…only had about 1 percent or less for vaccines, 9 percent or less for health care.”
Furthermore, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said the single-minded focus of Democrat lawmakers on advancing their left-wing agenda will likely lead to long-term vulnerabilities in the national economy. Simply put, Scott said it will be future generations who pay the price of costly and unnecessary measures passed by Democrats for the sake of short-term political gain.
“I think one thing the Biden administration really has to focus on is the risk of what all this debt is going to do to us,” stated the Florida lawmaker. “We’re sitting at $28 trillion worth of debt…this will increase our debt by at least $2 trillion.”
The Biden Administration needs to focus on the risks posed by America’s growing debt.
⁰Debt is now $30 TRILLION.
We’re paying $480 BILLION a year in interest on the debt.
Interest rates are ⬆️
Inflation is coming.
This all hurts our poorest families. More below 👀 pic.twitter.com/jUpS0Uha2u— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) March 10, 2021
Yet, Democrats repeatedly ignored calls for negotiation and side-lined Republicans out of the drafting process after the Trump administration’s Republican-led upper chamber managed to pass multiple relief bills with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Instead, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) lamented Democrats chose the route of single-party rule by ignoring the concerns of fiscal conservatives and the millions of Americans in stark need of aid during the pandemic. He noted, they had no need for a package loaded with measures that will do much to push the country to the left and little to get life back to normal. Thune said this came at the detriment of the U.S. as a whole and at great cost to the American people.
“But it was a liberal wish list they have described as the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation,” he stated. “It certainly lived up to that billing, but it was also a decision consciously made by the Democrat leadership, notwithstanding Republicans efforts in the last year to get five coronavirus bills across the finish line, all with bipartisan support.”
Only time will tell how the repercussions of this Democrat-led measure will affect the generations to come.
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