The Senate wants to borrow more of our kids’ money – $484 billion more – to try to bail out the country from COVID-19.
The Paycheck Protection Program supposedly aimed at small business gets another $310 billion, after the SBA program blew through $389 billion in a couple of weeks.
The package passed Tuesday also includes $75 billion for hospitals and healthcare providers to try to account for lost revenues as patient rolls have hollowed out in many areas outside of the nation’s COVID hot spots, and $25 billion earmarked to expand COVID-19 testing.
For some reason, the House is not slated to vote on the package until Thursday, which makes you wonder how much of an emergency folks in Washington really think this is.
Oh, yeah. They’re all still getting paid.
“As we hear every day from Virginians, this massive public health emergency is having devastating health and economic impacts. We’ll continue supporting efforts to provide financial relief and to ensure we’re getting the public health response right,” Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia said in a joint statement.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul offered a different sentiment on the Senate floor.
“The virus bailouts have already cost over $2 trillion,” Paul said. “We can’t continue on this course. No amount of bailout dollars will stimulate an economy that is being strangled by quarantine. It is not a lack of money that plagues us, but a lack of commerce. This economic calamity only resolves when we begin to re-open the economy.”
Paul didn’t invoke a Senate rule that would have allowed him to request a recorded vote, allowing the approval to proceed by voice vote, but later made it clear he wanted to be on record with his statements questioning the wisdom of the approach being taken.
“I did return today, though, so that history would record that not everyone gave in to the massive debt Congress is creating,” Paul said.
Story by Chris Graham
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