When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi more than tripled the amount of taxpayer money that will be used to combat the coronavirus than the White House originally requested, several Republicans were not happy about it.
When several Republicans voted against the bill, many wondered why. Now, we know: Pelosi and Democrats snuck in several “poison pills” that were ridiculous.
During an interview on Fox News with host Tammy Bruce, Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado — one of two conservatives to vote against the measure — revealed why.
“The president asked for $2.5 billion. I would have supported that,” Buck said.
But that’s not what he was asked to vote on. The price tag for the final package of programs totaled $8.3 billion, according to Politico.
“The speaker decided to add all sorts of Christmas-tree ornaments to this bill. It was unnecessary. It was too much money,” he told guest host Tammy Bruce.
Earlier today I said that while I support an all-hands-on-deck response to the coronavirus we should cut out waste and take money from less urgent spending like what we waste overseas to put into that response effort. We have to start setting our own priorities. pic.twitter.com/6YuUwqK4Qg
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 5, 2020
The poison pill she and Democrats added? American taxpayers are now footing the bill for other countries.
Buck’s office told Fox News that Buck disliked the $1.25 billion set aside in the bill for funding public health responses in other nations. Buck also opposed the inclusion of $500 million to expand Medicare’s telehealth services.
“I work on Capitol Hill and I see politics every day,” Buck said. “And unfortunately, I see people that try to make political gain out of things that they should not try to make political gain out of.
“And to try to lay this issue, which starts in China, comes the United States and is being handled as well as we could possibly hope — to try to lay this at the president’s feet as unfair,” he said.
“And I think most people have seen three years of unfair treatment by the Democrats of this president.”
Biggs, for his part, issued a statement explaining his opposition to the final proposal.
“In true Washington, D.C. fashion, congressional appropriators turned the president’s reasonable $2.5 billion request into a bloated $8.3 billion package,” he said.
“By passing this larded-up bill, Congress again fails to wisely appropriate taxpayer dollars. I would have supported the president’s request for $2.5 billion, knowing that, if we spent all the funds, Congress could have provided additional funding,” he added.
Last week, the White House announced that the president gave his quarterly salary to the Department of Health and Human Services in the effort to combat the coronavirus.
Trump has not accepted his presidential salary — which is $400,000 per year — and each quarter he donates $100,000 to a different government agency.
This time, he’s donating his check to address the coronavirus outbreak.
The quarterly salary will be donated to “confront, contain and combat” the disease, press secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted.
It’s truly a shame, but many Democrats and their allies in the media are trying to weaponize the coronavirus in order to attack the president.
Thankfully, lawmakers came together and passed a much-needed bill to ensure Americans are protected.