WORLD / AMERICAS
U.S. Senate Republican leader blasts Democrats over "partisan" passage of relief bill
Published: Feb 28, 2021 12:07 PM
Photo taken on Feb. 9, 2021 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States.(Photo: Xinhua)

Photo taken on Feb. 9, 2021 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States.(Photo: Xinhua)


 
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Saturday blasted Democrats over the House passage of the 1.9-trillion-U.S.-dollar COVID-19 relief package, calling it a "deliberately partisan process."

"In 2020, Congress passed five COVID-19 rescue packages. All five were completely bipartisan," McConnell said in a statement, after the Democrats-held House approved the relief package early Saturday morning amid unanimous Republican opposition.

"It was the largest peacetime fiscal expansion in American history, yet no bill earned fewer than 90 votes in the Senate or less than about 80 percent support in the House," McConnell continued.

The latest relief, a major legislation for President Joe Biden, cleared the lower chamber of Congress early Saturday morning by a vote of 219 to 212, with lawmakers largely voting along party lines. Two Democrats defected and voted against it.

"House Democrats snapped that bipartisan streak. They jammed through a bill that even liberal economists and editorial boards say is not well targeted to this stage of the fight," said the Senate Republican leader, noting that more than a third of its spending, including more than 90 percent of the K-12 school funding, would not go out this fiscal year.

"The House's partisan vote reflects a deliberately partisan process and a missed opportunity to meet Americans' needs," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the chamber, however, said in a statement that the relief plan is "coronavirus-centric," as it delivers the "decisive action" that families and small businesses demand and need.

"This package puts vaccines in people's arms, puts money in workers' pockets, puts children safely back in school, puts people back in work," said the Democratic leader. "It does so by honoring our heroes with state and local funding."

In the House debate before the vote, Republican lawmakers unanimously opposed the giant relief package, calling it a Democratic wish list, arguing that the plan includes provisions that they see as unrelated to the crisis, and that the high price tag could result in unsustainable debt for future generations.

Democrats, meanwhile, defended it as much-needed relief, highlighting the urgency to rein in the surging pandemic, which has claimed 500,000 American lives, and to bolster the ravaged economy, with millions of Americans still out of work and businesses grappling with the economic fallout from COVID-19.

Early February, Democrats moved to pass a procedural step in both chambers, allowing them to push through the big relief bill in Congress without Republican support, a move criticized by Republicans as a "partisan process."

Biden, however, recently said what Republicans proposed is "either to do nothing or not enough."

"If I have to choose between getting help right now to Americans who are hurting so badly, and being bogged down in a monthly negotiation or compromising on a bill that's up to the crisis, it's an easy choice," said the U.S. president.