House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) on Sunday cautioned against working on a fourth relief package to stem the economic fallout from the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, concerned that Democrats would attempt to insert progressive policy legislation.
“I’m not sure we need a fourth package. And before we go to start drafting a fourth package, I’d like these three packages we just put out — remember, it’s more than $2 trillion, the largest we have ever seen — to take care and get this economy moving,” McCarthy said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.
“What concerns me is, when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it’s because she didn’t get in the things that she really wanted to change: the election law, a Green New Deal, expand — make us pay for Planned Parenthood, and expand what you’re seeing for sanctuary cities,” McCarthy continued. “Those are the things why this bill was held up for a week, but those are the things that we stopped.”
Congress’s $2.2 trillion relief package was passed by the House and signed by President Trump on Friday, after a week of partisan wrangling over provisions pushed by Democrats. Democratic requests included carbon-emissions caps for airlines, mandatory diversity reports for corporate boards, a $15 minimum wage, and other proposals. Republicans slammed the proposals during negotiations over the bill.
“Democrats have now decided to allow Speaker Pelosi to block [the bill] through proxies here in the Senate so that she can rewrite the bill with a ton of crap that has absolutely nothing to do with the public health emergency that we face at this moment,” Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said on Monday on the Senate floor.