Several-dozen House Republicans joined all Democrats in rejecting Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) bid to delay the $1.9 trillion stimulus package.
In all, 40 GOP lawmakers voted down her motion of the bill, which Greene decried Wednesday as a “woke progressive Blue State Bailout.”
Greene also sent a warning to House Republicans that should they join Democrats, they would be seen as joining them.
“I just made a motion to adjourn to stop Congress from passing the $1.9 trillion dollar massive woke progressive Democrat wish list,” she tweeted an hour before. “The GOP has messaged against this ridiculous bill. We should do everything to stop it. Pay attention if Rs vote to adjourn. Or with the Dems.”
Her motion to adjourn did not pass, and the House started two hours of debate on the bill.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) alleged on the House floor that Greene’s motion was an attempt to try to “delay getting aid to the people, including their constituents who are in desperate need.”
The House is slated to pass the so-called American Rescue Plan on Wednesday, and President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law by the end of the weekend. The bill will provide $1,400 stimulus payments to qualifying individuals and children, provide $300 weekly unemployment benefits until September, and will provide hundreds of billions to state and local governments.
“This nation has suffered too much for much too long,” Biden told reporters at the White House after the Senate voted to approve the measure earlier this week. “And everything in this package is designed to relieve the suffering and to meet the most urgent needs of the nation, and put us in a better position to prevail.”
Not one Republican backed the bill in the Senate or when it initially passed the House, underscoring the barbed partisan environment that’s characterized the early days of Biden’s presidency.
Republicans call the measure a wasteful spending spree for Democrats’ liberal allies that ignores recent indications that the pandemic and economy was turning the corner. “The Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard way,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He said Democrats’ “top priority wasn’t pandemic relief. It was their Washington wish list.”
In recent weeks, Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments, has employed a strategy of delaying congressional business by using procedural votes to adjourn the session.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
