How Republicans Helped Nancy Pelosi Pass Another Unexamined, Pork-Stuffed ‘Stimulus’
House Republican leaders actively participated in Nancy Pelosi’s successful attempt to deny the American people a public vote on the $2 trillion legislation.
By Christopher Jacobs
MARCH 30, 2020
Ten years ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) infamously proclaimed that we had to pass Obamacare to find out what was in it. On Friday, she and her House colleagues enacted one of the largest pieces of legislation in American history, a more than $2 trillion bill that represented Congress’ third piece of coronavirus-related legislation, all while refusing to take a recorded position on it.
The first coronavirus bill, signed into law on March 6, provided $8.3 billion in spending to fight the virus; the second bill, signed into law on March 18, spent another $100 billion on testing, food stamps, paid family leave, and additional subsdies to to state Medicaid programs; and the third bill, which President Trump signed last Friday, contained a broader package of unemployment and economic bailouts to businesses and families.
That Pelosi would resort to such procedural chicanery should surprise few Americans. In 2010 she wanted the House to enact Obamacare without actually voting on the legislation—the so-called “deem-and-pass” maneuver—although she eventually abandoned that strategy after a massive public outcry.
But unlike the Obamacare debate, House Republican leaders and many rank-and-file members of Congress actively participated in Pelosi’s successful attempt to deny the American people a vote on the legislation. In so doing, they abdicated their responsibilities as lawmakers and leaders out of a mixture of fear and spite.
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Rep. Thomas Massie Did Not Grandstand
House leaders took the same tack with Massie last week, enlisting President Trump to attack the congressman. On Friday morning, Trump called Massie a “third rate grandstander” for insisting that members of Congress return to Washington to vote on the legislation.
But to someone well-versed in House procedure, the facts indicate otherwise. Massie had multiple other opportunities to throw sand in the proverbial gears regarding Friday’s coronavirus bill, but did not do so:
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