Tom Cotton Slams Democrats for Delaying Coronavirus Relief: Disgraceful

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) criticized his Democratic colleagues in the Senate on Monday for delaying the coronavirus relief package, claiming such efforts were “disgraceful.”

Cotton, who has been a firm advocate of getting cash into the hands” of American workers displaced by the pandemic, accused Senate Democrats of reneging on legislation to provide immediate economic relief. Democrats, the senator claimed, were holding workers and small businesses hostage in hopes of attaining a more politically favorable deal.

Cotton said from the Senate floor:

There is a good bill, a bill that was negotiated in good faith . . . that [Democrats] are now blocking, they will not even start debate on [it] because of ideological wish-list items. It is disgraceful and it is dangerous to the lives of our people and their economic well-being.

Cotton’s comments came shortly after Democrats blocked a second attempt to move the relief package forward. Negotiated over the week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, the deal, if implemented, would provide every American earning less than $75,000-per-year a $1,200 cash payment to stimulate the economy during the pandemic. The proposal also included a $500 billion grant and funding program for businesses adversely impacted by the virus.

On Sunday, the deal looked to be all but finalized, until Pelosi opted to walk away and craft her own stimulus package, claiming the original was too beneficial to large corporations. Many, though, believe the Speaker and her fellow Democrats are politicizing a national crisis.

That image was only enhanced on Monday when Pelosi released the draft version of her relief legislation, which included provisions for same-day voter registration, automatic extension of nonimmigrant visas, and mandates for “corporate board diversity,” among others.

Cotton, himself, took to social media after his floor speech to highlight some of the more “absurd provisions completely unrelated to the crisis at hand” that were stuffed into the Speaker’s relief bill.

1. Corporate pay statistics by race and race statistics for all corporate boards at companies receiving assistance

2. Bailing out all current debt of postal service

3. Required early voting

4. Required same day voter registration

5. 10k bailout for student loans

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) March 23, 2020

10. Retirement plans for community newspaper employees

11. $15 minimum wage at companies receiving assistance

12. Permanent paid leave at companies receiving assistance

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) March 23, 2020

Other Senate Republicans were just as quick to repudiate Pelosi and her counterparts in the Senate for their actions. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) had perhaps the most colorful of rebukes on Monday, when addressing his colleagues from the Senate floor.

“Do you know what the American people are thinking right now,” Kennedy said. “They’re thinking that the brain is an amazing organ. It starts working in a mother’s womb, and it doesn’t stop working until you get elected to Congress.”