Last night, an almost 6,000-page piece of legislation was rolled out to the House and Senate.
The legislation was the much-anticipated COVID-19 relief that small business owners have been waiting on.
As is typical of big pieces of legislation such as this, the bill is crafted within a small inner circle, then dropped on Congress with everyone expected to digest and vote on the bill within hours.
In this case, Congress was given about seven hours to read and vote on the massive and very expensive legislation.
Folks, we just received a 5,600 page PDF that represents one of the largest spending bills in our history, and NOT ONE Member of Congress will have had time to read through it before voting later today.
This is awful governance, and a disservice to the American people.
— Rep. Ralph Norman (@RepRalphNorman) December 21, 2020
After the bill was rolled into the Capitol via a small wagon, I kid you not, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez went off, saying there simply was no time to read this bill before voting on it.
Shocking, she finally said something that Senator Cruz and the rest of us can agree on…
.@AOC is right.
It’s ABSURD to have a $2.5 trillion spending bill negotiated in secret and then—hours later—demand an up-or-down vote on a bill nobody has had time to read. #CongressIsBroken https://t.co/EQp8BfRBHj
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 21, 2020
Even after all of her bitching, however, AOC still hit the green button when it came time to vote.
Only Senator Cruz and only five other Republican senators had the courage to vote “no” (there were a total of 53 members of the House that also voted against the legislation).
To be clear, this bill has some much-needed relief for small business owners as well as money that is dedicated to other COVID funding, but it is also backed with billions in foreign aid and other wasteful spending.
This entire process was by design because those that crafted this legislation wanted all that money buried so those voting on the legislation would not have the time to figure out exactly what they were voting for.
So, instead of putting up a fight, just about every Republican in office voted yes out of fear of being the bad guy that held back a bullshit $600 stimulus check that everyone is fawning over, as if $600 is going to make any real dent in the financial problems brought about by the shutdown.
As a small business owner, I very much want to see that next round of PPP, but I don’t want that to be at the expense of Democrats ramming through pet projects that will be financed by tax dollars we simply do not have to spend right now.
In reality, however, it would be preferable to simply reopen the country and let small business owners get back to doing what they do… EARNING their money, not taking freebies from the government.
The six senators that should be applauded for standing up to this farce are Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida, and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Come their next primary, anyone that is not one of those six or one of the four dozen or so Republicans that voted against this bill in the House better be on the lookout because as far as I am concerned, they are all fair game in the primaries.
Source: Orlando Sentinel & Fox News
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