WASHINGTON - Today, Congressman Rob Wittman (VA-01) issued the following statement after voting “no” on the Democrat’s Democrats’ Partisan Reconciliation Package, H.R. 1319, which passed on the House floor today:
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have been clear that any relief funding must be temporary, targeted, and directly tied to COVID-19. It should come as no surprise I voted against the Democrats’ Partisan Reconciliation Package as it fails all three criteria.
“We only recently passed the previous COVID-19 relief package and have yet to spend $1 trillion of the $4 trillion we approved. With so much money already waiting to be spent, we are only capable of spending 5% of the reconciliation package this year, with the remaining 95% left unspent until 2022. Even after waiting almost a full year - with the worst of COVID-19 hopefully behind us - only 9% of funding from this package will go toward COVID-19 relief, while the remaining $1.7 trillion will go towards a wish list of Democratic priorities. Among these include union pensions, bailouts for state and local governments, federal funding for Planned Parenthood, as well as pork-barrel spending benefiting Democratic leadership, including Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer.
“This ‘relief’ package is anything but. Under the guise of COVID relief, it wastes precious taxpayer-money and resources on things that will only hurt our recovery efforts. One of the most harmful inclusions is a federally mandated $15/hour minimum wage. In a time of historic unemployment, one should expect the government to create jobs, not destroy them. And yet, when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found this measure will eliminate 1.4 million working-class jobs, the Majority simply ignored the economics, with one Member declaring they “don’t want” some businesses to survive. On top of eliminating 1.4 million jobs through a big government mandate, economists across the political spectrum have said this package goes beyond what the economy currently needs, and are worried about inflation and the potential for this package to hamper our economic recovery.
“In the last Congress, we were able to pass five COVID-19 relief packages - totaling nearly $4 trillion - in a bipartisan manner. However, despite calls for unity, Democrats have abandoned the idea of working with Republicans, and rejected hundreds of Republican amendments and any efforts to advance bipartisan solutions that are targeted, temporary, and tied to COVID relief. Rather than engaging our perspectives - representing half of the nation’s perspectives - the Majority chose to go it alone, and the American people will suffer the consequences as a result. After a year of challenges, Americans deserve better than that.
“We should be focused on helping families get back to work, opening up economies again, more widely distributing the vaccine, and effectively spending the remaining $1 trillion from previous COVID packages. I stand ready and willing to work with my colleagues to achieve this.
Congressman Rob Wittman represents the 1st District of Virginia. He serves on the House Natural Resources Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, where he serves as the Vice Ranking Member of the full Committee and Ranking Member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.
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