Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis took the lead as a group of GOP freshmen blasted the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.
“This bill is significantly bloated,” the first-term Republican said late Friday, shortly before the wee-hours vote on the massive spending bill. “And we still have $1 trillion unspent from previous packages,” she added.
The American Rescue Plan Act passed early Saturday on a party-line 219-212 vote that saw two Democrats joining the Republican minority in the “nay” column.
“We want to target and tailor the need,” Malliotakis said. “Just 1% of this COVID relief bill goes to the number one priority right now: vaccine development, production, and distribution.”
“What kind of way is this to run a government?”
GOP members decried the lack of debate on the pricey package — and some went public with amendments that the Democratic majority rebuffed in their haste to hustle the bill to the floor.
“My colleagues on the other side of the aisle refused to allow a vote on our BIPARTISAN amendment to stop felons, including child molesters, rapists, and other public predators from receiving a stimulus check,” New York Rep. Tom Reed said in a Friday Twitter post.
“Instead of working together to fix horrifically bad policies, they blocked debate,” Reed complained.