AOC Called Out Senate Republicans For Trapping Congress Into A 'Shameful' Bill

Progressive Democrats are not impressed with the stimulus bill that the Residence of Representatives passed on Friday (March 27) — and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went as far as calling the bill “shameful” in a biting speech on the Home floor the morning of the vote. She also called out Senate Republicans for building a bill that she says puts agencies before workers.


“What did the Senate Majority fight for?” Ocasio-Cortez mentioned. “One of the hugest corporate bailouts with as few strings as possible in American history. Shameful!”


The stimulus plan, a massive $2 trillion bill aimed to help the health of the countries’ social and economic systems in response to the coronavirus pandemic, passed the Senate in a 96-0 vote on Wednesday (March 25), and the Home of Representatives is expected to vote on it Friday (March 27).


As it’s currently written, the legislation will permit the U.S. Government to send $1,200 checks to millions of Residents of the
U.S.. However, as Ocasio-Cortez points out, those $1,200 checks only go to some people with social security numbers, not those who only have tax identification numbers, like tax-paying immigrants.


“What Trump [and] Senate GOP have done is hold hospitals, working people, and the weak hostage so they could get in $500 billion (that will be leveraged into $4 trillion) in corporate welfare,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Without the Wall St giveaway, GOP refuses to fund hospitals & unemployment. It’s inhumane.”


The legislation will also distribute an extra $600 a week for people who have qualified for unemployment for up to four months; permit for up to six months' deferment on federal student cash advance payments, and supply some firms and industries with emergency aid. However it will also set aside $50 billion for major airliners, and other cash advances from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve that critics have called a bailout for corporate America.


Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), also called out several of the bill’s shortcomings. “Congress had the chance to fundamentally address the deep inequities in our healthcare system,” she wrote on Twitter. “We had a chance to prepare testing & treatment free & available for Each person & unemployment & paid leave truly universal. This bill didn't do that.”


She added that, while the bill “provides temporary stop gap relief for workers, families and small organizations [...] It also provides massive bail outs to firms. And this bill also goes off to the side to leave in back of our immigrant neighbors in a time of crisis. Our work is far from over.”


This bill comes at a time once several states have all nevertheless mandated social distancing and self-isolation methods in a task to slow contagion rates. As a result, several people have begun to work at residence, and at least 3 million people filed unemployment claims the week of March 16, which the New York Times points out is the hugest assortment of new claims the nation has seen in modern history. And, according to a poll from student advocacy categorize Rise, about half of college-aged respondents mentioned their work had been impacted as a result of the pandemic. This is why Ocasio-Cortez mentioned she felt the Home was effectively forced into voting for the bill, given that so several Residents of the
U.S. Are effectively being contained hostage up until the government steps in to help.


“The alternative that we have is to either let them suffer with nothing or to let this greed and billions of dollars ... To contribute the hugest revenue inequality gap in our future,” she mentioned. “There should be shame about what was fought for in this bill and the choices that we have to make.”