Sen. John Kennedy has flatly rebuked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s $3 trillion coronavirus aid package.
The Louisiana Republican said he was “so disappointed” in Pelosi’s proposal and said he thinks it would “set us back.”
“In my opinion, the speaker has moved from folly to farce,” Kennedy said Tuesday night on Fox News. “And when I saw it, it reminded me of that old Jack Nicholson line: ‘Go sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here,’” the senator said, quoting a line from the 1997 romantic comedy As Good as it Gets.
“It’s not a serious or mature effort to legislate, it’s dead as fried chicken in the Senate,” Kennedy said. “It’s dead as fried chicken with the American people once they find out what’s in it. She knows that, and everybody who has a brain above a single-cell organism knows that. It’s just political pageantry.”
The remarks come the same day as Senate Republicans rejected the $3 trillion coronavirus aid package that was introduced by House Democrats introduced on Tuesday. Republicans said they will wait to see if further legislation is necessary.
“Her bill would require us to borrow $3 trillion,” Kennedy said. “That’s 3,000 billion dollars that our kids have got to pay back. Her bill would rewrite our immigration laws. Her bill would release many federal prisoners.”
He said that Pelosi’s proposal “represents a federal takeover of our state elections systems” and claimed that the legislation would give “most of” the public safety decisions to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“I was hoping for a serious, mature, honest effort. But that’s not what this represents,” Kennedy added.
Among the provisions, the Democratic legislation would provide additional $1,200 cash payments to individuals, akin to the prior relief package. It would also provide more than $1 trillion to state, local, and municipal governments.
