Opposition to the interim spending package scheduled for a House vote Thursday is likely to be limited to a few lawmakers from opposing ends of the political spectrum.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who tried in vain to stop a voice vote on the most recent coronavirus relief package, told the Washington Examiner, “I’m almost certainly a ‘no’ based on the rumors I’ve heard about what the bill includes.”
Unlike the previous $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package, Thursday’s vote is expected to be a roll-call vote as opposed to a unanimous consent vote. Massie, an MIT-trained engineer and patent holder whose relationships with House Republican leaders are frosty, argued that each lawmaker should be on record through a roll-call vote for such a massive spending bill.
“I’m always good with a roll-call vote,” Massie said of Thursday’s upcoming vote.
Similarly, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a hard-left New York Democrat, took issue with the previous coronavirus relief package and threatened to force a roll-call vote. For different reasons, she also has problems with what she has heard about the bill.
“We have not seen the final text of this bill. But what I can say is that if it matches up with what has been reported, I will not support this bill,” Ocasio-Cortez said Monday. “As the person who’s representing the most impacted districts in the country, my constituents were upset about the first package because it is insulting to think that we can pass such a small amount of money in the context of not knowing when Congress is even going to reconvene.”
However, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who will push the bill through view the passage as a life-or-death circumstance.
“Well, I’m going to vote for it,” Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, told the Washington Examiner. “I would hope that they can keep out as much of the extraneous material as possible, you know — things like the Kennedy Center. But having said that, it’s important to get the money out there to small businesses, especially like in my district.”
King, who is retiring from his Long Island-based seat after 28 years in the House, said, “I have some communities where there’s thousands of people who already have been tested positive. I’m thinking Nassau County alone — there’s far more deaths in that one county than the entire state of California.”
The bill, unveiled in the Senate Tuesday, appropriates $321 billion in additional money for a small-business loan program that ran out of money last week. Additionally, it includes $25 billion for coronavirus testing and $75 billion for medical facilities to treat patients with the virus.
