House Minority Whip Steve Scalise accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of a “sickening” effort to hold up funding needlessly that would replenish the Paycheck Protection Program.
“[The PPP has] been incredibly successful, and it’s literally the only thing holding these businesses together,” Scalise told Breitbart News. “And now she and [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and some of these other radicals are trying to use these workers’ jobs as leverage to get unrelated things like the “Green New Deal.” It’s sickening to watch.”
The nearly $350 billion effort allocating eight weeks of cash flow to qualifying small businesses so they can pay employees and avoid layoffs amid the coronavirus pandemic ran dry last week.
As Congress negotiates a deal to replenish the fund, Democrats have said they want provisions making sure more money goes in the hands of people in rural areas and minority-led businesses.
More than 22 million people have filed for unemployment as statewide shutdown measures have closed businesses large and small across the country and forced employers to lay workers off.
“We have no data, though,” Pelosi said earlier this month. “We don’t know so much about who is being served, who is being underserved. And so when the secretary called this morning to ask for the additional funds, we were like … we want to make sure that the program is administered in a way that does not solidify inequality in how people have access to capital.”
Scalise’s office put together a website displaying testimonials from small-business owners who say the PPP’s quick replenishment is vital to their survival during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are about seven days away from shutting our doors down for good and possibly declaring bankruptcy. We don’t know what else to do. I’m tired of crying myself to sleep every night wondering what tomorrow holds. Will we lose everything we worked for? Our house? Our retirement?” said a representative from Delta Electronics Co. in a statement. “The Democrats need to stop playing games with peoples lives from their million dollar homes with their financially secure futures. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”
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The owner of JWR Jewelers in Athens, Georgia, said the company had been paying employees out of pocket.
“The PPP will enable me to continue to pay them so they can pay rent, pay for car loans, etc. Without it, I will cut four jobs of people who have worked for me for years. Our staff is like a family, and it crushes me to make this decision,” the owner said.
Scalise said the suffering of small-business people was the fault of Pelosi and other Democrats.
“I think the more we share these stories, it shows that there’s a human face to this game of chicken they’re playing with their livelihoods with millions of Americans, and hopefully that gets them past this hostage-taking attitude they have and gets them to a point where they reach out and help somebody and not do it in exchange for some unrelated liberal wish list,” Scalise said. “And what kind of person would literally threaten the livelihood in the worst crisis to try to exhort some kind of hostage leverage as a lifeline?”
Congressional leaders in both parties indicated over the weekend they were “very close” to a deal, and a vote on the PPP is expected as early as Tuesday.
