Hagerty Introduces Effort to Stop Democrats’ Wasteful, Untargeted $1.9 Trillion Relief Bill

March 5, 2021

WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today will introduce an effort to recommit the Democrats’ two trillion dollar partisan bill to the appropriate Senate committees to actually address needs related to relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Senate has wasted over seven hours on the same roll call vote when the legislation has spent zero hours in committees where issues could be resolved.

Under Hagerty’s proposal, the Senate would vote on 11 motions to recommit individual sections of the package back to the committees of jurisdiction, follow the regular order process, and allow the committees three days to prioritize COVID relief and not pet projects or things that have nothing to do with COVID relief. The motions would be subject to a 50-vote threshold.

“Instead of spending hours and hours on amendments that cannot fix a partisan bill, we ought to follow regular order and send the legislation back to the respective committees of jurisdiction,” Senator Hagerty said. “The committees can spend three days crafting bipartisan, targeted solutions to help those most in need, instead of forcing through new programs, new spending, and new projects that have nothing to do with COVID. Clearly the Democrats have run off the rails, which is a byproduct of a hyper-partisan process and not what the American people deserve.”

Senate Democrats are ramming through a massive federal spending bill and calling it COVID relief, utilizing a process that circumvents bipartisan cooperation. Not a single House Republican voted for the nearly $2 trillion bill.

Instead of ensuring the existing resources are being used effectively to respond to the pandemic, Democrats are pushing for an additional $1.9 trillion and claiming every dollar of it is needed immediately. Yet, according to the Congressional Budget Office, much of the money labeled as ‘emergency relief’ would not be spent for several years.