AOC Vows To Fight New Coronavirus Relief Package - Because Even $2 Trillion Wasn't Enough
It’s not often conservatives have a reason to thank Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but Monday was one of them.
The New York Democrat, who opposed the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package passed in March because it didn’t give away enough taxpayer money, told supporters on Monday she would fight the new relief package under negotiation on Capitol Hill, too.
And she gave all Americans a lesson in the mindset of the current Democratic Party in the process.
In a conference call with progressive groups reported by The Hill and the U.K. Independent, Ocasio-Cortez compared the billions of dollars included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act signed last month to loose change for her congressional district.
#BREAKING: Rep. @AOC says she will not support interim relief package https://t.co/6wSA7x11g9 pic.twitter.com/lrNALJZJAp
— The Hill (@thehill) April 20, 2020
“It’s not helpful for people to say, ‘Oh, well, we got something so we might as well support it,” she said, according to The Independent. “We got a nickel, we got a dime in a trillion-dollar bill, [and] a nickel is more than nothing, so we should support it…
“A nickel doesn’t help. It’s like putting a Band-Aid on an enormous wound.”
To be fair, Ocasio-Cortez’s district covers part of the Bronx and part of Queens, the borough where the coronavirus has hit the hardest, according to NY1.
But calling the aid from a $2 trillion congressional bill “a nickel” is beyond absurd.
According to the Treasury Department, the CARES act distributed $1,200 payments to American taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 a year ($2,400 for couples up to $150,000), regardless of whether they’d lost their jobs because of the coronavirus crisis or suffered some other loss.
Those with higher incomes up $99,000 ($198,00 for joint filers) received less. It also allowed $500 for each dependent child up to age 17.
It extended terms of eligibility for unemployment benefits – and added $600 a week to normal unemployment compensation benefits on top of whatever a state pays through July 31, according to CNBC.
To normal people, that’s a lot more than a nickel.
But for Ocasio-Cortez, her “squad” and the Congressional Progressive Caucus – the left-wingest of the increasingly left-wing Democratic Party, whatever is passed won’t be enough. And ultimately, the same can be said about the rest of her party.
According to UPI, a bill introduced last week by Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna of California, a member of the progressive caucus, and Tim Ryan of Ohio would allot $2,000 a month to Americans making less than $1300,000 a year, with another $500 per month for each dependent child.
The payments would remain in effect until unemployment returned to its “pre-pandemic levels,” UPI reported.
It’s a good bet the federal treasury will go broke first paying out $2,000 a month to Americans who make under $130,000 a year, about 79 percent of all workers, according to DYDJ.com, a financial services website.
And if the wages for unemployment were $2,000 a month plus $500 for a dependent child, it’s a good chance employment levels will never come down to pre-pandemic levels.
Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t going to be happy about the dissension in her ranks. But this is more than just a ringside view of a Democratic squabble. It’s an example of how determined Democrats are not to let the coronavirus crisis go to waste.
Of course, AOC is a money-grubbing, dishonest socialist who wants nothing more than to raid the federal treasury in perpetuity – or until the money runs out and Venezuelans who moved here start moving back home for job prospects.
But she’s part of a party that as a whole is little more than a money-grubbing, dishonest socialist enterprise that now wants nothing more than to raids the federal treasury in perpetuity, revamp election laws to make voting fraud easier, and grant illegal aliens the rights of American citizens (including the Democratic right to bankrupt the treasury.)
Opposition from Ocasio-Cortez might or might not be the breaking point that would prevent another relief bill from passing, but it’s definitely a sign for every American that for Nancy Pelosi & Co., there will never be an “enough” when it comes to federal spending.
And they’ve already proven they’re more than willing to hold up relief to the nation as a whole until they get another opportunity to press the progressive agenda.
That was the real lesson of AOC’s announcement at the conference call on Monday.
Republicans on Capitol Hill, and conservatives from around the country, better be listening.
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