Tipsheet

Speaker Pelosi on Relief Package: 'We Couldn't Get Everything We Wanted'

House Democrats continue to politicize COVID-19, also known as the Wuhan coronavirus, as both chambers of Congress work to pass additional economic relief for Americans. The initial phase of emergency relief passed with bipartisan support, after Democrats delayed the relief package in hopes of adding partisan elements to the legislation. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday afternoon that the “master legislator” could not get “everything she wanted” in the final version of the CARES Act:

After Democrats bailed on the initial bipartisan effort to pass the relief package, after spending last weekend co-authoring the bill, Speaker Pelosi unveiled her own relief package. The “everything” to which Speaker Pelosi is referring is nothing more than an ideological wish list for Democrats, as Katie wrote last week:

According to a source close to the process on Capitol Hill, in order to move forward with any kind of relief package, Pelosi and her far-left Democrat caucus will demand the following be included: 

-Publication of corporate pay statistics by race and race statistics for all corporate boards

-A bail out on all current debt at the Postal Service

-Required early voting

-Required same day voter registration 

-Provisions on official time for union collective bargaining

-Full offset of airline emissions by 2025

-Publication and reporting of greenhouse gas statistics for individual flights 

-Retirement plans for community newspaper employees

-Federal $15 minimum wage

-Permanent paid leave

-Study on climate change mitigation efforts 

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Speaker Pelosi’s right-hand in the House, even conceded that the relief package was an avenue to add partisan policy changes to the relief package, admitting that Democrats are using a global health pandemic to further their own radical agenda:

Democrats in both chambers continue to attack President Trump’s leadership during COVID-19, claiming that the president is not prioritizing the American people. In reality, House Democrats are putting the American people on the back burner in order to further their ideological agenda, while Republicans on Capitol Hill work in good faith to execute bipartisan economic relief for Americans affected by the crisis.