Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spent Thursday fundraising off of COVID-19, and the gridlock over small business relief funding on Capitol Hill. In a fundraising email for Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s (D-MT) Senate campaign, Sen. Schumer called for “real leadership,” and claimed that “the Republican-led majority is failing too many Americans when we need help the most.”
Fundraising off of COVID-19 is nothing new for Sen. Schumer and his allies, but the minority leader’s pitch is deliberately misleading. The GOP majority, led by Majority Leader McConnell, have championed the effort to bring economic relief to Americans who need it most.
It was Sen. Schumer’s minority caucus in the Senate that successfully blocked additional funding for the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), on account of partisan demands made by Sen. Schumer and Speaker Pelosi. Rather than unify with colleagues across the aisle, in support of America’s small business owners and employees, Democrats torpedoed Leader McConnell’s bill to legislate more funding for PPP.
McConnell / McCarthy on lapse in small business funding:
— Doug Andres (@DougAndres) April 16, 2020
“This did not have to happen...Last Thursday, Senate Republicans tried to pass a narrow and clean bill that would have simply put more money into this critical program...Democrats blocked it.”
Democratic leadership claims that PPP is not working effectively, but as the SBA reports, and given that PPP exhausted the original funds, Americans working in the small business sector are seeing relief.
One week ago, I warned that the Paycheck Protection Program was running out of money and tried to a pass clean funding bill. Senate Democrats blocked it.
— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) April 16, 2020
Here we are, a week later, with no progress. This morning, the PPP ran out of money and shut down, just as we’d warned. pic.twitter.com/L8EGPHMfrn
Sen. Schumer's partisan games, at the expense of American workers, may be growing unpopular among Democrats, though. On Thursday, two Democratic Senators broke with the minority leader and pushed for the additional PPP funding to be passed:
The PPP program is going to run out of funding soon - the Senate should approve add’l funding by unanimous consent ASAP. Small businesses need our help to survive during this emergency. https://t.co/kYTbjGHCXM
— Kyrsten Sinema (@kyrstensinema) April 16, 2020
I agree with Democrats, Marco Rubio and the U.S. Chamber—we should fix the small business program so it works better. And we should help hospitals and support state and local services like firefighters and police—immediately. https://t.co/2jzSKhxKId
— Senator Tina Smith (@SenTinaSmith) April 16, 2020
Sen. Schumer continues to gaslight the American people over what is truly occurring on Capitol Hill; his party is not on the side of the American worker. While Republicans work to deliver tangible aid to the American people, Sen. Schumer misleads voters and blocks critical funding for Americans who are in the most dire need of relief.
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