Several dozen House Republicans joined all Democrats in rejecting Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) bid to stall final passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package.
Greene also sent a warning to House Republicans that should they vote with Democrats, they would be seen as joining them.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said on the House floor that Greene’s motion was an attempt to try to “delay getting aid to the people, including their constituents who are in desperate need.”
The bill will provide $1,400 stimulus payments to qualifying individuals and children, provide $300 weekly unemployment benefits until September, and will provide hundreds of billions to state and local governments.
“This nation has suffered too much for much too long,” Biden told reporters at the White House after the Senate voted to approve the measure over the recent weekend. “And everything in this package is designed to relieve the suffering and to meet the most urgent needs of the nation, and put us in a better position to prevail.”
No Republicans voted in favor of the measure in the Senate or when it initially passed the House, underscoring the partisan environment on Capitol Hill.
Republicans call the measure a wasteful spending spree for Democrats’ liberal allies that ignores recent indications that the pandemic and economy are turning the corner.
“The Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard way,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He said Democrats’ “top priority wasn’t pandemic relief. It was their Washington wish list.”
In recent weeks, Greene, a freshman legislator who was stripped of her committee assignments, has employed a strategy of using procedural votes to delay congressional business.
