Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is tearing into President-elect Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package.
“In less than one year, Congress has spent $3.4 trillion on direct COVID relief aid and nearly doubled the entire federal budget,” Toomey said in a statement he released on Friday.
He continued, “Blasting out another $2 trillion in borrowed or printed money – when the ink on December’s $1 trillion aid bill is barely dry and much of the money is not yet spent – would be a colossal waste and economically harmful.”
Toomey called it “senseless” to send “another $1,400 to children, the deceased, and tens of millions of workers who haven’t missed a paycheck, like federal and state employees.”
He argued it would “likely” slow down employment recovery.
“It was a bad idea two weeks ago and it’s a bad idea now,” Toomey added.
Biden unveiled the proposal on Thursday, as IJR previously reported.
“A crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight, and there’s no time to waste. We have to act and we have to act now,” the former vice president said in Delaware.
The package includes $415 billion in funding for responding to COVID-19 and distributing the vaccine, approximately $1 trillion for direct payments, and around $440 billion for small businesses and other communities suffering from the pandemic.
In addition to the $600 payments issued by the last stimulus package, $1,400 stimulus payments would also be issued.
Enhanced unemployment benefits would increase to $400 a week and last through September.
Toomey said in December he would not support $2,000 payments, as IJR previously reported.
“Congress should continue helping workers who’ve lost their jobs. But blindly borrowing more than $600 billion so we can send $2,000 checks to millions of people who haven’t lost any income is terrible policy,” Toomey wrote on Twitter.
He went on, “I won’t consent to a vote on that.”
