Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is slamming is Republican colleagues for opposing the push to increase stimulus checks to $2,000 as the cite concerns about the deficit.
Sanders told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday night, “The debt is a serious issue, and you’re right, we are talking about a whole lot of money.”
“But I always find it amusing that sometimes the very same people who voted for a trillion and a half dollar tax break for the one percent and large corporations, they didn’t have a worry about the deficit at that point,” he continued.
“When it comes to hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, these large profitable corporations, they don’t worry about the deficit […] When it comes to working families, the mom, and dad who are struggling to put food on the table for their kids, oh my god, we’re worried about the deficit.”
Finally, he said, “So, deficit is an issue, I agree. But I think at this moment we gotta do the right thing for working families.”
Watch the video below:
Sanders: "I always find it amusing that sometimes the very same people who voted for a trillion and a half dollar tax break for the 1% and large corporations, they didn't have a worry about the deficit at that point." pic.twitter.com/WmeSQXRFRD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 30, 2020
The Vermont senator has been a vocal proponent of increasing the stimulus checks in the latest COVID-19 relief bill from $600 to $2,000.
And he has even taken to using President Donald Trump’s comments in support of his push.
During a speech on the Senate floor, Sanders said, “We have a very unlikely ally in President Trump. Nobody here has disagreed with Trump more times than I have. And yet, here is what the leader of the Republican Party says. He says, ‘$2,000 ASAP.'”
“So even on this issue, amazingly enough, the president of the United States is right,” he added.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) claimed Democrats are “trying to pull a fast one on President Trump and the American people” by pushing for a stand-alone bill to boost the amount of the stimulus checks without addressing Trump’s demands to review election integrity and repeal a law giving liability protections to social media companies.
“The Senate is not going to split apart the three issues that President Trump linked together just because Democrats are afraid to address of two of them. The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrat rich friends who don’t need the help,” McConnell said in a floor speech on Wednesday amid pressure to quickly pass a bill to increase the stimulus checks.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said he opposed the push because, “If we’re going to mortgage our children’s future, we need to minimize the extent we are mortgaging it, and we need to target the relief to those people who truly need it.”
Sanders’ comments come as the Senate moved forward with its goal of overriding Trump’s veto on the $740 billion defense bill.
