Hagedorn Again Rejects the Democrats' Partisan Payoff to the Left

Press Release

Congressman Jim Hagedorn (MN-01) today voted against the Senate Amendment to H.R. 1319, an effort by President Biden, Speaker Pelosi and Democrats to satisfy their leftwing base with a litany of progressive wish list policies and pork barrel giveaways. The bill passed the House by a vote of 220-211.

Rep. Hagedorn released the following statement after the vote:

"As we learned under the last Democrat administration, never let a crisis go to waste. And now Democrats are shamefully exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to ram through a massive spending package that promotes far left interests over the American people.

"In the past year, Congress has passed five bipartisan COVID relief packages and allocated $4 trillion to help the nation overcome the pandemic - $1 trillion of which remain unspent. Yet, with millions of Americans being vaccinated each day and a return to normalcy in sight, Democrats are determined to increase the deficit by another $2 trillion?

"The reality is that only nine percent of this blowout spending bill is dedicated to fighting COVID-19 through public health measures. Instead, Democrats have decided to use taxpayer dollars to bailout private union pensions, prop up Obamacare, fund "environmental justice' grants, and endow "arts and humanities' programs. Additionally, the bill includes a more than $350 billion blue state bailout for poorly managed states like California, New York and Illinois.

"If history is any indicator, this huge spending bill will also enable liberal governors like Minnesota's Tim Walz to issue no-bid contracts and direct hundreds of millions of tax dollars to political cronies, unproven companies and wasteful projects.

"If Democrats are truly serious about overcoming the pandemic, they should join Republicans in our efforts to distribute the remaining $1 trillion of COVID relief funds in a targeted, efficient manner to immediately and safely reopen schools for in-person learning, speed up the vaccination process, and reopen the economy."

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