Congressman Fred Upton is looking to the U.S. Senate to make changes to the COVID-19 relief package approved narrowly in the House over the weekend. He tells WSJM News he voted against the $1.9 trillion Democratic package.
“Only about 10% of it is actually for COVID,” Upton said. “There’s a lot of pork barrel projects. There’s a new subway in California that happened to be in Nancy Pelosi’s district, $140 million. There’s a new bridge from New York, Chuck Schumer’s state, to Canada. Just a lot of things that are unrelated to COVID.”
Upton’s been disappointed to see the first big bill of the Biden administration be partisan.
“Pelosi was able to muscle it through on a very narrow vote. Four votes would have taken it down to defeat. So let’s hope that the Senate can work its will. They can produce a better bill.”
Upton says the Senate is likely to approve a bill and send it back to the House next week. He believes COVID relief is needed, particularly when it comes to expanded unemployment benefits being renewed, but thinks the approved package is about a trillion dollars too much.
