Rep. Wittman votes no on COVID-19 relief package

U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st Dist., issued the following statement after voting “no” on the Democratic Partisan Reconciliation Package, H.R. 1319, which passed on the House floor Saturday:

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have been clear that any relief funding must be temporary, targeted, and directly tied to COVID-19. It should come as no surprise I voted against the Democrats’ Partisan Reconciliation Package as it fails all three criteria.

“We only recently passed the previous COVID-19 relief package and have yet to spend $1 trillion of the $4 trillion we approved. With so much money already waiting to be spent, we are only capable of spending 5% of the reconciliation package this year, with the remaining 95% left unspent until 2022. Even after waiting almost a full year — with the worst of COVID-19 hopefully behind us — only 9% of funding from this package will go toward COVID-19 relief, while the remaining $1.7 trillion will go towards a wish list of Democratic priorities. Among these include union pensions, bailouts for state and local governments, federal funding for Planned Parenthood, as well as pork-barrel spending benefiting Democratic leadership…