NE Senators Vote NO on Stimulus Bill

NE U.S. Republican Senators Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse

(KFOR NEWS March 7, 2021) Senate Democrats for passing President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package Saturday. The final vote was 50-49 along party lines, with every Republican — including Nebraska’s Ben Sasse and Deb Fischer — voting “no.”

Senator Fischer said in a statement:

“I voted against President Biden’s stimulus because the bill represented a strictly partisan, progressive wish list filled with items unrelated to aiding our recovery from COVID-19. In the last year, $4 trillion has been provided for relief with about $1 trillion still unspent.”

Senator Fischer offered several amendments to try to make the legislation more equitable for rural America. This included an amendment to distribute transit funding using a formula Congress already approved. This would ensure the transit funding doesn’t primarily benefit a few select coastal cities but instead is proportionately distributed across the country, including in Nebraska.

Senator Fischer also offered an amendment to ensure protections for rural community health centers are not being degraded and that these centers are allocated the aid they need, rather than granting D.C. bureaucrats sole discretion over those funds.

Senator Sasse said in a statement:

“This weekend’s spending is bigger than the entire annual economy of Canada, yet only 1% of it is vaccine-related. Here’s how midnight spending bills go down: Senators hide a bunch of crap behind titles like ‘The Cuddly Puppies Act,’ and then say anybody voting against it hates puppies. This $1.9 trillion ‘emergency’ bill is overwhelmingly non-emergency — we should’ve just bought Canada too.”