House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bowed to pressure from her majority’s far-left faction Wednesday, opting to strip coronavirus aid from President Biden’s $1.5 bipartisan trillion budget bill rather than face a revolt.
Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, informed lawmakers via letter that the House would exclude $15 billion for coronavirus vaccines and testing centers when considering the larger budget bill.
The concession is meant to smooth passage of the deal, which has been stalled by a cadre of far-left progressives unhappy that some of the coronavirus aid was set to come from unspent money already appropriated for the pandemic.
“Republicans resisted this deeply needed funding, demanding that every cent requested by the administration be offset, including through state and local funds scheduled to be released this spring,” Mrs. Pelosi wrote. “Democrats fought to ensure that no localities saw their funding cuts, while negotiating that only half of the administration’s $15 billion request be offset through remaining funds from expired programs.”
“Because of Republican insistence — and the resistance by a number of our members to making those offsets — we will go back to the Rules Committee to remove COVID funding and accommodate the revised bill,” she said.
Mrs. Pelosi said the decision to remove COVID funding from the budget was “heartbreaking,” but needed to ensure the government does not shut down. Officially, Congress has to pass a funding measure by Friday to keep the government open.
Earlier Wednesday, a cadre of progressive lawmakers threatened to derail speedy consideration of the budget bill over how the new coronavirus aid would be funded. Specifically, far-left Democrats said that it was unfair to claw back coronavirus funds that had already been appropriated for states in prior pandemic relief bills.
They claimed such an action would penalize states that have used federal coronavirus funds equally with those that have not.
“Some of that money is being clawed back to use for Covid funding, but that money has already been appropriated by our state legislature, and it’s not like it’s unused funding,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Washington Democrat who chairs the 98-member Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Mrs. Pelosi attempted to allay those concerns, saying that while some of the initial coronavirus money would be clawed back, states will get “at least 91 percent of the state funds that they expected to receive.”
Progressives were not sold, however. To show their resolve, far-left Democrats forced Mrs. Pelosi to keep a vote open on a Republican motion to adjourn the House that was destined to fail.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Haris Alic can be reached at halic@washingtontimes.com.
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