Ranking Member DeLauro Statement on ‘Million-Dollar Jackpot’ Provision in GOP Funding Bill, Ocasio-Cortez Denounces Republican Funding Bill on House Floor
Ranking Member DeLauro Statement on ‘Million-Dollar Jackpot’ Provision in GOP Funding Bill
Editors note: We previously reported on he devastating consequences of the Continuing Resolution on working families in America who won’t be able to afford their health insurance. This will cause fewer healthy people to buy insurance, thus increasing the costs for everyone else – not to mention the very real possibility of rural hospitals, who are already suffering, failing in large numbers, leaving entire communities without care. According to reporting by NBC: “The legislative language would uniquely benefit eight Republican senators who were recently found to have had their phone records — but not the contents of their calls or messages — accessed as a part of the investigation that led to former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol…
“Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, blasted the provision in a statement Tuesday.
“The Senators may not like being treated like the rest of America, but these phone-record subpoenas and non-disclosure orders are routine in grand jury investigations at the state and federal level,” he said. “No one has an absolute right to be notified that their call records have been subpoenaed, much less the right to a million bucks if it happens. This provision would not give any Americans other than U. S. Senators these rights.”
WASHINGTON – House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) released the following statement on a provision Senate Republicans dropped into their funding bill at the last minute that would deliver millions in taxpayer-funded payouts to eight Senators investigated for their role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection:
“While families receive notices about skyrocketing premiums — and the Trump administration fights tooth and nail to block hungry families from receiving SNAP benefits — the Senate snuck a provision into its government funding legislation to line their own personal bank accounts with millions of taxpayer dollars. What makes this corruption so staggering is that the payout is specifically designed to go to eight Senators whose phone records were lawfully subpoenaed under due process by the Department of Justice.
“These eight Senators all voted to shove taxpayer dollars into their own pockets – $500,000 for each time their records were inspected – and reports indicate that these eight Senators will be paid at least $1 million each, but potentially much more. At least a million dollars, guaranteed, for Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).
“By inserting this poison pill payout into the Legislative Branch bill the Senate majority has set a dangerous precedent and created additional obstacles for conversations between the four corners moving forward on the remaining 2026 funding bills.
“American families are living paycheck to paycheck. Instead of working to lower costs and put more money in Americans’ pockets, Senate Republicans are racing to hand out tax breaks to billionaires — and pay themselves for their work with President Trump to overturn the 2020 election. This provision must be removed. House Democrats will never support legislation that rewards co-conspirators with a massive taxpayer-funded payday.”
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Ocasio-Cortez Denounces Republican Funding Bill on House Floor
In addition to not including an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, the funding bill allows Republican Senators to sue the government for millions of taxpayer dollars
Washington, D.C. – Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) delivered the following remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives:
“It is great that Democrats have a line of people who are willing to fight for working-class Americans from coast to coast in this country.
Because God forbid we have a member of the Republican caucus who stands up and wants to extend the Affordable Care Act so that people with cancer, [diabetes requiring] insulin, and all sorts of health care issues across this country have their health insurance protected and extended throughout 2026.
It is unconscionable that what we are debating right now is legislation that will give eight members of the United States Senate over a million dollars apiece.
And we are robbing people of their food assistance and of their health care to pay for it.
How is this even on the floor? How can we, as members of Congress, Republican or Democrat, vote to enrich ourselves by stealing from the American people? That is what this legislation does.
In fact, Senator Graham just went before the press earlier today, saying he was going to seek well over $1 million from the American people, from this.
We cannot support it and we cannot stand for it. Thank you.”
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Constituent story. Image Credit – Rep. AOC
Banner Image: Constituent story. Image Credit – Rep. AOC
Staten Islander News Service Staff Writer
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