Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats were “keeping working men and women from working.”
Cruz spoke with CBS host Margaret Brennan during a segment of “Face the Nation,” arguing that the plans being promoted by Democrats might provide temporary relief to some Americans but would compound the economic problems by encouraging more people to remain on unemployment rather than returning to work. (RELATED: Missouri Gov. Mike Parson Takes Aim At Pelosi, Says Biden ‘Needs To Get In Touch With Reality’)
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“We have right now two simultaneous national crises,” Cruz began. He noted that the coronavirus pandemic had devastated the nation and more could still be done to combat the continued spread of the disease. That impact, Cruz said, was being compounded by the economic devastation brought on by the virus and the ensuing lockdowns — and the solution was to figure out the best way to get Americans safely back to work.
“Unfortunately. I just listened to your interview with Speaker Pelosi, her objectives are focused on neither of those, her objectives are shoveling cash at the problem and shutting America down and in particular, you look at the $3 trillion bill she’s trying to push. It’s just shoveling money to her friends and not actually solving the problem,” Cruz continued.
Cruz’s main point of contention with the Democrats’ plans appeared to be the $600 per person federal boost to unemployment benefits, a boost that Cruz said had resulted in some workers being paid nearly twice as much to stay home as they might make if the returned to their jobs. (RELATED: ‘How About You Fund The Damn Program Nancy’: Ted Cruz Unloads On Pelosi, Accuses Her Of Stalling Small Business Relief)
“The problem is 68% of people receiving it now, they’re being paid more on unemployment than they made in their job. I’ll tell you, I’ve spoken to small business owners all over the state of Texas trying to reopen and they’re calling their waiters and waitresses and busboys and they don’t want to come back and of course they won’t if the federal government is paying them in some instance twice as much money to stay home,” Cruz explained.
Cruz concluded by saying that the real solution would be a recovery bill that would untangle some of the regulations that strangled small businesses and suspend payroll taxes in order to effectively give all workers a raise.
“We’re 100 days out from the presidential election, the only objective Democrats have is to defeat Donald Trump and they cynically decided best way to defeat Donald Trump is shut down every business in America, shut down every school in America,” Cruz said. “You know, Nancy Pelosi talked about working men and women, what she’s proposing is keeping working men and women from working — and ironically, what she does have is a big tax cut for millionaires and billionaires in blue states.”