Amodei Votes Against $1.9 Trillion Policy Agenda

Statement

Rep. Mark Amodei (NV-02) today released the following statement on H.R. 1319:

"Everybody wants to help, but this helps political agendas. In fact, more than 90% of the bill has been poisoned with multiple political priorities that will hamstring recovery efforts, while just 9% of spending would actually go toward combatting COVID.

"We should be focused on getting the jobless back to work, ensuring the more than $1 trillion in unspent stimulus funding is being used wisely, and providing the funding needed for America's schools to safely reopen. Instead, this legislation puts $471 billion toward anti-work provisions that will directly hurt job creation, contains billions of additional dollars in untargeted funding, and of the $130 billion Democrats claim is needed to help schools -- only 5% of that would be spent this fiscal year.

"To add insult to injury, the $15-an-hour minimum wage mandate would destroy 1.3 million jobs when the nation's unemployment rate is already staggering, especially in tourism-based economies like Nevada where ours is currently the second highest in the nation. To that point, I pushed to include an amendment in this bill that would have made special event operators -- an industry essential to Nevada's economic stability -- eligible to receive relief funding. Unfortunately, none of the amendments that strived to improve this legislation, including my own, were made in order. Apparently, Democrats consider $100 million for Speaker Pelosi's Silicon Valley Subway and another $1.5 million for Majority Leader Schumer's Seaway International Bridge to be greater priorities during this time of need.

"At the end of the day, nobody is against directing aid to individuals who truly need food nutrition assistance, financial support, and other types of aid, but the mechanism for legitimately identifying those people and sending targeted relief funding remains absent. A perfect example is the number of individuals who received Economic Impact Payments under the last two stimulus bills but have not been financially impacted by COVID. This is billions of dollars that could have been better spent to help individuals who need it most.

"Finally, there is nothing contained within this bill that encourages states to responsibly make reopening their economies a priority. In Nevada, restaurants, manufacturers, the resort industry, and others, continue fighting a day to day battle for economic viability for their businesses. Our local economies need encouragement and a realistic playing field, and unfortunately, this legislation provides neither."

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