Despite Handing $700 Million to Sudan, Romney Says Bigger Stimulus Checks Are Too Expensive: 'We Can't Just Have Free Money'
On Monday, Democrats and Republicans came together on a COVID relief bill after months of negotiations.
The final product offered $600 stimulus payments to most Americans while setting aside billions of dollars for foreign countries and expensive provisions that had absolutely nothing to do with mitigating the threat of COVID-19 or the economic ramifications of it.
Hinting that he could veto the bill, President Donald Trump called for Congress to remove the unnecessary foreign spending and increase the stimulus payments to $2,000.
According to Sen. Mitt Romney, however, $2,000 stimulus payments for Americans struggling during the pandemic would be too expensive to add to the relief bill.
“If we went to $2,000 per person, the additional borrowing would be up to almost $500 billion,” the Utah Republican said Wednesday during a virtual meeting, according to KUTV.
“Someone’s got to pay for that. We can’t just have free money.”
If “someone’s got to pay for that,” why then is Romney not asking the same question about the billions being sent out of America?
When it comes to sending $700 million to Sudan, however, Romney had nothing to say.
Nor did the senator have any objections to sending hundreds of millions to Burma, Cambodia and Nepal, among other countries.
If unnecessary spending was truly his primary concern, perhaps he would have something to say about the $10 million set aside for “gender programs” in Pakistan.
Romney never commented on the millions being sent to these various foreign entities.
However, when the president had the utter audacity to suggest an American COVID relief bill should be directed at actually helping American citizens, that’s when Romney had a problem.
All that being said, there are many conservatives who believe paying off Americans isn’t the proper solution to the economic fallout from the pandemic.
Sen. Rand Paul made such a case during a viral floor speech.
“If free money was the answer … if money really did grow on trees, why not give more free money?” Paul said. “Why not give it out all the time? Why stop at $600 a person? Why not $1,000? Why not $2,000?
“Maybe these new free-money Republicans should join the Everybody-Gets-A-Guaranteed-Income Caucus? Why not $20,000 a year for everybody, why not $30,000? If we can print out money with impunity, why not do it?”
Whether or not you agree with the notion of stimulus payments, they are objectively better than sending hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign countries.
For Romney to support sending all of that money to foreign nations under the guise of an American recovery bill while refusing to increase payments to Americans themselves proves he’s simply another member of the swamp more concerned with making backroom deals than with actually helping the American people.
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