Key Points:
“Help is not on the way,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy said in March about the final COVID bill that included the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. “Help is not on the way.”
It’s not hard to see why promoting the $29 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund has been a bipartisan exercise among members of Congress. Created to help hard-hit restaurants, it’s a clear example of Capitol Hill providing a lifeline to a COVID-stricken country.
But there’s a minor problem for some of those lawmakers touting the program: they voted against the bill that created it.
The idea of setting up a program to benefit restaurants struggling during the pandemic has been popular among Republicans and Democrats. But it was a key plank of the so-called American Rescue Plan, Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID response package, and not a single GOP lawmaker in the House or Senate voted in favor of that bill back in March on the grounds that it was too expensive and misguided.
GOP lawmakers keep tweeting about and celebrating parts of Biden’s coronavirus rescue bill without admitting they voted against it. Here are their reasons.