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McConnell’s Proposal Is Dead on Arrival

Statements From Public Citizen Experts

Note: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) today released the details of the GOP’s coronavirus response proposal negotiated with President Donald Trump and U.S. Senate Republicans.

“McConnell’s proposal – negotiated without any input from Democrats in the U.S. House or Senate – is dead on arrival. Senate Republicans have wasted months coming up with a proposal that, remarkably, would make the pandemic and economic pain even worse – especially a corporate immunity provision that would be a literal death sentence to countless Americans.

“There’s no reason that responding to the crisis should be partisan. The nation should be uniting around health and economic policies to curb the pandemic, ensure everyone has access to the health care they need, speed vaccine development and worldwide deployment, provide support to people and businesses economically impacted by the pandemic, protect essential workers, support states, enable schools to open safely if possible and protect our democracy. McConnell’s proposal fails utterly to meet any of these objectives, and it should be rejected out of hand in favor of talks about our country’s pressing needs. It’s long past time for the real negotiations to begin.”

  • Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president

“What do McConnell and Senate Republicans really mean to say when they refuse to fund our elections in the middle of a health crisis? That our lives are not important, and our democracy doesn’t matter to them.”

  • Aquene Freechild, Democracy Is For People campaign co-director