Emerald Coast Times

The Democrats keep proclaiming that the coronavirus pandemic is the single most important issue facing America today — and yet, their own obstructionist antics in Congress prove that they have other priorities.

For months, millions of American workers in states like Florida have been waiting for Congress to approve another round of relief legislation to help struggling communities overcome the temporary contraction caused by state and local economic shutdowns.  

Florida businesses received more than $32 billion in forgivable loans under the popular Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), allowing hundreds of thousands of businesses to keep their employees on payroll and meet basic operating expenses while waiting for economic activity to resume. Unfortunately, the popular and effective loan program ended over two months ago, and efforts to revive it have stalled amidst Democrat insistence on a bloated, pork-laden omnibus package of relief measures. 

Congressional Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were only concerned with using the economic relief legislation for their own political benefit, packing it with policies that have nothing to do with helping our country recover from the pandemic, which they knew their Republican colleagues — who control the Senate — would never be able to accept. 

Pelosi’s starting offer, which was passed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in May, was a $3 trillion monstrosity that included billions of dollars in bailouts for Democrat-run cities and states that struggled financially long before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in many cases have failed to fulfill even the basic responsibility of ensuring public safety. The legislation also attempted to sneak $75 billion in for housing assistance, $1.7 billion for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions, $50 million in “environmental justice” grants, and other ideological pet projects. 

This far-left policy wishlist was not a serious economic relief proposal, and President Trump made it clear that it was “dead on arrival” in the Senate. “Of course, Nancy Pelosi knows that,” he added at the time. The Republicans, meanwhile, had passed their own $1 trillion proposal that included everything that the economy needs to continue its historic recovery — but despite the left’s rhetoric about the importance of providing immediate economic relief to American workers, the Democrats wanted nothing to do with the GOP legislation. 

Months later, the Democrats have attempted to fool the American people once again, approving what they describe as a “compromise” $2.2 trillion bill that keeps much of the original wasteful spending intact. Encouraged by Donald Trump’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis, Pelosi even cynically suggested that Republicans would be desperate or flustered enough to vote for anything the Democrats put in front of them in light of the President’s illness. 

“Maybe now that people who see the President of the United States with all the protection that he has, and the First Lady, still having this exposure, it might be ... a learning experience,” Pelosi said in a recent interview. “But more than learning, it has to be something that is acted upon.”  This from the same no-mask Nancy Pelosi who insisted on having her hair done in a closed San Francisco salon that the “little people” couldn’t patronize because it was closed to the measly “public.”

Contrary to what Pelosi thinks about President Trump, the Republican Party and President Trump won’t be held for ransom — American workers and businesses deserve economic relief legislation that doesn’t serve as a Trojan Horse for partisan pet-projects and socialist initiatives. 

For that very reason, congressional Republicans have pleaded with Pelosi and the Democrats to allow votes on issues with strong bipartisan support, such as assistance for soon-to-be-furloughed airline workers and reviving the PPP, through standalone legislation. Regrettably, the Democrats rejected that olive branch — and even when they did accept the need for an airline bailout to save tens of thousands of jobs, they scuttled their own efforts by refusing to hold a recorded vote on the standalone legislation. 

Americans can’t believe a word of what the Democrats say about the COVID-19 pandemic — they have consistently exploited the crisis as a vehicle to advance their radical policy agenda at the expense of the American workers. It's time for the Democrats to take their own preachings to heart and actually put the American people above politics. 

– Mike Huckabee was the 44th governor of Arkansas and a 2016 Republican candidate for president. He is currently host of "Huckabee" on TBN and a resident of Santa Rosa Beach.