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Ocasio-Cortez slams McConnell for bottlenecking Covid relief fund on Instagram live
According to Ocasio-Cortez, McConnell would only allow the $1,200 checks only if he gets to pass corporate liability protection in exchange.
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US Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed Republican and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell for warming up to the wealthy while explaining what was holding up the Covid -19 relief during a live session on Instagram. Ocasio-Cortez, commonly known as AOC, has been pushing for a direct payment of $1,200 to be included in the Covid-19 relief bill and pointed that some Republicans, including senator Josh Hawley, were in support of it, but McConnell was proving to be the bottleneck.
According to Ocasio-Cortez, McConnell would only allow the $1,200 checks only if he gets to pass corporate liability protection in exchange. Corporate liability protection, or corporate immunity, if passed, would mean that big corporations, for five years, would be immune from Covid-19 related lawsuits from their employees for putting them in dangerous environments in a time when coronavirus infections are surging across the US.
Dangerous environments include cramming a large number of people in close proximity without providing them with the necessary safety equipment as per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. As per Ocasio-Cortez, Democrats were against this proposal since a one-time $1,200 cheque and a ‘super short’ expansion of unemployment insurance were not worth people’s lives or hospital bills worth millions of dollars.
“The deal is that you’re gonna end up behind, because you may get a $1,200 check on one hand, but you may also get a multimillion-dollar hospital bill with no recourse and no ability to protect yourself from a negligent corporation or employer. So that’s not worth it. Your check is not worth your life,” she said.
She branded the situation ‘sad’ for being a partisan issue and slammed McConnell for wanting ‘yet another corporate bailout’ to improve people’s well-being and ability to survive. “The current $900 (billion) package that’s being negotiated has tiny unemployment expansion, to the tune of about $300 and no stimulus check. Is that enough?” Ocasio Cortez asked her viewers on Instagram.
She went on to slam McConnell for warming up to the needs of the wealthy when she brought up the $4 trillion leveraged fund that was passed in March for Wall Street. “We don’t see this kind of austerity when it comes to things that the absolute wealthiest people in our society demand. She also said that this ‘austerity mindset’ is not visible while spending for the military. “We are voting, and have voted this year, in committees and on the floor in advancing a $740 billion defence bill.”
The US has 15,851,014 cases of the coronavirus disease and 295,522 people have died, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s Covid-19 tracker.
