Politics & Government
Illinois Rep. Kinzinger Talks COVID Aid On Daily Show With Trevor Noah
The Channahon Republican appeared on the Comedy Central show Wednesday night.
U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger says billions in federal dollars should not be sent to states in the name of COVID-19 aid when they don’t really need it.
The Channahon Republican told The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah Wednesday that the bills worth $1.9 trillion that passed last weekend in the House were likely to be renegotiated after failing in the Senate.
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He says it’s an opportunity to better distribute taxpayer money when it comes back to his chamber.
With the filibuster in place, Democrats aren’t likely to get the 60 votes needed to send the bill to Biden’s desk.
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“If it hits a bottleneck there, we can have an opportunity for a bipartisan [effort],” he said. “Illinois, for instance, which has had this huge systemic problem of fiscal mismanagement, just gets a ton of money from the federal government. I want that to be more based on need instead of just based on number.”
Kinzinger’s comments track with other Illinois Republican members of Congress who say the aid should have the same guardrails that previous federal dollars had to ensure states aren’t using the money to bail themselves out from years of overspending.
Kinzinger also spoke about the division in his family spurred by his opposition to former President Donald Trump. A number of relatives signed onto a hand-written letter to Kinzinger that excoriated him for standing up to his fellow Republican.
“I have great family, some closer than others who may disagree with me that aren’t going to send me a devil’s army conscription form,” he joked, referencing a sentence in the letter about how he’d “joined the devil’s army.”
Kinzinger said he didn’t release the letter, rather the family allowed it to find the hands of a reporter.
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