Credibility Crisis: Senate Democrats Attack Republicans for Agreeing to Some of Cooper’s Budget Proposal

Senate Dems list $17.4 million of “pork” in COVID bill, but 82% of it is for PPE and comes from Gov. Cooper’s own budget proposal

Dems simultaneously claim Republicans didn’t accept Dem proposals AND were wrong to fund Dem proposals

Which is it?

Raleigh, N.C. — North Carolina Senate Democrats today claimed the $1 billion COVID relief bill being voted on today includes $17.4 million in “pork.”

What Senate Democrats withheld from their attack is the fact that 82% of the “pork” funding is for PPE and comes directly from the Governor’s own budget proposal.

Republicans accepted portions of the Governor’s budget, and Democrats are now attacking them for including it.

Sen. Harry Brown (R-Onslow), who is the Senate’s chief budget writer, said, “Eighty-two percent of the funding the Democrats attacked came directly from the Governor’s own budget proposal. Democrats are welcome to propose an amendment to strip the Governor’s requested funding from the COVID relief bill if they’d like. It’s so disingenuous to claim an area of bipartisan agreement is some Republican pork effort.”

Later today, the Senate will vote to allocate the remaining CARES Act funding. The highest profile provision allocates $440 million to provide $325 “Extra Credit” grants to parents with children. Parents have suffered unexpected financial burdens resulting from school closures, and the Extra Credit grants will help offset some of that burden.