By Blake Haas
BLOOMINGTON – U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis remains “less optimistic” Americans will receive another stimulus check after President Trump extended federal unemployment benefits, while Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on Coronavirus relief negotiations.
Speaking with WJBC’s Scott Miller, the Taylorville Republican said the democrats are at fault for the stalled negotiations.
“I will tell you I’m probably less optimistic (another stimulus check) will happen. People in Washington have retreated to their partisan quarters. In the last round of negotiations, I can tell you from my experience in negotiating with (White House Chief of Staff) Mark Meadows, when he was a member of the house with me, he gave on a lot of issues that I never thought he would. But, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer, I think they thought they were going to get political advantage by gumming the process up and saying ‘no’ to everything.
Over the weekend, President Trump signed four Executive Orders, including an extra $400 in weekly unemployment insurance benefits for over 16.3 million jobless workers.
LISTEN: U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis speaks with WJBC’s Scott Miller.
“The State of Illinois has yet to disperse, according to an Inspector Generals report, 83% of the hundreds of millions of dollars that we’ve already sent the state of Illinois as part of the CARES Act,” Davis added. “We have spent $2 trillion trying to make sure that we have an economy to go back to when this pandemic is over. We’ve got to continue to do more. But, in the end, we also have to look at filling the holes the CARES Act didn’t address. Part of that problem is making sure we don’t have an unemployment system that actually encourages people not to take the jobs that are available.”
Meanwhile, Davis remains in home isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 on August 6th.
Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].
