It's wrong to hold off on pumping even more money into the nation's economy while unemployment numbers continue to spiral, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is working on another coronavirus stimulus plan with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said Thursday.
"We have a huge crisis here," the New York Democrat told MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle on "MSNBC Live." "We haven't had as many people unemployed since the Great Depression. Stores, businesses are closing all the time. More people are being laid off. People are being — have trouble in every way economically. We need big, bold action."
His comments come after reports were released Thursday that another 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week.
Leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and President Donald Trump, who want to wait for a further bill are like late President Herbert Hoover, Schumer maintained.
"We had the Great Depression and he said 'let's wait it out,'" said Schumer. "It got worse and worse. We need Franklin Rooseveltian-type action. We put $4 trillion through the Federal Reserve and the Treasury so larger corporations could have a lending facility so those financial markets and instruments would not crash. We've got to have the same focus, even a stronger focus on the working people."
He also complained that the Trump administration did not administer the laws that have been passed, and said that in "COVID 3.5," the legislation passed to add money to the Paycheck Protection Program, an additional $125 billion is flowing to small businesses, because "we made a correction when the administration didn't direct the first money as we had intended. We walled it off."
"McConnell just wanted to give another $250 billion to be given out the same way the first tranche was given, but we changed it and now it's going to get much better," he said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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