Alaska Congressman Don Young told KSRM on Thursday that he will not be voting for another COVID-19 stimulus measure. He expressed his ultimate disappointment in how the Federal CARES Act was crafted and ultimately executed, culminating in his lack of support for subsequent measures crafted by Congress.
The HEROES Act, which passed the House of Representatives in May by a vote of 208 yeas to 199 nays, proposes over $3 trillion in spending for relief to federal agencies, state and local governments, small businesses, and individuals. Young voted against the measure, and it is set to be evaluated by the Senate.
Representative Young: “I’m upset because we spent $3 trillion in seven weeks. Now, they’re looking at $4 trillion more. I’m not voting for it. I’m not going to vote for it. The way it came out of the House, I voted against it – the HEROES Act, because that’s putting the future generation in jeopardy. It’s putting us in debt far beyond where we are now. I believe it was 1982 when we had a total budget of $3 trillion and we spent it in seven weeks. That’s paper money, that is not real wealth.”
He recognized the legitimacy of the need for funds, but ultimately, believes it could pose more danger to Americans than relief: “The inflation rate will kick-in, I would say, in about two years, if not sooner. Pretty soon, you lose all of that because it’s funny money – it’s not new. Every other nation in the world, this has occurred. I was in France in 1954 and they had the collapse in France and I went into the bank with a $20 bill and I came out with $2 million Francs in two bags. We have to be very careful of that. We just can’t print money. That’s what we’re doing right now: temporarily relieving the pain, but we have to look at the right long-range how we get the economy moving again. Production. Employment. Taxes, because you’ve got working people and solving these problems is what we should be doing. We’re not doing that.”
Young says that more big spending is not in the budget: “I’m not going to vote for a bill that has another $4 trillion! We just cannot afford that.”