Blackburn on $2,000 Payments: Dems Want to Go Down Path of Guaranteed Minimum Income, Aid Must Be ‘Targeted’

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reacted to the push to raise direct payments to $2,000 by stating that more than $2,000 could have gotten out if unemployment benefits had been increased months ago, “what the Democrats are trying to do with this is to put us on a pathway to a guaranteed minimum income, which is one of their socialist agenda items.” And that “aid should be targeted. … [T]here is no way you’re ever going to outbid the Democrats.”

Blackburn said, “One of the things that is so frustrating about this is that you could have had a lot more money than $2,000 in the pocket of hard-working Americans, if back in July or September or twice in October or in November, that they had voted to increase unemployment by $300 per week. Now, we know that what the Democrats are trying to do with this is to put us on a pathway to a guaranteed minimum income, which is one of their socialist agenda items.”

She added that “aid should be targeted. It should be temporary. It should be there when people need it. And see what the Democrats did was to delay it and prohibit it.” And “there is no way you’re ever going to outbid the Democrats. We know that they want to get a guaranteed minimum income. We know that they are using this and they’re trying to keep from reopening the economy.”

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