Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-NY) admitted that “there is some waste” in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.
“Squawk Box” co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Suozzi if he agreed with “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary’s assessment that the relief bill is “horrible legislation” that is “full of waste.”
Suozzi said “there’s no question there’s some waste,” but argued the notion that the package is full of pork is a “false narrative.”
“There is some waste. There’s some waste in there. There’s no question there’s some waste in there,” he told Sorkin.
“When you say some waste … is it $100 billion of waste? Is it $500 billion of waste? What do you think?” Sorkin asked.
“It’s less than $100 billion of waste — far less than $100 billion. It’s a false narrative that there’s waste throughout this bill,” Suozzi asserted. “Now, I’ll agree with Kevin. I would have loved to have seen those $1,400 stimulus checks targeted more towards people and less money going to people that are actually working right now. But you know what, we couldn’t get that. I can’t get everything I want. You have to build a whole coalition of people together. And Janet Yellen, who I’ll take her opinion more than the Canadian … reality TV star, says we’re not going to have inflation because we have the controls in place that we can deal with inflation. We haven’t had inflation in this country for such a long time because we know how to deal with it now. So, I don’t think we’re going to have horrific, horrific inflation.”
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