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By Rebecca Shabad and Frank Thorp V
WASHINGTON – A GOP-sponsored bill to provide disaster relief funding to states affected by hurricanes, forest fires and other natural disasters failed to get the votes needed Monday to go to the final vote.
The measure failed at a vote of 44-49, less than 60 required to pass the final exam. The proposal would have provided millions of dollars less than what the Democrats said needed to support post-storm recovery efforts in Puerto Rico. The alternative GOP would also have included additional money for states affected by recent floods in the Midwest, including Iowa.
After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Imposed a vote on the bill passed by the House to show that it had not been enough. support to move forward. This bill failed in the vote by 46 votes to 48.
"Democrats should stop fighting against Senator David Perdue's disaster assistance bill. They block the funding and relief of our big farmers and rural America! ", Announced Monday President Trump on Twitter, before the first Senate vote on the GOP bill.
Lost, a Georgian Republican, presented at the end of February the $ 13 billion aid program, funded by one of the Democratic co-sponsors: Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, who would bring $ 600 million to the Puerto Rico Food Stamp Program. Last week, Senate Budget Committee Chair Richard Shelby, Al-Raho, proposed an amendment to the bill that provided for the addition of flood funding in the Midwest.
Last week, Trump told Republicans of the Senate at a closed door luncheon on Capitol Hill that he felt Puerto Rico should not receive as much money as that provided by the House in its version of the draft law on disaster relief, which the lower house passed 237-187 vote in January. This bill would provide $ 14.2 billion in emergency assistance, including $ 703 million for Medicaid and nutritional assistance in Puerto Rico.
Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, warned Democrats in the Senate not to block the GOP measure if they wanted to win Iowa voters while they were preparing for caucuses presidential elections.
"My colleagues across the way who have spent a lot of time in Iowa lately as presidential candidates, if you vote against the adoption of the Shelby amendment, how are you going to look Iowan in the eye and justify a vote against this proposal? disaster relief bill? Said Grassley.
The Senate Democrats, for their part, have proposed three options: to adopt the bill passed by the House, a bill allowing bicameral negotiations or an amendment to the draft law on the Chinese Government to fully fund Puerto Rico.
"The House bill has nothing for floods in the Midwest, so it's a non-beginner," McConnell told the Senate. "For this reason, and also because the White House has indicated that the President would not support this bill because of the political decisions made by the Democrats in the House."
The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., wrote in an editorial published Monday in the New York Daily News that Republican members of the Senate were not acting on the bill passed by the House because the president felt that it contained too much help for Puerto Rico. .
"He claims that Puerto Rico is receiving $ 91 billion in disaster relief, but no one can discern where he gets that figure, which is several times higher than the actual figure," wrote Schumer. "Before Monday's vote on this disaster, Senate Republicans must remember that just as we do not leave a soldier on the battlefield, we help our American compatriots in the event of a disaster, no matter where the disaster happens. We do not abandon them. Period."
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