Jason Smith: Nancy Pelosi's prioritizes marijuana, animal right over COVID-19 relief

(From Eighth District Congressman Jason Smith) 

This week many Americans rightfully expected the House of Representatives to be completely focused on relief to small businesses, but that’s not what Speaker Pelosi had in mind. 

Instead, she held votes on bills to subsidize recreational marijuana and sided with animal rights activists to protect exotic cats. Pot dealers and Carole Baskin won the day in the People’s House while working Americans continue to suffer.

With this legislative lineup, Nancy Pelosi and liberal Democrats continue to show the American people where their priorities are. 

As liberal mayors and governors continue to issue unrealistic and ineffective lockdowns and show that their own rules don’t apply to them, small businesses across the country have been left hanging. 

These stay-at-home orders only serve to benefit large corporations and elites while strangling Main Street. Countless small business owners are fighting to keep their doors open and many Americans are trying to get back to work. Yet, liberal Democrats continue to make it more difficult for working Americans to earn a living all while taking no action to relieve the pain they have helped cause.

Recent data shows that up to 1,500 small businesses closed every day between February and September of this year. Similar research showed that 60 percent of these closures are now permanent. This is devastating and could have been avoided. Nancy Pelosi has blocked Republican efforts to bring targeted COVID relief to the House floor for a vote on 40 different occasions. 

Instead of helping the American people she has authored multi-trillion-dollar bills filled with liberal fantasies and called them “serious proposals” while rejecting offers from President Trump to extend lifelines to small businesses. 

Real relief has been dead on arrival in Nancy Pelosi’s House. Worst of all, just today Speaker Pelosi signaled she would now be willing to talk about relief for small businesses. This change of tone all but admits she’s held out on helping struggling Americans in a shameless effort to hurt President Trump’s re-election. It’s clear that Nancy Pelosi is only interested in playing political games while holding working American’s livelihoods hostage.

The House of Representatives still has much work to do on behalf of the American people before the end of the year. For example, we have yet to fulfill our basic duty of funding the government, just one more example of the failures of Democrat leadership. To make matters worse, Nancy Pelosi showed us this week she has no intention of getting anything done in the next Congress either. The House of Representatives legislative calendar for 2021 includes the fewest legislative workdays in modern history.

Nancy Pelosi and elected Democrats need to stop wasting the American peoples’ time with political games. They need to stop bringing legislation to the floor that only serves to satisfy the radical left. The priorities of working Americans should be our first and last concern. Bills on cannabis and cats are not going to get the job done. It’s time for House Democrats to join Republicans and get to work.