U.S. Senator Scott: Biden’s COVID Plan is Really Bernie’s Plan, and Bernie Only Cares About Spending Money

During his run for the White House, Democrat Joe Biden faced a familiar charge: he’s a plagiarist.

There was precedent. Biden abandoned his first bid for the White House in 1988 after he literally stole a British politician’s speech.

In 2020 then-President Donald Trump accused Biden of stealing from him with his “Made in America” program for the federal government to prioritize buying from domestic companies.

But Biden also faced allegations that he lifted, without attribution, countless ideas from democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, his one-time rival for the Democratic nomination, in crafting his “unity platform,” a 110-page policy agenda.

In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida argued that Biden, with his newly proposed COVID-19 relief program, simply borrowed from someone else again — this time by rehashing and repackaging Sanders’ economic catastrophes.

The plan calls for the $1.9 trillion in new spending, which means the Treasury Department will simply print it, that would provide $1,400 stimulus checks to those making less than $75,000, increase unemployment benefits to $400, a 333 percent increase, and essentially double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

“This is all being led by Bernie Sanders,” said Scott, noting that the lefty Vermont independent is now the Senate Budget Committee chairman.

“This is all Bernie Sanders’ ideas of where we should go.”

Scott maintained that Republicans believe in “targeted relief” instead of just blasting money through a federal fire hose.

He also noted that over the past year, the federal government has doled out or committed $4.5 trillion – the equivalent of the entire federal budget for a year – to coronavirus relief and has no idea how much of that funding has actually been spent.

“So let’s help people who have lost their jobs, let’s help our small businesses get open, let’s make sure we get this vaccine out,” said Scott.

“But this radical left agenda that is, you know, not worrying about the fact that we have $27 trillion worth of debt and we’re not living even close to within our means. I mean, this makes no sense. This is just payback to the liberal left.”

Scott was asked about the GOP’s $600 billion alternative plan, which features items such as a $1,000 relief payment and holds the current line on unemployment benefits and the minimum wage.

“We need to help the people who have lost their jobs. We need to help our small businesses. We need to get our schools open. We need to get the vaccine out,” said Scott.

“Now, we’ve already given $100 billion to our schools. In Florida, our schools are open. The CDC says schools can open now, so this idea that we have to spend, you know, billions and billions and billions more, this is just a payback to the teachers union,” he added.

Scott also argued, “This is somebody’s money. This is not free money. So let’s do it very targeted. Let’s take care of people who need the help. And let’s don’t waste anybody’s money. Let’s do the right thing for the American citizen.”

Scott further observed that Sanders, who would be responsible for steering Biden’s plan through the Senate, didn’t care whether any Republicans went along.

“Do you think Bernie Sanders cares about how big the budget is? How high your taxes are gonna have to go? What’s gonna happen when we can’t pay off this debt? What’s gonna happen to the interest expense? No. He doesn’t care. He just wants to spend money,” Scott said.

The American people, Scott added, “want people to spend money responsibly. … It’s their tax dollars. It’s not like free, government money.”

 “We don’t need to spend money we don’t need to spend.”