For someone who teaches others not to bear false witness, Raphael Warnock seems to be lying a lot to the voters of Georgia now that he’s in office. First, he repeatedly told Georgians on the campaign trail he wouldn’t take “vacation” until COVID relief passed – then immediately took a weeklong vacation instead of staying in Washington to work like he promised.
Now, Warnock is reneging on his repeated promise to pass $2000 COVID relief checks on the campaign trail, with the Senate poised to pass a pared-down bill with Warnock’s support. On January 1, after the Senate had already passed a relief package containing $600 direct payments, Warnock tweeted a graphic saying: “Want a $2,000 check? #VoteWarnock.”
One Georgia progressive who knocked on doors for Warnock told Mediaite: “I was on the ground and I knocked over 1,000 doors. At the doors, I was literally telling people, ‘$2K checks, you can rely on this.’ I’m a man of principle and morals and I feel like shit. I lied to them. I was lying to them the whole time. I was lying to people that were relying on this. At the time I didn’t know it was a lie. But that was not the reality.”
What’s worse: the Democrats’ new bill prioritizes sending aid to liberal blue states like Nancy Pelosi’s California and Chuck Schumer’s New York ahead of Georgia. A Reuters analysis found that 61 percent of the aid in this bill will go to blue states, up significantly as compared to the Republican-passed CARES Act. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp spoke out against the Senate Democrats’ blue state bailout scheme, saying: “In terms of direct impact to hardworking Georgians, the current formula being considered in Congress would allocate over 50% more to a resident in New York than a resident in Georgia. The Peach State would be the worst-hit under this new plan, receiving nearly $1.3 billion less than if the previous formula were applied.”
By voting for this blue state bailout that prioritizes liberal states like California and New York ahead of Georgia, Warnock is literally sending the money he promised to put in the pockets of Georgia voters out of state.