Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska on Tuesday supplied the deciding vote for Senate Republicans to pass Trump’s signature budget bill. After doing so, she registered concerns about the disastrous piece of legislation, even while defending her vote.
The bill, if also passed in the House, would increase the deficit while delivering tax cuts to the rich and historic cuts to social programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Murkowski, a last-minute holdout, caved after being presented with handouts to make the bill slightly less ruinous for Alaskans—such as one temporarily waiving provisions requiring Alaska to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits.
The decision process, Murkowski told reporters after the vote, had been “agonizing,” and she “struggled mightily with the impact on the most vulnerable in this country, when you look to Medicaid and SNAP.”
She also expressed hope that the House would alter the bill she voted for, saying she wants the House to “look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”
Why did she vote for it, then? “Kill it, and the provisions that are going to be very helpful for economic development in my state would no longer be available,” Murkowski replied, pointing directly to the handouts.
In an interview with NBC’s Ryan Nobles, Murkowski addressed suggestions that she’d accepted a “bailout,” saying, “When people suggest that federal dollars go to one of our fifty states in a quote, ‘bailout,’ I find that offensive. I advocated for my state’s interests.”
“Do I like this bill? No,” Murkowski said, lamenting that, “in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill.”
But, she continued, “When I saw the direction that this is going, you can either say, ‘I don’t like it,’ and not try to help my state, or you can roll up your sleeves, and do so.”
The senator now faces intense criticism, including from Democratic Representative Jim McGovern, who during a House Rules Committee meeting asked, if Murkowski really hopes it’s improved in the house, “Why the hell did you vote for this bill? It doesn’t make any sense.”
McGovern called Murkowski’s vote “a dereliction of [her] duty as a United States senator,” as the bill is “a middle finger to millions of Americans.”
“If this is Republicans’ top legislative priority in this Congress, it tells us everything about where your values lie,” McGovern added. “And it’s not with working families, not with struggling communities, but with megacorporations, billionaires, and Donald Trump.”
Murkowski today is perhaps best rebutted by the words of Murkowski eight years ago, when she held fast as Senate Republicans dangled deals before her in hopes of getting her to help repeal Obamacare: “Let’s just say that they do something that’s so Alaska-specific just to quote, ‘get me,’” she told reporters at the time. “Then you have a nationwide system that doesn’t work. That then comes crashing down and Alaska’s not able to kind of keep it together on its own.”
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