AOC: Democrats Are ‘Burning Precious Time’ By Negotiating With Republicans
Democratic Representative of New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing back against bipartisan discussions in her latest tweet condemning recent attempts by Democrats to reach across the aisle.
On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “During the Obama admin, folks thought we’d have a 60 Dem majority for a while. It lasted 4 months. Dems are burning precious time & impact negotiating w/GOP who won’t even vote for a Jan 6 commission. McConnell’s plan is to run out the clock. It’s a hustle. We need to move now.”
The New York congresswoman’s tweet comes after President Joe Biden ended talks with members of the Republican Party about an infrastructure deal.
According to NBC, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the leading Republican negotiator, said in a statement on Tuesday, “I spoke with the president this afternoon, and he ended our infrastructure negotiations.”
As The New York Times reported on Tuesday, “[Biden] shifted his focus to a bipartisan group of centrist senators who have been working separately on an alternative, calling three of them personally to cheer on their efforts and encourage them to work with top White House officials to hammer out a deal.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, “It may well be that part of the bill that will pass will be bipartisan, and part of it will be through reconciliation,” adding, “But we’re not going to sacrifice the bigness and boldness in this bill. We will just pursue two paths, and at some point, they will join.”
Ocasio-Cortez also used her Twitter account to specifically take aim at Biden, calling out his inaction on student loan debt.
In a tweet, she said, “Additionally, the Senate blockages make Biden’s unwillingness to act on student loan debt- something he can do *without* Congress but hasn’t yet- all the more glaring. #CancelStudentDebt is 1 of the few, rare opportunities Biden has to go big w/o the Senate. He needs to take it.”
The congresswoman appeared to encourage Biden to bypass the legislative process and instead move on his own without Congress. Biden has not revealed if or when he is planning on fulfilling his campaign promise of forgiving $10,000 of student loan debt for each person who has borrowed money.
“The White House believes that Biden is able, under authority ceded to him under the Higher Education Act, to forgive around $10,000 per individual federal student loan borrower through an executive order, but that forgiving any amount above that must go through Congress.”
Ocasio-Cortez has been critical of Biden’s hesitancy to forgive student loan debt, along with other progressives such as Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“Student-loan cancellation could occur today,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently told Insider. “The president just needs to sign a piece of paper canceling that debt. It doesn’t take any act of Congress or any amendment to the budget.”
Senator Schumer has made similar statements, pushing the president to go though with student loan forgiveness.
“I think it’ll be much harder to do legislatively. We have not seen our Republican colleagues jump at this opportunity,” Schumer told reporters in March.
Ocasio-Cortez made headlines last week for her own apparent refusal to provide funding to those in need after tweeting a photo of her grandmother’s home in Puerto Rico that was falling apart and needed repair.
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh noted the irony of her tweet that appeared to blame former President Donald Trump for her grandmother’s lack of resources while the congresswoman currently earns a generous salary and owns a Tesla.
Walsh started a GoFundMe campaign in order to raise money for Ocasio-Cortez’s “abuela,” but the site was shut down after someone in Ocasio-Cortez’s family reportedly did not accept the funds from the site.
“In an email sent to Walsh Friday night, GoFundMe said they were ‘in touch with the beneficiary’s family and they made clear they will not be accepting the funds raised.’”
“When a beneficiary doesn’t want to accept the funds that have been raised on their behalf, it is standard practice to turn off donations, then refund all donors,” GoFundMe added.
