“Absolutely I’m frustrated,” says Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman after Democrats got only half of the billion dollars they wanted for COVID “hero pay” bonuses, in a deal they cut with Senate Republicans which also re-fills the depleted Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund. Hortman says, “I don’t understand how Senate Republicans can say…, after COVID-19 we want to give businesses 2.7 billion [dollars] to put them where they were before COVID-19, but we’re unwilling to recognize what workers went through. I don’t understand that.”
Hortman says Democrats had to eventually decide whether front line workers would get a bonus, or there would be a risk of nothing.