Andy Biggs has a lot of Explaining to do to the People of Arizona CD Five

Today the House of Representatives, in a bipartisan 415 to 2 vote passed an 8.3 billion dollar Coronavirus Response Bill.

This bill would provide funds to the various health agencies within the government (like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Social Services Emergency Fund and the National Institutes of Health) to combat the Coronavirus and other infectious diseases throughout the country.

This is a bill most objective observers would think would not get any nay votes.

Two Republicans defied logic, common sense, and basic human compassion and voted no to the bill to combat the virus that has already killed 11 Americans.

Arizona Congressional District Five Republican Andy Biggs was one of those two Republican Representatives.

Colorado Representative Ken Buck was the other.

What was Biggs’s rationale in voting against this measure?

Fiscal Discipline.

After the vote, Mr. Biggs commented:

“In true Washington, D.C., fashion, congressional appropriators turned the president’s reasonable $2.5 billion requests into a bloated $8.3 billion package. By passing this larded-up bill, Congress again fails to wisely appropriate taxpayer dollars. … Throwing money at a potentially serious issue does not alleviate the American people’s concerns. Nor does politicizing the issue to score points for future elections.”

GAG

If this had been a bill to cut 8.3 billion dollars in capital gains taxes for the Fortune 500 that would raise the national debt, Mr. Biggs would probably be among the first to signal support for such a measure.

Joan Greene, the Democratic Congressional District Five Nominee in 2018 who is running to defeat Biggs in 2020 issued a statement that partially read:

“I’m shocked.”

“Today, just two members of the House voted against a bipartisan measure to provide $8.3 billion in emergency funding to fight the coronavirus.”

“Rep. Andy Biggs was one of those two.”

“He doesn’t want to protect our families or provide funding for research to aid in testing and vaccine development.”

“He has lost all sense of what is right.”

“We’ve seen Andy Biggs make some of the most right-wing, radical votes and statements as the leader of the Freedom Caucus, but this is a new low, a new extreme.”

“This is shocking and there is no excuse for his vote today.”

“He must go.”

Andy Biggs has a lot of explaining to do to the people of Arizona Congressional District Five.

If he can.

There are probably not many non-comatose residents in Arizona CD Five (or around the world) that will agree that the price tag for fighting a virus that kills is too expensive to justify voting against it.

Heck, Republican reactionaries Debbie Lesko, Paul Gosar, and David Schweikert voted for this bill.

The Senate is also going to pass this on a large bipartisan vote and Trump is going to sign it.

What is wrong with Andy Biggs?

Is his fringe reality, one that is more radical than the Trump Zone or Fox Island, the one the people of Arizona CD Five want to live in?

Probably not.