The editors of the Wall Street Journal catalogue the ways in which the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 relief bill has nothing to do with COVID-19:
All told, this generous definition of Covid-related provisions tallies some $825 billion. The rest of the bill—more than $1 trillion—is a combination of bailouts for Democratic constituencies, expansions of progressive programs, pork, and unrelated policy changes.
Those include:
- Slush funds for state and local governments, whether their revenues have been hurt by COVID-19 or not
- Funds to bail out the PBGC. In theory the PBGC is supposed to be self-funding. The $86 billion involved is essentially a handout to unions and corporations.
- $129 billion boost for schools—not expected to be spent until the pandemic has long been over.
- $39 billion for child care, $50 billion for FEMA, $30 billion for public transit and billions more for a variety of other bailouts, handouts, and subsidies.
- The $15/hour minimum wage.
- Porkbarrel spending
I can’t see any yardstick by which that’s not excessive.
More than half being pork is bad enough. Some estimates are far greater.
None of us was born yesterday. Politics is ugly. But this is as cynical as it gets. Do politicians, especially Democrats with all their faux posturing the past 4 years, really give a damn about covid victims?
A pox on them.
I would drop the minimum wage thing and most of the pork. Keep the $825 billion in Covid spending. Then ignore the hypocritical comments from the conservatives who were perfectly OK with huge tax cuts that selectively benefitted the wealthy and punished blue states while massively increasing debt.
Steve
That’s largely my point. There was obviously a compromise position which you just articulated. The White House rejected it. If that’s a statement of priorities, it will be a difficult four years.