Tag Archives: coronavirus bailout bill

Where The Money Went

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about how the money from the coronavirus stimulus package has been distributed.

The article reports:

The 591-page American Rescue Plan Act also changed Congress’ normal formula for appropriating money. Rather than scaling funding by population, the measure awarded taxpayer dollars based on which states had the highest unemployment rates in the fourth quarter of 2020.

That shifted $31 billion in funding, according to Open the Books’ analysis, so that 27 states gained by the allocation change and 23 states lost money they would have gotten from the normal formula.

“There is a $31 billion shift and it has shifted to blue states,” Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of Open the Books, told The Daily Signal. “The big winners were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey. Obviously Florida, which kept their economy open [under] Gov. Ron DeSantis, they continue to flourish. They lost money on that allocation change.”

I would like to remind anyone reading this that no Republicans voted for this bill. When you look at how the money has been allocated, the reason for that becomes obvious. States that were fiscally responsible were short-changed. States with already bloated spending were rewarded. Essentially bad behavior was rewarded and encouraged.

The article cites a few examples of how the money was misspent:

DeSantis (Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida) is a Republican. Under the congressional legislation, $10.1 million went to Key West, Florida, even though the state as a whole didn’t fare so well. Other wealthy conclaves receiving federal tax dollars include Oyster Bay, New York, which got $32.7 million, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, which got $65 million. 

The city topping Bloomberg’s Richest Places index with a median income of $525,000—Atherton, California—scored $1.3 million from taxpayers. Scarsdale, New York, which is No. 2 on Bloomberg’s list and the wealthiest city on the East Coast—got $2 million. The third city on the list, Hillsborough, California, got $2.1 million.

It is time to clean house in Congress.

This Might Explain Why The Bill Has Not Passed

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about some of the items found in the bill the House of Representative Democrats are trying to pass that is supposed to help people impacted by the coronavirus. It is time to pass a law that says bills introduced into Congress deal with only one subject per bill, are no more than three pages long, and are written in English that is easily understood. As long as there are lobbyists, that will never happen, but it is a good idea.

The article reports:

The 2,154-page bill says:

During the [healthcare emergency] period described in subsection (e), an alien described in subsection (d) shall be deemed to be in a period of deferred action and authorized for employment for purposes of section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

…The Democrats’ “emergency supplemental appropriations” bill is titled “The Heroes Act.”

The legislation also allows employers to import many nurses and doctors to work in lower-wage staffing companies, even though many American nurses, doctors, and medical experts have been laid off during the coronavirus crash, even though many Americans are training to become healthcare workers.

Starting on page 2034, the bill offers fast-track green cards to foreign doctors, nurses, and scientists, including many who arrive on temporary H-1B, J-1, or O-1 visas…

The article concludes:

Wages for Americans in healthcare careers would be “totally undermined … That’s clearly what’s intended here,” he  (John Miano, a lawyer with the Immigration Law Reform Institute) said, adding:

The purpose of this is to bypass the American labor market entirely and to turn the American labor market into a third-world labor market .. The people in management level are able to undermine higher wages in the professional class in America.

“What this bill tells you is that Wahington is totally controlled by lobbyists … They rule the roost,” said Miano. “Manipulation of immigration policy is one of the major reasons why we have all increases in wealth flowing to the extremely wealthy in this country.”

This may be the reason that the coronavirus relief package is being held up–it is being used as an excuse to pass laws that otherwise would not get passed. We are seeing ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ in action.