Imagine this scenario: A friend asks you to care for his dog “Fifi.” From the animal’s name, you infer it probably is not much bigger than your own small pooch. But you are shocked to learn later Fifi is a giant mastiff. As such, the animal consumes far more than you anticipated, feasting on food intended for your own dog, leaving your pooch with mere crumbs.
This, in a nutshell, is what has occurred in the House of Representatives where a stimulus bill “gone wild” was approved last week and sent to the Senate for approval. House members were ecstatic having access to trillions of dollars to fund such a bill – the name of which suggested the primary focus should be financially assisting suffering taxpayers to stimulate the economy.
But House members found in pulling a stimulus package together, an opportunity existed to sneak in funding for their pet projects. All they had to do was word their funding requests in terms sounding as if the project was community-related. In effect, like the mastiff named “Fifi,” Democrats used the term “Community Funding Projects” to hide their dog’s real breed – “earmark” – which supposedly was eliminated back in 2011.
The package also included billions of dollars in foreign aid as well. Like a kid at a candy store, representatives were allowed to submit a maximum of 10 CFP requests. Sadly, by the time every congressperson so inclined to jump onboard the pet project/foreign aid bandwagon did so, the bill was a stimulus package in name only. As author George Orwell, who wrote about dystopian societies, noted long ago, the more destructive, dishonest and indefensible a policy is, the more likely it uses language obscuring and hiding real purposes.
Democrats imposed their own inequalities in the bill. A whopping $570 million was dedicated to teachers unions for more “emergency leave” for teachers who have been paid all year long to work from home and now obstruct school reopenings.
Nor can we ignore the $50 million dedicated to fund abortions; $350 billion to help states that irresponsibly refused to balance their budgets; a “terminator” minimum wage provision that will kill jobs; $852 million for civic volunteer agencies unrelated to COVID; etc. Another negative is that, while it is urgent we jumpstart our economy now, chunks of the money will not be released for years. And states like California, overjoyed by the bill’s largesse, plans to give taxpayer money to illegal aliens by claiming it as COVID relief.
What the House passed, in actuality, does very little for supposed taxpayer beneficiaries relative to what it does for projects artfully wordsmithed to sound as if their main focus is community-oriented. Taxpayers expecting a bill primarily benefiting them with ample funding instead got a House bill eating up far more funding that should have gone to them. Like the poor pooch above, taxpayers are left with crumbs. It can be said about these legislators: never before have so few given so little to so many deserving so much more.
In an effort to demonstrate how much waste is in the bill, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., introduced an amendment that would drastically increase stimulus check amounts to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for married couples. All that is required, Gosar explained, is to eliminate just 10 section beneficiaries of the bill consuming taxpayer money for items totally unrelated to COVID relief. Among these 10 are the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, capital investment grants, National Railroad Passenger Corporation grant, etc. Eliminating just these 10 would release billions of dollars to increase stimulus checks to struggling Americans.
But, as Gosar points out, “Democrats chose foreign aid, Big Tech transit and Pelosi’s political priorities over direct relief to American citizens.” This was evidenced by the fact Gosar’s amendment was rejected by Democrats. The bloated bill then passed the House by a 219-212 vote in which every Republican voted against it, joined by two Democrats.
One Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, criticized the waste explaining, “This bill addresses urgent needs, and then buries them under a mountain of unnecessary or untimely spending.” He added, “In reviewing the bill in its full scope, less than 20 percent of the total spending addresses core COVID challenges that are immediately pressing: funding for vaccine distribution and testing, and emergency federal unemployment programs.”
Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., says Americans need to understand the money being wasted is not the government’s but their own. “Not one penny of it is government money,” he said. “Every single penny of it came out of your pocket; you’re going to be co-signing on a debt that goes far into the future. And we know right now, between funded and unfunded liabilities, the total debt in the United States is over $130 trillion.”
Other considerations taxpayers may want to weigh concerning the bill are it adds over $14,000/household to our national debt; the massive education funding will not actually reopen schools; and the $1,400 checks for individuals are really a “bribe” to accept the fact the payment will provide minimal economic help but maximum debt impact. By accepting this bill, we are enslaving future generations to pay off the debt.
The stimulus bill has a March 14 deadline, requiring the Senate move quickly to make its changes, send the revised bill back to the House for approval and, pending that approval, forwarded to the president for signature.
It is doubtful many members of Congress or taxpayers have actually read the entire 591-page stimulus bill. But to underscore the reality of how little it comparatively helps individual taxpayers, a single sentence on the first page in bold letters should state the following: “Be advised that of the $1.9 trillion allotted herein, taxpayers are only receiving 9% of those funds.”
That way, taxpayers would not have to read the 591 pages to then know they are getting crumbs.
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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
