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EDITORIAL: Pandemic ‘relief’ for Planned Parenthood, the NEA

The House is poised to pass the latest COVID stimulus package, a $1.9 trillion tribute to Washington’s economic dysfunction. Let’s look at what Democrats call pandemic relief.

First and foremost, there’s the $350 billion bailout for state and local governments. Democrats swear they aren’t showering cash on blue states, but the money is tied to unemployment data. That will help Nevada, which is still reeling from the tourism slowdown, but it also means that places such as California, New York and Illinois will be rewarded for draconian shutdowns that exacerbated the economic pain with minimal, if any, virus benefits. Meanwhile, states such as Florida or Arizona that kept people working get stiffed. Shocker.

Then there are the direct payments. Democrats insist on sending “stimulus” checks to relatively well-off individuals and families who haven’t suffered job or income losses during the pandemic. Even households that gross $200,000 a year will be eligible for some sort of government check. This has little to do with economic recovery and everything to do with raiding the Treasury to troll for votes.

Finally, there’s the outright pork. Congress has already spent $4 trillion in virus relief, and Democrats claim that the next $2 trillion is “urgently” needed. But the true urgency is their addiction to paying off various liberal special interests with other people’s money under the guise of addressing pandemic pain. COVID-related provisions account for about $825 billion of the measure’s spending, The Wall Street Journal calculated, with the remainder being “a combination of bailouts for Democratic constituencies, expansions of progressive programs, pork or unrelated policy changes.”

For instance, Forbes reports that the bill includes $50 million for Planned Parenthood and $270 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. Democrats have also conjured up $1.5 million for the Seaway International Bridge connecting Canada to upstate New York. Unions also get a nice chunk, with $86 billion earmarked to shore up the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which oversees many labor retirement plans.

COVID relief also entails “$1 billion for Head Start, $1.5 billion for Amtrak” and $50 billion for FEMA, the Journal reports. And let’s not forget the ultimate practical joke on the taxpayer: slipping a massive minimum wage increase — which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost 1.4 million jobs — into a “stimulus” proposal. Parody is no more.

Yes, there are worthwhile aspects of the bill, particularly more aid for small businesses suffering because of government edicts. But if there’s not one Democratic senator with an ounce of fiscal integrity, Republicans in the upper chamber should use every procedural tactic they can to strip this porcine placebo of its more egregious effluvium.

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