The adage “Never let a crisis go to waste” certainly rings true today. Tax-and-spend Democrats have ramped up their cries for more money — MUCH more money. It’s in the form of a new stimulus bill that could be on its way through Congress by the end of the week, as House Democrats on Tuesday announced plans for $3 trillion in new spending to combat the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new $3 trillion Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES Act) would nearly double the $3.6 trillion in stimulus spending already approved by Congress since mid-March—and that’s after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) stripped out about $1 trillion in additional spending requested by various lawmakers, according to Politico. The new bill includes another round of stimulus checks for all Americans, funds further coronavirus testing, and spends billions to bail out states and government agencies straining under pension debt and the collapse of tax revenue due to the coronavirus.
As it looks today, it would blow-by the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Recovery Act (CARES Act), passed in late March, as the largest stimulus spending bill in U.S. history. The Treasury has already borrowed more than $3 trillion in just three months, and the new proposal will undoubtedly add to that total.
The draft of the bill released Tuesday includes a $25 billion bailout for the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service, which could lose as much as $13 billion this year and is on a fiscally unsustainable path.
The HEROES Act also contains $540 billion in aid for states and $375 billion for local governments. That’s in addition to the $150 billion relief fund for states established by an earlier stimulus bill.
The bill also includes another round of stimulus checks for all Americans, with payments capped at $1,200 for individuals and another $1,200 per dependent, with a maximum of three dependents allowed. Those payments will be means-tested in a similar way as were earlier payments authorized by the CARES Act. The HEROES Act also incorporates a Democratic proposal to provide $100 billion in new funding to a Housing and Urban Development program offering assistance to renters.
The 1,800-page bill would also extend the federal unemployment payments authorized by the CARES act through January 2021. Those extra $600 in weekly unemployment payments are meant to soften the blow for laid-off workers at a time when the unemployment rate has spiked to 14 percent and is likely to go higher. But the added unemployment payments are also expected to make reopening the economy more difficult, as workers may be hesitant to return to their jobs as long as the boosted benefits remain available.
The HEROES Act also includes some provisions that seem unrelated to the public health and economic crises unleashed by the pandemic, like a provision that would temporarily reinstate the state and local income tax deduction — known as the SALT deduction. That deduction, which primarily benefits wealthy people who live in states and localities with high taxes, was capped by the 2017 federal tax reform law. Restoring the reduction has been on Democratic to-do lists ever since.
The omnibus bill also includes a provision giving marijuana-based businesses greater access to banking. To some, that’s a worthwhile (and long-awaited) measure, but another thing that seems disconnected from the stated purpose of the HEROES Act.
In some ways, however, the HEROES Act is already looking like a return to some sense of normalcy in Congress — though “normal” is nothing too great when it comes to congressional spending. The bill has already drawn more opposition than the first three rounds of coronavirus stimulus, which passed quickly and with only token resistance, and is likely to be subject to significant negotiation and rewriting before it is passed.
The Postal Service bailout is one point of controversy, for sure, with the White House and Republican lawmakers opposing a similar plan in earlier rounds of coronavirus stimulus. The timing of the new bill has also been questioned by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–KY), who on Monday said Congress needed to give the previous stimulus spending more time to have an impact.
McConnell has also expressed worry over the mounting levels of debt. “We now have a debt the size of our economy,” McConnell said Monday. “We have to take a pause here and take a look at what we’ve done.”
Republicans have mostly abandoned fiscal conservatism since President Donald Trump took office, but the prospect of borrowing another $3 trillion right now might get those anti-deficit spenders fired up again.
When asked about McConnell’s comments, Pelosi told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Monday night that waiting was not an option.
“We have to put money in the pockets of the American people, recognizing the pain, the agony that they are feeling,” she said. “To those who would suggest a pause, I’ll say the hunger doesn’t take a pause. The rent doesn’t take a pause.”
The passage of another significant spending bill to respond to the economic crisis created by the pandemic seems almost inevitable. If not by the end of this week, then it will probably happen sometime shortly. The failure of lawmakers to use the economic boom of the past decade to fix America’s fiscal problems — the national debt, the Post Office, state pension systems, and so on — has never seemed more foolish. And foolish is putting it nicely.
Let’s look at this new spending plan in the context of what is happening today. Indeed, Democrats are using the Coronavirus Pandemic as the basis to tag to the nation’s $20 Trillion+ debt with another two to three trillion dollars. And if you think they plan to spend it wisely specifically (and only) to soften the bite Coronavirus has taken out America, you are sadly mistaken.
If you remember correctly, we at TruthNewsNetwork were the first to do the deep dive into the minute details of the CARES ACT. We brought to you proof and details of the billions of dollars Pelosi demanded in her first draft, some of which was removed by the Senate. Not nearly enough was removed. Who will ever forget and forgive the “poster-child” example of pork Pelosi forced on us to pay as part of that bill that was supposed to be for Coronavirus assistance: $25 billion for the Kennedy Center. And to make it worse, the next day, the Kennedy Center notified their musicians the next Friday would be their last paychecks. And then they laid-off 400 employees! Pelosi states that this bill will be “exclusively” for assistance to all those who have been negatively impacted by this pandemic.”
What’s In the “Heroes Act?”
That’s a simple one. Just take a look for yourself. Here’s the link so you can download and look at it during your coffee break today. It’s only 1800 pages long!
https://truthnewsnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/New-Stimulus-Bill.pdf
By tomorrow’s story, we’ll have dived into the middle of this package and ferreted out the “good” and the “bad” for you. Though there no doubt will have features specifically targeted for the American people, businesses, and states who have all struggled because of the economic shutdown (the UNNECESSARY economic shutdown), you can rest assured it if full of pork. And, it includes the authorization for vote-by-mail. Don’t be shocked: Pelosi said: “any House bill offered this year will demand vote-by-mail to be approved.”
First Glance Problems
- If passed and signed into law as-is, this will be the largest stimulus bill in U.S. history. When you tag its price tag to that of the already $3 Trillion CARES Act and other smaller relief packages, the U.S. will, in less than eight months, added $7 Trillion to the nation’s debt.
- The bill will pass the House without using the bill-passage normal process. What’s the problem with this? Americans expect lawmakers to fully investigate every piece of legislation through committees and even subcommittees. Each takes plenty of time to find out what is in and behind every piece of legislation before it goes to the full house or Senate for deliberation there. In a bill this size, there would be multiple amendments proposed first in committees and subcommittees. Each of those committees would, once their changes are finalized, vote to move it forward or to table it. If it started in a subcommittee, it would then go to the full committee, which would then conduct the SAME process as the subcommittee did. Only after that committee passes it forward would it go to the floor of the House for consideration. There it would go through the same process! Then and only then would it go on for a vote. Whew! That’s tough. But what it does is assure Americans our legislators considered every little item to make sure it is necessary and appropriate as finalized to serve Americans as best as possible.
- Pelosi will demand this process be suspended for “the emergency status in which we find ourselves. We cannot make the American people wait while Republicans fight to keep money from all those Americans who are fighting for rent and food for their families!” That’s the way she operates. Remember when Obamacare was before the House, and she was asked what was in the bill? She famously responded, “We must pass the bill so we can find out what’s in the bill.” That without question is the craziest statement I’ve ever heard a member of the American government utter. And, by the way, both the House and Senate passed the ACA with unanimous votes of their party members without a single member having read the bill! And if she can, she’ll do the same thing with this bill. Americans’ only hope is that the Senate will turn away any such bill.
Summary
It’s a war, folks! If you listened to our show yesterday, Dr. Judy Mikovich, in an hour-and-a-half, gave us piece by piece exactly what is going on with this pandemic. To boil down her extensive and detailed and learned analysis of it all, it’s a hoax! She never said people are not dying and that the infection is in any way a fraud, she made it clear that the way its presence is being manipulated to control Americans, our economy, and our healthcare system is fraudulent. In my book, that makes it a war.
So what can we do? This is the time where each of us needs to make a concerted commitment to learning the complete details of this Heroes Act headed to Congress. We MUST become so familiar with its basic terms that we can and will reach out to our elected officials to make sure they know our support or lack of support for all or any of the provisions of this bill. Folks, if we don’t let them know, many of those 535 members of Congress will assume we just don’t care. And that certainly is not factual.
We will once again do the deep dive into these 1800 pages of the Heroes Act and will come back shortly with them in bullet point format for you. However, I suggest you already contact your members of Congress and let them know your displeasure with the massive spending they are doing while forcing our nation through economic blackmail to put 33 million out of work supposedly because of Coronavirus.
It’s war, folks…all-out war. And we’re all IN the fight whether we want to be or not.
This is the time when we discover who are patriots and who are committed to the lawful operation of our government, specifically for United States citizens. That’s what they are supposed to do: period.
