OUT OF FOCUS: The Biden COVID "Relief" Bill

1.9 Trillion Dollars. Enough to end world hunger multiple times over. This staggering number represents how much taxpayer money the Biden Administration wants to shovel out for what they call a COVID-19 relief bill. This bill is not targeted towards COVID-19 relief, it is not temporary, and it is not efficient whatsoever. Relief needs to help the people that have been most directly impacted by COVID, accelerate the vaccine process, and help us to end this devastating disease.

The last two COVID relief bills had overwhelming bipartisan support with the CARES act passing 96-0 in the Senate and 419-6 in the House. The next relief bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, passed 92-6 in the Senate and received over 325 votes in the House*, again showing bipartisan support. Biden’s new “American Relief Plan” does not have close to the amount of support of the previous bills.

Why this lack of congressional support? The bill is unnecessary, untargeted, and wasteful. The excessive spending on projects that have zero to do with COVID relief is just one reason that Congress has shown deep divisions on the bill. A provision in the bill uses the unemployment rate to dictate how much funding various states should receive. The higher a state’s unemployment rate, the more funding the state will receive. Governors will be rewarded for keeping their populations unemployed under this “relief” bill. Instead of rewarding governors that have kept their population employed, the Federal government wants to incentivize high unemployment rates.

Under this bill, K-12 schools that do not plan to open will see the same levels of federal funding as schools working hard to open. We need to be incentivizing schools to safely open, not funding administrators that lock their children out of classrooms. This bill would provide over $125 billion dollars nationwide to these K-12 schools that have already received billions from the first two relief bills. The bill’s funding is also set to be distributed over the next decade, showing that it is not specifically targeted to immediate COVID relief or being distributed in a timely fashion.

Government officials continuously fail to acknowledge that the money they plan to spend comes from the American taxpayers. Growing deficits and spending will come due in time and the American taxpayer is going to be held responsible.

COVID-19 relief needs to target the distribution of vaccines, continued testing, PPE, and helping people get back to work. A majority of this proposed “American Relief Plan” does not focus on COVID relief but represents a spending spree disguised as relief. The long term impacts of this spending will impact the future economic health of our country.

Liberal economic policies are going to send our economy on a downward spiral and the provisions of this bill will continue to disincentivize governors from safely opening their states. COVID-19 has shown that our nation and workforce must be adaptable, not complacently living off of government “stimulus.” Relief must be targeted, temporary, and efficient.

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*Various parts of the bill received different vote totals, with Divisions B, C, E, and F being passed 327-85 and the rest of the bill passing 359-53.

Sources:

Andrzejewski, A. (2021, February 22). Is There Wasteful Spending In The New $1.9 Trillion Coronavirus Stimulus Bill? Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/02/22/is-there-waste-or-bloated-spending-in-the-19-trillion-coronavirus-stimulus-bill/?sh=2725918b39db

Fan, S., Headey, D., Laborde, D., Mason-D’Cruz, D., Rue, C., Sulser, T., & Wiebe, K. (2018, February). Title Quantifying the cost and benefits of ending hunger and undernutrition: Examining the differences among alternative approaches (Issue brief). Retrieved February 24, 2021, from International Food Policy Research Institute website: https://ebrary.ifpri.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/132266/filename/132477.pdf

H.R. Res. 748, 116th Cong., U.S. Government Publishing Office (2020) (enacted).

House passes Omnibus appropriations and Coronavirus relief package. (2021, January 03). Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-passes-omnibus-appropriations-and-coronavirus-relief-package

United States of America, Congressional Budget Office. (2021, February 20). Estimated Budget Effects of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/Estimated_Budget_Effects_of_the_American_Rescue_Plan_Act_of_2021_0.pdf