Many have blasted the newly approved $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill for its set of funding to foreign countries and unrelated matters. It’s all been a reminder to critics, as well as President Trump, of how lawmakers profit during a pandemic and use the federal spending to fund their pet projects.
President Trump first shredded the relief package for its stingy $600 stimulus payments. While high profile Democrats, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have called the $600 “significant” for working families, President Trump asked for Congress to “increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 for a couple” which has received bipartisan support.
The relief package currently includes $600 for individuals, $1,200 for married couples, and $600 per dependent, but house leaders are already looking to pass a separate bill that would send out $2,000 direct payments to most Americans instead. This applies only to residents who make less than $75,000 a year or $150,000 for joint-filing married couples.
President Trump also called out the absurd amount of funding that would be sent to foreign countries in the package that would “supposedly aim” to help America get through the shutdowns. There would be $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia, $134 million to Burma, $1.3 billion for Egypt and their military, $25 million for unspecified gender programs in Pakistan, and $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
The spending bill also includes $40 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., which is not even open for business, $1 billion for the Smithsonian, and an additional $154 million for the National Gallery of Art. The money is supposed to be for operations, maintenance, and renovations, even though there are a handful of Congress workers who are also on the board.
The bill has many questionable parts, including $1.5 million to go to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion of the Appropriations Committee to assure “equality and diversity of the workforce.” It was also washed with radical left ideas such as promised funding for researching the 1908 Springfield Race Riot and a section entitled “The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020” that bans the use of tranquilizers before races.
The bill is full of irrelevant regulations that have nothing to do with American families or businesses impacted by the government-mandated shutdowns. While the radical left continues to try and spoon feed us the bare minimum, President Trump continues to fight for our right to work for our money, keep businesses open, and diminish government dependence.
