The US congress sprang into action to pass a combined $900B “economic stimulus and COVID relief” and $1.4T omnibus spending bill. The bill contains, among other things:
- $10,000,000 for “gender programs” in Pakistan
- $14M for the Kennedy Center
- $1.0B for the Smithsonian
- $250M for the Palestinians
- $135M to Burma
- $85.5M to Cambodia
- $1.4B for “Asia Reassurance Initiative Act”
- $130M to Nepal
- $700M to Sudan
- $1.3B to Egypt
- $453M to Ukraine
- $33M to Venezuela
- $3.3B to Israel
- tax breaks for racehorse owners
- makes it a felony to illegally stream video
The text of this bill was over 5000 pages. Members of Congress had a couple of hours to look it over before voting on it. This is how the sausage is made in D.C. Backroom deals between crooked politicians and sleazy lobbyists gets synthesized into a 5000 page monstrosity. Then, it gets attached to something critical like coronavirus relief and members are forced to vote on it sight unseen. AOC is generally an idiot who espouses a ridiculous socialist agenda. But, unlike most in D.C., she is an honest and genuine person willing to call out bullshit when she sees it.
The sugar included to make this shit sandwich palatable to the hoi polloi is a $600 “covid relief” check. If you assume 220 million taxpayers, that’s about $132B of our money returned to us. Uncle Sam will spend the rest (about $3500 per person) on our behalf. And you can totally trust him to look out for your best interests. Swearsies!
One of the worst mistakes President Trump made in his first term was caving on shutting down the government back in 2017 over a grotesque $1.3T omnibus budget bill. Trump gave in to the swamp, but vowed “I’ll never sign a bill like this again.” I believe Trump signed that steaming pile of crap because A) he desperately wanted money to rebuild the military, and B) Paul Ryan convinced him Republicans would lose the House if he shut the government down. Of course, ducking the fight demoralized conservatives and Republicans went on to lose the House in 2020 anyways. But Ryan got his corporate tax cuts!!! Trump would eventually go the shutdown route in 2019, when he had less leverage, and ultimately lose.
Trump has an opportunity to redeem himself on that failure by giving this flaming turd of a bill an emphatic VETO!