Biden unveiled his so-called ‘Covid relief’ plan this week and, instead of being that, it is a smorgasbord of radical liberal agenda items crammed into what he fully expects to pass the House and Senate, now that the balance of power has been altered and now that Democrats in Congress suddenly think it’s urgent to help after dragging their feet for months and months in order to hurt Trump.
Washington Examiner has the details.
President-elect Joe Biden just unveiled his proposal for a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. Democrats insist it is targeted to respond to the crisis and only full of “commonsense” measures and much-needed emergency spending.
Yet, even a cursory glance at the specifics of the package reveals that it’s a Trojan horse for a sweeping liberal agenda that Biden could never otherwise get passed.
Yes, the proposal does include billions for vaccine distribution, testing, school reopenings, and the like. But it also includes blatant partisan priorities, such as a federal $15 minimum wage.
Biden knows that this far-left, job-killing policy would never make it out of Congress in a straight up-down vote. The Democrat’s hope here is obviously that he can sneak a doubling of the federal minimum wage into an “emergency” package that lawmakers feel obligated to support.
Here just some of the items in the trillions dollar package. Notice how the agenda items are slipped in with the “emergency relief” items. There’s a full breakdown here from the Foundation for Economic Freedom.
- An additional $1,400 in “stimulus” checks to most Americans, upping the recently-passed $600 payouts to $2,000
- Renewal and increase of the expanded unemployment benefits that extend payouts to many new classes of workers through September 2021. Biden’s proposal would add $400 a week in federal payouts on top of existing state-level benefits
- Expansion of the child tax credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit
- Increase in food stamp benefits
- A nation-wide $15 minimum wage
- Extension of the federal government’s eviction moratorium
- $350 billion for local, state, and tribal governments
- $160 billion for vaccine distribution and other COVID health measures
- Paid leave for millions of workers, much of which would be paid for by taxpayers
Gosh now who could’ve predicted this outcome of letting Democrats win?