Guest Post by Simon Black
Since the beginning of March, the US federal government has spent more than $5 trillion battling the Coronavirus and the effects of COVID-19. And governments around the world, from Europe to China, have spent trillions more.
And that amount doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the long-term economic toll, including then incalculable cost of shutting down the economy.
Government-imposed lockdowns have wiped out trillions of dollars, pushing businesses to failure and costing millions of jobs.
And this economic toll also affects tax revenue; with the economy notably weaker, government tax revenue is almost nonexistent this year. So they’re spending record sums of money while generating minimal revenue.
Unsurprisingly, debt levels have spiraled out of control.
We’re supposed to cancel everything, avoid friends and family, pepper spray anyone who isn’t wearing a mask, and cower in fear in our homes… all because of a virus that, by one recent estimate in the European Journal of Epidemiology, has a survival rate of 99.9%.
But even still, they’re back at it. More lock downs, more endless spending, more debt.
The United States Congress just passed yet another ‘Covid relief’ bill. Technically it includes general spending provisions for Fiscal Year 2021 (to avoid yet another government shut down).
But the biggest chunk of it is COVID relief, which comprises nearly $1 trillion of the spending. The total bill is more than FIVE THOUSAND PAGES, and it embodies the old political phrase, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
If the purpose of the bill really is to provide relief to Americans, then the bill should (in theory) be a few paragraphs at most.
But this bill is literally 5,593 pages… and contains some of the most absurd provisions imaginable.
For starters, Americans will receive $600 in ‘relief’.
So, you’re not allowed to operate your business and earn a living for yourself. And in exchange, the government will will send you enough money to buy some new clothes so you can stay warm while you stand in line at the soup kitchen.
But that doesn’t even begin to showcase the utter waste in this bill:
Page 1,461 of the bill, for example, authorizes nearly $135 million for BURMA (aka Myanmar) “to promote ethnic and religious tolerance . . . in Kachin, Karen, Rakhine, and Shan states”.
What bureaucrat could possibly come up with something so absurd? You get $600. But a bunch of corrupt generals in Burma get to rake in US taxpayer funds under the guise of ethnic and religious tolerance… but ONLY in FOUR out of Burma’s 14 states.
(Tough luck if you’re a Burmese warlord living in the state of Bago or Yangon… because obviously it would be ridiculous to give those states any money.)
Another $45 million of taxpayer money (page 1,491) will be awarded to key government officials in Central America– places like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala– in order to “combat corruption”.
You can’t make this stuff up– they are giving money to corrupt politicians to fund anti-corruption programs. It’s genius!
Another $10 million of taxpayer money (page 1,486) will be given to the government of Pakistan SPECIFICALLY for gender studies programs.
They’re giving boatloads of money to plenty of foreign countries, including Ukraine ($453 million), Sudan ($700 million), the Republic of Georgia ($132 million), Bangladesh ($198 million), Vietnam ($170 million), and several others.
Then there’s the small matter of $33 million for “democracy programs” in Venezuela. I’m sure Nicholas Maduro will use those funds well.
(The real irony is that, while allocated $33 million for Venezuela on page 1498, page 1347 of the bill expressly prohibits any funding for Venezuela. Unbelievable.)
Perhaps most noteworthy is that Members of Congress didn’t receive the final bill yesterday until roughly two hours before the scheduled vote.
Now, Anne Jones, the six-time World Speed Reading Competition champion is able to read an average of 4,200 words per minute with 67% comprehension.
So it would take her more than nine hours to read this bill in its entirety, and she’d still lose about a third of it.
There’s no way anyone in Congress was able to read this bill, or even thumb through enough of it to understand the big picture. And yet they still voted in favor of it, costing taxpayers another trillion dollars.
And that led a very angry Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to take to Twitter and lament,
“This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it. Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours. This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.”
For once I actually agree with AOC. This is an absurd process that exemplifies everything wrong with government: it’s wasteful, ignorant, out of touch, oblivious, embarrassing, shameful, and corrupt.
As an aside, Joe Biden praised the process by which the bill was passed, saying “I applaud the bipartisan Congressional economic relief package” and called it “a model for the challenging work ahead.”
Something tells me he didn’t read the bill either.
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What a fucking hypocritical cunt. She voted for the bill.
Yeah, but did you see how many likes, retweets, and comments she got on Twitter? So brave…
“Something tells me he didn’t read the bill either.”
He probably wrote it a decade ago.
And $3 Billion for NYC’s MTA.
Thank you, ‘Muricans, for bailing out the NYC transportation folks … they need their $200,000 /yr jobs!
Oh, they said thanks …. BUT, they’ll need another $4 Billion in a few months to cover expenses.
” … one section of spending the bill also instructs the Smithsonian Institution to create two new identity-based museums: one for women, and one for Latinos.
The bill also takes a position on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, expressing that in the view of the U.S. government, ‘the wishes of the 14th Dalai Lama, including any written instructions, should play a key role in the selection, education, and veneration of a future Dalai Lama.’
The bill includes a provision prohibiting any federal funds from being used by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an activist group that no longer exists in the United States.
It attempts to normalize U.S. foreign relations with Sudan,
criminalizes illegal streaming,
and creates a plan for building a Theodore Roosevelt presidential library in North Dakota.
In short, this is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink bill. It contains dozens if not hundreds of policy proposals that ought to be considered on their own merits, not attached to pandemic relief and smuggled into law by a desperate and confused Congress that has no idea what it’s voting for.”
.
Cunts.
Cunts? Nope, that’s too mild a descriptor for what these shit spewing filth actually are. There are no words vile en0ugh to describe these monstrous pockets of putrid and animated pus sacks. Gaseous and bloated corpses smell better than these grotesques that fill their gaping putrid maws while destroying the lifeblood of the country. Maggot infested, gangrenous necrotic tissue is nobler than the collected filth slithering and sliming its way along the corridors of government.
These monstrosities are viler than vampires or ghouls, profiting from their actions of destroying the country while filling their pockets, feasting and orgying the night away. They are the minions of Satan feeding the innocent children into the ovens of Baal.
The money means nothing, the printers run overtime and the grotesques that haunt the halls of Congress and the Judiciary are delirious with power that they’ve stolen through fraud and lies. The MSM is their lapdog mouthpiece and Venezuela will soon seem prosperous when compared to the former United States. The guillotine is too mild of a treatment for these pustulent pieces of shit.
Way past time to stop feeding the beasts, way past time to shut off their electricity and food and destroy the Orcs, disguised as police, who do their bidding. These cretins couldn’t exist without their Praetorian guard.
As to AOC? She’s got her face buried deep in the trough just like the rest of them. Only six senators stood against this boondoggle of a travesty disguised as a ‘relief/stimulus bill.
The country must be plundered, today, tomorrow, forever.
What will the bullshit crisis be in 2021 to justify trillions more in borrowing, printing, looting?
They have sealed our fate, fuck them all.
Prepare accordingly for the mother of all shitshows GAURAN-FUCKIN-TEED to hit us.
Here’s the entire 5,000+ pages (PDF) ….
https:// rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-116HR133SA-RCP-116-68.pdf
(You need to copy and past the link in your browser address bar AND remove the space between “//” and “rules”)
Solomon was correct, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
– Cicero – 55 BC
I wonder what happened to Cicero’s Rome?
It went Tits Up like we’re doing.
But she still voted for it.
She’s already on Nancy’s shit list-witness her committee assignment that was lost. As long as Nancy is around AOC probably will be lucky to be cleaning toilets.