Democrats Unveil Full COVID Bill, Pretty Much Exactly What You Thought It Would Contain

The only way it passes is through reconciliation, provided any Republicans will cross the aisle, since Joe Manchin has said he’s against raising the minimum wage in the bill, as has Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema

House Democrats unveil full $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill with minimum wage increase

House Democrats took another step Friday in their effort to advance a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, releasing the full bill text, which includes an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, $1,400 direct checks for Americans making $75,000 or less a year, an extension of $400 federal unemployment benefits and more money for small businesses struggling amid the pandemic.

The legislation, which had already been passed in pieces out of individual committees, was packaged together by the House Budget Committee.

The panel will take up the bill Monday and it is expected to come to the House floor for a vote later next week. (snip)

The bill is not expected to attract much, if any, Republican support. On Friday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise urged Republicans in an email to vote “no” on what his office called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Payoff to Progressives Act.”

“With millions of Americans unemployed and demanding relief to reopen schools and get people back to work, House Republican leadership is demanding its members vote against a bipartisan plan to help struggling Americans,” Nancy Pelosi’s office said in an email. “Americans need help. House Republicans don’t care.”

If it was a great, bipartisan bill there wouldn’t be much opposition. Take out the minimum wage increase idiocy, which might cause the bill to be shot down in court because that’s not part of what can be in a reconciliation bill.

Biden’s Coronavirus Relief Package Has Almost Nothing to Do With the Coronavirus

… (There’s $128 billion in the bill for schools)

But even if you think substantial additional funding is strictly necessary for rapid reopening, there’s a problem: The vast majority of the relief plan’s money for schools wouldn’t be spent in the current fiscal year, or even next year. Previous coronavirus relief and congressional spending bills have already included more than $100 billion in funding for schools. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, “most of those funds remain to be spent.”

As a result, just $6 billion would be spent in the 2021 fiscal year, which runs through September. Another $32 billion would be spent in 2022, and the rest by 2028. Biden is insisting that schools must reopen soon—and also that the only way for them to reopen is to authorize more than $120 billion in spending, most of which wouldn’t roll out for years. It doesn’t make much sense.

How much money did school systems not spend on electricity, water, supplies, throughout the day cleaning, operations, fuel for buses, etc? They don’t need it.

Similarly, Biden’s plan calls for $350 billion to backstop state budgets, which were projected to be down as much as 8 percent overall this year. Yet according to The Wall Street Journal, total revenues were down just 1.6 percent for the 2020 fiscal year, and 18 states ended the year with above-projection revenue. As Reason‘s Christian Britschgi noted last week, Biden’s plan would disburse money to every state—including California, which is set for a $15 billion surplus. Previous coronavirus relief bills, meanwhile, have already doled out $300 billion to bolster state budgets. The billions in extra funding Biden’s plan would deliver to soaring state budgets would, in all likelihood, not be spent this coming year. So much for not having a second to waste.

Payback to Democratic cities and states. And we know what would happen with a minimum wage rise to $15 by 2025 would do: job loss. Oh, and they’re raising the wage for those who get tipped, too, which will reduce the hours of servers and number of servers

How much of this alleged coronavirus relief plan is actually related to the coronavirus?  According to CRFB, just 1 percent of the relief plan’s spending would go toward vaccines, and just 5 percent would go toward pandemic-related public health needs. Meanwhile, 15 percent of the spending—about $300 billion—would be spent on long-standing policy priorities that are not directly related to the current crisis.

Plus, you aren’t even getting the $2,000 check Biden promised again and again, especially for the Georgia Senate revote.

Twitchy has a mega thread from Oilfield Rando which lays out the crazy, such as (click the more tag)

$300,000,000 for COVID animal surveillance as guided by the World Organization for Animal Health.

As godawful as the WHO is, can’t imagine what a derp fest these folks will be pic.twitter.com/aZ915EMhhr

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) February 19, 2021

How about “And $91 million for outreach to student loan borrowers, domestically AND INTERNATIONALLY?” And $135,000,000 for the National Endowment for the Arts $135,000,000 and for the National Endowment of the Humanities.  $570,000,000 for Emergency Federal Employee leave. Railroad bailout money. You have to read the whole thing.