Thursday, April 2, 2020

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act - Who is Benefitting?

The recent COVID-19 relief bill, the 883 page Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) or H.R. 748 which was first introduced to the House on January 24, 2020 was signed into law on March 27, 2020.  In this bill which was supposedly designed to help Americans during the COVID-19 crisis, we find some interesting expenditures that have little to do with helping Main Street Americans.  Let's look at these:

1.) Smithsonian Institution - an additional amount of $7.5 million was granted.  This funding will remain available until September 30, 2021.

2.) John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - an additional amount of $25 million was granted.  This funding will remain available until September 30, 2021.

3.) National Endowment for the Arts - an additional amount of $75 million was granted.  This funding will remain available until September 30, 2021.

4.) National Endowment for the Humanities - an additional amount of $75 million was granted.  This funding will remain available until September 30, 2021.

5.) Corporation for Public Broadcasting (i.e. NPR and other public broadcasters) - an additional amount of $75 million was granted.  This funding will remain available until September 30, 2021.

6.) Institute of Museum and Library Services - an additional amount of $50 million was granted.  This funding will remain available until September 30, 2021.

7.) Internal Revenue Service - an additional total amount of $501 million was granted for taxpayer services, operations support and enforcement.   This funding will remain available until September 30, 2021.

8.) Peace Corps - an additional $88 million was granted to prevent, prepare for and respond to the coronavirus.   This funding will remain available until September 30, 2022.   This is rather interesting given that the Peace Corps just fired all 7,300 of its volunteers as shown here:



While this one is at least more directly related to resolving the current pandemic, it speaks to the implementation of a digital surveillance (i.e. health spying network) which will be used to spy on Main Street America:

9.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - not less than $500,000,000 shall be for public health data surveillance and analytics infrastructure modernization: Provided further, That CDC shall report to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate on the development of a public health surveillance and data collection system for coronavirus within 30 days of enactment of this Act.

Since the proclaimed goal of the the CARES bill is to provide emergency funding for those Main Street Americans that have been most impacted by COVID, you have to ask yourself, are any of these expenditures really going to solve the emergency particularly in light of the massive addition to the already bloated federal debt as shown here:


3 comments:

  1. The precedent of providing direct support to lowly individuals must not be created, it would be anathema to God's first commandment: Private property is the absolute and must be maintained, enhanced, and protected at all costs. The ideal is a Gini coefficient of 1.

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  2. The massive 2,2 trillion dollar bill recently signed into law fails most small businesses but the devil is well hidden in the details. This is in many ways a pitiful response to a problem government created. Government through its new mandates forced employers to fire workers or be responsible for paying them to not work.

    It fails to take into consideration that not all small businesses are labor or payroll intense. Some businesses with large or expensive showrooms are getting hammered by rent, others by inventory, or things like taxes, utilities, or even by having to toss products due to spoilage.

    Let me be clear, this is not about wanting more money for small business, it is about government not being able to clean us the mess it creates by simply throwing money at it. The article below delves into this subject.

    https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2020/04/huge-22-trillion-dollar-bill-fails-most.html

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  3. I would not recommend looking at "Bruce Wilds" webpage. Its a waste of time, and engages in blatant fear-mongering and some VERY dubious "math". As for this website, "Viable Opposition", great stuff, thanks for researching and providing all the excellent data and links! I now firmly believe that our freedom is under direct attack and it may soon come to a point where we need to make our voices heard as we collectively stand up to shake off this mass delusion and assert our rights.

    ReplyDelete