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Senate Passes another 2.3T in debt.

jonny5

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Its 5000 pages, and it listed as an amendment to an amendment of Hr 133 United States-Mexico Economic Partnership Act. But its actually a consolidated appropriations bill to spend 2.3 trillion to fund the govt for the rest of the fiscal year, because congress failed to pass a budget and appropriations bills a year ago and weve been running on continuing resolutions all year. It also includes 900bn for 'covid related spending'.

Also note, the deficit is already 3 trillion for the fiscal year, so every dollar of this will be borrowed. As usual, senate members had less than a day to read it before passing it, which is to say they didnt read it. It passed 92-6 and now goes to the House.

READ: Text of the new $900 billion stimulus bill - CNNPolitics

Some of the more interesting earmarks. Still reading, so feel free to find others:

$30,000,000 shall be for coronavirus related fishing impacts for Tribal fishery participants
$15,000,000 shall be for all
23 coronavirus related fishing impacts to non-tribal commer24
cial, aquaculture, processor, and charter fishery partici25
pants in States of the United States bordering the Great
$300,000,000 shall be for high-risk and
7 underserved populations, including racial and ethnic mi8
nority populations and rural communities:
$1,650,000,000
11 shall be for grants for the substance abuse prevention and
12 treatment
$1,650,000,000 shall be
16 for grants for the community mental health services
$600,000,000
24 is available for the Certified Community Behavioral
25 Health Clinic Expansion Grant program
$50,000,000 shall be available for
3 suicide prevention programs

Should this bill have been passed?
 
The Sec 314 HIGHER EDUCATION EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND section is interesting. Instead of numbers, they use percentages for some reason

"From funds reserved under section 311(b)(3)" ok, back to 311, b 3, which states

"
RESERVATIONS.—After carrying out subsection
23 (a)," Ok, back to A

"
ALLOCATIONS.—From the amount
18 made available under this heading in this Act to carry out
19 the Education Stabilization Fund, the Secretary shall first
20 allocate—" ok, back to the heading

$81,880,000,000, ok, back to 3 "
28 percent to carry out section 314 of this
6 title."

So thats about 23bn for HIGHER EDUCATION EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND. Back to Sec 314

89 percent to each institution of higher edu22
cation as defined in section 101 or section 102(c) of
23 the HEA to prevent, prepare for, and respond to
24 coronavirus, by apportioning it—

So thats 89% of 28% of 82bn, of which

37.5% of the 89% of the 28% of 82bn goes to
the relative
share of full-time equivalent enrollment of stu
dents who were Federal Pell Grant recipients
and who were not exclusively enrolled in dis5
tance education courses prior to the qualifying
emergency;

And my head hurts, but you get the picture. No one understands this, which is why we need 2 million bureaucrats.
 
Yeah it looks good
 
Don't worry. The Dems will fix Trump's debt run-up.
 
Would have loved to see the debt incurred to help out actual people instead of the rich and faceless corporations... but hopefully Georgia will swing Blue in the Senate and the necessary spending will occur that will make the average American's lives better than the McConnell induced austerity that will 100% happen if he retains control.
 

That (bolded above) is not so - everyone understands that congress critters will include “pork” in the form of (borrowed) federal funds being allocated to be spent in their state/district in any “must pass” legislation.

The federal “budget” is based on federal spending at (or above) 20% of GDP and federal taxation at (or below) 17% of GDP - the rest being covered by borrowing from future generations (aka deficit spending).

So long as this federal “budgeting” practice results in a congressional re-election rate of over 90%, we the sheeple can rest assured that it will continue.
 
Here's more spending...

$135 million to Burma
$85.5 million to Cambodia
$1.4 billion for “Asia Reassurance Initiative Act”
$130 million to Nepal
$700 million to Sudan
$250 million in Palestinian aid
$25 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan.


(e) VENEZUELA.

(1) Of the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘‘Economic Support Fund’’, not less than $33,000,000 shall be made available for democracy programs for Venezuela.​
 

What I meant was no normal person can understand the language.
 

Since this is a consolidated appropriations bill, I can understand some of that in normal times. But since we already spent every tax dollar this year on covid, its probably a good time to cut that spending.
 

Yes. People need help. It should have been much bigger, and passed months ago.
 

Every single democrat voted for this bill.
 
RealityNow said:
It's crazy ..... these people have one agenda... "Attack Something" and "Attack Anything" that does not pander to their dogmatism.
Click to expand...

Right? You would think we could all agree trillions in debt are bad, but some people have to make everything about political games.
 
jonny5 said:
Every single democrat voted for this bill.
Click to expand...

yeah. They did.

Not really much of a choice not to. If they didn’t then the government would have shut down during the worst phase of the pandemic.

There were Covid relief packages passed by the house earlier in the year. Because of McConnell and the GOP we are now left with the crumbs attached to a general spending bill.... which plays well for the GOP because now I am seeing all these complaints about foreign aid and such and comparisons to the $600 pittance of a relief that the average person is getting.

The GOP successfully took the hostage.
 
jonny5 said:
Right? You would think we could all agree trillions in debt are bad, but some people have to make everything about political games.
Click to expand...
It's crazy not to spend this money
 
jonny5 said:
Trump is not my boy. I clutch my pearls no matter who is President. Dont you?
Click to expand...
I prefer a more realistic solution, like when the deficit was either closed or on its way to be closed like under Obama or Clinton.

I would also not to prefer to screw that trajectory up with tax cuts every time we get on a good track with it.
 
Last edited:
WHERE IS THE TEA PARTY????????????????????
 
I just cant do this anymore. Every day its the same talking points, year after year.
 

Damn it, we need that money for the military industrial complex!
 
Well, it looks like deficits suddenly matter again, Folks.
 
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