House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are demanding Republicans accept their $2.2 trillion so-called “coronavirus relief” bill – yet, the majority of the bill and its taxpayer funding would go to liberal agenda items unrelated to coronavirus, analysis by former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey (R) finds.
In her article, “Nancy Pelosi’s ‘COVID relief’ bill is mainly just a left-wing wish list,” published Tuesday in the New York Post, McCaughey details expensive and irrelevant items in the bill that, she says, will not help to “crush the virus” as Pelosi claims.
In particular, she notes, the “coronavirus” bill, would rewrite election law for 2020 by:
- Barring voter ID requirements,
- Forcing states to count absentee ballots that arrive as late as 10 days after Election Day, and
- Imposing same-day voter registration everywhere (only 21 states currently allow it).
“Pelosi needs to play it straight. Using the pandemic to slip in controversial voting changes for 2020 doesn’t pass the smell test,” McCaughey writes.
McCaughey explains how billions of dollars of funding in the bill go to state and local governments and politicians to do with as they please – and to plug budget holes they created – instead of to measures that would help protect Americans from COVID-19.
Non-coronavirus items in the bill that would cost taxpayers billions found by McCaughey include:
- Only $5 billion (2%) of $225 billion earmarked for school districts would go to making health safety improvements. “The rest is a teachers union protection plan.”
- $417 billion to state and local governments, with no strings.
- $600 billion-plus allocated to cities, states and school districts would be consumed plugging budget holes.
- $5 billion for community development block grants is labeled by the bill as “flexible resources.”
The term "flexible resources" is actually just code for "walking around money for local pols," McCaughley explains.