Let Them Eat Cake: Congress Approves a $900 Billion Stimulus Package, Billions in Pork Funds, Federal Employees Get a Raise

NFT Jan 23, 2023 0 95 Add to Reading List

The United States Congress has approved a $900 billion Covid-19 relief package that’s tethered to the government’s $2.3 trillion year-end funding plan. Of course, talks of Americans getting $600 checks have started to circulate online, but reports also include the discussions of unwarranted spending and unlimited pork funds.

$600 Is the Equivalent of Marie Antoinette’s: ‘Let Them Eat Cake’

As soon as mainstream media news outlets started reporting on the fact that the U.S. Congress has approved a $900 billion Covid-19 relief package, Americans started talking about the $600 check they may get. The commentary toward politicians was less than pleasant and on Twitter, the phrase commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, “Let them eat cake” was trending during the last 24 hours.

$600 is the equivalent of Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake". Remember how that turned out for Marie? Just sayin'.

— Chuckles' Shrunken Face (@DonkeySnort) December 20, 2020

The $900 billion Covid-19 relief package is a whopping 5,593 pages long and according to Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY 4th District), Democrats didn’t even want to read the bill.

“Reminder: The House has a rule to give everyone 72 hours to read the bills,” Massie tweeted. “Every Democrat in the House voted to suspend that rule and that’s why we’re voting on a 5,500+ page bill tonight with less than 8 hours to read it.”

While Americans will get a $600 stimulus check, billions in pork funds have been approved for the political class including a 1% pay raise.

Additionally, on social media and online forums, many Americans discussed the vast amount of pork barrel funds inserted into the latest $900 billion program, and the total $2.3 trillion year-end funding plan. A “pork” or “pork funding” is when bureaucrats distribute funding to certain government programs and the costs are spread among taxpayers.

The year-end funding legislation also allocates $284 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Unfortunately, many Americans were not pleased with the last PPP distribution, as it was intended for small businesses but a great majority of the funds were scraped up by big businesses.

Billions for Foreign Countries, a 1% Federal Employee Pay Raise, New Furniture, and Missile Procurement

The pork U.S. politicians approved is extremely lavish and seems to benefit the political class the most. For instance, Congress gave themselves and all federal employees a 1% pay raise. The infamous zerohedge.com journalist, Tyler Durden, published a fantastic collection of a great number of pork barrel funds added to the Covid-19 bill.

But the list is far larger and over the course of the last 24 hours, many people have been scrutinizing the so-called relief bill.

Millions of dollars will be set aside to provide the U.S. Senate with new furniture.

The massively sized Covid-19 package will give billions to foreign countries, millions to the Kennedy Center, and more. For example, the family members of unauthorized U.S. citizens will get up to $1,800. There’s even a new law tucked away into the bill that would make illegal streaming a felony offense. The colossal 2.3 trillion-dollar package is the largest ever considered by Congress, so big that the 5,593-page bill had to be transported by a 4-wheel dolly.

An estimated $3.3 billion will be going to Israel ($500M for the Israeli military), $453 million will be sent to Ukraine, $130 million for Nepal, $10 million to Pakistan, $1.3 billion to Egypt, $700 million to Sudan, $135 million to Burma, $85.5 million to Cambodia, and $1.4 billion for the “Asia Reassurance Initiative Act.”

While the U.S. government has forcefully shut down hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the nation, the new bill approves $89,615,280 for the U.S. Senate to buy new furniture.

$2 billion for the Air Force’s missile procurement, $2 billion for Space Force, and $4 billion for the Navy. $65 million to restore salmon populations, $208 million to upgrade the Census Bureau’s computer systems, $35 million for police-community relations improvement, $710 million to provide Syrians with weapons and training.