Harmful COVID Relief Bill is passed by Democrats
$1.9 trillion is added to national debt instead of ending social-distancing restrictions
March 11, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has left the economy in tatters. Many Americans are feeling loneliness, pain, depression, and grief associated with the devastating consequences of the pandemic.
In an attempt to remedy the economic damage, Congress has introduced numerous different stimulus bills aimed at supporting the economy.
Two main stimulus bills were already passed by the end of last year: the CARES Act in March 2020 and the Consolidated Appropriations Act in Dec. 2020. These bills combined injected $3.1 trillion into the economy in the form of stimulus checks, low-interest loans, coronavirus testing funds, and vaccine research.
Despite the massive spending, $3.1 trillion is not enough for President Biden. Upon the first day of the new Administration, President Biden rolled out his version of a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan.
The bill passed by the United States Senate this past weekend includes many things. The bill grants a $1,400 stimulus check to most Americans, additional money to fund unemployment insurance, and money for state and local governments disproportionately allocated to Blue-states. In my view, the stimulus plan should not be signed into law.
This additional bill should not be signed for various reasons. The bill gives money to people who are not in need, the additional debt incurred will hurt Americans in the long run, and there are states such as Florida and Georgia that have managed to reopen their economies successfully without oppressive economic restrictions that harm businesses.
Over the last year, there is a lot of evidence to show that parts of the massive government stimulus money appropriated have gone to people who are not in need.
According to research done by the University of Chicago, “between April and July 2020, 76% of workers eligible for regular Unemployment Compensation have statutory replacement rates above 100%, meaning that they are eligible for benefits which exceed lost wages. The median statutory replacement rate is 145%.”
For four months most people on unemployment made 45 cents more for every dollar they made working. This program continued long after the four-month period, just at a rate of an additional $300 a week instead of $600.
Subsidizing workers one and a half times their normal wage to not work is irresponsible economic policy. Doing so will create no incentive or necessity for young, healthy workers to return to work and creates no incentive for state governors to re-open their states and allow people to get back to their regular lives.
The Biden COVID relief bill will extend additional unemployment insurance until September. An extension of these benefits is costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars to subsidize young healthy people who are capable of working but choose not to.
Furthermore, this massive government spending bill is hurting Americans in the long run. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the current national debt sits at just under $28T. To put that in perspective, that is about $84,000 per citizen.
Current and former policymakers on Capitol Hill from both sides of the political aisle have recognized the national debt emergency. However, no majority in either party has had the wherewithal to make anything change.
This COVID relief bill added two trillion dollars to the $28T national debt. To pay this debt back it is likely that the federal government will have to rapidly increase taxes or decrease the value of the dollar by printing more money, causing rapid inflation.
This Biden stimulus bill is unnecessary because there are states that have reopened their economies safely since the pandemic began to rage in March of 2020. For example, the State of Florida, under the leadership of Gov. Ron Desantis, has had massive success when looking at virus statistics versus the overall economy of the state.
According to Worldometers, a website that tracks coronavirus deaths by geographical location using data released by health departments and hospitals from all over the world, Florida has seen rates of death from COVID-19 that are lower than other states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts by comparison all have COVID-19 deaths 2,000 people for every one million residents. Florida has a death rate of around 1,400 people for every one million residents. This is despite Florida having the highest population in the country of older residents, who are statistically more likely to die from COVID-19.
Unemployment numbers in Florida are better than that of New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the unemployment rate in Florida stands at 6.1%. This is despite Florida’s reliance on tourism and leisure travel. Florida’s unemployment rate is lower than other states like New York (8.2%), New Jersey (7.6%), and Massachusetts (7.1%) that imposed stricter lockdown measures and have worse virus numbers. The lockdowns did little to prevent deaths in New York as both New York and Florida share similar death counts while Florida never locked down.
Because Florida is doing better economically than other states, the need for a stimulus bill for Floridians is not as great as for New Yorkers. The problem is New Yorkers are making Floridians foot the bill for lockdown policies that did little to prevent additional deaths from COVID-19 in New York.
From the outset of the pandemic, Florida never fully shut down its economy as New York did. The self-inflicted economic burden of New York should not have to be incurred or subsidized by the citizens of Florida. Instead, New York might want to learn from Florida and govern accordingly.
If all states took the necessary precautions to protect vulnerable individuals as Florida did, we could have returned to normal and not need the Biden Blue-State Bailout stimulus bill.
anonymous • Mar 11, 2021 at 5:32 pm
Despite the many criticisms he has received on his articles, Mr. Smith has not taken the opportunity to improve his arguments. His inattention to detail is blatant. Smith argues that states like New York would benefit from opening like Florida has been open. Two obvious factors speak to the contrary: population density and weather. Although New York and Florida as states have about equal population density, New York City and its surrounding metro areas have the highest population density in the country. If NYC were to loosen or end social distancing protocols, it would be disastrous for those living there. It would be especially disastrous because of the weather. Florida is a much more temperate state than New York, allowing people to meet outdoors. However, as it is still winter, and New York is much colder, loosening social distance requirements would mean that people would meet indoors. As COVID-19 is an air-born, respiratory virus, its rate of infection is much larger when people meet indoors unmasked for extended periods of time. Loosening social distance requirements in New York would mean sacrificing the population of New York City. Is that what Mr. Smith wants?
Furthermore, I ask Mr. Smith what he means when he uses the word “economy.” We can all agree that having money in this country is important to its survival. However, would loosening social distancing requirements really fix this problem? What I see happening is that the working class would be forced to interact indoors more frequently at work, putting their health at risk more than anyone else’s, while the wealthy, with their larger apartments and houses can continue to work from home to protect themselves. Does sacrificing the working class lead to a better economy? Can an economy survive when its people die? If we dispose of our working class, we will not see a boost in the economy, but rather its downfall. Yet Mr. Smith claims that he is concerned about the working class when he mentions pipeline workers losing their jobs. I see a inconsistency there. Which is it, Smith?
I would also like to draw attention to the demographics of the boroughs of New York City. Brooklyn and the Bronx, are two of the most populated of the boroughs, and have the second and fourth most dense in population. They house majority of ethnic minorities. Brooklyn is 36.4% Black and 19.8% Latine, and the Bronx is 35.6% Black and 48.4% Latine. The city gives these two boroughs less funds than Manhattan and Staten Island, which are predominantly white. This means that their schools, roads, rehabilitation, and social services cannot provide the same help that the wealthier (and whiter) communities of NYC. I ask why Mr. Smith believes that these people, many of whom are working class and ethnic minorities, ought to face the virus in their dense neighborhoods. I encourage he looks up “redlining” and understand how it affects BIPOC in large cities such as NYC, and hopefully see how loosening social distancing restrictions could be genocide for the most dense populations of BIPOC in the United States.
Economies are made of people, and if we allow the people to die, there will be no economy.
nathaniele • Mar 11, 2021 at 2:56 pm
32000 people are dead in Florida. that’s more than 10 9/11s. so no, i dont think they should be an “example”.
also, your point about unemployment only proves that we should have a minimum wage increase if people are making more money unemployed than employed.
you need to think through your ideas more.