Congress Passes Massive Spending Deal, Includes New Round Of Direct Stimulus Payments

In a last-minute deal before Congress takes its end-of-year break, the House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill package totalling $2.3 trillion in spending that includes direct stimulus payment checks to eligible Americans. It now heads to the White House for President Trump’s signature, who has said he will sign it. 

The bill didn’t include high-priority items for Republicans and Democrats, specifically certain liability protections and aid to state and local governments, but does include $284 billion for aid to small businesses, a $300 per week boost to unemployment benefits for 11 weeks, $600 stimulus checks for individuals making up to $75,000. It also includes aid to schools and hospitals and extends the eviction moratorium put into place earlier this year.

See the PSA from Agudah’s Rabbi Avi Schnall regarding the stimulus bill

The spending package also allocated $1.375 billion that will go towards building 56 miles of Trump’s border wall, $5 million to track instances of police misconduct, a 1% raise for the civilian federal workforce, and a 3% raise for the military.

But, as Congress always seems to do, they included in the bill some items that are completely irrelevant to the pressing needs of Americans, and appear to be nothing more than a waste of money. Included in those are $10 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan, COVID relief funds set aside to investigate the 1908 Springfield Race Riot, the establishment of a committee to regulate performance-enhancing drugs in horse racing, funds to address gender inequality amongst statues, $193 million for certain federal workers to buy cars, and funds to pay for the US Senate daycare center. Your hard-earned tax dollars at work…

 

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3 COMMENTS

  1. what a shame that our our 17-21/24 yo dependents are once again left out!! I think they could use it more than most ppl! Hoping for a more fair round of checks next time around with Biden

  2. On one hand: many people and businesses may need it.
    On the other hand: it will cause high inflation, most of it will be misused, many people will not want to go back to work, some of it will go to fraud, and every normal person or solid business should have sufficient savings for a rainy day.

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