OH, WHAT A RELIEF

It’s not as easy as it sounds (or hasn’t been) to find details of the new $1.9 trillion stimulus package. The papers are full of highlights, but scarce on line items.

The president chided the loyal opposition a week ago, asking what they’d leave out. But it’s hard to find leave-out options. If you Google “read stimulus bill” or even “read 2021 stimulus bill,” most of the links are to the stimulus package that President Trump signed in December. Some of us would like to see the details of the new spending bill before it’s passed and signed.

After digging around, when you do come across the new bill — or at least the House version of it earlier this week — the writing is very much government work. They say lawyers write to be legal, not understood. They aren’t kidding. In the first few pages of this horse-choker, we get this, “explaining” the use of emergency grants for rural health care:

(a) Grants. — The Secretary of Agriculture (in this section referred to as the “Secretary”) shall use the funds made available by this section to establish an emergency pilot program not later than 150 days after the date of enactment of this Act to provide grants to eligible applicants (as defined in section 3570.61(a) of title 7, Code of Federal Regulations) to be awarded by the Secretary based on needs related to the COVID–19 pandemic.

(b) Uses.—An eligible applicant to whom a grant is awarded under this section may use the grant funds for costs, including those incurred prior to the issuance of the grant, as determined by the Secretary, on facilities which primarily serve rural areas (as defined in section 343(a)(13) (C) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act (7 U.S.C. 1991(a)(13)(C)), which are located in a rural area, the median household income of the population to be served by which is less than the greater of the poverty line or the applicable percentage (determined under section 3570.63(b) of title 7, Code of Federal Regulations) of the State non-metropolitan median household income, and for which the performance of construction work shall meet the condition set forth in section 9003(f) of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (7 U.S.C. 8103(f)) … .

The joke is we aren’t kidding. This stuff reads like an IRS form. What’s in here? Besides the highlights of stimulus payments and COVID relief?

Last weekend, in one of its relief articles, the news side of this outfit linked to a 56-page breakdown of the stimulus/ COVID/ disaster relief bill, which is a much better read than anything Congress could come up with. And didn’t require thousands of pages of boilerplate. For example, all that stuff above about rural health care? Here’s what the analysis explains: $500 million to the Ag Department to award grants to combat COVID-19, including testing, vaccines and the like. Including money for administration expenses.

That’s easy enough to understand. And easy enough to agree with.

Other details include $1.1 billion for expenses associated with supplemental nutrition assistance. Nearly $15 billion for child care, which some agencies may use to provide child care assistance to essential workers.

Also, $250 million for child abuse prevention and treatment. (There are reports that such abuse has gone up as we’re all stuck at home.) A billion dollars for AmeriCorps “to respond to communities impacted by COVID-19, such as helping schools safely reopen and tackling the growing hunger crisis.” And billions for schools to guard against COVID-19.

There’s also $2.5 million for the Inspector General to use for oversight of all this money.

So far, so good. So far.

But then, if the president really is interested is asking what could be left out of this spending bill, we’d highlight these items: “Section 1005 requires the Secretary of Agriculture to make payments of 120 percent of any outstanding farm loan indebtedness, as of Jan. 1, 2021, to pay off such loan debt for each socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher.” Huh? Who would be eligible to have their loans paid off? That is, what is considered “socially disadvantaged”? And pay off 120 percent of the loan? Is 100 percent not good enough for the administration? And how does transferring all this debt from one group of farmers to our children serve the country?

To nobody’s surprise, this subsection would create “one or more” equity commissions. We’ll guess the more details that come out about this section, the less Americans will like it.

› $135 million for the National Endowment of the Arts. How is this related to either COVID-19 or economic stimulus?

› Another $135 million for the National Endowment of the Humanities. See above.

› $390 million “for outreach, innovation, and program modernization efforts to improve participation and benefit redemption in the WIC program.” There can be good arguments for spending money to find more people to spend money on, but can’t that be debated in a stand-alone bill? Why include it here?

We find ourselves once again in agreement with Jared Golden, a Democratic U.S. representative from Maine, who was quoted last week saying there are good things in this legislation, but why do they have to be included in this particular legislation?

This is supposed to be a COVID-relief bill or some kind of stimulus. But it appears more and more like a wish list for our friends on the left. And its going to cost $1.9 trillion — with a T — that the next generation of American taxpayers is going to have to pay.