A lot of bad things got into the rescue package. Here’s a list.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/...eres-list/
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer covering politics
March 30
While the economic rescue package was being negotiated in Congress, Republicans pulled out a time-tested strategy:
Find a frivolous-sounding provision your opponents put in their proposal, then have everyone bring it up over and over to make it look like they’re being unreasonable.
In this case it was $25 million in funding for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; any regular viewer of Fox News would have seen the Kennedy Center mentioned a dozen times.
There was some truth there; the Democratic proposal did contain longstanding priorities that weren’t directly related to this pandemic, even if in the scope of the enormous package they represented little more than pocket change.
But Republicans succeeded in conveying the impression that only Democrats were larding up the bill with unnecessary pork.
In fact, Republicans got plenty in the final bill that they wanted, items that give particular help to favored and influential industries. And that may be only part of what we come to regret about the rescue package.
Here are some of the provisions Republicans made sure were in the bill. This is not a comprehensive list, just a sampling:
• A windfall for real estate investors allowing them “to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. The estimated cost of the change over 10 years is $170 billion,” according to the New York Times.
• $17 billion in loans for “businesses critical to maintaining national security,” a provision seemingly targeted solely at Boeing.
• $25 billion in grants and $25 billion in loans for the airline industry.
• A series of regulatory changes sought by the banking industry.
• A tweak to the tax code, retroactive to 2018, allowing certain retailers to more quickly write off expenses they incurred upgrading their properties.
• A series of other tax changes that in many cases take concessions business made in exchange for lower tax rates in Trump’s 2017 tax cut and eliminate them for a period of years. As one budget expert said to me, “corporations and pass-through owners are having their cake from [the 2017 tax cut] and eating it too.”
• A gift to for-profit colleges: They’ll be able to keep loan money for students who drop out due to the coronavirus.
• Help for manufacturers of “innovative” sunscreen technology. WTF?!
• A six-month extension of funding for abstinence-only education. Because more STD’s are a good thing?
• An expansion of the services that health savings accounts, which mostly benefit wealthier people, can pay for.
• A provision allowing many hotel chains to access the $350 billion in loans intended for small businesses if their individual hotels employ fewer than 500 workers each.
Unlike the loans in the fund intended for large businesses, many of these loans will not have to be repaid if the money is used mostly to keep workers on the payroll.
This could allow large firms with the ability to successfully navigate the program to scoop up a significant portion of this fund, potentially pushing aside actual small businesses.
Anyone who was under the impression that only Democrats sought to insert non-germane items like funding for the Kennedy Center was sorely mistaken.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/...eres-list/
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer covering politics
March 30
While the economic rescue package was being negotiated in Congress, Republicans pulled out a time-tested strategy:
Find a frivolous-sounding provision your opponents put in their proposal, then have everyone bring it up over and over to make it look like they’re being unreasonable.
In this case it was $25 million in funding for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; any regular viewer of Fox News would have seen the Kennedy Center mentioned a dozen times.
There was some truth there; the Democratic proposal did contain longstanding priorities that weren’t directly related to this pandemic, even if in the scope of the enormous package they represented little more than pocket change.
But Republicans succeeded in conveying the impression that only Democrats were larding up the bill with unnecessary pork.
In fact, Republicans got plenty in the final bill that they wanted, items that give particular help to favored and influential industries. And that may be only part of what we come to regret about the rescue package.
Here are some of the provisions Republicans made sure were in the bill. This is not a comprehensive list, just a sampling:
• A windfall for real estate investors allowing them “to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. The estimated cost of the change over 10 years is $170 billion,” according to the New York Times.
• $17 billion in loans for “businesses critical to maintaining national security,” a provision seemingly targeted solely at Boeing.
• $25 billion in grants and $25 billion in loans for the airline industry.
• A series of regulatory changes sought by the banking industry.
• A tweak to the tax code, retroactive to 2018, allowing certain retailers to more quickly write off expenses they incurred upgrading their properties.
• A series of other tax changes that in many cases take concessions business made in exchange for lower tax rates in Trump’s 2017 tax cut and eliminate them for a period of years. As one budget expert said to me, “corporations and pass-through owners are having their cake from [the 2017 tax cut] and eating it too.”
• A gift to for-profit colleges: They’ll be able to keep loan money for students who drop out due to the coronavirus.
• Help for manufacturers of “innovative” sunscreen technology. WTF?!
• A six-month extension of funding for abstinence-only education. Because more STD’s are a good thing?
• An expansion of the services that health savings accounts, which mostly benefit wealthier people, can pay for.
• A provision allowing many hotel chains to access the $350 billion in loans intended for small businesses if their individual hotels employ fewer than 500 workers each.
Unlike the loans in the fund intended for large businesses, many of these loans will not have to be repaid if the money is used mostly to keep workers on the payroll.
This could allow large firms with the ability to successfully navigate the program to scoop up a significant portion of this fund, potentially pushing aside actual small businesses.
Anyone who was under the impression that only Democrats sought to insert non-germane items like funding for the Kennedy Center was sorely mistaken.
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