{"id":241714,"date":"2021-03-17T21:45:23","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T01:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=241714"},"modified":"2021-03-17T21:45:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T01:45:26","slug":"here-are-some-of-the-craziest-spending-items-in-the-coronavirus-stimulus-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/here-are-some-of-the-craziest-spending-items-in-the-coronavirus-stimulus-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Here Are Some Of The Craziest Spending Items In The Coronavirus Stimulus Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhere-are-some-of-the-craziest-spending-items-in-the-coronavirus-stimulus-bill%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=241714&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-1700.jpeg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>On Wednesday, many Americans saw their $1,400 stimulus checks hit their bank accounts,&nbsp;courtesy of the mammoth coronavirus relief package Democrats shoehorned through Congress last week.<\/p>\n<p>The final destinations are fuzzier, however, for some of the other blocks of cash provided in the&nbsp;$1.9 trillion stimulus <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/117th-congress\/house-bill\/1319\/text#toc-HFCC8BF50FFAD49A1A8AECB6F59D6861D\">bill<\/a>, ostensibly aimed at alleviating the economic suffering caused by the&nbsp;coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the items are only loosely related to relieving pandemic woes, and in some cases, Democrats appear to have given up attempting to connect the funding to the coronavirus at all, raising eyebrows among critics who argued the package should not be used as a \u201cTrojan Horse\u201d for a Democratic agenda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019re talking about here [was] a bill that only spent about one percent on vaccines and about nine percent on the entire health [fight],\u201d Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a floor speech.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) responded to McConnell by arguing that the relief package is aimed at the problems that the pandemic created.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat part doesn\u2019t he like? Does he not like giving checks to people who need help? Does he not like opening schools safely? Does he not like vaccines?\u201d Schumer <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MSNBC\/status\/1370369140943421442\">said<\/a>, claiming that those items&nbsp;make up more than half the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Among the more curious appropriations, the stimulus bill gives&nbsp;$135 million each to the National Endowment for the Arts and the&nbsp;National Endowment for the Humanities.&nbsp;The bill reserves even more, $200 million, for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.<\/p>\n<p>The NEA had already been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arts.gov\/about\/nea-on-covid-19\">allotted<\/a> more than&nbsp;$162 million for the entire fiscal year of 2020 in a spending bill passed at the end of 2019, an increase in the organization\u2019s funding from the previous year. Combined with the $75 million the NEA received in the CARES Act last year, the total of additional aid is well above the organization\u2019s normal yearly budget.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the NEA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2017\/mar\/17\/life-without-arts-10-crazy-grants-given-nea-neh\/\">recent grants<\/a> include $50,000 to help bring \u201cTrans Scripts,\u201d a play about actual individuals who transitioned from male to female, to the U.S., and nearly $100,000 to adapt Shakespeare plays for the stage without words. The NEA and Institute of Museum and Library Services also teamed up to spend nearly a half a million dollars on a museum exhibit that \u201cintends to provide attendees with the sights, sounds, smells, feel and taste of medieval times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Corporation for Public Broadcasting also gets&nbsp;$175 million.<\/p>\n<p>Another eye-catching item the stimulus bill provides is $20 million \u201cto ensure the survival and continuing vitality of Native American languages during and after the public health emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another $100 million will go toward Native American housing improvement.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will also receive $95 million worth of financial padding, and the Environmental Protection Agency will receive $100 million, half of which is designated to \u201cidentify and address disproportionate environmental or public health harms and risks in minority populations or low-income populations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of the funding in the bill, passed&nbsp;without the support of a single Republican in either chamber of Congress, is scheduled to be doled out over several years, as late as 2027.<\/p>\n<p>The package reserves several large funding blocks for cybersecurity and technology, including&nbsp;$200 million to remain available well into 2024 for the U.S. Digital Service, the federal tech unit established after the Obamacare website\u2019s disastrous launch and crash in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Another $650 million is reserved through 2023 for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to be used for cybersecurity risk mitigation, and $1 billion through 2025 for the Technology Modernization Fund, which enhances IT at federal agencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout modern and nimble IT systems, the federal government cannot deliver critical payments and services to individuals, families, and businesses who rely on them,\u201d Democratic Reps.&nbsp;Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and&nbsp;Gerry Connolly (D-VA) wrote in a letter to House leadership in which they pushed for TMF funding in the bill.<\/p>\n<p>Although the bill is purportedly a coronavirus relief bill, $3.5 billion will go to fight other diseases in the form of a contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.<\/p>\n<p>Critics have also complained about a $350 billion \u201cbailout\u201d in the bill for state, local, and tribal governments that they say were badly managed by Democrats even before the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats tried and failed to include several other pricey items, including $112&nbsp;million for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) expansion, an&nbsp;underground&nbsp;rail project in Silicon Valley that has seen slow progress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) represents most of San Francisco, where the subway currently runs.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration\u2019s attempt to use the stimulus bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour was also scrapped after two moderate Democratic senators indicated they would not vote for it.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, many Americans saw their $1,400 stimulus checks hit their bank accounts,\u00a0courtesy of the mammoth coronavirus relief package Democrats shoehorned through Congress last week.The final destinations are fuzzier, however, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2310717,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-1700.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Here Are Some Of The Craziest Spending Items In The Coronavirus Stimulus Bill","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/fb_image-1700.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Here Are Some Of The Craziest Spending Items In The Coronavirus Stimulus Bill","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2310717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}