Name: Congress Uses COVID-19 As a Cover for an Epidemic of Fiscal Recklessness
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Congress Uses COVID-19 As a Cover for an Epidemic of Fiscal Recklessness

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The "recovery rebates" that Americans began receiving this week supposedly have something to do with the economic damage caused by COVID-19 and the control measures it inspired. But like most of the so-called , these payments, which account for more than a fifth of the bill's $1.9 trillion price tag, are only tenuously related to the pandemic.The Democrats who championed the law hope those bribes will in the midterm elections. But you really should be thanking your children and grandchildren, because they will ultimately pick up the tab for this package and the rest of the $5 trillion spending binge that Congress claimed was justified by a public health emergency.Individuals with adjusted gross incomes of up to $75,000 will get $1,400, while married couples earning up to $150,000 will get $2,800, plus $1,400 for each dependent. That amounts to $5,600 for a four-person family, on top of the $5,800 that such households received under the coronavirus relief packages that Congress approved in and .Congress distributed that money without regard to whether the recipients had suffered pandemic-related economic distress. A Pew Research Center conducted last August suggests that most of them have not: Forty-two percent of respondents said they or someone in their households had lost jobs or income due to COVID-19, less than half the of Americans who are expected to receive the latest round of payments.found that just 15 percent of people who received the money distributed in April reported that they spent most of it; instead, they typically saved it or used it to pay down debts. Those findings cast doubt on the hope that such payments, even when they go to relatively well-off families, will stimulate the pandemic-battered economy by increasing consumer spending.The package also includes an expanded, fully refundable that will cost at least $89 billion—more if the temporary change . Like the recovery rebates, that provision applies fully to households earning up to $150,000.Other major elements of the American Rescue Plan Act likewise have little or nothing to do with COVID-19.The package includes nearly $129 billion for K–12 education, which ostensibly is aimed at helping students safely return to school. Yet most of the more than $100 billion in education funding authorized by earlier legislation , and the Congressional Budget Office that just 5 percent of the new money will be spent this fiscal year, which ends on September 30.Congress allocated $350 billion to "coronavirus state and local relief funds" for governments that generally have emerged from the pandemic in than expected. California, for example, will benefit from this largesse even though it is running a surplus.Another $86 billion will be used to union-run pension funds that were already in dire straits before the pandemic. Obamacare for households earning as much as $350,000 annually will cost $34 billion.Republicans, who last year supported massive, frequently ill-considered spending in the name of fighting COVID-19, have changed their tune now that Democrats control the executive and legislative branches. They uniformly opposed the latest bill in the and the , and they plan to make political hay by accusing Democrats of using the pandemic as an excuse for fiscally reckless spending aimed at achieving longstanding policy goals, rewarding their party's most dedicated supporters, and enticing voters with found money.Blatant hypocrisy aside, the Republicans have a point. The —currently about $27.5 trillion, three-quarters of which is —already exceeds the size of the U.S. economy. The was $3.1 trillion last fiscal year and will be more than $1 trillion this fiscal year.Continuing on this path will , replace useful spending with , and force tax increases, benefit reductions, or both. Enjoy your debt-financed windfall while you can.© Copyright 2021 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

The "recovery rebates" that Americans began receiving this week supposedly have something to do with the economic damage caused by COVID-19 and the control measures it inspired. But like most of the so-called , these payments, which account for more than a fifth of the bill's $1.9 trillion price tag, are only tenuously related to the pandemic.The Democrats who championed the law hope those bribes will in the midterm elections. But you really should be thanking your children and grandchildren, because they will ultimately pick up the tab for this package and the rest of the $5 trillion...

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Jacob Sullum

Reason is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 50,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune. Reason was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander (1947–2011), a student at Boston University, as a more-or-less monthly mimeographed publication. In 1970 it was purchased by Robert W. Poole Jr., Manuel S. Klausner, and Tibor R. Machan, who set it on a more regular publishing schedule.

Congress Uses COVID-19 As a Cover for an Epidemic of Fiscal Recklessness

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