How Is Biden ’s Covid Relief Bill like the Patriot Act?

David BoazPresident Biden seems determined to pass his “American Rescue Plan” without any Republican votes. It’s $1.9 trillion or bust, he says, on top of the unprecedented $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill from March and another $900 billion in December, some of which still hasn’t been spent. In fact, Republicans don’t have the clout to sto p the bill. But the plan is also drawing some sharp criticism from non‐​Republican sources. Two big articles in the Washington Post Thursday and Friday urged that the plan be pared back to presumably necessary measures, with other components to be considered through the normal non‐​emergency congressional process of hearings and floor debate.On Friday Lawrence Summers, secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and director of President Obama ’s National Economic Council,weighed in. Summers said that “safety‐​net measures for those suffering and investments in vaccination and testing” need to be implemented immediately. But he warned that the total size of the package “is at least three times the size of the output shortfall” and thus six times the relative size of Obama’s 2009 sti mulus bill — which itself was dubbed “Porkulus. ” He warned that the massive injection of borrowed money into the economy might well spur inflation and would surely crowd out further Democratic wish‐​list programs. Questioning the administration’s first big bill is unpopular with many Democrats, and Politicor...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs