Economy Tanked, Deficit Exploding; Biden, Congress Consider Another Round of Stimulus Spending

Jan 05, 2022

As if to believe that deficit spending doesn’t apply to them when it comes to the overall economy, federal lawmakers are in talks with the Biden White House to craft yet another round of COVID stimulus spending for businesses.

Citing four sources close to the matter, The Washington Post reported that preliminary early by both Democrats and Republicans are focusing on spending more money the federal government doesn’t have to “help businesses” including restaurants, performance venues, gyms, and minor league sports teams.

President Biden (D), approved the Democrat-led effort to advance the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March of 2021. Last December, President Trump signed Democrat-crafted legislation approving nearly $900 billion in COVID-related funding as part of a larger $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package. Prior to that, the Pelosi-Schumer-led Congress advanced legislation to allocate $3 trillion to stimulate the economy and “save” businesses as the government unnecessarily shut down much of the US economy in March 2020.

In total, the federal government has gone further into the red with their spendthrift “aid packages” by at least USD $7.2 Trillion.

Why This Is Important

The level of fiscal irresponsibility in the consideration of this action is stunning, especially after an examination of COVID relief disbursements revealed massive amounts of misdirected payouts to financially ineligible corporations at the expense of sole proprietors and truly small businesses.

Numerous reports and studies of the federally authorized Paycheck Protection Program, crafted by the Democrat-controlled House, indicated that while small businesses and sole proprietorships struggled to exist and close, major corporations that didn’t need the aid were reaping the most benefit from the program.

TheInterpect_ reported:

“Tax provisions nested into the $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed in March are still paying dividends for major corporations, including a rule that has allowed tens of millions of dollars in tax rebates in recent months.
“The continued benefits for the wealthy stand in stark contrast to the meager funds provided to working and middle-class families…with little fanfare, the government is still mailing out coronavirus stimulus checks: The recipients are just large corporations, many of which have thrived during the pandemic.”

CBS News reported that the connected and affluent pillaged the fund ment to keep Main Street alive as well:

“Businesses owned by politicians also borrowed from the program, including a minor league baseball team owned by the family of the governor of Ohio. A large franchisee of Wendy's, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut restaurants…received loans totaling $15 million to $30 million.
“Other recipients included Kanye West's clothing and sneaker brand Yeezy, Ice Cube's professional basketball league, Planned Parenthood clinics in more than two dozen states, Girl Scout chapters, the nonprofit arm of the anti-tax group…Americans for Tax Reform, as well as Rosenblatt Securities, one of the biggest names on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.”

And Bloomberg News reported, “Many publicly traded companies have started filing so-called 8-K statements with the Securities & Exchange Commission showing they’ve obtained funds through the Cares Act…short-term loans, loan guarantees, and grants…meant as a stopgap to help businesses get by until the economy reopens.”

Listed as recipients of funding that was sold to the American people as a lifeline to small businesses and sole proprietors with less than 500 employees (which by a common man’s definition isn’t a “small business”):

American Airlines Inc ($5,810,000,000)
Delta Air Lines Inc ($5,400,000,000)
United Airlines Inc ($2,750,000,000)
DaVita Healthcare Inc ($240,000,000)
Encompass Health Corp ($213,000,000)
Ruth’s Hospitality Group Inc ($20,000,000)
J Alexander’s Holdings Inc ($15,100,000)
Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc ($10,000,000)
Potbelly Corp ($10,000,000)
Natural Gas Services Group Inc ($4,600,000)
Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corp ($3,191,700)

And the Mises Institute reported that the Office of the Inspector General concluded, in part:

Tens of thousands of approved and disbursed loans were made to borrowers for amounts that exceeded the maximum allowed based on the number of employees and compensation rates as defined in the CARES Act.
Tens of thousands of loans that matched a Do Not Pay data source record indicating potential loan ineligibility.
Hundreds of businesses that exceeded the greater of 500 employees or the SBA size standard for number of employees in the industry obtained PPP loans that may have been erroneously approved.
We found thousands of businesses obtained PPP loans with Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) that were not registered until after that date indicating the business was created after the fact.

The report continued on to say, “SBA’s efforts to hurry capital to businesses were at the expense of controls that could have reduced the likelihood of ineligible or fraudulent business obtaining a PPP loan. As a result, there is limited assurance that loans went to only eligible recipients….We also found SBA’s PPP publicly reported and loan-level data was inaccurate and incomplete.”

The OIG’s report continued to say, “We determined SBA did not always have sufficient controls in place to detect and prevent duplicate PPP loans. As a result, lenders made more than one PPP loan disbursement to 4,260 borrowers with the same tax identification number and borrowers with the same business name and address.”

So, given the fact that a truly significant number of PPP loans were granted to large corporations, corporations that were connected to politicians and the wealthy elite, and otherwise ineligible recipients – and at the detriment to real small businesses across the country, why should the American people trust that the Biden administration will do any better this time?

For that matter, why should we ever trust anyone associated with the federal government to engage in a further bankrupting of our Treasury given both the miserable performance in engaging in the COVID issue in total and the Federal Reserve Bank’s inept stewardship of the economy to date to include spooking the markets when the American people need stability?

It is abundantly obvious that any talk surrounding another COVID stimulus package is purely political and opportunistic. The political scheme – and that’s what it is – plays on the emotions of the American people at a time our tolerance for the games of Washington has been exhausted.

Our nation’s national debt stands at $29.617 trillion, which is $89,000-plus per citizen (man, woman, and child) and $237,000-plus per taxpayer. Are we really gullible enough to fall for the shell game that is the government giving us our own money back and acting as if it is a benevolent government act, even as they continue to fill their crony’s pockets?

How about this. No federal taxes until the “COVID crisis” is over. Then we will see how fast Dr. Fauci’s ass hit the door.

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