{"id":25857,"date":"2020-12-07T14:25:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T19:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=25857"},"modified":"2020-12-07T17:11:40","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T22:11:40","slug":"nancy-pelosis-heroes-act-gives-350m-to-50-richest-zip-codes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/12\/07\/nancy-pelosis-heroes-act-gives-350m-to-50-richest-zip-codes\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s HEROES Act Gives $350M to 50 Richest Zip Codes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=25858\" class=\"attachment wp-att-25858 keychainify-checked\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/untitled-design-78-1024x576-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"802\" height=\"451\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-25858\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At some point, when the election chaos is finally settled, Congress will likely turn to passing another COVID-19 stimulus\/relief bill. (Despite the last one being plagued by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/new-reporting-exposes-rampant-fraud-plaguing-congress-s-stimulus-program\/?itm_source=parsely-api\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\" data-toggle=\"popover\" data-original-title=\"\" title=\"\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rampant fraud and dysfunction<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). One starting point for negotiations will be the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/appropriations.house.gov\/news\/press-releases\/house-passes-updated-heroes-act\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHEROES Act,\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a $2.2 trillion bill the House passed in October on a party-line vote by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the most significant aspects of the HEROES Act is that it allocates nearly <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/ebauer\/2020\/10\/11\/whats-fair-whats-unfair-in-a-heroes-act-state-and-local-bailout\/?sh=4d05afb62bf9\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">$700 billion<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in federal money for state, local, and tribal governments. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proponents say this gives localities the funds they need to pay emergency responders and fund programs necessary to protect their communities. Critics point out that much of this money is used to \u201cbail out\u201d blue states that were already mismanaging their budgets and running up large unfunded pension programs before the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indeed, the left-leaning Brookings Institution has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/blog\/up-front\/2020\/09\/24\/how-much-is-covid-19-hurting-state-and-local-revenues\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">projected<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">state and local government revenues will decline $155 billion in 2020, $167 billion in 2021, and $145 billion in 2022.\u201d Simple math shows us that the CARES Act gives states and localities hundreds of billions more in federal money than they are actually projected to lose due to pandemic-related decreases in revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This alone should be a red flag. Yet a new analysis also reveals that Pelosi and her fellow \u201cprogressives\u201d snuck millions of dollars in cash for some of the nation\u2019s wealthiest zip codes into their emergency COVID-19 package.<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><iframe style=\"position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 655px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;\" id=\"twitter-widget-0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?creatorScreenName=feeonline&amp;dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1326905270413484038&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Ffee.org%2Farticles%2Fnancy-pelosi-snuck-350m-for-50-richest-zip-codes-into-covid-relief-bill-analysis-reveals%2F&amp;siteScreenName=feeonline&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&amp;width=550px\" data-tweet-id=\"1326905270413484038\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Watchdogs from OpenTheBooks.com inspected the fine print of the HEROES Act and found that it allocates <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/adamandrzejewski\/2020\/11\/12\/nancy-pelosis-heroes-act-gives-top-50-richest-towns-in-america-a-350-million-coronavirus-bailout-why\/?sh=1386b28ec8d3\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">$350 million to the 50 richest communities in America<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The average annual income in these areas ranged from $262,988 to $525,324.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s unclear why such wealthy neighborhoods need so much money to weather the storm,\u201d <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/adamandrzejewski\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adam Andrzejewski<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of OpenTheBooks.com <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/adamandrzejewski\/2020\/11\/12\/nancy-pelosis-heroes-act-gives-top-50-richest-towns-in-america-a-350-million-coronavirus-bailout-why\/?sh=1386b28ec8d3\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">wrote<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cShould American taxpayers from lower-income areas be subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous?<span class=\"rte-quote\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some might reasonably look at a figure like $350 million and conclude that, in the context of a $2.2 trillion bill, it is a relatively small amount of money. But we mustn&#8217;t forget that this figure is only looking at a tiny sample size. It is not all the money this bill allocates to wealthy zip codes, just a snapshot. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We can extrapolate from this figure that the HEROES Act would dole out many hundreds of millions if not billions more to other wealthy towns and cities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s not even the only provision of the bill that can be fairly characterized as a handout for the rich. The package also includes items such as student debt relief, which further burdens cash-strapped taxpayers yet only helps a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/bidens-first-day-might-include-a-bailout-for-the-wealthy\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">relatively well-educated and well-off subset<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But wait: Aren\u2019t Democrats supposed to be the progressive party fighting for the working class? That\u2019s certainly what their rhetoric would suggest. Yet the Democrats included cash handouts for wealthy constituents in predominantly liberal areas such as <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wellesley, Mass., Malibu, California, and Old Greenwich, Conn. in their emergency response package nonetheless.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This offers another painful reminder that government officials\u2014no matter their professed partisan or ideological principles\u2014will always and inevitably end up wielding their power in a manner prone to favoritism and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Clientelism\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">clientelism<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere is no such thing as a just and fair method of exercising the tremendous power that interventionism puts into the hands of the legislature and the executive,\u201d Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.mises.org\/The%20Quotable%20Mises_2.pdf?token=4GhR8d5e\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">wrote<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn many fields of the administration of interventionist measures, favoritism simply cannot be avoided.\u201d<span class=\"rte-quote\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Humans are fallible beings\u2014and power corrupts. This is why, from tax loopholes to crony regulations to spending bills, sweeping government interventions will always end up skewing in favor of powerful constituencies. However, when power is left to the individual level rather than government, that decentralization helps limit abuses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s not a matter of electing the right people. Fundamentally, progressive and conservative government officials alike face the same incentive structures.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The only way to really prevent the abuse of government power and expenditure of taxpayer resources in favor of the well-off and well-connected is to limit the scope of the government itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/00vqPYJMcgM\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" defer=\"\" async=\"\"><\/script>\n<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/021020_staff_headshots-4.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" alt=\"Brad Polumbo\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h5><a href=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/people\/brad-polumbo\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\"><br \/>\nBrad Polumbo<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h5>\n<p class=\"brief-bio\">\n<p><span>Brad Polumbo (<a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brad_polumbo\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"keychainify-checked steem-keychain-checked\">@Brad_Polumbo<\/a>) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Opinion Editor at the Foundation for Economic Education.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic;\">This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/nancy-pelosi-snuck-350m-for-50-richest-zip-codes-into-covid-relief-bill-analysis-reveals\/\" class=\"keychainify-checked\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/Scripts\/fee-repub.js\" async=\"async\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At some point, when the election chaos is finally settled, Congress will likely turn to passing another COVID-19 stimulus\/relief bill. (Despite the last one being plagued by rampant fraud and dysfunction). One starting point for negotiations will be the \u201cHEROES Act,\u201d a $2.2 trillion bill the House passed in October on a party-line vote by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. One of the most significant aspects of the HEROES Act is that it allocates nearly $700 billion in federal money for state, local, and tribal governments. Proponents say this gives localities the funds they need to pay emergency responders and fund programs necessary to protect their communities. Critics point out that much of this money is used to \u201cbail out\u201d blue states that were already mismanaging their budgets and running up large unfunded pension programs before the pandemic. Indeed, the left-leaning Brookings Institution has projected that \u201cstate and local government revenues will decline $155 billion in 2020, $167 billion in 2021, and $145 billion in 2022.\u201d Simple math shows us that the CARES Act gives states and localities hundreds of billions more in federal money than they are actually projected to lose due to pandemic-related [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1201],"class_list":["post-25857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-nancy-pelosi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}