Posted on 03/18/2022 11:22:13 AM PDT by Red Badger
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants the federal government to spend $45 billion on yet another COVID-19 stimulus package, nearly double what President Joe Biden’s administration had asked for in the last omnibus spending bill.
Biden had initially asked for $22.5 billion in new emergency funding for the pandemic and Democrats had compromised to a $15.6 billion figure after Republicans objected. But even that compromise amount was cut from the $1.5 trillion omnibus bill that Congress passed last week, averting a government shutdown.
On Thursday, Pelosi told reporters that she wants the Biden administration to ask Congress for even more COVID-19 funds. “I think it should be double what they asked for, because even when they were asking for like 20-some [billion dollars] it was only going to get us to June” she said during her weekly press conference.
She added that this additional spending will need to be “offset” but did not explain whether she meant by tax increases or by cutting government spending in other areas. “We don’t have it right now,” she admitted.
Speaker Pelosi Holds Weekly Press Conference
www.youtube.com
Earlier Thursday, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders met with the Biden administration’s top public health officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The Biden administration had requested additional funds “to avoid disruption to ongoing COVID response efforts over the next few months.” The president said in a March 2 letter to Pelosi that $22.5 billion were needed for oral antiviral treatments, monoclonal antibody therapies and other pre-exposure prophylaxis, COVID-19 testing programs, new vaccine research, and global vaccination programs.
Biden requested $18.25 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services for domestic pandemic funds, while the other $4.25 billion would be sent abroad through the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.
Republicans opposed the president’s spending request, arguing it was too costly and needed to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. After negotiating with Democrats, a $15.6 billion compromise was reached that was partially offset by using more than $7 billion in unspent state COVID-19 funds from the American Rescue Plan passed in March 2020.
But the deal fell apart when rank-and-file Democrats opposed the spending offsets, forcing Pelosi to pull COVID-19 funding out of the stimulus package entirely.
Speaking Thursday, Pelosi vowed that new COVID-19 relief would be passed no matter the cost.
“What I’ve said to the administration is … you must ask for more. Because we need more, and you can’t expect money, this [bill], to turn around just like that because the legislative process takes time,” she said. “We want it to be bipartisan; we need it to be paid for. And so let’s just go for a bigger chunk.”
The federal government has spent more than $5 trillion during the COVID-19 pandemic, growing the national debt to more than $30 trillion, a figure that is 25.6% larger than GDP — the estimated value of the entire U.S. economy.
My address is........
$30 trillion debt.
8-10% inflation.
1% interest rate hike = $300 billion federal debt service.
We’re screwed.
Pelosi may go down in history as the single most ruinous politician of modern US history
It’s where they hide the “walk around” and “street money” for the elections.
The Democrats know they need socialized medicine.
They really do hate us and want us dead.
I wonder what they think is going to happen to THEM after they succeed in destroying the US dollar and global economy and initiate mass-starvation?
I guess if the world being upside down has you down, think about the positives, Pelosi will never be speaker again in her lifetime after January 2023.
Just let that sink in. They did not spend the money they all ready charged to our debt card but now "need" to spend 2xs as much.
Our government is currently being run by the intellectual equivalent of teenagers
You don’t have that kind of money, Nancy.
Nobody does.
In fact, we’re broke, busted and flat out.
Our government is currently being run by the intellectual equivalent of illiterate teenagers............................
Time for another late night fake vote to bamboozle the GOP.
She is consistent, I’ll give her that. She already said that spending MORE money was the key to solving inflation. Consistent, but incredibly STUPID.
A gigantic funnel to Lefty organizations and promoters.
Exactly.
We’ve been broke for decades, we just haven’t gone broke yet.
At some point the bottom will drop out.
George W Bush.
DHS
TSA
Patriot Act
2-20 year wars
ONLY another 45 Billion? Why does she love Putin so much?
Hence why the part-time occupant of 1600 Penn Ave was probably groveling on the phone to Mr. Xi. Then off to Europe to be yelled at by other NATO members; begging them not to leave all together. After all, I’m sure they’ll want an explanation on:
a) Why the Saudi’s won’t even take is call
b) How are they supposed to stay warm next winter
c) Why the dollar should remain the world’s reserve currency.
Then there is that so-called covid vaccine thing...
Ides of March indeed.
$45 billion, or $45 trillion, or whatever sum is settled upon, will not and cannot solve the COVID-19 Wuhan virus problem, as a solution is not the objective. This is to KEEP the problem rolling on into perpetuity, as though no other future problems, ever, shall crop up.
We have a crisis of confidence, in that the fearful many seem unable to countenance the challenge of just boldly declaring the “crisis” over, and chuck all the “emergency” measures put in place over the past two years. Sure, people will die of the effects of COVID-19 virus probably in some measure over the years to come, but nowhere nearly at the rate at which the collateral damage of the draconian measures taken to “control” the spread of the disease has wreaked upon the economy, resulting in misallocation of resources and ignoring the middle and long-term effects of a radical “reset” of national priorities.
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