Prior to the vote on President Biden’s $ 1.9 billion stimulus package, lawmakers made a variety of misleading allegations to advance their position on the bill. Here is a fact check of some common talking points.
Republicans mishandled elements of the bill.
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‘It’s supposed to be a Covid account. Only 9 percent of that goes to Covid. “- Representative Kevin McCarthy, California Republican and House Minority Leader, in an interview with Fox News this week.
This is misleading. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy said the 9 percent refers to the $ 160 billion for a national vaccination program, extensive testing and a public health program, as outlined by the Biden government. In other words, 8.4 percent, or $ 160 billion of the $ 1.9 billion package, is specifically allocated to fighting the coronavirus.
But this is a fair interpretation of pandemic-related funding. The bill also includes other health care expenditures, such as subsidizing insurance coverage for laid-off workers, extending paid sick leave and funding for veteran care.
And just like the first two bills signed by President Donald J. Trump and an alternative measure proposed by ten Republican lawmakers this year, much of the Biden plan is devoted to providing financial assistance to families and businesses affected by the economic consequences of the pandemic. According to the committee responsible for a responsible federal budget, the stimulus checks of $ 1,400 and the expansion of unemployment benefits are the two biggest single expenses.
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“We have the numbers and here is your receipt, @SpeakerPelosi @SenSchumer,” – Senator Marsha Blackburn posted the bill on Twitter this week in categories such as arts, museums and library services; Pelosi is metro; services including Planned Parenthood; and “climate justice.”
This is misleading. Mrs. Tennessee Republican Blackburn accuses the Democratic leadership of drafting a $ 1.9 billion bill that amounts to a liberal ‘wish list’. But the four specific financing areas she highlighted are $ 547 million, or about 0.03 percent of the total $ 1.9 billion.
‘Metro of Pelosi’ refers to a project to extend the Bay Area Rapid Transit system to downtown San Jose – an hour south of San Francisco and represented by District Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The project is actually in the district of another Democrat, Representative Zoe Lofgren.
A spokesman for the Home Transport Committee said the BART expansion does not receive special funding, but that it is merely “proportionally funded” for other similar projects across the country.
In general, the bill includes $ 30 billion to help public transportation agencies, most of which cover operating costs of transportation systems across the country. About $ 1 billion of that goes to a transportation program allocation program to ensure that already approved transit projects – such as the BART expansion as well as rail improvements in Republican states like Indiana and Arizona – remain solvable.
“Arts, Museums and Library Services” refers to the $ 135 million set aside for the National Endowment for the Arts and $ 200 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The bill also spends $ 50 million on family planning projects, which Ms. Blackburn characterized as ‘services including Planned Parenthood’. The group is not explicitly mentioned in the bill, but he has previously received family planning grants. Other beneficiaries include state and local health agencies (including Tennessee Health Department Family Planning Programs) and other nonprofits.
A further $ 50 million has been earmarked for ‘environmental justice purposes’, according to the bill and is intended to address the differences between health and the pandemic.
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“There is lifeline to Planned Parenthood, incentive grants to illegal immigrant families.” Representative Jim Banks, Republican from Indiana, in an interview on Fox News this week.
This is misleading. Mr. Banks’ claim about “illegal immigrant families” receiving stimulus grants refers to families with mixed immigration status, not families where all members are not documented. Under the bill, couples who jointly file their taxes only need to have one valid Social Security number to receive a stimulus check. But the amount would be $ 1400 for an individual, and not $ 2,800 for a couple.
In other words, U.S. citizens or legal residents who are married to undocumented immigrants would receive the $ 1,400, but their spouses would not.
The first two rounds of stimulus tests had the same conditions with virtually the same language.
Republicans also left out context.
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‘More than a trillion dollars have been spent on previous double-edged accounts. The money is still in a bank account. “- Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, in an interview this week on ABC.
‘If you think about what has already happened, $ 4 trillion in stimulus has been passed. There’s another trillion dollars worth, or almost a trillion dollars, that have not even been spent yet. “- Senator Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, in an interview with Fox Business this week.
This is misleading. In a report published by The Washington Post this month, Mr. Scalise linked to the coronavirus spending spending committee of a responsible federal budget as a source for this claim. According to the tracker, about $ 3 billion has already been spent. But that does not necessarily mean that $ 1 billion will remain unused.
The think tank explained in a blog post in January that “much of it is already being allocated or planned, and that a small portion will never be spent.” About $ 775 billion of the “unspent” funding comes from the $ 900 billion stimulus package signed in late December, according to the blog post. The expectation is that financing over time (borrowing and Medicaid expenses), as well as data backlogs, will also explain the difference.
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‘In fact, 95 percent of the money can not be spent until 2022. Do you really want to wait until 2022 to get your child back to school? This bill will actually delay the reopening of the school. This is crazy. “- Mr. Scalise said in an interview with Fox News this week.
“We have to get and follow science and get kids back to school. This bill does not. ” – Mr. McCarthy, in an interview with Fox News this week.
This is misleading. The bill sets aside $ 128.5 billion to fund K-12 schools through the primary and secondary school first aid fund. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that $ 6.4 billion of this would be spent in the fiscal year 2021, which ends in September.
But the budget office also said the spending rate was “subject to great uncertainty.”
In a letter to congressional leaders, education groups wrote that the idea that schools no longer needed money because they would spend so much this year was “inaccurate”.
“In discussions with our respective memberships, they state that although the ‘spending rate’ for those unfamiliar with the financial procedures and requirements of the state and district school may seem very low, they have budgeted for every dollar they spend according to the Covid would receive emergency bills. and expect more and more significant costs that they will not be able to incur without extra federal funds, ”the groups wrote.
A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy also noted that the bill “provides no assurance to families that schools will reopen” and that funding is not linked to the reopening of schools.
Nothing in the bill explicitly postpones the reopening of the school, nor is it the condition for financing the reopening. But a spokesman for the House Education and Labor Committee noted that this was never intended.
“Our position has always been that local school districts, in consultation with public health officials, should make these decisions,” said Joshua Weisz, the committee’s communications director. “Congress should not force schools to reopen.”
Mr. Biden is inaccurate about some elements of the bill.
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“If we do not succeed in the American rescue plan, 40 million Americans will lose nutritional aid through a program we call SNAP, the old food stamp program. Are we not investing $ 3 million – $ 3 billion to keep families from starving? ‘ – Mr. Praying in comments last week at a Pfizer plant.
This is exaggerated. As FactCheck.org noted, the White House transcript of Mr. Biden’s comments ‘some of’ added in brackets before the words ‘nutritional aid’. This is because the failure to pass the bill would not result in Americans relying on the supplemental nutrition assistance program losing all their benefits. On the contrary, the stimulus package signed in December temporarily increased the benefits for food stamps from January to June. The current bill and Mr. Biden’s plan will extend the increase to September.
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“For example, if it were going – if we gradually increased it – if we indexed it at $ 7.20, if we indexed it by – after inflation, people would now earn $ 20 an hour.” – Mr Biden at last week A CNN City Hall Event.
Untrue. The federal minimum wage was last raised to $ 7.25 in July 2009, which if indexed for consumer inflation would be around $ 8.81 today. Mr. Biden probably meant to say ‘worker productivity’ instead of inflation. Dean Baker, an economist at the left-wing Center for Economic and Policy Research, estimates that if the minimum wage remained at productivity, it would be around $ 24.
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