PolitiFact: 90% of Biden Stimulus Spending Not Directly Related to COVID-19

Details of Biden’s bloated spending package are so damning that even liberal-leaning fact-checkers have no choice but to agree with conservative criticisms.

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” could soon become law.

The budget-busting legislation, sold as emergency COVID response and “stimulus,” passed the Senate over the weekend. But even the liberal-leaning fact-checking website PolitiFact is pointing out that almost all of the bill’s spending is unrelated to the health effects of COVID-19.

“Total spending directly on COVID-19’s health impacts ranges from $100 billion to $160 billion,” fact-checker Jon Greenberg writes. “At the high end, direct COVID-19 spending represents about 8.5% of the bill’s $1.9 trillion cost.”

Of the bill’s nearly $2 trillion in spending, PolitiFact reports that just $14 to $20 billion goes to vaccine distribution and vaccine-related efforts. This is a tiny fraction, a mere 1-2 percent. Overall, the spending that actually goes to health-related matters pales in comparison to the hundreds of billions doled out for partisan priorities.

For example, at least $350 billion goes to bailing out state and local governments—despite most not actually experiencing predicted COVID-19 tax revenue shortfalls. That means Biden’s bill spends more than twice as much lining the pockets of bankrupt blue states than it does actually addressing public health.

Legislators also included a completely unrelated $86 billion bailout for union pension plans. And the bill pours $128 billion into public education. Despite what advocates claim, it’s not actually money to “reopen schools.” A whopping 95 percent of the money will be spent after 2021.

It’s not surprising that Republican elected officials are blasting the package as wasteful and bloated.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell decried the inclusion of “All kinds of liberal wish list items that would do nothing to help American families put COVID behind them” in Biden’s bill.

“This isn’t about COVID relief,” Republican Senator Pat Toomey, a long-time fiscal conservative, said. “It’s about using a health crisis as an excuse to ram through a left-wing wishlist.”

Indeed, the details of Biden’s bloated spending package are so damning that even liberal-leaning fact-checkers have no choice but to agree with conservative criticisms.

READ MORE:

• • • Ivy League Study Warns Biden’s Expensive ‘Stimulus’ Plan Will Hurt Economy in the Long Term

    • New ‘COVID’ Legislation Contains $300 Billion in Unrelated Spending, Budget Watchdog Warns

    • Economists Slam Biden Stimulus as ‘Economically Unjustified’ Plan That ‘Incentivizes Unemployment’

    • 10 Crazy Examples of Unrelated Waste and Partisan Kick-Backs in New ‘COVID’ Bill

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This article first appeared on March 13, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Economic Education.