Scott Shellady
Do you ever ask yourself, "what is their endgame"? What do these people that protest everything, have no new ideas except to defund the police, want their world, our world to look like?
Illinois just signed into law no cash bail. Catch-and-release right here at home. What is the point? How are we going to get new young officers to join the force? So many questions and no answers. They can’t be that naïve in thinking that this is going to make us safer. Their job is to make us safe, keep us safe, and to not put us in harm’s way. I would love a quick little tutorial on how life is going to look.
All the talking heads are spouting off about the COVID relief stimulus bill. However, little has been said about the “pork” contained in the $1.9 trillion plan. There is currently $112 million allocated to the Bay Area Rapid Transit expansion — you know that massive bastion of coronavirus breakouts. How about $1.5 million for the Seaway International Bridge connecting New York to Canada? Another dangerous COVID-19 zone? Or is Nancy Pelosi from the Bay Area and Chuck Schumer from New York? Answers on a postcard please.
The bill does provide $473 billion in payments to individuals, $75 billion for vaccines, $26 billion to bars and restaurants, $15 billion to help the airlines and finally $7.2 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program funding small businesses. At least we know that someone, somewhere had their priorities straight.
This is supposed to be a $1.9 trillion stimulus relief package. I have said it before, but $1 trillion is a lot of money and our legislators, both Democrats and Republicans, throw it around like a nickel, not a manhole cover. If viewed as seconds on a clock, 1 million consecutive seconds equals 12 days, a billion consecutive seconds is 31 YEARS. A trillion consecutive seconds is 31,688 YEARS.
Yes, you read that right, years. One trillion seconds ago we had Neanderthals roaming the plains of Europe. So, back to the numbers. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has estimated that only $825 billion was directly related to COVID-19. That means that the rest — just over $1 trillion — is PORK. There's $470 million to museums and libraries. I love them both but are they critical to this package? Do they help with COVID? The money basically doubles their existing budgets.
There is $350 billion allocated to bail out the 50 states and District of Columbia. The government's allocation formula is based on the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2020. Yep, you guessed it. The stubborn lockdown states that had higher unemployment will be rewarded. Your tax dollars are going to bail out California, Illinois, and New York for their draconian conduct while Florida and South Dakota get less. It's just a bunch of pork barrel porn.
Oh, and then there is this — $128.5 billion to fund K through 12 education. C’mon man. They are not even in school anyway. And speaking of school, there is an idea in the bill to bail out some of this student loan debt. The president wants to forgive $10,000 while his progressive left wants it to be $50,000. What a bunch of malarkey that is. Look, I have some family members with student loans. I get the fact that they are cumbersome. So is my mortgage payment, car payment and health insurance – not to mention any credit card debt that I may or may not have. That is what adult people have – they are called bills. But To bail out people that went into the loans with their eyes wide open I think is wrong. Wrong because there are a lot of hardworking parents out there that didn’t take a vacation for 10 years, worked two jobs for 10 years and always took the overtime for 10 years so their kids didn’t have to take out a student loan. And conversely, I know parents who went on multiple vacations over the years, bought bigger houses and nicer cars and had their kids take out student loans. What type of behavior does the government want to reward here? I have a better idea, if it was up to me, I would get the government out of the market of loaning money for schools and make the actual overall price of college come down, way down. It is a crime that these schools have billions in endowments yet continually hike their fees year in and year out. And now, you don’t even get in class learning for your money. What a joke. The whole charade is a farce.
We have a handful of states that have lifted the mask mandate. Now Fauci can’t say that if your parents have the vaccine and your children have the vaccine whether Grandma and Grandpa can hug their grandchildren. Where is the leadership? That leadership that got our kids back in school – wait what? Didn’t happen. Is anybody as frustrated and angry with the teachers as I am? Now there are reports that some districts across the country will not be back to 5 days in person learning until the fall. I am appalled. I was watching the movie "Saving Private Ryan" over the weekend. What struck me most was the strength that our young men and women had in the face of the evil empire. They were 19 and 20-year-old kids that were fighting an unknown enemy for an unknown period of time. They didn’t know when they got to go back home to Iowa. Heck, they didn’t know if they got to go back at all. But they answered the call. They stepped up, they stood tall, even with carnage all around them. That is bravery. That is courage. There were no desks to hide under. There was no lavender infused oxygen pod to escape to. I wish I could see just a glimpse of that bravery and courage when it comes to teaching our kids. I wish I could see more of the freedoms they fought for when it comes to my health and the restaurants I want to dine in. I guess the biggest take away I have from the last 52 weeks of this pandemic is how easy it would be to invade and takeover America now. Our brave young men and women from WWII would be very disappointed.
Scott Shellady is a financial markets commentator. He can frequently be seen on Fox Business, Bloomberg, CNN and TD Ameritrade. He is a broker with AG Optimus here in the Midwest and an adjunct professor of finance at DePaul University. Shellady lives in Portage, and can be found on Twitter at @ScottTheCowGuy. The opinions are the writer’s.
February 28, 2021 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/3kGmxB2
SCOTT SHELLADY: Would you like any pork with that? - nwitimes.com
https://ift.tt/2RsHZwT
Pork
No comments:
Post a Comment