Nancy's Subway

                                                        Nancy's Subway

The specifics of the new Stimulus Bill are hard to find but it has the feel of calling the fire department for an ashtray fire. Immunization to the Virus is expected to be completed by May. Much of the damage to the economy was not done by the Virus, it was done by the lockdown response to it. 

So the government causes the problem, then solves it?

Republicans, who have previously backed COVID-19 spending without any caution at all, said much of the current package was not necessary, highlighting elements like funding a subway near Pelosi's San Francisco district. Only 9% of the total would go directly toward fighting the virus, they said.

The 1.9-trillion package includes 350 billion dollars to help pandemic-hit state and local governments balance their budgets, a God-send to these badly run states but California's financial problems are much deeper than the lockdown and hardly the responsibility of North Dakota.

Among the unrelated provisions are a pension bailout, expansions of the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the child care tax credit; an increase in the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour; and Affordable Care Act expansions. I don't know if the Pakistani gender awareness program or the program designed to explain the motives behind emigration from Central America to the U.S. are still in the bill, or not.