The American Rescue Plan: Emergency COVID Relief Spending or Special Interest Handouts?
In the days since the 117th Congress passed a $1.9 trillion COVID “relief package,” there have been numerous conversations about the provisions in the spending package. The “relief package,” also known as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, includes numerous popular provisions such as another round of direct payments up to $1,400 to many Americans, “extends additional, enhanced unemployment aid to millions,” and substantial changes to the tax code “to benefit families with children,” according to The Washington Post. In highlighting some of the package’s successes, some corporate media outlets ran headlines like “Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty” or “Champion of the middle class comes to the aid of the poor.” To the neutral observer, these headlines read more or less like official Democratic Party press releases.
While the corporate media was quick to shower the “relief package” with praise, they often buried the troubling reality that this “emergency COVID relief package” was stuffed with special interest pork. At Substack, Matt Taibbi equates some corporate media headlines with the former Soviet Union’s Pravda. Taibbi’s assertion is undoubtedly correct as even PolitiFact admits that “at the high end, direct COVID-19 spending represents about 8.5% of the bill’s…
