America Has Now Spent More on COVID 'Relief' Than We Did to Defeat the Nazis
The House passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan on Wednesday afternoon, raising the price tag for federal government spending on coronavirus relief to $5.5 trillion.
That’s higher than the 2019 GDP of every country in the world except the United States and China, and is more than the U.S. spent on World War II if adjusted to today’s dollars.
To pay out the latest aid package, Biden must spend an average of $3.7 billion every day for the rest of this year. That’s $43,000 every second of every day.
While the bill allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to stimulus and unemployment checks, vaccination efforts and other measures meant to accelerate economic recovery, it also includes several components that are not directly related to the pandemic, including union pension bailouts, foreign aid and more.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in earlier relief packages has yet to be spent, and almost $100 billion in Biden’s relief package will not be fully disbursed until 2028.
In March 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act and two smaller bills totaling over $2 trillion in stimulus funds.
In April, Congress approved the $484 billion Paycheck Protection Program.
In December, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, a $2.3 trillion spending bill that included an additional $900 billion in coronavirus relief.
The unprecedented spending comes as the national debt crosses $28 trillion and yearly deficits continue to grow.
The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that deficits will soar over the next decade, leading to a national debt that could total 107 percent of the country’s GDP.
Congressional Republicans unanimously opposed Biden’s relief package, saying that it was packed with Democratic priorities.
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