Congressional Democrats are a runaway train with a drunk-on-power conductor in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. No matter how much evidence pours in that the economy doesn’t need $1.9 trillion more in debt spending, the Pelosi locomotive keeps crashing down the track toward the financial cliff. Generations will have to pay for the joyride.
One of the worst features of the bill is the “blue-state bailout.” Twenty-one Republican governors and one Democrat are protesting the “biased” formula for allocating some $400 billion to the states. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster complained that the bill “punishes” states that did the right thing by keeping their economies and businesses open during the pandemic.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the bill “loots” the red states to pay for Democratic governors who have locked down their economies.
DeSantis has good reason to complain. Florida has a slightly higher population than New York, but New York gets $2,799 per person, or twice as much money as the $1,355 per person that Florida receives. In other words: Floridians are paying for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s incompetence. That is precisely what is happening because the main factor in determining how much money each state gets is not its population but how high its unemployment rate has risen.
The three states that get the most significant share of the money are New York, California and New Jersey. These are three of the most liberal states with Democratic governors. That’s not a coincidence.
Blue Pennsylvania gets more per person than red Ohio. Blue Massachusetts and red Tennessee are about the same size, but somehow, Massachusetts receives $1.5 billion more in handouts. Connecticut gets twice as much bailout money as Utah, despite the fact that they are about the same size in population.
The governors’ joint statement declares: “A state’s ability to keep businesses open and people employed should not be a penalizing factor when distributing funds. If Congress is going to provide aid to states, it should be on an equitable population basis.”
But it isn’t. The way Congress passes out money is akin to assigning the highest performing students an F and the lowest performers an A. Maybe this is what the left means by “equity.” The last shall be first.
Most red states have already balanced their budgets. So how will Republican governors use their free money?
Here’s a better idea: Rather than squander the money with more bureaucratic spending and the risk of inflating a financial bubble in their state budgets in the years ahead, devote every penny of these funds to finance tax reform and relief. Eight states have no state income tax. Those states are Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, Florida, Wyoming, Tennessee and Texas.
It would be rough justice for the blue-state bailout. If Democrats take the red states’ money, Republican governors should make their states income-tax-free havens and steal the blue states’ families and businesses. The states without income taxes create twice as many jobs as the high-tax blue states.
If you think California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are melting down now, wait until they have to compete against regions of the country in the South and the mountain states with no income taxes.
Will the last person in New York please turn out the lights?
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the American Economy.” To find out more about Stephen Moore and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
It’s got nothing to do with the economy… it’s all about bailing out the liberal states that have been run into the ground with communist liberal regressive democrat insanity…. PERIOD!
Especially since BARELY 20% OF the bill, IS FOR ANYTHING To do with Covid what so ever..
“Republican governors should make their states income-tax-free havens and steal the blue states’ families and businesses”. The problem with stealing people from the blue states, the blue state Democrats, who move to the red states, bring their communist ideology with them, as liberals end up cutting their own throats, by voting for bigger government and higher taxes, in the red states, when they move there. One cannot reason with a liberal, as they are airheads.
Exactly! Just look what happened to Georgia. Georgia was predominantly Republican until the Yankee Democrats fled the States that they destroyed and moved to Georgia. Now Georgia has millions of Yankees that vote for dishonorable, dishonest, destructive Democrats.
They don’t need to move in mass, that is not really what is happening. Everybody needs to realize that the numbers don’t jive, there are not massive migrations of Libtards moving to these areas. There are simply Libtards moving to these areas and getting jobs in the polling places, in county offices, even volunteers, as perfectly exemplified in Georgia, where there was substantial video and eye witness proof!
We need to take control of the vote count, they gleefully employ the strategy of Stalin, It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes. Lie, cheat, steal, the Democrat credo!
Those weren’t Yankee Democrats that fled to Georgia and voted in 2 Democrat Senators,,,,they were dead people and strolen mail-in votes. It is the productive taxed to death Conservative people who are fleeing the states like California and New York who are self sufficient enough to self govern. The socailly dependent children in adult bodies stay up north or Calif and stay attached to the Democrat pafrty hind teat. The welfare is much better in those states. Who cares if there is no state income tax in states like Texas if you don’t plan on working anyway. Might as well stay where you are if you are a Democrat.
You really shouldn’t say “Yankees” in such a blanket statement. I live in a republican Yankee state and most of us don’t want New York or California or Illinois dummycrats moving here. And look what happened to Colorado. It wasn’t even a state during the first civil war. We are currently in the beginnings of the second civil war but the shooting hasn’t started, yet. Be more specific and call those blue state dummycrats COMMUNIST because that’s what they are.
Just like they had go on in Texas, virginia, colorado and such.. THEY NEVER flee, and LEAVE their libtardism behind…
WITH the violence we saw last year, especially towards conservatives, don’t say “The shooting hasn’t started yet”..
A vote for democrats is a vote to destroy the USA.
The congress ….liars, cheats, and thieves..,.except for a very small portion of the participants
The problem with Socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people’s money.
The several states are intended to be independent “laboratories of democracy”. For the federal government to use “other people’s money” to bail out a fiscally irresponsible state obscures the failure of the policies that got them there.
No surprise that collectivists in DC want to cover the economic failures of collectivist-run states. It’s hard to tout the moral superiority of collectivism when the people living under it are suffering. You can only say “capitalism has failed” so many times, before you have to actually fix something. And the only means collectivists have to fix something is by propping it up with wealth created by a free market somewhere else.
BUT as long as unca govt, can just keep borrowing, or printing, they won’t…
And so it continues just as it has been for 200 years. lincoln’s war of northern aggression was not a war over slavery, it was
a war over the north’s ability to continue to steal from the southern states. The theft continues today. In addition to forcing
the south to allow the theft lincoln also created the all powerful “central government”.
The greatest misconception in all of this is that Pelosi is sending money to aid her district, not true! Pelosi is securing money for a few individuals in her district, as she has always done, assuring kickbacks. This is clearly evidenced with all the money Pelosi has misappropriated from the taxpayers, nation wide, and the fact that her district, San Francisco, California, is now, and has been for decades, the septic tank of the nation! She has done nothing for her district, only panders to their ultra left wing Libtard talking points. She is continually reelected as she owns the election process in San Francisco County, all working at the polls and counting the votes, she never even bothers to campaign!
Clearly, as was proven to the world with the last election, all Democrats have fully embraced the strategy of, “It’s not the people who vote that count.” It’s the people who count the votes. We either populate the polls or we loose every election!
Wonder what that old ugly cement faced hag would do if SF was hit with a super major earthquake and SF sinks to the bottom of the ocean. The stupid ugly old cement faced hag would not longer have a district to “represent?” We can only hope.
I’d cheer the day that happens.. AND TAKE LA with it!
It’s strikingly similar to forcing all tax payers to fund abortions, even if they are strongly opposed to this despicable evil practice. Liberal & incompetent Governors who are totally addicted to out-of-control spending, want those who actually practice common sense fiscal responsibility to bail them out of their irresponsible & childish behavior!!
Will the last person in New York please turn out the lights?
The lights have gone out in Nueva Jork a long time ago.
Even if they turned the lights out, the cockroaches would just stay.
No one, even those who slept through high school economics class, should be dumb enough to support this bill in Congress or to re-elect anyone else who voted for it.
This is economic suicide on steroids.
PITY it already passed…. ERGO yes the dumb ones voted on it.