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Rather than a good faith effort to help Americans, Democrats in the U.S. Senate blocked a $2 trillion bipartisan emergency response bill in order to advance their partisan interests by including many provisions entirely unrelated to the Coronavirus.
Nancy Pelosi’s response bill directs funds to unrelated items such as abortion, LGBT, carbon emissions for airlines, and the Kennedy Center. It launches special-interest programs for unions and climate activists, institutes a $15/hour minimum wage and even meddles with the national elections system.
House Democrat Whip James Clyburn said this virus is “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”
Some of the Democrats’ proposals for the Coronavirus emergency response bill include:
Abortion
- Allows fetal tissue research through this bill.
- Funds Planned Parenthood directly – with no end in sight.
LGBT and AIDS
- Gives $300 million to PBS, which was caught manipulating preschoolers to accept the LGBT agenda
- Requires corporate board “diversity” (which likely forces every company to employee LGBT on their board)
- “Financial Literacy Education Commission Emergency Response” which would “place special emphasis on providing an additional set of tools geared towards women, racial and ethnic minorities, veterans, disabled, and LGBTQ+ communities.”
- Sets aside $90 million to fund the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.
Airlines
- Requires all airlines as a requirement to receive assistance to offset carbon emissions for domestic flights by 2025.
- Pays $1 billion in a “cash for clunkers” airplane program where taxpayers buy fuel inefficient planes from airlines who agree to buy new environmental-approved plane.
- Air carriers will have to present passengers with information regarding greenhouse gas emissions resulting from each individual flight by 2023.
Funds for the Kennedy Center
- $35 million earmarked for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts instead of all the other theaters across America.
Federalizing Elections
- Includes 60 pages of federal mandates for elections which include requirements how states must run elections, including the nationalization of ballot harvesting, requiring early voting, same day registration, and no-excuse vote by mail.
- Puts states at risk of costly litigation if they are unable to implement these stringent mandates ahead of the 2020 election.
Business
- Permanent changes to who can serve on corporate boards of directors for companies that receive assistance for payroll and operating costs.
- Mandatory disclosure on supply chain management.
- Requires board “diversity” disclosure for all publicly traded companies.
- Ban on all federal rulemaking including non-COVID 19 proposals (extends 30 days after emergency) in an attempt to delay the current administration from promulgating actions with which House Democrats disagree.
- Blocks landlords from evicting for six months but doesn’t block banks from foreclosing or damaging credit of landlords.
- Gives $35 billion to housing assistance, but no guarantee that money will get to the landlords.
- Enacts $15 minimum wage as a “permanent requirement” on all companies receiving federal aid.
Welfare
- Virtually rewrites SNAP policy with no reference to COVID-19 and permanently disallows rulemaking pertaining to work requirements and eligibility.
- Permanent expansion of Obamacare entitlement, putting the American taxpayer on the hook for endless and unchecked health insurance spending and would remove all incentives for insurers to reduce the cost of health insurance.
Does not include:
- Allowing tax-favored health accounts to be used to purchase OTC products.
- Allowing high deductible health plans with health savings accounts to provide coverage of telehealth services below the deductible.
- Expanding telehealth access for home dialysis patients, hospice and home health patients.
- Preventing a payment reduction for durable medical equipment in order to help patients’ better transition from the hospital to home.
- Empowering NPs and PAs to prescribe home health services for patients.
Education
- Sends $20 million to two D.C. universities, which plays favorites and disadvantages all other universities across the country.
- $10,000 blanket loan forgiveness, punishes those students who worked hard to pay off debt.
Green New Deal Priorities
- Includes expansive brand-new tax-credit for solar and wind energy.
Unions
- Nullifies the White House Executive Orders on federal collective bargaining and codifies taxpayer-funded union official time.
- Requires a labor union representative on every airline’s board of directors.
- Multi-employer pension bailout lacking needed reforms.
- Permanently raises the minimum wage to $15 for any business that receives federal aid for COVID-19.
- Cancels all debt owed by United States Postal Service to the Treasury.
Immigration Provisions
- Requires DHS to automatically extend visas and work authorizations expiring within the next year, including those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status, for an amount of time equal to their prior visa, authorization or status.
- Limits CBPs ability to shutdown processing centers if there is a health crisis on the border and requires CBP to assure the timely adjudication of asylums applications.
- Requires that Byrne JAG funding be distributed based on the FY2016 allocation, which would allow funding to go to sanctuary cities.
