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Comment by guru4consulting | Hacker News Reader

I guess this will go down as the biggest heist in the history. It's 1404 pages long and likely co-authored by lobbyists. I'm honestly worried for the future of the country.

Few random things when I glanced:

- $25,000,000 pay raise for Congress

- $35,000,000 for The Kennedy Performing Arts Center

- Howard University gets a $13,000,000

- $500,000,000 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services

- Pandemic relief for aviation workers, $40,000,000,000

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Also very worrisome is the section titled "TEMPORARY BAN ON STOCK BUYBACKS" which prohibits stock buybacks for a paltry 120 days after the end of the Covid-19 emergency period. Clearly tokenism at it's best.

Should have been 4 bullet points:

1) The Federal government should create and fund a National Health Organization for single payer universal healthcare for all citizens.

2) Workers affected by job loss due to covid-19 will receive 1:1 income replacement without affecting benefits for 6 months or until employment is reinstated.

3) The Federal government will assist and fund efforts for all states to complete a shutdown limiting movements and tracking suspected cases of covid-19 during and after complete testing.

4) No Federal money is to be spent on corporate bailouts. Low interest loans are available to those companies in exchange for agreement on how money will be spent.

Complex problems require simple solutions. Even your bullet points are trying to do too much. Creating a single payer system is great, but creating it overnight would be a nightmare. "Affected by job loss due to COVID-19" requires some assessment and oversight. "Agreement on how money will be spent" requires negotiation. All of this takes time, which is also the limiting factor right now.

2 bullet points:

* Everyone gets a check for $X,000

* Unemployment benefits go up 50% for 6 months

Just cut everyone a check now and raise taxes later if you need to. Adjust it for cost of living by state or county if you want to, but don't means test because it'll never be perfect.

Some businesses will fail. Others will borrow at close to 0% to survive the crunch. Let them apply as needed.

It's not perfect, but it's something everyone can understand without all the pork.

It's an indirect form of financial stimulus, though the vehicles they chose are quite odd.

This is to be expected at this point. I do wonder what the exact differences between this draft and the other draft that everyone fussed about.

Never let a good crisis go to waste, I guess.

the deficit was already insane before the crisis arrived. Now, we're gonna be reaching new levels.

The deficit, forget the deficit. That's just a number.

What matters is how money (and the deficit) is allocated as percentages across the economy. And my guess is that this package will further tilt the percentage towards those that shouldn't have a bigger slice. Think Boeing.

Here are two twitter threads (sorry) with more pork-barrelling:

https://twitter.com/rachelbovard/status/1242116258834845710

https://twitter.com/Oilfield_Rando/status/124223296654328217...

This is congress's way of negotiating.

There's a high likelihood that we see a resurgence of COVID-19 this fall right around the same time that the general election is supposed to take place. Not including measures to ensure election integrity would be malpractice on the part of any who cares about the validity of the election.

Also, let's be clear about "pork-barreling" here: Mitch McConnell tried twice to force through a bill that would have included a $500 billion slush-fund to be doled out by the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, with no functional oversight.

But God forbid we get early voting and vote by mail this fall.

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