To: Republican Study Committee members
From: Chairman Jim Banks
Date: February 16, 2021
Subject: Democrats’ Secret Spending
MEMO
Democrats have been hoping the public’s attention has been occupied watching a made for TV show
trial of the former president in the Senate, because they’ve been trying to quietly load up a $1.9 trillion
budget reconciliation bill with special interest pork and other liberal goodies.
The RSC isn’t letting them get away with this. That’s why we’ve put together the following document
listing all the left-wing items Democrats are hoping the public won’t find about...
Please help us share this fact sheet with EVERYONE you can so the American people know EXACTLY
how their tax dollars are being spent.
Job Killing
• New federally mandated minimum wage would result in 1.4 million jobs lost, with younger
Americans with less formal education being hardest hit.
• Unemployment benefits would come with a weekly $400 bonus on top of regular payments,
and last for up to nearly a year and a half. Under this plan, 53 percent of Americans would
get effectively receive a raise for being unemployed.
• Creates a program that through September 2021 that would pay 85% of a person’s COBRA
premiums when they leave a job, including by quitting. Subsidies would come in the form of
an advance refundable payroll tax credit.
Pro-Abortion
• Democrats blocked an amendment with Hyde language that would ensure that federal
benefits used to pay for COBRA health insurance premiums are not used to provide abortion
services.
• Maintains ability for Planned Parenthood to receive PPP funds.
Promotes Illegal Immigration
• Stimulus checks could go to families where a parent is an illegal immigrant.
• Allows subsidies paying for 85 percent of COBRA premiums to go to illegal immigrants.
Keeping Schools Closed
• Provides $130 billion on top of the $110 billion already given to schools, even if they remain
closed. Students, in particular at-risk and low-income students, face lifelong consequences
of these closures.
• Unconscionably gives labor unions—including those teachers unions fighting against school
reopening—access to PPP funding worth up to $10 million per union.
• Provides no opportunities for families to receive education funding intended for a student, if
the student is not being served by their school districts.
Soft on China
• Allows funding to go to colleges that have partnerships with companies that are owned or controlled by communist China. Democrats rejected a GOP amendment to fix this.
• Allows funding to go to colleges and universities that have partnerships with Confucius Institutes.
Budget-busting Spending
• Over $1 trillion remains unspent while Democrats push Biden’s $1.9 trillion budget-buster.
• Provides an additional $1.5 billion to Amtrak, which is already sitting on roughly $1 billion of unspent aid.
• Provides $30 Billion for transit grants, available through FY 2024, of which $26 billion (87%)
would go to urban area transit entities. This almost three times the total annual outlays through
the FTA.
• $8 billion in operating expense, debt payments, and development projects aid to largely urban
airports, available through FY 2024.
• Provides a $350 billion bailout for state and local governments despite limited declines in overall
revenue last year. Such funding effectively subsidizes unwarranted shutdowns that kills businesses and livelihoods.
• $3 billion in aid to supplement payroll costs for certain U.S. aircraft manufacturers.
• Democrats on the Education & Labor committee blocked an amendment that would have required agency Inspector Generals to audit and report on the use of COVID-19 funds.
• Congress provided $150 billion to the Coronavirus Relief Fund for state and local governments
to cover pandemic-related expenses. It is unclear how much of the funds have been spent so far
and whether the funds used met the letter of the law.
Misplaced Assistance
• Eliminates income limits that prevent wealthy people from qualifying for the Obamacare premium subsidies.
• Crowds out small businesses with the most need for additional PPP funding by expanding eligibility to large, affiliated nonprofits, labor unions, country clubs, fraternities and sororities and
publicly-traded internet news organizations.
• “Stimulus checks” that would give up to $1,400 per taxpayer and per dependent that would give
money to some married couples with up to $200,000 in annual income.
• Would nearly triple, to $10,000, the amount of annual investment income that a taxpayer can
have and still qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
• Would increase federal subsidies through the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, especially
for high income earners. Specifically, this provision would move the beginning of the phaseout
for this credit from $15,000 to $125,000.
Left’s Social Justice Agenda
• Provides $50 million in funding for EPA environmental justice grants, a thinly-veiled kickback to
leftist environmental groups.
• Extends PPP funds to violent criminals, including those guilty of assault on a police officer and
nonconsensual sexual crimes.
• Expands Medicaid eligibility, for five years, to incarcerated individuals 30 days prior to their release.
• Prioritizes funding based on identity politics while ignoring rural businesses and communities.
• Gives billions in subsidies and loan forgiveness worth 120% of debt to farmers and ranchers on
the basis of race and ethnicity.
• Gives $800 million in additional foreign food aid
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