This morning I wrote an initial take on the newly agreed upon (agreed upon by Congressional leadership at least) coronavirus relief package (see Here’s What Happens When Republicans and Democrats ‘Compromise’). I focused on some of the ridiculous, unrelated domestic hand-outs in the bill. Later, Jennifer Oliver O’Connell did another dive into the general terribleness of the legislation because there was just too much wrong with it to cover in one piece (see The COVID Relief Bill is Trash, and Other Things You Already Knew).

Well, as per our usual agreement with Congress, more and more is being discovered in the 5600 page monstrosity, and it gets so much worse. For example, did you know there are big payouts to foreign governments all throughout the bill?

The Stimulus Bill:

The gov't closes the economy. You lose your job. You face eviction.

$600 for all your troubles.

Meanwhile they send:

$135 million to Burma
$85.5 million to Cambodia
$1.4 billion for "Asia Reassurance Initiative Act"
$130 million to Nepal

They hate you. pic.twitter.com/95U2Qt4uNa

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) December 21, 2020

The amount of $ given to foreign governments in this bill is astounding. What a joke. No wonder why no one likes Congress https://t.co/fR7WXz7g6t

— Storm Paglia 🇺🇸 (@storm_paglia) December 21, 2020

I’m not even sure what the “Asia Reassurance Initiative Act” is, but I know we shouldn’t be sending money to it during a pandemic while Americans are going bankrupt due to government shut downs. And obviously, giving $135 million to Nepal and $700 million to Sudan is not going to help your neighbor keep their business open. Congress doesn’t care though. They are going to feed their special interests and high-browed initiatives regardless.

It gets worse, though. Guess who else gets a huge wad of cash? That would be Ukraine, the same country Trump got impeached over for delaying aid to over their own corruption. Yet, now that Trump is on the way out, the same apparatchiks are hard at work again, shoveling taxpayer money at that dumpster fire of a government. They’ve got quite the racket going on, don’t they?

And while I’ve already said it gets worse, it gets even more worse, which I know isn’t proper grammar, but Congress doesn’t deserve proper grammar. Here’s Pakistan receiving millions for gender studies while the bill also sets up an advisory council on “climate security.” Yes, this is real life.

The Covid relief bill also includes $10 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan pic.twitter.com/7kivucCjvY

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 21, 2020

COVID is solved!

Meanwhile, you get a meager $600 check via payments that total only 7% of the total spending in the bill. Almost all the rest goes to special interests, foreign countries (but I repeat myself), and big business. Don’t you feel great about your elected officials?

Trump should veto this piece of garbage, but he won’t. Unfortunately, he’s on board with it because his one major flaw on policy has been spending. On that account, we’ve been failed by both sides over and over.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)