On January 14, then-President-elect Joe Biden unveiled his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, titled the “American Rescue Plan.” Unsurprisingly, within minutes, members of the so-called “Squad” criticized Biden’s plan as being too small.
As proposed, Biden’s plan includes $1,400 stimulus checks, increased unemployment benefits, subsidies for health care insurance premiums, rental assistance, food aid, a $15 minimum wage, and almost $350 billion to states and local governments.
In other words, Biden’s plan is another multi-trillion spending package that redistributes wealth, breeds government dependence, incentivizes Americans to refuse to return to work, and bails out states and local governments that had long been financially irresponsible.
It will also add another $2 trillion to the national debt.
However, that is not enough for the Squad, which insists that Biden go even bigger.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) apparently forgot that Congress passed $600 payments just a few weeks ago. Regarding the stimulus checks, AOC insisted that, “2,000 means $2,000. $2,000 does not mean $1,400.”
She added, “Unemployment benefits should be retroactive too.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), in agreement with AOC’s call for more wealth redistribution, said, “The American people are struggling to make ends meet and need relief. We must immediately pass $2,000 survival checks.”
Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), an up-and-coming rookie on the Squad, put it succinctly in a tweet, “$1,400 ≠ $2,000.”
The Squad’s less-than-enthusiastic embrace of Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending plan matters because the Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives. Biden needs the support of the Squad to pass his agenda.
Biden and Democratic congressional leaders are in a precarious position. They need the socialists within the Squad to vote for their bills. Given this leverage, the Squad will push hard for their socialistic agenda.
Given the poor state of the U.S. economy, which lost nearly 200,000 jobs in December 2020, the Squad and its progressive allies will use the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to impose policies that would have been anathema just a few years ago, like paying Americans handsomely to not work.
In the short-term, AOC and the Squad will likely succeed in their quest to increase government dependence and wealth distribution.
However, the Squad’s preferred policies and their socialist philosophy are not in sync with the policies and principles that America was founded upon. Moreover, the Squad’s agenda is the antithesis of the economic policies that made America the land of opportunity and vaulted the United States to the most prosperous nation in the history of the world.
In the long-term, the Squad’s socialistic agenda is doomed to fail. Will Americans realize this before it is too late?
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is the editorial director and a research fellow at The Heartland Institute, as well as a researcher and contributing editor at StoppingSocialism.com.
