President Joe Biden is touting the recently passed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package as “the most progressive piece of legislation in history,” and most congressional leftists agree that the bill successfully pushes through a number of socialist policies.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., praised the bill as “the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working people in the modern history of this country,” and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, described it as a “truly progressive and bold package that delivers on its promise to put money directly in people’s pockets.”
But the bill does much more than just that.
It also raises taxes on gig workers, fails to reopen public schools, and cuts $36 billion to Medicare.
The legislation also includes an enormous amount of unrelated pork that feeds leftist special interests.
Several Democrats have admitted as much:
“There’s a ton of stuff in here that has nothing to do with COVID, nothing to deal with the emergency at hand,” Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., said. “Some of it’s very good, you know, good stuff, but not at all related to COVID. You know, that’s, that’s being I think, disingenuous to the American people or the Oregonians.”
Rep. Adriana Espaillat, D-N.Y., agreed and called the bill “embarrassing.”
But the progressives pushed back and bragged about stuffing the bill with as much additional spending as they could.
“We take the win,” Jayapal said. “We believe it’s our work that made it as progressive as it is.”
However, not every leftist is thrilled with the bill.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., retweeted a post from one of her Democrat colleagues, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., calling the legislation a waste of time, since the $15 minimum wage increase was removed from it early on.
“What are we doing here?” Watson Coleman wrote. “I’m frankly disgusted with some of my colleagues and question whether I can support this bill.”
