‘This bill … shouldn’t be stuffed full of Nancy Pelosi’s pork…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Congress’s $2-trillion relief package, which the House passed on Friday, includes several provisions that have little to do with the coronavirus.
One such provision allocates $11 billion to three international development groups: the African Development Fund (AFD), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the International Development Association (IDA).
The ADF and AfDB are organizations that deal with poverty in Africa, which means they have absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. or the coronavirus. And the IDA is a subsidiary of the World Bank that doles out funding to Third-World countries, according to Fox News.
But under the relief package, the AfDB will receive more than $7 billion, the ADF will receive $513 million, and the IDA will receive more than $3 billion.
These kinds of irrelevant, unnecessary expenses led Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to attempt, unsuccessfully, to force a roll-call vote on the stimulus package.
(1/11)I swore an oath to uphold the constitution, and I take that oath seriously.
In a few moments I will request a vote on the CARES Act which means members of Congress will vote on it by pushing “yes” or “no” or “present.”
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 27, 2020
“This bill … shouldn’t be stuffed full of Nancy Pelosi’s pork—including $25 million for the Kennedy Center, grants,” Massie said in a statement. “For the National Endowment for the Humanities and Arts, and millions more other measures that have no direct relation to the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
The inclusion of funds for international organization is a result of the Center for Global Development’s plea for additional funding, according to Fox News. The concern is that the coronavirus could surge worldwide if poorer countries are not given the resources to prevent its spread right now.
“[T]o put it bluntly, the United States will not be safe from this pandemic until the world is safe from this pandemic—without widespread access to a vaccine or countermeasures, cases rebound quickly when quarantines are lifted as has been shown in Singapore and Hong Kong this week,” the CGD said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.