Playing Santa is a year-round gig for federal lawmakers and so is the regifting by local government.
Illinois’ public and private sectors have already received over $191 billion in “pandemic relief” with more than $4 billion yet to come, according to the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget, which tracks that spending by state.
And now Congress has loosened some strings on how that money can be spent and included at least $15 billion of earmarks for pet projects in the new, $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill.
Announcements come at least weekly from the State of Illinois for new spending made possible, directly or indirectly, by federal money.
For example, earlier this month $350 million was announced for the state to play lender, venture capital investor and “Climate Finance Bank” for small businesses. The money will come from the ARPA, the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
That particular kind of spending is like a bad rash that always comes back. Politicians like playing the role of innovative investors, but their programs rarely work. It’s among the first topics we wrote about regularly here at Wirepoints, as here from eight years ago.
Also this month, the state announced $37 million for five innovation hubs. That money actually is coming from the state’s Rebuild Illinois Capital program, which supposedly was for infrastructure, and was financed by regressive new or higher taxes on things like parking garages, vehicle titles and gasoline taxes (which will increase again on January 1). But wait, there’s also $500 million for innovation hubs in the new federal $1.7 trillion plan that came to light last week. Whatever.
At least Congress is starting to drop the pretense of ARPA money being “pandemic relief” and directly authorizing that it’s in fact part of a movement toward mass federalization — bailing out failing states and neutralizing competitive ones. The new spending plan amends ARPA to loosen a previous requirement that ARPA money not be used simply to swap out federal money for state money in existing state and local spending programs.
Our lawmakers are quite proud of all the cash being handed out. Here’s Senator Dick Durbin’s glitzy video on Twitter boasting about the new earmarks coming to Illinois in the new spending plan.
The video says Illinois earmarks total $182 million but other reports say they total $560 million. Oops. Then again, you can’t blame Durbin for not knowing what all is in the 4,000-page bill. Nobody does.
In all, the new omnibus spending bill includes an estimated 7,200 earmarks costing $15 billion for lawmakers around the country to dazzle their voters with.
You gotta love this headline we posted this week: “Most of Illinoisans received income, property tax rebates thanks to Illinois Senate Democrats.” Who wrote that? Why, Illinois Senate Democrats, of course. They figure you should be happy with the money they kicked back, just before the election, though it was at most a couple hundred bucks out of the thousands they take annually from most taxpayers and was enabled by federal largesse.
All this is inflationary, of course. Ignore politicians who blame inflation on high oil prices caused by the Ukraine war. Oil prices have been below pre-war levels since August.
Don’t be too partisan about this, however. Many Congressional Republicans voted for most of the federal “pandemic relief. Eighteen Republican Senator and nine House members voted along with all but two Democratic House members to pass the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that’s now going to President Biden for signature.
It’s safe to assume the spenders figure their voters are like kids on Christmas morning thrilled by gifts. They’re free, right, kids? Thanks, Santa.
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