Echoes of “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” are reverberating. In fact, they’re deafening as we watch the American Rescue Plan Act unfold.
Clarification and context of those infamous 2010 words from Californian Nancy Pelosi, then the U.S. House minority leader, would include that she wanted Obamacare legislation to be understood. She also said, “away from the fog of the controversy,” a part of the quote almost always left out.
For with that bill, there was great misinformation being bandied about. Imagine that, huh? And, too, her words actually related to what she believed were the benefits, rather than the contents.
Decade later, the viral nature of the words arguably remain as solid as President Franklin Roosevelt’s “day of infamy.” The major difference is the clarity from FDR.
The ARPA, as it is commonly known, was pushed by the president earlier this year and passed by Congress. Politicians inside the Beltway pleaded, in January decrying the urgency “to provide $350 billion in emergency funding for state, local, and territorial governments to ensure that they are in a position to keep front line public workers on the job and paid, while also effectively distributing the vaccine, scaling testing, reopening schools, and maintaining other services.”
And in February, from the U.S. House majority leader, Democrat Stenny Hoyer, “The American Rescue Plan will provide crucial funding for state and local governments after a year of record revenue shortfalls and devastating budget cuts.”
Suffice to say, hogwash. It was then, and it is now.
Schools reopening, here anyway, were tied to a power-hungry governor making school boards even more rudderless than pre-COVID.
Vaccinations and testing? What happened to the lines for shots, in part, goes in with the sad commentary that the impoverished realized the government — both presidential administrations, mind you — would print and distribute money to help everyone through the pandemic. Being unemployed mattered, but not because of devastating impact. Laid-off workers, in some cases, made more money and had more incentive to remain without a job. Getting paid to get jabbed wasn’t much different.
Our national supply chain still hasn’t recovered.
Keep government employees paid? In May, not only did Bladen County commissioners not raise property taxes — hey, Stenny, what record revenue shortfall in this poor, internet-challenged Tier 1 county? — but they passed 5 percent raises for all county employees.
The ARPA money — err, urgent ARPA money — doesn’t even have to be obligated until December … of 2024! This is October 2021. Spending deadline is December 2026.
And, most governments haven’t spent much more than a few nickels because attached strings keep changing. Elizabethtown, for example, wants to use some of its money for 112 W. Broad St., where the C.A. Nails building burned more than 18 months ago. Town Manager Dane Rideout says they’re waiting for ARPA clarity.
Good luck. And to us at the Bladen Journal. Our 116 W. Broad St. location sustained smoke damage and awaits the other building’s fix on a shared wall.
The ARPA funds, in some cases, are being returned. It’s just easier, some governments have said.
It would be different if ARPA funds were truly needed. They’re not.
And thinking of creative ways to spend it that have nothing directly to do with COVID-19 are more than just another headache. It’s another step away from acting responsibly with taxpayer money.
Another step, you might echo, into “the fog of the controversy.”
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