Free Republic

For months, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has been saying that $5.6 billion in additional federal funds through the Biden administration’s stimulus program won’t come close to addressing all of the state’s road and bridge needs. Now, a national online research organization agrees, at least on money for needed bridge work. InMyArea Research released a report last week that claims the $26.2 billion in stimulus funds for bridges nationwide over the next five years falls an estimated $7.3 billion short of the amount needed just to upgrade bridges rated in poor condition. Pennsylvania’s allocation of $1.63 billion for bridges is...

Democrats are readying a full court press to sell President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure package to voters and protect their most vulnerable members in next year’s midterms. On Tuesday, Biden participated in a virtual grassroots event with Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison where the two discussed infrastructure legislation. The committee projected images highlighting the infrastructure plan on a hotel in downtown Baltimore ahead of Biden’s visit to the Port of Baltimore on Wednesday. State parties are also getting in on the action, promoting the package and targeting Republicans who voted against it. Wisconsin’s Democratic Party and the state’s labor leaders...

As the Biden White House and Congress’ radical progressives continue their efforts to reach an agreement with Capitol Hill moderates and conservatives on their proposed $1.75 trillion social spending bill, it’s becoming more apparent than ever that their pie-in-the-sky agenda is anything but fiscally responsible. And that’s putting it very gently, believe you me. On Thursday, the White House released its final version of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending plan, which includes billions in funding for universal preschool, child care, public housing and climate initiatives and pins it all on the wealthy to — say it with me...

The $715 billion infrastructure bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month includes a $6,550,000 earmark aimed at stopping people from committing suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, which is in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district. […] “The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District is in the process of constructing a Suicide Deterrent Net System (SDNS) to deter suicides at the Bridge by placing a physical barrier between a person and the water below,” it says. “The SDNS consists of marine grade stainless steel netting attached to structural steel net supports placed 20 feet...

The $715-billion infrastructure bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month includes a $2,400,000 earmark for that is called the “Riverside Drive Pedestrian Mall” in New York, New York. The money was request by Rep. Jerrold Nadler in whose Manhattan-based district the money would be spent. Section 107 of the bill is entitled “Member Designated Project Authorizations.” It says: “The amount listed for each member designated project in the table…shall be available…for fiscal year 2022 to carry out each project.” The 1052nd project listed in this section of the bill is called the “Riverside Drive Pedestrian Mall.”...

Major American business groups have lined up against President Joe Biden's $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan – even after many of them got behind his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief effort. The opposition signals the headwinds the White House is up against promoting a package the Biden is designating as the next big push of his agenda, and one that he said Friday would create 19 million jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce went after the plan as 'dangerously misguided.'

* Joe Biden's economic advisors are drafting a proposal to recommend up to $3 trillion more spending, a person familiar confirmed to Insider. * The New York Times first reported the White House could split its colossal infrastructure plan in two. * The first part would focus on infrastructure and climate. The second may set up universal pre-K. President Joe Biden's economic advisors are expected to present a proposal that includes up to $3 trillion in new spending aimed at boosting the economy and fighting climate change through separate legislative pieces instead of a single colossal bill. A person familiar...

President Biden is reportedly planning the first major hike in federal taxes in almost 30 years to fund the economic program set to follow the recently approved $1.9 trillion pandemic stimulus package. Unidentified sources told Bloomberg that the increases will reflect the promises Biden made during his 2020 campaign. The planned increases reportedly include: raising the corporate tax from 21 percent to 28 percent; increasing the income tax rate on people making more than $400,000; expanding the estate tax; paring back tax preferences on pass-through businesses such as limited-liability companies; and setting up a higher capital gains tax rate for...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday she has directed key Democratic lawmakers to work with Republicans on drafting the next big legislative push from Congress—the much-anticipated infrastructure package. Pelosi said it would be “big, bold, and transformational” but it is also drawing scrutiny on how it will be paid for.

Joe Biden reflected recently on the last time a Democratic administration had to rescue an economy left in tatters by a Republican president. “The economists told us we literally saved America from a depression,” Biden told the House Democratic Caucus last week. “But we didn’t adequately explain what we had done. Barack was so modest; he didn’t want to take, as he said, a ‘victory lap’. I kept saying, ‘Tell people what we did.’ He said, ‘We don’t have time. I’m not going to take a victory lap.’ And we paid a price for it, ironically, for that humility.” The...

Republicans have criticized Democrats for continuing to push their pandemic stimulus package while accepting little to no Republican input. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Wednesday out of 286 amendments proposed by Republicans for the $1.9 trillion spending package, only two were accepted. “Republicans offered 286 amendments to President Biden’s massive $1.9 TRILLION spending blowout. Democrats accepted 2 of them. So much for Biden’s calls for ‘unity,'” McCarthy said in a statement. On Feb. 19, Democrats unveiled the full text of a 591-page bill (pdf) titled the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.” House Republicans held a press conference...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is criticizing President-elect Biden's new coronavirus relief, arguing that it doesn't go far enough to help people in need during the pandemic. Biden's stimulus plan, which includes the increased payments, would cost $1.9 trillion. According to The Washington Post, most people would end up with a total of $2,000 in stimulus, including $600 checks dispensed in recent legislation. But that wasn't enough for Ocasio-Cortez, who appeared to want the latest checks to reach $2,000 as she and others have repeatedly requested. "$2,000 means $2,000. $2,000 does not mean $1,400,″ she told the Post.

In his latest report on federal government waste, a project he completes every year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) highlights $54.7 billion in government spending that he deems wasteful. Among the items noted this year is the creation of a $6.9 million “smart toilet,” which operates with three cameras, one of which can identify a user’s “analprint.” As explained in The Festivus Report 2020, researchers at Stanford University used $6,973,057 in funds granted through the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create a so-called “smart toilet.” The purpose of the toilet is to...

President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday pressed President Trump to immediately sign a COVID-19 relief bill that is stuck in limbo, blasting what he deemed Trump's "abdication of responsibility." Biden noted that the bill contains provisions for small businesses and extended unemployment benefits, as well as stimulus checks, and could help struggling families as they come up against the pandemic's economic fallout during the holiday season. "It is the day after Christmas, and millions of families don't know if they'll be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump's refusal to sign an economic relief bill approved by Congress...

The roughly $900 billion stimulus package is on its way to President Donald Trump for his signature, though it’s unclear whether he will sign the bill that would deliver aid to Americans, mutliple news outlets reported on Thursday. The massive 5,593-page bill, which includes the $1.4 trillion omnibus, is being flown on the plane to Florida, where Trump is staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort for Christmas...

President Trump reads the list of items Congress put in the COVID "relief" bill. He is ticked. Says Americans and small businesses should be getting the $$$.

In a Wednesday statement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she supports a $908 billion economic relief measure presented by a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Tuesday. The bipartisan bill is roughly half the amount offered by the White House during negotiations with Pelosi before the election. In October, President Donald Trump's negotiators raised their compromise offer to $1.8 trillion after House Democrats had approved a $2.2 trillion package. But Pelosi opposed the White House compromise, arguing that it did not go far enough and that the language regarding the government health care response to...

The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades. The Black Lives Matter movement claims that only whites can be racists. And while justifying violence to achieve “social justice,” the movement’s goal is to overthrow our society to replace it with a Marxist one. Many members of the black community would be shocked to learn that the intellectual godfathers of this movement are mostly white Communists, “queers”...

The latest economic stimulus package narrowly passed by the House on Friday was a tiptoeing act for Democratic leadership, not because they tried to craft a $3 trillion piece of bipartisan legislation - neither Republicans nor the White House were consulted - but because they struggled to get members of their own party on board. As a result of the inability to appease the entire caucus, some moderate and liberal Democrats crossed the aisle to join Republicans to vote against the proposal that includes another round of stimulus checks, state and local aid, an expansion of unemployed benefits and rent...