I sent this letter to my congresscritter, French Hill, and my two senators Boozman and Cotton, in response to their votes on this unbelievably bad legislation. The text was adjusted accordingly.
Actually, I can't confirm that Hill voted for it since the bill has bounced back and forth a number of times between the House and Senate, but as the letter states, I have to assume he voted for it.
Boozman and Cotton have NO excuse. They voted for this pile of stinking offal and they need to pay the political price for it.
I laughed out loud when I read that the recent travesty of legislation that has been called by some pundits as the Covid "Porkulus" bill was released online at 2 PM this past Monday. Some of your colleagues in the House and Senate were expected to vote on this "legislation" later the same evening. A bill that comprises almost 5,600 pages of garbage has to be very difficult to read and understand by everyone save possibly Evelyn Wood of speed reading fame. Even she would have trouble, seems to me.
How is it Congress operates that way and why? This is a mockery of the legislative process, isn't it? This bill was initially introduced by Henry Cuellar and it had little to do with either the pandemic or running of the government, until someone decided to bundle all this garbage together in order to ram it down the taxpayer's throat.
So far, I have not been able to determine which congressmen specifically voted for this pile of garbage, but since the vote in the House was 359-53 in favor of it (the Covid Porkulus bill along with five others that were altogether bundled with the yet-another-travesty Omnibus Pork package totaling some $1.2 trillion), I have to assume you voted for it. Six senators voted against it, to which I can conclude that at least there are some senators who understand the term "fiscal responsibility." Hopefully, you are one of the 53 congressmen who also voted against it, but I somehow doubt it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I found this level of detail interesting:
“This bill contains $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia. $134 million to Burma. $1.3 billion for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment,” the president said.
“$25 million for democracy and gender programs in Pakistan. $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.”
'Shifting to the domestic side of the spending, Trump called out “$40 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which is not even open for business. $1 billion for the Smithsonian,” which was first reported here at PJ Media, “and an additional $154 million for the National Gallery of Art,” which he noted are also not open.
“The bill also allows stimulus checks for the family members of illegal aliens,” the president said, “allowing them to get up to $1,800 each. This is far more than the Americans are given.”
...as reported by PJMedia quoting President Trump.
It's little wonder that Congress is the laughingstock of the world. With ridiculous and insane levels of spending like this for special interests and other countries, it's comical how Congress can even begin to justify its actions.
Just call me a disgruntled constituent who finds this bill reprehensible on its face. I will find out who in the House voted on this pile of garbage and will adjust my voting accordingly.
Yes, I know that the political elite class pays lip service to hearing from constituents and then acting on it, but I'm hopeful anyway. It's possible that tens of thousands of Arkansans have flooded their email systems and then broke it.
Nah, I don't think so either.