President-elect Joe Biden has been hard at work putting together a new coronavirus relief package to be ready as soon as he is sworn into office and this thing is big. Coming in at a total of $1.9 trillion, this package has more than enough funding to go around to those who need it most.
But of course, Biden’s economic advisor, Brian Deese, had to sneak in a couple of big-ticket items for the Democratic liberal agenda.
Deese said during an interview with “Fox News Sunday” that $1,400 stimulus payments to all Americans, $20 billion for public transit, $9 billion toward cybersecurity, and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour were all necessary to help Americans suffering during the pandemic.
“Let’s look at each of those. The cybersecurity resources there are in the wake of the SolarWinds hack. We have seen, and now understand significant vulnerabilities that are exacerbated by COVID, and the fact so much federal operations are happening online,” said Deese. “We need those resources to secure our systems now.”
Deese did not say how transit funding was connected to the COVID-19 relief, just a short explanation saying, “…our transit systems across the country are facing acute crisis…” and improving them while people are still working remotely will prevent difficulties when people eventually begin commuting again.
As for raising the minimum wage, he said it “is a concrete and direct way to help support those workers who are out there on the front lines right now, providing services to all of us, and give them direct support and a direct boost right now.”
The American taxpayers will be the ones paying for this huge package that is near twice the size of what Republicans would allow for the previous one.