Our Democrat rulers inspire contempt, but are impressive in one regard. To waste our money on a scale vast enough to create the current rate of inflation requires creativity. Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) is a case in point:
The ARP Act, which Democrats passed in March 2021 without any Republican support, was billed by the Democratic Party as an economic necessity for getting the country through the pandemic.
According to a recent survey, more than one third of American small business owners were delinquent on their rent in October, due to “increasing rent prices, inflation, recessionary fears, high gas prices, supply chain issues, and labor expenses,” all largely consequences of Democrat policy. Meanwhile, this is what the liberal elite regards as economic necessity:
Humanities New York distributed more than $360,000 ARP funds to dozens of organizations, including a $10,000 grant for Urban Word NYC to launch three literary arts fellowships for marginalized youth.
“Marginalized” means palefaces need not apply. Much of the loot has been distributed on a racial basis.
One of the taxpayer-funded fellowships, the Black Girl Magic Fellowship, is a series “for NYC/NJ-based girls and non-binary youth ages 13-19 centered on their development as writers, building their self-esteem, and addressing issues that matter most to them,” according to Urban Word’s website.
The issues that matter most to many of us involve keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table. Our ruling class does not share these priorities.
Humanities New York awarded another $10,000 ARP grant to the National Jazz Museum in Harlem to create a five-part music series about the influence of Islam and Muslims in jazz.
This influence is likely minimal, considering that Mohammad did not approve of music, which consequently has been outlawed under some Muslim regimes. But for $10,000, they should be able to come up with something that will help liberals feel smug.
Humanities New York awarded another $10,000 ARP grant for Roots Wounds Words to create a talk series aimed to provide Black, Indigenous, and people of color storytellers “with opportunities to deepen their literary craft across genres such as creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and more.”
So that’s how Biden got Covid under control.
Other generous grants helped recipients to “explore how racial diversity changed the airline industry,” to create a “cultural sensitivity training” program at the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, and to host a festival devoted to “Native American culture, history, foods and social issues.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities has been wasting ARP money coast to coast:
For example, the NEH awarded the Oral History Association $825,000 in ARP funds for a grant-making project titled, “Diversifying Oral History Practice: A Fellowship Program for Under/Unemployed Oral Historians,” which provided 11 year-long fellowships of $60,000 each for oral historians “from communities which have been historically marginalized in the field,” such as “Indigenous peoples, people of color, people with disabilities, and working class people.”
Much of the loot is not merely flushed away, but spent on corrosive Cultural Marxist propaganda.
The NEH awarded another $499,023 to the University of Montana for multiple programs on racial justice, including a public lecture series on “racial justice, death and Indigenous knowledge.”
The Science History Institute in Philadelphia was awarded $359,097 by the NEH to create a “multiplatform project exploring the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism in American science and medicine.”
This came after the same institution was handed a $1,230,100 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. These are not actually loans but handouts. They were intended to compensate businesses that were coercively shut down in the name of Covid hysteria. Big Government breaks your leg, then hands a crutch you are forced to pay for to someone else.
Another $200,000 in ARP funds went to the Chicago Humanities Festival to create “six humanities programs on racial justice, gender equality, and building an inclusive society.”
The festival had already raked in $778,236 in PPP cash.
If only they would just pile up our money and set it on fire. That would still cause runaway inflation, but it wouldn’t spread the leftist lies that are tearing our country apart.
On a tip from R F.