Stimulus check: $1,400 for you, $1,400 a week for federal employees
By: Kelly Sadler (The Washington Times)
President Joe Biden’s coronavirus stimulus package outlines a one-time $1,400 check to families financially affected by the virus.
Yet the fine print in the House stimulus bill sneaks in this fascinating nugget: If you’re a federal employee, you can receive $1,400 a week in paid time off for 15 weeks if you decide to stay at home and virtually school your child.
As first reported by Forbes, the carve-out is included in the bill’s $570 million “Emergency Federal Employee Leave fund,” which is exclusively reserved for federal employees.
Among those eligible are those who are “unable to work” because they are caring for school-aged children not physically in school full time “due to COVID-19 precautions[.]”
The new fund allows a federal employee “caring for a son or daughter” to qualify for the paid leave, specifically “if the school or place of care of the son or daughter has been closed, if the school of such son or daughter requires or makes optional a virtual learning instruction model or requires or makes optional a hybrid of in-person and virtual learning instruction models, or the childcare provider of such son or daughter is unavailable, due to COVID-19 precautions.”
So, let’s get this straight. The Biden administration has issued school reopening guidance that effectively keeps kids at home learning indefinitely. Teachers unions are refusing to go back to in person learning and protesting at every turn. Just Wednesday, Montgomery County, Maryland teachers staged a drive-in, honking their horns in defiance of returning to in-school learning.
Meanwhile, millions of families are trying to balance work with virtual learning and child care — with only a lousy one-time $1,400 check to help compensate them for their efforts. Yet federal government employees will be paid weekly not to work. The entire thing is insane, and another example of how the swamp takes care of its own.
As Forbes notes, the drafting of the federal employee leave fund is intentionally sloppy. It doesn’t include age requirements for the children (meaning federal employees could apply for this leave even if their children are attending college), and it also would allow for government employees to receive the benefit even if their child could be in school five days a week, but the employee chooses a virtual option instead.
The entire House stimulus bill includes no financial reimbursement for working families who have decided to place their children in private schools because their school districts are virtual, even as they continue to pay school taxes. They continue to pay for a service not being rendered — with no exact timeline of when it will be.
Yet the bill does make sure to take care of its own. It’s an outright disgrace.
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This is also buried in the bill?
Paying Federal workers to not complain about keeping their kids home as the Teachers Union refuses to return to work?
Trump and his supporters are off topic.
I'll believe it when I see it in my bank account. I don't trust Pelosi and her minions to do the right and decent things for the American public.
I hear ya on that. My money is on that thing passing before March 14th.
They also didn't mention that the $600 received is taxable, meaning that Married filing Jointly has to pay taxes on the $1,200 they received, and the others (Single, Married filing Separate, Head-of-Household) will have to pay taxes on their $600.00.
Betcha there's nothing to say the "$1,400" is going to be taxable also, eh?
Biden asks "what would you have me cut?"
McConnell asks "I thought this bill was supposed to be about covid relief?"
Crap - just found out from legal buddy that the letter I received today is a scam letter and that the $1,200 is not taxable.
Hmmmmmm
Then there is this:
"Polls show most Americans support the federal COVID-19 relief bill . But if they knew what’s in it, they might feel differently. The bill is an affront to the American ideal of equal treatment under law — and a slap in the face for people who want everyone helped fairly.
Section 1005 of the bill offers “socially disadvantaged” farm owners total debt forgiveness of up to hundreds of thousands of no-strings dollars per farmer. But white men needn’t apply. The bill’s definition of “socially disadvantaged,” drawn from elsewhere in federal law, limits aid to racial groups who faced historic discrimination.
Newly elected Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who proposed the measure, says it will make up for years of discrimination. Sorry, senator, but this is discrimination.
Discrimination likewise mars the bill’s aid to restaurants. It grants restaurant owners up to $5 million per facility to offset losses caused by lockdowns. That’s a lifeline for restaurants barely hanging on.
Here’s the hitch: Only women, veterans and owners of “socially and economically disadvantaged” concerns (again, defined racially elsewhere in federal law) may apply during the program’s first three weeks. Most white males go to the back of the line, even if their needs are more pressing.
Treating white male farmers and restaurant owners like second-class citizens violates the principle that we are all equal under the law, a principle guaranteed by the 14 th Amendment to the US Constitution.
The pandemic is hurting everyone."
It is clear to me that my greatest miscalculation in life is that I did not get a nice government job. Life-Fail.
My fail was not looking for a job that had a pension.
Haha
Don't bet on it. My father always kept telling me go for the pension.
Until his pension was reduced and he was actually in jeopardy of losing it all. My parents had to join a class action law suite to keep dad getting even some of his pension benefits, Dad quit preaching that working for pensions were the answer soon after that. He had worked for 33 years most of which he hated his job.
Luckily I never believe working a job you hated was worth a pension, Instead I always worked at putting my own retirement funding together.
Now retired myself, I don't have to worry about a conglomerate trying to take away my retirement plan, mine is my own and I set it up to be secure.
MY dad also told me to get a government job, his reasoning was "People don't get fired from Government jobs".
I laughed, I think it kinda showed his lack of confidence in me.
He was wrong, on more than one thing !
Here the big thing was a hospital system that could not afford the pensions. Several lawsuits.
Have to agree though. If I hated a job, I left.
Yes sir re bob.
Life is too short to put up with too much Bull Shit, the world's a huge place and I have feet for a reason.
lol
C'mon, i N joy the path of most resistance, but my main question on this bill, would be WHO slipped in these "extras", cause i somehow doubt it was Joe Biden ? !