KEY VOTE: “NO” ON THE SMALL BUSINESS COVID RELIEF ACT OF 2022

The Senate will soon vote on the poorly named Small Business COVID Relief Act of 2022 (S. 4008), which will shovel $48 billion dollars worth of corporate bailouts into the economy in the name of “COVID relief.” This includes $40 billion to “backfill” the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, $2 billion for gyms, $2 billion for live event servicers, $2 billion for transportation providers, $1.4 billion for businesses located near ports of entry that were closed due to the pandemic, and $500 million for minor league sports teams.

It is never appropriate for Congress to pass a giant bailout for special interests, but given the state of the economy, it is the last thing that should be considered right now. Americans have been living more than two years with COVID, and the federal government has already spent $6.6 trillion on it—the equivalent of $51,600 per household. This spending spree has been a major driver of the inflation crisis the country currently faces, which continues to serve as a tax that eats into the wages of working Americans. In fact, The Heritage Foundation has calculated that inflation is currently costing the average American household around $8,500 per year. Pouring an additional $48 billion into the economy will only add fuel to the inflation fire.

For the better part of the last two years, Democrat-run states and cities ignored science by forcing their businesses to stay closed and their citizens to stay home. While this was disastrous policy at the time, even the most liberal state and local governments have now opened up.

While it is great to hear the Left acknowledge that there are costs to government restrictions and regulation, the problem that the original COVID aid was supposed to solve no longer exists. Business activity is no longer restricted in any way, meaning that this bill would simply take money from Americans struggling with inflation today and give it to businesses that successfully made it through blue-state lockdowns. There is no doubt that many businesses have been harmed by their state and local policy makers, but the policy makers who made those bad decisions should be the same ones to provide any needed assistance to help their constituents hurt by those decisions.

Now, businesses face a new problem—they can’t find enough workers. According to the latest data, there are currently a record 11.5 million openings, or nearly 2 open jobs for every unemployed person in the United States. Pouring additional money into certain sectors will only exacerbate this problem by sending additional dollars to chase the same number of workers.

The last thing the country needs right now is more no-strings attached cash dumped into politically favored industries and geographic areas, which will only result in higher prices for the rest of the country and further increase the deficit. Republicans have rightly pointed out that Democrats’ reckless spending has been one of the major drivers of the inflation crisis we face, but helping them push almost $50 billion more in spending would undermine that message and make Republicans complicit.