You may remember the American Rescue Plan, which was designed to help communities recover from the lockdowns.
Fox News recently reported that two of the ten cities considering reparations programs are considering using the ARP funds to support it.
Many municipalities across the United States have proposed various reparations initiatives, and some are now looking to use COVID-19 relief funds to pay for them.
Proponents of the reparations programs argue that the money can be used to reduce disparities when it comes to housing and wealth gaps. For example, Providence, Rhode Island, has already dedicated $10 million in pandemic relief toward creating the Providence Municipal Reparations Commission to address “racial equity” and Shelby County, Tennessee, will vote Tuesday on whether to spend $5 million in pandemic relief money to study the possibility of a longer-term reparations program.
However, not everyone is in favor of using pandemic relief funds for reparations. Critics argue that it is a misuse of federal taxpayer dollars, and some members of Congress have gone so far as to call the idea “outrageous.” They argue that the money should be used for pandemic-related expenses, not for social justice initiatives.
“There are wide disagreements on this topic,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told FOX Business. “To use pandemic spending on something that Congress did not vote for and approve… for localities to say that they’re going to basically repurpose the funds for this, for me, this is outrageous and should not occur.”
According to the Fox News report, the ARP money isn’t even going to get money into the people they are claiming to help.
For example, in Shelby County, Tennessee – including Memphis – officials are voting if they should spend $5 million in pandemic relief money to STUDY the possibility of a long-term reparations program.
In other words, liberals are taking the pandemic money and creating a commission to give their friends full-time jobs to “study” creating a program.
