#Dem bill spreads wealth upward and other commentary

From the left: Dem Bill Spreads Wealth Upward

The Democrats’ relief bill, warns Karl Polzer at the Washington Examiner, “would send billions of dollars to people who don’t need the money,” while potentially shortchanging those who need it for food and rent. That’s because it sends rebates to “all but the very highest earners”: About 26 percent would go to those in the $100,000 to $500,000 income range, and “somehow, more than 2.6 million folks making more than $500,000 would end up getting some cash” too — a sure “waste of money.” Such numbers “do not indicate a high-water mark for liberal policymaking.” Besides, if stimulus is the goal, who’s more likely to spend, rather than save, their “windfall” — the 12.5 million making less than $10,000 a year or the 14.4 million making between $200,000 and $500,000?

Conservative: Joe’s Garbled Cultural Marxism

“Whoever has been feeding [the new president] executive orders and dictating phrases into his earpiece has realized that Biden has no filters at all,” snarks Peter Wood at Spectator USA. “The best proof of that is his declaration: ‘I’m rescinding the previous administration’s harmful ban on diversity and sensitivity training and abolish [sic] the offensive, counterfactual 1776 commission. Unity and healing must begin with understanding and truth, not ignorance and lies.’ ” Scratch behind his garbled speech, and the conclusion is clear: Biden “just put his office in support of critical race theory, that offshoot of Frankfurt School Marxism.” Yet Biden himself “probably has little idea what that ‘theory’ is. He knows it has something to do with ‘race,’ and that’s enough.”

From the right: Biden’s No Moderate

“So much for Joe Biden, moderate,” snarks Merrill Matthews at The Hill. The new prez “wasted no time releasing a flurry of executive orders and legislative proposals,” but they will harm “his effort to create jobs, grow the economy and promote equity.” He is “pushing a $15/hour federal minimum wage, more than twice the current rate.” Thousands of businesses, “already struggling to stay solvent,” will die. Biden’s “virtue-signaling” order to cancel the Keystone pipeline will prove “very costly” to jobs and the environment, as rail supplants pipeline. And his order “guaranteeing that biological males can compete with females may be the GOP’s best chance” of winning back” suburban women.

Spook watch: Slap on the Wrist for FBI Abuse

Ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith “admitted to falsifying evidence submitted to the court for a warrant to spy on onetime Trump foreign-policy adviser Carter Page,” notes The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, yet “federal Judge James Boasberg spared Mr. Clinesmith prison in favor of 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service.” That’s a disgrace, and it will “fuel cynicism about two-tiered justice. While [Trump aide] George Papadopoulos served time in prison for making false statements to the FBI, and a federal judge refused to drop charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn after the Justice Department said they had no basis, a top law-enforcement official who abused his police powers while operating in secrecy escapes with probation. . . . With his lenient sentencing, Judge Boasberg has sent a message that FBI agents who deceive the court can get off with a slap on the wrist when they are caught.”

Education beat: No School, No Choice for the Poor

If the “lockdowns of public schools across the country” have taught parents anything, it’s that they “have a choice,” John Kass writes at The Chicago Tribune. “Many parents aren’t thrilled with the remote education their children receive,” and they also notice that those “with means — Democrats and Republicans — are” sending their kids to private schools, “while the teachers unions to whom they answer keep the public schools closed.” It’s obvious who’s left behind: “black and brown children and low-income white children stuck in substandard, urban public-school systems that serve the power interest of the unions and Democratic politicians, but not the kids.” If President Biden and other Democrats actually believed in “equity,” they would be pushing hard for school choice. 

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board