There’s always buried little treasures inside big spending bills, and the new $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package put forth by President-elect Joe Biden contains a number of Democratic agenda items Biden’s team has placed in there.

Biden’s economic adviser Brian Deese appeared on Fox News Sunday and tried to break down what some of the additional items were for.

Included in the bill was $20 billion earmarked for public transit and $9 billion for cybersecurity. “Let’s look at each of those,” Deese said. “The cybersecurity resources there are in the wake of the SolarWinds hack. We have seen, and now understand significant vulnerabilities that are exacerbated by COVID, and the fact that so much federal operations are happening online. We need those resources to secure our systems now.”

Biden campaigned on being a president who would invest in infrastructure, and Deese tied the legitimacy of $20 billion going for public transit as something that will pay off when American’s get back to work and start commuting again when the pandemic dissipates.

Another expenditure tucked into the relief bill is a $15 minimum wage. Reese defended that by saying “it is a concrete and direct way to help support those workers who are out there on the front lines right now, providing services to all of us, and give them direct support and a direct boost right now.”

Additional $1,400 payments for struggling Americans is budgeted for with the bill as well, something that Reese said has support from Republicans and Democrats.

Add comment