An imbalance in the $900 billion Congressional COVID-19 relief bill has unplugged the Twitter world, spawning the hashtag, ‘ #LetThemEatCake,’ with notable sarcasm:

$600 is a consolation prize for not dying while elected officials pretend to do their jobs for 9 months. The incompetence of congress is unmatched. #StimulusChecks #600IsNotEnough #LetThemEatCake pic.twitter.com/5XTLbLX3dj

— Sabrina (@tbh_igaf) December 21, 2020

Although I covered some of this imbalance in a post this morning, apparently the whole thing is rife with unnecessary shit — some finer details via The Washington Post this afternoon:

But tucked in the bill was over $110 billion in tax breaks that strayed far from the way the bill was marketed to many Americans.
These giveaways include big tax cuts for liquor producers, the motorsports entertainment sector and manufacturers of electric motorcycles.

These measures, added onto the broader spending bill, are known as “tax extenders” — tax breaks targeted at specific, sometimes niche industries.
And routinely extending these “temporary” measures has become something of a year-end tradition, despite loud complaints from some lawmakers who allege the votes largely benefit special-interest groups who stand to gain financially from the outcome.
…
“They are a gravy train for members and lobbyists, who repeat the same exercise every year or two,” Howard Gleckman, a tax policy expert at the Urban Institute, said in an email.
“The lobbyists get to keep billing hours. The members get campaign money from the same people. Many of these are classic special interest tax breaks that do not benefit the overall economy in any way.”

In all this high-brow lying mess, the mantle lies squareky on MoscowMitch, who in his own shitty way, might be more of a turd than the T-Rump. Remember from April 2019: ‘“If I’m still the majority leader of the Senate after next year, none of those things are going to pass the Senate. They won’t even be voted on. So think of me as the Grim Reaper: the guy who is going to make sure that socialism doesn’t land on the president’s desk.”‘
The Democratic-led House passed a $3 trillion COVID-19 bill ‘last May,’ but then it languished and died on MoscowMitch’s desk.

Now suddenly the shithead wants people to believe Republlicans have a heart, but they’re just pretending — Greg Sargent at The Washington Post this morning writes about the asshole’s reality:

This is what McConnell wants to obscure.
Because as he has privately admitted, the failure of Congress to deliver a robust aid package to people is putting his Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R) and David Perdue (R) at risk.

So McConnell wants voters — especially those in Georgia — to believe Republicans supported generous aid all along, particularly the stimulus checks in the new deal, and that Democrats refused to act to harm President Trump’s reelection campaign.

But the reality is that Democrats were the ones pushing for stimulus checks and robust aid all along, even though it would have helped Trump’s reelection, and McConnell and Republicans were the main obstacles.
…
It’s amusing, then, that now that McConnell has decided after many months that he does need stimulus checks to save his Georgia senators, he is casting Democrats as the obstacle to this.
It’s up-is-downism at its finest.
…
And as the New York Times reports, it came as he “concluded that he needed a deal” to save his Georgia senators, who were “getting hammered” over the failure to deliver stimulus checks.
After opposing this for many months, it’s at this point that McConnell agreed to a deal with them.

The crowning insult here is that Loeffler herself opposed supplemental unemployment payments to “limit government dependency,” despite the fact that her family took millions in farm subsidies.

However it plays, this evening the T-Rump put everything in question by his not-even-two-cents-worth:

pic.twitter.com/v9Rdjz6DNu

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2020

Spare the listening, CNN explains:

“I’m asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2000 or $4000 per couple,” Trump said in a video released on Twitter.
“I’m also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items in this legislation or to send me a suitable bill.”

The extraordinary message came after he largely left negotiations over the measure to lawmakers and his Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Trump did not explicitly threaten to veto the bill, but said he was dissatisfied with its final state.

The statement was filmed by the White House and was not open to the press.
Reporters did not have a chance to ask the President questions.
It’s unclear when the message was recorded.

The shitbird may be playing to Georgia voters, but he’s nowhere that intelligent.

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les Deux Saltimbanques: l’Arlequin et Sa Compagne,’ found here).