Tag: taxes

GOP/Democrat COVID-19 Package Bails Out Defense Contractors, Excludes Stimulus Checks for Americans

A COVID-19 relief package, reportedly negotiated between a handful of Senate Republicans and Democrats, includes a bailout for Defense Department contractors while excluding a second round of stimulus checks for Americans.

A draft of the relief package, obtained by The Daily Poster, reveals that the spending bill does not include a plan by Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to provide Americans with $1,200 stimulus checks but does provide a bailout for defense contractors.

Slipped into the package, seemingly on the final 525 pages, is an extension of a CARES Act provision that allows federal agencies to pay taxpayer money to defense contractors who are not working during the Chinese coronavirus crisis.

“There are no direct payments for regular working people, people living off tips,” a congressional aide told Matt Taibbi, an independent journalist. “But they made sure there’s a provision in there to help defense contractors who aren’t working right now. They get what they’re looking for.”

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The French Laundry got more than $2.4M in PPP funding; 17x more than average Bay Area restaurants

The luxury restaurant where Governor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed were notoriously spotted dining during a COVID-19 surge, reportedly received millions in PPP funding.

Yountville’s highly acclaimed French Laundry received multiple loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, totaling more than $2.4 million, according to an ABC7 analysis of newly-released data from the Small Business Administration.

The French Laundry received two loans that were both approved on April 30, 2020. According to the SBA, the first loan was for more than $2.2 million to retain 163 employees. The second loan was for $194,656 to retain five employees.

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Joel Osteen’s Church Received $4.4 Million In PPP Stimulus Payments

Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church received a $4.4 million loan through the Paycheck Protection Program, as part of the federal CARES Act that was intended to be a stimulus to keep businesses and employees afloat while the pandemic kept everyone at home.

Churches were also eligible for the money, and some of the most prestigious churches in the country took advantage of the opportunity.

Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church was not on the initial list of recipients and claimed that they did not apply to receive any money. However, the church later applied and was granted $4.4 million, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Osteen himself is estimated to have a net worth of over $50 million, with his church taking in $43 million a year in collections.

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$130,000 for an 8-foot-by-8-foot shed? That’s what L.A. is paying in a bid to house the homeless

In other cities, 64-square-foot aluminum and composite sheds are being used as quick and inexpensive emergency shelter for homeless people.

Not in Los Angeles. Here, plans to employ the minimalist structures, known as “tiny homes,” have blossomed into expensive development projects with access roads, underground utilities and concrete foundations — and commensurate planning delays.

At the city’s first tiny home village, scheduled to open in January, each of the 39 closet-sized homes is costing $130,000, about 10 times what some other cities are spending. Five more villages are planned to open later.

Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the program in March, signaling that the concept of sheltering people in tiny homes, long neglected in Los Angeles, had emerged as a leading strategy in the city’s response to a federal lawsuit alleging it has done too little to get homeless people off the streets.

He told the court that the city had purchased 50 of the prefab structures as the first installment of a plan to shelter homeless people in villages of tiny homes around the city.

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Here Is What Each Of The Navy’s Ship-Launched Missiles Actually Costs

Many of America’s warships set sail absolutely packed with missiles. A single Ticonderoga class guided-missile cruiser has 122 Mark 41 vertical launch system (VLS) cells, each of which can handle one of a wide array of individual missiles, or four Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSMs). Even America’s carriers are bristling with missile-based point defenses. While the capabilities the Navy’s array of ship-launched missiles provides are fairly well known, at least conceptually, the staggering cost of each of these weapons is not. Now, just as we did with air-launched weapons and decoy flares, we aim to change that. 

The War Zone has collected the latest unit costs of these weapons to give readers a sense of just how much it is spending to arm its fleet. It should be stressed that these are the prices for just the individual weapons and the figures do not factor in any future spending on support services, modifications, upgrades, or past spending on the weapons’ development. 

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