With his new rent bailout program, embattled California Governor Gavin Newsom has figured out a way to spend $5.2 billion to bail out wealthy property owners while pretending to help the little guy.
“The State of California will use federal ‘COVID relief’ money to pay all of the back rent owed to landlords by qualifying residents during the coronavirus pandemic,” reports Breitbart’s Joel Pollak, “plus electricity and water bills that may have gone unpaid.”
The keyword there is “qualifying.”
How do you “qualify” to have your rent paid by the country’s taxpayers (remember: this is federal bailout money)?
Get this…
“The state’s separate rental relief program would be available to residents who earn no more than 80 percent of the median income in their area and who can show pandemic-related financial hardship,” reports the far-left New York Times. “In San Francisco, a family of four would have to earn less than $146,350 to qualify.”
Write that down… To qualify for free rent, you can earn up to “80 percent of median income.”
In other words, pretty much everyone qualifies to have their rent covered by the taxpayers. For example, you can earn $146,000 in Frisco, where the average rent is $4,000 per month, and still have your rent paid by the taxpayers.
Let’s do the math…
Someone who earns $146,000 a year probably takes home around $8,000 a month after taxes. This means they have $4000 leftover after paying rent, and the taxpayers are still going to pay — what, 15 months’ worth of this deadbeat’s rent?
If you live in Manhattan Beach on a “paltry” $110,00 per year, you qualify.
Not paying rent is so far beyond my comprehension; I can’t imagine it. I’ve been on my own since I was 18 and have lived below the poverty line — which is a very different line from that “80 percent of median income” line — and never missed a rent payment. Never. Rent is first on the list. Number one. Why? You gotta have a place to live!
The idea of spending money on anything before making the rent is something I would never even consider. There were times, at the end of a pay period, where I was so broke I couldn’t afford bus fare and had to walk the three miles to work, but I always-always-always made the rent.
Where did this obscene bailout standard come from? I can certainly understand the government helping out those who lost a job due to the pandemic, such as those in all the service industries closed down by these anti-science lockdowns. Of course, those people should be helped. None of this was their fault.
But under this inane program, you can have your rent paid by taxpayers if the pandemic in no way changed your financial situation. In fact, you qualify if your income doubled during the coronavirus pandemic, as long as you remained under the “80 percent of median income” threshold.
This is the government encouraging bad behavior, which is deliberate — a deliberate attempt to create a dependent class of irresponsible crybabies who think everyone else should pay their way through life.
And who pays for this? Those of us stupid enough to pay our rent.
And all this money is going to wealthy property owners.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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