Golden State Today

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) criticized President Joe Biden’s “American Rescue Plan,” which contains the stimulus budget for COVID-19 recovery. 

McCarthy posted on Twitter a graphic showing $6.4 billion for 2021 spending and $128.5 billion for 2022-2030 spending, together with the text “Only five percent of the education portion in Biden’s stimulus package will be spent this year.”

This graphic comes with the tweet “Democrats claim they just needed money to reopen schools. But the education money in their massive spending bill wouldn’t be spent for several years. When will they reopen schools?”

McCarthy may be referring to part B of Section 2001 of the Act which says “not less than five percent of such grant to carry out… evidence-based interventions respond to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs and address the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on the student populations.”

A report from Chalkbeat stated that “five percent of the total pot would be sent to states for them to use to help districts implement learning loss programs. That’s a small percent, but amounts to $6.5 billion — a large sum for state education officials.”

The approximately “$130 billion in new, flexible funds for school districts over the next three-and-a-half school years” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “would be the largest-ever one-time federal investment in K-12 education.”