Bill Maher on the "Build Back Better" Spending

I mean, I say this all the time because the percentage of graft keeps getting higher and higher. Now, we found out recently that something like, oh, I'm going to get the number wrong. Maybe you can look it up on your magic light box. But like 20 percent, I think, of the unemployment checks we passed out during covid were complete fraud. Amir Pittens. The PPP. Yeah. Oh, my God. So many people got arrested for having Lamborghinis and shit. Right. I mean, JK Rowling got money. No, she didn't. Yeah, for her Broadway show. What? Because if she didn't, she'd be living in her car, Joe. She got money from that. That's hilarious. Everybody got money. Tom Brady got... So crazy. Like when you look at some of the percent, like the number to build a house for the homeless in L.A. has risen to $837,000. Amir Pittens, Bill Maher. Amir Pittens from these greedy billionaires out there. You need to tax them all. If I'm complaining about that, again, to your point about a Republican idea, people would say, oh, complaining about government spending money. And my answer is, OK, but is there any number at which point I am not tipped over into the Republican side that I can't complain about money that is just being stolen? Right. I mean, I totally as a good liberal, I totally accept the notion that, as someone once said, you cannot transfer money except with a leaky bucket. I get it. It can't be perfect. But is it 20 percent? Is there no number for which I cannot remonstrate against this? Twenty percent is a low. I mean, it's even higher than that. That was only the unemployment checks. The PPP stuff was even higher. That's where the it's beautiful and brilliant because they attach it to something that's like, look, we need to help these people. We need to help these people. These people are all losing their jobs and their businesses are shut down. We need to provide them with money. And then the grift, the grift, some of it gets it's like, yes. Let's promote and whoever's doing it. California tried to build a railroad. They wanted to build a rail line between L.A. and San Francisco. Made sense. It's a big, long state and cars and blah, blah, good for the environment. And it was when they finally pulled the plug because it just became too ridiculous. It was at two hundred million dollars a mile. Now France, France built a country not unknown to have unions and workers rights. Very big over there in Europe. Right. Workers rights unions. I mean, they're always on strike, always on strike in Europe. And they talk with their hands. OK. So France, again, a very unionized country, did it for like one seventh. That's how bad. One seventh? Yes. Something like that. Which again is something like fifteen million dollars a mile or whatever it was. But I mean, two hundred million dollars a mile. And it was only to finally was only to connect like Bakersfield to, I don't know, Pocoima or something. And they couldn't even do that. Were you in Boston when they were doing the big dig? I was never in Boston. I mean, I played Boston, playing the town, but I've never lived there. But I know of it. I remember 60 Minutes doing a story on it, just the big dig. And they did finally finish it. They did. But it was so late and it was they robbed so much money from it. Oh, exactly. It was that was the whole thing about the corruption involved. Of course. Yeah. And it was really just a short tunnel from the airport. Was it under Logan, one of the few airports in the country that's right next to the city? Yep. Like only like there in Vegas. Do you fly in? Right. And you're like five minutes from downtown. It's awesome. And I think it was not where it was connecting. Yeah, they were trying to lighten up some of that traffic. And they completed it. But it was like I mean, they were doing it when I was there in the 80s. And then they were still doing it when I came back. What year was the big dig completed? I want to say it was like at least 10 years late. Oh, yeah. 2004 they completed. Yeah. Oh, 7. So they were doing it when I lived there. I mean, this look, you know, when I hear about build back better. Okay, look, certainly the country needs to get rebuilt. I mean, the infrastructure is a mess. Yeah. But I'm thinking always like when you give me a number, it's like it just seems like you pulled it out of your ass. You know, it's going to cost 1.5 billion. We know that forever. And it came in right at that round number to rebuild this or something. And are we going over this with a fine tooth? Are we really seeing that? What if we only spent 1.2 billion or trillion? I'm under counting it. What if we only spent 1.2 trillion? What would we be sacrificing? Anything where because so much of that money is going to consultants and just siphoned off by all the pigs at the trough, all snorting this shit up with their big fucking snouts. Yeah. And there's very few people that are saying that. But that's exactly what's happening. That to me is not a Republican idea. Right. It's just common sense.