Covid is Over; Why is Pelosi Still Spending?
After COVID funding was stripped from the $1.5 trillion omnibus last week, Democrat leadership is still trying to figure out a way to pass it as a separate bill. Even though $4.6 trillion remains unspent from the $14 trillion that the federal government has previously allocated, the President requested an additional $22.5 billion. Now, the White House is fuming at House Democrats’ inability to pass it.
Even though Democrats blame Republicans for blocking COVID funding, it was their own members who were the obstructionists. Progressives were upset because of the offsets included in the bill. They would rather raise taxes than cut unnecessary programs to fund their projects. Then, the White House took their side. White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients chastised Congress by saying:
We requested Congress to provide these funds as emergency resources without requiring cuts elsewhere to offset them that would jeopardize them moving forward — as lawmakers have done multiple times on a bipartisan basis under the prior administration. I want to be very clear: Additional funds are necessary in the very near future to avoid disruptions to ongoing Covid response efforts.
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He then threatened “severe consequences” if they don’t get the job done. Those consequences were not elaborated on, but this may be the President’s warning that he will blame them when they lose the majority in November. We all know there is a much larger list of bad policies to pin on Democrats.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wants to vote on part of the COVID funding this week but has not specified which part. However, there is barely an appetite to pass it as it currently stands in the House and no appetite in the Senate. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said to Punchbowl News:
Once we lost it in the House, it was tough to get back. I don’t know if those House members deluded themselves into believing that there was some other path but, I think it’s hard to find an alternative path than the budget.
Besides the unnecessary spending, there is more to the problem that Democrats continue to ignore. The Secret Service has opened more than 900 cases to investigate COVID-related money fraud. They estimate that $100 billion in COVID relief was misappropriated and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Bloomberg reports that only 23% of the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program was allocated to workers. A whopping $87 billion for emergency unemployment funds were misspent and $3.5 billion was given to dead people.
Democrats have been touting their success of “helping the American people” during the pandemic when the money was going to the wrong people due to the lack of proper checks and balances in place. The money that was stolen could have saved taxpayers billions of dollars, but now we are paying the federal government to clean up their own mess. Therefore, Speaker Pelosi and her caucus have no business passing additional funding for COVID relief.
Eagle Forum will keep an eye on any COVID spending bills that come to light in Congress and will send you information on how to take action.
