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January 10, 2022

Biden team says $5T in COVID relief not enough. So, where did it all go?

Liz Peek Articles

Are they kidding?

The Washington Post reports that the Joe Biden White House will soon ask Congress for even more money to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

More money, that is, than the $5.4 trillion already allocated by Congress via six separate pieces of legislation over the past 24 months, an unprecedented and dangerous sum that is spurring inflation and keeping people from going back to work.

A sum greater than what was spent fighting World War II or the Great Depression that somehow, according to Biden officials, has failed to adequately provide for COVID testing and remedies.

This has to be the most inept and irresponsible White House in history. Not only are they spending us into a deep, dark hole, but they have failed to make intelligent use of the gargantuan amount of funds set aside to address the pandemic, our country’s most critical problem.

When Republicans refused to go along with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) in March, it was not because they had suddenly become fiscal watchdogs. It was because they were outraged that the gigantic spending plan funneled very little money to the exact problems the White House is now scrambling to fix.

Critics described the Rescue Plan as a grab-bag of progressive programs that had little to do with the pandemic and all to do with paying off Democrat-aligned groups like the teachers unions.

The only people being “rescued” were Democrat legislators who faced losing their jobs as far-left ideologues like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., took control of their party.

Recently, as Americans waited in hours-long lines for COVID tests, inflation hit 40-year highs, and the White House appeared totally unprepared to deal with the omicron surge, people have demanded to know: where did all the money go?

After all, the country has run short of COVID tests even though some $79 billion – more than the entire GDP of Kenya – was allocated to developing and distributing such tests. Tests, it must be said, that candidate Joe Biden put at the heart of his promise to “shut down the virus” in 2020.

People are also asking what happened to the $263 billion allocated to schools over the past two years – the same schools that now say they need even more funding to reopen after the Christmas break.

Here is the shocking truth: according to the website of a government oversight group set up under the 2020 American Cares Act, a mere $351.4 billion of the $5.4 trillion authorized by Congress to fight the pandemic, or less than one dollar in 10, was directed to health care.

Even more appalling: the government has only spent $192 billion of the roughly $303 billion directed to health care, including testing, leaving $111 billion.

In addition to those funds, Congress allocated $114 billion to FEMA’s disaster relief fund, tasking that agency with battling a health care crisis for the first time. Of that total, nearly $70 billion remains unspent. Why can’t the White House use those funds for testing?

What happened to the rest of the money approved by Congress? A whopping $844 billion was sent out as direct relief to Americans – all spent. A further $827 billion was directed to businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program, an effort to keep people employed and small firms afloat.

Another budget-busting slice of the pie, $674.3 billion, went to state and local governments. The Rescue Plan included $350 billion, which went to shore up failing (mostly) blue cities and states. The funds were allocated based on an unemployment formula that effectively rewarded local authorities for failing to keep businesses open and workers employed.

It turned out that most local authorities did not need the money. Because the economy recovered more quickly than expected, tax revenues came in above estimates. According to the Tax Foundation, “states have only seen revenue declines of $2 billion, making the state aid component 116 times overall losses.”

Numerous cities and states ended up posting budget surpluses; surely, they could chip in to buy some tests and therapeutics.

In an October report on its oversight of relief funds, the GAO noted that Treasury had failed to set up adequate monitoring of the monies doled out to cities and states. What a shock.

One of the biggest recipients of funding in the various COVID relief bills has been our schools. Taxpayers probably assume that the $263 billion allocated to education was meant to prepare schools for reopening as the virus abated or for helping kids who fell behind as their classes went remote. They would be wrong.

There was no language in the Rescue Act, which contained the latest slug of money, that demanded any such planning or indeed any such commitment.

The funds were available to be used for any purpose chosen by local authorities; only $60 billion of that $263 billion has been spent. Not only was the use of funds left purposefully vague, but the monies were available through 2025.

Most schools across the nation reopened this past fall and did so without using much of that money. Reporting is sketchy, but some school districts spent their funds on non-COVID related ventures like new football fields and weight rooms instead of addressing learning loss. Other districts, including New York City and Los Angeles, categorized their outlays as “other” rather than get into the pesky details of their programs.

It was never going to be easy shoveling $5 trillion out the door. Such large-scale federal spending inevitably leads to massive waste and fraud, like the estimated $100 billion that has reportedly been stolen from the Paycheck Protection Program.

But before any new monies are allocated by Congress, taxpayers deserve to know where the money has gone and how the remaining funds might be reallocated to tests and therapeutics, for instance.

Voters must insist: no more blank checks for the incompetent Joe Biden White House.

 

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-team-5-trillion-covid-relief-more-liz-peek

Published on Fox News

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Repeat: @jakejsullivan was all in on #RussiagateHoax- how can a partisan liar be National Security Advisor?

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Liz Peek

6 months ago

Liz Peek

Are you better off than you were 2 years ago?
www.foxnews.com/opinion/inflation-hurting-americans-biden-bill-worse-liz-peek
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Inflation already hurting Americans, and Biden's Build Back Better will make things even worse

Are you better off than you were two years ago? That’s what Republicans will ask voters a year from now.

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Inflation is worldwide and COVID induced.

3/7

Swamp Think

Peek's article posted today on the Fox News website did not mention one word about President Trump's accomplishment of not only leading the way to American Energy Independence but for the country to become net exporters of the energy we and our allies could really use now.

Under President Trump, oil was in the low 40s (while on the same page, oil traders are now predicting as high as $200/barrel this month!), gas in our tanks cost below two bucks, inflation was under two percent and gas station attendant Putin with an economy about the size of Italy's and who is totally dependent on the price of energy was placed in an economic cage… by President Trump.

Instead Peek gives credit to media Saint Obama for his "all the above" strategy which consistent with how he operated was all campaign talk with ZERO follow through.

Does Peek not remember that Saint Obama's response to Putin invading Crimea was to send blankets.

If you want a quick read on Swamp Think, check in with Fox News.

From the Murdoch boys and Paul Ryan on down, no one is pushing the self-serving, elite globalists agenda of running the world as their personal piggy bank harder than Fox News.

And how are the globalists doing at managing world affairs?

No Trump, No Trump Doctrine

There's a growing rumble, by the minute, from people all over the planet who are suddenly missing Trump's policies, not necessarily Trump.

First, Trump's policies, domestic and foreign, were clear and common-sense driven which is anathema to the Swamp control freaks who thrive on complication and confusion to mask their real agendas and who they're really working for.

Second, the hypocrites who are now lamenting Trump's policies are the same, domestic and foreign, who fought Trump every inch of the way to prevent the implementation of policies that clearly worked.

Third, without Trump the fighter, no Trump policies would have ever seen the light of day.

And without what is now collectively the Trump Doctrine, what clear metric would we have to truly understand the depth and devastation of the Biden/Swamp debacle?

Don't you know that the global supply chain story is done on purpose for there to be empty shelves at the grocery stores and what not to screw with the public. This is done by the world economic Forum with the likes of Klaus Schwab Bill Gates and George Soros and their ilk

YOU are the delusional personality, dear. Sticking it against the US to please 🖕trump and putin. Disgusting anti American.

Maybe Liz you would support some immigration reform , you bitch about not having enough servers in your entitled selfish world , oh and you are against mask wearing too , how trumpian of you, the pandemic is all a hoax to you , just dont get sick out there might not be any hospital beds for you . The drs and nurses are sick and tired of taking care of anti mask anti vax selfish repubs Go claim your Darwin Award .

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Liz Peek

6 months ago

Liz Peek

Progressives got hammered on Election Day- but that was only the latest big defeat. What does this mean for Dems? Can Joe pivot? (spoiler-probably not)
www.foxnews.com/opinion/progressive-drubbing-biden-pivot-changing-guard-liz-peek
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Liz Peek: Progressives' drubbing opens door to (unlikely) Biden pivot, changing of the guard

They may not know it yet, but the ultra-liberal cabal that has choked Democrat politics and humiliated spineless party leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has lost its mojo.

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Liz have you not heard latest on the “russia collusion” “steele dossier” Fiona Hill???
Or are you a typical msm reporter?

Liz Peek

7 months ago

Liz Peek

Joe Biden wanted to be an historic president- and he has done that. Worst ratings slide of any president since WWII.
He (or whoever is running WH) doesn’t care about voters’ top issues – instead Team Biden obsessing about climate change, gender and race.
No wonder he’s in trouble!
www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-polls-ignoring-voter-concerns-liz-peek
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Liz Peek: Biden vs. Americans – his priorities, like climate change, ignore top worries of most voters

Voters are worried about inflation, jobs, crime, education and our open border, while the Biden White House is laser-focused on climate change, transgender rights, racism and reducing inequality.

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Climate change is important.
The GOP may not care about it now, but their children will.
He is trying to get an infrastructure bill through.
He has had issues with Afghanistan, but what else could he do
The people who are taking over Afghanistan were released by the previous administration.
I am sure that Biden is not perfect but he is better than Trump.

The great days turned to very bad days in less than a year.
Congress needs a flip to GOP next year to stop the craziness

Your bias is ridiculous. Makes you a bad writer. Btw avg teacher pay is way above 31000. Sensationalize much?

#LetsGoBrandon

Joebama

www.facebook.com/1218170708/posts/10226625535324074/

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