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I don't disagree.
I have a problem with politicians and so called "experts" using the virus for their own gain ($$, power or control). IMO therapeutics have always been the answer, not their money making vaccines.
Pandemic relief money spent on hotel, ballpark, ski slopes
By BRIAN SLODYSKO
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thanks to a sudden $140 million cash infusion, officials in Broward County, Florida, recently broke ground on a high-end hotel that will have views of the Atlantic Ocean and an 11,000-square-foot spa.
In New York, Dutchess County pledged $12 million for renovations of a minor league baseball stadium to meet requirements the New York Yankees set for their farm teams.
And in Massachusetts, lawmakers delivered $5 million to pay off debts of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston, a nonprofit established to honor the late senator that has struggled financially.
The three distinctly different outlays have one thing in common: Each is among the scores of projects that state and local governments across the United States are funding with federal coronavirus relief money despite having little to do with combating the pandemic, a review by The Associated Press has found.
The expenditures amount to a fraction of the $350 billion made available through last year’s American Rescue Plan to help state and local governments weather the crisis. But they are examples of uses of the aid that are inconsistent with the rationale that Democrats offered for the record $1.9 trillion bill: The cash was desperately needed to save jobs, help those in distress, open schools and increase vaccinations.
Republicans are already balking at additional money for pandemic relief that President Joe Biden has requested, and programs that seem far removed from ones that directly combat the virus will probably add to the resistance in the GOP.
“They need to give us an accounting,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who tried unsuccessfully to amend the Democrats’ bill last year to add more limits on how the money could be spent. “Show us how you’ve already spent the money Congress gave you,” he said, adding, “It’s hard to imagine how a four-star hotel is helping to solve the pain of COVID.”
Many of the projects identified by the AP echo pork-barrel spending disasters such as Alaska’s $398 million “Bridge to Nowhere,” which was canceled in 2007 after a public uproar.
But with permissive Treasury Department rules governing how the pandemic money can be spent, state and local governments face few limitations. New Jersey allocated $15 million for upgrades to sweeten the state’s bid to host the 2026 World Cup. In Woonsocket, Rhode Island, officials allocated $53,000 for a remodeling of City Hall.
“Outrageous” and “just nuts” is how Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., described some of the expenditures, which she said were an affront to responsible local governments.
“Our hospitals were overwhelmed because of the pandemic and somebody now has a hotel somewhere?” she added.
Included among the projects and expenditures identified by the AP:
—$400 million to build new prisons in Alabama, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the total aid the state will receive through the program.
—tens of millions of dollars for tourism marketing campaigns in Puerto Rico ($70 million), Washington, D.C. ($8 million) and Tucson, Arizona ($2 million). The city of Alexandria, Virginia, also announced it would spend $120,000 to give its tourism website a makeover.
—$6.6 million to replace irrigation systems at two golf courses in Colorado Springs.
—$5 million approved by Birmingham, Alabama, to support the 2022 World Games. The event features niche sporting contests such as DanceSport, korfball and flying disc.
—$2.5 million to hire new parking enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.
—$2 million to help Pottawattamie County, Iowa, purchase a privately owned ski area.
—$1 million to pay off overdue child support in St. Louis. A city memo states that owing child support stops some people from looking for work because the overdue payments are garnished from paychecks; the program would “empower individuals” by paying down a portion.
—$300,000 to establish a museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, honoring Major Taylor, a famed Black bicycle rider from the turn of the 20th century known as the “Worcester Whirlwind” who died in 1932.
Liz Bourgeois, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, called the program a success that allowed state and local governments to “recover from financial distress” and “achieve their own strategies for restoring jobs and industries hit by the pandemic.”
“Ultimately local governments are accountable to their communities on their decisions on how best to use their funds,” Bourgeois said in a statement.
In Broward County, officials defended their planned 29-story, 800-room hotel, which will be owned by the county but operated by a private management group.
They also contest whether federal money is technically being used for the project. Broward County initially routed $140 million in federal coronavirus aid to the project, which ran against Treasury Department rules that generally bar spending the money on large capital projects.
To get around the prohibition, the county adopted a common workaround.
The agenda from a Feb. 22 county board meeting details how: In a back-to-back series of unopposed votes, commissioners clawed back the federal money they had given to the hotel. They then transferred it to the county’s general fund, describing it as a federal payment to cover lost tax revenue, which is an acceptable use. Then the cash was transferred from the general fund right back to the project.
County Administrator Monica Cepero insisted “no federal funds will be used to pay any of the cost of developing the Hotel Project.”
“The County has reviewed the Treasury guidance and modified its use of (the) funds,” she said in a statement.
Some lawmakers in Congress, however, are nonplussed.
“They are basically money laundering funding that is meant to help communities that are suffering,” said Spanberger, who called for more oversight.
Local officials in New York’s Dutchess County, home to the $12 million minor league stadium project, said in a statement that the expenditure was “completely and absolutely consistent” with Congress’ intent for the money.
“It’s ironic that this criticism emanates from the same congressional members who have brought back pork barrel earmarks,” said Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro.
The Edward Kennedy Institute did not respond to messages seeking comment on the $5 million in coronavirus aid received from Massachusetts. The institute operated at a $27 million loss between 2015 and 2019, according to tax filings from those years, the most recent that are publicly available.
Even in cases where local and state officials may have violated the spending rules, the sheer volume of money pumped out presents a challenge for government oversight offices that are often understaffed and poorly funded.
“The amount of money that went out was so massive and so far beyond anything that has ever been spent in our country before, that our capacity to audit every dollar spent is clearly stretched,” Romney said.
But groups that lobby on behalf of local governments in Washington say the spending rules were written permissively in order to give as much flexibility as possible.
“Counties should be able to determine what’s best for them,” said Mark Ritacco, director of government affairs for the National Association of Counties. “Their residents will decide whether that was appropriate or not at the ballot box.”
The new findings track closely with AP’s previous reporting, which found in October that states and large cities had spent just a tiny fraction of their relief funding six months after it was approved. That was despite their pleas for the emergency cash when Congress was still debating it.
Some school districts also had so much extra federal pandemic cash that they spent it on new sports stadiums, arenas and football turf. In other instances, states used discretionary funding to further school choice initiatives that they had failed to get through their legislatures.
Rich Delmar, the deputy inspector general for the Treasury Department, declined to say whether the office had any active investigations into uses of the state and local pot of money.
“All projects are potentially subject to audit and investigation,” Delmar said in an email, adding that “we are actively engaging in oversight.”
Biden, meanwhile, has said his administration urgently needs more money to pay for things that are directly related to the pandemic.
Without it, the White House says, the administration won’t be able to replenish depleted stockpiles of vaccines and therapeutics. Republican say winning their support will hinge on it being paid for with money that was already appropriated.
A deal that leaders struck this month would have been paid for by recouping some aid intended for states. But the agreement fell apart after several governors objected and rank-and-file House Democrats rebelled.
At least one Democrat sought to raise campaign cash off her opposition to clawing local money back.
“We had a bit of a fight when they tried to take money away from Michigan,” reads a fundraising email from Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell. “I was not going to let the Midwest get harmed. We won.”
___
Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-business-florida-new-york-1c54ec32b2e31ed10bb1628379763425
Like the ones that claimed this spawned out of a wet market?
The “experts” have hindered therapeutic progress, while pushing big Pharma’s vaccines.
Gio, do you have a link for this?
Thanks,
True
1. Because Fauci and Pelosi's families don't hold a position in Revive.
2. Probably
It saddens us all.
RIP Bob
COVID-19: Nearly half of virus hospitalizations in Massachusetts are for other issues
Hospitals in the state measure primary COVID cases as those that require dexamethasone
Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health on Thursday—for the first time—made a distinction between COVID-19 patients hospitalized with "primary" and "incidental" cases.
Boston 25, citing the newly released data, reported that 49% of the state’s 3,187 patients-- hospitalized on Jan. 18--were there because of another matter and diagnosed with the virus once at the hospital.
Medical officials in the state made clear that they have no intention of diminishing the "incidental" cases-- pointing out that they will still require special care--but they hope the numbers will better reflect the virus' impact on the community
Dr. Shira Doron, a Tufts Medical Center’s epidemiologist, worked on the state’s new reporting system and told the station that the data indicate that the vaccines are doing their job.
"At Tufts Medical Center, half of them are vaccinated, and you don’t want to be calling them a vaccine breakthrough hospitalization when they aren’t," she said.
A resident enters the Tufts Medical Center Covid-19 vaccination and testing site in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021. Photographer: Allison Dinner/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Boston 25 report said hospitals in the state measure primary COVID cases as those that require dexamethasone, the steroid treatment, which the majority of patients with severe coronavirus require.
Since the start of the outbreak, health officials have been accused of causing confusion by not distinguishing hospital cases. Since the start of the pandemic, the elderly and those with co-morbidities have been known to be at the greatest risk of serious illness. Some critics say politics were at play.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently spoke out against Dr. Anthony Fauci for only now editing his message when it comes to hospitalizations.
Cruz retweeted an interview Fauci had on MSNBC where he spoke about the troubling numbers of children in the hospital with the virus late last month. Fauci made it clear that there is a distinction between the number of children hospitalized with COVID as opposed to "because of COVID."
"And what we mean by that: If a child goes into the hospital, they automatically get tested for COVID and they get counted as a COVID-hospitalized individual, when, in fact, they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that. So it’s over counting the number of children who are, quote, hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID," Fauci said.
Cruz posted, "Now Fauci says this? Is this because pandemic politics have changed for the Biden admin?"
Imagine if we had accurate reporting over the past few years... Rolls eyes...
That will carry you into March Madness, so you'll be fine. After the Pick6, I stopped watching. Fortunately, I don't work with any UGA fans, but the AU fans have made their subtle jabs, in spite of their 3-5 conference 6-7 overall performance this year.
My Ducks choked as well... :(
Good morning Gio,
Well, that's definitely a weight loss technique...
:)
I think that the NIH C-SPAN video from Oct ‘19 speaks volumes toward this.
Politicians don't care about you, they never have. It's the donor class that they worry about.
Post a comment on his video, he may respond.
Looks like you responded to boneride, but whatevs
Not one of his friends and you weren't even responding to Newbie.
WHO says vaccine booster programs will prolong Covid crisis: ‘No country can boost its way out of the pandemic’
World Health Organization officials on Wednesday criticized blanket Covid-19 vaccine booster programs as poor countries struggle to obtain initial doses, warning that the unequal access to immunizations could lead to more mutated variants that drag out the crisis.
“Blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the pandemic, rather than ending it, by diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage, giving the virus more opportunity to spread and mutate,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news briefing.
The comments from the WHO come as health officials in the U.S. promote vaccine booster shots for all residents over the age of 16 amid a surge in Covid cases driven by the omicron strain. Israel on Tuesday announced it would offer a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccines to people older than 60.
“We want people to be able to gather” over the holidays, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in an interview Wednesday on CNN. “And safe gathering includes, of course, being vaccinated, ideally being boosted and making sure that all the people who you gather with are also vaccinated and boosted.”
Currently, the vast majority of Covid hospitalizations and deaths are among unvaccinated people, not vaccinated people without booster shots, according to Tedros.
“No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” he said.
Global health experts say the emergence of omicron is tied to vaccine inequality. Omicron is thought to have emerged from an HIV patient in South Africa where just 26% of the population is fully vaccinated, scientists have said. The virus mutates particularly well in people with compromised immune systems where it can live for a long time and figure out how to survive inside its human host.
The WHO estimates just half of its member states will have vaccinated at least 40% of their populations by the end of this year “because of distortions in global supply,” Tedros said.
Vaccine inequity is “the most horrific injustice of 2021,” Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said at the briefing
CNBC Health & Science
Read CNBC’s latest global coverage of the Covid pandemic:
WHO says Covid vaccine booster programs will prolong pandemic
New York City weighs new restrictions for Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration
Some glimmers of hope are emerging on omicron, but experts stress caution
Op-Ed: Omicron sidelines professional sports from the NFL to the English Premier League
Amazon limits how many Covid tests you can buy amid omicron surge
Americans are tired of Covid — and the official response to omicron has only created more frustration
CDC director says initial Covid shots ‘may not be enough’ as omicron rapidly sweeps the nation
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/22/who-says-covid-vaccine-booster-programs-will-prolong-pandemic.html
NYBob, thank you for posting this and it was what I had feared, not hearing from him since July. I never truly knew Cork, but we grew up in the same area and had a lot in common.
RIP Cork!
Rob aka Army Pilot
Gio got me on D3 over a year ago and I'm a believer in it's benefits.
For some, the vax is the right answer. I only got it, because I was forced to.
They also know they (Gov't officials) were losing their control over the populace and don't like it.
I had covid in Dec '19 and Dec '20. Is it fatal to some, yes. Is it being overplayed again, yes. Therapeutics are the answer, if they were honestly concerned about resolving the issue.
YMMV.
FWIW, I returned 3 days ago.
IMO, the moronic strain is being overhyped.
I just returned from Italy, via Paris and it didn't seem to be an issue.
Real answer?
Big Pharma and their paid for politicians, don't make $$ or gain power off of D3.
I'm grateful for your advice during that time.
I've strongly encouraged others to take D3 and Zinc, as well.
Or the GM trial that started yesterday... ;)
IMO, it's the multiple boosters that will be harmful to many.
I got the JJ and hopefully that will be my last.