Democrats' Wasteful "COVID" Spending

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• In their $2 trillion “COVID relief” law, Democrats used the pandemic as a pretext to fund a litany of progressive pet projects.
• Democrats gave cities hundreds of billions of dollars they did not need, and now taxpayers are funding projects from coast to coast that have nothing to do with pandemic recovery. 
• Their first oversized stimulus fueled four-decade-high inflation, yet they are still focused on restarting their stalled reckless spending spree.

Just 45 days after President Biden took office, Democrats jammed through $2 trillion in new domestic spending. They rejected warnings that their oversized stimulus could cause inflation and used the pandemic as a pretext to fund a litany of progressive pet projects.

Liberal Nonsense Hidden in the Fine Print

President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency used some of its $100 million “COVID relief” haul to support various “environmental justice” programs, though “environmental justice” is never mentioned in the law. Taxpayer dollars that the president assured Americans were going to “meet the most urgent needs of the nation” have been used to “refine future tree equity work,” achieve “greater acceptance of trees,” and “conduct [environmental justice] bootcamps.”

The Biden Department of Education pulled a similar bait and switch. Democrats insisted that the $122 billion they poured into the K-12 education system was designed to “accelerate” school reopening, a year after schools first closed. But the department’s subsequent guidance expanded this objective. Reopening “equitably,” it emphasized, may “require a culture shift” in schools across the country. Understanding the assignment, California – where K-12 enrollment has plummeted by 271,000 since the start of the pandemic – touted its plan to allocate $1.5 billion to training staff on “high-need topics” including “implicit bias” and “restorative practices.”

Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services tried to flout more than 30 years of Congress expressly prohibiting federal funds from being used to purchase paraphernalia for illicit drug use. The agency used a $30 million pot of money from the Democrats’ law to create a Harm Reduction Grant program that allowed recipients to purchase supplies including “safe smoking kits” and syringes. HHS did not include any prohibition on the purchase of the crack and meth pipes often included in these kits and specifically clarified that these grants were “not subject to the same syringe funding restrictions as other federal grants.”

a pickleball infrastructure boom

When Democrats passed their “COVID relief” law, Republicans, and even liberal pundits, argued that the $350 billion set aside for states and local governments far exceeded pandemic-related shortfalls. The money came on top of $150 billion in previously enacted state and local relief.

Democrats were unwilling to make any cuts to their spending scheme, so state and local governments – many of which had no net revenue loss – found themselves flush with largely unrestricted federal cash. From coast to coast, taxpayer dollars are going to projects that have nothing to do with COVID relief. Americans who are struggling to afford soaring inflation can see Democrats’ wasteful spending dotting cityscapes all over the country. 

Democrats’ “COVID Relief” Legacy

• Seattle, Washington, put $28.5 million toward 165 apartments – some with views of the city’s iconic Space Needle – for homeless residents.

• Boston paid off $5 million in debt for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate.

• Washington, D.C., set aside $2.5 million of its $3 billion haul for parking enforcement officers.

• City council members in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, put $53,000 toward remodeling their chamber in city hall and buying themselves new ergonomic chairs.

• Dutchess County, New York, used more than $12 million to expand its minor league baseball stadium.

• In Arizona, $7.2 million went to increase the prize money at horse racing tracks.

• Towns from Michigan to Connecticut have plans for a pickleball infrastructure boom.

• Los Angeles County, California, created a $5 million “creative works” jobs program for artists.

• Chautauqua County, New York, spent $250,000 upgrading the county’s walking trails and another $1.3 million on snow removal equipment.

• Colorado Springs, Colorado, spent $6.6 million replacing irrigation systems at two local golf courses.

More boondoggles continue to come to light, and inflation – fueled by Democrats’ excessive federal stimulus – has soared to a four-decade high. Democrats sought to follow their $2 trillion blowout with another $5 trillion last year. Many of their members in Congress are refusing to give up their dream of finishing step two in their reckless spending spree. If they succeed, there is no telling what progressive pipe dream taxpayers can look forward to paying for next.