The Covid Spending Racket

Whatever happened to that $1.9 trillion in supposed virus relief that Democrats passed in 2021?

WSJ editorial.

"President Biden and Members of Congress applauded themselves for passing a $1.5 trillion spending bill last month. Now they’re demanding a Covid spending encore.

“Congress, please act. You have to act immediately,” Mr. Biden pleaded this week. “The consequences of inaction are severe.” His Administration warns that monoclonal antibodies and antivirals will soon run out, and booster shots might not be available this fall if Congress doesn’t provide more money.

His pleas would be more credible if his Administration hadn’t spent the first two months this year pressuring Congress to pass Build Back Better, election-law changes and semiconductor subsidies. The Administration asked Congress for $22.5 billion more for Covid only a few weeks ago.

And what happened to the $1.9 trillion for Covid Democrats passed last March? Most went to transfer payments, including child tax credits, enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus checks. About a quarter subsidized state and local budgets and schools. Democrats appropriated a mere $80 billion for public health, only $16 billion of which was available for vaccines and therapies.

Yet the Administration has refused to detail how it has spent the public-health money as well as how much remaining money could be repurposed for vaccines and therapies. Senate Republicans don’t want to give the Administration more money until it accounts for how it’s spent the previous money.

Republicans earlier agreed to attach $15.6 billion for vaccines and treatments to the $1.5 trillion omnibus, offset by unspent Covid funds, including $7 billion from states. Twenty states with high unemployment, including New York, California and Illinois, received their full allotment last year while others got theirs in two tranches with the second coming later this year.

House Democrats from states such as Michigan, Minnesota and Florida that haven’t received their second allotment revolted. So Speaker Nancy Pelosi yanked the Covid spending from the omnibus. Now Senate Republicans are rescuing Mrs. Pelosi and her fractious caucus, though no good deed goes unpunished.

A mooted Senate compromise would provide $10 billion for vaccines and therapies, repurposed from unspent Covid money. Yet House Democrats say this isn’t enough. “I think what the Republicans are doing is, either they don’t care or they don’t know,” Mrs. Pelosi said Thursday. “But it is wrong.”

Democrats skimped on vaccine and therapies in order to ladle benefits to their political constituencies. Then they sabotaged a compromise to provide more money for vaccines and therapies, and now they’re blaming Republicans for looming shortages. We’d call that wrong.

In any case, our sources say the Administration still doesn’t have a vaccine booster strategy for the autumn. Variant-specific boosters will probably be needed, but the Administration hasn’t decided which to order. That should be a top priority.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt said he expects the White House to ask for more money even if Congress passes the $10 billion Senate compromise. But as the virus becomes endemic, the White House needs a plan to hand off vaccine, therapy and testing procurement to states and private industry. This should be the final Covid spending bill."