Weeks after Congress allocated $1 billion to the Pentagon for efforts to aid against COVID-19, the Pentagon spends most of the money on military equipment. (Exact date unknown.)
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Senate testimony last week that states desperately need $6 billion to distribute vaccines to Americans early next year. Many U.S. hospitals still face a severe shortage of N95 masks. These are the types of problems that the money was originally intended to address.
The Washington Post (in September)
Hundreds of millions are directed from Congress’s COVID-19 financing to defense contractors for surveillance technology, military uniforms, body armor, jet engine parts, and other materials unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic.
Some of the money is used to help companies with defense contracts stay afloat, even though those companies also received funds from the Paycheck Protection Program. (Trump and Kushner family members also receive PPP loans.)
The Democratic-controlled House Committee on Appropriations has made clear that the Defense Department’s decision to funnel the DPA funding to defense contractors went against its intent in that section of the Cares Act, which was to spur the manufacturing of personal protective equipment.
The Washington Post
Sources
https://web.archive.org/web/20200922162751if_/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/22/covid-funds-pentagon/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/politics/pentagon-coronavirus-relief-defense-contractors-washington-post/index.html
Photo: Public Domain
