President Biden is pushing Congress to approve another $ 22.5 billion in new emergency aid to fight COVID-19 – even though the White House remains silent on the billions that fraudsters are taking away from previous relief measures. Administration officials said more money was needed to bolster ongoing relief efforts, with the Office of Management and Budget earlier this month asking for $ 18.25 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services and $ 4.25 billion for and the United States Agency for International Affairs. WHERE IS THE MOST DIFFICULT TO THE INCREASED CONSUMER PRICES THAT BEAT THE AMERICAN? Biden called for more funding Wednesday, warning that without further funding, the United States would no longer be able to provide basic programs such as COVID testing, vaccinations and treatment for uninsured Americans. “Without funding, we will not be able to maintain our testing capability beyond June,” Biden said in prepared remarks. “And if we fail to invest, we leave ourselves vulnerable if another wave of the virus hits.” The US Capitol Dome in Washington on October 4, 2021. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite / AP Newsroom) He urged Congress to spend more money on pandemic efforts, noting that the United States risks being unprepared if future variants begin to spread rapidly. “We can not allow this to happen. Congress, we need to secure additional supplies now. Now,” Biden said. “We can not wait until we are in the middle of another wave to act. It will be too late.” But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were slow to approve more money for the effort as COVID-19 infections fell to their lowest level since July, with some Republicans urging the White House to account for the trillions had previously been administered for pandemic relief measures. GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE RESPONSIBLE FOR INCREASE INFLATION In early March, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, led 35 GOP lawmakers to send a letter to Biden’s team questioning how much of the previous money had been spent. “Since the passage of the US Rescue Plan in February, questions have been raised about where exactly the extra money went,” the letter said. In just two years, Congress has unleashed a torrent of federal money to shield the economy from the coronavirus pandemic, approving about $ 6 trillion in relief measures. Lawmakers approved about $ 2 trillion under Biden and $ 4.1 trillion under the former President Trumpaccording to a COVID money tracker published by the Commission for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan organization based in Washington. President Joe Biden talks about America’s response to COVID-19 from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on Wednesday, March 30, 2022. (Photographer: Ting Shen / Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images) Most of the money allocated for emergency spending – nearly $ 4 trillion – came from two pieces of legislation: the CARES Act, passed in March 2020, and the US Rescue Plan, approved in March 2021. The rest of the money came from Response and Relief Act (December 2020), Families First Response Coronavirus Act (March 2020) and Paycheck Protection Program and Health Improvement Act (April 2020). There was also quite a bit of emergency money for things like the Payroll Protection Program, the Financial Injury Disaster Loan Program and another program set up to provide boosted unemployment benefits stolen by criminals. Prosecutors have blamed the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars on taxpayers’ money to help those suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, the biggest fraud in US history. The Secret Service estimated late last year that about $ 100 billion had been stolen from COVID-19 aid funds, a number based on Secret Service cases as well as data from the Department of Labor and Small Business Administration. GET FOX BUSINESS IN ENGINE BY CLICKING HERE This figure does not include in particular COVID-19 fraud cases prosecuted by the Department of Justice or any fraudulent activity included in the $ 1.9 trillion US Rescue Plan. In all, at least 3 percent of the $ 3.4 trillion federal pandemic aid has been stolen by fraudsters, indicating that “the huge size of the container is tempting for criminals,” the Secret Service said. “Every state has been hit, some harder than others,” said Roy Dotson, an assistant special agent. “The Secret Service is hitting the ground, trying to recover what we can, including funds that have been stolen from both federal and state programs.”
