Prickly City by Scott Stantis for April 01, 2021

There are days when Scott makes it difficult to tell which is supposed to be the Republican and which is the Democrat.

Today is one of those days.

Nothing says “wisely,” like spending $1200 for a hammer and $1500 for a toilet seat!!

/SNARK/

After you pay taxes, it isn’t your money anymore. You want to pay taxes and live in a civilized society? If not, I hear Somalia has low taxes.

I’m glad we didn’t spend any tax money on the invasion of Iraq. That invasion was so successful, that it’s paid us back over and over.

.

Imagine if today’s Republicans* had been in power after WWII. No occupation of Japan, no Marshall Plan.

You know, too costly. No benefits.

If today’s Republicans had been in power after WWII.

We would all be goose stepping to the 5th Reich!

So is Carmen going to put on the jester hat and declare: “If we give more tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, they’ll pay for themselves and the money will trickle down to the rest of us”? ‘Cause that one’s been the biggest joke for the last 40 years.

Winslow, Xeroxing the Xerox.

“The government” is us. Some people working there are lazy, some are sincerely wanting to serve the country; just like everywhere else humans exist.

I remember on The Danny Thomas Show, the doorman was so proud when he had to pay taxes. It meant he’d joined the club, he was a member of America. 50 years of shirking our dues has given us falling bridges, crumbling dams, and inadequate schools. Doesn’t affect the rich, just everyone who needs to get around and get by without hopping on their helicopter.

Speaking of money ‘wisely’ spent…

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A top adviser to former President Donald Trump pressured agency officials to reward politically connected or otherwise untested companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts as part of a chaotic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the early findings of an inquiry led by House Democrats.

Peter Navarro, who served as Trump’s deputy assistant and trade adviser, essentially verbally awarded a $96 million deal for respirators to a company with White House connections.

Later, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency were pressured to sign the contract after the fact, according to correspondence obtained by congressional investigators.

Documents obtained by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis after a year of resistance from the Trump administration offer new details about Navarro’s role in a largely secretive buying spree of personal protective equipment and medical supplies.

In another communication, Navarro was so adamant that a potential $354 million contract be awarded to an untested pharmaceutical company that he told the top official at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, “my head is going to explode if this contract does not get immediately approved.”

The committee’s work backs up investigations by ProPublica and other news outlets into the more than $36 billion the federal government has awarded, much of it without traditional bidding and with little scrutiny, to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

At least five of the committee’s lines of inquiry are exploring issues reported by ProPublica, including the $96 million no-bid deal for respirators that was ordered by Navarro, a $34.5 million deal signed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that fell apart and ended with a contractor pleading guilty to fraud, a contract for masks awarded ✁

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https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-covid-pandemic-contracts

It’s not funny because it’s not a joke. It’s a perpetual lie.

Republicans seem to think that the Government just takes their money and stuffs it in a mattress. They use it to buy things and do things. Things that people use and need. And that spending can stimulate the economy, since it goes back into the economy, paying salaries and supporting businesses. Giving public money to a billionaire, on the other hand, removes that money from the economy, since he can’t spend more than he’s already spending.

Sure, let’s just leave it to Marks and Bezos to spend money on the country. Or better yet, all the Wall Street hedge fund managers. Now there’s some dollars wisely spent.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) on Tuesday celebrated several grants awarded to his district as part of a $1.9 trillion relief bill passed by Congress earlier this month that he, along with all other Republicans in Congress, voted against.

Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) – Happy to announce that NC-11 was awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,” Cawthorn tweeted, listing four seperate grants to health centers and clinics totaling more than $19 million.

Those funds, however, are part of the covid relief package, which passed both chambers of Congress with only Democratic votes, and which Cawthorn labeled “nothing more than a Pelosi payoff” in February.

Cawthorn was harshly criticized on Twitter by supporters of the bill, including his colleague Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who tweeted, “Pleased to see you support government spending in NC-11,” noting he voted against the bill.

Cawthorn is not the first Republican slammed for boasting of the bill’s provisions after voting against it: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) tweeted that funding in the bill would “ensure small businesses can survive” just hours after voting against it.

“Cawthorn is trying to take credit for the grants HE VOTED AGAINST,” tweeted Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison, declaring, “Republicans have no shame.”

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/03/30/gop-rep-madison-cawthorn-touts-funds-from-relief-bill-he-voted-against/

After reading all the comments here, my head hurts. Absent Friends

On a personal note, I’m about to be off on another multi-week trip north to attempt to see my dad in person at the Home where he’s in hospice care. I went up in September, and they changed it the day I arrived so I couldn’t see him then.

Just so I wouldn’t worry about the trip too much, I broke a tooth night before last and had root canal yesterday and follow-up work today.

I will, of course, miss you all in direct proportion to how many Likes I have gotten from you. I’ll bet you wish now you’d been more generous with the button.

Depends on who is in charge. When the Republicans were in charge they would waste money on whatever they wanted not what their people needed. Now with the Democrats we are seeing the money spent better.