
A recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that while most states are still developing budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, states have already budgeted 78 percent of their fiscal recovery fund allocation. Most states have either started spending their fiscal recovery funds, or have plans to do so. “I was never for giving this money to the states, but I was always of the belief that once you gave it to them, politics would not allow you to get it back,” Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the top Republican on the subcommittee that controls health spending, said in a recent interview.Īll told, the White House says 93 percent of the American Rescue Plan dollars that are currently available have been “legally obligated,” meaning they have either already been spent or are committed to being spent. Now it appears the state funds will be spared, though the fracas has cast a sharp spotlight on how the fiscal recovery funds are being spent. Governors and rank-and-file Democrats balked, saying that to do so would disproportionately hurt the 31 states that have not yet gotten all their rescue funds, and the deal fell apart. Biden made his initial aid request, senior lawmakers in both parties negotiated a plan to pay for it partly by taking back $7 billion from states, as part of a $1.5 trillion spending bill. The rescue plan set aside $195 billion to help states recover from the economic and health effects of the pandemic. With midterm elections approaching, the gush of federal stimulus spending will draw even greater scrutiny as Republicans accuse Democrats of wasting funds and fueling inflation, and demand a precise accounting of how the money has been spent. Since the outset of the pandemic, the Trump and Biden administrations have injected $5 trillion into the American economy, including the rescue plan. Republicans want to use unspent money already approved by Congress, but the parties have been unable to agree on which programs should be tapped.
#CONGRESSMAN WHO SPENT MONEY ON STEAM HOW TO#
But they had not resolved crucial differences over the size and how to pay for it. Biden made a public appeal to Congress for more money, Senate Republicans and Democrats were nearing a deal on a $10 billion emergency aid package - less than half of Mr. On Capitol Hill on Thursday, a day after Mr. McConnell once called it a “multitrillion-dollar, nontargeted Band-Aid” that would dump “another huge mountain of debt on our grandkids.” Despite the many ways it is benefiting his state, Mr. Biden’s rescue plan, which Democrats muscled through Congress without their support. These states have these massive surpluses, and now you need more?’” “People are like: ‘We’ve printed all this money we’ve sent it out. “These states are awash in money - everybody from Kentucky to California,” said Scott Jennings, a former aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. Most states will get another round of “ fiscal recovery funds” - part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan - next month. The funds, which Congress approved at a moment when the pandemic was still raging, are allowed to be used for far broader purposes than combating the virus, including water projects like those in Kentucky.

Beshear’s signature, but the money comes from the federal government, part of a huge infusion of coronavirus relief aid that is helping to fuel record budget surpluses in Kentucky and many other states. The people of Martin County, whose water has been too contaminated to drink since a coal slurry spill two decades ago, got $411,000. The tiny city of Mortons Gap got $109,000 to bring running water to six families who do not have it. Andy Beshear has been toting oversize checks around his state in recent weeks, handing them out to city and county officials for desperately needed water improvements. Son: Takes off to get wallet and stops listening.ĭad: "BTW, make sure to get the red one, not the blue one.FRANKFORT, Ky. Put it back when you're done and don't buy anything else. The card is in my wallet on the night stand. You're always too busy for me."ĭad: "Sorry, I forgot. Son: "But you promised you would if I got all A's on my report card. "Hey dad, can I use your credit card to buy. Then it was time to throw the teenager under the bus because the father can't handle money. Which I'm sure was the case right up until people started asking questions. Unless the father believes that all campaign cash is his to spend as he sees fit. Oh yeah, but that doesn't answer the question of why the heck a teenager has access to a campaign credit card. Why the heck does a credit card have access to campaign funds like that?Ī credit cared tied to a campaign is the easiest way to expense stuff like venue rentals, supplies, transportation, etc. As The San Diego Tribune reports, a Hunter spokesman says the charges originally stemmed from Hunter's teenage son, who "used his father’s credit card for one game,"
