© Rogue Rocket
The CARES Act passed by Congress in March granted the Department of Defense $1 billion to both prevent and get ready to respond to the coronavirus, but the Post reported that in the weeks that followed, hundreds of millions of the taxpayer money was instead utilized to obtain military supplies.
This was a change from the intent of Congress, the Post noted.
Meanwhile, U.S. health officials are still requesting funding for pandemic response, including $6 billion for states to make vaccines available when they are developed and to address a shortage in N95 masks for hospitals. The Pentagon has also requested that $11 billion be provided in a potential new stimulus bill being debated by Congress.
Congress instructed the $1 billion in the CARES Act to go to Defense Production Act (DPA) efforts, which permits President Trump to direct U.S. companies to manufacture necessary products, such as personal protective equipment (PPE).
Months after the funding was allocated, department lawyers concluded the money could be used for defense production, including projects that had little to do with responding to the pandemic, the Post reported. Smaller firms received more than a third of the funding for less than $5 million, but hundreds of millions of dollars went to several large companies.
At least 10 of the about 30 contractors awarded with DPA funding also received money from the Paycheck Protection Program, the Post found.
The Pentagon did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill, but Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, defended the actions in a statement to the Post.
"We are thankful the Congress provided authorities and resources that enabled the [executive branch] to invest in domestic production of critical medical resources and protect key defense capabilities from the consequences of COVID. We need to always remember that economic security and national security are very tightly interrelated and our industrial base is really the nexus of the two."The Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee said in a report that the Defense Department's spending on money allocated from the CARES Act was not distributed as intended.
"The Committee's expectation was that the Department would address the need for PPE industrial capacity rather than execute the funding for the DIB (defense industrial base)," the committee wrote in its 2021 defense bill report.
Defense industry groups said the funding was needed to keep certain contractors in business during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
How god damned sickening..