Covid funding stalls as Congress, White House point fingers at each other

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Tue, 2022-03-15 17:42 — mike kraft

‘We need this money’: Covid funding stalls as Congress, White House point fingers There appears to be no clear strategy from either the White House or Capitol Hill to secure the funds. POLITICO

The Biden administration and members of Congress are pointing fingers at one another over the stalling out of more than $15 billion in pandemic funds that are needed to continue combating Covid-19 in the U.S. and around the world.

Even as the administration warns it may need to cancel new orders of Covid-19 drugs as soon as next week and wind down access to testing soon after that, there appears to be no clear strategy from either the White House or Capitol Hill to secure the funds.

“We will leave to Congress the details of how they get this over the finish line,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters on a call Tuesday. “There’s bipartisan recognition that we need this money and that the money they provided over a year ago has been well spent, but we defer to Congress on the specific legislative approach.”

Top appropriators on Capitol Hill point the finger back at the administration, saying the White House did not make a convincing enough case for the money to win over Republicans who recently voted to declare the pandemic over and are loath to spend billions more fighting the virus.

“There’s a doubt that they need this money with a lot of us,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). “I’ve said this for weeks, a real accounting of the money [already spent on Covid] that the American people deserve and then go from there. If there’s no money left, and it’s not hidden somewhere, and if they show a need, then you got, maybe, a persuasive case.” ...

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