Again?
Anyone surprised at this?
In Texas?
People are on ‘Their own’….
The political ‘officals’ do what ‘they’ want….
exas’s Governor Greg Abbott is a magician—or at least a skilled practitioner of three-card monte. In spring 2021, he declared southern Texas “a disaster area” overrun by marauding migrants, thanks to what he labels President Joe Biden’s “open border policies.” To stem the flow, Abbott launched Operation Lone Star (OLS), marshaling the Texas National Guard and state troopers to beef up security at the border with Mexico. He also tapped the OLS budget for his recent headline-grabbing scheme to bus 12,000 migrants to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago since last spring.
But this was tricky business, since OLS was going to be colossally costly. To come up with the funds he needed, Abbott practiced some accounting so creative some might call it magic. Others might label it fraud.
First, during Texas’ regular 2021 legislative session, Abbott got the Republican-controlled legislature to approve $1.1 billion to pay for 700 border guards and their supplies. He soon, however, decided this amount was too small and summoned the lawmakers back for a special session at the end of August. This time he asked for another almost $1.9 billion to pay another 1,800 guards/troopers and build a border wall (called Operation Steel Curtain, under the OLS program). Happy to accommodate the honcho in chief, the legislators approved his request.
But Abbott had even bigger plans. On December 20, 2021, the governor tweeted, “We are building our own border wall. Unlike the Biden Admin, we arrest illegal immigrants coming across the border & send them to jail.” Although OLS now had 2,500 lawmen (whose price tag had swollen to about $3 billion), the governor wanted 7,500 more. And he would get them—eventually building a 10,000-strong posse.
To pay the bill, the cowboy king pulled $1 billion out of a federal hat. Since $1 billion isn’t small change—even in Texas—how did he manage it?…
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To pay the bill, the cowboy king pulled $1 billion out of a federal hat. Since $1 billion isn’t small change—even in Texas—how did he manage it?
In 2020, the US Congress passed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act to respond to the pandemic and offer aid to people, health facilities, small businesses, and state and local governments. The next year, it passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP). The Treasury Department told local governments that the funds were to help them care for their “most vulnerable” citizens. Of the $4.1 trillion in national Covid funds, Texas got $65 billion—$25 billion from the CARES Act, plus $40 billion from the ARP.
The goals were straightforward: reduce economic hardships by providing families with emergency rental assistance, covering delinquent mortgage payments, increasing child tax credits, and waiving federal income taxes on the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits for middle- and lower-income families. The funds were also meant to pay for protective equipment and Covid tests and help small businesses, hospitals, nursing homes, nonprofits, and frontline workers. Finally, they would help states build the infrastructure needed to deliver water, sewer, and broadband services (to, for example, allow students to study virtually)….
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To skirt the rules, Abbott and his deputies launched some mind-boggling maneuvers that one congressional aide, who asked to remain anonymous, called a shell game: As of now, the governor has steered roughly $1 billion of the federal pandemic dollars to Operation Lone Star—although activities such as migrant removal or border wall construction were never on the Treasury’s approved list…..
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DeLuna Castro noted that the normal way governors get their programs financed is to propose a budget to the legislature, which, in turn, decides what it will approve. “But with Operation Lone Star, he simply said the border was ‘a disaster’ and got the agencies to agree to swap their general revenues with CARES dollars.”
Could any of these agencies’ border-control activities be linked to Covid? “Maybe a small amount, but not nearly $6 billion,” said DeLuna Castro.
Note….
The more I post this stuff?
The more one realises that Democratic President Biden HAS been getting Congress to ok Billions for Covid aid and a good portion of that aid has been used by Republican (and sometimes Democratic) Governors for LOT of other thiungs they can palitical yardage out of…..