House Oversight Committee to Hold First Hearing on Wasteful Pandemic-Era Spending 

The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday will hold its first hearing on wasteful pandemic-era spending.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), committee chairman, announced the hearing last week in an effort to investigate the “rampant waste” of taxpayer dollars on pandemic relief programs.

Those set to testify are Michael Horowitz, Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General, U.S. Government Accountability Office, and David M. Smith, Assistant Director, Office of Investigations, U.S. Secret Service.

“We owe it to Americans to identify how hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent under the guise of pandemic relief were lost to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement,” Comer said in his announcement.

“For the past two years, Democrats in the Administration and Congress have spent far too much time pushing money out the door and far too little time conducting meaningful oversight of how that money is being spent,” he continued. “That changes with our House Republican majority.”

According to USASpending.Gov, American taxpayers spent $4.1 trillion fighting the coronavirus, which many believe originated from a military-funded lab in Wuhan China. Lawmakers have earmarked $4.6 trillion in funding to fight the virus.

“Under Republican leadership, the Oversight Committee is returning to its primary duty to root out waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the federal government and hold President Biden accountable,” Comer concluded.

In September, President Joe Biden stated the pandemic was over. “The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. It’s – but the pandemic is over,” Biden told CBS News’ 60 Minutes.

Others are not so sure and believe the pandemic-era public health emergency (PHE) should remain in place, giving the federal government special powers. The PHE must be renewed every 90 days. It was most recently renewed by the Biden administration in January 2023.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.