https://www.npr.org/2020/07/10/889842694/reporter-on-catholic-church-getting-over-1-billion-in-coronavirus-aid

From the site:

"NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Michael Rezendes of The Associated Press on its investigation into the U.S. Roman Catholic Church receiving over $1
billion in coronavirus aid."

There's audio with this story, too, and a lot of very good points (though bad for the Roman Catholic church and others) were made, including:

1) This is part of a program that was supposed to give COVID-19 assistance to small businesses.

2) According to the Associated Press, much of this money is going to parishes who have lost financially not because of COVID-19 but because of fallout from the sexual scandals involving priests and altar boys.

3) The amount given to the Roman Catholic Church could in fact be higher--there is still some question on that.

4) Answering the last question, the reporter said that other religious organizations have been taking money out of this program but they don't have the names or amounts yet. It wouldn't surprise me if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was also at the trough.

Oink! Oink!

This is obscene.

Francis became pope over seven years ago and has done nothing to help children. To the contrary, he forced the US Catholic Bishops to stop implementing reforms. The RCC is as hostile to children, and as protective of abusers, as it's ever been.

Giving that organization public funds in any form is a mistake. But enabling them to use a public health crisis to refill coffers drained by molestation settlements is a true enormity inasmuch as it relieves parishes of the reformist pressure that suits are supposed to apply.

SO we get to bail out the Catholic Church. This is a church that aided and abetted child molesters, covered up for them, and hid them INTENTIONALLY!

And now we will be paying taxes to bail them out.

Here's a link to the AP article, by the way:
https://apnews.com/dab8261c68c93f24c0bfc1876518b3f6

Religion feeding at the government trough ? What were you expecting ?

Yes, but there are religions and there are religions. Given the Catholic Church's complete indifference to the lives of children, feeding that beast is worse than, say, helping the local Presbyterians.

Bless the beasts who prey on children is basically what it is.

Agreed.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The Treasury Secretary and members of both the House and Senate negotiated a deal to ensure accountability and transparency of funds. Then the president fired the inspector-general who was supposed to oversee that accountability. Then the Secretary of the Treasury (presumably at the request of the President) decided to no longer make information about how these funds were being spent available to the public.

Voila! Now you got a trough!

(CZ, if this response needs to be removed because of Board rules, you have, though you don't need it, my permission to do exactly that.)

Disgusting.

No use getting mad at the RCC when every corporate entity has its hand out. Rather, get mad at those who voted for it (everyone) and especially the guy tasked to dish it out:

“Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have become the public faces of the $3 trillion federal coronavirus bailout. Behind the scenes, however, the Treasury’s responsibilities have fallen largely to 42-year-old deputy secretary Justin Muzinich.”

https://www.wisconsingazette.com/news/bailout-has-provided-a-boon-for-treasury-officials-family-business/article_65c714ee-a4e4-11ea-9d22-9fc09d5c02d1.html

Justin Muzinich and family are making out quite well, indeed. Google can tell you more about this fella.

This makes sense. But most corporations don't have the RCC's record of tolerating and concealing child molestation. It is a particularly heinous business.

Go. Ask Ghislaine about that.

Were Maxwell or Epstein operating a business or acting avocationally? The latter, right? No chance of a bailout from Donald, correct?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2020 10:23PM by Lot's Wife.

A bailout from Prince Andrew

Yes, assuming Plan A doesn't work.

Chieko Noguchi, spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, confirmed to the AP that its officials had lobbied for PPP eligibility, but noted that they were not tracking how much each diocese was receiving.

"These loans are an essential lifeline to help faith-based organizations to stay afloat and continue serving those in need during this crisis," Noguchi said in a statement.

The church and its affiliated organizations were able to provide paychecks for more than 400,000 employees because of the loans, the AP found.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/506737-catholic-church-received-at-least-14-billion-covid-19-relief

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2020 08:29PM by caffiend.

If the US had a decent unemployment system or a fair COVID transfer mechanism, the payments could go direct to the workers rather than through the church. That way public funds would not be used to sustain a church that protects so many child-molesters.

ChurchCo???

And that's not all.
Hedge Fund Managers and Prominent Investment Advisors also got money. And in one case it took $350,000 to $1 MILLION dollars to keep 4 (FOUR) employees employed:

"Here Are The Thousands Of Investment Advisors And Portfolio Managers Who Received Government Bailouts"
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/here-are-thousands-investment-advisors-and-portfolio-managers-who-received-bailout-grants

Today the Treasury and the Small Business Administration released the full list of companies that received Paycheck Protection Program loans - which become grants and are fully forgivable if used to pay employee salaries and/or rent - for an amount greater than $150,000. The complete data, which includes a total of 661,219 recipients, can be accessed here.

As a reminder, the PPP was designed to help small businesses weather fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. It did so by funding small and medium companies with 500 employees or less; the loan/grant was meant to cover up to two and a half months of worker compensation (capped at an annualized $100,000) or in other words, the Treasury would provide at most $8,333 per employee for 2.5 months. That, at least, was the theory - in practice, things ended up being different.

To be sure, the PPP program helped a broad swath of organizations, including small restaurants, construction firms, retail locations and non-profits. Many of the conventional recipients of PPP loans were restaurant chains were struggling before the pandemic and were hit particularly hard by the health crisis, since they focus on dine-in service instead of to-go sales. Among them was P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Inc., a restaurant operator with more than 200 U.S. locations. Other restaurant chains included Mexican chain Rubio’s Restaurants Inc. and California-based Black Angus Steakhouses LLC.

That said, there was some "peculiar" recipients: among the recipients were Boies Schiller, the law firm headed by antitrust litigator David Boies, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, Illinois-based megachurch Willow Creek Community Church and the prominent New York synagogue Temple Emanu-El.

Yet while many businesses legitimately needed the funds to continue operations as without the PPP emergency cash infusion thousands of businesses would have shut down and been forced to layoff millions of workers, when it comes to a certain subset of recipients, questions have emerged.

Take for example NAICS code 523930 which is defined as "Investment Advisors", or companies who are paid very generous fees to anticipate precisely the kind of downturn that the covid unleashed and to steer their business successfully through it, especially since many - such as this blog - were repeatedly warning about the potentially catastrophic consequences of the global pandemic as early as January.

And yet, a casual search through the list of PPP recipients reveals that no less than 1,436 Investment Advisors applied for, and received PPP assistance, in many cases for well over $1 million. One of the most prominent firms, perhaps due to its daily appearances on CNBC, is Ritholz Wealth Management which as we noted previously repaid its PPP loan which according to the SBA was in the $350K-$1MM range. Ritholtz Wealth CEO Josh Bronwn even wrote a blog post explaining what he did in "Every cent, plus interest" in which he tried to justify why a successful RIA would need up to $1 million in government bailout loans.

Be that as it may, we still have a question: as the SBA disclosed, the loan was for over $350,000 and up to $1 million, and yet according to the SBA only 4 jobs were projected to be retained.

it seems POTUS wouldn't allow any effective oversight, that's an invite to abuse. Probably no condition on the $ going to employees not owners/investors.

blindguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1) This is part of a program that was supposed to
> give COVID-19 assistance to small businesses.
===============================

Tax them.

Agree. No bailout with no taxes.

I can see the RC getting aid to a certain (small) extent. At least in the Northeast, typical RC practice- my wife's RC- is "when I'm there at church, I put money in the offering." This worked well when there were parishes with 6,000 families and everyone pretty much always attended (under pain of eternal damnation.) RC, at least historically, didn't/don't pledge to give a set amount *each week*.
Where I have a problem is the Protestant megachurches. For example, Robert Jeffress's church has literally thousands of tithers (I hear they have 15,000 members). With no live worship for months now, do they still have a bloated staff; for example, are their non-performing musicians still being paid?
So, why would a church full of $$ like Jeffress's need loot from the taxpayers..?

I know money went to Unitarian churches. The church I’ve been a member of for a number of years received PPP money and I have made my disgust known. They counter with “the UUA (the general association) encouraged congregations to apply for the loans.” So since most congregations are under the supposed threshold, they were eligible. But it may be a time when the mormon model of no congregation actually controlling any of their funds and technically Rusty owning it all, may backfire on them and make them ineligible.

But churches don’t pay taxes and hence should not be on the government dole. My own included. So they got the “loan” and are applying for the non-repayment option, so they can keep people on the payroll who are completely unnecessary while we are shut down. And the UUA suggests congregations stay shut down until at least next Spring. Fine, pay the minister and and administrative person helping with online services and stuff. But they’re keeping all staff (music director, nursery person, religious education teachers, etc.) who are doing nothing. Then they want people who have been affected by the pandemic to pledge for the upcoming year. I guess it just makes me feel like I’m back in mormondumb. Where you’re expected to give but they’re not required to be prudent with the money. Only difference is that at least we get an accounting.

There was no oversight of the program. It is horrible. Our national pandemic response is such a disgrace.

Surprising, a government program that didn't work as intended!

Kind of like all the others.

Yup!

The government program to defeat Hitler didn't work; the government program to deliver your water and electricity are a joke; the police and fire services are dysfunctional.

We would all be better off in the woods banging on drums with you, Ammon Bundy, and the other he-men who pretend to be self-reliant while benefiting daily from the very institutions you disparage.

Do you never tire of your puerile resentments?