The IRS is now admitting that a billion dollars in COVID stimulus cash went to prison inmates.
A lot of mistakes were made during the pandemic, but this one deserves some kind of award.
Some of the prisoners who receieved this money are serving life sentences.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Prison inmates received more than $1 billion in COVID-19 stimulus checks, IRS admits
Over 1.1 million COVID-19 stimulus checks, totaling over $1.3 billion, were sent out to incarcerated people across the United States, data from the Internal Revenue Service revealed.
The $1.3 billion figure includes economic impact payments and does not account for recovery rebate credits, another form of COVID-19 relief given during the pandemic, according to a letter the IRS sent to Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) obtained by the Washington Examiner. Some 163,000 recipients were serving life sentences.
“It’s outrageous that those who inflicted pain on a family or community by committing a crime received a single dime from the government during the pandemic. If anything, the funds should have gone to the victims who would have been better served,” Bacon said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Of the checks doled out, 156,000 were sent to prisoners at the federal level and 982,000 to prisoners at the state level, per the IRS. Stimulus money was given to prisoners via checks, direct deposits, and debit cards.
During the crafting of the third COVID-19 relief legislation, Bacon and other Republicans sought to add language to prevent stimulus money from getting delivered to prisoners. A slew of Republicans had ripped Democrats for rejecting an amendment to the American Rescue Plan to cut off economic impact payments from prisoners.
That’s just great. Thanks, Democrats.
.@MurrayCampaign cast the deciding vote for the multi-trillion-dollar so-called “American Rescue Plan” that allows for stimulus checks to be sent to prisoners.
Nearly $1 BILLION to be exact. https://t.co/alAh7IPWSp
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) August 31, 2022
Thanks to President Biden, more than 1 million prisoners received Covid stimulus checks. Maybe he can send his 87,000 new IRS agents to retrieve those rather than go after hard-working Americans.
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) September 1, 2022
What a ridiculous situation. Taxpayers should be outraged.
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