The Blank Check Protection Program: a Religious Experience

[Judi Lynn]

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022
BY KATHLEEN WALLACE

The hatred of female bodily autonomy and a love of free government money…… damn, but those venn diagrams rarely intersect in such a predictable manner. I’ll admit it, sometimes my theories make me look more like Charlie from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” pinning up notes connecting it all with red yarn, but this time? Well, judge for yourself. Really there’s not much of a conspiracy here–that would imply something is hidden. It’s not hidden at all.

This is the link compiled by Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission giving the donation totals for those individuals and entities that funded the ill-fated “Value Them Both” anti-abortion amendment put to the voters in the state of Kansas this summer.

The amounts are shocking, but perhaps the most astounding numbers are the five separate donations from the Archdiosese of Kansas City, Kansas. The amounts are as follows: $1,250,000, $850,000, $380,000, $350,000, and yet another $350,000. In excess of 3 million dollars spent, not on charity, not on helping infants be fed, not on paying for obstetrical care. No, this was over 3 million spent trying to get Kansans to allow a path for the Republican legislature to deny reproductive freedoms. When I saw this colossal amount of cash, I had to marvel at the donations that individuals must have extended to the church. And I wondered how many must have left their estates to the church to allow such a large amount of money to be used in such a manner. This, by an institution that I imagine is financially taxed not by the government, but financially taxed by having to pay out an awful lot of lawsuits for some downright horrifying criminal behavior.

But then another bit of shared information came out from ProPublica and it shed a little light on the situation.

This website allows you to put in a zip code or a name and find out how much debt was forgiven by the covid driven PPP for different entities. This program was enacted ostensibly to funnel money into the payroll necessary to keep people employed during the pandemic. Shockingly, much of the money went to businesses that shouldn’t have had a hard hit during the pandemic, other than perhaps a bit more protective equipment needed to do the job (for instance nursing homes–they didn’t quit having residents and had no hit from a lack of elective surgeries, yet they had their coffers filled by the program in many instances). Now don’t get me wrong, many definitely did take a real hit during the semi-shutdown. The question here is if there is any oversight as to what was actually done with that money that was supposed to go to payroll? And even if payroll was maintained, did it go to the rank and file–or the top…. whose payroll was maintained? Lots of questions without any answers to speak of yet. This program is starting to look like a grift of epic proportions…and all fairly under the radar. The lack of scrutiny has been alarming, especially in the wake of the “oh my god, don’t get rid of 0.000001 of the student loan debt or you will lose all moral hazard!”

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/01/the-blank-check-protection-program-a-religious-experience/

[slightlv]

1. Judi Lynn, it's not just the people and programs

you mentioned who got stiffed by the archdiocese, but the schools, too... at least, the poorer ones in the barrio. My sis is a long time (and long suffering) teacher in one of them and they even pulled the meager stipend they usually get that helps them buy school supplies for the classroom!

So not only are they underpaid and overworked with ever increasing class sizes, but now they are having to buy there own supplies for their classrooms, as well as help their students with supplies when necessary (which is pretty often). So she went up on Facebook and asked for help. I shared it over on my page, and I and my coven helped her get some of the stuff she needed. Bit of symmetry there, eh? (gryn)

This is no laughing matter, tho... everything the "church" is suppose to stand for seems to be falling by the wayside due to either the lawsuits because of the pedophilia or is lost in the money for right wing politics. And yet they pay no taxes? There is definitely something wrong with this picture!!!!!!

My sister, meanwhile, is counting down the *days* until she can retire... they may be in the thousands of days, but she's still counting them down. The pain of it is she loves teaching. They're just ruining the career field for her, tho.

[3Hotdogs]

2. That was wasted money.... money that could have been used to hire lawyers to defend against child

abuse cases. Or it could'a bought a "treatment home" for disgrac --- sorry, retired priests. Or a pension for Cardinal Law who had to escape to the Vatican.'

Wasted money. And the voters gave them a good, swift kick in the balls, anyway.

[dlk]

3. This clearly shows where the archdiocese's truly values lie

It’s not with the lives of women.