Biden hands out half a billion to electric vehicle companies Move recalls the cash that went to solar and wind projects while he was VP

Back in the days of Barack Obama, he handed out billions of dollars to solar and wind power projects.

The Chicago Tribune noted that just one of them, the "Solyndra scandal," cost taxpayers at least half a billion dollars.

That solar panel company got $535 million from the government, "with the help of the Obama White House," over objections from federal budget experts.

"Obama and Vice President Joe Biden got a nice photo op. They got to make speeches about being 'green.' But then Solyndra went bankrupt. Americans lost jobs. Taxpayers got stuck with the bill."

Now, it seems Biden is pulling that page from his history for a potential do-over.

Just the News reports a total of $530 million was dispatched by the Biden administration to Ascend Elements and 6K Inc. to support "battery manufacturing, recycling, and material processing for the electric vehicle market."

The report warned the Biden administration has plans to send a total of $2.8 billion to 20 companies.

"U.S. Democratic Sens. Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Reps. Jim McGovern and Seth Moulton hailed the move that will support the companies based in North Andover and Westborough," the report explained.

HunterBiden, Burisma, and Corruption: The Impact on U.S.Government Policy and Related Concerns

U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

U.S. Senate Committee on Finance Majority Staff Report

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC_Finance_Report_FINAL.pdf
TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
II. INTRODUCTION

III. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

IV. THE VICE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE AND STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS WERE AWARE OF BUT IGNORED CONCERNS RELATING TO HUNTER BIDEN’S ROLE ON BURISMA’S BOARD.

V. SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY FALSELY CLAIMED HE HAD NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN’S ROLE ON BURISMA’S BOARD.

VI. STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS VIEWED MYKOLAZLOCHEVSKY AS A CORRUPT, “ODIOUS OLIGARCH,” BUT VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN WAS ADVISED NOT TO ACCUSE ZLOCHEVSKY OF CORRUPTION.

VII. WHILEHUNTER BIDEN SERVED ON BURISMA’S BOARD, BURISMA’S OWNER, ZLOCHEVSKY, ALLEGEDLY PAID A $7 MILLION BRIBE TO UKRAINE’S PROSECUTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE TO CLOSE THE CASE.

VIII. HUNTER BIDEN: A SECRET SERVICE PROTECTEE WHILE ON BURISMA’S BOARD.

IX. OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS AND A DEMOCRAT LOBBYING FIRM HAD CONSISTENT AND SIGNIFICANT CONTACT WITH FORMER UKRAINIAN OFFICIAL ANDRII TELIZHENKO.

X. THE MINORITY FALSELY ACCUSED THE CHAIRMEN OF ENGAGING IN A RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN AND USED OTHER TACTICS TO INTERFERE IN THE INVESTIGATION.

XI. HUNTER BIDEN’S AND HIS FAMILY’S FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS WITH UKRAINIAN, RUSSIAN, KAZAKH AND CHINESE NATIONALS RAISE CRIMINAL CONCERNS AND EXTORTION THREATS.

XII. CONCLUSION

Joe Bidens phony tax returns

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Joe Biden’s Released Tax Returns Don’t Explain Millions In Income. Where Did It Come From?
https://thefederalist.com ^ | APRIL 06, 2022 | BY: BOB ANDERSON
Posted on 4/6/2022, 1:49:22 PM by Red Badger

The sources of President Joe Biden’s large income after he left his post as vice president have never been detailed in his tax returns.

In the week prior to the presidential election, I wrote a piece that asked the question, “Where Is Hunter Biden’s Money?” It was an important question then, even more so now. Given the legacy media’s recent validation of Hunter’s laptop that discussed a slice of equity planned for the “Big Guy” in a deal that involved an entity controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), we should know if any money from it (or other foreign sources) ended up in Joe Biden’s pocket, but we don’t.

Recall that despite then-presidential candidate Biden having bragged that he had released his tax returns with what his team called “a historic level of transparency,” the truth is that he only released his individual returns. Those returns provided no detail regarding the source of most of his income, dollars that flowed to him and his wife Jill by way of S-corporations they set up shortly after his departure from the office of vice president. Those entities, CelticCapri Corp (his) and Giacoppa Corp (hers), contained more than $13 million of the $17 million the couple had reported in income after Biden left office, most of it in the first year (2017).

The same media that ignored Hunter’s laptop has shown a complete incuriosity about these entities, accepting the premise that Joe and Jill raked in $13 million from their book deal to generate their huge increase in income. We simply don’t know if that’s true, though. What we do know is that their book sales were dismal.

Perhaps sensing smoke starting to build just before the election, USA Today published a “fact check” piece that attempted to support that the Bidens earned “$15.6 million … from speaking fees and book deals” in the years 2017 through 2019 and that “more than $10 million of that total income was profits from Biden’s memoir ‘Promise Me, Dad’ and $3 million in profits from Jill Biden’s book.”

Follow the source link provided to that $10 million number, though, and you’ll end up at Joe Biden’s campaign website with financial disclosure links to only their individual returns — no S-corporation tax returns. So, in reality, readers were left with a smokescreen. (Now the financial disclosure links for 2016, 2017, and 2018 have even been changed to connect to a Democratic National Committee fundraising site via ActBlue rather than the tax documents.)

I noted back in 2020 that, “While (Joe Biden’s) financial disclosures reasonably support the $2.7 million of net income reported by CelticCapri in 2018, a notable $8.7 million gap exists between its $9.5 million net income in 2017 and the $809,709 of disclosed income in that year from book tour and related speaking events. Since his disclosure covers only part of 2017, we lack the insight into other income that may explain it.”

To that obvious question, the legacy press simply yawned. But it will become increasingly harder for them to maintain a head-in-the-sand position as more information arises.

Senators Present Proof of CCP Connections

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., recently showed proof of payments from what they said were CCP-controlled firms “that prove just how connected the Bidens were and how compromised President Biden probably is.” An August 2017 wire receipt showed $100,000 sent from CEFC Infrastructure Investment to Owasco, and a copy of a November 2017 check from CEFC Limited revealed $1 million paid to Hudson West III, LLC. Both recipient entities were tied to the president’s son.

Did any of that money, or other overseas income, go to Joe or Jill? We would know if the president provided a copy of their S-Corp. tax returns with all partner K-1’s that flowed through them. But the only detail we have is aggregate numbers reported on the couple’s individual returns.

2017 Biden taxes

2017

2018 As it stands, we’re left to trust USA Today that Jill grossed $3 million (royalties plus about $700,000 from speaking fees) for a book that sold only 7,000 copies in its first week, and that from that book deal she netted more than $1 million in the two years prior to its release, but only $175,319 in the year it was published (2019). It’s possible an advance was paid, but could a publisher have justified that amount?

2019 The Numbers Don’t Add Up We are told that Joe netted $12.2 million (after expenses) in the same deal for a book that sold 300,000 copies. Excluding the $4.2 million earned from touring and speaking, that yields $8 million of income that we are to assume came from book royalties (higher if we know his gross revenues before expenses).

For analysis purposes, consider that his book had a retail price of $27 for hardcover and $18 for paperback, and assume a reasonable mix of sales so the average price was $23 (with no discounting). On 300,000 books sold, gross revenues would’ve been just under $7 million. As an author, Joe would’ve likely received about 12 percent of that using a blended royalty rate (15 percent hardcover and 7.5 percent paperback typical from publishers), yielding about $800,000 income. Round it up to $1 million if you prefer. Double it. It’s still not close to $8 million.

Sure, he likely got an advance, but would a publisher have advanced that kind of money to an author whose prior work, “Promises to Keep,” sold only 49,000 copies?

So many questions.

Release the Full Tax Returns Rather than ask for proof of sources of income, the media has been stuck in a repeating cycle of reporting about whether Joe and Jill underpaid payroll taxes. That’s a valid question, but it may miss the much larger one: Where did all of that money come from after Biden left office?

To that end, tax returns are a valuable investigative source document. Since the days of Al Capone, the rule has been clear: Don’t ever fail to pay taxes on any income, even if shady. It’s the easiest conviction for a prosecutor. So it’s logical that all income would be reported, and for any potentially over the ethical or legal line, an upstream S-Corporation would serve as the perfect mechanism to obscure it from view.

On a matter of this importance, all possibilities must be fairly considered until proof is established one way or the other. The president may have completely valid sources for all of his income, and if so, he should demonstrate it, particularly given the evidence of foreign money flowing through his son and indirect references to himself.

In releasing Biden’s tax return last year, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki commented that the “release (of) the president’s tax returns … should be expected of all presidents.” Surely she would agree this means the full set of documents.

If this question involved former President Donald Trump and one of his sons, The New York Times and The Washington Post would already be howling for full disclosure, and they would be right to do so. So perhaps they will join now in saying, “Mr. President, please clear the air of all doubt — release your full tax returns.”

Bob Anderson is a partner and CFO of a hotel development company and a former aerospace engineer who worked on the International Space Station and interned in Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) at the Pentagon. He is also a licensed commercial pilot.

Obama’s Failed Stimulus Still Fleecing Taxpayers
Townhall.com ^ | December 5, 2017 | David Williams
Posted on 12/6/2017, 1:34:43 PM by Kaslin

It’s not healthy to dwell on the past. But, for the taxpayers across the country, it is important to learn from past mistakes. The continued problems with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aka Stimulus Plan, is a good lesson as to what not to do. The nearly trillion-dollar spending package, passed on a party-line vote in 2009, was supposed to rocket the economy out of the recession.

The law funded absurd projects such as a snowmaking facility in Duluth, Minn., math and literacy coaches for North Carolina’s public school teachers, and a $3 million tunnel for turtles in Florida.

Still, then-President Obama promised up to 500,000 new construction jobs a month. Vice President Joe Biden declared the summer of 2010 as the “Recovery Summer.” Administration officials heralded “an explosion of projects” across the country. It couldn’t be all bad, right?

But as the air turned crisp and the shadows grew longer, even the taxpayer-funded National Public Radio couldn’t spin the results. “’Recovery Summer’ Ends with Economic Pothole,” read a September headline.

The failure of Obama’s stimulus plan would be laughable if it didn’t carry an $835 billion price tag. Or if it wasn’t still fleecing taxpayers.

But sadly, the disastrous impact of the stimulus hasn’t ended with the Obama administration. The ARRA is back in the news nine years after it was enacted and a year after Obama left office.

According to the South Bend Tribune, “two local lawyers claim 62 Indiana hospitals, including two in St. Joseph County, systematically falsified records and defrauded taxpayers of more than $300 million.”

The lawyers allege the hospitals in Indiana took federal grant money made available through the ARRA to implement electronic medical records systems. Only it doesn’t appear that they implemented the electric records systems at all.

“The lawsuit says the pair found that in 2013, Memorial Hospital reported 16 requests for electronic medical records and claimed it provided all 16 within the required three business day period,” the South Bend Tribune reports. “The lawyers allege that on five occasions between April and Dec. 2013, they received records in an electronic format only once and none of the records were issued within three business days, contradicting what the hospital reported. The pair claim to have found similar discrepancies with the other three hospitals.”

When it comes to taxpayer boondoggles, $300 million is just the tip of the iceberg. If the allegations are true, hospitals were able to siphon off nearly $5 million each on average. Investigations around the country can and will likely yield “discrepancies” totaling tens of billions of dollars.

Regardless of the pitfalls of the stimulus package, most Americans have reasonably assumed that the worst is behind them, with the nearly trillion dollars long flushed away. Unfortunately, taxpayers are not off the hook just yet for gargantuan spending passed nearly nine years ago. This episode serves as a cruel reminder that government programs linger on long after they have run their course or have been demonstrated to be useless, even harmful.

This is another teachable moment about the fallacy of Keynesian-style government stimulus and the wastefulness of unnecessary government spending. Despite this, and other reprehensible findings about the misuse of stimulus funds, it’s unlikely that politicians in Washington will learn their lessons.

A Look Back At How Joe Biden Managed Obama’s 2009 Stimulus Package
April 6, 2020
Heard on All Things Considered

ASMA KHALID

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Joe Biden was instrumental in getting the 2009 recovery act through Congress, then supervised the stimulus for the Obama administration. How might that experience shape how he would govern?

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

In 2009, like today, the country faced economic peril. Back then, Congress passed a stimulus package that cut taxes, expanded unemployment support and more. The 2009 Recovery Act cost around $800 billion, and the person put in charge of overseeing how a lot of that money was spent was the country’s new vice president, Joe Biden. Now as Biden seeks the presidency, his handling of that crisis could shape whether voters think he’s up to the job of handling this one. NPR’s Asma Khalid has more.

ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: On the day Barack Obama signed the Recovery Act in February 2009, he explicitly thanked Joe Biden for working behind the scenes to make the legislation possible. When Biden took the mic, he acknowledged the economy was in a downward spiral.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Last year, our economy lost 3 million jobs; 600,000 more just this last month.

KHALID: And he promised a recovery.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BIDEN: We’re here today to start to turn that around.

KHALID: President Obama signed the bill, but then he swiftly handed all the supervision over to his vice president. Here’s Obama describing Biden’s new role.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: As part of his duty, Joe will keep an eye on how precious tax dollars are being spent. To you, he’s Mr. Vice President, but around the White House, we call him the sheriff.

KHALID: Former aides say Biden took it personally if any stimulus dollars were wasted. Ron Klain was his chief of staff at the time.

RON KLAIN: We put a real big emphasis on the Recovery Act in transparency and accountability.

KHALID: Estimates show around 1% of the roughly $800 billion was ever attributed to waste or fraud. Klain says being accountable also meant being efficient.

KLAIN: He held meetings with the Cabinet as a whole, the various agencies that are part of this, every other week to try to make sure we were moving quickly.

KHALID: The vice president traveled the country to see stimulus projects in action. And every week, he held phone calls with a rotating group of bipartisan governors and mayors.

KLAIN: The vice president insisted that the recovery implementation office that reported to him, they had what he called the 24-hour rule, which is any question that a governor or mayor raised got an answer within 24 hours.

KHALID: Biden’s real role was kind of opaque to people outside the White House. He occasionally gave press updates, but Jason Furman, who was the deputy director of the National Economic Council at the time, says that wasn’t really what he did.

JASON FURMAN: He wasn’t even that much the public face of the Recovery Act. He was really almost behind the scenes making sure it actually worked.

MICHAEL STEEL: The impression from our end was that the vice president’s role was something of a joke.

KHALID: That last voice is Michael Steel, a former aide to John Boehner, who, at the time, was the Republican leader in the House.

STEEL: Calling him Sheriff Joe and promising rigorous oversight of this program, it frankly symbolized that the president’s priority, his attention, had shifted immediately to health care.

KHALID: This was around the time that President Obama was starting to push for the Affordable Care Act. On the Recovery Act, Steel was peeved with the Obama administration as a whole. He says it did not court Republicans as much as it should have. Not a single Republican in the House signed on. Democrats insist they did try to court Republicans and, in fact, won over a few in the Senate thanks to Biden. But the lack of GOP support in the House had side effects. Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former economic adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, says it made the Democrats more exposed to Republicans screaming about every dollar that didn’t go right. And he says that affected how the Democrats implemented the stimulus.

DOUG HOLTZ-EAKIN: So what did they do? They get more careful, which is at odds with recovery. You want to get the money out the door. It’s an open question whether the vice president could have done something about that. But that’s what he had to live with.

KHALID: The question now is what this all means for the current moment. Jared Bernstein was Biden’s chief economist during the Recovery Act.

JARED BERNSTEIN: He may be the most battle-tested president from the perspective of implementing stimulus plans than, you know, anyone I can think of.

KHALID: Even Holtz-Eakin, who thinks the 2009 stimulus was flawed, did not take issue directly with Biden. In fact, as critical as he was of the Recovery Act itself, he told me Biden’s experience could be advantageous in our current times.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think it’s an asset. He can now in his head think, OK, we’ve got $360 billion at the SBA. And we’ve got $500 billion over at Treasury. They’re going to have this list of problems. And he knows that.

KHALID: The election in November may very well be decided by how President Trump handles the current crisis and its aftermath. As his likely Democratic opponent, Biden’s campaign fully intends to put his record up as an alternative.

Asma Khalid, NPR News.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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