Lobbying Congress in the new stimulus bill to allocate $3.36 billion more the GAVI international vaccine alliance to help with the logistic of getting the U.S. public vaccinated, it all sounds good, except for the fat that $3.36 billion less was available to direct relief to American citizens. “The people in the Congress who support these things decided that [the stimulus bill] is the most like way for something to get done,” Gates said. While Gates congratulates himself for taking money out of the mouths of cash-strapped citizens and businesses, why did the world’s third richest man valued at $120.1 billion not donate the $3.36 billion for vaccine relief? Gates claims the Bill and Linda gives away on a yearly basis much of 65-year-old’s staggering fortune that only seems to get bigger every year. Gates claims this foundation has a $46 billion endowment, giving only $2.8 billion in 2020.
Gates likes to take a high profile role in the fight against Covid-19, often appearing with 80-year-old National Institutes of Health [NIH] Chief of Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr. Anthony Fauci of radio and TV. Fauci and Gates have much in common with their contempt for 74-year-old President Donald Trump. Both condemned Trump for not doing enough for the Covid-19 crisis, though Fauci often praised Trump for doing everything asked of him, including shutting down the U.S. economy in April and May, plunging the U.S. economy into a punishing recession. Yet at every public event in 2020, Gates didn’t hesitate to criticize Trump for not doing enough to slow the spread of the Covid-19 crisis by encouraging more testing and lockdowns. Gates was in the forefront, like Fauci, of helping 78-year-old President-elect Joe Biden beat Trump in the Nov. 3 election.
Congress finally completed its latest $900 billion stimulus bill, far less than Democrats wanted in their 3.4 trillion HEROES Act, passed by the Democrat-led House May 12, the whittled down l$900 billion version passed yesterday. Gates knew that the much more relief was needed for American workers, struggling with the highest levels of unemployment since the Great Recession in 2008. “We are truly not safe until the whole world is safe from coronavirus,” Gates said, but offered little from his own pocket or his foundation to help the cause. Gates spends plenty of cash supporting the University of Washington Institute for Health Care Metrics and Evaluation [IHCME], making wildly inaccurate Covid-19 forecasts IHCME told Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom March 15 that 60% or 25.5 million Californians would be infected with Covid-19 by May 15 without massive shutdowns.
Gates has no problem grabbing headlines and taking credit for PCR [polymerase chain reaction], taking a stake in Abbott Laboratories 10-minute testing machines, promoting testing and contact tracing, criticizing Trump’s White House for not taking a more aggressive stance on testing. Yet with the all the testing done in the U.S., it hasn’t slowed the spread of the virus, currently at the worst levels since the World Health Organization [WHO] declared a global pandemic March 11. Bill Gates’ wife Melinda, who heads their foundation, said she supported getting more funding for GAVI to help get the vaccine out to the poorer communities around the U.S. and the world. “It’s totally possible,” Melinda said, referring letting GAVI help to get the vaccines out. “You just have to plan now,” saying nothing about how much the Bill and Melinda Gates foundations plans to spend of vaccine relief.
Gates can’t continue to expand his wealth to $120.1 billion and at the same time claim to endow the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to $46 billion. If Bill and Melinda were so hell-bent on making a difference with Covid-19, as they claim, then why is the foundation only spending $2.8 billion in total for 2020, only one-tenth billion more that 2019. There’s a disconnect between what the foundation stands for and what it actually contributes to worthy causes. Retaining a personal wealth of $120.1 billion, it’s inconceivable that Gates would want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to allocate $3.36 billion from the paired-down stimulus bill to pay for vaccine-related costs. Gates has plenty of resources to cover the $3.36 billion but instead takes the cash from high-priority items like paying for more extended unemployment compensation.
Someone needs to get to the bottom of why Bill Gates wealth increases every year while he claims to be giving away the lion’s share of his fortune to his foundation. Spending $2.8 billion in 2020 proves that Gates has no interest in giving away a sizable part of his fortune for what he thinks are worthy causes. If you calculate the amount of airtime he gives to Covid-19, you’d think he’d be giving a lot more of his whopping fortune to vaccine relief. Instead, Gates pressures lawmakers to take money away from other needy stimulus relief measures like increase direct payments to individuals and families, more payroll protection to small businesses or more extended unemployment compensation. Whatever nonprofits like GAVI does to improve vaccine distribution, Gates could made a much bigger difference, spending his own money than expecting Congress to take $3.36 billion from needy citizens.
