>> And Associated Press investigation has found the Catholic Church has brought in billions
of dollars in stimulus funding. When as a religious organization, they're not supposed
to qualify for this type of money. But apparently, according to this investigation, they lobbied
the Trump administration for an exemption in regard to the small business loans aspect
of the stimulus bill.
So the Associated Press reports that the amount that the church collected was between $1.4
billion and $3.5 billion. The Diocesan and Fiscal Management Conference, an organization
of Catholic financial officers surveyed members and reported that about 9000 Catholic entities
receive loans. Now keep in mind that they are tax exempt.
Religious organizations are tax exempt, meaning that they took taxpayer money that they've
never contributed to as a religious organization. The archdiocese for instance of New York received
15 loans. 15 loans worth at least $28 million just for its top executive offices. It's iconic
St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was approved for at least $1 million.
A loan of at least $2 million went to the diocese covering Wheeling-Charleston West
Virginia, where a church investigation revealed last year that then Bishop Michael Bransfield,
embezzled funds and made sexual advances towards young priests. Really great that are hard
earned taxpayer money is going to that kind of church when there are still people in this
country who qualified for stimulus checks for instance, and they still haven't received
them 12 million to be exact.
Now, overall, nearly 500 loans approved to Catholic entities were in the amount exceeding
$1 million. And the rule that they were able to get an exemption on is the one it's referred
to as the affliction rule and it has to do with the small business loans. You're not
supposed to qualify for them if you have employees above 500.
And the Catholic Church certainly does and on top of that, they're not supposed to be
funded by the government in any way because it's a religious organization. But there was
an exemption in regard to that as well. >> So a couple of issues here. First is the
exemption that they got and how do they get it?
They lobbied for it. Now here are the comical numbers, and shows you why bribery in America
is the best investment you could make. So, the Catholic Church it appears based on the
APs reporting spent about $50,000 lobbying politicians. In return it looks like they
got $1.4 to $3.5 billion.
Who would be enough of a sucker not to do that? So if somebody said to you somehow amounts
of $50,000 that's a lot of money, right? I mean okay, all right, but I'm fine and give
it to a politician, just bribe him. And in return he'll give you $3.5 billion.
What everybody would do, of course, of course and everybody is doing that. And so the Catholic
Church looks at corporations that do it every day and they go, what are we suckers? Well,
let's bribe them and get get our money and they did. So they needed the exemption to
be, to basically break these rules so that they get the money even though they have way
over 500 employees.
They got the exception. And now look, small business part of this loan is what's going
now to nonprofits. And that's a really interesting decision that the government made. But I think
that it's certainly a justifiable decision. It's a debatable one, but a justifiable one.
Now, we reported earlier in the week, some horrible nonprofits are getting it like Americans
for tax reform that fights for lower taxes for billionaires.
INR and Institute and now religious organizations are getting it and that's problematic because
we're supposed to separate church and religion, public money. Our money is not supposed to
go to religions that we don't necessarily believe in. And by the way if you're a Christian
or Catholic boy, yes, so what Ben I love it the church got the money I love it.
Remember, theoretically mosques can get it too. So you don't like Sharia law and Muslims,
aah! So is the government giving money to Muslims? Are you happy with that? You want
billions of dollars to go to Muslim groups. We should be fair obviously, I know that there's
a lot of right wing Christians in this country don't think we should be fair.
And if they found out $1 of their money went to a mosque, their heads are gonna blow. And
so, so that's the situation here and whatever we do, we should apply evenly to all these
people. And it's not to say, look, the Catholic Church and the AAP focus on this almost too
much, has had these horrible crimes that we've talked about endlessly and no, I don't want
any of my tax payer money going to it.
At the same time, they also help the poor, the needy, etc. Let's be fair across the board
about it, but does that doesn't mean that taxpayer dollars should go to religious institutions.
Right, I think the AAP chose to focus on a predatory behavior that happened in a lot
of these churches, Catholic churches because a lot of them have massive legal settlements
to deal with.
So they didn't overtly report it this way. But the sense that I got by reading the full
report was that it could be that these churches were cash strapped, as a result of those lawsuits,
as a result of that money that they owed. And some of this stimulus money could be helping
them get out of that hole.
And I think that's a legitimate thing to be concerned about, especially when you look
at when the majority of these loans were approved. They were approved in the first two weeks
of the stimulus. And as you can remember Jank in the first two weeks of the stimulus, the
money for the small business loans had already run out.
So you kind of see that they were in front of the line when it came to getting approved
for billions of dollars. In the meantime, actual small businesses were struggling to
get approved. We're struggling to get through the system and it's just these are people
who have done their due diligence, they have paid their taxes.
And it is really frustrating to see how again, especially in the middle of a pandemic, people
who do the lobbying, people who would do the legalized bribery always get to jump ahead
of the line, they always get what they want. They always get a massive return on their
investment.
>> Also, Trump said, in a meeting with Catholic leaders, I want you guys to vote for me. So
I'm gonna get your money. Remember they always said about Obama and Democrats, they just
want to hand out so that people vote for them. Trump just says it. He's like, yeah, I'll
get you money if you vote for me.
He doesn't know that he's not supposed to say the quiet parts out loud. And finally,
big business got $500 million. And unlike the churches, unlike the nonprofit groups,
and unlike the small businesses.. There is no scrutiny for the money they got. And they
got the most amount of money that Congress kept that secret, because big businesses are
the ones that bribe them the most.
So, they wanna be able to funnel the most amount of money to the people who needed it
the least because they take the most amount of bribes from them. So, that's how this sick
government works.