WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — As the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak appears increasingly likely to be traceable to a Chinese lab leak, and the justifications for mandated lockdowns, masking, and jabs increasingly fall apart as further data emerges, U.S. President Joe Biden is requesting almost $11 billion in taxpayer cash to address “global health and health security challenges,” including more than a billion to combat the next disease epidemic.
The Biden administration’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year would allocate $10.9 billion to “reinforce U.S. leadership in addressing global health and health security challenges,” representing an increase of $370 million compared with 2023 funding.
According to the proposal, the nearly $11 billion would include “over $1.2 billion to prepare for, prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks — including by expanding U.S. bilateral partnerships with countries to improve health security capacity.”
Half a billion dollars would go directly toward the World Bank’s “Pandemic Fund” to scale up outbreak response capabilities globally.
The budget would also direct funds to support Biden’s “National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan and provide resources for the recommendations from DOD’s Biodefense Posture Review.”
The Daily Wire pointed out Thursday that Biden’s large ask comes even as the COVID-19 outbreak itself appears more and more likely to have resulted from a leak from a Chinese lab that was conducting virus research.
At least part of the funding for bat coronavirus research at that facility, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), appears to have come from the U.S. government via grants to nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.
Late last month, the U.S. Department of Energy, which operates 17 national laboratories, concluded in a “classified intelligence report” – albeit with “low confidence” – that the COVID-19 pandemic “most likely” originated from a Chinese lab leak, a concept previously denounced as a conspiracy theory. The FBI also reportedly believes that the coronavirus likely escaped from a Chinese lab.
READ: US Department of Energy now concludes COVID-19 escaped from Chinese lab: report
In May 2021, Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee released a report finding “significant circumstantial evidence” that COVID-19 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, arguing that EcoHealth used government funding to explore gain-of-function research at sites including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Last week, the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a bill to force the Biden administration to declassify all documents related to the origins of COVID-19.
On Friday, the House passed its version of the bill in a 419-0 vote.
READ: House unanimously approves bill requiring Biden admin to declassify COVID origin documents
Meanwhile, pandemic spending isn’t the only controversial element of Biden’s 184-page budget proposal.
The proposal would also earmark over $3 billion for “opportunities for women and girls and support the needs of marginalized communities, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex community.”
The administration additionally highlighted the alleged importance of ensuring that America’s military veterans can get surgeries and drugs to appear more like the opposite sex.
The administration announced in its budget proposal that “[i]n addition to ending the ban on transgender service” it’s also “committed to providing gender affirming care,” a euphemism for hormone drugs and mutilating surgeries, “to the Nation’s veterans.”