Do you know how your taxpayer dollars are spent? Given the massive, unaccountable bureaucracy that dictates where many of those dollars go, and answer, of course, is “NO.” Our hard-earned money goes to many organizations and initiatives that a majority of Americans find abhorrent, including Planned Parenthood, the Iranian terror state, and ridiculous “studies” on Ugandan transsexuals (to name only one). Kentucky Senator Rand Paul just shone the national spotlight on another taxpayer-funded study—and in this case, that money may have cost millions of lives around the globe. Throughout the pandemic, Sen. Paul has remained one of the only reasonable voices in Washington. As a medical doctor, Sen. Paul has the knowledge and authority to understand the virus’ true risks. As a libertarian, he has a proper understanding of the role the government should play in reducing the spread of the disease. That’s why I take note whenever the senator has a chance to grill Dr. Anthony Fauci, which he did during a hearing last week. SEE ALSO: College Professor Calls Police Racist, Gets Suspended, Blames “White Supremacy” Dr. Fauci maintains that the National Institutes of Health has never sent taxpayer money to the Wuhan lab where the COVID-19 virus likely originated. But even if that’s true (which it isn’t), our money still contributed to the virus’ creation. “Gain-of-function” research is an incredibly dangerous procedure that involves enhancing the capabilities of animal viruses so that they can be spread to humans. Taxpayer dollars are used to fund that research in the United States, and Sen. Paul mentioned one doctor in particular who has received grants from the NIH: Dr. Ralph S. Baric. Dr. Baric has collaborated with a Chinese doctor named Shi Zheng-li. Dr. Shi specializes in bat coronaviruses and worked at (you guessed it!) the Wuhan Virology Institute. “[Dr. Baric] shared his discoveries about how to create super-viruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH. The collaboration between the U.S. and the Wuhan Virology Institute continues,” Sen. Paul said. In other words, our hard-earned taxpayer dollars helped fund the knowledge and research scientists in the Wuhan lab needed to create the COVID-19 disease. Watch the latest video at foxnews.com SEE ALSO: The Last Laugh? Police Officer Nate Silvester Trolls Lebron, Gets Suspended, Raises $500,000 Will anyone be held accountable for this? Probably not. As you can see from Dr. Fauci’s response, our federal bureaucrats specialize in shifting the blame and covering their tracks. Because no one can prove (yet) that the U.S. directly funded the creation of COVID-19 in Wuhan, few federal officials will have the courage to go after Dr. Fauci and the NIH. It shouldn’t be this way. Unelected, lifetime bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci should pay a price when they decide to fund ultra-dangerous research in the United States and allow American doctors to collaborate with doctors in China. The state controls everything in that Communist “utopia.” Dr. Baric knew that his research was being used by our enemies and that Chinese scientists likely didn’t have the same safety standards in their labs, but he collaborated anyway. If we’re looking to cast blame for the COVID-19 pandemic, we should look to China first. Then, we should look to the bureaucrats who used our money to fund research that led to millions of deaths, billions of lost livelihoods, and countless dollars of economic hardship.
