China’s Wet Markets Should Never Again Get US Tax Dollars

There are lots of suspicions about how and where the coronavirus pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China, began. Did it escape from a state-run lab? Did it spread through a local market? [Note: You can’t believe anything coming from the Communist Party of China].

For years, there have been warnings that conditions at both the Wuhan Institute of Virology and China’s “wet markets” were unsafe and could release a deadly pathogen into the world. 

And yet your tax dollars were being spent at both!

President Trump has assured taxpayers that no more of your money will go to the Wuhan lab. Next up, these wet markets. 

What is a so-called “wet market,” you ask? Well, it’s where living animals—including cats and dogs—are bought, sold, and butchered for human consumption in unsanitary conditions. 

And despite the worldwide pandemic that has ensued, these wet markets REMAIN OPEN for business in Communist China.

Nearly two decades ago, SARS was believed to have made the leap from animals to humans at a wet market in China. And ever since, scientists have been warning that another, far more virulent virus could be transmitted from wildlife to humans if these wet markets were not shut down. 

The communist nation’s rules for these repulsive markets, of course, are lax and often unenforced or ignored. Live rats, snakes, and other wildlife, including the animals that were the source of SARS, and even “recycled lab animals” that had been used as test subjects by Chinese researchers, have been reported as being bought and sold for food at these markets. 

Despite warnings by health officials, previous administrations spent taxpayer money to support China’s “wet markets” and slaughterhouses by purchasing cats and dismembered dogs. 

That’s right folks, YOUR tax dollars were spent to subsidize China’s wet markets – supermarkets of sickness.

And what did our federal government need these animals (and animal parts) for? The U.S. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) was doing some “projects” with the kittens and puppy parts acquired from China’s meat markets. 

Good grief, folks. This is what your money was going to for years. Thank goodness they’ve discontinued the project!

Instead of wasting your hard-earned tax dollars in China’s wet markets – or the Wuhan lab frankly – the federal government should have been pushing China to shut down these dangerous, disease-prone places. 

And while we can all appreciate ARS’s dedication to ensuring our food is safe and supporting American agriculture, there’s NO EXCUSE for spending taxpayer dollars at meat markets in China that couldn’t pass the agency’s very own safety standards.

April Squeal Award: Bureaucrats at the ARS

That is why I am giving my April Squeal Award to the bureaucrats at the ARS who did just that.

It is also why I’m putting forward bipartisan legislation prohibiting ONE MORE AMERICAN TAX DOLLAR from being spent shopping for cats, puppy parts, or any other animals from unregulated, unhealthy, and inhumane wet markets in China.

Do you have an example of government waste or inefficiencies that I should take a look at? Send me an email by clicking here.

Thank you!