Prisons, border wall: How GOP is looking to use COVID money

By SARA BURNETT
Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — Republicans are using money from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package for projects on conservatives’ wish lists. Alabama lawmakers are advancing a plan to use $400 million of the state’s coronavirus relief funds toward building prisons. In Texas, a Republican-led county pledged to help Gov. Greg Abbott revive former President Donald Trump’s plans for a border wall. This kind of spending probably isn’t what the bill’s supporters had in mind when Democrats passed the bill on party lines. But it’s the inevitable result of Washington sending money to places with very different ideas about how public dollars are best spent.