More Congressional help for feds on the way?

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Congress might be adjourned until May 4, but that hasn’t stopped the chattering. Members are arguing over the size, scope and timing of a fourth coronavirus stimulus bill. It could include more assistance to federal employees. With what to watch for, Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: Mitchell, what can we expect this week? Because they’re talking but they’re not together?

Mitchell Miller: That’s right. Well, members of Congress may not be here at the Capitol, but they have been busy putting together a wide range of proposals. There of course on all these conference calls and video calls every day. Virginia Congressman Jerry Connolly is among those trying to get federal workers some financial help. He’s working with Carolyn Maloney the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for federal workers who have to continue to physically get to their places of work or the sites that are managed. He’s proposing a payment of up to $2,000 for each child per month to help federal workers with childcare costs and of course, a lot of people have kids at home because there’s no school. He also wants to Make sure that federal agencies can’t restrict teleworking for those who can work from home. And teleworkers wouldn’t have to take unpaid time off because they have kids at home. Some federal employee unions have complained as you know that agencies are still lagging on telework, although many agencies also have made great strides and doing a lot of things, especially over the last several weeks, Connolly is also recommending some changes that would affect government contractors as well to help them manage through these various regulations and requirements as we go through this pandemic.

Tom Temin: (Jokingly) All that childcare money could spur the adoption market, who knows.

Mitchell Miller: Big bucks!

Tom Temin: But is there any republican buy in to these proposals?

Mitchell Miller: Well, you know, the republicans are really hesitant on a lot of what the democrats are doing right now. They feel like the democrats are continuing, adding on day after day, more proposals one right after the other. Now they do have some buy in on various issues, particularly related to small business assistance, and things that will make sure that major fund that recently ran out of money will be replenished. But there are other areas where the democrats continue to push hard and say we really need more money for state and local governments, they want to help the governor’s they want to help out with hospitals, health care facilities. So there is a tension between the two parties about all of them are definitely on board with wanting to help people, it’s just a matter of degrees and where the money is going to go.

Tom Temin: And getting back to the Connolly proposals. He’s also looking at or suggesting a lot more money for agencies to invest in information technology, to in turn support all that telework.

Mitchell Miller: Right, exactly. One of his complaints, as you know, over the years has been that they really haven’t put enough money into the infrastructure to make sure that all these agencies are really ready to be ramped up. Now, obviously, a lot of these agencies have been making improvements, as I mentioned, but he wants to put a lot more money into this system, to make sure that when things like this happen, as well as just during the daily work of federal government, that teleworkers, that people can really actually work from from home. The other thing that Connolly has been trying to do is get money for the Postal Service. The Postal Service employs more than 600,000 people. And of course, Gerry Connolly is the chair of the Government Operations Committee, which has jurisdiction over that. The Postmaster General has said that the Postal Service will run out of money by the end of September if it doesn’t get more financial help. As we know, the financial problems have plagued the Postal Service and mail volume has dropped by at least a third according to Connolly. He is pushing to get more money for the postal service in that next big legislative package. There’s a lot of tension there as well with Republicans, a lot of critics related to the Postal Service. And of course, President Trump has been a big critic of the Postal Service, saying it’s basically doing a lot of the work for Amazon and these other companies. So we’ll have to see what happens although Connolly is fairly confident that money will continue to get into the pipeline for the Postal Service.

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Tom Temin: And what about the some of the pressures processes that people have encountered with the SBA with the IRS, that have not been, let’s say, optimal?

Mitchell Miller: Right. There’s been a lot of problems with the checks going out whether or not people, especially when it was first announced, a lot of people would go on the website, they couldn’t find out. They had no idea whether or not they were getting their money. So a lot of things still being worked out with getting those checks out to people. And that’s a big one, of course. And then the other big issue, of course, related to money is the lack of money for the SBA’s PPP, Paycheck Protection Program, which ran out last week, close to $350 billion. And it’s really interesting because this, as we’ve been talking about, is one of those areas where there’s a lot of bipartisan support. There’s really no daylight between the republicans and democrats on getting small businesses money, but they seem to have a problem figuring out exactly what is the way to get the money to small businesses. Democrats have continually argued that they need more for these underserved businesses, those that were not in the Small Business Administration baileywick, if you will, minority owned businesses, for example, that may not have been in the SBA system. Republicans just say why don’t you just cross out a few lines in the legislation and give the program 250 billion dollars? So there’s certainly been a lot of give and take on that issue.

Tom Temin: And from the Virginia side, they’re looking at the Health and Human Services, and your reporting they want to maybe have an inspector general take a look at the whole management of medical supplies and stocking and allocation. Could that happen?

Mitchell Miller: Right, this is an issue that has really been a big concern of Virginia lawmakers, Maryland lawmakers, whether or not all these health facilities are getting the medical supplies they need. And Virginia lawmakers in particular, just this past week, Gerry Connolly, Don Beyer, Abigail Spanberger, they wrote to the Inspector General of Health and Human Services and they formerly asked for an investigation. They questioned how the stocking and the deployment of materials from the Strategic National Stockpile have actually been allocated. They say it’s been a failure to the states that that it’s contributed to the outbreak and why there hasn’t been as much of a quick response on some of these things, as we’ve heard about problems with ventilators with all the surgical masks and personal protection equipment. So they are awaiting an answer from HHS and the Inspector General, but they do feel that they are going to get some answers. And of course, this piggybacks on some of the complaints that have been made by Maryland lawmakers that have gone to FEMA, again, with these issues related to requesting equipment and then not getting the equipment and also with FEMA actually taking a haircut on some of the shipments and actually taking shipments away from various states and then the states don’t find out about it until literally the equipment arrives.

Tom Temin: Yeah. So some oversight coming on that whole regard. And with Congress. I mean that May 4 date of return is pretty solid. Can they actually do anything before the in that case?

Mitchell Miller: You know, it really doesn’t look like they’re going to be able to get anything major done before May 4. They’ve talked about having a variety of these things related to interim funding, including small business. But as far as what what, Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker calls Cares 2, another major sweeping piece of legislation, that is all going to be in the pipeline, I think for the next several weeks, and even then, even though they’ve set this May 4 date, it’s really kind of unclear what’s going to happen there. Because for one thing, we just talked about the fact that there’s still a lot of disagreement and on what will be included in a major legislation, like Cares 2, but also whether they’re physically going to be able to be here, you know, there are more than 500 people as we know that would have to get back. The city of Washington DC actually has a stay in place order through May 15. Now Obviously Congress would probably be able to work around that. But there’s still just the practical issue of whether or not lawmakers are going to get back.

Tom Temin: Mitchell Miller is Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP. Thanks so much.

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Mitchell Miller: You bet.

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