Dems Debate Smaller Unemployment Checks

By Yuval Rosenberg

Biden Says US Will Have Enough Vaccine for Every Adult by End
of May

President Biden on Tuesday announced that drug giant Merck will
help manufacture the newly approved single-shot Johnson & Johnson
vaccine. “Two of the largest health care and pharmaceutical
companies in the world, that are usually competitors, are working
together on the vaccine,” Biden said. “This is the type of
collaboration between companies we saw in World War II.”

Biden also said that Johnson & Johnson manufacturing facilities
will begin to operate around the clock and that he invoked the
Defense Production Act to equip two Merck facilities to manufacture
the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as well.

“We are now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every
adult in America by the end of May,” Biden said. That’s two months
earlier than the timeframe the administration had laid out just
weeks ago.

The White House also said Tuesday that it will boost the number
of vaccine doses being sent to states each week from 14.5 million
to 15.2 million, up from 8.6 million when President Biden took
office in January. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told
reporters that states are also receiving 2.8 million doses of the
Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week, bring the total to 18 million
doses.

Biden said the increased vaccine supply would help reopen
schools safely and directed all states to prioritize vaccinations
for pre-K to 12th grade teachers, challenging them to deliver at
least one shot to every teacher, school staff member and child care
worker by the end of March.

Biden urged all Americans to stay vigilant against the
virus. “Now is not the time to let up,” he said. “Now is not the
time to let our guard down.” And he called on the Senate to pass
his Covid relief plan. “Despite the optimism, without new
resources, our entire effort will be set back,” he said. “The
bottom line is we need the American Rescue Plan now.”

Senate Democrats Still Debating Key Elements of Covid Rescue
Plan

Democrats remain divided over some elements of the $1.9 trillion
Covid relief plan, with centrists including Sen. Joe Manchin of
West Virginia and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire looking to cut
back enhanced unemployment benefits in the proposal.

Politico
reports:

“Some moderate Democrats are calling for more narrow targeting
of the aid bill's unemployment benefits and stimulus checks,
including cutting the weekly federal benefits the bill would add
from $400 to $300 — while extending that money over a longer period
of time. That debate is taking place roughly 24 hours before party
leaders want the bill on the floor.”

Manchin told reporters he’s concerned that the increased
benefits may give workers incentive to stay away from their jobs.
“We want people to get back to work,” he said, according to

Bloomberg News. We’re going to have a hard time
getting people ready to go back in and keep the economy going. It
would be awful if we open the doors and we have no one
working.”

Other Democrats are reportedly pushing back on the proposed
changes, and President Biden on Tuesday urged Democrats to stick
together and pass the relief package,
telling senators that they may have to accept some
provisions they don’t like — though he reportedly is leaving it to
the lawmakers to iron out their differences over policy
details.

“One solution to the argument over unemployment benefits could
be to extend the length of time for benefits using money saved by
reducing the weekly benefit supplement,” Bloomberg’s Erik Wasson,
Steven T. Dennis and Laura Litvan report.

Other issues reportedly being discussed include income
thresholds for those receiving $1,400 direct payments, the proper
amount of aid for state and local governments and the idea of
repurposing some of the proposed state aid toward broadband
investments.

“My guess is it’s probably going to change, but pretty
modestly. That’d be my guess,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said Monday
evening, according to Politico. And Sen. Angus King (I-ME) said
Monday that the overall size of the package isn’t being disputed
much: “The question is whether it can be targeted in such a way as
to better serve the people who need the most and perhaps free up
funds for other priorities.”

Billions Wasted on Buildings and Vehicles in Afghanistan:
Watchdog

The federal watchdog monitoring U.S construction projects in
Afghanistan has documented enormous waste in the war-torn country
over the last decade and a half, including U.S.-financed hospitals
that somehow
went missing, a single
natural gas fueling station that cost $43 million
and
luxurious villas that were built for the exclusive
use of private security forces.

The latest report from the Special Inspector General for
Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) examines the current state of
$7.8 billion worth of U.S.-supplied vehicles and buildings
constructed in the country since 2008 and finds that a significant
portion is damaged, destroyed or being used for other purposes.

“Of the nearly $7.8 billion in capital assets reviewed in its
prior reports, SIGAR identified about $2.4 billion in assets that
were unused or abandoned, had not been used for their intended
purposes, had deteriorated, or were destroyed,” the report
says. “By contrast, SIGAR found that more than $1.2
billion out of the $7.8 billion in assets were being used as
intended, and only $343.2 million out of the $7.8 billion in assets
were maintained in good condition.”

For the most part, Afghan beneficiaries were unable to maintain
the assets provided by the U.S. because they “lacked the resources
or capabilities to do so,” the report says.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), chairman of the House Oversight
Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, said the report
“exposes serious gaps in planning and contract execution” in
Afghanistan and called for better oversight to ensure that
“U.S.-taxpayer resources” are not wasted.

“Today’s report from the Special Inspector General demonstrates
that the United States has spent billions of taxpayer dollars on
reconstruction projects that were either not needed or unwanted by
the Afghan Government,” Lynch said in a
statement Tuesday. “Similarly, many of the capital
assets provided to the Afghan Government have already fallen into
disrepair or have rapidly deteriorated due to the inability of the
Afghan beneficiaries to maintain those assets.

No surprise? America and its allies have long
overestimated the capabilities of the Afghan government and
underestimated the extent of corruption in the country — a
situation made worse by a tendency to throw money at problems with
little or no follow-up, analyst Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal

told the Associated Press. “[T]he West has wildly
underestimated the impact of Afghan corruption and in many cases
incompetence. It was always a recipe for failure,” Roggio said.

Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan government adviser, said the U.S.
routinely operated without consulting local stakeholders, reducing
the odds that a project would be successful. “Consult with the
locals about their needs and sustainability of the project once the
project is complete,” Farhadi told the AP, offering advice on how
the U.S. could do better. “Supervise, supervise, supervise project
progress and implementation and audit every single layer of
expenditure.”

USPS, Census, Small Business Loans on ‘High Risk’ List:
GAO

The U.S. Postal Service, the Census Bureau and the Small
Business Administration face serious challenges that need to be
addressed by Congress and executive leadership, according to the
latest “High-Risk”
report from the Government Accountability Office,
released Tuesday.

Issued since the 1990s, the biannual report focuses on
“government operations with greater vulnerabilities to fraud,
waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or that are in need of
transformation to address economy, efficiency, or effectiveness
challenges.” In addition to identifying problem areas, the GAO
provides recommendations for how to reduce the risks associated
with them.

Here’s what the report had to say about three of the 36 problem
areas it identified:

USPS: Lacking a financially sustainable business model,
the U.S. Postal Service needs reform in order to stay solvent, GAO
said. According to the report, “USPS expenses exceeded revenues by
$18 billion in fiscal years 2019 and 2020 as its labor compensation
costs continued to increase while the volume of its most profitable
mail products continued to decline.” While the agency appeared to
be making some progress in 2019, it regressed in 2020, according to
GAO criteria.

Census: The Census Bureau also faces serious challenges,
and GAO said that leadership during the Trump administration was
part of the problem. The Department of Commerce asked the Census
Bureau to “shorten data collection time frames and response
processing of census data in an effort to meet the apportionment
deadline of December 31, 2020, even though COVID-19 had forced the
Bureau to pause field data collection operations for approximately
3 months. Compressing the time frame to collect data and process
responses has increased the risk of compromised data quality.”

Small business loans: The Covid-related emergency loan
programs run by the Small Business Administration are another area
of concern. Since March, the Paycheck Protection Program and the
Economic Injury Disaster Loans program have issued loans and grants
totaling about $744 billion, a volume that far exceeds the typical
annual operations of the SBA.

“While millions of small businesses have benefited from these
programs, the speed with which they were implemented left SBA with
limited safeguards to identify and respond to program risks,
including susceptibility to improper payments and potential fraud,”
the report said. “Since June 2020, we have reported on the
potential for fraud in both PPP and EIDL. As a result, we have
determined that these programs are high risk because of their
potential for fraud, significant program integrity risks, and need
for much greater program management and oversight.”

The SBA has failed to provide all of the requested
documentation, the GAO said, and remains at high risk of potential
fraud.

Send your feedback to yrosenberg@thefiscaltimes.com.
Follow us on Twitter:
@yuvalrosenberg,
@mdrainey and
@TheFiscalTimes. And please tell your
friends they can
sign up here for their own copy of this
newsletter.

News

Views and Analysis