Negotiations between Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin Stall Again
This week ends, again, with no stimulus package agreement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ended this week blaming each other for the stalled coronavirus stimulus negotiations and the prospect of a stimulus package before the election is fading fast. Both sides are indicating significant progress on the keys points of a virus testing, tracing and vaccination strategy. However, a major hurdle remains on state and local aid, as President Trump continues to express opposition this aid.
In addition to the stalled negotiations, Senate Democrats also blocked a $500 billion smaller stimulus package pitched by Senate Republicans this week. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Republican-bill carried “poison pills” and didn’t dedicate enough resources for testing. This stimulus package proposed to:
- Revive the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program through Dec. 27, with payments of $300 per week, down from $600 when the program lapsed at the end of July.
- Protect businesses, schools, and other establishments from liability related to coronavirus exposure.
- Allow the U.S. Postal Service to receive as much as $10 billion in forgivable aid.
- Provide emergency funding for health, child care, education, and farm programs.
- Create new tax credits and grants for education expenses that could be used to support students who are in private school or homeschooled.
- Rescind about $200 billion in unused funds from Federal Reserve programs that were established to assist businesses and state and local governments affected by the pandemic.
Negotiations will continue over the weekend, but hopes for another stimulus maybe delayed until the outcome of the upcoming November elections in just over a week and a half.
Majority Staff on the Senate Budget Committee Recommends Consolidating Federal Housing Assistance in New Report
This week, the Senate Budget Committee released a majority staff report, “Housing Programs: The Need for One Roof,” that states the federal government’s approach to housing assistance “overly complex” and recommends Congress to take steps to improve the system. In the report’s press release, Chairman Enzi (R-WY) states, “The federal government’s current approach to housing assistance is failing the neediest among us…It is a failure that last year Washington spent over $50 billion on housing, guaranteed about $2 trillion in home loans, and provided billions more through the tax code, yet more than half a million people in this country were homeless on a single night in 2019. This demonstrates that if we started from scratch, few would design the system we currently have. We must improve and simplify an overly complex system and work to streamline duplicative programs under one roof. That way the millions of Americans who need these services can find and actually use them. To that end, this report seeks to begin a needed conversation about reforming our housing system. An important first step would be consolidating some of these programs under one roof.”
This report makes the following findings and conclusions:
- The federal housing assistance system is failing those who need it most. All too often, it serves the bureaucracy. Few, if given the chance, would design a system to look like the current one.
- Merging programs to eliminate duplication and overlap will make funding for housing programs go further. These programs, in turn, would be able to serve more people because they would be less confusing. This would make solutions easier to find and utilize. Reform would also push federal employees to focus on finding the best solutions for those seeking assistance as opposed to trying to preserve their isolated programs.
- We spend billions each year on federal housing assistance, but the system is duplicative and too complicated.
- Decades of shifting federal priorities have led to a system that is a patchwork of programs, laws, and regulatory red tape across multiple agencies. Congress over the years has had one good idea after another, but by default created a system that is too confusing to be efficient or effective.
- Basic information about the administrative costs of housing assistance programs, and the number of employees who work on them, is not publicly available. Among other challenges, this lack of transparency prevents objective analysis about where savings could be found.
- Our current approach is no way to deliver services to the neediest Americans or responsibly steward billions in taxpayer dollars.
- Congress should undertake bipartisan review and reforms to create a modern housing assistance program to improve effectiveness and efficiency. A September 2020 Senate Budget Committee roundtable revealed bipartisan support for several reform ideas with certainly more areas for review.
- Reformers suggest HUD is the most logical agency to house these programs, given its mission “to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.”
The full report can be found here.