Happy Monday and happy Valentine’s Day! It’s also national Library Lovers' Day, FYI. That was a pretty good football game sandwiching the Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg show yesterday. Here’s what else is going on, or in the case of the U.S. Senate, not going on:
Crack Pipe Panic Holds Up Government Funding Bill
The federal government’s funding runs out after Friday, meaning that Congress has just days to pass a stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, to prevent a shutdown and keep agencies running through March 11. But the Senate’s path to doing that is clouded by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who has put a hold on the bill as she seeks assurances that taxpayer dollars will not be used to distribute crack pipes.
What the holdup is about: The funding extension passed the House last week and has broad bipartisan support; neither Republicans nor Democrats want a government shutdown. But Blackburn has objected to a new $30 million grant program, funded by the $19 trillion American Rescue Plan Act enacted early last year, that aims to reduce the risk of overdoses and disease transmission associated with drug use. "The grant allows recipients to provide such items as testing equipment for sexually transmitted diseases and overdose reversal medication, along with ‘safe smoking kits’ to curb the spread of diseases among users of smokable drugs," PolitiFact explained last week.
The conservative Washington Free Beacon last week ran a story about the harm reduction grant program under the headline, "Biden Admin To Fund Crack Pipe Distribution To Advance ‘Racial Equity.’" The story claimed that an unnamed Biden administration spokesperson had said the program would "provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and ‘any illicit substance.’"
The Biden administration denied those claims, with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and the Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta issuing a joint statement that said "no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits."
But conservatives, including Blackburn, pounced on the story. Blackburn last week put a hold on the continuing resolution, saying she wants to make sure that taxpayer money won’t go toward distributing drug paraphernalia.
The facts: Numerous fact checkers have shot down the conservatives’ claims that the Biden administration will be spending $30 million on crack pipes, noting that the "safe smoking kits" — which, according to The Washington Post, typically include items such as a rubber mouthpiece to prevent cuts and burns, brass screens to filter contaminants and disinfectant wipes — are just one of 12 categories of supplies the grants can be used to purchase, and crack pipes are not among the supplies listed in the grant proposal.
"Suggestions that the government is ‘spending $30 million on crack pipes’ are wrong even beyond the question of whether the grants involve the distribution of crack pipes," PolitiFact noted. "That’s because $30 million is roughly the amount of all the possible grants collectively, and smoking kits would account for a small fraction of that."
What’s next: It’s not clear how the Senate will resolve the holdup. "It's amazing to us that they continue to ignore this issue, and they continue to say they are fighting drugs when indeed they're enabling drugs," Blackburn told Newsmax on Monday.
A Blackburn spokesman told the Associated Press Monday that the senator would drop her objections if she received a promise in writing that taxpayers' money wouldn't be spent on the pipes. A delay in passing the stopgap spending bill could mean that the bill doesn’t reach President Biden’s desk in time to avert a short funding lapse
"While objections like this are often quickly resolved, there’s no guarantee at a time when federal government funding is on the verge of expiring," Jennifer Shutt wrote Friday for States Newsroom.
Postal reform bill also held up: A clerical error could also delay the Senate’s consideration of a bill to reform the Postal Service. The House passed that legislation, meant to ease the Postal Service’s financial strains, last week, but staffers reportedly sent the Senate an earlier version of the bill that left out late amendments. The House fixed the error by approving a technical correction bill via unanimous consent.
That fix means the Senate now needs unanimous consent to move ahead with a procedural vote on the bill, but Sen Rick Scott (R-FL) reportedly objects. Alan Fram of the Associated Press said that Scott’s aides didn't return messages Monday seeking an explanation.
"The postal bill is the definition of legislation that should sail through the Congress," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Monday.
Unless Scott changes his mind, the Postal Service reform bill reportedly may have to wait a few weeks before the Senate takes it up.
The bottom line: "No, the word ‘Senate’ is not Latin for ‘It's never easy.’ But sometimes it seems that way," the AP’s Fram writes. Remember, on the government funding bill, lawmakers are only looking to pass a three-week patch to give negotiators more time to finalize the long-delayed full-year spending bills that are lawmakers’ most basic responsibility.
The IRS Has a Backlog of Nearly 24 Million Tax Forms
The Internal Revenue Service is facing a backlog of nearly 24 million tax returns filed last year, according to a report in The Washington Post. The pileup is delaying the processing of returns for millions of taxpayers by as much as 10 months, and is expected to slow the processing of returns filed in 2022 as well.
The latest tally, which is considerably larger than the 10 million reported earlier this year, was recently provided to Congress by the taxpayer advocate service at the IRS. Officials at the IRS told the Post that the agency, hobbled by the coronavirus pandemic and struggling with an increased workload that includes processing Covid relief payments, is having trouble hiring and training new employees to help clear the backlog.
A group of Republican senators sent a letter last week to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig expressing their concern about the situation, calling it "untenable." They suggested ways to address the backlog, including halting the issuance of liens, providing tax penalty relief and expediting the processing of forms.
The IRS has announced that it is considering suspending some tax enforcement and would be forming a 1,200-strong "surge team" to focus on the backlog. But Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said over the weekend that the agency needs more money and that the dire situation at the IRS is the result of a long campaign against the agency by Republicans in Congress, who continue to lobby against providing sufficient funding. "For decades, Republicans have starved the IRS of funding, and now American taxpayers are paying the price," Neal said. "The backlog of tax returns is but one symptom of the fundamental issue that has been ailing the IRS for too long: inadequate resources."
By the numbers: The IRS said the backlog consists of 23.7 million returns that require individual processing. According to the Post, the total includes 9.7 million paper returns that need to be reviewed by hand; 4.1 million returns that have been flagged because of issues related to Covid relief payments; 4.1 million returns that have been amended and must be reviewed; and 5.8 million letters that need to be addressed before related returns can be completed.
"This entire ecosystem of pending cases gives the public a fuller picture of what the IRS is up against," Chad Hooper, executive director of the nonprofit Professional Managers Association, which represents managers in the federal government, told the Post. "And it’s a crazy number before most people have filed their taxes for this year."
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News
- Manchin Pushes Democrats to Revisit Tax-Rate Hikes, Sinema Could Present a Roadblock – Wall Street Journal
- IRS Backlog Hits Nearly 24 Million Returns, Further Imperiling the 2022 Tax Filing Season – Washington Post
- Defense Appropriations Likely to Exceed Fiscal 2022 NDAA Levels – Roll Call
- House Competition Bill Packed With Progressive Policy Goals – Roll Call
- Vulnerable House Democrats Anxious About Stalled Appropriations – Roll Call
- U.S. Inflation Outlook Falls for First Time Since October 2020 – Bloomberg
- ‘Survival Mode’: Inflation Falls Hardest on Low-Income Americans – Washington Post
- Empathy, Not Argumentation, Is How Democrats Try to Focus Economic Message – NBC News
- Harris Says Replacing Lead Pipes Is a Priority, Despite Limited Funding – New York Times
- Biden’s Climate Agenda Stalls, and Progressives Fume – Politico
- Vaccine Scientists Have Been Chasing Variants. Now, They’re Seeking a Universal Coronavirus Vaccine – Washington Post
- Shale King Harold Hamm Is Passing Billions to His Heirs Tax-Free – Bloomberg
Views and Analysis
- Most Americans Have Come Out Ahead Economically in the Pandemic, Despite Inflation – John Hardwood, CNN
- Memo to Democrats: ‘Kitchen Table Issues’ Won’t Save You – Paul Waldman, Washington Post
- Mr. President, It’s Time for a Little Humility – David Axelrod, New York Times
- Obamacare Is Working. Democrats Must Make Sure It Lasts – Washington Post Editorial Board
- Biden’s 25-Year ‘Cancer Moonshot’ Has No Funding, but We Can Save Lives With Tools We Already Have – Edward Abrahams, Washington Post
- Crypto Tax Challenges Just Keep Growing – John Buhl, Tax Policy Center
- Can Democrats See What’s Coming? – Ezra Klein, New York Times
- People Hate Inflation. But We Need to Keep Higher Prices in Perspective – Peter Coy, New York Times
- With More Jobs Than Jobless, the Supply Chain Needs Urgent Repairs – Daniel Swan, The Hill
- Buy-Clean Policies Will Revolutionize America's Economy – Roxanne Brown and Kit Kennedy, The Hill
- Confirmed: Trump’s Big U.S.-China Trade Deal Was a Flop – Washington Post Editorial Board
- Covid Drugs May Work Well, but Our Health System Doesn’t – Aaron E. Carroll, New York Times
- The Pandemic Crushed Treatment for Other Diseases. But It May Give Us an Edge in the Future – Washington Post Editorial Board
- There Will Be No Post-Covid – Charles M. Blow, New York Times
- How the Sacklers Got Away With It – Kara Swisher and Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times (podcast)