Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is still serving on House committees such as the Overisght and Accountability Committee that met on Feb. 1 to discuss Federal Pandemic Spending. The plan is to look into how federal money was spent, wasted, and used for fraud during the pandemic. The Republican Party’s plan is to argue that the Democratic Party and President joe Biden have been letting America be defrauded! Defrauded by defrauders like Donald Trump? No, the idea is that any money not given directly into the hands of big business is wasteful and subject to fraud.
To be sure, when relief was sent out during the pandemic, a lot of fraud took place. Much of it continues to be investigated, but the interest the conservatives have in investigations is based solely on trying to smear Biden and Democratic lawmakers with the air of scandal. There has been a never-ending pile of reports about how much fraud and waste came directly from the Trump administration’s handling of federal money during the pandemic, but that isn’t what Kentucky Republican and chair of the Oversight Committee James Comer and his Republican cabal are interested in.
Instead, they sent investigatory letters to only three states (all 50 states received federal pandemic relief as a reminder): New York. California. Pennsylvania. Weird, huh? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks it’s a little strange as well, and she made sure to illustrate how preposterous this really is.
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The Honorable Gene L. Dodaro, comptroller general for the Government Accountability Office, was one of the guests giving the Oversight Committee testimony today. Ocasio-Cortez began by offering into the record “a report on from the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee state entitled Key Insights State Pandemic Unemployment Insurance Programs.”
She then asked Dodaro about his thoughts on the “methodology” of just choosing three states to investigate if you are trying to do to oversight work concerning federal programs that have been used by every single state in the Union. He said he didn’t “really know what their [this committee he is in front of] objectives were in that case.” Later on, Ocasio-Cortez would ask him how he would go about this kind of investigation and Dodaro explained he would use a sample of something more in the ballpark of “18 states” from all around the country.
Dodaro diplomatically explained that when he does oversight work he chooses places like California and New York but also more than a dozen more states from all over. You know, the way you would do a job if you were trying to do it comprehensively.
Then Ocasio-Cortez made sure to highlight how this isn’t simply partisan hackery, it is a dereliction of duty on the part of the committee chair. She also made it clear that she would use her position to air out all of the red state dirty, fraudulent laundry in order to make sure the work that is supposed to be done by the committee gets out to the American people:
“I want to dig into this report. And according to this report to, for example, Arizona paid $1.6 billion to individuals to stolen identities to get unemployment insurance benefits. Louisiana disbursed more than $1 million to individuals after the date of their death. And in Kentucky, state employees applied for unemployment benefits while still employed by the state and were able to hack the state's information management system and remove holds on their own accounts.”
Strange, right? That’s the state where the chair is from. Weird, right?
“And none of these states have been put under investigation by this committee. I find it very interesting because as was stated at the beginning, the bipartisan nature of oversight is what gives it its power. And [...] I believe that the methodology for these three states is highly questionable.”
That’s what I said!
But Ocasio-Cortez sticks the landing by directing her point at the political hacks making these disappointing decisions.
“I ask for this committee, if we're going to perform oversight, then let's perform oversight. Congressional Democrats are ready to perform that oversight and help our constituents get the benefits they need to pay their bills. And I think that there's no shortage of members of this committee who are willing to stand up to their own party when it's necessary. But I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the majority would send these three letters just to these three states. That leaves us with no other conclusion that there may be some rank partisanship in this investigation. Republicans, I ask if we're going to start off, let's do it right. And with that, I yield my time.”
You can watch the entire hearing down here.
Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president at NextGen America, is back to talk with us about young voters. She talks about whether the rising numbers of young voters we saw during the midterms are sustainable, and what still needs to be done to achieve more young voter participation in our democracy as we progress toward a better America.
