Transcripts For CSPAN2 Confirmation Hearing For White House Budget Director 20240712

Good afternoon and welcome. I want to take a few brief opening remarks and then ill turn it over. Then ill turn it over to Ranking Member sanders. We are here today to consider, to serve as the nest director of budget. To serve as the director since there were 20. Teen President Trump nominated him in march as the nations facing a unprecedented crisis, both health and economic from the covid crisis. The office of management and budget paint played a key part, in addition to building the president s annual budget we also to do financial, management grants management, information technology, program assessment, and Property Management just to name a few. Given the vast responsibility over the organization its important to have a senate director in place. Before we hear from the Deputy Director of want to discuss our response to the coronavirus pandemic. Congress working with the president to provide needed relief for individuals and businesses and state and local government on a series of bills resulting in spending of a unprecedented size. Addressing the pandemic was necessary, and will emerge from this crisis. Unfortunately the pandemic has beaten on the countrys debts and deficits which were already on a unsustainable path. I look forward to hearing ideas about how to address that in a, future and how to deal with the growing fiscal challenges, as most recent budget reports from the Congressional Budget Office shows the overall budget deficit in for seven months from 2020 was 1. 4 eight trillion, which was 141 billion more than the same time last year. Three and seven tenths trillion is the projection for this year. I remain concerned about the countrys fiscal health, i know many of my colleagues share the. Concern while we have more tools to address the crisis this time, we should assume that this will always be true. This unprecedented National Crisis has highlighted the need for badge better budgeting. Federal response to the crisis is necessary and there may be more legislation coming. But we have to ensure that the federal government has a Sustainable Plant for budgeting. This is needed, rather than the recent structure where the model needs, seems to be everyone gets what they want and there are no constraints. This was approved in a bipartisan way in november 20 tina teen, this would provide a more ordered and deliberate fiscal planning. One more important part of a budget process is to know where taxpayer money is going. Thats why its critical that onb provide the government and public with a Program Inventory. Then we can see how resources are used and make more informed but didnt decisions. This will help the government eliminate budget deficits in the first section. I wish that were true. It would help to eliminate duplication which is the playing on our brook russi. One area of positive news is that the Interest Rate is currently very low. We have more flexibility in borrowing money to aggressively attacked the coronavirus crisis. We should not always assume that this will be the case. Failure to address our unsustainable budget will meet future congress is wont have the seam flexibility to deal with threats. Im here to hear views about the budget and spending process. Also i know that senator wrestle helps to oversee the many programs that have been proceeding in record time. I suspect many of my colleagues are interested in hearing what the administration expects in terms of timelines. Weve asked the Trump Administration to act quickly, efficiently, and with a goal of returning the country to some normalcy. I look forward to hearing about how this is being accomplished and what we can do to help these efforts. I believe despite our differences everyone in Congress Look forward to a time when our nation is on the better side of the pandemic. Senator sanders. Were not getting voice. There we are. All right good. Thank you mister chairman for holding this important hearing to discuss. Thank you for being with us this afternoon. As you indicated mister chairman, we are in the midst of a Major Economic downturn which some seal is the worst crisis since the great depression. More than 100 million americans have died from the coronavirus. 40 million have lost their jobs. Millions have lost their Health Insurance. Theres hunger and the fear of being addicted from homes. On top of, that the torture and murder of george floyd by Minneapolis Police officers has cost millions of americans to rise up and demand urgent change to our racist and broken system. Let me be very blunt. Given the enormity of this crisis, and the failure of the Trump Administration to respond to the unprecedented pain and suffering that the American People are now experiencing, i will be voting against your nomination. The federal budget to my mind is more than just a series of numbers. Its a reflection of what our National Priorities are, and who we are as a nation. As deputy onb director and acting would be director, budgets you help right have given us a clear indication of what the Trump Administration values, and that is massive tax rates to the most profitable corporations in our country, paid for by billions of dollars in cuts that programs the sick, elderly, poor, working class need. These budgets make clear that donald trump was not forthcoming with the American People when he was a candidate for president. During his campaign that most americans remember, trump told the American People that he would provide health care to everybody. But his budgets have closed for the revealing of the Affordable Care act which would have helped up to 32 million americans. That is not providing health care. He said he wouldnt cut medicaid, or Social Security, his last budget offered 900 billion dollar cuts to medicaid, and ten billion cuts to Social Security. He said he would cancel a tax bill, but the bill he supported and was passed provided 83 of the tax benefits to the top 1 of americans on a oneyear period. Let the budget be proposed, it calls for devastating threats to childcare, nutrition, pregnant mothers and, babies affordable housing, education, and assistance for the elderly and disabled. The Trump Administration and the omb in particular seem to have learned nothing from the Public Health crisis that were currently in. At a time when up to 43 million americans are in danger of losing their Employer Provided Health insurance the Trump Administration is still proposing medicaid, and still wants to repeal the Affordable Care act. At a time when 43 million americans have lost their jobs and are struggling economically, the Trump Administration doesnt want to renew the 600 dollars a week unemployment benefit that would expire in july. At a time when americans are struggling with hunger, the Trump Administration is still calling for the cancellations of nutrition programs. At a time of massive inequality the Trump Administration is calling for a huge cut in the Capital Gains tax that would benefit the 1 . Well the budget youve prepared for President Trump is the robin hood principle in reverse. They would take the most vulnerable in society who need our help the most, and they would give to the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, those who need our help the. Least that was the worst approach to take before the pandemic, drink the worst health and economic crisis in our lifetimes. It certainly unacceptable. Mister chairman, thank you very much. Thank you senator sanders. Our committee, 2017, since january of 2019 he has served as acting director, we look forward to hearing from you today. The rules require you to testify under oath. Could you rise with me so i could administer the oath . Do you swear the testimony that youre about to give in front of the Budget Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . I do. If asked to do so and given reasonable notice would you agree to appear before this committee and answer any questions the members of committee have . Thank, you please be seated. Will now have a chance to hear from you. Thank you mister chairman, thank you Ranking Members, and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today. I want to thank my family, my wife, my daughters for the unconditional support youve given me not only through this process but during my time at the omb. I am happy that the president nominated need to serve in the old, be working at onb has long been a aspiration. I came here, i had the ability to lead as the deputy and the last year and a half as Deputy Director. I know the importance of the mission of onb, my mantra has been one so that the best expertise can be heard, ive heard , the portfolios are so, diverse and each one is fundamental to the functions of our government. We thrive on information gathering and problem solving. They are innovative and smart and tenacious. They do their best work when they Work Together omg to find holistic answers to complicated challenges. There are roughly 500 fulltime employees at the agency and ive seen them do remarkable things. Its been a privilege to lead them through the last few years. Ive spent my entire career caring about taxpayers and their families. Ive ensured that their tax dollars are well spent. I come from a blue color family, and the son of a teacher. They balance their budget and saved for the future. My parents worked long hard hours to put me through school. I wondered what else they would have been able to accomplish if they were able to save more of their hard worked money. They represent the hardworking men and women in the country. I am grateful to the work of this administration that has made the eyes and hurts a forgotten men the lens through which we see policy. These men and women working every city and every town in the state and great country, i believe that the government has to let them pursue their dreams. Budget might not be part of their daily lexicon but i know that the committee has a ability to impact them in a significant. Way a work to serve the betterment, i look hurt answering your questions. Thank you for considering my nomination and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, we will now turn to questions. Let me take a minute to explain the process tall Committee Members before we start the hearing room has been configured to maintain the recommended six foot social distancing between senators. And the nominees and under individuals in the room necessary to operate the hearing. Which we have kept to a minimum. Number of senators have chosen to use secure video teleconferencing technology, which will allow them to remotely participate. For those joining by Video Conference, one you start speaking that will be a slight delay before your displayed on screen. To minimize background noise, we are asking senators who are using the Video Conference option to please click the mute button until it is their turn to ask questions. If there is a Technology Issue we will move to the next senator until it is resolved. I would remind all senators and the nominees that the five minute clock still applies. Where those using the video option you will notice a screen label timer that will show how much time is remaining. In about 30 seconds i will gently tap the gavel to remind senators that the time is almost expired. To simplify the speaking process, the speaking order process, senator sanders and i have agreed to go by seniority alternating between sites for this first hybrid hearing. With that, i have a few questions. Recently in response to the covid19 pandemic, Congress Passed four bills providing trillions of dollars in assistance. The cares act alone cost nearly two trillion dollars. These are unique circumstances and it is especially important for that governor and government to administer this eight both quickly and responsibly what steps is omb its taking to ensure that covid19 funds, particularly when it comes to the distribution of dollars and other resources are being made effectively . How will omb work with congress to ensure these pandemic related programs are working as intended. Mr. Voiced . Thank you mister chairman. We worked very expeditiously for the bills to be passed to put out guidance to all agencies to ensure that we fulfill between goals, trying to get the relief out as quickly as possible. Also to ensure that we do so in a way that congress and administration have transparency and how the dollars are spent. We put out and 2021, that we believe gives guidance to be able to use some of the transparency that of systems that congress has mandated omb set up over the years. I know this is of great interest to you and we will continue to do that. We are in the midst of ascertaining on a monthly basis, how much has gone out, and we will continue to do that and work to provide the information necessary. This committee and others have information as to how things are going. But we also want to be able to do everything we possibly can to get the money out the door as fast as possible. Thank you. I will switch to a little different thing now. For some time i have asked for a Program Inventory of all the programs the federal government operate operates. This information would better inform congress if Program Areas overlapped or had implication. How is omb working on producing this information. What impediments are there to producing an inventory. It is beyond me to imagine that we do not have any inventory, and can you commit to a timeline to start . Further, how is omb working on identifying and reducing program overlap and duplication. The first thing im interested in though, is the list of programs. I did not mention effectiveness in that list. That would be nice, but we cannot start on that note if we dont know with the other ones are. How are you doing on that and what is the timeline . Certainly, mister chairman. I know this has been a major priority of yours. Ever since i was a staffer, when i worked on capitol hill, my bosses would say how many federal programs in u. S. Geo would be able to give you a good sense, so this is clearly coming from a place of need. There is an inventory up on taxpayer spending. Gov, but the problem with it right now is that it does not allow for the cross sorting or across agencies to be able to identify, how Many Economic Development programs are there . How many cultural state and educational exchanges are there. And usaid. It does not allow you to have a window into effectiveness of the program. All the other things that, when you asked the question of how many is there a federal Program Inventory or trying to get at . It will be a priority of ours at omb. The Senate Confirms it to me as director. We are rolling out a Pilot Program that we believe we can move forward on all of the cares act findings that are across agencies and also have a particular coating that allows us to be able to provide additional transparency and build off the current system. That is the first thing that we are going to be doing next. But it will be part of a long process that we believe we can work expeditiously to get done and make sure both the legislated. Thank you. I think one of my ideas on that was tell the department to give you a list of all the programs they have. And those who dont list dont get funded. But that is beyond the scope of what i am sure you can do. In the past few months alone, we added trillions to our National Debt responding to this coronavirus pandemic. For a future non emergency legislation ship congress agreed to adhere to budgets and avoid additional and offset emergency spending. Again, the administration has been trying to implement the last four bills, and we have tried to take a pause as to figuring out what we need for the next phase. We are fully willing to participate in that conversation. I do not want to speak on behalf of the administration as it pertains to the need for offsets. We are in a once in a generation economic and Public Health shot that has required us to take groundbreaking steps to be able to respond economically, to make sure this is close to a vshaped recovery as possible. To the extent that you are reflecting a concern about spending and at some point we will have to get our arms wrapped around the fiscal challenges that we went into this crisis facing, those challenges have not gone away. This administration has, and will continue to put forth proposals to be able to participate in that conversation. If it happens this year, that could be a beneficial opportunity. It may not be this year. It may be in the future. Thank you. My time is expired. Senator sanders. Over 16 million americans have already lost their Health Insurance and that is on top of the 87 million for uninsured or underinsured before the pandemic. In february, the Trump Administration released the budget that would have caught medicaid by some 900 billion. Medic cab by 500 billion over the next decade. In addition to trying to repeal to the Affordable Care act. In other words, while the number of uninsured and underinsured are soaring, the Trump Administration is opposing massive cuts to health care. As you may know, there are incredible estimates that before the current crisis, up to 68,000 americans die each year, because they dont get to a doctor when they should, because they are uninsured or underinsured. Given the massive cuts to medicare and medicaid that the administration is proposing, or does the administration have any estimates as to how many more americans will die because they cannot get to a doctor on time . Senator, i reject the premise of your question and that we have not cut Social Security or medicare or medicaid. The president campaigned and has fulfilled his Campaign Commitments in those areas. Under the president s budget, medicaid would grow by 3 every year. The Medicare Program would grow 6 . We have made reforms and proposed reforms in the area of drug pricing, in the area of slight neutrality. s if you pay for at c. A. T. Scan in an outpatient hospital or doctors office, that cats can cost the same. We continue to grow these programs. The president is committed in these areas to campaign cleanse that he made to the American People. I dont mean to interrupt you. I dont have a lot of time. As you will know, medical inflation is significantly higher than general inflation. When you are not keeping up with medical inflation, you are cutting. Those programs. What im asking you again, before the pandemic, there were credible estimates that over 60,000 americans died because they were uninsured or underinsured. The number of uninsured is soaring. Have you done any research to determine how many more people will be dying, because of the cuts to medicare and medicaid you are proposing, not keeping up with medical inflation . Again, senator, we reject the view that our proposals would lead to any deaths as a result of people not being on the program. Our proposal, we believe are you suggesting in strong disagreement with all of the research that i have seen . You are suggesting that people are not dying in america because they are uninsured or underinsured . Im not suggesting that, sir. Im suggesting that when you have a proposal and a budget, that makes reforms to a program like medicaid that needs reform, so that people do not have bad care in the program. Im thinking specifically of the monte driver who has a 12yearold, who did not get care as a result of having a tooth infection. He died as a result of i do know the case. But you are also aware that today, we have tens of millions of people who are under insured or under insured and it cuts to medicaid would be a bad situation. I have another question id like to ask you. My understanding is that the government has spent over a billion dollars in support to Drug Companies to develop a vaccine to the coronavirus. I support that expenditure, as a matter of fact. My question to you is, if the taxpayers spend an enormous amount of money helping to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, will the administration make certain that that vaccine is distributed free of charge to all americans . Everybody, regardless of their income . So that the American People do not pay twice for this vaccine that is being developed . Thank you for that question, senator. Im not prepared to speak on behalf of the administration but i would be happy to take that viewpoint back to the administration and as we think through these important issues in the next few months. But what do you think . Do you think that everybody in this country, regardless of income, should be able to access the vaccine which should only be available or only be available to people who can pay for . It this in ministration has been very clear, the president has been clear that we will do everything we can to respond to this Public Health crisis and to make sure this is as close to a vshaped economic recovery as we can possibly experience you did not answer my question, so i am assuming that you have not discounted the possibility that working class people and lower income people may not be able to afford the vaccine that will keep them alive. Is that a fair summation . Senator, my answer was to get to the point where i can say that this administration does care about the affordability of vaccines as they are produced. It is an open policy process. I will not get ahead of it, but we share the concern that it is important to make sure these things are affordable for the American People so that there is no chance that this virus comes back in the fall. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you mister chairman. Great, first of all, i want to commend the work that youve been doing since he joined the administration in the various roles youve played. Youve always been a constructive, transparent, accessible person, and i appreciate the working relationship that we have with you, and i have in my office. I also want to say that i think you deserve a share of the credit for what we had prior to the invasion of this virus that has wreaked so much havoc. Im referring to the best economy of my lifetime, i must 60 years old. We had strong economic growth, record job creation, more job openings and people looking for. Work record low unemployment rates. Which is growing fastest for the lowest income american workers. We were narrowing the income gap, and everything was booming and we were firing on all cylinders, and then we were hit out of the blue by this pandemic. We need to recover from this as quickly as we possibly can. One of the ways that we got to the point of prosperity was tax reform, which is very conducive to investment and enhanced economic growth, also rolling back unnecessary regulation, which is something you played a major role in. Now with the advent of the pandemic, the administration had a good sense to issue an executive order designed to provide regulatory relief, specifically to facilitate fighting the pandemic. I think its called the regulatory relief to support economic recovery which encourages temporary regulatory actions that would be taken against the fight against covid. I want to say that a number of those actions have been very constructive. One example is the distilleries across the state of pennsylvania producing hand sanitizing, or helping us all to stay safer and reduce the rate of transmission, and theyre only able to do that because the alcohol Tobacco Bureau waived certain requirements. The owner of a distillery in harrisburg priest the regulators in allowing them to keep their employees working, and also be of benefit to the community, and provide hands editor for essential workers, who might otherwise have gone without. Here is my question. Do you think it would be a good idea for us to consider making these sensible but thus far temporary relief measures permanent, so that we can enjoy the benefits of these reforms indefinitely . Thank you for your questions and kind words senator. I think it would be and useful exercise. The exit executive orders that the president signed a couple of weeks ago were meant to take into account the regulatory actions that the administration did in the midst of the recovery. To identify which would be made permanent. I believe its in that process we can figure out what we can do administratively, and in terms of new statutes. I commit to continuing that conversation with, you but this is important not just with respect to regulatory flexibility, but to allow a different nutrition label if youre doing take out, working with restaurants or trying to do everything they can to get through the shock of not having people in the restaurants. There have been a whole host of ideas and actions taken, and we want to work through them to figure it what can be done on a permanent basis. I look forward to working you working with you on that. Thank you very much chairman. Senator murray. Senator murray . Thank you mister chairman. Tell me about Climate Change. I believe that the vast majority at the scientific any suggests that it is real and that humans have a part to play. I think we also have a part to play in being innovative. We dont believe as a administration that taking steps that hurt our economy is a way to solve climate, change but its an issue, and this Administration Even under the budgets that have been criticize continues to have eight billion dollars devoted to Clean Energy Technology and research. Have you read any of the Central Bank Reports . I think there are about 34 of them now or any of the Federal Reserve reports. Three of them and now. Or the letter to ceos, ceo larry think of black rock, about what uncontrolled glide it Climate Change has on the economy. I think thats basic Due Diligence for someone in your position. I can send you a package if youre interested. Theres also a letter from economist. I think you should do that. Ill get back to you on that. The warnings are pretty stark. It would be a shame to act in a way thats inconsistent with very clear warnings. Another question is the rule of special interest interference at omb. For as long as ive been at the senate the omb has been relaxed and wanting to meddle in administration. They seem to have two bites of the apple in terms of environmentalism, fundamentally corrupted by the fossil fuel industry, does exactly what the fossil fuel industry says. They meet exclusively with the fossil fuel industry, and over and over again have its door to the termination blown up because its obviously following the suggestions of the fossil fuel industry. What is your sense of what the proper rule is of omb in terms of meddling in legislation in a secretive environment, rather than the more public procedures environment . I think your characterization is unfair. Omb has a profound role to play in ensuring everyones equities are considered. We have the most transparent process of any agency, because we make it available to the public, who our staff is meeting with. Any documents provided to our staff, we believe thats a transparent process. I think that this is a Important Role to play, ensuring along with the other agencies, are we regularly consulting with intent, cost and benefit analysis. So omb has the Important Role to play. The evidence does not reflect the characteristics station that she. Rain thats inconsistent with the evidence ive seen, well have to disagree on the facts. Leslie, in the cures act, someone slipped in a provision for net operating loss adjustments in the tax law. The reported information we have on that is that of the hundred 60 billion dollars in that, in the care of provisions, around 100 billion dollars will go to the individual tax returns of individuals making over a billion dollars a year. One in 8000 americans are in that situation. On average 1. 6 Million Dollars of tax giveaways as a result of. This i want to know what the rule of omb was in that piece of legislation . Was it cleared through . You what do you know specifically about that bell . Was it cleared through you . What do you know about that specific bill . I would just say, senator, we support that package and the provisions that were put in that package. The administration was doing everything it could to be able to identify things that would provide liquidity to businesses no. This is individual tax returns. This is individual tax returns. Not liquidity businesses. This is an on an individual personal tax return. For individuals whose personal tax returns showed over 1 Million Dollar year income they got a gimme of 100 billion with a b. How is that consistent with the values that you have just stated and it is not accurate to say that it supports corporate liquidity. It goes straight to individual tax returns. Again, senator, we were supportive of the provisions and that bill. As an Administration Work through the process to give our negotiators on the hill the information that they needed. In terms of how that particular provision works i differ you to the secretary of treasury. We have the information as to how it works, and if i may, mister chairman, i would like to question for the record so that we can pursue where this came from. It turned up in a version of this bill, but nobody has come forward to say that this is their baby. I want to know where it came from and if it was an administration thing. It is of considerable note because the primary beneficiaries of that kind of attacks benefit our people who are in the big time real estate investors, like for instance, the president and his family. I think it is important to get to the bottom of this and i hope we will get a better set of answers. Thank you. The record will be open until noon tomorrow. We will put in a queue afar and i hope the committee will support getting and actual answers to the queue efforts. Senator. Thank you for this opportunity to ask you questions. I have had a chance to visit with you on a couple of occasions privately. I think you are a good person for this job that you are in now. I want to ask about auditing the defense department. It is the only department of the federal government i understand cannot get a certified auditor or what you call, a clean audit. Also, there has been already decisions made by congress that you ought to be able to do that by two years ago. It was not done, and we are in the process of seeing what can be done in the area of getting a certified audit. In response to my prehearing questions, you indicated your support for an annual audit process at the department of defense. Leaders had estimated that a clean opinion is likely five or more years away and that the annual audit cost would be upwards to 200 Million Dollars. I have to further questions. First, is conducting an annual audit that is doomed to fail the best use of resources or ought to be better strategy to conduct an audit every other year or on another time table until a clean audit opinion is reached . Thank you for this question, senator. I appreciate your leadership in this area. There are many years of finding ways and abuse in the department of defense. As it pertains to the audit, my view would be that it would be something that should be done every year. We are going to learn things each and every year. I think part of building a culture of auditing is to do it often and if we can get it done in a cheaper way, will all be working hard to do that to make sure that there is a clean audit faster than five years, that would be something that we will continue to work on. We are proud of the fact that this is the second year that dod did an audit that had been long something that congress had labored to ensure occurred. We want to build on that so that the American People have and congress, have a great deal of confidence in the funding that is going to the department of defense, which is very important to secure the country. In response to my prehearing question, you indicated that the d. O. D. Relies on over 300 Financial Management systems which is a major obstacle preventing a clean audit opinion. You also noted that the department of defense has made progress in closing audit findings. Some of the components have spent time and money correcting problems and legacy systems that are planned for retirement rather than focusing on acquiring or developing new integrated systems. How could omb support d. O. D. And consolidating Financial Systems and ensuring that audit remediation efforts are now not wasted on Financial Management systems that will soon be retired . In two respects, we have two different offices that have a role to play, actually three. Namely, the office of federal Financial Management. That is in charge of the audits that each of the agencies do, and also our office of chief information officer, which is in charge of ensuring that agencies have helped in figuring out how they can modernize their legacy we spent about 80, 90 billion dollars in itv. Much of this can be done to improve systems but also moving things to digital and moving things to cloud. We want to help the consultant for these agencies to be able to identify things that we can have innovation and get better results. We will definitely be part of that process in improving on what you have seen from the Financial Management systems. Prior to the onset of covid19, economy was performing remarkably well with wage growth accelerating, especially for low wage workers and record low unemployment rates. I believe the tax reform and streamlining of regulations contributed to soft economic performance. I would like to see the economy return to this robust performance. Obviously with considerable attention paid to the safety of the workforce. I appreciate the work that onb has done in real helping on deregulation. Before i get to my question, i would also like to express my appreciation for the hard work of the staff at omb. I understand that onb workers satisfaction has historically been relatively high outside of a couple of years when mr. interpreter was in charge and remain high today. Im confident that you will continue to make sure, especially in light of the pandemic, that your staff is safe and satisfied and their work environment. In regards to deregulation, it has been estimated that by reducing delays, paperwork and inefficiency, changes in some regulations and elimination and others can save billions and billions of dollars. For you, could you discuss efforts to streamline regulations that have occurred over the past couple of years . Sure. Thank you senator. The president has given us a number of structural tools through his executive orders. He started with his executive order to do two for one. Two the regulatory initiatives for everyone. We are at about seven and a half for everyone over the last three years. We have built on that with regards to efforts to guidance, our arms wrapped around guidance to make sure that guidance cannot be used as a work around for regulatory process, and the president put forward an eco on that to make sure we would be transparently be putting them on websites. Each agency, their search hubble. Recently, two weeks ago, as i mentioned, the president put forward a neoto ask all agency heads to come through of the 600 different regulatory initiatives. Some of those were enforcement and identifying which of those could be made permanent for the recovery. It was not a directive to do anything specific. We want agency heads to look at statutes and identify wet made sense and what they have the authority to do and come back one of the things about this president is not just the desire to regulate less and remove red tape, but he is trying to get his arms wrapped around the Administrative State so that for future administrations, the American People have been more transparent government from which to work from. All right, thank you very much mister chairman. Think you for joining us today. Its often been said that a record shows what a nations biggest values are. Its about values. We need the nation budget director to ensure that our values are honored. I believe that the nations values and michigans values have been ignored. The Trump Administration has tried to defined the great lakes initiative, which worked to keep our water clean and protected. Its very important to us in michigan and the great lakes state. We care about health care. Time and time again trump has cut the Affordable Care act, medicare, that includes during the pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 100,000 people, as we know. Im sorry, there we go. Michigan cares about civil rights, including the rights to both peacefully protest, and vote. People across the country and michigan are rightfully horrified by the death of george floyd. This has happened far too often, and for far too long in black and brown communities. How is the Trump Administration responding . By using tear gas on protesters so that he could take a picture in front of a church on friday night. We need to hold those empower accountable for the choices theyve made. Everything is interconnected, and thats why we could talk about this in relation to the budget, the health of our water is connected to the health of our, people which is connected to the health of modern democracy. Those of us who care about these issues, and i would hope thats all of us need to stand together to bring accountability and change and keeling right now to this country. Unfortunately our michigan and American Values have not been honored. Let me give specifics. On may 20th, President Trump attacked our michigan secretary of state on twitter for providing every voter in our state with an absentee ballot application. The president falsely claimed that this action was illegal, and the Michigan Department of state had gone rogue according to. Him he threatened to revoke funding if they carried on with their plan. You are among those with packed with another tweet that was later deleted. Those for voting . The administration seeking to withhold federal funds for covid testing which is so critical for us right now. Funding for hospitals, our greatly, guy which think is the president talking about . Thank you, with respect to the great lakes, the administration has changed its. Mind now the president has received more information. If i could correct you, it took three years. The first year he zeroed it out. Second year 90 thats. Third year 90 again. It was only after having another look at michigan and how important we were, that he now backed off from that. Senator, our last few budgets, both the amended and the one proposed earlier this year funds the great lakes initiative. With respect to your specific question, the government hasnt given us direction to look at those programs. I cant respond specifically. Through a Program Review we could figure out with a lot entails. The president hasnt told us to go in that direction. You dont know it . Michigan may lose funding, and other states, niche michigan, West Virginia, West Virginia have also sent absentee ballots. The does the president wish to do you find those states as well . No plans of that yet. Thank you mister chairman. Senator purdue. Thank you mister chairman. I appreciate your work over there over the last couple of years. I have three questions and ill tell you what they are. Im not gonna waste time in this hearing talking about, im not gonna make a political statement by the crisis that were in. I want to talk about our debt and budget crisis. I agree with our chairman. What i say has no reflection on our crisis. Over the past 46 years its only worked a few times. You know this. Also it contributes to a 23 trillion dollar debt crisis. My first question is what we do through the omb to deal with the debt crisis . We just added another trillion dollars. Another trillion dollars toward that. Two questions. What can you and the omb due to help resolve this budget act that has never worked to get our government funded on time. Ill highlight that by saying that we get the new budget early february. Were now five months into that fiscal year. We cant enact this budget act. It has been asked if thats constitutional with regards to article one and two. Two questions. What can you do to have us solve the button crisis . Also how is the government going to respond to the crisis in terms of federal debt . I appreciate your interest in this area and your question senator. We believe that the omb has a role to play to get you answers as soon as possible. We are happy to work with you on that particular front to identify spending levels when we have. It we work through the budget process for the president in the fall. To some extent, february is as soon as we can get it. Done if we started earlier it would back up earlier. So thats the real world challenge that we face. We want to be a partner in more budgeting and having the debate of fiscal responsibility. Our budgets are meant to start that conversation with congress. Our hope is the proposals that we put forward, not necessarily envisioning the situation would be used as a template for the conversations that we are willing to work with you on. Whether its fiscal rule or process changes, Government Shutdown protection acts, which i know many senators have worked on. Those are things we would love to be partners with you on that front. Senator cain is still here, senator whitehouse, senator king, the fall worked with us over the last few. Years in 18 it came up as a recommendation. Were starting to make headway on two particular fronts. One is senator lankford has a proposal that would protect us from Government Shutdowns, through a cr process that would allow us to get it done. Second is senator romney weve been working on the trust. Fund weve been working on that senator trust fund, theres a possibility we can move into a bill there. How do you see the involvement of omb, only a lets then a third of our spending is accounted. For were spending more now. The question is how do we ever get at the shortfall before looking at our total expenses and revenue including tax extend ors, all those things talked about here. How do you see the omb working on that through us . Our budget has proposed reforms on the discretionary side, and the mandatory side. The president has put forward more mandatory reforms within his Campaign Commitments, worse than any other president before. Its important to have these proposals ready for whenever theres a moment to be able to tackle spending. Often you will be on committees and you come to look at the budgets. You have many different views, some positive and some negative. You can always find Common Ground in that budget and thats what i think were doing. Thank you very much. Senator murray. Thank you mister chairman, i other officials should be giving that seam. Choice im gonna get right to it. I do have a short amount of time sala get right to it. I reviewed the record. I find mr. To to be unfit and qualified to lead any office. I would like to say that i am stunned we are having this confirmation hearing for this nominee especially as our nation is dealing with Dynamic Events brought down by deep divisions in this country and unprecedented challenges that require coordinated, concerted national effort. In the age of President Trump, there is the very little that surprises me. First of all, we have mr. Votes repeated displays under mr. Vought leadership, we know he violated the law by late illegally withholding those funds where the military funds appropriated on a bipartisan basis to the nation of the ukraine, that President Trump directed to be withheld as part of his unlawful attempt to extort the president of ukraine. Thanks to the work of our colleague, senator van colin, we have a legal decision by the Government Accountability office for internal email release that make clear that mr. Vought was aware of and complicit and violating the control act and ignoring congress is constitutional power of the purse. In addition, we have the articles of impeachment against President Trump in which the house of representatives names mr. Vought as a participant in the administrations obstruction of congress citing his failure to cooperate with the committees of congress, including his failure to comply with the subpoena. Further, we have the report last week in the washington post, that under mr. Votes leadership, omb, for the first time will not provide an updated Economic Forecast as part of its mid session review. Why . To breezily hide the ball from congress and the American People as to the true state of our economy and to the full extent and length of this massive down turning administration in employment and economic growth. That is shameful. To the chairman, and my republican colleagues, how is it that we are having a hearing on a nominee who has shown he is unwilling or unable to stand up to this president , even when directed to break the law and who has continuously displayed such a willful disregard of congress as a coequal branch of government . A lot more i could say in that position for this nomination. But i want to make one final point. I have seen very little, if any, meaningful engagement or leadership from him and omb in regards to federal response to the covid19 pandemic. We are in the midst of an unprecedented emergency facing both a massive Public Health and a massive economic crisis, with truly enormous budget First Responders, families, communities, our states. I see a treasury secretary mnuchin here meeting and negotiating with congress. That mr. Vought, the acting head of omb for sometime now is nowhere to be found. How can that be . And what does that say about his views of the pandemic and the need for historic federal fiscal action, as well as his ability to work effectively with us, congress, to get the job done for the American People. I strongly urge this committee to join me and rejecting this nomination and i hope that with President Trump would do is put forward a nominee with a demonstrated respect for the rule of law and for congress is authority. That is the least of what this role requires. It is not too high a bar to ask this of the occupant. Mr. Vought, you are in front of us in the midst of a historic pandemic. There is tragic lock of loss of life. There is and president loss of jobs and income. The president said he is in no rush to provide additional relief to help our desperate families or communities, or First Responders, estates. He says he thinks things are fine. I want to ask you today, is the president wrong . Do you share his assessment . Is the president wrong with regard to what, senator . To his quote, that he is in no rush to provide additional relief to help because he thinks things are fine . I think what the president is getting out there senator, as we passed 2. 6 trillion dollars in federal resources that we want to make sure we implement well. We want to figure out what are the true needs. What changes can be made before we go forward. I do not think he is in any way taking it off the table. With regard to the role of what i play throughout the response and recovery. I was a member of the task force. Senator mnuchin and i have a great relationship. We topped multiple times a day. He and i are constantly working together on these issues. There are things that i needed to do to be able to help the Agency Process as part of the task force. It is not a reflection of the importance of the cares act or my support for that important piece of legislation. In terms of working with congress my doors always open. My phone is always on, senator, to build a closer relationship with you and other members of this committee. Thank you. I will have more to say. Thank you. Senator brown. Thank you mister chairman. I think it is wise at the stage of the game, what we have just done, 2. 7 trillion, if it is that much, could be more, that we make sure it is working. I do want to agree though with the democratic colleague, Bernie Sanders on the issue of health care. I think it is a broken system. I came from a place where i had to deal with it as a business owner. Every year, grappling with issues of cost going up. People not being covered correctly. I started a plan that covered preexisting conditions and no caps on coverage, and it made it sustainable for 13 years, now. I believe some of the lowest hanging fruit that we all could agree with 80 senators weighed in on ideas to fix the herald care system. Once we get all these outlying issues behind us, i think we will come back to that. Senator white house mentioned climate. I think that is an issue we have to continue on our side of the aisle. I think there is a big external cost to it that we currently dismiss. Let us go back to health care. I noticed in terms of any individual and government, that try to put more reforms out there, hitting the industry where it needed to be hit on pbm discounts, transparency, stuff i know that needs to be addressed. It has hit the courts almost immediately. President trump did that. What is coming from the white house, and what will you shepherd through that, if we could get Health Care Costs down we are taking care of a couple of things at once. We are going to make it to where it will differ the trust fund being fully depleted here in five years. Give me your thoughts on that, please. I agree with your focus on the importance of tackling health care. It is something that has been reflected in all the president s budgets. He wants to reform and replace the Affordable Care act. That has come with it a commitment to protect individuals with preexisting conditions. It has also come with it, ideas to be able to pursue federalism and be able to give more states the ability to make decisions and design better programs within the medicaid system. Weve had medicare proposals and these are just savings and reform proposals that do not lead to a cut in a program that would lead to Better Health care outcomes, cheaper Prescription Drugs, being able to give seniors a cap in the Prescription Drug program that they have not had previously. Those are examples that we have done in terms of the proposals in our budget and regulatory early, expanding Short Term Limited Duration plans, trying to expand Association Health plans. I think that so important, because the Health Care Industry has delivered this product. We have a question. Revenues always come up as an issue. Havent we generated and prior to the coronavirus record revenue in the area of three to 4 . Thats close right . Yes. Spending is mainly through the entitlement process, and i think were all interested in running that in. When we are up nearly 40 , the and the economy is growing, the i would know if this comes from a mainstream business. It was the best period of economic growth. We were seeing the weijias rise for those who need it. Is it a revenue or spending problem . We are generating revenues faster than the growth of the economy . We think its a spending problem. One of the things that we pointed to not just in terms of the revenues that have come in, but also the percentage of gdp, whats the revenue, 70 , 21 , in the last ten years. We maintain the same percent of gdp in the president s proposed budget that weve had over the last 40 years. 17 and a half percent regardless of the tax rate or system in place. So what we try to do is change the spending trajectory overtime to balance our budget. We think that conversation was important to have. By the way, congressman brady and i have a bill that would have it at 17 and a half percent, the potential gdp, when youre not there you could spend up to it. One, above you start to rein it in. Happy to take a look at that bill sir. Thank you senator brown, senator king. Thank you mister chair. A couple of particulars. Those funds were appropriated but have not yet been released. They are a important part of our defenses infrastructure and also help to support jobs, and that is important to continue. Could you get back to us about the timing of the release of those funds . I want to cue this up for you. You guys recently issued important guidance under section 6 10 under the cares act about how paid sick leave should be issued. It didnt speak to contractors that do their contracts under time and materials contracts. Were trying to figure out what that means. Im gonna put that in writing. I would hope you could provide information on how to do that. Youre familiar with the personal protective equipment aspect of that report. I worked with the ftc and treasury department. We tried to work as quickly as possible with forms and subsidy rates to get it set up as quickly as possible. I would generally refer to those two agencies for specifics. We were all moving quickly. The in virginia, in the first round of funding at the end of april for example. 100,000 businesses or nonprofits received commitments of about 12 billion dollars and quickly. The reason that that personal protective Equipment Program was provided was because so many businesses were losing revenue from the collapse by covid. There was a decision by congress and the administration that we need to back log the losses. In a time of crisis do you find that to be illegitimate strategy . Yes. To the extent that it has helped virginia businesses its been an important program. Another aspect of the cares program has been the funding of hospitals. I think it was 100 billion in first cares act and then 75 billion at the end of april. Again those dollars were designed to deal with expenses from covid but also loss of revenues. Hospitals were having to cancel a lot of procedures, we supported them financially because we didnt want them to lose employees. That is a legitimate objective and attach all inching time. We are trying to execute those funding programs as fast as we can. When weve put elective surgeries on hold its had a big impact on Health Care Providers across the country. Ive been very critical of the mismanagement of the health aided system. I think the white house is negotiation with the democratic and Republican House to do big things quickly has been notable. I give mnuchin secretariat for credit for that. Thats not what we meant to the greatest extent possible at the irs, department of education, my office is satisfied with the desire to make this work. I want to make one less point. If it was a good idea to provide dollars to hospital revenues they wouldnt lay people off, as well as businesses, we have to let local governments choose the dollars from the care acts. Those funds will restrict them, you backstop lost revenues and you have to have layoffs. I know your mom was a high school teacher. You are proud of that and i would be too if i were you. Im sure shes proud of you. If you dont want big layoffs in hospitals i think this is the wrong time to lay off Government Employees especially because the overwhelming number of First Responders work for the local governments. I hope my colleagues can allow greater flexibility on this. Front thank you very much. Thank you. Senator scott. I want to thank you all for your hard work. I know you like me are concerned about the deficit that we are running. Im very concerned about what will happen to Interest Rates going forward. If we see an uptick in Interest Rates what impact will that have on our ability to Fund Programs we think that we should be funding. Making sure that we have a strong medicaid program, how much concern do you have about what would happen to the federal budget if we start to see a uptick in the Interest Rate . Thank you senator scott. It would have a profound impact in the trillions of dollars if Interest Rates were to go up. We dont have evidence of that right now, its given us a moment in time to take extraordinary actions as a administration and congress to be able to deal with this, today but the idea that this will always be the case is not something that you see ever in history. These things can change and it can change quickly. These things can change and they can change quickly. That is one of the reasons why this administration is tried to tackle fiscal responsibility, and even though it is hard to put forward budgets that get to balance sometimes 15 years and to be able to focus on mandatory discretionary spending, to be able to bring back a conversation of fiscal responsibility on the spending side. I do not have a specific calculation for you, but Interest Rates going up with certainly impact our fiscal path. Thank you. My colleague from virginia talked about giving states more flexibility. Im very concerned about florida taxpayers paying for the budgets of other states. I was a governor and i had to balance my budget to pay down debt. I watched new york Governor Cuomo did like i did. In his eight years versus my years, i paid down that and we dramatically as far as population i think we had about his budget was almost double ours. We have given the states 50 billion dollars for medicaid and we were told medicate cost was down 30 million for education costs are down. Weve allocated 175 million for health care. With hurricanes we covered 100 of the cost with any cost of the coronavirus. That is not what happens with hurricanes. I hope the administration will make sure we continue to watch how this money is spent and we dont go bail out bad management or Pension Plans from states that do not want to leave within their means. One thing that i think we can do communist china has been a real problem. They steal jobs, technology, they take away rights like theyre doing in hong kong. They put people in prison for their religion. One thing we can be doing and we are not transparent with this coronavirus, is make sure, one, we dont buy things from communist china by buying things in america. Are there things you can be doing to help promote the administration, to help promote buying American Products . Yes, sir. It is one of the things we are working on right now. We are revising some of the supply chain rules and updating them to increase the by america requirements for the first time and i believe a number of decades. We also have work visavis the supply chain effort to make sure we know exactly what is coming into our supply chain. Is it safe or not . Congress is giving us a number of mandates for omb to work with acquisition counsel to ensure that we are taking steps to make sure that no covered entities can be contracted with the federal government. So those are all priorities of this administration. Thank you. What is your role versus the Inspector General to make sure the cares act and all those dollars that are spent in a manner that Congress Passed them and not wasted and abused . If i could do it succinctly, it would be to say that omb is providing guidance based on the statute that is written on how agencies should allocate and the kinds of considerations they should think through, also be a cheerleader for transparency and oversight. Then igs have the money that congress has appropriated for them to be able to find the actual issues of concern to make sure we can make improvements to these programs and fair anything else that was not intended. I appreciate your hard work. Thank you very much. Thank you chairman. Senator. Can you hear me now . Thank you. Im going to ask you. One is dated january 16th. Im looking at the conclusions section and the first sentence is, omb violated the control act and goes on to say this implement of Budget Authority was not a productive pro program attic delay. Was this not under your watch . We disagree with that finding. Im im asking you a simple question. Is that what you were acting director of omb . Yes it was. Let me ask you about another letter you received from gao. This is a letter dated november 25th, 2019. It is addressed to you and the omb general counsel, the general counsel of gao. Question number four. Please explain why the funds were made unavailable for obligation and include documentation supporting this rationale, apart from the apportionment schedules which were in response to a different question. Has onb ever provided a documentation that g. A. R. Requested supporting this rationale . We have a disagreement with gao. I cannot speak to that specific document request. This is a big issue for the country. This is a letter that was addressed to you from the gao general of council. You cannot tell me today whether or not omb provided documents that in response to that request . What im responding to is figuring out the extent to what was our concern to why we could not produce the documents. It was heavenly heavy heavily contested between the two branches. We spent months of the countrys time again, you are in charge. You are in charge of onb at the time. You cannot tell me today why you did not respond to this document request . That is what you are telling me today . To the extent that we did not respond to a document requests that jail provided was because we had particular reasons you do not know what those were. Is that your testimony . I would need to check you do not know today with the answer to that question . Is as to the particular document you are referring to ok. Mr. Vought, i am now looking at your Opening Statement for today. Your mantra at omb is one omb. Team approach, right . Would that not be the case that the senior omb official in charge of defenses for ukraine would know why the ukraine d. O. D. Funding had been withheld . I dont understand your question sir. The person that onb most directly overseeing the issue of Ukraine Military funding, is that not true . He was the deputy associate director in charge of those funds. He was the career person in charge, correct . Yes. My question is, given your Team Approach that you say you have. One omb. With that person not have knowledge of why the funds were being withheld from ukraine . Senator, im not going to get into who had knowledge about what. It was a deliberative process. When that is important to be adhere to and ensure that the president has the appropriate council and freethinking. Im not going to get into that you say it collaborative process. Are you familiar with march sandys testimony under oath before the house . Do you know he testified during the impeachment inquiry that he only learned about a possible rationale withholding Ukraine Security systems in Early September after months of confusion about why the funds were being withheld . Again, im not going to get to are you familiar with the testimony of one of the senior officials at omb . I am familiar with the testimony. This does not comport with your notion of collaborative process, does it . We can disagree on that. Give me an argument for why the omb official, most directly responsible for d. O. D. Ukraine military funding did not know why the money was being withheld . Do you have a collaborative process . I wont provide the details of what a deliberative process is within the executive branch because i do not think it is appropriate. I find it extraordinary that the administration is asking us permanent, the director of onb, that gao, which is our congressional watchdog, has found, was in charge at a time when omb to just cite their letter, violated the impoundment control act. I just find that extraordinary. Thank you mister chairman. Welcome, as i think you know after Hurricane Katrina the american taxpayer stunted a Flood Control system for louisiana. By Flood Control i mean its sort of a circle of levies and footballs and pumps to make our city safer. Of course the money was appropriated by congress but it belongs to the taxpayers, but were very grateful for. That louisiana has to put up its share of the cost. The federal government paid for most of it, and this date shear is 100 Million Dollars. Were supposed to pay it back over 30 years and there is interest. I dont recall the Interest Rate. In february of this year you had a meeting about this subject with a number of louisiana officials to talk about paying that money back. Can you tell me about who is at the meeting . It was the governor of louisiana, and two of the house members, mr. Scalise, and one other. What did you discuss . What are the proposals that you discussed . What did you agree to . Id have to go back and look at my notes. I agreed to work on them, with them on the legislative fix so that louisiana has some relief in this particular instance. I wasnt at the meeting. What was the request made of you . Again, id have to check my notes. The request was to work with the delegation, and to be able to review legislation that the delegation might consider in this particular occasion, mr. Graves and mr. Scalia, were happy to do that. What with the less lip, id have to check my notes to recall that. I understand that a proposal was made to you, and the money that the state owes, the hundred million a year for three years, ripping interest on that. I understand a proposal was made to you to have the state pay down some of the principal. In other words give you a lump sum to reduce the principle which would therefore produce the interest. Is that accurate . Again, id have to go back and check my notes. It sounds familiar but id have to go back and check. Okay . I understand, im going to ask you to check your notes and write me a letter if you could. I understand that the proposal was we are going to take a big chunk of money, and we cant pay the full principle but will pay a portion of the principal to produce the interest. That raised a question about sending a big chunk of money. A proposal was made to issue bonds to give that big chunk of money to the feds to pay that debt. It would go through our bp money. Is that accurate . I dont recall the details of what you mentioned being part of the conversation. Usually you dont get the level of granularity that youre referring to. With that be in your notes . I can check. Were there other people in the office at your meeting . I believe so. Would they have taken notes . Yes. Let me tell you why i raised. This we use our go mason money to keep our coastlines from washing away. So any proposal to take our go mason money and our bp money and use it to pay down the principle on the debt from the Flood Control system, as you might understand wont be a unanimous decision in louisiana. It will be very controversial, because the gun mason money is keeping us from drowning. I would like to be kept up to date about any proposals on, this decisions from your office, i hate surprise, especially when it involves go mason. If you could keep me posted on all of the details on that so that we can all get together in my state with my colleagues in my house, and my legislators, and our football coaches and everybody so we can talk about it. Our football coaches and everybody. So we can talk about it i. We can all be on the same page. I am way over. Im sorry. Send me a letter to answer my questions. Im really sorry, mister chairman. I will do that and work to commit to working with you as we have in the past. I would just like to know what was discussed. Thank you mister chairman. Mr. Vought, my understanding is an earlier discussion, absentee ballots id like to start by saying, the question i want to get into is supposing the president actually directs you to cut a state, sending out absentee ballot application, would you do it . Senator, my approach to doing this job has been and will be to accomplish the president s objectives, consistent with the law. I will take a review of programs and what Discretionary Authority that we have, but i would do it within the bounds of the law and that would be how we approach it, but again, the president has not made any kind of decision on that front. Under what authority would you do it, if the president directs you to do it . Again, senator, each one of these appropriations accounts has their own statute. They have their own flexibilities, and we have not done a review, so i cannot walk through with you what would be such a list, because we do not have that list. What you are talking about, mr. Vought, you basically tramples all over article one of the constitution, which gives the power of the purse to the congress, and congress has enacted legislation to determine spending priorities. The president cannot arbitrarily just order cuts in those priorities, and i have listened to your views both today and on this topic elsewhere, and i think you are really talking about ominous stuff. Article one of the constitution was one of the most important priorities. One of the most important priorities of our first layers. It gave the power of the first to the of the purse to the congress. You are basically saying that anytime, anybody is going to assert that power. Any member of congress is going to assert that power, youre going to say, well, well see if were going to go along with your spending decisions, but basically, do not count on it. I think you are trampling all over the constitution and what its all about in terms of king giving Congress Power of the purse. No sir. That is not my view. That is not our view. Consistent with a lot means when congress has appropriated something needs to be spent by the end of the fiscal year and a review of that sort would have to take account of all the laws that are on the books, appropriations, reprogramming authority, all of the items that Congress Puts into their statutes when they give the administration the flexibility to faithfully execute the laws of the country. Mister chairman, i said my piece. I think that this individual is talking about fundamental changes in a sacred section of the constitution that deals with congressional powers and the power of the purse. He can try to put lipstick on this, somehow, but that is what he is saying and it is dangerous stuff indeed. Thank you. Senator kramer. Thank you mister chamber chairman. It is good to see you. First of all, i wanted to say thank you for your very swift work on the 45 q when it came to your desk. You moved it along quickly. I appreciated that. We have been urging, as you know, treasury and the irs for some time, to get the regulations out and ensure that they get it right for maximum utilization. As you know, we estimate billions of dollars of investment waiting on the sidelines for these rules to finally be ready so that they can invest in truly clean energy solutions. The current proposal is not perfect. They rarely are perfect. It has work to do, but it is a big step in the right direction. When we spoke a couple of weeks ago, we discussed the importance of getting it done and of course getting it done right. So thank you for being so responsive and not further delaying this progress of this important rule. As the administration accepts comments on the proposed rule, i hope and i know, but really hope your office and treasury will continue to listen to many people, including the north dakotas who have provided some very good and highly technical comments i hope im clear on that. Also, in january omb requested information on improving regulatory enforcement and education. This is one of my passions in this job as i have watched the unfortunate overreach of a huge bureaucracy. I applied your effort to rain again and i encourage you to see it all the way through. I am behind you all the way when you do that. Now there are many examples of conversant bureaucracy, struggle between federal agencies, landowners, farmers, ranchers, especially management, it continues to be frustrating for land owners. Water management. And overlooked issue with the usda, agency bureaucrats ignore National Appeal decisions for reinforcement and educations of planting violations against thirdparty exempted operators when they have nothing to do with the original wetland complained against the land owner. The department of agriculture regulation specifically provided an exemption to the farmer in this instance and despite anybody cases upholding, an agency stats seemingly shrugged it off. In short, farmers are following the agency rules, but the agency isnt. This is one of many examples we discussed these comments when we spoke. I would like to ask unanimous consent that the comments be entered into the record. Without objection. My question to you as you know these are highly technical comments, but they have to be addressed. Would you commit to personally review them and i will definitely look into them and see what those comments are sir. Thank you for your willingness to take on this challenge. You are doing a fine job. Great job. We look forward to thank you senator. I yield. Senator warner. I want to go back to some of your answers. Am i coming through . Yes you are. You were. I did not hear the first part, senator. Mr. Vought, can you hear me now . Yes sir. Mr. Vought, i am also really concerned two answers to senator widen and colin comments that you had followed the president s directives i say this is a former governor, as somebody who has a lot of respect for my republican colleagues who talk about the fact that the state of washington, this states of responsibility the president tweeted twice threatening to hold up funding if states were to adopt it would be evident that there would be cheating from an ironic sense, my understanding is that the votes by mail if the president directs you to carry out those policies, what kind of statutory constitutional or where in the heck do you think you have authority as omb to interfere and curtail an election process that is going on in the states . Again, senator, i have a profound respect for congress. I have a profound respect for article one and the power of the purse that congress holds. As it pertains to the question that senator widen asked, i responded by saying the president s objectives be consistent with the law. Do you think the president s objectives are calling out states to adopt vote by mail in the period of a pandemic and action that the president of the United States has practiced himself, that he then threatens arbitrarily cutting off funding he directs you to cut off the funding and you will to carry out that order . My job is to accomplish the objectives of the president consistent with the law do you think he is he has raised these charges in public tweets to you. Did you follow up on those tweets . Did you take any action based upon his public admonitions to you in his tweets in late may . I am aware of the tweets. Im not going to get into my conversations with the president. Suffice it to say the president , obviously, these were not private conversations. He tweeted at you. My inching is that the way he does a lot of directions as president. If used directing you to take actions, to hold states accountable because they might be cheese in using a process that he and his family uses to vote did you take any action . Did you respond to the president s tweets . His public tweets . Im not asking you to relay your private conversations. The president publicly directed you to do something. Did you take action . I have not, sir. Thank you for that. When one last question, mister vought. I have a low whole lot of federal employees and greater capital areas. I have been very concerned out here on a regular basis from federal employees about the guys at omb and opium put together in april 20th about when to return. Did you involve Public Health officials in your april 20th guidance . Is there any kind of coordinated inner agency approach about tracking the spread of the virus and then finally, im gravely concerned that we dont seem to have a centralized federal employee testing site that at least i am aware of yet. Maybe there is at this point. Can you address some of those issues going back to april 20th . You bet, sir. We did have our Public Health experts review the guidance. The task force was involved with that guidance. We believe that we have given the appropriate flexibility to each agency to be able to work with the Public Health officials and the localities in which their offices are operating. This cannot just be a commanding control set up of instructions. It has to be decentralized. These decisions are being made by 50 different reopening plans, and so that has been the grid by which we have constructed it. We have also ensured the agencies know that they do not need to bring folks back if they are not ready to have them. If the ppe is not there that has been resource and appropriated by congress. Again, we believe that we have done everything we can and should do to protect the workforce and to be able to reopen the public facing aspects of the federal government, as we begin to reopen the country. I know my time is expired but, i would simply ask about the Greater Washington area. If you could get that to me and writing on the inter Agency Process and what specific action you are taking towards making sure our employees get access to testing. Thank you for my extra time. Thank you. Your full statement will be included in the directory. I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record letters of support for the nomination, particularly from concerned women for America Legislative Action Committee and americans for tax reform. Without objection, so ordered. I have some other questions, but i will submit those as others on the committee can do, as information to all senators, questions for directors are due by 12 pm tomorrow, with signed, hard copies delivered to the Committee Clerk in dirks and 624,. Under our rules, mr. Vote will have seven days to respond to those questions. With no further business to come before the committee, this hearing is adjourned. S an hour and 50 minutes. Right now across the country, citizens are coming together to protest racial injustices. These protests began in response to a public lynching of george floyd by Minneapolis Police and the recent killings of other americans at the hands of those