Coronavirus Recriminations Come First House Democrats tee up virus investigations before the election.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-recriminations-come-first-11585869942?mod=opinion_lead_pos3
“It’s an election year, so politics was always going to fill up that space in congressional brains where the frontal lobe is supposed to be. But couldn’t Democrats at least wait for the intensive-care units to empty?”
While most Americans under coronavirus lockdown are worrying about their jobs, their groceries, and their local doctors and nurses, congressional Democrats have other priorities. To wit, pin blame on the Trump Administration before the November election.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will appoint a House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Its task will be to oversee—meaning investigate—the government’s aid efforts, which so far run to more than $2 trillion. “Where there’s money there’s also frequently mischief,” Mrs. Pelosi said. “We want to make sure there are not exploiters out there.”
Some Members of Mrs. Pelosi’s caucus think that every corporation is an “exploiter” of one kind or another. Their goal will not be to protect federal dollars but to highlight unpopular companies that get a grant or loan and then claim it’s the result of political favoritism. The only question is which ones will become the next Halliburton (Dick Cheney during Iraq) or Koch brothers (all-purpose villains).
First the government denies businesses their customers and revenues by locking down most of the country. Then Congress pats itself on the back for throwing companies a lifeline that it calls a “bailout.” And then it will investigate recipients to see if they really needed it or happened to know someone in government.
The committee isn’t necessary because the law passed last week already included mechanisms for accountability. It set up a Congressional Oversight Commission, with five members, to keep an eye on a $500 billion fund that was allocated to help stabilize the economy. That money will also be watched by an independent inspector general. The overall $2 trillion package will be scrutinized and audited by a new Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, made up of other inspectors general.
But those bodies might not deliver political targets in time for the presidential campaign, and they had to be negotiated with Republicans, who resisted giving the commission subpoena power. The special Pelosi committee will have that power, and you can be sure that witnesses will be summoned before the TV cameras between Labor Day and Election Day.
Congressman Adam Schiff, separately, said he is working on a bill to create a pandemic review modeled after the 9/11 Commission. “After Pearl Harbor and 9/11,” he wrote in a Wednesday tweet, “we looked at what went wrong to learn from our mistakes.” Mr. Schiff’s conceit seems to be that the U.S. was uniquely blindsided by a novel virus that has hit hard in many countries, including Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
It’s an election year, so politics was always going to fill up that space in congressional brains where the frontal lobe is supposed to be. But couldn’t Democrats at least wait for the intensive-care units to empty?
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