WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oversight plays a big role in Washington, to try to make sure taxpayer dollars are not misused.

- Various oversight measures of $2.3+ trillion in relief money have been introduced
- Democrat Rep. Joyce Beatty supports it
- Republican Rep. Jim Jordan calls it ridiculous

So, it’s no surprise that new measures are being put in place to oversee the $2.3+ trillion Congress has already dedicated to responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I don’t think you could ever have too much oversight when you’re talking about something that is historic and something that is unprecedented,” Representative Joyce Beatty (D, 3rd Congressional District) said in a recent interview over Zoom.

Beatty, who represents the Columbus area, is a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), who is leading the effort to create new forms of oversight to track coronavirus federal spending.

The CARES Act that Congress passed last month includes three specific measures:

1) A 5-person commission, appointed by congressional leadership in both parties, to keep track of $500 billion the Treasury Department has been given to help large corporations
2) A new special inspector general that will also have oversight of that $500 billion, allowing for two layers of monitoring
3) A Pandemic Response Accountability Committee of inspectors general watchdogs that will oversee the execution of the entire $2.2 trillion relief bill

The plan was modeled after the oversight measures Congress put in place for the 2008 stimulus package that bailed out the auto industry and banks.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R, 4th Congressional District) is the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, which he argues should be in charge of keeping track of this money.

He’s also concerned about a fourth step Pelosi has taken — creating a new bipartisan House Select Committee on the coronavirus, which she appointed Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) to lead.

Clyburn is the number three Democrat in the House of Representatives and a prominent supporter of former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Though he has said the committee will be forward-looking and not focus on the Trump administration’s early response to the virus, Jordan said he views it in one way.

“Everyone knows what this is going to be,” Jordan said in a recent phone interview. “This is going to be another way for the Democrats to attack the president, which they have done since before he even got elected to the office.”

The rollout of all this is going to take a while, mainly because Congress is not coming back to Washington until at least May 4th. And, as an example, the Trump administration will have to nominate someone to be that new special inspector general; and then the Senate will have to vote to confirm that person.

But President Trump has already said he doesn’t think all these steps are necessary. He recently told reporters that he will be the oversight, so even more delays are likely.

I reached out to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to ask his opinion. He sent me this statement:  

“We need to make sure the assistance provided in the stimulus bill actually ends up in the pockets of workers, not CEOs. We need more oversight, support for our hospitals and housing provisions in any future bill. Mitch McConnell has acknowledged that we’ll need to do another legislative package, and I’ll continue fighting for what Ohioans need to recover from this crisis. They shouldn’t have to suffer from its economic impacts for the next decade.”

And late Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Rob Portman’s (R-Ohio) office sent out a release saying he and Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) penned a letter to Trump that said:

“We encourage you to send a strong message to the executive branch to work with IGs [Inspectors General], not against them.  With trillions of taxpayer dollars being distributed and a national debt of $24 trillion (and counting), this is a time to encourage IGs to root out waste and inefficiency.”