One thing that will not have support even among Republican members of Congress is a proposal for funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to be applied to the cost of building a new Alabama State House.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Saks) joined his colleague U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Fairhope) in rejecting the idea reportedly proposed by Republican leadership in the Alabama legislature.
“I don’t know how that harebrained idea about thinking they could spend some of it on a new building came up,” he said on Wednesday’s broadcast of Huntsville radio WVNN’s “The Jeff Poor Show.” “But I was in the legislature, and there’s knuckleheads there just like there are in Congress that come up with silly ideas they should keep in their head and not let out their mouth.”
However, he explained that it did not mean there was no room for flexibility regarding CARES Act money. According to Rogers, the Treasury Secretary has discretion over what is and is not an acceptable CARES Act expenditure.
“The Treasury Department has been showing that all along,” he said. “We have regular calls with the Treasury Secretary, and we raise these kinds of issues with him. He has the latitude, without legislation to make tweaks and changes. He’s been doing that all along. So, if we get reasonable requests for modifications, we forward those up to him, and he makes his decision. He’s made a lot of accommodations. So, there’s room for it they have any ideas on how it can be used to deal with the pandemic, and the fallout that has come from this public health and economic crisis, then all they have to do is communicate those with us or the Treasury Department, and we can get them some answers back.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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