Senator Hassan Pushes for Additional Bipartisan COVID-19 Relief to Support Individuals and Businesses, Improve Fiscal Outlook
U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan pushed for additional bipartisan COVID-19 relief to help support individuals and businesses and improve the country's fiscal outlook during a hearing of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth, on which Senator Hassan is the top Democrat.
"The first step to improving our nation's fiscal outlook is improving the economic outlook of families, businesses, communities and states that have been hit hard by the COVID-19 virus," Senator Hassan said. "Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chair Powell warned that "too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses.' Providing assistance to families who can't make ends meet and helping hard-hit business stay afloat is not only the right thing to do -- it is also the fiscally responsible thing to do."
The Senator added, "The second step to getting our nation's fiscal house in order -- after the recovery from COVID-19 -- is for Congress to implement common-sense, bipartisan measures that promote fiscal responsibility and reduce the national debt."
She specifically discussed the need to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government and the importance of strengthening Social Security and Medicare.
Senator Hassan questioned Gene Dodaro, U.S. Comptroller for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), about a bipartisan bill that she introduced with Senator Rand Paul this year, as well as a similar one last year, that would eliminate duplicative government programs and help save taxpayer dollars. The bipartisan bill responds to recommendations for congressional action issued by the GAO in its annual report on duplicative and wasteful government programs.
Comptroller Dodaro responded, "Acting on open recommendations can save tens of billions of dollars in additional savings to the federal government. The two pieces of legislation that you mentioned would go a long way to implementing this and have the potential to yield billions of dollars."
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