Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chair, a couple years ago, we dove into post offices, particularly those that did not appear to be financially vibrant and surviving. We realized much of the data we were working on had holes in it. We couldn't get certain lease costs or were they real estate owned.

All I am trying to do here is just get updated data, because at some point we are going to go back through. You have all been watching the accounts. We are going to go back through that discussion again of how we shore up the finances of the U.S. postal system. It would be nice if we go into that having actually high-quality information and the optionality that information would provide us. That is as complicated as this one is.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chair, what the ranking member is saying is fair. The goal here is to have much better information, because the reality is we are going to go back through that uncomfortable exercise again. It is probably a year or 2, maybe 3 years out. The world has changed. This is one of the great difficulties we have around here, and it is sometimes hard to accept.

In a weird way, we are sort of a protection racket. We protect incumbent models of business, incumbent processes, incumbent bureaucracies, but how many of us are now paying our bills on this thing? How many of us are communicating on this thing and not licking an envelope with the risk of a paper cut? Come on, that was funny.

The world is different. I know we have a certain sensitivity to the history and to the communities, but we are going to have to deal with the financial realities that is modern America. That is all I am trying to do. If we are going to deal with those, let's have quality information so we understand.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend and colleague from Arizona and the ranking member.

Mr. Chairman, we remember the EIDL loans from during the pandemic. We have some documents that say there may be as much as $62 billion in impairment. Understand that there is a difference between impairment and delinquency behind those.

We actually have an intense concern on some of the articles and other things that have come to our attention that the collection--look, this is never a happy conversation when you are talking about going out and collecting loans, but this is money that is owed to the hardworking taxpayers. It is only fair. We made a deal.

We actually believe if we take the mean of some of the reports we have been best able to get, there is about $33 billion that is ready for, functionally, some type of hard collection. They are substantially delinquent.

We are here fighting over dollars. We are fighting over pennies sometimes. If there are billions of dollars out there that are owed back to the Small Business Administration and those things, we have the legal obligation to go collect. That is the deal.

The amendment is trying to move away from an article in The Washington Post that was basically saying the Small Business Administration had either slowed down or stopped pursuing collections. Let's go collect the money. As we are lifting every seat cushion around here trying to find resources, there is a stack of resources here.

The other thing it would also help us understand is how much fraud ultimately there was in the program, but without the collection efforts, you actually cannot truly document those numbers.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chair, let me say to the gentleman from Maryland that he will be happy to know that he actually accepted, en bloc, two of my amendments.

Mr. Chair, I am blessed to chair the Oversight Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, and within there is the use of technology. We have actually had to deal with the reality, if you are actually reading some of the reports that are coming from the IRS, that they can't seem to hire the people to do the audits. Apparently, there is a shortage of people with accounting and that type of talent.

We actually brought two amendments--both made it into the en bloc, so I appreciate that--to actually go and use AI and technology to talk about exactly what the gentleman from Maryland said.

I actually believe in many ways that is more ethical and moral because I can audit an algorithm. I can't audit someone's heart or their personal politics. We actually have demonstrations also on the customer service side with the use of chat AI and those things, but that is IRS. We are here talking about the Small Business Administration.

I am trying to be intellectually consistent. We did our amendments there to pursue a rational use of technology. If it is true that there may be, according to this article, an estimated $62 billion in past due pandemic loans, if it costs more than $62 billion for the Small Business Administration to go collect $62 billion, the world has come to an end. I mean, let's be intellectually consistent here.

This agency has the legal obligation to collect these loans. My fear is there may have been so much fraud that there is almost this discomfort of peeling back the onion and saying one-third of the book or 20 percent of book, whatever it is, will never be performing loans.

Mr. Chairman, to my friend from Maryland, this is actually just moving some money around so the Small Business Administration does what they are actually supposed to be doing and what is actually already part of the loan. We are actually moving some resources so it can be accomplished.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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