Congress.gov shows H.R. 6201 as having been passed by the House of Representatives without amendment. The text of the bill given there shows Social Security with a major roll implementing benefits for those out of work due to Covid-19. That is what I posted about yesterday. However, the House Appropriations Committee website links to a different version of the bill which shows no significant role for Social Security. I don’t know what is going on.
If I have misled anyone, and I don’t know that I did, I’m sorry, but if you can’t rely upon the official Congressional website what is one to do?
5 comments:
You are right, the bill reporting section of congress.gov linked to the 3/11 version of the bill, said there were no other versions and clearly showed it was passed an a late night vote. But there was indeed a highly revised version of the bill dated 3/13 that should have been shown. I get things were moving fast, but a day later, one would expect the official site for legislation to be accurate and show at least the multiple versions, if not the passed version.
Good thing the bill changed what SSA was tasked to do, but clearly, the powers that be had a serious intent to use SSA this way; enough to ensure paperwork reduction and other impediments were legally bypassed, and the trust funds protected. What were they thinking?
In a press conference, Mnuchin commented that there would be technical corrections to the bill and he wanted to warn everyone about that in advance so that they wouldn't be surprised. Maybe this was part of that?
Unfortunately, there is a lag between the "Actions" tab on congress.gov and the "Text" tab. It could take anywhere from several days to a week for the amended version of H.R.6201 to appear on congress.gov.
Normally, the bill text is first transmitted to the Government Publishing Office (GPO) and then later transmitted to the Library of Congress to be posted on congress.gov. If there is a delay in Congress transmitting the bill text to GPO or in GPO transmitting the text to the Library, then a lag can occur between the Actions and Text tabs. That said, even without a delay in the normal transmittal process, it still takes the Library time to process and upload the text of bills to its website.
As for why the SSA provisions in the introduced version of the bill were deleted, several media outlets have reported House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as saying it would take SSA at least 6 months to set up the new program.
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/house-oks-coronavirus-relief-bill-after-urging-from-trump-in-363-40-vote
This begs the question: who will administer the program?
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