The Small Business Administration says it will start accepting “paycheck protection” applications from up to 30 million small businesses by April 11. The IRS expects to start sending out stimulus payment checks in mid-April to about 140 million taxpayers. And there are dozens of other provisions mandating action with impossibly short deadlines—all while much of the federal workforce is working from home.
In the midst of this frenetic action, the new law—officially the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act—also contains a series of accountability provisions to oversee this rapid spending. What are these provisions? How do they compare to those in the 2009 Recovery Act, which distributed $787 billion to mitigate the Great Recession? Are there insights from the 2009 oversight efforts that could help jumpstart current efforts?
First, what are the oversight provisions in the CARES Act? Essentially, there are five components, funded with about a quarter of a billion dollars:
Existing Offices of Inspector General. The inspector general offices in 14 agencies are receiving $139 million in supplemental appropriations to undertake oversight of their agency’s portion of programs and dollars in the bill. For example, the IG at the Small Business Administration received a $25 million boost in its budget to help oversee the vast expansion of SBA loans under the new law. This is more than double its current spending level and can be spent over a four-year period.
A New Special Inspector General in Treasury. A new, temporary Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery is being created in the Treasury Department to oversee the distribution of $500 billion in loans, loan guarantees, and investments that will occur in concert with the Federal Reserve. This fund could be leveraged to ..
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