Byron Donalds: “I thank the chairman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, in short, the pandemic is over. It is time for Federal employees to…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, in short, the pandemic is over. It is time for Federal employees to go back to the office. I find it interesting in this debate that one of the things that is occurring right now is that the President's budget is due next week. We are in the middle of this calamity around debt ceiling which the President, by the way, has led us to. His budget is due next week, and he is telling everybody he needs another month. I wonder if this is because some of his own budget staff aren't in the office. This is something that should have been done long ago. If the President was doing his job being the leader of the executive branch, those employees would have been back. Since Congress is the body responsible for appropriating funds to the executive branch and the President does not do his job of making sure it is working effectively, then Congress does have a responsibility to make sure that these employees come back and get back to work. Life has been happening here in the people's House. A couple of things: It has already been said about the IRS delays. It is shocking that right now it takes 2 to 4 months to get assigned an agent. If you call the IRS, you won't get a call back for 4 weeks. It is also important to understand that right now it takes 30 days for USCIS to respond to a Congressional inquiry. There are many backlogs at the VA; some of them almost 2 years, 197,000 backlogs.…”