Ron Estes: “I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for introducing this commonsense piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for introducing this commonsense piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act. Before I get into my planned remarks, I want to fact check some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle attacking President Trump, claiming that laid off Federal workers are being prevented from receiving unemployment. {time} 1445 We have been in touch with the Department of Labor. They have published documented guidelines describing filing and eligibility requirements that make it clear Federal workers are eligible for unemployment. The biggest risk to Federal workers is not being able to claim their benefits at all because fraudsters got there first. There have been multiple data breaches at agencies across the government, including the Office of Personnel Management, exposing the personal information of millions of Federal workers. Democrats should be supporting this bill to catch fraudsters that are still out there using stolen identities to file illegitimate claims. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have insisted, despite their pushback on the Trump administration's actions, that they want to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Today, they can prove it. The bill we are debating is really pretty simple.…”