Sen. Joni Ernst is Fibbing About Biden ‘Secret Spending’

There Joni Ernst goes again. U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst may not be as brazen as Sen. Katie Britt or Donald Trump when it comes to lying about the Biden administration. But the Iowa Republican does her fair share of fibbing about the president.

For some examples, see my previous reporting about how Ernst has twisted the truth about the IRS and pandemic fraud.Well, she’s at it again. On Tuesday, Ernst sent out a news release blaming President Biden for “hiding billions of dollars in secret spending.”

The Republican senator cited a Government Accountability Office report from last November that said $40 billion in non-standard federal obligations called “other transaction agreements” weren’t reported to the official website for government spending information, USAspending.gov.

Ernst says these OTAs, as they’re called, are growing significantly, and the failure to report them to USAspending.gov means less transparency for “secret sweetheart deals.”

What Ernst didn’t say is these unusual deals more than tripled in value during the Trump administration, from about $5 billion in 2018 to more than $18 billion in 2020, according to the GAO. Much of it was due to Covid spending.

The GAO also says they have fallen during the Biden administration to $11 billion in 2022. The GAO’s report also makes clear that it studied OTAs during the 2020-2022 fiscal years, which encompasses both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Regardless, Ernst blames “Biden’s Treasury Department” for failing to report these OTAs to USAspending.gov.

The truth is, there has been confusion for years about whether these agreements have to be reported. In 2017, when Donald Trump was president, an Inspector General’s report said the Federal Aviation Administration failed to report nearly all of the OTAs the IG reviewed, “because officials do not believe the Agency is required to do so.”

Apparently, some clarity in the law is needed.

Which is what the GAO suggested last year.

“Until Congress assigns Treasury, in coordination with (the Office of Management and Budget), the responsibilities to periodically assess and determine which agencies must report data to USAspending.gov and oversee the completeness of their reporting, the website’s data may lack some required spending information,” the GAO said.

So, I’m glad that Ernst is finally getting around to introducing a bill to mandate that OTAs be disclosed on USAspending.gov. (By the way, the true story about these OTAs is they have benefits and risks.)

Regardless, I think most people would agree that transparency is a good thing. And so is honesty. On government websites, and in press releases emanating from U.S. Senate offices.

©Copyright 2024, Iowa Capital Dispatch. Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Read more at iowacapitaldispatch.com.