CDC Director Says Country Ready to Reopen

Yesterday Mnuchin and Powell were grilled by various senators on the coronavirus response, I covered some of the most memorable aspects of Mnuchin’s interactions with various senators in a couple videos yesterday, you can look at my videos from yesterday to get a feel for that.

So yesterday IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said that they will be bringing back employees in Texas, Utah, and Kentucky to do work that can’t be done remotely, about 11,000 employees.

Now, what kind of IRS work can’t be done remotely? Among other things, the processing of income tax returns.

So the commissioner said Texas, Utah, and Kentucky, so let’s take a gander at the 1040 instructions and look at whose tax returns employees in Texas, Utah, and Kentucky process.

[Form 1040 Instructions, Page 108, last page]

So I would gander that if your situation fits one of these and you filed a paper return, you might be in luck earlier than others, but just keep in mind that these processing centers will have stacks of tax returns and other things to process, and who knows if your paper tax return is on the top of the stack or the bottom.

So not much to update on the HEROES Act, the Senate as I’ve told you before is handling administrative matters, if you look at the calendar for today, what does it say they’re up to, it says they’re resuming consideration of the nomination of Anna M. Manasco, of Alabama, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama.

So they’re handling judicial nominations because as you know federal judges are appointed by the president but must be confirmed by the Senate.

And guess what?  They’re on a break all next week for Memorial Day, you can look at the calendar here, you see the boxed area, that means they’re on break, so they’re not coming back until June.

How convenient for the Republican wait and see strategy, doubtless there will be some rogue Memorial Day gatherings throughout the country, and we’ll see what the numbers look like in June and whether or not those numbers will tend to light a fire or not under Senate Republicans butt to consider another round of a relief bill.

Because look, the CDC director Robert Redfield said yesterday in an interview that the country is ready to reopen, here’s what he said:

8:10 – 8:40

He said he thinks the country is ready to reopen, CDC director.  And you can think of the CDC as you will, I’m not going to speculate on that since I’m not a doctor or an epidemiologist or a virologist, so just take that as you will.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if that is a Republican talking point to be a stick in the mud about another round of stimulus, they can easily say, look, we’re ready to reopen, let’s reopen and see how it goes and then if things backfire we’ll think about another round, but just wanted to let you know.

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