Articles
Despite shutdown, Trump administration gives relief to powerful mortgage industry after lobbying push
Washington,
January 11, 2019
New York Daily News |
The government can’t reopen itself — but it can apparently accommodate deep-pocketed lobbyists. The Treasury Department reinstated an Internal Revenue Service program essential to the mortgage industry this week after the powerful lending block launched a lobbying effort amid an ongoing government shutdown set to become the longest in history. Even though 800,000 federal employees are going without paychecks due the shutdown induced by President Trump’s border wall obsession, Treasury officials worked behind the scenes to make sure mortgage lenders are still able to have their forms processed by the IRS, allocating revenue from fees to bring back and pay wages for hundreds of furloughed tax clerks. “The White House has played fast and loose with shutdown regulations in numerous departments,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) tweeted, “but this is a scandal.” |