Visit cspan.org slash results for comprehensive coverage of the 2024 campaign results.
Get the final Electoral College breakdown in the presidential race and see which states each candidate carried.
Dive into our interactive maps to explore the outcomes in Senate, House, and Governor's races, and monitor the final balance of power in Congress.
Plus, watch acceptance and concession speeches on demand anytime.
Stay up to date with C-SPAN.
Your unfiltered view of politics at c-span.org slash results.
Some news from Washington.
Former Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gates has withdrawn his name from consideration to be the next Attorney General.
He released a statement that reads in part, I had excellent meetings with senators yesterday.
I appreciate their thoughtful feedback and the incredible support of so many.
While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Advance transition.
There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle.
Thus, I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General.
President-elect Trump weighed in on Mr. Gates' decision, posting, I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gates in seeking approval to be Attorney General.
He was doing very well, but at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the administration, for which he has much respect.
Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do.
Julie Grace Brufke, congressional reporter with Axios, joins us now by phone.
Thank you for being with us.
What has been the reaction from senators to Matt Gates withdrawing as Attorney General nominee?
Well, I've talked to a number of lawmakers that are surprised that it kind of happened this early in the process.
But he faced an uphill battle, and a lot of leaders have kind of acknowledged that.
He really definitely was going to have a hard time.
Some of these, he could only lose three, and moderate Republican senators had some pretty strong concerns.
And particularly, I mean, the ethics committee yesterday we saw on the House side opted not to release that report.
I know there were a lot of concerns over the contents of that.
So he ultimately said that he didn't want to be a distraction and took himself out of the running there.
CNN is reporting that Matt Gates withdrew after being contacted about sources saying that previously undisclosed sexual encounter with a minor was about to be made public.
Has that been part of the reporting?
No, I need to check in with some sources on that front.
But I know from my conversations with Matt Gates in the past with the ethics investigation, he's kind of shot it down as politically motivated by Kevin McCarthy.
He's kind of in his line of defense there and argued that there was no wrongdoing on his end.
So I think he probably had made it to confirmation.
A confirmation hearing probably would have kind of stuck with that line of attack there.
Matt Gates did meet with Republican senators on Wednesday.
There were some statements of support, but just not enough.
So from talking to people on Matt Gates' orbit, he felt like he was having momentum earlier in the week.
And we heard some of his previous critics that he'd kind of taken aim at before, like Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, who kind of changed the tune in a positive direction.
But some of these moderates really had some strong concerns about what was in the ethnic area's qualifications and what might be in that ethics report.
So despite kind of Trump putting on a full court press there to get him over the finish line, I think he kind of acknowledged that it just wasn't going to get him there.
And ultimately, he put up a statement saying he didn't want to be a distraction.
Matt Gates sent a letter of resignation to Congress, and in it he said he did not intend to take the oath of office in the next Congress because he was going to be nominated for Attorney General.
If he wants to return to Congress in January, can he?
So there are some questions about that.
Speaking to people versus close to Gates, I don't think he has a ton of interest in coming back to Congress.
I think he's definitely got his eyes on a gubernatorial run down the road.
And I think he probably either maybe I've talked to a lot of lawmakers that feel he'll probably get some type of senior position within the administration or maybe go do a cable news contract and keep himself relevant and then ultimately run for that.
But from my chats, I doubt that he's probably going to come back to Congress in January.
President-elect Donald Trump has now named Pam Bondi as his new choice to lead the Justice Department as Attorney General.
In a statement on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting crime and making America safe again.
Pam Bondi served as Florida's Attorney General from 2011 to 2019 and most recently as a surrogate for the 2024 presidential campaign.
Conservative activists attended the annual Freedom and Progress Conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
Topics included the results of the November elections, vaccine development during the pandemic, the renewal of the 2017 tax law, and modernizing the IRS.
All right, next up we have Arna.
Arna Dorr, a Freop Senior Fellow, who is one of my favorite people.
And we're going to take that to that other side of the tax reform debate, which is about the part of the tax code that affects low-income Americans.
There's an enormous norm in terms of size, fiscal size, an enormous number of programs that are used to support low-income families, particularly low-income families that work, that are funded through the tax code.
Give people an overview for those who aren't familiar with some of the major tax programs that affect low-income Americans.
Thank you, Ovik, and thank you so much to all of you for being here and to the Clapham group that has helped fund this research.
I'm very interested in the U.S. Social Safety Net.
I've been working on this at least for the last few years, looking at the issue of access to the safety net and especially access to multiple programs in the safety net.
So if you look at the U.S., Ovik, we spend about a trillion dollars on all sorts of programs that support low-income households.
These vary from tax credit programs that are through the IRS and also non-tax credit programs.
So some examples of non-tax credit programs, which we've all heard of, are SNAP, like the Food Stamps Program, TANF, WIC, and so on.
And tax credit programs are like the Earn Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.
We spend a lot of money, but I think one of the issues that I've been researching and looking into is how easy is it really for people to access these programs given the systems we have set up, right?
And I'm happy to get into that.
Yeah, so you know, and we have a session later today on that where we're going to touch on this as well.
But tell us a little about that.
What, you know, we have these programs.
You published a paper, an article for us, I think you also published it at Forbes, where you talked about the percentage of people who are theoretically eligible for these programs, the number who actually participate, and the number who participate, at least according to some of the data you've unearthed, is surprisingly low.
That's interesting.
That's something that I personally hadn't looked at till about four years ago when I was working at the White House and saw pandemic policies being devised kind of quickly because it was hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime crisis and governments hadn't figured out what would really work with a health crisis at that time.
And what it left me thinking was, where I started to think about probing more into these programs is, well, during the pandemic, it was really hard for us to get people the help they needed.
A lot of good money went out.
We had, I think, the child tax credit expansions, we had a lot of safety net program expansions and so on and so forth, economic stimulus payments.
But when you started digging into which low-income households were being left out of this safety net access, it seemed to be that we really didn't have the system set up to provide people the help they needed immediately, which meant having access to their bank accounts, having their tax information from previous years so that we could send the money out quickly and so on and so forth.
So I said, okay, well, if in a crisis we're struggling to get people the help they need, what happens in non-crisis times, right?
Let me look at the overall safety net.
And I think the issue has been that when people look at, you know, researchers, economists who have looked at these programs typically hone in on one or two programs.
So there's a lot of good research around SNAP and how access to SNAP and food stamps has been problematic and how can we implement nudges and get people to get the benefits that they need.
And then someone else will look at TANF, which is the cash welfare program.
And we realize that, oh, participation in TANF is like 25 to 26% amongst the eligible population.
But what I wanted to do was say, okay, we have all of these different programs, right?
And we think of the safety net as this combination of programs.
Some are helping people when they get unemployed, some are helping people when they have access to issues with access to food.
Some are health insurance programs and so on.
So I said, but what if I look at all of these?
And by all, I meant about seven to ten programs that we routinely talk about in DC.
And the surprising thing to me, and again, this is based on survey household survey data, so there are issues with reporting and so on.
But what I found was that about one-third of people who are at 130% of the federal poverty line or below say that they mainly access one or maybe two programs.
And these are people making, if you're a childless adult, about $18,000 a year.
Exactly.
And another one-third said we actually don't access any of these programs.
And to me, that's a shocking statistic, right?
Because where is this money going?
We spent about a trillion dollars, and where is this money going if it's not truly helping people in need?
When I started looking at, you know, beyond these non-tax credit programs, also to the tax credit programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, again, participation rates there are at about 78% to 75%.
So much higher.
Much higher, because I think what's helpful there is that it's going through what I call a one-stop shop.
You file your taxes and the WITA, like the free tax assistance services, or your tax preparer tells you, here's something that you can also get.
You can get a cash refund at the end of the tax year as you're filing for your taxes.
Again, with the child tax credit, But the issue even there, why is it at 78%?
Why are we not at 99% or 100%?
And the issue again there is that people really have to spend a ton of time researching, what am I eligible for?
How do I qualify for the EITC?
What are all the rules around qualification?
So one example there is, the biggest complication, and I know we talk a lot about EITC fraud, waste and abuse, because we're spending about $20 billion, I think, in overpayments in the EITC.
But again, when you start- 20 billion a year.
Yeah, $20 billion a year.
And you start digging in and you realize, well, maybe a lot of that is just confusion around who actually qualifies for the EITC.
So if you look at the, you know, one of the rules is what defines a qualifying child.
So if there are two parents, you know, and they have a child who would potentially qualify them for a higher EITC payment, the rules are complicated.
So the IRS expects you to understand, okay, if someone, you know, if your child has lived with you for longer than six months, you know, then you might be able to.
Especially if the parents are split up, right?
Exactly.
That's where it gets complicated.
If they're filing jointly, it's usually not an issue.
But you also get from research that a lot of people don't know that they're even eligible for the EITC.
They will file a tax, but they don't know that they're eligible for the EITC.
When parents are split up, that becomes a bigger deal.
Like, where has a child spent more time?
Whose child is it?
Who has a higher AGI?
The IRS has tiebreaker rules.
An aunt or a grandparent can also claim a child.
If they're living in the same household, they can also claim a child on the EITC application.
So there are just so many things for taxpayers to figure out.
Basically, it's just as complicated as for anybody in this room to do their taxes.
Oh, absolutely.
Is there a turbo tax for EITC?
The IRS has set up these free counseling sessions and tries to educate people.
And now I believe that the chatbots.
I write about that in the paper too.
How can we tap into Gen AI technologies to help people really understand before they even file a payment, before they even go to a tax preparer, which is again a little costly, what am I eligible for?
What are all the tax credits that I could potentially be eligible for?
Because I'm truly low income.
And I need to understand the help that the government can give me.
So maybe you could have Gen AI technologies help people do that.
I think technology can make a big difference.
Because a lot of it seems to be a lack of either awareness or information or having to supply multiple types of documents before someone can tell you, yes, this is the help that you can get.
So I think helping people navigate the complex web of all these different programs that we think we're doing a lot.
We're doing a lot for people.
But sometimes it's the truly needy who are being left out of that process.
You know, it's one of the things we heard this morning from Patrick Ruffini, the pollster that we had.
I don't know if you were here for that.
He mentioned that in a number of the Hispanic border counties in Texas, that when he went down there to talk to them and asked them, why are you voting, turning Republican, that one of the top responses he heard is that the voters didn't like the fact that they felt a lot of people were getting welfare subsidies for not working.
To a voter like that who hears you and says, wait a minute, you want more people to be on welfare?
There's maybe a psychic disconnect.
Explain to that voter why he should favor the kinds of reforms you're talking about.
I think the issue comes down to, you know, there's a lot of concern that, yes, we're spending so much money and a lot of it is just going to people who are fraudulently claiming the money.
That's where the fraud comes in.
You look at the way our programs are designed.
So, something like the Earned Income Tax Credit, there is a work requirement in the sense that you only get the EITC if you actually are filing taxes and you have some earned income.
Similarly, for the child tax credit, there is an earned income requirement for you to claim the CTC.
Similarly, for you would say SNAP across different states, there's a work requirement, or at least, yes, show us that you're looking for a job, you're investing in some training.
Similarly, for unemployment insurance, if you actually dig into the programs, the challenge isn't that we're not making people work to get the benefits they need.
The challenge is, yes, there's a perception that there's a lot of fraud in these programs, and I suspect a lot of that fraud is being driven by the fact that you may not be able to verify, right?
Like, are people truly working?
Are people, you know, when they are putting in documentation, you know, is it, you know, are they putting in some fraudulent documentation, or is it that they truly are confused about the process, right?
If I'm claiming a qualifying child, for instance, in the EITC, again, there's a ton of research that shows that about 70% of what we think of as fraudulent claims are really genuine claims where people are just confused.
Was I supposed to claim this child on my return or was someone else?
And if you talk to people in the IRS, they will say that we genuinely believe 50 to 60 percent of these cases are driven by just a you know confusion around the application process.
So, I do think we need to sift through.
And you know, I think if we can use technologies for verification, I know Freop has done an excellent paper, you know, with having a federal digital ID, right?
Like, how do we connect government to taxpayers so that they have that one digital ID that stores possibly all the documentation that's needed to verify income assets and so on?
I do think if you bring in more technology, a lot of these cases would get reduced.
And this perception that, oh my god, there are all these people out there who are not working and who are fraudulently claiming benefits could be reduced.
I'm not saying that there isn't fraud or waste.
It could maybe increase confidence in the program.
Increase confidence in the system.
We will have a session, I can't remember if it's later today or tomorrow.
Yeah, it's later today at 3:15 using technology to improve program integrity.
We'll talk about this idea.
Dan Lips and Michael Tanner wrote the paper.
It builds off the technology that Estonia has had for 30 years.
It's kind of like a TSA precheck, but for identity.
And the idea is that there would be no identity theft if you had this kind of system.
Social security numbers are basically in the public domain now.
If someone wants to steal your social security number, it's out there.
They can find it on the dark web.
There have been so many cyber hacks over the years, and that becomes a big problem.
Exactly.
And I think the other idea that I've been thinking about, and again, a lot of other countries do outside the U.S., is this idea of pre-populating tax returns.
Why do we put all of the onus on the taxpayer to sort of, I'm going to fill this out, I'm going to understand, read all the sort of footnotes and eligibility rules and qualifying child criteria.
And I'm going to be on the hook for claiming something that I think I'm eligible for.
And then the IRS is going to come back and audit me because they realize that I've filled out something wrong.
Instead of that, if we had a system where the IRS could actually pre-populate tax returns, we're collecting W-2s from employers, we're collecting, people are submitting childcare expenses.
There's a lot of documentation that the government already has.
Can we make it easier for people to file accurate tax returns?
And then that might also help increase trust in the system, reduce these cases of fraud, but make it so much simpler.
And there's, again, a ton of research around this saying that for people who don't have complicated tax returns, who are not itemizing, who are not claiming, you know, I don't know, 20 different things, business returns or whatever, you know, it might actually be a better system.
Intuit, the company that owns TurboTax has lobbied heavily against that legislation because they want everyone to file taxes through them.
Among other reasons.
Yeah, I think people, you know, I think we have to decide what our North Star is, right?
What do we want the country to be?
What do we want to do for our people?
If our goal is, yes, we are allocating in the budget all this money because we truly believe low-income taxpayers need it, then we figure out an efficient way to get the money to them.
If our goal is, you know, I don't know, you know, we just need to have people be on the hook and then the IRS has this complicated process and just a ton of documentation and inefficiency in the current system that I think we could obviate by doing this.
If I could say the common thread of your paper that you just put on, tell me the name of the paper so people can look it up if they want to.
Yeah, it's called Redesigning Technology to Help Low-Income Taxpayers Access the Safety Net.
Not quite a mouthful.
That's all right.
So we got that paper and then we have the digital identity paper there of the same theme, which is that there's ways to effectively use technology for welfare reform, that you put these technologies in place, it can get rid of a lot of the friction that makes it hard for people to use these different programs.
There's another element of welfare reform around the complexity of welfare today that I would think, and tell me if this is wrong, I would think does require legislation, which is the fact that you have EITC and SNAP and the child tax credit and all these other programs.
And it's like you have to apply to all these different programs.
If you make $100 more a year, your tax rate goes massively up and all this sort of stuff.
You have to use the money for certain things over here and this program you can only spend it over there.
So doesn't that scream for just taking a look at the whole thing and just saying we're going to have, I don't know if it's universal basic income or some other style of let's give people, go back to cash welfare, where you give people the money, let them spend that on what they need.