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Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, discusses her IRS audit, DOGE efforts, and Biden reportedly requests more aid for Ukraine.
EXCLUSIVE – Es. Joni Ernst will introduce legislation to relocate federal workers from Washington, D.C., to other areas of the U.S. as part of her efforts to fix what she says is a broken government bureaucracy.
The Iowa Republican will introduce the first of those bills on Thursday, obtained exclusively by FOX Business.
The legislation, called the “Return the SBA to 5 Main Street Act,” would move nearly a third or more of employees from the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) headquarters (HQ) in Washington, D.C., to locations destination outside the DC metro. area.
The bill reduces SBA headquarters office space and “100 percent telework” capacity, moving at least 30 percent of headquarters employees to various regions of the United States and reducing the headquarters office space in an equal amount. It comes after the SBA stated that even if 100% of SBA employees came in person to the Washington, D.C., headquarters, only 67 percent of the SBA headquarters’ capacity would be utilized.
ERNST PROMISES TO WORK WITH DOGE TO REVERSE OFFER ADMIN’S TELEWORK EXTENSION FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
Ernst’s new legislation also follows a Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing in September on the impact of teleworking on SBA services, during which an Iowa witness detailed how they found it extremely difficult to get in touch with anyone in the agency.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, details her meeting with President-elect Trump and Elon Musk to create a DOGE office in Congress and proposes spending cuts on vacant buildings, science lab experiments and other government contracts.
“Ask any small business owner: If your customers can’t reach you, your doors won’t be open for long,” Ernst told FOX Business. “The SBA is supposed to serve Main Street, but there might as well be a ‘closed to public’ sign at the agency because it’s nearly impossible to reach anyone with all the bureaucrats permanently out of office.”
THOUSANDS OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AGREE LAND TO CONTINUE TELEWORK WITH ADMINISTRATIVE APPOINTMENT: REPORT
He added, “I can’t think of a better way to help the SBA connect with the people it serves than to move some of its employees out of Washington and relocate them across the country.”
Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) speaks during a press conference following the Senate’s weekly Republican Policy Luncheon at the US Capitol on December 10, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Ernst is founder and chair of the Senate “DOGE” group, which supports the efforts of the incoming Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, co-led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have vowed to force federal employees who work remotely to return. to the office. But the Republican lawmaker has been up in arms against government workers who “abuse” teleworking for years.
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Last week, Ernst released a report claiming the federal government has a “chronically absent workforce” and called for relocating federal workers out of D.C., implementing a “use it or lose it” approach to government real estate and track the productivity of individual workers. and link it to your teleworking privilege.
