Daily Political Briefing
Aug. 9, 2021, 2:59 p.m. ET
Democrats on Monday launched their push for the most significant expansion of the nation’s social safety net since the Great Society, unveiling a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that would boost spending on health care, child and elder care, education and climate change while bypassing a promised Republican filibuster.
The blueprint, which the Senate hopes to pass by the end of this week, would allow Senate Democrats to piece together social policy legislation this fall, fully paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy, large inheritances and corporations. And if Democrats and their two independent allies can hold together, that measure could pass the Senate without a Republican vote.
That measure would pass after a separate $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill likely clears the Senate on Tuesday. Together, they would secure the remainder of President Biden’s $4 trillion economic agenda, but the two-step effort will test Mr. Biden’s ability to both work with Republicans and maneuver around them.
“At its core, this legislation is about restoring the middle class in the 21st century and giving more Americans the opportunity to get there,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, wrote in a letter to his caucus. He said the instructions had been carefully coordinated with Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Representative John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Budget Committee.
The budget blueprint, while nonbinding, calls for a series of key liberal priorities, including ones championed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the independent chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. It calls for an expansion of Medicare to include dental, hearing and vision benefits, the formation of a Civilian Climate Corps to address climate change, and funding to establish universal pre-K and grant free community college tuition for two years.
“For too many decades, Congress has ignored the needs of the working class, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. “Now is the time for bold action. Now is the time to restore faith in ordinary Americans that their government can work for them, and not just wealthy campaign contributors.”
It also accommodates key policy priorities like a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants and provisions to beef up enforcement of labor laws and penalties for employers that violate them. Democrats are trying to push the boundaries of the fast-track budget process to clear policy changes that otherwise would fail to gain Republican support, but the strict budgetary rules may ultimately prevent their inclusion.
Democrats appear to have rejected the possibility of addressing the approaching statutory limit on the federal government’s ability to finance the country’s debt in the budget blueprint. In a statement Monday morning, Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, said that Congress should address the debt ceiling in bipartisan legislation, even as Republicans warn they will not join with Democrats in doing so.
“The vast majority of the debt subject to the debt limit was accrued prior to the administration taking office,” Ms. Yellen said. “This is a shared responsibility, and I urge Congress to come together on a bipartisan basis as it has in the past to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”
The decision is a major risk, since a default on the nation’s debt could trigger a global economic crisis. But raising the nation’s statutory borrowing limit in the budget resolution would come with political costs: to do it, Senate rules require that the provision includes a hard number for the debt ceiling increase.
Instead, Democrats would like to use separate legislation to extend the Treasury’s borrowing authority to a future date, not a dollar limit, which would require at least 10 Republicans joining with every senator that caucuses with the Democrats.
But Republicans, for their part, have made it clear that they have no intention of supporting such a maneuver. Even as many in the conference have supported moving forward with the $1 trillion bipartisan deal, they have railed against the reconciliation package as a “reckless tax and spending spree.”
“Democrats are about to tell Republicans to go take a hike and start teeing up trillions more dollars in borrowing and spending without a single Republican vote,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader. “But at the same time they’re extolling the virtues of their latest socialist shopping list, they are afraid to up the limit on their credit card.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and her allies will propose a minimum tax on the profits of the nation’s richest companies, regardless of what they say they owe the government, as part of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion economic and social-policy package.
Ms. Warren’s so-called “real corporate profits tax” was a key part of her presidential campaign, and she has enlisted Senator Angus King, the Maine independent, to help press her case that profitable companies should be taxed, regardless of loopholes and maneuvers that have allowed many of them to avoid federal corporate income taxes altogether.
The measure would require the most profitable companies to pay a 7 percent tax on the earnings they report to investors — known as their annual book value — above $100 million. By taxing the earnings reported to investors, not to the Internal Revenue Service, Democrats would be hitting earnings that companies like to maximize, not the earnings they try hard to diminish for tax purposes.
“During the presidential campaign, Joe Biden and I disagreed on some tax policies, but there was one thing we strongly agreed on: corporations shouldn’t be able to tell shareholders they were making huge profits, then tell the I.R.S. they made nothing in profits,” Ms. Warren said in an interview.
After the passage of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is expected this week, Democrats will turn to a budget blueprint that will set the terms of a sprawling multi-trillion-dollar package intended to carry the remainder of their ambitions to shore up the nation’s social safety net and to pay for it by increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. If it clears the Senate, it is all but guaranteed to do so with votes coming only from the 50 senators who caucus with Democrats.
That package won’t fully materialize until the fall, but the unveiling of the bare-bones blueprint has spurred Democrats like Ms. Warren to offer their proposed contributions. Although proposals on items like free pre-K, community college and family leave have attracted much of the attention, how to pay for it, including proposed tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, will generate at least as much controversy. The campaign to further scrutinize wealthy corporations has been boosted by reporting from ProPublica that showed how the richest Americans pay very little taxes.
“Now is the time to put the revenues on the table to pay for our infrastructure plans — this is the moment,” Ms. Warren said.
In a separate interview, Mr. King answered the expected Republican criticism, saying, “It’s not socialism — it’s an attempt to have a fair tax at a pretty low level for companies that would otherwise pay zero.”
An economic analysis from Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, economic professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who advised Ms. Warren during the presidential campaign, estimated that about 1,300 public corporations would be impacted by the policy, generating close to $700 billion between 2023 and 2032.
“We understand that responsible legislation includes showing how it will be paid for and making those payments come from the billionaires and giant corporations who have evaded paying their fair share for so long,” Ms. Warren said. “Getting the tax revenue part of the reconciliation package right is about making the playing field just a little more level for everyone.”
Advertisement
The Senate is expected on Monday to trudge toward final passage of a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure package, after clearing the last significant procedural hurdles for the legislation over the weekend.
The legislation is widely expected to pass, after nearly 70 senators voted to advance it late Sunday night. It is the product of weeks of intense negotiations, largely led by White House officials and a core group of 10 Republican and Democratic senators.
Absent unanimous agreement to expedite the process, the bill may not pass until around 3 a.m. Tuesday because Senate rules require 30 hours of debate. Senator Bill Hagerty, Republican of Tennessee, was the lone holdout, refusing to agree over the weekend to accelerate the bill, largely to register a complaint about how it is paid for.
After spending a relatively rare weekend in Washington plodding through the legislative process, senators remained hopeful that on Monday, in addition to securing agreement on an earlier vote time, they would be able to vote on additional changes to the legislation.
Rank-and-file lawmakers spent hours haggling over a pair of dueling amendments that would adjust who would be subject to increased tax scrutiny on cryptocurrency, among other outstanding proposals. But it was unclear whether senators would agree to the additional votes.
As soon as the bipartisan bill clears the Senate, Democratic leaders plan to turn attention to their $3.5 trillion budget plan, which would unlock a second expansive legislative package that includes health care, child care and education provisions. Liberal Democrats in the House have said they will not support the bipartisan bill without passage of that far larger package.
Half a dozen moderate Democrats, including Representatives Jared Golden of Maine and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, circulated a letter over the weekend calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California to ensure a swift vote on the bipartisan deal.
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen reiterated her call for Congress to raise or suspend the nation’s borrowing cap on Monday, urging lawmakers to act on a bipartisan basis and warning that a default would cause “irreparable harm” to the economy.
In a letter to Congress, Ms. Yellen reminded lawmakers that raising the debt limit does not authorize or increase government spending. In fact, she said, it allows the Treasury Department to pay for expenditures that have already been enacted.
“Failure to meet those obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy and the livelihoods of all Americans,” Ms. Yellen said.
Top Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, have suggested that Democrats will have to lift the debt ceiling on their own using a budgetary procedure known as reconciliation.
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are pressing ahead this week on the final stages of an infrastructure bill. Separately, Democrats in the Senate are also moving forward with a $3.5 trillion budget measure that would allow them to enact huge federal investments to expand social and environmental programs.
Ms. Yellen’s letter to Congress was her third such warning in recent weeks. Last week, she told lawmakers that she was already beginning to employ extraordinary measures, such as curbing investments in government retirement programs, to delay a default.
Because of the various relief programs that are in place, it is more difficult for the Treasury Department to predict how long Ms. Yellen can use such tools. The Congressional Budget Office said last month that Treasury Department would most likely run out of cash sometime in October or November.
Ms. Yellen, in her letter, noted that during the Trump administration, Congress lifted the debt ceiling on a bipartisan basis three times.
“Congress should do so again now by increasing or suspending the debt limit on a bipartisan basis,” Ms. Yellen said. “The vast majority of the debt subject to the debt limit was accrued prior to the administration taking office.”
Advertisement
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will seek to order mandatory coronavirus vaccines for 1.3 million active duty American troops, even if the Food and Drug Administration has not issued full approval for the inoculation, administration officials said Monday.
Mr. Austin said in a memo to the staff that he would seek to speed up a vaccine mandate if the F.D.A. approved the Pfizer vaccine before the middle of September.
The decision is the latest shift in the Biden administration’s response to the surging Delta variant.
Mr. Austin advised President Biden last week that a vaccine mandate is one of the few weapons left to try to protect troops from the virus.
But Mr. Biden balked at putting a mandate in place without full approval from the F.D.A. His caution came as a surprise to some administration officials because the president had already announced that all federal employees and on-site contractors must be vaccinated against the coronavirus, or submit to regular testing and other measures. But that requirement affected the 766,372 civilians working for the Defense Department, not active-duty service members.
Helene Cooper and
President Biden’s top aides were told on Friday that experts studying the mysterious illnesses affecting scores of diplomats, spies and their family members were still struggling to find evidence to back up the leading theory, that microwave attacks are being launched by Russian agents.
The report came in an unusual, classified meeting called by the director of national intelligence, Avril D. Haines, according to several senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The purpose of the meeting was to assess the investigations and efforts to treat victims of the so-called Havana syndrome — the unexplained headaches, dizziness and memory loss reported by scores of State Department officials, C.I.A. officers and their families.
While Mr. Biden has said almost nothing publicly about the episodes, the National Security Council has begun an urgent effort to address the issue, and two separate task forces are now in operation, one investigating the cause and led by the C.I.A. and another focused on finding commercial technology that could detect or block attacks.
The subject of the Friday meeting of the Joint Intelligence Community Council was confirmed on Sunday evening by Timothy Barrett, the assistant director of national intelligence for strategic communications.
“This is a top priority for the intelligence community,” he said, “and we are supporting the N.S.C.-led effort to get answers, take care of our people and prevent future incidents.”
The meeting included Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Attorney General Merrick B. Garland; the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns; and the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray.
The high-ranking nature of the session was an indication of how quickly the attacks, which date to 2016, have risen from a medical mystery to an urgent national security issue. Biden administration officials say they were shocked at how disorganized the government response was over the past four years, in part because there was no central way for departments to share reports of the episodes and because many of the targets were intelligence officers whose identities and locations could not be revealed.
A December 2020 study of the causes by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that microwave attacks were most likely the cause, but Biden administration officials say the group had no access to classified information.
Advertisement
Rick Bright, the virologist who claimed the Trump administration retaliated against him last year by ousting him from his job, has settled his whistle-blower complaint against the federal government and will receive back pay and compensation for “emotional stress and reputational damage,” his lawyer said Monday.
Dr. Bright’s removal last April as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency created upheaval within the Department of Health and Human Services in the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said he was removed from his post after he pressed for rigorous vetting of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug embraced by President Donald J. Trump as a coronavirus treatment, and that the administration had put “politics and cronyism ahead of science.”
Those allegations are still being investigated by the Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal whistle-blowers. Under Mr. Trump, H.H.S. officials denied any wrongdoing.
The Biden administration confirmed the settlement of the case on Monday in a statement praising Dr. Bright, who advised President Biden during his transition.
“The agency would like to thank Dr. Bright for his dedicated public service and for the contributions he made to addressing the Covid-19 pandemic while he served as BARDA director,” the statement said. “We wish him well in his new endeavors.”
Neither side disclosed details or specifics of the settlement. But Dr. Bright’s lawyer, Debra S. Katz, said her client had been compensated to the fullest extent allowed by the law. She said he will receive back pay, as well as damages to cover the costs of private security and temporary housing that he required after receiving threats. He will also receive compensation, Ms. Katz said, for distress “associated with the disparaging comments and threats” made by administration officials including Mr. Trump, who had blasted Dr. Bright on Twitter as a “creep” and a “disgruntled employee.”
Dr. Bright now works for the Rockefeller Foundation, where he is developing a new institute devoted to pandemic prevention that will function as a hub for scientists in government, the private sector and academia. The goal is to identify new pathogens, he said in an interview. He said he was glad to have the episode behind him.
“Going through the assault that I experienced from the last administration, going through the public criticism from the White House and H.H.S. leadership when I was just trying to do my job, put a lot of stress on me,” he said. “They were trying to find anything they could to disparage me and discredit me.”
After clashing with his bosses, Dr. Bright was assigned to a narrower role at the National Institutes of Health to work on a “Shark Tank”-style program to develop coronavirus treatments. He later went on sick leave because of hypertension, a spokeswoman said at the time. In the interview Monday, Dr. Bright said that at the height of the controversy, he also received a diagnosis of skin cancer.
Ultimately, he quit the government — a departure that Ms. Katz characterized as effectively a termination, because, she said, he had not been given any meaningful work.
Ms. Katz said the settlement was especially satisfying to her. “Many times, whistle-blowers come forward and that’s the end of their career,” she said. But Dr. Bright, she said, has “gone from being persona non grata under the Trump administration to being a respected and important subject matter expert.”
As the A.F.L.-C.I.O. contemplates its future after the death of its longtime president, Richard Trumka, it is facing one inescapable fact: The U.S. labor movement is in an existential crisis, with unions representing a mere 7 percent of private-sector workers, Noam Scheiber reports for The New York Times.
“American workers’ level of collective bargaining coverage is not comparable to that of any other similar democracy,” said Larry Cohen, a former president of the Communications Workers of America. “If you’re not there to grow, you’re in trouble. You’re just playing defense. You’ll be here till someone turns the lights out.”
Mr. Trumka’s 12 years as A.F.L.-C.I.O. president coincided with the continued decline of organized labor but also moments of opportunity, like the election of a staunchly pro-labor U.S. president. With Mr. Trumka’s death last week, the federation faces a fundamental question: What is the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s purpose?
For years, top union officials and senior staff members have split into two broad camps on this question. On one side are those who argue that the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which has about 12 million members, should play a supporting role for its constituent unions — that it should help build a consensus around policy and political priorities, lobby for them in Washington, provide research and communications support, and identify the best ways to organize and bargain.
On the other side of the debate are those who contend that the federation should play a leading role in building the labor movement — by investing resources in organizing more workers; by gaining a foothold in new sectors of the economy; by funding nontraditional worker organizations, like those representing undocumented workers; and by forging deeper alliances with other progressive groups, like those promoting civil rights causes.
Advertisement
For the first time since February, the United States is averaging more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day, a resurgence that is hitting especially hard in states where large portions of the population remain unvaccinated.
The pace of new case reports slowed in the spring as vaccination efforts picked up speed. A cautious optimism returned, and the summer was supposed to bring a joyous rebound to normalcy.
But the seven-day average of new case reports has doubled in the last two weeks, according to a New York Times database, and deaths have nearly doubled, to an average of 516 a day.
The surge is tied to the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus. Vaccines provide a high degree of protection against the variant, which was first detected in India, but only half of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated.
Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has described the current stage as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
The rise in cases has reignited debates around mandates for masks and vaccinations. In a reversal, Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican, said on Sunday that a state law banning mask mandates had been a mistake.
“It was an error to sign that law,” he said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “I admit that.”
Mr. Hutchinson signed the bill in April, but “facts change,” he said, “and leaders have to adjust to the new facts and the reality of what you have to deal with.”
Randi Weingarten, the head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers, also urged a reversal of her union’s position against vaccine mandates. The rising caseloads are a “public health crisis,” she said Sunday on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”
Ms. Weingarten recently traveled to Missouri and Florida, two of the hardest-hit states. “I do think that the circumstances have changed and that vaccination is a community responsibility,” she said.
She said that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, two of the most powerful opponents of mask mandates had spread disinformation that is “hurting people in terms of their public health.”
The charge against Mr. Abbott was echoed earlier in the weekend, when officials in Austin, Texas, warned that the situation was desperate.
“We are in the single digits of I.C.U. beds available,” said Bryce Bencivengo, a spokesman for Austin’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He said patients in emergency rooms were being forced to wait for space.
The mayor of Austin, Steve Adler, said that the crisis could have been avoided if Mr. Abbott had not barred local government officials from issuing mandates on masking.
The nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, said on “Meet the Press” that vaccine mandates for adults were necessary to give children who were not yet eligible for inoculation a “shield of vaccinated people.” The United States has yet to authorize a vaccine for children under 12.
Pediatric cases of Covid are still a fraction compared with adults, but they have risen sharply, just as schools are preparing to reopen.
No major school districts have abandoned plans to reopen, but Dr. Fauci was blunt in his assessment. “You’ve got to protect the children,” he said.
Ethan Hauser and
With almost all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, the Taliban has mounted a summer-long military campaign that has forced widespread surrenders and retreats by Afghan government forces.
By late July, the Taliban had seized control of approximately half of the country’s roughly 400 districts. Government troops abandoned scores of outposts and bases, often leaving behind weapons and equipment. In many cases, they surrendered without a fight, sometimes after the intercession of village elders dispatched by the Taliban.
The Taliban military victories, especially in northern Afghanistan, where opposition to the militants has traditionally been strongest, provided a violent coda to the U.S. military mission in America’s longest war.
President Biden, declaring that the United States had long ago accomplished its mission of denying terrorists a safe haven in Afghanistan, said in April that all American troops would leave the country by Sept. 11. That date has since been moved up to Aug. 31, at which time the White House has said that all military operations against the Taliban will cease. Troops from NATO countries also have withdrawn.
Mr. Biden conceded that after nearly 20 years of war, America’s longest on foreign soil, it was clear that the U.S. military could not transform Afghanistan into a modern, stable democracy.
Mr. Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops followed a 2020 agreement signed between the Trump administration and the Taliban that called for all American forces to leave Afghanistan by May 1 of this year. In return, the Taliban pledged to cut ties with terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, reduce violence and negotiate with the American-backed Afghan government.
The primary objectives of the 2020 deal were for Afghan leaders and the Taliban to negotiate a political road map for a new government and constitution, reduce violence and ultimately forge a lasting cease-fire.
But violence continued as the Taliban raced across Afghanistan, securing strategic victories and raising questions about the country’s short-lived experiment with democracy, gender equality and the rejection of extremism.
Advertisement
WASHINGTON — The Taliban’s military victories have not moved President Biden to reassess his decision to end the U.S. combat mission by the end of the month, senior administration officials said Sunday. But the violence shows just how difficult it will be for Mr. Biden to end 20 years of war while insisting that he’s not abandoning Afghanistan.
In a speech defending the U.S. withdrawal last month, Mr. Biden said the United States had done more than enough to empower the Afghan police and military to secure the future of their people.
Yet the administration’s sink-or-swim strategy has not shown promising results over the past week as Taliban fighters have moved swiftly to retake cities around Afghanistan, assassinated government officials and killed civilians in the process.
Leon E. Panetta, who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, said he was surprised not to see more air support from the U.S. military on Sunday, but he did not hold out hope that the situation would improve much even with the help of American forces.
“Let’s face it,” Mr. Panetta said in an interview. “The most you can hope for now is some kind of stalemate” between Afghan forces and Taliban fighters.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, said late Sunday that she had resigned, a move that came as the governor fought for political survival after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded he had sexually harassed nearly a dozen women.
Her resignation meant that Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, lost one of his most loyal aides and trusted strategists while facing an imminent threat of impeachment in the State Legislature and calls to step down from a constellation of top officials in his party, including President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
Ms. DeRosa had stood by the governor’s side for years even as his inner circle shrank in size and many of the top staffers who had helped first elect him in 2010 left the administration.
The state attorney general report found that Ms. DeRosa had spearheaded efforts to retaliate against one of the women who had spoken out publicly about her allegation in December.
After becoming a fixture in Mr. Cuomo’s coronavirus briefings during the pandemic, Ms. DeRosa also had come under fire earlier this year for her involvement in the administration’s efforts to obscure the full extent of nursing home deaths, a matter that is under investigation by federal authorities and the State Assembly.
Her departure sent shock waves through Albany as political observers rushed to decipher what her resignation meant for Mr. Cuomo’s future. The governor has not left Albany since the report’s release on Tuesday as he conferred with advisers over how to proceed.
Ms. DeRosa announced her resignation the night before an interview with one of Mr. Cuomo’s accusers, Brittany Commisso, was scheduled to air on “CBS This Morning.”
Ms. Commisso, an executive assistant who had remained anonymous until Sunday, accused Mr. Cuomo of groping her breast while they were alone in the Executive Mansion late last year, one of the most serious claims leveled against the governor. She filed a criminal complaint with the Albany County sheriff department, raising the possibility that Mr. Cuomo could face criminal charges.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment