$2T bill stalled, Senate Dems seem ready to move on for now
Democrats’ vast social and environment package was stuck in the Senate on Thursday as leaders’ hopes for an accord with holdout Sen. Joe Manchin and approval of their flagship domestic measure in the year’s waning days seemed all but dead. After a closed-door lunch among Senate Democrats, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told reporters that a statement by President Joe Biden was expected shortly giving an update on “his conversations with Sen. Manchin and others.” Talks on the 10-year, roughly $2 trillion bill between Biden and Manchin, who wants to cut and reshape the measure, are said to have yielded little progress. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had set Senate passage before Christmas as his goal, but disputes with Manchin and other Democrats remain. It has become clear that the party is seeking explicit intervention from Biden in hopes he will cut a deal with Manchin, D-W.Va., or urge lawmakers to delay action until January. Biden “wants to get this done as soon as possible,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. She added, “But we understand it’s going to take time, and we’re going to continue to do the work.” Schumer barely mentioned the legislation as the day’s business began. Instead, he described Democrats’ efforts to break a logjam on voting rights legislation and a pile of nominations the Senate will consider “as we continue working to bring the Senate to a position where we can move forward” on the social and environment bill. Using his sway in a 50-50 Senate where Democrats need unanimity to prevail, Manchin has continued his drive to force his party to cut the bill’s cost and eliminate programs he opposes. All Republicans oppose the package, arguing the measure carrying many of Biden’s paramount domestic priorities is too expensive and would worsen inflation. “The best Christmas gift Washington could give working families would be putting this bad bill on ice,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The rocky status of the Biden-Manchin talks was described Wednesday by a person who spoke only on condition of anonymity. The person said Manchin was pushing to eliminate the bill’s renewal of expanded benefits under the child tax credit, a keystone of Democratic efforts to reduce child poverty. Manchin told reporters Wednesday that assertions he wants to strip the child tax credit improvements were “a lot of bad rumors.” Asked if he backed eliminating one of the bill’s child tax credit improvements — monthly checks sent to millions of families — he said, “I’m not negotiating with any of you.” Adding further doubt about quick Senate action this year, Biden suggested that Democrats should instead prioritize voting rights legislation, a primary party goal that Republicans have long stymied. Democrats face an uphill fight on the voting measure, but focusing on it would let them wage a battle that energizes the party’s voters while lawmakers work behind the scenes on the social and environment bill. Asked whether Congress should quickly consider the voting legislation and delay the $2 trillion bill to next year, Biden told reporters, “If we can get the congressional voting rights done, we should do it.” He added, “There’s nothing domestically more important than voting rights.” Biden spoke Wednesday as he toured tornado damage in Dawson Springs, Kentucky. Letting the social and environment legislation slip into next year, when congressional elections will be held, would be ominous for the bill’s ultimate prospects. With Democrats having blown past previous self-imposed deadlines on the push, another delay would fuel Republican accusations that they are incompetently running a government they control. Democrats are bracing for November elections when the GOP has a real chance of winning control of the House and Senate. Word of Manchin’s stance prompted a backlash from colleagues, whom he’s frustrated for months with constant demands to cut the bill’s size and scope. The measure also has money for health care, universal prekindergarten, and climate change programs largely paid for with tax boosts on big corporations and the rich. The second-ranking Democrat, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, said “the level of emotion” among Democrats over the child tax credit “is very high,” and said he was “stunned” when he heard about Manchin’s demands. Manchin has wanted the overall bill’s 10-year price tag to fall below $2 trillion. He also wants all its programs to last the full decade. The current bill would extend the enhanced child tax credit for just one year, a device to contain the bill’s cost. Renewing the improved benefits for ten years would increase its current one-year cost of around $100 billion to over $1 trillion, and doing that while cutting the overall bill’s size would wreak havoc on Democrats’ other priorities in the bill. The Treasury Department says the expanded tax credit has helped the families of 61 million children. Another impediment to Democrats is a time-consuming review by the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, about whether many of the bill’s provisions violate the chamber’s rules and should be dropped. Her written opinions on that, including on provisions letting many migrants remain temporarily in the U.S., may not be ready until the weekend or later. Manchin’s other demands have included removing a new requirement for paid family leave. Disputes among other lawmakers include how to increase federal tax deductions for state and local taxes. The House approved its version of the legislation in November. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Democrats revise elections bill but face Senate headwinds
Senate Democrats unveiled a pared-back elections bill Tuesday in hopes of kickstarting their stalled push to counteract new laws in Republican states that could make it more difficult to cast a ballot. But the new compromise legislation is likely doomed to fail in the 50-50 Senate, facing the same lockstep Republican opposition that scuttled their previous attempts to pass an even more sweeping bill. The GOP blasted the earlier measure as “unnecessary” and a “partisan power grab.” Republican-controlled legislatures have enacted restrictions over the past year in the name of election security that will make it harder to vote and could make the administration of the elections more subject to partisan interference. Texas, which already has some of the country’s strictest voting rules, recently adopted a law that will further limit the ability to cast a ballot, empower party poll watchers and create new criminal penalties for those who run afoul of the rules — even if inadvertently. The spate of new voting laws — many inspired by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election — have ratcheted up pressure on Democrats in Congress to pass legislation that could counteract the GOP push. Trump’s claims of election fraud were widely rejected in the courts, by state officials who certified the results and by his own attorney general. “We have seen unprecedented attacks on our democracy in states across the country. These attacks demand an immediate federal response,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the lead sponsor of the new bill. The revised legislation was negotiated for weeks by a group of Democratic senators and includes many of the same provisions as the previous bill, known as the For the People Act. It would establish national rules for running elections, limit partisanship in the drawing of congressional districts and force the disclosure of many anonymous donors who spend big to influence elections, according to a summary obtained by The Associated Press. But it also includes a number of changes sought by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is the chamber’s most conservative Democrat. That includes provisions that would limit, but not prohibit, state voter ID requirements, as well as the elimination of a proposed overhaul of the Federal Election Commission, which was intended to alleviate partisan gridlock at the election watchdog agency. The new measure also dumps language that would have created a public financing system for federal elections. It would instead establish a more limited financing system for House candidates that states could opt to participate in. Other provisions are aimed at alleviating concerns from local elections officials, who worried that that original bill would have been too difficult to implement. And some new additions are aimed at insulating nonpartisan election officials, who may be subject to greater partisan pressure under some of the new state laws. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the administration was “encouraged by the momentum” and said President Joe Biden would “continue to work with Congress” to pass the bill. Yet despite the changes, Republicans are expected to uniformly oppose the measure, which they say amounts to a federal takeover of elections. That leaves Democrats well short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill unless they change the Senate’s filibuster rules, which Manchin and other moderates have ruled out. Manchin has said Congress shouldn’t pass voting legislation unless it is bipartisan. He has shopped the revised bill to some Republican senators in recent weeks, seeking their support. But there are no indications of any signing on. Manchin told reporters Tuesday that the new bill “makes more sense, it’s more practical, more reasonable,” but said he “didn’t have anything to say” about making changes to the filibuster. “Now we have to sit down and work with our Republican colleagues,” he said. “I’m headed to do that right now,” Klobuchar said before walking onto the Senate floor. But moments later, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threw cold water on the bill, calling it “a solution in search of a problem” that “we will not be supporting.” “Let me say for the umpteenth time,” the Kentucky Republican said. “There is no rational basis for the federal government taking over how we conduct elections.” It all puts Democrats right back where they started. The lack of progress is likely to frustrate party activists, many of whom view voting rights as the Civil Rights issue of the era. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the bill could be called for a vote as soon as next week when it will almost certainly fail. “Senator Manchin … believes that we should try to make it bipartisan, and we are giving him the opportunity to do that,” Schumer said. “If that doesn’t happen, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.” Activists and some Democratic senators say scrapping the filibuster is the only path forward. “The filibuster is the only thing standing in our way. It’s time for our senators to put Americans’ freedom to vote ahead of the Jim Crow filibuster,” said Sean Eldridge, president of the group Stand Up America. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Amid Iran and impeachment, Donald Trump’s focus is reelection
Donald Trump is being attacked on two sides.
