Manchin hits back at Sanders criticism in fight over Biden investment plan

• Vermont senator chides Manchin over lack of support for bill
• Progressive-centrist impasse holds up Biden’s reform agenda

Internal party warfare between progressive and moderate Democrats over Joe Biden’s $3.5tn tax-and-spending package has burst dramatically into the open after Vermont senator Bernie Sanders launched a thinly veiled attack on West Virginia senator Joe Manchin in an op-ed published in the centrist Democrat’s home-state newspaper.

Sanders, writing in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, described opponents of the legislation as “every Republican in Congress as well as the drug companies, the insurance companies, the fossil fuel industry and the billionaire class”.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/16/manchin-sanders-democrats-biden-spending-investment
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Edward Helmore

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Sanders blaming spending bill delay on corporate lobbying

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday said that efforts to finalize and vote on a roughly $3.5 trillion dollar Democratic spending bill is being delayed because of corporate lobbying.In a new …

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/576595-sanders-blaming-spending-bill-delay-on-corporate-lobbying
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Democrats likely to throw billions in tax hikes overboard as spending plans shrink

Democrats will likely drop hundreds of billions of dollars in proposed tax increases on the rich as they scramble to shrink the size of their “reconciliation” package.

That’s good news for moderates who are less enthusiastic about raising rates. But it’s potentially terrible news for progressives hoping to stick it to the rich. Many see this as their best chance in years to push through major changes in how wealthy people are taxed — such as a proposal to begin taxing, for the first time, billionaires’ unrealized capital gains.

The pressure on lawmakers to take up such controversial proposals will dwindle if Democrats suddenly don’t need them to make their budget numbers work.

Some progressives acknowledge that some of the most aggressive tax proposals could now fall by the wayside, as the demand for revenue eases, but warn Democrats against backing off plans to target the uber-rich.

“We will make a lot of noise – we will not be very happy,” said Frank Clemente, head of Americans for Tax Fairness, a group pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy.

It’s the flip side to Democrats’ decision to scale back their spending plans. Much of the focus in Washington has been on how they will slim down their package, by either dropping lower-priority initiatives or funding more programs for shorter periods of time, in hopes Congress will re-up them later.

But a smaller price tag will also mean big changes on the tax side as well because Democrats are unlikely to raise taxes by more than they need to defray the cost of their plans.

Lawmakers are still fighting over the overall size of their package, with President Joe Biden suggesting they will land somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 trillion, down from the $3.5 trillion many liberals had hoped to spend. On Wednesday, though, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the influential centrist, reiterated he won’t go beyond $1.5 trillion.

Raising $1.5 trillion or so in taxes, to cover that spending, should not be a heavy lift for most Democrats — especially given the overlap between a recent proposal by Manchin and a tax plan approved last month by the House Ways and Means Committee.

Manchin wants to raise the corporate rate to 25 percent, which would generate around $400 billion (Ways and Means wants a 26.5 percent rate, which would produce about $540 billion).

Both Manchin and Ways and Means would hike the top capital gains rate to 25 percent, producing another $125 billion. Restoring the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 percent, where it was before Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts, would produce around $170 billion.

Improving tax compliance, by beefing up the IRS, could mean $200 billion in savings.

Democrats would likely count hundreds of billions of dollars from so-called dynamic scoring, and hundreds of billions on top of that in health care-related savings.

They also appear likely to tighten tax rules on multinational companies’ overseas earnings, which, under House Democrats’ plan, would produce $300 billion. Extending a rule Democrats approved earlier this year making it harder for owners of pass-through businesses to use losses to offset income would save $167 billion.

All of that could generate more than $1.5 trillion — meaning there’s less need for more controversial proposals Democrats have raised in recent months, such as taxing stock buybacks by corporations, treating billionaires’ unrealized capital gains as taxable income and an administration bid to dump provisions in the tax code allowing the wealthy to pass assets to heirs tax free.

“The pressure for all tax increases becomes smaller as the amount of revenue needed decreases,” the advisory firm Capital Alpha Partners said in a note last week to clients. “Newer taxes that target wealth, unrealized capital gains, retirement savings or stock buybacks now seem less likely.”

But some on the left say those are precisely the sort of tax increases that are most needed.

While they back the slate of hikes proposed by Ways and Means and Manchin, they also say those don’t do enough to dun the richest of the rich.

The problem, they say, is that those at the tippy top of the income ladder typically don’t make their money from fat salaries, so hikes in marginal income tax rates, for example, don’t make much difference to them. The super- rich are more likely to make their money in capital gains — and they can avoid capital gains taxes altogether by simply not selling their assets.

That’s where proposals like an administration plan to end so-called stepped-up basis comes in — it would tax people’s unrealized gains when they die, even if they don’t sell.

A different means to a similar end would be a plan by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to subject billionaires’ unrealized gains to annual taxes.

“Democrats need to think about reforms to capital gains that prevent rich people from avoiding capital gains,” said Steve Wamhoff, a former tax aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) now at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

“You can do all kinds of things to improve the tax code but if those people are paying an effective rate of zero percent on most of their income, well, you have to ask if you’ve really solved a fundamental problem in our tax code.”

Not just that.

Things like taxing the unrealized gains of the wealthy would provide a new stream of revenue to the government that lawmakers could revisit in the future. If Democrats can establish now that unrealized gains are fair game for the tax man, they could potentially expand that later to people who are merely millionaires.

And many progressives see those sorts of tax hikes not merely as a way to defray the cost of Democrats’ reconciliation plans but as good policy by themselves.

“It’s not solely about paying for spending,” said Wamhoff. “There’s also issues of tax fairness, and those are issues Democrats ran on.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/08/tax-hikes-overboard-democrats-spending-515637
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Voters in 36 states will elect a governor next year. Here’s a cheat sheet.

The country found out just how important governors are over the past 20 months. Next year, the vast majority of Americans will decide whether those leaders should keep their jobs after the once-in-a-generation pandemic.

While the midterms have often been cast as a referendum on which party should control Washington, voters in 36 states will also elect governors in 2022, ranging from the nation’s largest state — California, fresh off a gubernatorial recall election — to the least populated state of Wyoming. And if the last year-and-a-half has shown anything, these governors’ races shouldn’t be playing second fiddle to Congress, either for voters’ attention or donors’ dollars.

“I think the pandemic, over the last year and a half, has been a really good time for people to realize how important their governors are,” said Marshall Cohen, the political director of the Democratic Governors Association. “These governors races are not national the way that federal races are, and each state is its own unique set of circumstances.”

POLITICO spoke with two dozen operatives deeply involved in the nation’s gubernatorial landscape — ranging from party leaders in Washington, D.C., to state party chairs and top aides to candidates in some of the most competitive states on the map — to define the 2022 map with a year to go.

The broad national environment still plays a role: Republicans are confident that, with the wind at their backs, they can flip governors’ mansions in battleground states. But gubernatorial races are also fought with more state-specific motivations in mind — on everything from the pandemic to education to local taxes — that allow for scenarios like Democrats defending a seat in the traditionally deep red Kansas, and for Republicans holding and fighting for several seats in the blue Northeast.

Both parties have pickup opportunities next year, though there are only a handful of open seats, with just three right now — Arizona, Maryland and Pennsylvania — expected to be battlegrounds. Incumbents on both sides of the aisle have spent the last few years building sizable political operations and deep war chests, allowing the parties to spend on a more core battleground of states.

“I think the good thing for us is — if you look at our map — I don’t expect the vast majority of our incumbents are going to need our engagement next year,” said Dave Rexrode, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, which is confident about defending sitting governors in large, pricey states like Texas and Ohio.

That means dumping tens of millions of dollars into just a handful of states instead of the 28 states Republicans were worried about in 2018. Democrats find themselves in the same situation.

“I think one of the things that puts us in a stronger position going into an incumbent cycle is that we’ve had such a long runway,” DGA executive director Noam Lee said. “These are teams we’re familiar with. These are operations we’ve helped build.”

The two parties largely agree on the scope of the core battlefield. Democrats’ top defensive targets will likely be the usual presidential battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, along with Kansas, where Gov. Laura Kelly is the only Democrat seeking reelection in a state then-President Donald Trump carried last year.

Republicans, meanwhile, are on defense in Arizona and Georgia, with big question marks in a quartet of traditionally blue states that have nevertheless elected and reelected Republican governors recently.

“What are the top three states for them? Kansas, Wisconsin and Michigan,” Rexrode said. “What are our big three states? Kansas, Wisconsin and Michigan.”

An early test of the landscape is just a month away in Virginia. The state has long been considered a political bellwether ahead of midterm elections, where the off-year race has almost always historically swung against the party in power across the Potomac River.

But with more than a year to go until the midterms, these races aren’t completely set. More candidates are expected to jump into marquee races during the last quarter of this year and in early 2022, and some incumbent governors still need to decide if they will seek reelection.

The open seats

Arizona will likely be the most competitive open seat race in the nation next November, with Republican Gov. Doug Ducey term-limited. Trump recently endorsed Kari Lake, a former local TV anchor. But thus far, that endorsement has not been a field clearer for Republicans. Former Rep. Matt Salmon remains in the race with the backing of Club for Growth, the anti-tax group that has typically aligned itself with Trump in primaries.

Other GOP candidates include state Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, who is expected to be able to bring significant resources to bear for the race; state Treasurer Kimberly Yee; Steve Gaynor, the party’s 2018 nominee for secretary of state; and Daniel McCarthy, who now-former Sen. Martha McSally handily beat in a 2020 primary.

Looming over the race: the enduring, Trump-driven effort to reverse Republicans’ 2020 election losses in the state. That’s reinforced by the leading Democratic candidate, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, whose opposition to a flawed GOP-led review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County has boosted her national profile.

Democrats’ best pick-up opportunity is likely in Maryland, where Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is barred from running again. Before the general election, the GOP will signal the direction it is going in the blue state: Kelly Schulz, who serves as Hogan’s commerce secretary, and state Del. Daniel Cox, who has recently modeled himself as a Trump-style Republican and said he attended the rally that preceded the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, are both running. Other Republicans may soon get in — including Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor and Republican National Committee chair who has ardently opposed Trump.

The Democratic primary is expected to be a crowded one, with many candidates already in the race. The field includes two former Obama cabinet secretaries: Tom Perez, who was labor secretary and a former Democratic National Committee chair, and former Education Secretary John King. Other candidates include longtime state Comptroller Peter Franchot, former Prince George’s County executive Rushern Baker, former state attorney general Doug Gansler and well-known author Wes Moore.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats are waiting for the all-but-certain announcement from state Attorney General Josh Shapiro that he’s running to replace term-limited Gov. Tom Wolf. Shapiro’s entrance is expected imminently, and he will be backed by a wave of institutional support.

A messy and uncertain primary awaits the GOP, one that could leave any potential nominee bruised up against an unscathed Shapiro. The already-crowded field includes former Rep. Lou Barletta, Montgomery County commissioner Joe Gale, former U.S. Attorney William McSwain, former Chester County Chamber official Guy Ciarrocchi, activist Charlie Gerow and others. Some have formed exploratory committees, including state Sens. Scott Martin and Dan Laughlin, who is looking to run as a post-Trump moderate in a field that has largely embraced the former president.

And Republicans — including state Sen. Doug Mastriano, state Senate President Jake Corman and members of Congress like Rep. Mike Kelly — have all publicly toyed with the idea of running, meaning the field could get more crowded still.

The major battlegrounds

One party in Georgia is trying to keep itself together. The other is waiting for one woman’s decision.

Gov. Brian Kemp is besieged on both sides. Trump’s enmity for the first-term GOP governor is so strong that he told rallygoers in Georgia last month he’d rather have Kemp’s 2018 Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, in charge in Atlanta. But Trump has not gone so far as to back the campaign of Democrat-turned-Republican Vernon Jones, a former state representative, despite some members of his orbit backing Jones. Instead, Trump’s operation has tried to nudge former Sen. David Perdue into the race, and Kemp has been working to get the rank-and-file back into his corner even as the former president continues to attack him for not assisting him in overturning the 2020 election.

Abrams has been widely expected to run after her narrow loss to Kemp in 2018. She has yet to announce a decision, while she has kicked off a nationwide tour that does not visit her home state. No other Democrat in the state has dared to float a run while everyone awaits Abrams’ decision.

Republicans see Kansas as their best pick-up opportunity anywhere on the map. Nevertheless, Democrats are expected to fight hard for Gov. Laura Kelly, and outside groups like EMILY’s List have already signaled that they will be in her corner for the election, circulating early internal polling that has her above water in the state.

Republicans are largely united around state Attorney General Derek Schmidt. The party will likely avoid a competitive, drawn out primary after former Gov. Jeff Colyer abruptly announced he was ending his campaign to seek treatment for a cancer diagnosis.

One issue to watch in Kansas is abortion. During the August 2022 primary, Kansans will vote for an amendment to the state constitution that would add that it “does not create or secure a right to abortion,” after the state Supreme Court found as much in 2019. This could supercharge the issue during a summer where the Supreme Court in Washington is already expected to revisit Roe v. Wade.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is among Republicans’ top targets in 2022, but the first-term governor has built a national profile since her election and has a formidable fundraising operation.

The Republican field to challenge her is already crowded. James Craig, who retired as head of the Detroit Police Department to challenge Whitmer, is seen as an early leader for the nomination, but not a field clearer. Other candidates include Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality; Garrett Soldano, a chiropractor who led early protests opposing coronavirus measures from Whitmer; and Kevin Rinke, a businessman who launched an “exploratory committee” and has the capacity to self-fund. Some Republicans would like to see John James, who lost Senate races in 2018 and 2020, take a shot at Whitmer, too.

Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak’s battle for reelection in Nevada will likely fall into the top tier of competitive races in November, but first Republicans will need to pick their nominee. Former Sen. Dean Heller recently launched his campaign, which could resurface his sometimes contentious relationship with Trump. He is joining a field that includes Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo; the party-switching North Vegas Mayor John Lee; Joey Gilbert, a former boxer and an attorney who was at the Jan. 6 insurrection, and others. A recent poll from the Nevada Independent found Heller and Lombardo in the top two spots, but neither has the nomination locked down. And the field might yet grow: GOP Rep. Mark Amodei recently said he was “torn” about running for governor or sticking around for the potential of serving in the House majority in 2022.

It is also worth watching for any intraparty squabbles among Democrats in the state. Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) won control of the state party, widening a fissure between progressives and the remnants of the Reid Machine, which former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid corralled to make one of the most effective operations in the country. A splinter coordinated campaign is now being run out of Washoe County with the blessing of both Sisolak and Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto —who also has a hyper-competitive election next year — while the state party has sprouted its own.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers will have one of the most contested reelection fights in the nation, but the Democrat has already posted strong fundraising numbers in the off year and does not have any primary challengers standing in his way.

On the Republican side, the field remains unsettled: Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is considered a strong candidate, but GOP Sen. Ron Johnson’s public indecision on whether he’ll seek reelection has left the field murky. Johnson at one point flirted with a gubernatorial run before ruling it out, but his indecision has frozen other could-be candidates including Kevin Nicholson, a businessman who finished second in the 2018 Senate primary. Should Johnson run for reelection, Nicholson would likely jump into the gubernatorial race.

The big four

The nation’s four largest states are less competitive — and possibly prohibitively expensive for the challenging party to try to compete.

In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom could face many of the same names he just vanquished in the state’s recall election last month. Some of the Republican candidates, including former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and right-wing radio host Larry Elder, are either already running or are considering bids — but the GOP has admitted that its potential statewide in the Golden State is basically non-existent for the foreseeable future.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has built a campaign machine that functionally never turns off, with tens-of-millions in the bank and Trump’s endorsement locked up. Even still, he has drawn primary challengers from former state party chair Allen West (who was a member of Congress representing Florida) and former state Sen. Don Huffines, among others. His allies expect him to easily blow by the primary field, but Democrats hope that the primary’s existence — and Trump needling the governor about the 2020 election — could expose Abbott.

On the Democratic side, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke is widely expected to get into the race. Democrats view him as their best chance to take on Abbott during the cycle, citing his narrow loss to Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 and a fundraising apparatus that could rival Abbott’s. But Republicans welcome his challenge, arguing that O’Rourke’s failed presidential bid damaged his brand, and that Abbott is not nearly as vulnerable as Cruz was in a Democratic wave year. Actor Matthew McConaughey has also said he’s weighing a run. He’s made calls to influential people in Texas politics, including some moderate Republicans.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is widely believed to be positioning himself for a potential 2024 presidential run. But first, he’ll need to win reelection. Republicans argue that he is well positioned, despite drawing widespread attention for his handling of the pandemic — which includes withering criticism from many public health experts and Democrats. He has not formally announced his bid, but already has more than $50 million in the bank, with aspirations to raise scores of millions more for his campaign.

The Democratic race is a faceoff between state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and Rep. Charlie Crist, who last won the governorship over a decade-and-a-half ago as a Republican before leaving the party for a failed Senate bid and a losing 2014 gubernatorial bid as a Democrat. Republicans hope that the late-August primary will leave the eventual nominee damaged and cash-poor — making it an even tougher proposition to go against DeSantis without outside help, which could pull resources from elsewhere on the map.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul took over the reins in New York after now-former Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a myriad of allegations of inappropriate behavior — but some very prominent Democrats are considering challenging her for the nomination, in what could be an immensely expensive primary contest in the Empire State. That list is long, but it includes potential candidates like state Attorney General Tish James, outgoing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Rep. Tom Suozzi, state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi and many more.

Republicans, too, will have a crowded field: Rep. Lee Zeldin has worked to coalesce support among Republicans in the state. Andrew Giuliani — the son of the now-controversial former mayor — and former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino are also in the mix. But with a Cuomo-less election on the horizon in 2022, the state is favored to remain in Democratic hands.

Don’t sleep on these

There is considerable uncertainty in Alaska, where Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy is seeking a second term, because of the state’s new elections system. All candidates will run in the same primary, and the top four will advance to a ranked-choice November election. Already in the race is former Republican-turned-independent Gov. Bill Walker, whom Dunleavy ousted in 2018. Former Democratic state Rep. Les Gara is also running, and other would-be candidates are considering bids, including Al Gross, an independent who unsuccessfully challenged GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan in 2020 with the blessing of Democrats.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has not yet declared he’ll seek another term, but the Democrat is expected to do so. Republicans haven’t totally written off the state, despite its general blue lean, after Lamont only won by 3 points in 2018. The GOP does not have a candidate yet, but Bob Stefanowski, whom Lamont defeated last time, and former state House Minority Leader Themis Klarides are both considering runs. Complicating any bid to oust Lamont is that most of Connecticut’s voters live in the incredibly expensive New York media market.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is a favorite to win reelection in the state and has already started deploying his considerable fortune on early internet ads to kickstart his reelection bid. Even still, Republicans could turn this into an expensive and competitive race. Businessperson Jesse Sullivan recently entered the race with $10 million in the bank, and a new congressional map from Democrats that’s expected to try to gerrymander some of the Republicans in the delegation out of office could nudge someone like Reps. Rodney Davis or Adam Kinzinger into the gubernatorial race. And Chicago billionaire Ken Griffin’s potential support of a Republican candidate — Pritzker’s self-funding has nullified the state’s contribution limits for other candidates — could also make it difficult for Pritzker to coast to victory.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is likely in a stronger position to win reelection than in 2018 — when she squeaked out a narrow victory — as the often swingy Iowa has moved further to Republicans over the last several years. The Democratic primary could still be competitive, and the state isn’t a lock depending on the nominee: State Rep. Ras Smith and Deidre DeJear — who was the party’s 2018 secretary of state nominee — are already in the race, and prominent Iowans including state Auditor Rob Sand, Rep. Cindy Axne and state Sen. Pam Jochum have publicly floated bids.

It will likely be a battle of known commodities in Maine: Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is primed to square up against former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who has a clear shot to his party’s nomination. Mills won her first term in 2018 — when LePage was term-limited — by a fairly comfortable margin, but the role of a third-party candidate will be a big question. Even in Mills’ 2018 win, an independent candidate drew 6 percent of the vote — and LePage first won the office in 2010 with just 38 percent of the vote. The state’s recent shift to ranked choice voting does not apply to the gubernatorial general election.

In Massachusetts, everything rides on whether Gov. Charlie Baker will run for a third term. Baker won reelection in a landslide in 2018 after a close 2014 victory (and a narrow 2010 loss). If he were to be the nominee again, Republicans would be in strong position to hold the state, even as some Democrats are hopeful his support has softened over the last four years. But he is also facing a primary challenge from former state Rep. Geoff Diehl, whom Trump endorsed this week. Should Baker not run, state Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito could be a leading candidate.

Democrats already have three candidates in the race — state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, former state Sen. Benjamin Downing and Harvard professor Danielle Allen — and others could be waiting for a clearer sign for what Baker will do. State Attorney General Maura Healey has been publicly mulling a run for governor herself, also freezing the field.

Minnesota has voted for Democrats reliably over the last decade, but it is one that Democrats argue they can’t sleep on, given the sometimes sneaky competitiveness of the state in some recent races. Republicans have attracted several candidates thus far to face Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — including state Sens. Michelle Benson and Paul Gazelka and former state Sen. Scott Jensen. Jennifer Carnahan, who recently resigned as GOP state party chair over her ties to a top donor charged with sex crimes (she denies any knowledge) and allegations of a hostile work environment, has floated a run.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has not yet announced if he will seek another term or run against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, freezing much of the field on both sides for now in the perennial swing state. Should Sununu not run for his current job, Republicans consider former Sen. Kelly Ayotte a strong potential candidate.

Republicans are bullish about their chances in New Mexico against Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Mark Ronchetti, a TV weatherman who unsuccessfully ran for the state’s open Senate seat last year, is considering another statewide run for governor. If he runs, he’d join a GOP field that includes some local Republican candidates, including state Rep. Rebecca Dow and Jay Block, a Sandoval County commissioner.

Ohio has become decidedly less competitive since former President Barack Obama left office, with Republicans dominating most recent statewide elections. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is running for reelection. Trump has shown he is no fan of the Ohio incumbent, and former Rep. Jim Renacci — the only Republican to lose a statewide race since 2016 — is already primarying him. But DeWine has amassed a significant war chest that his backers believe will leave him in a strong position, in both the primary and general election.

Democrats will have a tall task in front of them to recapture their past success in this Rust Belt state. Battling to try to do so is a pair of mayors: Nan Whaley from Dayton and John Cranley from Cincinnati.

Now-former Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo was already term-limited, so her departure for Washington, D.C., to be Biden’s commerce secretary only sped up what is going to be a competitive Democratic primary in the state. Gov. Dan McKee is running for a full term after taking over the office from Raimondo, but he is not a field-clearer. Already in the race is state Treasurer Seth Magaziner, current state Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea and former state Secretary of State Matt Brown, with others waiting in the wings. (Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza recently ruled out a run.)

Republicans are not totally writing the state off, but it’s not among their top targets. Former Cranston Mayor Allan Fung — who narrowly lost in 2014 to Raimondo when a third party candidate got 20 percent of the vote and was blown out of the water by her in 2018 — recently took a job with the McKee administration, likely closing the door on another bid for the governor’s mansion.

No prominent candidate has gotten in the race on either side of the ticket in Vermont. Republicans are hopeful that Gov. Phil Scott will run again, as he has won comfortably every two years since 2016 and would likely take this otherwise blue state almost entirely off the map.

Primary problems

In safer states, the real action is in the primaries. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey could face a stiff intraparty challenge in her bid for a second full term. Lynda Blanchard, who was the American ambassador to Slovenia during the Trump administration, is currently running for the state’s open Senate seat — but has been spinning her wheels since Trump endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks in that primary. And state Auditor Jim Zeigler has been critical of Ivey and has said he is exploring a run.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary and the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, is thought to be the favorite in Arkansas to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Trump endorsed his former spokesperson, which drove some potential candidates away from the race — though not state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge.

Once-purple Colorado has turned an increasingly darker shade of blue, with Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in a very strong position to win reelection next year. Even so, Heidi Ganahl, a member of the state board of regents and the only elected Republican serving statewide, recently launched a bid to challenge Polis in a crowded field.

Democrats are expected to retain the governorship in Hawaii, even with current Gov. David Ige term-limited. A busy primary could pop up on the islands, with candidates including Lt. Gov. Josh Green, former first lady Vicky Cayetano and former Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell in the race.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little has not declared his reelection bid in the dark red state, but has been fundraising and is expected to do so. But he may have to navigate through a tricky primary from the right that would include his own lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, and a regional GOP chair, Ed Humphreys.

The primary to replace term-limited Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts could turn into a dragdown fight between two megadoners: Charles Herbster, who allied himself with the former president and has drawn attacks from Ricketts’ team, and board of regents member Jim Pillen.

Republicans believe that Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is on a glide path to another term, even as he faces what could be nominal primary challengers in a state with a low barrier to get on the ballot.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is term-limited, and already, several high-profile Democrats have gotten in the race, including state House Speaker Tina Kotek and state Treasurer Tobias Read. Other big candidates could still be around the corner, including state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is favored to win another term in office, and the Republican faces no serious primary challengers. But Democrats could have a competitive primary nevertheless, with former Rep. Joe Cunningham and state Sen. Mia McLeod both running for what will be an uphill general election.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has a clear path to reelection, as she eyes a potential launching pad to even higher office.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is the odds-on favorite to win another term in a state Democrats have struggled mightily in since former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen last held the governor’s mansion a decade ago.

Wyoming is the nation’s most Republican state — and if GOP Gov. Mark Gordon seeks a second term, it’s his for the taking.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/06/the-fifty-governors-2022-515211
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Sanders sees battle for America’s soul playing out in Congress

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday characterized the battle over the reconciliation spending bill as a test of American democracy.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said, “We’re taking on the entire ruling class of this country. Right now the drug companies, the health care — the health insurance companies, the fossil fuel industry are spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent us from doing what the American people want, and this really is a test of whether or not American democracy can work.“

The reconciliation bill, which has been twinned with an infrastructure package in the legislative process, is currently set at $3.5 trillion, though some of the more conservative Democrats on the Hill want a smaller bill. Republicans in Congress are universally opposed to the reconciliation bill and even many of those Republicans who previously supported the infrastructure bill are now opposing that legislation.

Sanders had harsh words for Republicans, whom he described as “bought and paid for,” as well as lobbying interests battling the progressive priorities built into the $3.5 trillion bill.

“Poll after poll shows what we are doing is exactly what the American people want. It’s not what the big money interest wants, not what the lobbyists want. It’s what the American people want, and we got to do it,” Sanders said.

The Vermont senator also said he understood that “some give and take“ on the legislation was likely, and that he agreed with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) — one of the leading critics of Democratic spending plans — that it all should be paid for.

“I want it to be paid for, and, in fact, that is exactly what we are going to do, and if it’s $3.5 trillion, we can pay for it because as everybody knows, you got some of the wealthiest people in this country who in a given year don’t pay a penny in federal income tax. Large corporations don’t pay a nickel in federal income tax. So, if Manchin wants to pay for it, I’m there,” he said.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/03/sanders-congress-american-democracy-514972
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House Democrats will consider $2.9T in tax hikes — mostly on the wealthy and corporations

House Democrats will consider as much as $2.9 trillion in tax hikes for the next 10 years — mostly on the extremely wealthy and corporate America — as they scramble for ways to pay for President Biden’s $3.5 trillion infrastructure and social spending plan.

Why it matters: A draft proposal from the Ways and Means Committee, which ricocheted across Washington Sunday night, previews epic fall fights between Democrats and some of the best-armed lobbies in America.

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Driving the news: The summary, first reported by The Washington Post, includes a top personal rate of 39.6%, up from 37%, which would raise $170 billion over 10 years.

• Democrats are looking to raise $1 trillion from the wealthiest Americans and $900 billion from corporate America.
• While President Biden has defined the “rich” as any individual or household that makes more than $400,000, the Democratic plan draws the line for individuals at $400,000; households at $425,000; and married couples at $450,000. 

By the numbers: The top capital gains rate would increase to 25% from 20% — raising some $123 billion.

• Changes to what qualifies as investment income, some of which is already subject to 3.8% Obamacare tax, would make the effective capital gains rate 28.3%, raising $252 billion. 
• Accelerating the end of the $24 million estate tax exemption would bring in another $50 billion.
• Imposing an additional 3% tax on Americans who make more than $5 million would raise $127 billion.
• Expanded restrictions on carried interest impacting how private equity firms compensate employees could bring another $14 billion.
• The pharmaceutical industry could be forced to foot $700 billion of new spending by negotiating rates directly with Medicare.

Add these provisions and others up and you get to $2.9 trillion.

• Then the plan counts $600 billion from so-called dynamic scoring, based on an assumption that the proposed policy changes will accelerate economic growth and therefore revenues. That’s how Democrats could get to $3.5 trillion, at least on paper.

The big picture: While the menu gives Democratic lawmakers options, it also forces them to take sides on everything from a 3% surcharge on the uber-rich to a 26.5% corporate tax rate.

• There’a already a raging argument over the top line spending figure, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) settling between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling anything short of $3.5 “totally unacceptable.”
• Substantive policy differences between the House and the Senate could become as important, with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) threatening to vote against the budget package Sunday night over homeownership concerns.

Source: https://www.axios.com/democrats-tax-increases-wealthy-5de1ce55-a92e-433a-8481-bfddcd23f1a8.html
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McCarthy faces speakership test on infrastructure vote

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blessed President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal, but with the House majority on the line, Kevin McCarthy is facing a different decision: how harshly to oppose it.

With the House voting this week on advancing the infrastructure legislation, a $3.5 trillion Democratic spending framework plus an election reform bill, Republicans are still waiting to receive guidance on whether the GOP leader will whip against or withhold his influential fire on the bipartisan plan.

“You can’t really develop a whip strategy until you know what votes are going to be called,” said Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), the top Republican on the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee overseeing highways and transit.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi can pass the bipartisan bill and the broad Democratic spending plan without Republican votes, but she’s staring down warring factions in her own caucus and could use any breathing room GOP votes could offer.

Progressives are threatening to sink the bipartisan deal unless she holds to her commitment to tie the vote to the party-line spending plan, and moderates oppose the broader spending framework without a swift, standalone vote on infrastructure. She can only afford to lose three Democrats absent any GOP votes on infrastructure — it’s already a foregone conclusion that all Republicans will fight the Democratic social spending plan, and some are even considering procedural antics to protest the bill.

Meanwhile, McCarthy is navigating a political tightrope of his own. Most Republicans are expected to oppose the infrastructure bill, but with the GOP largely expected to take the House majority in 2022 and McCarthy openly vying for the speakership, he must both ensure moderates don’t feel left out to dry and also shore up his right flank.

McCarthy, for his part, has said he opposes the bill. The California Republican told Fox News on Tuesday that he believes “zero” Republicans would support the bill if it is tied to reconciliation.

“He has spoken directly with many members about his concerns with the infrastructure bill — from its lack of game-changing regulatory reform to over $250 billion in missing payfors — and does not support the bill in its current form,” McCarthy spokesperson Mark Bednar said in a statement, while hitting the Democrats’ budget as “a socialist roadmap.”

Some Republicans hope McCarthy actively whips against the bill, whether it is tied to reconciliation or not — and they are curious if McCarthy can get all his members in line in the event of a standalone vote.

Meanwhile, many centrist Republicans who say they worked with senators to craft the bipartisan legislation firmly hold that their support of the bill is contingent on Pelosi’s next move. But they also want to see if McCarthy pushes the conference against the bill.

Some Republicans noted an episode earlier this year, when McCarthy told his conference that he would not whip his members against a measure that would’ve established the 9/11-style Jan. 6 commission. However, the GOP leader reversed course days later and conducted an informal campaign to persuade his conference to vote against the measure, a pivot that occurred a day after he spoke with Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. It signaled to some moderates that McCarthy will cater to his right-flank at the expense of his more moderate members.

While Pelosi is expected to bring the broader party-line package to a vote on Tuesday, the bipartisan infrastructure bill vote is not expected next week. The California Democrat has vowed to wait until after the Senate passes the broader social spending bill through the reconciliation process before bringing both to the floor for passage, arguing this dual-track plan is the only way for Democrats to get the two priorities to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Members of the House GOP have already tied the $3.5 trillion budget resolution to the $1 trillion infrastructure package, arguing Democrats have ensured the two go hand in hand and therefore made it easier for Republicans to unify against both.

“It certainly makes it easier for us to oppose it,” said Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the House GOP Conference vice-chair. “They’ve squandered the opportunity for all of us to work together for the American people by tying it to all these big government agenda items that we just can’t go along with.”

Time may also favor that strategy. If House Democrats ultimately do wait until the Senate passes the broader spending bill through reconciliation, Republican leadership could use the extra span of time — several weeks or even months — to try to unite the conference against the bill.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, the GOP co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, indicated this week in an interview with MSNBC that the 29 Republicans in the group are “in play” for the infrastructure bill, while noting that the degree of support depends on the extent to which it is detached from reconciliation. The Pennsylvanian wouldn’t divulge specific numbers.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a member of the bipartisan group, echoed those sentiments.

“I think it would get good support if it’s a totally separate vote, unconnected … Most Americans want a basic, hard infrastructure bill. Most Americans don’t want a $3.5 trillion Bernie Sanders gift bag,” Bacon said in an interview, praising moderate Democrats for their push for a standalone vote and hitting Pelosi for holding the package “hostage.”

The internal wrestling among House Democrats is not lost on Republicans.

“The Democrats are tied up in a pretzel over this, with both wings of their party duking it out over how to move forward,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

While the infrastructure bill received a surprising degree of support from 19 Republicans in the Senate, including the support of McConnell the upper chamber does not reflect the sentiment of their more populist and less politically insulated Republican counterparts in the House. Senate Republicans are also more willing to brush off pushback from former President Donald Trump than GOP House members.

Trump in a statement earlier this month suggested that passing an infrastructure package would be a win for the Biden administration that will be “used against the Republican Party in the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024.” He claimed any GOP lawmakers who help Democrats approve the legislation are Republicans in name only, an insult used within the GOP to suggest disloyalty to the party. Trump’s administration repeatedly vowed, but ultimately failed, to pass its own infrastructure bill.

The Republican Study Committee, the largest GOP caucus on the Hill, including roughly 150 House Republicans, is also fiercely opposed to the infrastructure deal.

Republicans can pull a variety of procedural tactics as a form of protest, such as trying to force the House to leave or take difficult side votes known as motions to recommit. They are also expected to try to pivot the focus to Afghanistan, seeking to shoot the Biden administration’s new Achilles’ heel over the administration’s bungled plan to leave the country, leaving thousands of U.S. forces, citizens and allies waiting for evacuation as the Taliban take control of the war-torn region.

In a sign of the further-fractured wings of the GOP, members of the House Freedom Caucus are adamantly opposed to the infrastructure legislation, with some threatening to take action against those who support it.

Freshman firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a member of the far-right group, has vowed in ads and social media posts to financially support candidates who run against “weak” Republicans that support the infrastructure bill. Her leadership PAC subsequently received a significant jump in donations in the span of days.

“Any Republican who votes for this $1,200,000,000,000 bill is a traitor,” Greene said.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/23/mccarthy-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-506465
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Pelosi and Sanders brace for Democratic upheaval over Biden agenda

Bernie Sanders had an urgent plea at a meeting for Senate Democrats this week: We’re with you on this bipartisan bill, so you better be with us on our $3.5 trillion spending package, attendees said.

Shortly after Wednesday’s caucus meeting, Sanders called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reinforce her position of holding back the bipartisan deal until a massive domestic bill passes the Senate, according to a source familiar with the call.

During the call with Pelosi, Sanders also relayed his support for her ahead of what is shaping up to be a massive pressure campaign from moderate Democrats and Republicans to drop her position. And on Thursday, Sanders acknowledged the challenges he will face recruiting some members of his own party to support his $3.5 trillion spending vision.

“You’ve got 50 members of the caucus, all of whom have different views and are from different states with different needs. And my job is going to be to try and work it out,” Sanders said.

The episodes underscore the tensions in the Democratic Party as President Joe Biden’s agenda haltingly moves forward. The party will sink or swim together with Democrats’ two-track plan to spend $550 billion in new money on physical infrastructure and then supplement it with their own colossal party-line spending bill on social programs, which will require all 50 Democratic votes to pass the Senate.

But there’s growing worry the complex proposal could quickly turn into a 10-car pileup.

Sanders’ concern is just one piece of the multifaceted internal conflict in the Democratic Party as it rallies around Biden’s $4 trillion domestic spending plan. Once the Senate passes the bipartisan infrastructure plan, a new conflict will immediately replace it: How long should the House wait for its Democratic-only companion bill to arrive before the pressure becomes too much to withstand?

As progressives praise Pelosi and make public threats to sink the bipartisan bill if she buckles, moderates are already urging the speaker to drop her blockade of the upper chamber’s infrastructure deal. It’s a conflict that will test the strength of Democrats’ House and Senate relations, with slim majorities spread out across a large ideological spectrum. And there’s always the danger that the longer the process drags out, the more likely one or both tracks might collapse.

“Strike while the iron’s hot,” said Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), one of the several dozen House centrists who have been pushing for swift action on the Senate deal across the Capitol. “If you get a deal, and if it’s significant money, don’t let it sit. It does not age well.”

Some of that anxiety surfaced this week as Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) angered progressives with her concerns about the $3.5 trillion price tag for Democrats’ bill on social programs, even as the Senate prepares to send a bipartisan infrastructure bill she helped negotiate to the House. She’s one of several moderates in both chambers with outsized ability to shave down the package in the coming weeks. That bill can pass without GOP support in the 50-50 Senate, but it would need lockstep Democratic unity in the upper chamber.

And after all 50 Senate Democrats voted to move forward on the bipartisan package Wednesday, other Democrats are ready for “a little more definition about what level of cohesion we’re going to have as a caucus,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

Big bills always surface tensions between chambers of Congress. But given Democrats’ ideological divides and their slim margins, the coordination of these two packages is an unusually delicate and fraught task.

“All [Sinema] did is ensure that we don’t have enough trust unless they both move together,” said senior progressive Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.). “We’ve been very clear and Nancy Pelosi has been very clear on that.”

And though Pelosi insisted again this week the infrastructure bill is going nowhere until she has the complementary $3.5 trillion party-line spending bill in hand, too, centrists are already pressuring the California Democrat to move Biden’s infrastructure deal as quickly as she can.

In addition to moderate Democrats’ hand wringing, Republicans have accused Pelosi of holding the bill as “hostage” to the larger package that will spend trillions and raise taxes on the wealthy.

Meanwhile, senators from the progressive wing of the party are urging their House colleagues to stand firm.

“It would be nice if we didn’t need a backstop, that in the Senate we had our own adherence to our priorities among the Democrats. But she’s there,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “I say: Good. Thank you Nancy.”

The House is set to go on recess for seven weeks starting Friday, though members expect they will need to return for a procedural vote to tee up the Democrat-only spending plan. And Pelosi and her top deputy, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), said little in private meetings this week about a potential schedule for the House to return from recess to move the Senate legislation, only calling the situation “fluid,” according to people in the room.

In the House, there’s been a precarious accord between the Democrats’ two divergent factions as they await details across the Capitol on the bipartisan plan. But as soon as the Senate passes that bipartisan deal, moderates are planning a full-throttle push for a swift vote.

Hours after announcing their bipartisan infrastructure deal, Senate negotiators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) privately briefed their counterparts in the House, a bipartisan group of about four dozen moderates called the Problem Solvers Caucus.

Both factions agreed that the biggest hurdle ahead for plunging $550 billion in new spending into roads, bridges and broadband was the House.

Democrats in the Problem Solvers Caucus are already growing more vocal in their demands for Pelosi to alter her tactics. And privately, some are discussing whether to band together to block a vote on the budget — stalling the Democratic-only spending bill — until they get what they want.

“I think we made it pretty clear. We want to do the bipartisan bill first,” said Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), when asked if moderates would be willing to block a budget vote to pressure Democratic leaders on the Senate deal. “Let’s take something home for the summer that people will be proud of.”

Progressives, however, are certain that Pelosi will not break her pledge. And they say even if she tried, the roughly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus could sink the Senate measure on the floor.

“We currently do not have the votes to move the bipartisan bill, unless the reconciliation is moving simultaneously. And the speaker obviously knows that,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who serves as chief vote-counter for the left-wing caucus.

Pelosi’s headache will only grow later this week when her margin in the House shrinks by one more seat. After the GOP winner in this week’s Texas race is seated, House Democrats will only be able to lose three Democrats on any single floor vote.

Both publicly and privately, Pelosi has not veered from her stance that she will not put the Senate bipartisan deal on the floor until after the Senate has passed the sprawling party-line spending plan.

But there is faint hope in some corners of the caucus that Pelosi might clarify her stance to advance a highly popular Biden priority.

“I don’t know that she has issued an ultimatum about that,” said Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.). “I know she has stated what her preferences are, but I think she has a good sense of the fact that the American people really want to see, at long last, a real infrastructure bill.”

A spokesperson later clarified that Cartwright supports the speaker’s position.

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/30/biden-reconciliation-package-progressives-501632
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Democrats embrace ‘cook-the-books’ tactic they bashed under Republican reign

When Republicans have used dynamic scoring in the past, Bernie Sanders called it a “gimmick” and a way to “cook the books.” Now Democrats are using the same strategy.

Democratic leaders are relying on that murky budget tactic to shrink the official cost of a $3.5 trillion plan to enact President Joe Biden’s most liberal commitments without Republican support, which is expected to add digits to the already $28 trillion national debt.

The hypocrisy is not lost on Republicans. They endured the ire of Sanders and other Democrats in 2017, when they used dynamic scoring — the controversial technique that involves assuming that a policy will ultimately result in increased government revenue — to justify their $2.3 trillion tax overhaul. Democrats dismiss the GOP backlash as a bit rich.

“They introduced the concept!” Sanders said this month, scoffing at Republican criticism of using the budget forecasting ploy, which he neither defends nor decries these days.

“The truth is that economic policy and tax policy has an impact on revenue,” said the Vermont Independent, chair of the Senate Budget Committee. “Everybody knows that. What nobody knows is exactly what it will do. It’s a kind of nebulous concept.”

It’s an imperfect science, indeed. Under the gambit, budget forecasters estimate how much a policy change might boost the economy and send more cash flowing to the federal government. This time, Democrats are pinning their revenue hopes on the idea that major investments in the social safety net, climate policy and tax reform will yield robust, long-term economic growth.

“I’m very concerned that the pay-fors aren’t real,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a fiscal conservative. “Both parties bear some culpability. But I’m worried about adding so much debt in such a short period of time.”

Both Democrats and Republicans have previously relied on dynamic scoring and both have lampooned its use as a budget trick. Predictions about how much revenue a new government policy will generate are often exaggerated or inaccurate and are difficult to calculate, placing enormous pressure on independent budget analysts to come up with favorable numbers that might turn out to be a bust.

“Everything I’ve seen us do — on both sides, with whoever is in the majority over the last 10 years in terms of putting budgets together — has been squishy,” said House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). “Everybody plays games with it.”

David Wessel, a director of fiscal and monetary policy at the Brookings Institution, said dynamic scoring could help Democrats squeeze through priorities that would otherwise be iffy under the rules of the reconciliation process, which they’re using to pass their $3.5 trillion package along party lines. Every piece of that massive bill has to have a significant effect on federal spending, revenues or debt within a 10-year budget window, or Democrats risk running afoul of the Senate parliamentarian and tanking parts of the package.

Dynamic scoring allows Democrats to claim items that don’t obviously fit that definition by arguing that they still produce significant budget effects, according to Wessel.

“We’re way beyond the frontiers of what we can be confident of, economically,” Wessel said. “It’s just a way for members to pretend that they’re paying for something.”

Besides using dynamic scoring to reduce the price tag of their $3.5 trillion plan, Democrats have also promised to bankroll much of the package by raising taxes, including by closing corporate loopholes, eliminating overseas havens and boosting IRS funding to help the agency claw back more cash. Democrats contend that those cost offsets are far more fiscally sound than the 2017 tax cuts.

“Let me be really clear: There are going to be revenues to help pay for this package,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), rejecting any suggestion that Democrats’ embrace of dynamic scoring can be likened to Republicans’ use in 2017.

“It’s going to be a little hard for people to claim that there’s any kind of comparison to be drawn here,” he said. “That was a $2 trillion-plus tax cut without any offsets.”

Democrats also argue that they have a stronger justification for using dynamic scoring now than Republicans did in 2017. Tax cuts rarely spur economic growth, they say, while investing in things like preschool and highways will undoubtedly rev the economy.

“I’ve listened to arguments over dynamic scoring. But I also am not afraid to borrow money in order to pay for certain investments that clearly have a payoff in the long run,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said. “So roads and rails, early childhood education, are examples of investments that don’t pay off in a five- or ten-year timeframe.”

The cross-party criticism is classic partisan finger-pointing. It comes down to the fact that Democrats disagreed with the GOP’s tax cuts and Republicans aren’t keen on the social investments their colleagues on the other side of the aisle are now trying to enact.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), his party’s top member on the House Budget Committee, recalls Democrats trashing dynamic scoring as “fake math” just a few years ago.

“Now that it suits their political agenda, they are all too eager to embrace the idea,” Smith said. “Only in Washington does that math add up.”

Democratic leaders don’t lack support for using the budget tactic, despite its contentious reputation. Centrist members of the party, whose votes are critical for passage of the $3.5 trillion package and a bipartisan infrastructure plan, aren’t raising any objections.

“You know, there’s limits to it,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “But I would agree with using some dynamic scoring.”

A group of senators is also weighing dynamic scoring as a way to yield about $60 billion in savings for their bipartisan infrastructure package, helping offset nearly $600 billion in new spending.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Budget Committee, said Democrats could always dial back on their reliance on dynamic scoring in the massive party-line bill. But if Republicans are entertaining its use in a bipartisan infrastructure measure, he said, the scoring strategy is fair game.

“Every forecasting method that’s used is an estimate, it’s a projection,” Kaine said. “If that’s okay with Republicans, then we’re going to use it in the same way.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/23/democrats-budget-hypocrisy-gop-500613
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Senate Dems consider Medicare age expansion, jeopardizing “soft” infrastructure deal

Senate Democrats are debating lowering the Medicare eligibility age as part of the $3.5-trillion “soft” infrastructure package, at the risk of jeopardizing centrist support for a measure being pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Why it matters: Giving Americans over age 60 access to Medicare would force Democrats to either add an estimated $200 billion to their overall infrastructure price tag or cut other progressive priorities currently in the package.

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• Medicare expansion wasn’t in the initial agreement that Democrats reached — and President Biden endorsed — last week.
• But progressives haven’t given up hope it could be included, in some form, in a final infrastructure package. Critics will argue that expanding Medicare eligibility is a backdoor to government-run health care or “Medicare for All.”
• Lowering the Medicare age would all but guarantee a brutal fight with hospital associations, adding another powerful lobbying group — along with the pharmaceutical industry — in opposition to any deal.

The intrigue: The true cost of Sanders’ ambitious plan to expand the social safety net is difficult to determine, in part, because Senate Democrats haven’t been precise about how long they plan to fund new programs.

• The actual costs could be between $5 trillion and $5.5 trillion over 10 years, if all the changes are made permanent, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a budget watchdog group.
• For example, the cost of the Child Tax Credit, which was included for one year in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill Biden signed into law in March, could cost up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
• Giving elements different durations would allow Democrats to present an overall price tag that differs, in reality, from the long-term cost of their package.

Between the lines: While Biden didn’t initially run on expanding access to Medicare, he agreed to support lowering the age from 65 to 60 in April 2020, when his campaign worked on a unity platform with Sanders’ team.

• Earlier this year, a group of 150 House Democrats urged the president to include Medicare expansion in his Build Back Better agenda.
• Biden did propose covering dental, vision and hearing costs in his budget, which carried over to the current infrastructure framework. That has an estimated $370 billion price tag and is in the current $3.5 trillion soft infrastructure framework.
• The debate about how to expand Medicare could be punted to the Senate Finance Committee after the full Senate agrees to top-line numbers in a budget resolution.

Be smart: Democrats are bracing for an official “score” from the Congressional Budget Office that’s significantly higher than their advertised price tag — $3.5 trillion.

• The CBO won’t be able to provide accurate numbers, though, until Democrats agree to the specific proposals included in the package.

Source: https://www.axios.com/dems-medicare-expansion-infrastructure-sanders-5a085562-efbc-4f7d-8747-dc77ef6c0ec2.html
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Strange but true: Bernie takes a ‘very pragmatic’ turn

Bernie Sanders gave Washington whiplash this week — and it was all part of his plan.

Barely 24 hours after the Vermont senator publicly rejected a $3.5 trillion spending deal following a Monday meeting with President Joe Biden, he turned around to tout it as the most transformational policy proposal in nearly 100 years.

The shift in tone was a tactic Sanders used to coax moderate Democrats into going far higher than they might have otherwise felt comfortable. After he had insisted on shooting for the moon with a $6 trillion budget proposal, $3.5 trillion suddenly looked pretty reasonable.

The episode revealed a conciliatory side to the liberal icon often depicted by the media and Republicans as wild-eyed and well to the left of his party. Sanders has opposed some of Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s policies and nominees, but never in instances when his vote would prove decisive. He’s also softened his opposition to a bipartisan infrastructure deal, recognizing that he can’t alienate his fellow Democrats if he wants to move his own agenda.

Still, the Independent from Vermont isn’t quite ready for the “P” label.

“It’s not that I’m more pragmatic. It’s that there are 50 members of the Democratic Caucus. And unfortunately not all of them agree with me on everything,” Sanders said in an interview.

“It was important to have a vision going forward of where we needed to go. And I think that was the right vision,” Sanders added. “Obviously, it was a vision that was a little bit more comprehensive than some of my colleagues.”

Even after two presidential runs garnered him national stardom and effective ownership of the American left, Sanders has toiled in the Senate minority with few levers to pull. This Congress, as the Senate Budget chair and a member of Schumer’s leadership team, the 79-year-old is one of the most powerful people in Democratic-controlled Washington.

He also seems to be having a good time after decades of prowling the Capitol with gruff rebuttals for reporters delivered in his signature Brooklyn accent. After his interview with POLITICO, he was pressed by another reporter to take “one more question.”

“She makes me speculate,” he teased the second reporter, his voice rising in playful incredulousness. “One more question?!”

Jokes aside, moderates surmised it wasn’t easy for Sanders to shed his uncompromising stance on this year’s massive spending blueprint, which is still perhaps months away from becoming law. Tester, who quickly endorsed Sanders’ budget blueprint, despite reservations, observed that Sanders likely “had hesitation” in coming down by $2.5 trillion.

“It may have been one of those deals where it was: ‘Look, Bernie, if we don’t get this, we can’t do anything.’ And he decided to move with it,” Tester said of the haggling.

Yet senators on the Budget Committee viewed Sanders as taking an extreme position precisely so that it would yield a compromise all the more fruitful for liberal Democrats. If Sanders had started off endorsing Biden’s number of $4 trillion, it’s possible he and other progressives might have had to settle for a number lower than the $3.5 trillion they agreed upon.

“Bernie Sanders is like a human embodiment of shifting the Overton Window,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who serves on the Budget Committee. “We wouldn’t be there without him putting out $6 trillion.”

With a ceiling of $3.5 trillion, Sanders says he can pursue all the changes that he’s prioritized, just not for not as long as he wants. That raises the possibility of future fights over the extension of programs like the expanded child tax credits championed by Democrats.

Nonetheless, Sanders argues every chance he gets that he’s pushing “the most consequential piece of legislation passed since the 1930s for working people.” On the price tag alone, he’s right: If successful, the current social spending bill will be the biggest ever passed by Congress.

Those ambitious aspirations, and his influence on the Democrat Party’s agenda, make Sanders a handy villain for Republicans. The GOP tried to use his possible ascension in the majority as an attack line in the Georgia Senate races — only to see Democrats win those contests, giving Sanders the budget gavel.

Senate Republicans still try to tie vulnerable Democrats to Sanders, more so even than Biden or Schumer.

“We applaud Bernie Sanders’ commitment to socialism and his influential leadership pushing 2022 Senate Democrat candidates to the far left,” said Katharine Cooksey, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In addition to his central role in the Democratic caucus, Sanders also has the ear of former presidential rival Biden. Since winning the nomination and throughout the first six months of his presidency, the president has kept Sanders close.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain essentially had an open-door policy with Sanders as he pushed for a $15 minimum wage earlier this year. That hike was ultimately crushed by moderates and the Senate parliamentarian, an early blow for Sanders.

But Sanders returned quickly to press Biden to embrace an expansion of Medicare coverage for dental, hearing aids and vision. During a private Oval Office meeting ahead of the budget announcement, Sanders “made that case passionately” again and Biden “gave his full backing,” said a senior White House aide. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said Biden “deeply respects Senator Sanders’ unflinching commitment to fighting for working people.”

Medicare expansion is included in Senate Democrats’ budget proposal, though it’s unclear whether Sanders will be able to lower the Medicare eligibility age as he set out to do months ago. Nonetheless, Sanders seems close to cinching a major change to an entitlement program that’s helped define the party’s legacy for generations.

For many years, Sanders played “a kind of gadfly role,” said David Axelrod, who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama, who Sanders briefly entertained primarying during the 2012 presidential campaign. But now, he added, Sanders “has comfortably shifted into the role of deal-maker.”

“You’re seeing a very pragmatic Bernie Sanders, but he’s pragmatic in a principled way,” Axelrod said, observing that Biden and Sanders, “who really were from different places in the party, have come together in the sunset of their careers to do something potentially historic.”

Asked if Sanders is a pragmatist, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) offered a clipped “yes” for an answer: “I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

This isn’t the first deal Sanders has cut, and it probably won’t be the last. In 2014 he memorably teamed with the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on a landmark agreement to reform the scandal-plagued Veterans Affairs Department. As part of that agreement, Sanders signed off on expanding private care access for veterans, a concession directly at odds with his long-standing commitment to single-payer health care. Sanders also struck an alliance last year with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in pushing for new pandemic stimulus checks.

“He’s obviously a passionate advocate. But he also understands this is a moment that we can’t let go by,” said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a member of the Budget Committee and Democratic leadership. “He was able to read the room.”

Sanders is already digging in for the next round of fights. He may have centrist Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and the rest of the Budget Committee on board with his budget plan, but he still needs to win over more conservative Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Manchin said he hasn’t yet talked to Sanders about the proposal.

Once again, Sanders is drawing a line in the sand, saying he’s not coming down any more from $3.5 trillion. Time will tell whether this one is real or tactical.

“No. Quite the contrary,” he said, hinting that progressive allies across the Capitol might drive the price back up. “We’ll see what happens in the House.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/17/bernie-sanders-pragmatic-499835
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‘The biggest bill in the history of the country’: Dems wrestle over control of the infrastructure throttle

Democrats are hurtling toward their most consequential stretch of legislating since the passage of Obamacare, with major decisions left unmade as they wrangle over the size and scope of President Joe Biden’s sweeping domestic agenda.

July and August will render a decisive verdict on Democrats’ so-called “two-track” strategy of enacting Biden’s jobs and families plans via twin bills, one with GOP support focusing on physical infrastructure and the other on a partisan spending plan centered on fighting climate change, increasing child care and raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

Work on both items is nearing a climax, with senators in both parties drafting that centrist bill for a July Senate vote and the Senate’s 50 Democrats haggling over how big to go in their own party-line endeavor.

Some House moderates are urging party leaders to focus squarely on the bipartisan bill, while many liberals remain skeptical it will happen at all — and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has threatened to sideline it without an accompanying Democratic package. A failed bipartisan result would force Democrats to write one huge spending bill marrying all their priorities.

Taken together, Democrats’ decisions in the coming days will define what may be the largest spending bill in history, offering their best chance at reshaping the federal government for years to come. Biden’s party has a rare opportunity with full control over Congress and the White House, but its majorities are so slim that even attempting the two-part move will be a daredevil act.

“If you add the two plans together, it would be the biggest bill in the history of the country,” said House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). “There’s no way it’s going to be easy.”

After three months of plodding negotiations, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has laid out an aggressive timetable that envisions passage of both a budget resolution to allow a huge Democrats-only tax and spending package plus a vote on a deal with Republican centrists to plow nearly $600 billion into roads, bridges and broadband. Schumer will reiterate the timetable in a Dear Colleague letter to Democrats on Friday, according to a Democratic aide, and warn of the possibility of working long nights, weekends and into the August recess to finish that work.

The majority leader has been constantly dialing up White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, as well as his members in the bipartisan group and committee chairs in charge of a party-line spending bill, whose work will run into the trillions.

Every Democrat knows that the partisan legislation could be this year’s last big train to which they can hitch their long-sought priorities, and demand is high. Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants Medicare expansion, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is pressing for immigration reform and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) is pushing her colleagues on child care spending. A whole slate of progressives want a major climate focus. And there will be restraints on spending from moderates and from the Senate parliamentarian on what can pass muster and avoid a GOP filibuster.

While Sanders initially suggested spending $6 trillion to complement the bipartisan deal, more moderate members are likely to tamp that down to $4 trillion or even lower — depending in large part what moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) agree to. Asked if she had a number in mind, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) replied: “Yeah, $6 trillion.”

In the House a band of centrists — already anxious about their fragile majority — are fretting over the party-line bill. And the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are flexing their muscle and laying out demands, which will cause consternation among the party’s moderates.

With that policy maelstrom still churning, leadership may have to threaten cutting some of Congress’ beloved August recess to drive hard decisions and get bills on track to meet Schumer’s aggressive timetable.

“It will be used as a way for us to get the job done, the threat of losing August recess when we can go home,” Duckworth said. “Maybe that will be used as a carrot on the end of a very big stick.”

Lawmakers will likely receive more clarity on the details of both the bipartisan plan and its financing as well as the contours of the partisan budget reconciliation spending bill early next week. While both Budget Committee Democrats and the bipartisan group have been aiming to wrap their work by then, no one is setting hard deadlines yet.

“We are really working hard to try to get something that can get to the floor in the next couple of weeks,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), one of more than 20 senators working on the bipartisan bill. “But I don’t want to be too specific. Because in my experience, deadlines always slip a little bit.”

There’s also the question of whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell might end up opposing the package, which could scuttle any effort to get 10 GOP senators on board. McConnell spent the July 4 break barnstorming Kentucky, saying he thought the bipartisan bill had a “decent chance” but also asking that it be “credibly” financed. The plan is currently to use increased IRS enforcement, unspent coronavirus aid and infrastructure privatization to cover the bill’s price tag.

Financing some of the trillions in spending on Democratic-only priorities will be even trickier, considering the party wants to raise taxes on both large companies and capital gains for wealthy people. Manchin has suggested more modest increases than Biden, but his support for both the spending plan and rolling back some of the 2017 tax cuts law is a breakthrough in and of itself.

“The Senate Dems should look at each other and say: ‘We’re committed to doing a reconciliation bill.’ And I know Manchin is,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has suggested the $4 trillion number.

A successful July and August will require intense coordination by Schumer, Pelosi and committee leaders. They’ll need to make sure the bipartisan bill can pass both the Senate and the House and that its paired reconciliation bill has lockstep support in both chambers, a more complex dance than Democrats’ swift passage of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid law in March.

Already there’s been plenty of infighting, so much so that before the July Fourth recess Yarmuth and other party leaders pleaded with their members to stop making policy demands and drawing red lines or they’d never find the support to pass it.

Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), who has already declared he will vote against the House’s budget resolution, said “it’s time to stop” spending after the massive Covid package. At the moment, House leaders can only afford to lose a couple more Democrats.

“When I was talking to the White House legislative team the other day, they said, ‘Oh, I bet you lie awake at night counting dollars on this,'” Yarmuth said. “I said, ‘No, I lie awake counting votes.'”

Laura Barrón-López, Marianne LeVine and Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/09/biggest-bill-dems-infrastructure-throttle-498841
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