Schumer Rushes Unwritten Spending Package to a Vote

By Yuval Rosenberg

Schumer Rushes Unwritten Infrastructure
Package to a Vote

Chuck Schumer is playing hardball. The Senate majority leader on
Thursday said the Senate will vote to begin debate on the
bipartisan infrastructure package on Wednesday, setting a deadline
for the legislation even as negotiators continue to haggle over key
details and the text of the bill has yet to be finalized.

Schumer’s Wednesday deadline also applies to Democrat’s push to
finalize a $3.5 trillion budget resolution setting the parameters
for a go-it-alone package of “human infrastructure” spending, the
other major portion of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda. "I am
setting the same deadline next Wednesday for the entire Senate
Democratic Caucus to agree to move forward on the budget resolution
with reconciliation instructions. The time has come to make
progress," Schumer said.

Senators behind the bipartisan deal calling for $579 billion in
new infrastructure spending continue to work to resolve their
differences, but Schumer’s move ramps up the pressure on them — and
on Democrats working to reach unity on their own budget
blueprint.

“I’ve talked to some of our Democratic members of the bipartisan
group. They’re making very good progress. There’s no reason why we
can’t start voting next Wednesday, and that’s what we’re going to
do,” Schumer told reporters.

The Senate could start debate before final text of the bill is
ready and then swap in the bipartisan agreement once it’s done. But
key details of the deal remain up in the air, and Republican
members of the bipartisan negotiating group have warned that they
may not vote to proceed if those details aren’t buttoned up by
Wednesday.

“I think there’s a lot of drafting that has to be done and there
are still a number of outstanding issues that have to be resolved,”
said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), one of the lawmakers negotiating the
bipartisan deal. “And I think we’ll, we’ll move quickly but we’re
not going to vote on something until we actually have a bill.”

Some Republicans called Schumer’s deadline artificial and
arbitrary, expressing frustration that the Democratic leader was
looking to jam them as the delicate talks continue. “Several Senate
Republicans read Schumer’s Wednesday vote as an effort to sink the
bipartisan talks, given the absence of legislative text and the
likelihood that members will not yet have a score from the
Congressional Budget Office by Wednesday,” Politico
reports, adding that Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) asked
“whether Sen. Schumer is just setting this all up to fail so he can
then move to the budget. That may part of his Machiavellian
scheme.”

IRS funding in question: The bipartisan package calls for
increased funding for IRS enforcement, a provision that negotiators
said could raise $100 billion in revenue from unpaid taxes. But the
added funding for the tax agency raised objections among some
Republicans and now appears likely to be removed from the package,
or shifted to the Democratic bill, setting negotiators scrambling
to find alternate funding options.

What’s next: The Senate is done for the week, but members
of the bipartisan negotiating group said they would work through
the weekend. Negotiators reportedly also still need to resolve
details on the spending side of the deal, including provisions
related to water infrastructure and broadband. Even with Schumer’s
deadline meant to speed up the process, both pieces of legislation
are likely to still face a long road ahead.

Child Tax Credit Payments Arrive for
Millions of Families

Direct payments for the child tax credit began flowing Thursday,
with millions of American families receiving their first monthly
payments worth as much as $300 per child. The Treasury Department
said that about $15 billion was paid out to roughly 35 million
families with nearly 60 million children.

The program marks a significant shift in the federal
government’s approach to helping poor and middle-class families.
“This is the biggest anti-poverty effort since Lyndon B. Johnson’s
War on Poverty,” Joshua McCabe, a historian of U.S. welfare policy,

told The Washington Post. “This is a
once-in-a-longtime chance to significantly reduce child
poverty.”

Key details: The payments are a result of
the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion economic package that
became law in March through the budget reconciliation process with
only Democratic support. The legislation expanded the current child
tax credit, providing $3,600 per child under age the age of 6 and
$3,000 for children between the ages of 6 and 17. It also required
the Treasury Department to send direct payments to beneficiaries,
with half of the money delivered on a monthly basis between July
and December.

The program will cost about $120 billion on an annual basis. It
is scheduled to expire at the end of the year, though Democrats
hope to extend the program as part of the $3.5 trillion spending
package currently being written in Congress.

Biden celebrates: Speaking at the White
House, President Biden praised the temporary program, saying it
would deliver the largest one-year reduction in child poverty in
U.S. history.

“It’s a reflection of our belief that the people of this country
who need a tax cut aren’t the folks at the top — they’ve gotten
plenty of tax cuts, they’re doing fine — but it’s the people in the
middle, the folks who are struggling or who are just looking for a
little bit of, as my dad would say, a little breathing room,” Biden
said.

Some experts say the program could cut child poverty by 50%,
though questions have emerged about the federal government’s
ability to reach the poorest households, some of which do not file
income tax forms. “This is a hard population to reach; in the worst
of times, you’ve offered thousands of dollars, and they have not
signed up,” Gene Sperling, the White House official in charge of
implementing the program, said. “That is why we must stay at it and
work smarter and harder to get more people signed up.”

Democrats Eye Major Expansion of Medicare Coverage

The $3.5 trillion budget blueprint agreed to by Democrats
on the Senate Budget Committee reportedly includes vision, dental
and hearing coverage through Medicare – a major change for the
program that provides health insurance for more than 32 million
Americans.

The added benefits have long been a goal for progressive
Democrats, though they are not part of President Biden’s proposal
for Medicare, which focuses on lowering the Medicare eligibility
age and reducing drug costs through direct negotiations with
pharmaceutical firms.

If enacted, the expansion would provide millions of older
Americans with coverage they currently lack. “This would be a very
significant change for Medicare,” Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser
Family Foundation
told Bloomberg News. “How big an impact it will
have will depend on the details of the proposals.”

Democrats are considering adding the benefits to Medicare
Part B, which covers outpatient services. Preventive services would
be free, and elective services would include limited copays.
Premiums for Part B, which is voluntary, could rise with the
addition of the new benefits.

More bills to pay: According to a
Congressional Budget Office analysis of an earlier but similar
proposal, the additional benefits would cost about $358 billion
over a 10-year period ending in 2029, with most of the spending
going toward dental care. Democrats have pledged to cover any new
costs produced by their still-developing spending bill.

Political Strife and Rising Debt Could Damage America’s Credit
Rating: Fitch

America’s political dysfunction and rising debt could
tarnish the country’s perfect AAA credit rating, Fitch Ratings said
this week.

“The U.S. sovereign rating is supported by structural
strengths that include the size of the economy, high per capita
income and a dynamic business environment,” Fitch
said in a credit rating update, but the country’s
outlook is “negative” due to growing political and fiscal
risks.

With respect to debt, Fitch said that while public
finances have improved relative to previous forecasts thanks to a
stronger-than-expected economic recovery and fiscal tightening as
emergency aid programs wind down, interest rates could climb and/or
deficits could increase, “potentially creating downside
risk.”

In terms of politics, “governance is a weakness relative
to the 'AAA' median,” Fitch said. “The failure of the former
president to concede the election and the events surrounding the
certification of the results of the presidential election in
Congress in January, have no recent parallels in other very highly
rated sovereigns. The redrafting of election laws in some states
could weaken the political system, increasing divergence between
votes cast and party representation. These developments underline
an ongoing risk of lack of bipartisanship and difficulty in
formulating policy and passing laws in Congress.”

Looking ahead: Fitch analysts expect
Democrats to pass a spending package in the range of about $1
trillion over 10 years, well below the $3.5 trillion currently
under discussion. Debt is expected to stabilize at about 121% of
GDP in 2024, with “shallow” increases in the years
following.

Surgeon General Warns of ‘Urgent Threat’ of Covid
Disinformation

With Covid-19 rates spiking in many parts of the country,
the U.S. surgeon general is calling for a war against “health
misinformation” related to the pandemic.

Dr. Vivek Murthy released an
advisory Thursday warning about the “urgent
threat” posed by misinformation around the disease – falsehoods
that put lives at risk and threaten to extend the
pandemic.

“I am urging all Americans to help slow the spread of
health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond,” he
said. “Health misinformation is a serious threat to public health.
It can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people’s health, and
undermine public health efforts. Limiting the spread of health
misinformation is a moral and civic imperative that will require a
whole-of-society effort.”

Misinformation about vaccines is a particular problem.
“Every life that is lost to COVID-19 when we have vaccines
available, is a preventable tragedy," Murthy
told NPR.

Murthy said that one way individuals can have an effect is
to avoid spreading questionable materials online. “If you're not
sure, not sharing is often the prudent thing to do,” he
said.

He also called on social media firms to do more to help
stem the tide of misleading information, citing Facebook by name at
a White House briefing. “The tech companies actually have a much
better sense of how much misinformation is being transacted on
their platforms, and without understanding the full extent of it
... it's hard to formulate the most effective strategies,” he
said.

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