Dems Embrace a Budget ‘Gimmick’

By Yuval Rosenberg

It’s Friday! Covid cases are surging, the
Tokyo Olympics have started and infrastructure negotiations seem
like they’ll never end. Here’s what you should know as we head into
the weekend.

One Last Obstacle to an Infrastructure Deal: Public Transit
Funding

Negotiators looking to finalize a $1 trillion bipartisan
infrastructure deal say they’re getting close, but funding for
transit remains a hangup — and frustrations are starting to show as
the talks drag on.

Republicans and Democrats are at odds over funding for highways
and public transit. The bipartisan negotiators had seemingly agreed
for the most part on an increase in funding for public transit, but
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), the top Republican on the Banking
Committee, which has jurisdiction over transit, reportedly
objected. Now Republicans are looking to change a long-standing
80-20 split of money going to roads versus that going to rail and
bus systems, according to reports.

"The split — giving transit one dollar for each four that
highways get — has its roots in the 1980s, but has only been
sustained by an uneasy truce between lawmakers,’ The Washington
Post’s Ian Duncan
reports. "Republicans have sometimes proposed
scaling back transit funding, while Democrats have hoped to
increase its share. The dispute has arisen again as a group of
senators tries to wrap up the infrastructure package."

Republicans reportedly want to cut the transit share from 20% to
18%, arguing that transit agencies already got some $70 billion in
Covid relief funds and that the funding split in recent years has
seen more than 82% go to highways.

An infrastructure bill without transit? Sen. Rob Portman
(R-OH) suggested dropping transit funding from the infrastructure
package entirely. "Transit funding has not yet been resolved.
That’s important, but if we can’t resolve it then we could leave
that out. I hope not," he said, according to The Hill. Portman, the
lead GOP negotiator on the deal, told reporters that Democrats "are
not being reasonable in their requests right now.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), an ally of President Joe Biden’s, told
CNN Friday that he would support the package even if it excluded
the transit portion because Democrats could add transit funding to
the budget reconciliation package they plan to pass. But other
Democrats have made clear they won’t go for that.

Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tom Carper of
Delaware said Thursday that they won’t vote for a package that
lowers transit funds. "Robust funding for transit must be included
in the legislation," they said in a statement. "We will not support
any package that neglects this fundamental part of our nation’s
infrastructure." Brown reportedly
accused Republicans of stalling the talks in an
effort to derail Biden’s agenda.

Why it matters: "The question of transit funding
underscores different ideas among Republicans and Democrats about
what infrastructure spending should achieve," writes the Post’s Ian
Duncan. "Democrats argue that boosting transit funding would
encourage more Americans to use buses and trains, reducing carbon
emissions from cars and tackling congestion without building new
road lanes."

The bottom line: The transit issue isn’t the only
remaining difference, making it unclear if negotiators will be able
to finalize a deal by early next week. But given how far they’ve
gotten, it’s far too soon to think any of the remaining hurdles
will scuttle a deal.

Democrats Defend Use of Budget ‘Gimmick’

Politico’s Jennifer Scholtes and Caitlin Emma point out that
Democrats are embracing a budget tactic that they’ve derided in the
past: using dynamic scoring.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the chair of the Senate Budget
Committee, has called dynamic scoring, which looks to factor in
projected economic effects of policy changes, a "gimmick" and a way
to "cook the books," Scholtes and Emma
write. Yet, they say, "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."

Politico’s duo explain that Democrats are hoping budget analysts
will find that the party’s proposed tax changes, investments in
social safety net programs and plans for combatting climate change
will produce stronger long-term economic growth that translates
into more revenue for the federal government. And they argue that
projected revenue gains from their programs are far more realistic
than Republican claims about growth from the 2017 tax cuts.

Still, dynamic forecasts are notoriously difficult to calculate
accurately. "We’re way beyond the frontiers of what we can be
confident of, economically," David Wessel, director of fiscal and
monetary policy at the Brookings Institution, told Politico of
dynamic scoring. "It’s just a way for members to pretend that
they’re paying for something."

House Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth (D-KY) acknowledged
that the budget involves some numbers games. "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," he said. "Everybody plays games with it."


Read the full story at Politico.

Number of the Day: 43,746

The seven-day average of confirmed new Covid-19 cases climbed
near 44,000, surging 65% in just a week and roughly quadrupling
from just over 11,000 as of June 22, according to Johns Hopkins
University data cited by CNN.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said
Thursday that just three states — Florida, Texas and Missouri —
accounted for 40% of all cases nationwide, with the Sunshine State
accounting for one in five cases for the second week in a row.

Quote of the Day: ‘The Unvaccinated Are Letting Us Down’

"It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the
regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us
down."

–
Kay Ivey, the Republican governor of Alabama, the
state with the lowest vaccination rate in the country, after being
asked on Thursday what it will take to get people to get
vaccinated.

Asked about the comments, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
on Friday said that the White House understands the frustration of
those who are advocating for vaccinations but shied away from
laying blame. "I don’t think our role is to place blame, but what
we can do is provide accurate information to people who are not yet
vaccinated about the risks they are incurring not only on
themselves, but also the people around them," Psaki said.

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