Congress Races to Finalize Ukraine Aid, Spending Bill

The U.S. Capitol dome is seen in Washington
ERIN SCOTT
By Yuval Rosenberg

It’s shaping up to be a momentous week in Washington,
D.C. As Russia escalates its invasion of Ukraine, Congress is
looking to further punish the Kremlin and approve billions of
dollars in additional aid to Ukraine. That funding, along with more
Covid relief money, could be added to a broader spending bill for
the rest of fiscal 2022, as House and Senate appropriators race to
finalize that $1.5 trillion package in time for it to pass by
Friday, when current federal funding expires. Adding to the time
crunch, House Democrats are set to head to Philadelphia on
Wednesday for a three-day policy retreat.

Here’s the latest:

Congress Races to Finalize Spending Bill, Ukraine
Aid

A bipartisan group of lawmakers announced Monday that they had
reached a deal on legislation to ban Russian energy imports and
suspend normal trade relations with Russia and its ally,
Belarus.

"Taking these actions will send a clear message to [Russian
President Vladimir] Putin that his war is unacceptable and the
United States stands firmly with our NATO allies," the lawmakers
overseeing U.S. trade policy said in a joint statement cited by

The Washington Post. Reps. Richard Neal (D-MA) and
Kevin Brady (R-TX), the top Democrat and Republican on the House
Ways and Means Committee, signed the statement, as did Sens. Ron
Wyden (D-WA) and Mike Crapo (R-ID), the top lawmakers on the Senate
Finance Committee.

The draft legislation, aimed at further punishing Russia for its
aggression, would also enable President Joe Biden to raise tariffs
on products from both Russia and Belarus. The House reportedly
could vote on the plan as soon as Wednesday.

Gas prices surge to record high: A further crackdown on
Russian energy imports could have repercussions for American
consumers, who have already seen gas prices surge by 49 cents a
gallon in the last week, reaching a new record national average of
$4.10 a gallon, topping a previous high set in 2008, according to
analysis service GasBuddy.
"Although the United States imports just 7 percent of its oil from
Russia, the administration has so far avoided banning imports, in
part because of worries that it would further accelerate
already-high gas prices," The New York Times
notes.

In a letter to colleague Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
emphasized that lawmakers would look for ways to rein in rising
prices. "Let me be clear: the United States need not choose between
our democratic values and our economic interests," she wrote. "The
Administration and the Congress remain laser-focused on bringing
down the higher energy costs for American families and our partners
stemming from Putin’s invasion."

Still, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan,
said in a statement that the unprecedented price spike affecting
all fuels isn’t likely to improve any time soon: "The high prices
are likely to stick around for not days or weeks, like they did in
2008, but months. GasBuddy now expects the yearly national average
to rise to its highest ever recorded."

$10 billion in aid for Ukraine tied to funding bill facing
Friday deadline: Lawmakers reportedly are also expected to
announce an agreement to provide the $10 billion that the White
House requested for humanitarian, military and economic aid to
Ukraine and refugees fleeing the crisis.

That aid would be added to the $1.5 trillion government funding
bill covering the rest of this fiscal year. Congress needs to pass
that package or another stopgap measure to avoid a government
shutdown after current funding expires Friday night.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Monday that
Democrats had made Republicans a "global offer" on the spending
package.

"We have been working on a bipartisan, bicameral basis through
the weekend to finish work on an omnibus package that includes
robust assistance to the people and government of Ukraine and
additional funds to ensure our country is prepared if and when the
next COVID variant strikes," he wrote in a "Dear Colleague" letter.
"Democrats have made a reasonable global offer to Republicans and
it is my hope that we will reach an agreement very soon so that we
can meet the March 11 government funding deadline."

The push to pass the funding bill by Friday could be complicated
by the House’s planned 3-day policy retreat starting Wednesday —
and by a group of Senate Republicans who are again demanding a vote
on defunding Biden’s vaccine mandates before they’ll agree to speed
the process on the annual spending legislation. Those demands on
previous spending bills resulted in failed votes on the vaccine
amendment.

Democrats look to show they’re fighting inflation: With
consumer prices rising at the fastest rate in 40 years, Schumer
also announced in his letter that Democrats would hold a series of
hearings on proposals to cut costs for American families, starting
with a Senate Finance Committee session next week on prescription
drug prices. "Our goal is to have the wages that have increased
continue to go up and see costs go down so the average American has
more money in their pocket," Schumer wrote.

The bottom line: This week’s race to
pass a spending deal by Friday appears on track, with lawmakers
reportedly expressing confidence that another stopgap "continuing
resolution" won’t be needed. The stickiest sticking point may by
additional emergency pandemic funding, with Republicans skeptical
of the White House request for an additional $22.5 billion and
pressing to fully offset whatever amount is provided.

US Wages Are 20% Lower Due to Lack of Competition Among
Employers: Report

As the Biden administration works to promote what it calls its
pro-labor agenda, a new
analysis by the Treasury Department finds that
monopsony power — a market structure in which there is only one
buyer — among employers throughout the U.S. economy has reduced
wages by roughly 20% on average.

"While most labor markets do not literally feature a single
employer, a market with a small set of employers may mimic a
monopsony by each engaging in practices that give them market power
over workers," the report says. "Concentration in particular
industries and locations can lead to workers receiving less pay,
fewer benefits, and worse conditions than what they would under
conditions of greater competition."

Companies achieve monopsony power through multiple means,
including non-compete clauses, nondisclosure agreements,
outsourcing and mergers that reduce the number of employers. "There
is a long list of insidious efforts to take power out of the hands
of workers and seize it for employers’ gain," Seth Harris, deputy
director at the National Economic Council and deputy assistant to
the president for labor and the economy,
told The New York Times.

A lack of meaningful competition among employers results in
lower pay, higher inequality, deteriorating working conditions and
greater rewards for business owners, the report says. It also
reduces overall employment by diminishing incentives for companies
to invest and by impeding the creation of new firms.

The report highlights some of the corrective measures that are
being pursued by the Biden administration, including a higher
minimum wage, restrictions on the use of non-compete clauses,
increased anti-trust enforcement and legislation to support
unionization efforts.

Number of the Day: 6 Million

The global death toll from Covid-19 has now surpassed 6 million,
according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The
milestone is a grim reminder of the power and destructiveness of
the coronavirus pandemic over the past three years. In the U.S.,
the death total stands at more than 958,000, the highest in the
world.

According to the
Associated Press, it took seven months to record
the first million deaths from Covid-19 in 2020. It took four months
to record the next million, and another million people died roughly
every three months since then, until the total hit 5 million in
October.

As bleak as the tally may be, experts say the real number is
almost certainly higher. "Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of
the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited
testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death,"
data expert Edouard Mathieu told the AP. "In some, mostly rich,
countries that fraction is high and the official tally can be
considered to be fairly accurate, but in others it is highly
underestimated."

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