Republicans Clash Over Their Agenda as Biden Pitches His

U.S. Senate Republicans hold weekly policy lunch at U.S. Capitol in Washington
ELIZABETH FRANTZ
By Yuval Rosenberg

Welcome to March! President Joe Biden’s
first State of the Union address is just a couple of hours away.
Will you be watching?

As Biden Pitches His Agenda, Republicans Clash Over Theirs

President Joe Biden is expected to lay out a lengthy agenda in
his State of the Union speech tonight, touting the benefits of the
bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed while calling on Congress
to enact a host of other plans.

While a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine will
undoubtedly be front and center in Biden’s speech, the president
will also push for measures that he says will lower costs for
families, ask lawmakers to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an
hour and create a national paid family leave program. He’ll also
look to revive other elements of the stalled legislative package
that used to be known as the Build Back Better plan, including
clean energy tax credits.

Biden will also outline a "unity agenda" of items that he
believes both parties can support, including programs to improve
mental health care, ease telehealth rules and "end cancer as we
know it."

Senate Republicans split on their agenda: Biden’s talk of
a unity agenda raises the question again of just what’s on the GOP
agenda — a question that has divided Senate Republicans and did so
again in a very public way on Tuesday.

While much has been made of the Democratic divisions that have
derailed major portions of Biden’s domestic agenda, Republicans’
own intraparty splits when it comes to detailing an election-year
agenda have lately centered on an 11-point plan released by Sen.
Rick Scott of Florida.

We told you last week that Scott’s conservative "Rescue America"
blueprint for the GOP drew quick criticism from both the Left and
Right for, among other things, seeking to have all Americans "pay
some income tax to have skin in the game" — a proposal that harkens
back to Mitt Romney’s controversial 2012 makers-vs.-takers
framework, which, you may recall, both
wasn’t
accurate and failed to win Romney the
election.

It’s that second part in particular that seems to be concerning
some of Scott’s fellow Republicans right now. Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) "advised Scott at a GOP leadership
meeting on Monday afternoon that his 11-point proposal gave
Democrats ammunition for millions of dollars of ads in the
midterms," Politico’s Burgess Everett and Marianne LeVine
report, citing multiple sources briefed on the
meeting.

McConnell made abundantly clear Tuesday that he doesn’t support
Scott’s plan.

"If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I'll
be the majority leader. I'll decide in consultation with my members
what to put on the floor," McConnell said in response to a question
at the Senate Republican leadership’s news conference. "Let me tell
you what would not be a part of our agenda. We would not have as
part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American
people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.
That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda."

McConnell and others have opted not to detail their policy plans
if they should win control of Congress, preferring to keep
attention on Biden and the Democrats. "We’re going to keep our
focus on inflation, crime, the border and Afghanistan. And some of
these other things are things to think about … after the election
is over," Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Politico.

And Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), running for an eighth term in
the Senate at age 88, defended McConnell’s approach: "As a
practical matter, you wouldn’t count your chickens before the eggs
are hatched," he told Politico. "McConnell is putting all of his
effort into winning because if we don’t win in November, there
isn’t such a thing as a Republican agenda."

The bottom line: McConnell and a number of other Senate
Republican leaders have been emphatic that they would not support
Scott’s tax proposal. "I'm not for increasing anybody's income tax,
whether they pay zero or they pay a lot," Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)

told reporters, and Senate Minority Whip John
Thune (R-SD) said he didn’t know of any other senator running for
re-election who would back the Scott tax plan. As for what their
agenda might include, McConnell kept it vague, saying that a
Republican-controlled Senate would focus on "inflation, energy,
defense, the border and crime."

Quote of the Day

"We’ve hit a snag."

− McConnell, at the Senate GOP news
conference, announcing to reporters that negotiators working on a
full-year omnibus appropriations bill have again run into
differences over defense spending levels.

US to Release Millions of Barrels of Oil From Strategic
Reserve

As oil prices on Tuesday jumped above $105 a barrel for the
first time since 2014, the U.S. and its allies announced a plan to
release 60 million barrels from reserve into the world market.

The U.S. will release 30 million barrels from its Strategic
Petroleum Reserve, while allies including Germany, the United
Kingdom, Japan and South Korea will collectively release an
additional 30 million barrels.

In a
memorandum, President Joe Biden said the drawdown
of oil "is required by U.S. obligations under the International
Energy Program implemented by the International Energy Agency,"
which the U.S. joined in 1974.

The 31 member nations of the International Energy Agency
collectively hold 1.5 billion barrels of oil reserve. The release
represents about 4% of its stockpile.

Headquartered in Paris, the International Energy Agency was
founded in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, with the mission of
maintaining stable oil supplies. The group said Monday that its
release would "send a unified and strong message to global oil
markets that there will be no shortfall in supplies as a result of
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine." The group also "expressed solidarity
with the people of Ukraine and their democratically elected
government in the face of Russia’s appalling and unprovoked
violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity."

The group noted that "Russia plays an outsized role on global
energy markets. It is the world’s third largest oil producer and
the largest exporter. Its exports of about 5 million barrels a day
of crude oil represent roughly 12% of global trade – and its
approximately 2.85 million barrels a day of petroleum products
represent around 15% of global refined product trade."

In a statement, the White House said the plan "is another
example of partners around the world condemning Russia’s unprovoked
and unjustified invasion of Ukraine and working together to address
the impact of President Putin’s war of choice."

Still, some analysts are skeptical that the release will move
the needle on rising oil and gas prices. "The bottom line is this
is not enough to cool off the market," Michael Tran of RBC Capital
Markets, told CNN. "It's a bit of a band-aid solution."

Do Higher-Price Hospitals Deliver Higher-Quality Care?

A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic
Research asks, "Do Higher-Priced Hospitals Deliver Higher-Quality
Care?"

Anyone familiar with $10 Band-Aids and $12 aspirins will
probably be able to answer the question pretty easily: No, higher
prices in health care do not necessarily mean higher-quality
care.

For those who are not convinced, the latest study provides
another piece of evidence that, at least in markets lacking
competition, higher prices for emergency health services have no
measurable effect on mortality rates.

However, where there is competition among service providers,
higher prices can be associated with a slight reduction in
mortality.

Here’s how the authors of the
paper summarize their findings:

"We analyze whether receiving care from higher-priced
hospitals leads to lower mortality. ... Being admitted to a
hospital with two standard deviations higher prices raises spending
by 52% and lowers mortality by 1 percentage point (35%). However,
the relationship between higher prices and lower mortality is only
present at hospitals in less concentrated markets. Receiving care
from an expensive hospital in a concentrated market increases
spending but has no detectable effect on mortality."

In other words, when you have little choice for receiving
emergency health care, hospitals may raise their prices without
providing higher levels of service. As with so many things,
monopoly conditions produce higher costs but not better
products.

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