Jim Jordan Loses Again

Jordan says he'll keep going. Opponents say he has no path to the gavel.
USA Today Network
By Yuval Rosenberg

Another day, another failed speaker vote. Here’s what we’re watching.

Jordan Loses Second Speaker Vote, Vows to Keep Going

Jim Jordan suffered a second defeat Wednesday in his bid to win the speaker’s gavel — a campaign that now appears doomed to fail even as the firebrand Ohio Republican insists he wants to keep going.

Even after he spent hours trying to win over holdouts, Jordan lost ground in Wednesday’s vote as 22 Republicans threw their support elsewhere, more than the 20 GOP defections in Tuesday’s first round of voting. Jordan flipped two votes Wednesday and added one from a member who was absent yesterday but lost four others. He apparently set an ignominious record by failing to garner 200 votes — and Jordan’s opponents insist that his tally will only get worse if he pushes for another round of voting.

CNN’s Melanie Zanona reported that some Republicans say they’ve been strategizing over their “no” votes and staggering them to look like the opposition to Jordan is growing.

“I believe he’s done. He needs to withdraw from this. He’s going to lose more votes,” Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told CNN, adding that he already knows which lawmakers are going to switch their votes next time. “He doesn’t have any pathway forward to 217,” Bacon said.

Bacon also explained that opposition to Jordan breaks down along two main lines: Some Republicans don’t want to back him because of his history as a chaos agent while others are bristling at the hardball tactics he and his allies used in the speaker’s race against House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

Jordan sounded unbowed, though. “We got 200 votes. You know, we picked up some today, a couple dropped off but they voted for me before, I think they can come back again. So we'll keep talking to members, we'll keep working on it,” he told reporters.

He’s also reportedly wheeling and dealing with holdouts, including telling New York lawmakers that he would support doubling the cap on the state-and-local tax deduction to $20,000 — a proposal that would “cost about $54 billion through 2025 and mostly help those earning over $100,000 annually,” according to the Tax Foundation.

A move to empower McHenry: With the House still paralyzed in its 15th day without a speaker, momentum also appears to be building among lawmakers for a resolution to temporarily empower Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry so that the House can take up time-sensitive legislation including aid for Israel and funding the government.

“After two weeks without a Speaker of the House and no clear candidate with 217 votes in the Republican conference, it is time to look at other viable options. By empowering Patrick McHenry as Speaker Pro Tempore we can take care of our ally Israel until a new Speaker is elected,” Ohio Rep. David Joyce said in a statement.

Former Republican House Speakers Newt Gingrich and John Boehner both endorsed McHenry as an interim leader to allow legislative work to resume. But a resolution to expand McHenry’s powers for a defined period of time would likely require Democratic support to reach the required majority. “Some Democrats have suggested they would want assurances that McHenry would allow votes on bipartisan spending bills, aide to Ukraine, and other measures that could pass,” NPR reports.

The bottom line: Another vote is expected Thursday and McHenry reportedly said that Jordan will continue with votes “as long as he needs,” but other Republicans are also considering other potential speaker candidates as another path forward. It’s all still a mess.

Quote of the Day

“For decades, we’ve ensured Israel’s qualitative military edge. And later this week, I’m going to ask the United States Congress for an unprecedented support package for Israel’s defense.”

– President Joe Biden, in a speech from Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday in which he pledged to both help Israel and provide $100 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Biden will deliver a prime-time address to the nation from the Oval Office tomorrow night at 8 p.m. ET to discuss Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel and the war in Ukraine.

Family Health Insurance Costs Jump to $24,000 a Year

The annual cost of employer-sponsored family health insurance plans rose 7% in 2023, pushing the average premium to $23,968 per year, according to the latest KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey. Workers pay $6,575 of the total cost on average, a year-over-year increase of about $500, or 8%, with employers picking up the rest of the bill.

Although price hikes have been relatively small over the last two years, over the past five years, insurance premiums have increased by 22%, roughly in line with wages (up 27%) and inflation (up 21%), KFF said.

Deductible levels have held steady lately, with employers expressing concerns about passing too much of the cost of healthcare onto their employees. But the average deductible has risen 10% over the last five years — and 53% over the last 10 years.

“Rising employer health care premiums have resumed their nasty ways, a reminder that while the nation has made great progress expanding coverage, people continue to struggle with medical bills, and overall the nation has no strategy on health costs,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said.

KFF health insurance expert Matthew Rae put it more simply: “It's just an incredible amount of money to spend on health insurance every year,” he told Axios.

U.S. Household Wealth Surged During Pandemic: Fed

The wealth of U.S. households rose sharply between 2019 and 2022, according to the Survey of Consumer Finances released by the Federal Reserve Wednesday. Driven by soaring values in the housing and stock markets, the median household had a net worth of $193,000 in 2022, an increase of 37% from 2019 — the largest increase on record for the survey, which the Fed has undertaken every three years since 1989.

“The jump in wealth occurred even as the brief but brutal pandemic recession cost 20 million Americans their jobs in 2020,” says Christopher Rugaber of the Associated Press. “Extensive government relief aid, totaling about $5 trillion, helped spur a rapid recovery that regained the lost jobs much faster than had been true after the 2008-2009 recession.”

The increase in wealth was broad-based, with middle- and lower-income households more likely to own homes and investments in 2022 than in 2019. Still, the rise in wealth varied considerably among different groups. For example, white households recorded a mean net worth of $285,000 in 2022 and an average net worth of $1.3 million, while black households had a mean net worth of about $45,000 and an average net worth of $211,000.

IRS to Test Free Filing System

The IRS announced Tuesday that it will test its direct tax-filing system in a handful of states next year.

The tax agency has been working on the free, electronic alternative to paid tax services using funds provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, which boosted the IRS budget by $80 billion over 10 years to improve services, enforcement and technology. Although Republicans in Congress have clawed back some of the new funding, the IRS continues its push to expand its capabilities.

The IRS will provide the option to use the new Direct File program to a limited number of filers during the 2024 tax filing season, with a focus on taxpayers in Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York who have relatively simple returns. Officials in those states have agreed to integrate their tax systems with the new program, which is still under development. Residents of nine states that have no income tax — Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — may also be eligible to participate in the pilot program.

The test run will be used to improve the Direct File system before it is rolled out nationally. “This is a critical step forward for this innovative effort that will test the feasibility of providing taxpayers a new option to file their returns for free directly with the IRS,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “In this limited pilot for 2024, we'll be working closely with the states that have agreed to participate in an important test run of the state integration. This will help us gather important information about the future direction of the Direct File program.”

Americans currently spend about $11 billion per year on tax preparation services. Although 70% of taxpayers are eligible to use a free system called Free File, only 4% actually do so. Private tax preparation companies have opposed the IRS plan to allow direct filing, with TurboTax owner Intuit telling CBS News that the new program is “a solution in search of a problem.”

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