Happy Wednesday! Here’s what’s going on while we wait for the Yankees to clinch the American League East tonight.
Congress Passes 3-Month Spending Bill to Avert a Shutdown Before the Election
Congress on Wednesday passed a stopgap bill funding the government through December 20, averting a shutdown of federal agencies at the end of the month.
The bill keeps most government spending at current levels and provides $231 million in additional funding for the embattled Secret Service, which faces increased scrutiny and demands for more resources after two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump.
The package sailed through the House this afternoon under a suspension of the rules, a process that required a two-thirds majority. The 341-82 vote easily cleared that hurdle. All the “no” votes came from Republicans who bucked a bipartisan package put forth by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The speaker, like former Speaker Kevin McCarthy before him, has repeatedly been forced to rely on Democrats to pass bills to keep the government funded because of internal GOP divisions. Many far-right Republicans continue to demand steeper spending cuts and oppose any stopgap funding measures.
“Governance by continuing resolution is not ideal,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole said before the vote in his chamber. “Like most, my preference would be to pass full-year appropriations bills through regular order, but we are out of time. We cannot afford a shutdown, which would be greatly damaging to our national security, to critical government programs, and to the American people. Not to mention the enormous cost of government shutdowns.”
The Senate then approved the bill by a 78-18 margin, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk. Senators had earlier reached a bipartisan agreement to speed to a vote without any poison pill amendments.
“Americans can breathe easy that because both sides have chosen bipartisanship, Congress is getting the job done,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said early in the day. “We will keep the government open. We will prevent vital government services from needlessly coming to a halt. We will give appropriators more time to fully fund the government before the end of the year. … There will be no shutdown because finally at the end of the day, our Republican colleagues in the House decided to work with us.”
Schumer said he hoped the constructive bipartisanship can continue when lawmakers return after the November elections, but as Aidan Quigley details at Roll Call, the two sides will enter the lame duck session with very different expectations regarding full-year government funding.
“House Republican leaders, outwardly confident about winning the White House, keeping the House and flipping the Senate, want to quickly wrap up in December by passing another stopgap bill into the new year,” Quigley writes. “Democratic leaders in both chambers, not to mention some GOP appropriators, prefer to finish up all the full-year spending bills, clearing the decks for the incoming administration rather than dumping a mess into the next Congress’ lap.”
The two sides will also have to resolve significant differences on spending levels and policy priorities, even as they’ll be dealing with a political landscape that could be dramatically altered by the elections.
What it means: Fiscal year 2025 won’t start on October 1 with a shutdown, but the path forward on full-year government funding could very well hinge on the outcome of the elections.
The White House has already detailed some funding needs that would need to be addressed when lawmakers return, including disaster relief, a $12 billion shortfall at the Department of Veterans Affairs and money for the Social Security Administration. The White House also said it would “oppose any cuts or restrictions on the IRS in final appropriations legislation which would limit the IRS’s ability to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, and increase the deficit.”
Harris Slams Trump’s Economic Plans, Promise to Grow the Middle Class
Vice President Kamala Harris provided an overview of her economic plan Wednesday, expanding upon her vision of an “opportunity economy” built around a thriving middle class.
In a speech at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, backed by an 80-page handout given to reporters attending the event, Harris promised “a new way forward” for the middle class, shaped by pragmatic policies designed to do what works for the majority of the population. “We shouldn’t be constrained by ideology, and instead should seek practical solutions to problems,” she said.
While most of the specific proposals highlighted in the speech — including a $6,000 tax credit for children in their first year of life, $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, and $50,000 tax breaks for small business startups — have been discussed before by Harris, the Democratic candidate framed her proposed program more explicitly as a clear alternative to her opponent, as well as a break from the past.
“For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers, not those who actually build them,” she said. “On Trump’s watch, offshoring went up and manufacturing jobs went down across our country and across our economy. All told, almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during his presidency, starting before the pandemic hit, making Trump one of the biggest losers ever on manufacturing.”
Harris repeated her previous pledge of allegiance to the basic economic system in the U.S., saying “I am a capitalist.” She said her program would reduce costs for households facing prices that remain too high, while creating growth that would generate new wealth shared broadly by the population.
Fostering high-tech manufacturing will be a central focus of her administration, Harris said, vowing that the U.S. will dominate the major industries of the future — a goal that can be reached through the creation of “active partnership between government and the private sector.” (Aides said the vice president wanted to provide $100 billion in tax credits over 10 years to foster manufacturing, but Harris did not address that proposal directly.)
“The American people face a choice between two fundamentally very different paths for our economy: I intend to chart a new way forward and grow America’s middle class,” Harris said. “Donald Trump intends to take America backward to the failed policies of the past. He has no intention to grow our middle class.”
The bottom line: Harris is highlighting her pro-business economic plans, in part to push back against baseless accusations from the right that she is a “communist,” while offering a variety of proposals to reduce costs aimed at middle-class voters still struggling with high prices in the wake of the pandemic-era inflationary surge.
Fiscal News Roundup
- Harris Is Making a ‘Capitalist’ Pitch to Boost the Economy as Trump Pushes Deeper Into Populism – Associated Press
- Harris Pledges $100 Billion in Tax Credits to Boost U.S. Manufacturing – Wall Street Journal
- Congress Clears December Spending Patch, Avoiding Preelection Shutdown – Politico
- The CR’s Unfinished Business – Politico
- GOP Senator Opens Door to Tax Negotiations in Lame Duck Session – The Hill
- US Expected to Announce Billions in Ukraine Aid After Congress Fails to Include Extension in Stopgap Government Funding Bill – CNN
- Speaker Johnson Demands Ukrainian Ambassador Be Fired as GOP Probes Zelensky Visit – The Hill
- Democrats Introduce ObamaCare Tax Credit Extension Bill, Setting Up Fight With GOP – The Hill
- An Unusual Choice for House Freedom Caucus Leader Takes Reins – Roll Call
Views and Analysis
- Two Roads Diverged in a Lame-Duck Spending Endgame – Aidan Quigley, Roll Call
- Republicans Are Finally Tired of Shutting Down the Government – Russell Berman, The Atlantic
- Harris’s Uncertainty and the Risk of Recession – Kevin Hassett and Cale Clingenpeel, Wall Street Journal
- Kamala Harris Turns Biden's $493 Billion Climate Legacy Into a Footnote – Jennifer A Dlouhy and Ari Natter, Bloomberg
- The Nativists Have Taken Over the GOP – Aaron Blake, Washington Post