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![]() PRESENTED BY![]() BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN THE TOPGood Friday morning! This is the biggest day so far of Joe Biden’s presidency. And the most expensive day in House history. Members will vote on legislation with a combined price tag of nearly $3 trillion. Even for Washington in 2021, that’s a lot of money. But it’s only the end of the opening act — a long and often quite tedious opening scene — in a multi-act drama to pass Biden’s legislative agenda. To quote that famous honorary American, Winston Churchill: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Can Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi close this out? The plan as of 5 a.m. is that the House will vote today on both the Build Back Better Act and the $1 trillion-plus bipartisan infrastructure bill. The BIF will go straight to Biden’s desk for his signature, and then the White House will get the requisite celebration. Democrats expressed confidence Thursday night that they’d get it all done today. We’re not skeptical about this — maybe we should be! After the BBB passes, it needs a score, then it will go onto the Senate, where it will get, umm, amended if we put it kindly, by various Democrats ranging from Sens. Bernie Sanders to Bob Menendez to Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin and others. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough and her staff will scrub it to see if it comports with the Byrd Rule, which controls the reconciliation process. There will be a vote-a-rama, and Senate Republicans will get to offer hundreds, maybe thousands of amendments. Then, at some point. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will have to get it across the finish line for final passage. And after that, it’s back to the House for even more drama. It’s a huge, sprawling piece of legislation that will have a broad impact across American society. The Build Back Better Act includes more than $550 billion to address climate change; four weeks of paid family and medical leave; universal preschool for 3- and 4-years olds; an extension of the Child Tax Credit; Medicare expansion to cover hearing programs; Medicare will be able to negotiate price reductions for some prescription drugs; and expanded home health care and Obamacare Medicaid subsidies. It’s paid for by a minimum tax on corporations and tax increases on wealthy Americans, as Biden promised during the campaign, as well as the hiring of thousands of new IRS agents to help better enforce current tax laws. So as we said, this is a big day for Biden and Pelosi. The House will come into session at 8 a.m., and the process is going to take most of the day. And as always in dealing with Congress, there’s potential for some last-minute snafus. The House will start by debating the rule for BBB on the floor. That will take an hour. Then members have to vote on the rule, which may be the most important moment of the day. If the rule passes — as expected — that’s pretty much the sign that BBB will pass. Then the House will debate the BBB on the floor — again, another hour. Then a final passage vote on BBB. The BIF has no debate. All that’s left there is a vote. (BTW: Kind of amazing that the largest infrastructure deal ever will pass as almost a side note!) Getting here was a herculean task. Passing a massive bill such as the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, regardless of its prospects in the Senate, is a risk. But at this point, it’s one both Biden and Pelosi need to take. Passage of BBB unlocks a huge win for the president on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, one he and the party badly need. And it moves the BBB debate over to the 50-50 Senate, which will be its most difficult test. Manchin and Sinema will square off with Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressives over the proposal, with Schumer trying to find a way to steer it through the body. There’s no deadline to complete action, but if Congress is able to pass the final reconciliation package by Christmas and send it on to Biden, that will be a major accomplishment. Remember: → Both chambers are out next week. → The week of Nov. 22 is Thanksgiving. → Then we’re in the first week of December. Government funding runs out and the debt limit may need action. So you can see how we get to the end of the year quite quickly. the longer it takes, the tougher it gets for Democrats. Biden, Pelosi and Schumer — who have more than a century of congressional experience between the three of them — know this quite well. … But how do they really close this out? Pelosi and her leadership team labored to get the BBB legislation into a place where it could pass. More on the endgame below. As crazy as this may sound, though, this was the easy part. Pelosi and her leadership team sweated over the course of two months to pass a bill that essentially amounted to a political message. The speaker said she’d never let her House Democrats vote on a bill that didn’t have Senate buy-in, and she’s allowing the House to vote on a bill that doesn’t have Senate’s buy-in. The House is voting for the bipartisan infrastructure bill without any closure or any assurances on the BBB piece — something she and a variety of Democrats promised would never happen. Pelosi’s House and Schumer’s Senate seem incompatible right now. Biden has proven to have limited sway with House Democrats. And this won’t get any better or easier in the next phase. The Democratic leadership must solve this. How do Schumer, Pelosi and the White House bridge the divide between the House and the Senate? Jobs day cheat sheet It’s jobs day. We’re going to tell you what Wrightson ICAP is looking for:
PRESENTED BY DUKE ENERGY Duke Energy is transforming our energy infrastructure to deliver cleaner, smarter energy for the communities we serve. We’re investing more than $125 billion over the next decade in renewables, advanced energy storage, electric vehicle technology and more – all to reach our goal of net-zero carbon by 2050 while delivering affordable, reliable, cleaner energy for our communities and the future we share. Learn more about our bold clean energy commitment. THE PUNCH CARD A deal on SALT, and who we’re watching today ![]() First we’ll start with some late-night news on SALT — the state and local tax deduction — then we’ll go into the other House Democratic factions that we’re tracking as the Build Back Better Act hits the House floor today. On SALT, Speaker Nancy Pelosi cut a deal with the “No SALT, no deal” crowd late Thursday to raise the deduction cap to $80,000 for a nine-year period through 2030. It would return to the current $10,000 level in 2031, and then phase out entirely. This change seems relatively minor, but it scores better because it’s over nine years instead of 10. This is a win for Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi (N.Y.), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) and Bill Pascrell (N.J.), who for months had threatened to vote against the reconciliation package if the issue wasn’t addressed. They stayed united even when President Joe Biden didn’t include anything on the issue in his BBB proposal, or when the Ways and Means Committee voted out its piece of the reconciliation package without taking it up. “This agreement to address the cap on our State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction will effectively eliminate the undue burden for nearly all of the families in our districts who’ve been unfairly double taxed for the last four years,” Suozzi, Gottheimer and Sherrill said in a joint statement. “This fix will put money back in the pockets of hardworking, middle class families in our districts and help ensure that our local communities can continue making the investments that we need.” Yet it also showed the reality that Pelosi faced in trying to get the BBB through the House. While she supports restoring the deduction, which Republicans had gotten rid of in their 2017 tax cut, doing so upset progressives, who complained it overwhelmingly benefitted wealthy taxpayers. But without some kind of SALT deal, Pelosi risked losing support that she had to have, especially since her margin of control in the House is only three votes. Here’s the other groups Pelosi focused on this week as she sought to close out BBB talks: → The immigration gang: This was the toughest issue that Pelosi had to deal with in the final 48 hours of frantic dealmaking. Reps. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) and Lou Correa (D-Calif.) also had vowed to oppose the reconciliation package unless immigration-related provisions were included. However, the Senate parliamentarian had already rejected two Democratic proposals to do so, saying they violated the Byrd Rule, which controls reconciliation. In the end, Pelosi agreed to include a provision giving legal status — but not a pathway to citizenship — for undocmented immigrants who entered the United States before 2011, provided they pass a Homeland Security Department background check. There’s also language on “green card recapture,” which potentially gives permanent residency to as many as one million more immigrants. These provisions are unlikely to make it through the Senate, but that’s not Pelosi’s problem. Her job is to get the bill through the House, and she needs Garcia, Espaillat and Correa to vote yes in order to do so. → Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.): Murphy has been abundantly clear that she needs CBO and JCT scores — not White House estimates — to vote for this bill. That’s not going to happen. So we’ll be interested to see whether the Florida Democrat, who co-chairs the moderate Blue Dog Coalition, will vote to send this bill to the Senate. Murphy’s other big issue is climate change, and the BBB package includes an historic boost in funding to combat climate change. So that may be enough. → The real mods: Jared Golden (D-Maine), Ed Case (D-Hawaii) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) have been on the leadership’s radar screen since Day One. With only a three-vote margin, party leaders had assumed that one or more of these Democrats would be a “no” vote. That limited leadership’s options because they then couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. These three Democrats co-signed a letter along with Murphy and Gottheimer earlier this week demanding full budgetary scores for the legislation, as well as 72 hours to review the final text before any floor vote. There won’t be full scores by the Congressional Budget Office or the Joint Committee on Taxation, although large portions of the bill have been analyzed. Golden has praised the changes made by leadership in the bill, although he dislikes the SALT dedication restoration. Case and Schrader still want a CBO score. Leadership aides, however, believe they may get some or all of them to vote for the measure. However — and this is more important — they don’t think their opposition will sink the BBB. → Rx Drug duo: Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) opposed the Medicare prescription drug pricing provision when it came up in the Energy and Commerce Committee, dealing a blow to progressives and the Democratic leadership. Not only was this a top policy issue for Democrats, but the leadership was going to use the hundreds of billions of dollars in savings from the effort to pay for other programs in BBB. After extensive negotiations, the prescription drug language has been dramatically altered, and Peters and Rice will vote yes. → The Texans: Democratic Reps. Vincente Gonzalez, Henry Cuellar and Filemon Vela of Texas had complained about a methane emissions fee included in the global warming portions of the BBB text. Methane emissions are a huge component of greenhouse gas emissions. But it appears as if these Democrats have dropped their opposition to the fee. “They’ll be fine,” said a Democratic aide close to the issue. THE OPINIONATORS NYT ed board to Dems: Get moderate! An interesting editorial from the New York Times ed board: “Democrats Deny Political Reality at Their Own Peril”
Now how about that! PRESENTED BY DUKE ENERGY We’re taking action against climate change with more renewables and advanced technology. See how Duke Energy is delivering cleaner, smarter energy for our communities. FRONTS ![]() MOMENTS 9:30 a.m.: President Joe Biden will receive his daily intelligence briefing. 10:15 a.m.: Biden will speak about the jobs report. Noon: Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will attend Colin Powell’s funeral. 2:30 p.m.: Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters. 4:05 p.m.: Vice President Kamala Harris will tour the NASA facility in Greenbelt, Md. 4:45 p.m.: Harris will speak at the NASA facility. Biden will go to Rehoboth Beach, Del., this afternoon. PRESENTED BY DUKE ENERGY More renewables. Less carbon. Visit duke-energy.com/BoldSteps to see our work. CLIP FILE WaPo → “U.S. cancels multimillion-dollar deal with covid vaccine maker whose plant ruined Johnson & Johnson doses,” by Andrew Jeong → “U.S. judge appears set to reject Trump bid to block records requested by Jan. 6 committee,” by Spencer Hsu → Igor Danchenko arrested, charged with lying to FBI about information in Steele dossier,” by Devlin Barrett and Tom Jackman WSJ → “Fed Chair Powell Seen Visiting White House on Thursday,” by Nick Timiraos → “Boeing Shareholders Reach Settlement in 737 MAX Board Oversight Suit,” by Andrew Tangel AP →“Thousands of intel officers refusing vaccine risk dismissal,” by Nomaan Merchant PRESENTED BY DUKE ENERGY Duke Energy is delivering a cleaner energy future for our customers and communities. We’re working to reduce CO₂ emissions for electricity generation in 2030 by at least 50%, on the way to net-zero CO₂ by 2050. We’re also targeting net-zero methane emissions for our natural gas distribution business by 2030. And we’re moving aggressively to make these goals a reality. Our company is fully focused, working together to accelerate the execution of our clean energy strategy – all while continuing to deliver affordable, reliable, cleaner energy for our communities and the future we share. Learn more about our bold clean energy commitment. ![]() Enjoying Punchbowl News AM? ![]() Subscribe 10 friends with your unique link (below) and get a Punchbowl News hat! Your referral link is: Or share via You currently have: 0 referrals
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