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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

A quick programming note: Please join us for our latest Punchbowl News Pop Up Conversation with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday, May 4 at 11:30 a.m. 

There’s no shortage of questions to ask Buttigieg as he begins the herculean task of helping sell President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan to Congress and to the American people. Austin Ramirez, President and CEO of Husco and Vice Chair of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ Infrastructure Vision 2050 Task Force, will join us at the top of the event for a fireside chat. Sign up!

The joint address pregame: Here are some numbers to ponder as you listen to President Joe Biden deliver his first address to Congress tonight — $6.1 trillion, 54% and zero.

The first number — $6.1 trillion — is what the Biden administration wants to spend combined on the American Rescue Plan, the American Jobs Plan and the American Family Plan. Any one of these would be among the most expensive legislative proposals ever adopted by Congress; together they represent a staggering sum of money that would dramatically reshape the U.S. economy and society. 

The American Family Plan that Biden will unveil tonight has a $1.8 trillion price tag, while the American Jobs Plan is estimated at $2.5 trillion. The American Rescue Plan, already signed into law, came in at $1.9 trillion. The White House claims the latter two proposals — if enacted — will be “fully paid for” in 15 years and actually reduce the deficit.

The second number — 54% — is Biden’s current approval rating. It’s held pretty steady since he was sworn in on Jan. 20. Biden’s disapproval rating has crept up a little and now stands at 41%. This is mostly due to Biden’s handling of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. But after nearly 100 days in office, Biden and his top aides have to be pleased with his overall standing. He’s not as popular as Barack Obama, George W. Bush or Bill Clinton at this early point in their presidencies, yet Donald Trump never came anywhere close to that number.

And the third number — zero — is how many Republicans we believe will vote for either the American Jobs Plan or the American Family Plan. It may not matter in the end if Democrats stick together, but there will be no support from the GOP side of the aisle — not if any tax increases are part of the deal.

A quick reminder: We are closing out our first anonymous survey of senior staff on Capitol Hill — The Canvass — this week. If you signed up and haven’t responded yet, please be on the lookout for a final email later this morning. It only takes five minutes. And, if you are eligible and haven’t signed up yet — click here. We’re really excited to share topline results in our AM newsletter the first week in May. Premium members will get a deeper dive and the full results. You can join our Premium community here.

DIGGING DEEPER

What Biden will propose tonight in his American Family Plan

The Biden administration released this fact sheet to give an overview of the $1.8 trillion American Family Plan. It came off embargo at 5 a.m. 

The  White House is framing these two massive packages — the American Jobs Plan and American Family Plan — as “once-in-a-generation investments in our nation’s future,” with the cost being shouldered in by wealthy Americans who have done spectacularly well during the last 20 years. 

Biden’s goal is to rebuild the middle class, which has lost ground during the same period. Biden “knows it should be easier for American families to break into the middle class, and easier to stay in the middle class… And, he knows that, unlike in past decades, policies to make life easier for American families must focus on bringing everyone along: inclusive of gender, race, or place of residence — urban, suburban, or rural,” the summary says. 

Here are some highlights of the American Family Plan, which will be the centerpiece of Biden’s address to Congress later tonight:

→ $200 billion for universal preschool for all three and four-year-old children.

→ $109 billion for two years of free community college, plus $85 billion for Pell Grants.

→ $62 billion for student retention programs at community colleges and “institutions that serve students from our most disadvantaged communities.”

→ $46 billion for HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), TCUs (Tribal Colleges and Universities), and MSIs (Minority Serving Institutions.)

→ $225 billion for child care for low and middle income families.

→ $225 billion for a national paid family and medical leave program.

→ $800 billion to permanently extend the one-year tax cuts under the American Rescue Plan. These include expansions of the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, as well as ACA premiums tax credits.

To pay for all this new spending, Biden plans to roll back the 2017 GOP tax cut law, and will put tens of billions of dollars into the IRS.

→ The Biden administration says they’ll step up tax enforcement. A senior administration official said last night on a call with reporters that “In America today, taxpayers are more likely to be audited if they live in the Mississippi Delta than if they live on Park Avenue.”

→ The top individual tax rate will snap back to 39.6%, which the White House likes to point out, would only hit the “top 1%” of taxpayers. 

→  For households making more than $1 million per year, capital gains will be taxed at regular income rates. The White House is fond of pointing out here that this would only impact “the top three tenths of 1% of taxpayers.” 

→ Close the carried interest loophole that hedge fund managers can take advantage of to reduce their tax exposure. 

→ Kill the “step-up basis” for gains more than $1 million. This provision allows wealthy Americans to pass on assets to their offspring at a favorable tax rate.

So what does this all mean? What should you make of it? This is a lot for Congress to handle — especially with a four-seat margin in the House and no room for error in the 50-50 Senate.

The White House will get zero GOP support for any of this. And we’ll see just how much big-ticket legislating Democrats can take on their own.

So, it’s very fair to say we’re skeptical.

LEADER LOOK

Scalise talks police reform on the Daily Punch bonus edition

At noon today, we’ll drop our second bonus edition of the Daily Punch — this time with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. 

Here’s a quick bite of Scalise on overhauling police laws. The long and short of it is while this is gaining steam in the Senate — with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) at the helm — Scalise seems to want nothing to do with it.

Check it out, and subscribe here

Jake: “Okay one more topic. Something that’s gaining steam … and I’m not surprised but I’m surprised it’s gaining as much steam as it is, is [overhauling] police laws. Tim Scott, your former colleague in the House is now in the Senate is leading that charge. I’m curious how you think about some of these issues when it comes to police overhaul, police law overhaul like qualified immunity, and things of that nature. … [T]he discussion is allowing people to sue police departments instead of individual police officers,

Scalise: “Yeah look — Tim Scott’s been trying to work on a bipartisan basis to address bad police departments, especially without undermining the work of the good police officers who have risked their lives every day. My colleague and roommate Pete Stauber who’s now in the house from Minnesota, he used to be a police officer in Duluth, Minnesota and so he knows what it takes to support good cops, but also to address the problems of bad policing, and usually when you see bad policing, it’s not just one dirty cop, it’s it’s a culture in a bad poorly run department. 

“I saw this in New Orleans. The city of New Orleans in the 1990s had blatant corruption. There were police officers who went to jail, and there were dirty cops because it was being allowed. And to his credit, Marc Morial, who was the mayor of New Orleans at the time, he’s now the head of the National Urban League. Mark and I clashed on a number of different issues when I was in the state legislature but he got this right. And he confronted it. He brought in a really good police chief, who confronted the problems in the department and they cleaned up those problems, and they didn’t tolerate dirty cops. 

“All the good cops out there, though the worst thing that they can see as a good cop is to see a dirty cop because it makes everybody look bad. We know that’s a very small percentage — you root them out. You don’t undermine the work of good police by getting rid of qualified immunity, and so I would just like to see us focus on not just dirty cops but also poorly run departments, and maybe we can help them with better training.”

BIDEN’S DIPLOMATIC CORPS

The Post scoops ambassador list

The Washington Post’s Tyler Pager and Anne Gearan got the reporting that most people in town want: a pretty lengthy list of President Joe Biden’s ambassadors.

Here’s what the Post reported:

→ Cindy McCain to be ambassador to the World Food Program in Rome.

→ Rahm Emanuel to be ambassador to Japan.

→ David Cohen will be ambassador to Canada.

→ Ken Salazar will be ambassador to Mexico.

→ Denise Bauer will be ambassador to France.

→ Mark Gitenstein will be ambassador to the EU in Brussels.

→ Julie Smith will be ambassador to NATO.

→ Michael Adler will be ambassador to Belgium.

→ Tom Nides will be ambassador to Israel.

→ Nicholas Burns will be ambassador to China.

Also expected to get posts: Chris Dodd and Jeff Flake. Biden hasn’t settled on who will be ambassador to the United Kingdom.

MOMENTS

10 a.m.: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.

9 p.m.: Biden will address a joint session of Congress. VP Kamala Harris, the first lady and second gentlemen will all attend.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “In a Locked-Down Capitol, Biden Will Address a Sparse Audience,” by Luke Broadwater

→ “Prosecutors Are Said to Have Sought Aggressive Approach to Capitol Riot Inquiry,” by Katie Benner: “In the weeks after the deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6, federal prosecutors in Washington devised a broad plan to root out possible conspirators, according to two people briefed on it: pull together the names of an array of people who may have known the assailants, and investigate them for ties to the attack.

“Those lists, the prosecutors proposed, could include organizers of the rally where President Donald J. Trump spoke just before the assault, anyone who helped pay for rioters to travel to Washington and any member of the far-right extremist groups that were represented in the crowd that day.

“Two of the prosecutors — trial lawyers leading the riot inquiry — presented the plan to the F.B.I. in late February, along with a document of about 25 pages that laid out the strategy with an eye toward uncovering possible conspiracies between the attackers and others, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation.

"The aggressive plan was in keeping with the Justice Department’s public vow to charge those who participated in the attack on the Capitol. But F.B.I. officials balked, citing concerns that the plan appeared to suggest investigating people without any evidence that they had committed crimes and that it violated bureau policy and First Amendment protections. It is not against the law to join organizations, including extremist groups, nor to participate in a protest or fund travel to a rally.”

→ “Second Close Call Between Iranian and American Vessels Raises Tensions,” by Eric Schmitt

WaPo

→ “Tim Scott seeks to balance role as dealmaker on policing and critic of Biden agenda in Wednesday night address,” by Mike DeBonis and Paul Kane

→ “Senate Democrats press Biden to admit more refugees,” by John Wagner, Colby Itkowitz, Eugene Scott, Hannah Knowles and Seung Min Kim

→ “A New York Post story about Kamala Harris triggered conservative outrage. Almost all of it was wrong. Now the reporter has resigned.” by Paul Farhi

WSJ

→ “Google Earnings Smash Sales Records as Digital Ad Market Booms,” by Tripp Mickle

→ WSJ Editorial Board: “Biden’s Post-Trump Honeymoon”

AP

→ “India tops 200,000 dead as virus surge breaks health system,” by Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi

→ “Harris takes on ‘hard work’ in 100 days as vice president,” by Alexandra Jaffe

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