It’s Friday aka October 1st, 2021; I’m on vacation in 6 days! There are 30 days until Halloween.
For Friday, October 1st, 2021, President Biden has received his daily brief. Like usual for this week, there is nothing else on his schedule. Reminder as the on vacation *cries* Daniel Dale says; public schedules don’t include all of a president’s activities.
President Biden has tweeted 2 time so far for Friday; I’ll be sharing the first one down thread.
FRIDAY TWEET #2:
When Biden Bits was published for Thursday, President Biden had tweeted 1 time. He added 2 tweets giving him a Thursday Tweeting Total of 3 tweets and 0 retweets.
FRIDAY’S FIRST TWEET:
Tiny background reminder; President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, included the American Jobs Plan aka Infrastructure. Because the Senate passed a Bipartisan Infrastructure bill the price tag for that hovers between $550 billion to $1 trillion spent over ten years which is estimated to add $256 billion to the deficit.
As Glenn Kessler with the Washington Post explained on September 28th, 2021 “but for complicated reasons that is a lowball figure. Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Budget, says that buried in the CBO report is information that indicates the infrastructure bill would add $398 billion to the deficit.”
He breaks it down like this:
Meanwhile, the other part of the plan is moving on a parliamentary track known as reconciliation. That means it can pass with a simple majority in the Senate because it is not subject to a filibuster. So no Republicans votes are needed. But it’s grown from $1.8 trillion to $3.5 trillion as climate-change elements from the original infrastructure bill and other Democratic wish-list items have been added.
Under the reconciliation instructions passed by the Senate, that spending will be offset with revenue raisers — such as tax increases on the wealthy and corporations — so the impact on the deficit will be as low as zero or as high as $1.75 trillion over 10 years.
A White House official told The Fact Checker that Biden is committed to making sure the final impact is zero, which is why he has been repeating this line in recent days. “It’s important to pass the bill with zero deficits,” the official said.
But it’s not so simple. Lawmakers are certain to play all sorts of budget games to achieve that mythical zero within the 10-year budget framework. One possible trick: terminating a new spending program early, before the 10 years is completed. That would “save” money — and require a future Congress to decide whether to continue a possibly popular benefit.
Washington Post. 09/28/2021.
When passing tax cuts under reconciliation, such as President George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cuts and President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, Republicans made constant use of this tactic to lower the calculated deficit impact of the debt-financed tax cuts. The scorekeepers said the Trump tax bill inflated the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years, but only because tax cuts for individuals — so touted by the GOP — were set to expire after 2025. That maneuver reduced the 10-year deficit forecast by about $500 billion. (Biden hopes to roll back the tax cuts for wealthier Americans to help pay for his spending plans but in theory they are due to disappear in four years anyway.)
Moody’s Analytics, in a July report, said the reconciliation bill would add about $600 billion to the deficits over 10 years but would be “more-or-less paid for” when the positive economic effects are calculated.
Honestly the short answer is it’s unknown what this agenda would add long term as President Biden will not be President forever, nor will D’s control the Congress forever either.
THURSDAY’S LAST TWEET:
The White House offered a statement on H.R. 5305:
On Thursday, September 30, 2021, the President signed into law:
White House.gov. 09/30/2021.
H.R. 5305, the “Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act” which includes a short-term continuing resolution that provides fiscal year 2022 appropriations to Federal agencies through December 3, 2021, for continuing projects and activities of the Federal Government; includes supplemental appropriations for disaster relief; includes supplemental appropriations for Afghanistan evacuees; and extends several expiring authorizations.
Thank you to Chairman Patrick Leahy, Vice Chairman Richard Shelby, Chair Rosa DeLauro, and Ranking Member Kay Granger for their leadership.
The White House published the following Presidential statement on H.R. 5305:
Tonight, I signed into law the continuing resolution to fund the government through early December. I want to thank both houses of Congress—especially Senators Leahy and Shelby and Representatives DeLauro and Granger—for this bipartisan agreement, and for avoiding a government shutdown as we have seen so often in the past.
It meets critical and urgent needs of the nation, including disaster relief for both red and blue states hit hard by Hurricane Ida and other devastating natural disasters, and funding to help us resettle Afghan allies in the United States following the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan. This funding will also keep up our fight against COVID-19 and—on this International Recovery Day—it will continue our battle against the opioid crisis.
There’s so much more to do. But the passage of this bill reminds us that bipartisan work is possible and it gives us time to pass longer-term funding to keep our government running and delivering for the American people.
White House.gov. 09/30/2021.
And last but not least the White House Press Secretary issued the following statement on H.R. 5305:
The President is grateful to Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer for their extraordinary leadership, and to Members from across the Democratic Caucus who have worked so hard the past few days to try to reach an agreement on how to proceed on the Infrastructure Bill and the Build Back Better plan. A great deal of progress has been made this week, and we are closer to an agreement than ever. But we are not there yet, and so, we will need some additional time to finish the work, starting tomorrow morning first thing.
While Democrats do have some differences, we share common goals of creating good union jobs, building a clean energy future, cutting taxes for working families and small businesses, helping to give those families breathing room on basic expenses—and doing it without adding to the deficit, by making those at the top pay their fair share.
White House.gov. 09/30/2021.
The daily briefing is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. D.C., time.
This is an Open Thread.
