ВИБОРЧА ГАЗЕТА

Agenda in Peril, Biden Heads to US Capitol to Meet With Democrats

President Joe Biden was scheduled to meet Friday with his fellow Democrats in Congress, progressives and moderates in his party remained divided over two massive spending bills that account for much of his domestic agenda. 

Democrats have struggled to coalesce around those two bills. Progressives have vowed to block a $1 trillion infrastructure bill without an agreement to advance a larger social spending and climate change bill. Moderates say that bill’s current $3.5 trillion price tag is too high. 

After a two-hour party meeting, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives did not appear to have a clear plan. Representative James Clyburn, the chamber’s No. 3 Democrat, said he had “no idea” whether there would be a vote. 

But Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who is among Democratic leaders in the chamber, said he expected the House to vote Friday on the infrastructure bill, one day later than planned. “I expect a vote today, and I expect that bill will pass today,” he said. 

House Democrats are waiting for an “iron clad” agreement from the Senate as to what its members could agree to, he said. “We are working on trying to get to a place where everybody is comfortable,” No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer told reporters. 

The White House said Biden would travel to Capitol Hill to speak with Democrats later in the day. 

With a narrow majority in the House, Biden’s party cannot afford to lose too many votes on the infrastructure legislation, which would double spending on roads, pipes and other infrastructure. The bill has already passed the Senate with bipartisan support. 

Democrats said they also planned a vote to ensure that transportation funding, which expired on Thursday, is not disrupted while they continue to negotiate. 

Ahead of the meeting, Representative Pramila Jayapal, the influential chair of the 95-member House Progressive Caucus, said the smaller bill could not pass without agreement on the larger, multitrillion-dollar one. 

“I kept telling her that we didn’t have the votes, and I knew she knew that,” Jayapal said of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Progressives are angry that two Senate moderates — Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — oppose the size of Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan to boost social spending and fight climate change. The Senate is split 50-50 with Republicans, all of whom oppose the multitrillion-dollar bill, so every Democratic vote is needed for passage with Vice President Kamala Harris the tie breaker. 

Manchin has proposed a spending package of about $1.5 trillion. Sinema declined to say Thursday whether she agreed with Manchin’s proposal. She has met with Biden multiple times to discuss the bill. She was home in Arizona on Friday but remained in touch with the White House, a spokesman said.

Democratic Representative Dean Phillips, a moderate, said he wanted to see a vote on the infrastructure bill, even if it was not certain that it would pass. 

House Republicans are unlikely to help pass the infrastructure bill, eager to deny Biden a policy victory ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, when history favors their chances to recapture majorities. 

Debt-ceiling threat

Congress, which averted a politically damaging government shutdown on Thursday, has little time to focus on the infrastructure fight due to another fast-approaching deadline: the debt ceiling. 

A historic U.S. debt default could occur around October 18, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has estimated, if Congress fails to give the government additional borrowing authority beyond the current statutory limit of $28.4 trillion. 

Republicans want no part of the debt limit increase, saying it is Democrats’ problem since they control Congress and the White House. Democrats note that about $5 trillion of the nation’s debt is the result of tax cuts and spending passed during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency. 

The House approved a bill late Wednesday suspending the debt limit through December 2022. The Senate could vote on it “as early as next week,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, but Republicans are expected to block it again as they have twice before. 

 
…

Biden’s Landmark Legislation Faces Rocky Road to Passage

U.S. President Joe Biden faces opposition from within his own party in Congress to pass his signature Build Back Better legislation. The $3.5 trillion package would dramatically expand child care, health care and clean energy in America. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
…

America’s Investment in Infrastructure Doesn’t Always Pay Off

About two centuries ago, American local, state and federal governments poured millions of dollars into building canals to move the nation’s people and goods. By 1840, there were 3,000 miles of canals in the United States. But, within 20 years, the rise of the railroads would make canals practically obsolete. In the 1840s, several U.S. states ended up defaulting on the loans they took to build canals and railroads.

The defaults are an example of what can happen when governments spend on infrastructure — because trying to guess the future can be like shooting at a moving target. 

“You try to foresee a future. You try to guess what you’re going to need 10, 20, 30 years down the line,” says Richard White, professor emeritus of American history at Stanford University in California. “It takes a long time to construct this kind of infrastructure. And secondly, you’re going to be paying for it in the future…so very often you can be paying for something you no longer need well into the future.” 

Yet, not spending on infrastructure can be costly. 

“If we continue to not invest, Americans — between now and 2039 —— will lose on average $3,300 per year in lost disposable income,” says Greg DiLoreto, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). “That’s money they’ll lose because they’re spending it on fixing their cars because it ran into a pothole, for example. That’s wasted gas stuck in traffic. Or, this past year where I live, we have the big freeze. People were investing in generators so they would have power. Or that’s when a water line breaks and you go out and you buy bottled water.” 

Every four years, the ASCE grades America’s Infrastructure. The assessment looks at several categories including energy, waste water, drinking water, aviation, roads, bridges, dams and rail. The 2021 Report Card gives the nation’s infrastructure a low C grade — essentially the lowest passing grade possible. 

President Joe Biden has made infrastructure funding a signature piece of his agenda. In August, the U.S. Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan that focuses on transportation, utilities, including high-speed internet for rural communities, and pollution cleanup. The proposal, which would be the largest federal investment in infrastructure in more than a decade, must still pass in the House of Representatives. 

DiLoreto says it’s hard to prioritize one infrastructure category area over the other because they all hinge together. 

“You’ve got to have strong electric to have strong water and wastewater and broadband,” DiLoreto says. “You’ve got to have a strong road system if you’re going to feed your ports. You’ve got to have strong ports if you’re going to ship your goods and get your goods into this country. And, without the roads to support that, what happens when [goods] wind up on the ports and can’t go anywhere [because] congestion is a problem?” 

While it’s challenging to predict the future, White sees several places where infrastructure money would be wasted. That includes places like coastal Louisiana, the San Francisco Bay and large parts of Florida and the Atlantic coastline, which could be impacted by climate change and rising sea levels.

“Do we really want to build infrastructure in places where we’re no longer going to be able to inhabit?” White says. “Are we really going to want to build a huge amount of infrastructure to protect coastlines that we really cannot protect? Are we going to want to set up sewage systems that, in fact, will be overwhelmed by ocean rise? We have a whole series of things which are going to be controversial because people live there now and they’re going to want that infrastructure to protect them.” 

Another potentially unpopular move would be to refrain from spending money on more fire-prone areas of the country, primarily in the West. From January 1, 2021, through September 29, 2021, more than 46,000 wildfires burned through almost 2.4 million hectares of land across the United States.

“We should not be building up infrastructure that encourages people to move into places where these kinds of fires are going to ravage them, force them out, [and] we’re going to have to spend huge public resources trying to protect them,” White says. “It seems to me the writing’s on the wall. It’s not that hard to figure out, but none of these things are necessarily going to be particularly popular.” 

Local governments own most of the nation’s infrastructure, but any ambitious infrastructure plans require at least some federal funding. 

“There’s no question that all the spending increases happen because of bold elected officials, and elected officials are only bold when the people they represent tell them to be. So we need bold leadership to make this happen,” DiLoreto says. “We also need to design these projects both sustainably and to be resilient.” 
…

Democrats Delay Vote on Infrastructure Plan, Bowing to Progressives

Democratic leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives delayed a planned vote on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that had been set for Thursday, bowing to party progressives who had demanded action on a larger social policy bill first.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden have been scrambling to patch up differences between progressive lawmakers, who want a $3.5 trillion social spending package to go along with the infrastructure plan, and moderates wanting a smaller bill.

The move gave Biden and Democratic leaders more time to try to assemble the votes to gain support for a key part of his agenda.

“A great deal of progress has been made this week, and we are closer to an agreement than ever,” said White House spokesperson Jen Psaki. “But we are not there yet, and so, we will need some additional time to finish the work, starting tomorrow morning first thing.”

Some progressive Democrats have vowed to vote against the bill to invest in the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure, angry that Democrats have not yet reached agreement on a multitrillion-dollar companion bill with funding for social services and to address climate change.

Faced with increasingly stiff odds of passing their $3.5 trillion social spending proposal, Biden and his aides are trying to find out what narrower proposal could unite an ideologically fractured Democratic caucus of lawmakers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Lawmakers on the party’s left flank have said they will not vote for the infrastructure bill unless they feel certain their priorities will be reflected in the social spending bill.

Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, a leader of House progressives, told reporters: “Nothing has changed with our caucus members. We don’t have the votes to pass infrastructure.”

Moderate Democratic Senator Manchin has proposed a spending package of about $1.5 trillion. Another Democratic moderate, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, declined to say whether she agreed with Manchin’s proposal. She has met with Biden multiple times to discuss the bill.

With razor-thin majorities in Congress, Democrats cannot afford to lose many votes if they want to pass their agenda.

They are unlikely to win much support from House Republicans eager to take back the majority in the 2022 congressional elections.

Debt-ceiling threat

In yet another high-stakes battle, congressional Democrats and Republicans continued brawling over giving the Treasury Department additional borrowing authority beyond the current statutory limit of $28.4 trillion. A historic U.S. debt default could occur around Oct. 18, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has estimated, if Congress fails to act.

Republicans want no part of the debt limit increase, saying it is Democrats’ problem since they control Congress and the White House. Democrats note that about $5 trillion of the nation’s debt is the result of tax cuts and spending passed during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency.

The House approved a bill late on Wednesday suspending the debt limit through December 2022. The Senate could vote on it “as early as next week,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, but Republicans are expected to block it again.

Yellen said on Thursday it would be a “catastrophe” if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling. The uncertainty is starting to filter into financial markets, although few believe the nation will ultimately default.

The looming debt crisis is rattling Americans on both sides of the political spectrum, according to an Ipsos national opinion poll conducted for Reuters on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It showed that 65% of adults, including eight in 10 Democrats and five in 10 Republicans, are “very” or “somewhat” concerned that Congress will fail to reach a debt deal in time. 

 
…

Biden’s Landmark Legislation Faces Tough Road to Passage

U.S. President Joe Biden faces opposition from within his own party in Congress to pass his signature Build Back Better legislation. The $3.5 trillion package would dramatically expand child care, health care and clean energy in America. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
…

US Congress Approves Stopgap Funding to Keep Government Open

The House and Senate voted Thursday afternoon in favor of stopgap legislation to keep the government funded until December 3, avoiding a midnight shutdown. 

The Senate vote was 65-35, which was followed by a House vote of 254-175. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law Thursday night at the White House.

The legislation maintains current funding levels across government agencies. It also includes $28.6 billion for states suffering from hurricane and wildfire damage, and $6.3 billion to help relocate Afghan refugees moving to the United States after Washington ended its two-decade war in Afghanistan last month. 

Avoiding a shutdown was just one item on a busy congressional agenda. 

The House was also set Thursday to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan to repair the country’s aging roads and bridges and expand broadband internet service throughout the U.S.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to go ahead with the vote, even though some progressive Democrats promised to vote against it unless they received assurances that political moderates in their party and two key centrist senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, would also support a separate $3.5 trillion measure to greatly expand the country’s social safety net programs.

“We’re on the path to winning the vote” on the infrastructure plan, Pelosi told reporters Thursday morning. The Senate has already approved the bipartisan legislation.

Senate Republicans earlier this week blocked passage of another measure to avert the possible partial government shutdown because it also included a provision to suspend the country’s long-term debt limit, which they are trying to force Democrats to adopt on their own without Republican support.

But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans would support a measure that deals only with the funding package to keep the government open into the new fiscal year that starts Friday.

There have been 21 partial U.S. government shutdowns since 1976, including three during the single four-year White House term of President Donald Trump.

By law, U.S. government agencies must have congressionally authorized funding to operate. Shutdowns have usually occurred when Congress and the White House cannot agree on funding levels for specific operations or whether the programs in question deserve to be funded at all.

Without funding during the shutdowns, many government operations have been halted, such as pension payments to older Americans, the processing of income tax refunds and accessibility to national parks. National security operations, however, have been deemed essential, and workers have stayed on the job even though their paychecks might be delayed.

Additionally, Pelosi told Democratic colleagues the House would vote soon on suspending the national government’s debt limit.

Even if the House passes the legislation, though, its fate in the politically divided Senate, with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, is uncertain.

Senate Republicans already twice this week have rejected efforts to suspend the debt limit, saying it is an effort by opposition Democrats to clear the path for the massive new spending plan to expand social safety net programs, the most since the 1960s.

Republicans uniformly oppose the Democratic proposals championed by Biden.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told congressional leaders on Tuesday that the government would likely run out of money to pay its bills by October 18 if Congress did not suspend the debt limit or raise it substantially beyond its current $28.4 trillion total.
…

International Safe Abortion Day Marked by Battles in US, Latin America

Protesters around the world marked International Safe Abortion Day this week as high-profile cases in the United States and Latin America once again focused attention on the debate over reproductive rights.VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on the fight over a Texas abortion law that has reached Capitol Hill.

Producer: Bakhtiyar Zamanov
…

Democratic-Controlled Congress Poised to Approve Stopgap Funding to Keep US Government Open

The Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress appeared set Wednesday to approve a stopgap funding measure to avert a partial national government shutdown at midnight Thursday. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the legislation would maintain current funding levels across government agencies through December 3. It would also include $6.3 billion to help relocate Afghan refugees moving to the U.S. after Washington ended its two-decade war in Afghanistan last month, and $28.6 billion to help eastern and southern states recover from devastating hurricanes and western states from raging wildfires. 

“We can approve this measure quickly and send it to the House so it can reach the president’s desk before funding expires midnight tomorrow,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor. “With so many critical issues to address, the last thing the American people need right now is a government shutdown. This proposal will prevent one from happening.” 

Senate Republicans earlier this week blocked passage of another measure to avert the shutdown because it also included a provision to suspend the country’s long-term debt limit, which they are trying to force Democrats to adopt on their own without Republican support. 

But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans would support a “clean” funding package to keep the government open into the new fiscal year starting October 1, such as the legislation proposed by Schumer. 

If passed by the Senate, the stopgap funding bill would head to the House of Representatives, where House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Tuesday that the chamber could also vote on it later Wednesday. 

Previous shutdowns

There have been 21 partial U.S. government shutdowns, all since 1976, and include three during former President Donald Trump’s one-term administration. The second shutdown during Trump’s term on February 9, 2018, was only a few hours and involved a filibuster by Republican Senator Rand Paul. 

By law, U.S. government agencies must have congressionally authorized funding in order to operate. Shutdowns have usually occurred when Congress and the White House cannot agree on funding levels for specific operations or whether the programs in question deserve to be funded at all. 

Without funding during the shutdowns, many government operations have been halted, such as pension payments to older Americans, the processing of income tax refunds and accessibility to national parks. But national security operations have been deemed essential and workers have stayed on the job, even as their paychecks might be delayed. 

Debt limit

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democratic colleagues the chamber would vote soon on suspending the national government’s debt limit. 

But even if the House passes the legislation, its fate in the politically divided Senate, with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, is uncertain. 

Senate Republicans already twice this week have rejected efforts to suspend the debt limit, saying it is an effort by opposition Democrats to clear the path for a massive new spending plan to expand social safety net programs the most since the 1960s. 

Republicans uniformly oppose the Democratic proposals championed by President Joe Biden. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told congressional leaders on Tuesday that the government is likely to run out of money to pay its bills by October 18 if Congress does not suspend the debt limit or raise it substantially beyond its current $28.4 trillion total. 

 
…

Uncertainty Grips Washington in Face of Another Possible Shutdown

If Congress fails to act, the U.S. government’s authority to continue spending money will expire at midnight on Thursday, forcing more than 1 million federal workers and an untold number of contractors to stop working. Thousands more will be expected to continue working without clarity about precisely when they will be paid. 

“The stakes are whether the United States government is able to answer the many challenges that we face as a country,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, an advocacy group for improved federal government.

And once the government shuts down, Stier said, restarting it isn’t like flipping a switch. 

“This is a multitrillion-dollar, very complex entity,” he told VOA. “And so, turning it off and turning it back on actually takes a ton of energy and a bunch of time. So, it is highly costly — billions of dollars costly — when you have a shutdown, even if it’s not for a very long period of time.” 

History of shutdowns 

Since 1980, the federal government has shut down because of a lack of funding 21 different times. 

This would be the first government shutdown of President Joe Biden’s term in office. Going back to Jimmy Carter’s term in office from 1977 to 1981, every U.S. president except for George W. Bush has experienced at least one such funding crisis, though the majority have lasted only a few days and several have been for a few hours. 

The last time the government shut down was in 2018, when a dispute between then-President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over his proposal to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico resulted in a record-setting 35-day partial closure that stretched into January 2019. 

Not a full shutdown 

The term “government shutdown” is something of a misnomer. Under existing rules, when the government runs out of funding, federal agencies are required to furlough all “nonessential” employees. Doctors and nurses at hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs will still be allowed to go to work. So will Transportation Security Agency officers, active duty members of the military and most federal law enforcement officers. 

But employees deemed essential will still not be paid until the shutdown is resolved. 

In a sign of the degree to which government shutdowns have been normalized as just part of how Washington does business, Trump in 2019 signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which guarantees that federal workers, essential and nonessential, receive the back pay they missed during the duration of any future government shutdowns. 

However, Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said that a promise of getting paid eventually is cold comfort to a federal worker unable to pay their rent. 

“So many of our members live paycheck to paycheck,” Kelley told VOA. “Unless a creditor or landlord agrees to work with them, they’re going to be in a terrible situation.” 

If financial distress winds up affecting a furloughed employee’s credit rating, Kelley said, the damage can extend to their careers. “A lot of security clearances depend on your credit rating,” Kelley said, meaning that workers whose credit suffers could lose their jobs. 

What to expect 

In past shutdowns, the most publicly visible effects were the closure of national parks and the museums near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Those would also likely happen this time around. But it’s beneath the surface where shutdowns cause real turmoil. 

About 60% of government employees would be barred from working during a shutdown, which means that any number of seemingly mundane procedures would stop happening. New passport applications wouldn’t be processed; small business loans wouldn’t be approved; requests for federal retirement benefits would stop moving through the system. 

Most Americans would not be immediately affected by stalled government activity. But those who are — a person waiting for a passport, a small-business owner waiting for funding, a retiree needing income — could face anything from inconvenience to significant economic injury. 

Employees of government contractors are particularly vulnerable. For example, Congress has contracts with private firms to supply the workers who provide food service on Capitol Hill and clean congressional offices. During a shutdown, those workers cannot work, and because they are paid an hourly wage rather than a salary, they rarely recover those lost wages. 

Economic damage is limited and localized 

The 35-day shutdown during the Trump administration was only partial, because before it began, Congress had passed funding measures for some agencies, most notably the Department of Defense.

Nevertheless, the Congressional Budget Office later estimated that the shutdown had “delayed approximately $18 billion in federal discretionary spending for compensation and purchases of goods and services, and suspended some federal services.”

The overall impact on GDP was minor, the CBO found. During the shutdown and immediately following it, economic activity slumped noticeably, but much of that “lost” productivity was recouped later in the year. On balance, the CBO said that the 35-day shutdown cut 2019 GDP in the U.S. by just 0.02% 

However, the CBO noted, the damage from the shutdown was not equally distributed.

“Underlying those effects on the overall economy are much more significant effects on individual businesses and workers,” the agency found. “Among those who experienced the largest and most direct negative effects are federal workers who faced delayed compensation and private-sector entities that lost business. Some of those private-sector entities will never recoup that lost income.” 

‘Completely irresponsible’ 

Kelley, of the American Federation of Government Employees, pointed out that it is unprecedented for the government to be shut down in the midst of a pandemic, calling it “completely irresponsible” to hobble agencies battling COVID-19 with staff shortages. 

“Shutting down the government at this critical juncture, in this fight against the dangerous delta variant (of the COVID-19 virus) is simply unthinkable,” he said. 

Stier, whose organization prepared detailed guidance for government agencies navigating shutdowns, said all that guidance had to be rewritten to reflect employees working remotely, and that new measures remain untested. 

 
…