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Republican Victory in Virginia’s Governor Race Seen as Bad Omen for Democrats

In an election with implications far beyond its borders, the state of Virginia on Tuesday elected Republican businessman and political neophyte Glenn Youngkin to serve as governor, ending a decade-long trend of Democratic domination of state-wide offices and signaling trouble for that party’s fate in next year’s congressional midterms.

“Together we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth,” Youngkin told a crowd of supporters at a victory celebration early Wednesday.   

Youngkin took 50.7% of the vote to best Democrat and former Governor Terry McAuliffe, who received only 48.6% in his bid to return to the job he left after leaving office in 2018 due to term limits.

Republicans were successful in all of the statewide races, winning the offices of attorney general and lieutenant governor. Winsome Sears, a conservative Republican, became the first female and first woman of color to win election as lieutenant governor in the commonwealth’s 400-year legislative history. The Republicans also seemed poised to retake the House of Delegates, one of the two chambers of the state legislature.

Biden seen as drag on McAuliffe

The race, which culminated a little over nine months into Democrat Joe Biden’s first year as president of the United States, was widely seen as a signal of public sentiment toward the president and his party. Biden carried Virginia easily last November, beating then-President Donald Trump by 10 percentage points.

Currently, though, Biden’s approval ratings have fallen into negative territory, with just over half of Americans expressing disapproval of his performance, which may have been a drag on McAuliffe’s campaign, according to analysts.  

“Since August, Biden’s national standing has weakened,” Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman wrote in an analysis published Wednesday morning by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “That decline, combined with the usual headwinds the president’s party faces in off-year elections, helped fuel Youngkin’s 12-point net improvement over Trump’s 10-point loss in Virginia last year.”

Warning signs for Democrats

The result in Virginia is a warning signal for Democrats in Washington. They have struggled to agree among themselves on a way to pass major elements of the president’s domestic agenda despite having control of both the House of Representatives and Senate, although by very slim margins. The party is in danger of losing control of both chambers of Congress in next year’s elections.

In another warning sign, Phil Murphy, the Democratic governor of New Jersey, was locked in a tight reelection battle with Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli. The outcome will be decided by a tiny share of ballots yet to be counted. Murphy had been expected to win easily.

“Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D-NJ) surprisingly close race in the lower-profile and still-uncalled New Jersey gubernatorial contest also indicates that the poor Democratic environment was a main driver of the party’s poor 2021 Election Night,” Kondik and Coleman wrote.

A path for Republicans

The Virginia race suggests that there is a viable path forward for Republicans struggling to find their way out of the shadow of Trump, who, despite low favorability ratings with the general public, retains an iron grip on the party’s base.  

While Youngkin did accept Trump’s endorsement, Youngkin did not campaign with the former president, and rarely mentioned him in his public remarks, while McAuliffe used every opportunity to portray Youngkin as a Trump acolyte. Throughout the campaign, Youngkin, a wealthy investment businessman,  walked a very narrow path, projecting the image of an amiable suburban father while simultaneously stoking the anger of the former president’s base with warnings about hot-button issues.

Youngkin was able to successfully bleed away Biden voters in the suburbs of the state’s largest urban areas. In northern Virginia, for example, Youngkin took 35% of the vote in Fairfax County, where Trump won only 28% last year. In neighboring Loudoun County, Youngkin took 44.5% of the vote compared to Trump’s 36.5% last year.  

Early in the campaign, Youngkin refused to say whether he believed that Biden had won the presidential election, keeping himself in line with Trump, who claims, despite copious evidence to the contrary, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. Youngkin eventually conceded that Biden won legitimately.  

‘Sycophantic’ devotion to Trump proves unnecessary

The Republican Party is likely to take a couple of lessons from the results in Virginia, said Jennifer N. Victor, an associate professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at Virginia’s George Mason University.

“First, Republicans can win without Trump on the ballot,” she said. “And Republicans can win with some emulation of Trump and Trump ideas, and maybe even a few Trump tactics, but that direct, almost sycophantic association with Trump is not necessary in order to get some of the benefits.”

Victor said she expects Republican candidates in 2022 to use the lessons learned from the Youngkin campaign.  

“Democrats are going to be at a structural disadvantage in 2022, and the president’s party usually loses seats in the midterm,” she said. “So, if Republicans use the Youngkin playbook in 2022, I’m guessing it’ll work out okay for them.”

Critical Race Theory

Throughout the campaign, Youngkin played up fears that Critical Race Theory, an academic discipline studied in law schools, is being taught in Virginia’s public schools. The theory is not, in fact, part of the state’s curriculum, but has been broadly conflated with arguments over how the more controversial aspects of U.S. history — particularly slavery and “Jim Crow” racism – ought to be taught in schools.  

Jim Crow refers to structural racism that was common in the Deep South throughout much of the 20th century. Jim Crow laws mandated segregation policies targeting Black people in the South.

Over the past year in Virginia, school board meetings have been regularly interrupted by white parents angrily denouncing schools for lessons that, they claim, teach white children to feel guilty about the nation’s historic treatment of minorities.  

Youngkin focused on their concerns, pledging to “ban” Critical Race Theory from the state’s schools. Late in his campaign, he ran a controversial ad featuring a woman who claimed that her son had suffered severe psychological distress after reading a book assigned in English class about slavery. The boy was a senior in high school at the time, and the book was Beloved, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.  

Analysts believe that McAuliffe harmed his own chances when, in a debate with Youngkin in September, he seemed to belittle the concerns of parents, saying, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”  

Trump takes credit

Despite Youngkin’s efforts to distance himself from the former president, Trump took credit for the victory, attributing it to supporters pushing his “Make America Great Again” slogan, which he abbreviated as MAGA.   

In a statement released by his spokesperson, he said, “I would like to thank my BASE for coming out in force and voting for Glenn Youngkin. Without you he would not have been close to winning. The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before. Glenn will be a great governor. Thank you to the people of the commonwealth of Virginia and most particularly, to our incredible MAGA voters.”
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Boston Elects Wu, First Woman and Asian American as Mayor 

Boston voters, marking a key milestone in the city’s long political history, for the first time elected a woman and an Asian American as mayor on Tuesday, tapping City Councilor Michelle Wu to serve in the city’s top political office. 

Wu’s victory marks a turning point for the city. Boston had only elected white men as mayor before her. 

“One of my sons asked me the other night if boys can be elected mayor of Boston,” Wu told supporters. “They have been, and they will again someday, but not tonight.” 

The choice of Wu over fellow Boston City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George is just the latest marker of how much the Boston of not-so-long-ago — known for its ethnic neighborhoods, glad-handing politicians and mayors with Irish surnames — is giving way to a new Boston. 

Wu won’t have much time to revel in her win. She will be sworn in on Nov. 16. 

“We are ready to meet this moment. We are ready to become a Boston for everyone. We’re ready to be a Boston that doesn’t push people out, but welcomes all who call our city home,” Wu said. 

Just before Wu spoke, Essaibi George conceded the race. 

“I want to offer a great big congratulations to Michelle Wu. She is the first woman, the first person of color and, as an Asian American, the first elected to be mayor of Boston,” Essaibi George told her supporters. “I know this is no small feat.” 

Wu had racked up a series of high-profile endorsements, including support from acting Mayor Kim Janey, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a former Boston city councilor and member of the “Squad” in Congress. 

The election marks a pivotal moment for Boston, which has wrestled with racial strife throughout its history. Tensions spilled over into violence in the 1970s, when court-ordered desegregation of the city’s public schools led to the busing of Black students to predominantly white schools and white students to mostly Black schools. 

Each of the five main mayoral candidates — all Democrats — had identified as a person of color. 

The 36-year-old Wu, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan, grew up in Chicago and moved to Boston to attend Harvard University and Harvard Law School.

Essaibi George, 47, a lifelong Boston resident and former public school teacher, describes herself as a first-generation Arab-Polish American. Her father was a Muslim immigrant from Tunisia. Her mother, a Catholic, immigrated from Poland. 

With her victory in hand, it’s now up to Wu to try to make good on some of her sweeping proposals. 

Two of Wu’s most ambitious pledges focus on housing and public transportation, familiar themes for the city’s 675,000 residents. 

To help push back against soaring housing costs that have forced some former residents out of the city, Wu has promised to pursue rent stabilization or rent control. The biggest hurdle to that proposal is the fact that Massachusetts voters narrowly approved a 1994 ballot question banning rent control statewide. 

Another of Wu’s top campaign promises is to create a “fare free” public transit system. Wu has said the proposal would strengthen the city’s economy, address climate change and help those who take the bus or subway to school or work. 

Like the rent control pledge, Wu can’t as mayor unilaterally do away with fares on the public transit system, which is under the control of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 

Wu said she would try to work with partners in state government to make each proposal a reality. 

“We don’t have to choose between generational change and keeping the streetlights on, between tackling big problems with bold solutions and filling our potholes,” she said. 

Other challenges that Wu will have to grapple with as mayor include public education, policing, the city’s ongoing struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the long-term effects of climate change on the coastal metropolis. 

The election was also a test of whether voters in a city long dominated by parochial neighborhood politics was ready to tap someone like Wu not born and raised in the city. 

Wu was first elected in 2013 at age 28, becoming the first Asian American woman to serve on the council. In 2016, she became the first woman of color to serve as president. Essaibi George was first elected to the council in 2015. 

The election reflects an increasingly diverse Boston. 

The latest U.S. Census statistics show Boston residents who identify as white make up 44.6% of the population compared to Black residents (19.1%), Latino residents (18.7%) and residents of Asian descent (11.2%). 

The city’s previous elected mayor — Democrat Marty Walsh — stepped down earlier this year to become U.S. secretary of labor under President Joe Biden. Walsh was replaced on an acting basis by Janey, sworn in March 24 as Boston’s first female and first Black mayor. 

 
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Democrat Eric Adams Wins Race for New York City Mayor

Democrat Eric Adams has been elected New York City mayor, defeating Republican Curtis Sliwa on Tuesday in a contest far easier than his next task: steering a damaged city through its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Adams, a former New York City police captain and the Brooklyn borough president, will become the second Black mayor of the nation’s most populous city. David Dinkins, who served from 1990 to 1993, was the first.

“Tonight, New York has chosen one of you — one of our own. I am you. I am you,” Adams told a jubilant crowd at his victory party at a hotel in his hometown borough of Brooklyn. “After years of praying and hoping and struggling and working, we are headed to City Hall.”

Adams’ victory seemed all but assured after he emerged as the winner from a crowded Democratic primary this summer in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 7 to 1.

As a candidate, Adams referenced his working-class roots  and being raised with five siblings by a single mother who cleaned houses. He described carrying a garbage bag of clothes to school out of fear his family would be evicted.

He brought a photo of his late mother with him Tuesday as he voted in Brooklyn. He teared up as he described his life as a classic New York story, rising from a poor upbringing to become the leader of the city.

Adams, 61, will take office Jan. 1 in a city where more than 34,500 people have been killed by COVID-19, and where the economy is still beset by challenges related to the pandemic. The tourism industry hasn’t come back yet. Office buildings remain partly empty, with people still working from home. Schools are trying to get children back on track after a year of distance learning.

After he finished speaking, Adams was joined onstage by Gov. Kathy Hochul, who pledged “a whole new era of cooperation” between the state in the city, after eight years in which the former governor, Andrew Cuomo, was constantly at adds with Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“We will fight for you, not fight each other anymore,” she said.

De Blasio, a Democrat, was limited by law to two terms.

Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol, ran a campaign punctuated by his penchant for stunts and his signature red beret. He portrayed Adams as an out-of-touch elitist.

Adams dismissed Sliwa as a clown and painted him as untrustworthy for having admitted he made up claims years ago about being kidnapped and of other exploits from the Guardian Angels’ patrols.

Sliwa said at an election night party Tuesday that he tried to call Adams to concede but couldn’t immediately reach him.

“I am pledging my support to the new Mayor Eric Adams because we’re all going to have to coalesce together in harmony and solidarity if we’re going to save this city that we love,” Sliwa said.

Adams brings a nuanced perspective on policing and crime, drawing on his experiences as a former police captain, an officer who gained early attention for speaking critically about the department he served in, and as someone who experienced police brutality as a teen. At age 15, he said, he was beaten by police officers when he was arrested for trespassing.

He rejected progressive mantras to “defund the police,” though, and said he was proud of his time in the department.

Adams became a transit police officer in 1984. As a police officer, he cofounded an advocacy group, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, which pushed for criminal justice reform and decried police brutality.  

Adams retired from the police department in 2006. He then won a seat in the state Senate, representing Brooklyn. In 2013, he was elected borough president.

Though seen as the moderate candidate in the crowded Democratic primary, one who offered a business-friendly approach, Adams has rejected the label and maintains he is a progressive.

He is a vegan who wrote a book in 2020 about how a plant-based diet helped him with diabetes.  

Adams faced questions as a candidate about his residence after Politico reported he was sleeping at his Borough Hall office often. He co-owns an apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey, with his partner, Tracey Collins. He tried to dispel the questions during the campaign by giving reporters a tour of a basement apartment in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood that he said is his primary residence.

Sliwa tried to spotlight the issue during the campaign by crossing a bridge to Fort Lee while holding a milk carton featuring a picture of “missing” Adams.

Sliwa also become known for living with more than a dozen rescue cats in his very small apartment with his wife. He brought one of the cats with him Tuesday to his Manhattan polling place but was told the animal had to stay outside.

In his concession speech, Sliwa made it clear he wasn’t going to fade from the headlines.

“You will have Curtis Sliwa to kick around,” he vowed.
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Democrats Reach Drug Price Deal; Biden Upbeat on Manchin

Democrats reached agreement Tuesday on a plan to lower prescription drug costs for most older people, capping out-of-pocket Medicare costs at $2,000 and reducing the price of insulin, salvaging a campaign promise as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion domestic policy proposal. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the deal, which is one of the few remaining provisions that needed to be resolved in Biden’s big package as the party moves closer to wrapping up negotiations. Schumer acknowledged it’s not as sweeping as Democrats had hoped for, but a compromise struck with one key holdout Democrat, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. 

And Biden sounded upbeat about winning overall backing from another holdout, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who threw the president’s plan in flux this week by refusing to endorse it. 

“He will vote for this,” Biden said of Manchin during remarks at a global climate summit in Scotland.

Without divulging their private conversations, Biden said the senator was looking at the fine print of the legislation.

“But I think we’ll get there,” the president said.

Democrats are rushing to overcome party battles and finish a final draft of Biden’s plan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had hoped to wrap up the draft and pave the way for voting as soon as Thursday on the overall package, according to her remarks at a closed-door caucus meeting. But no votes have been scheduled.

The stakes are stark as Democrats are warily watching governors’ races Tuesday in two states — Virginia and New Jersey — that are seen as bellwethers in the mood of the electorate. Democrats are struggling to hold states that recently favored their party over Republicans. 

Schumer said that for the first time, Medicare will be able to negotiate prescription drug prices in its Part B and Part D programs. The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs would benefit those older Americans with the Part D prescription drug benefit, who number some 48 million, Democrats said. 

And there would be “a new monthly cap on the price of insulin, and an ‘inflation’ rebate policy to protect consumers from egregious annual increases in prices,” Schumer said. The insulin prices would fall from as high as $600 a dose to $35.

The penalties on drug manufacturers for raising prices beyond the inflation rate begin this year. 

Sinema’s office issued a statement saying the senator “welcomes a new agreement on a historic, transformative Medicare drug negotiation plan that will reduce out-of-pocket costs for seniors.” 

AARP, the powerful organization for older Americans, signaled support as it waits for details. CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said in a statement there was “no greater issue affecting the pocketbooks of seniors on Medicare than the ever-increasing costs of prescription drugs.” 

But Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America president and CEO Stephen J. Ubl said the proposal “gives the government the power to dictate how much a medicine is worth.” The pharmaceutical lobby warned it “threatens innovation.” 

On another issue, Democrats neared agreement on a plan to do away with the $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions that particularly hits New York, California and other high-tax states and was enacted as part of the Trump-era 2017 tax plan.

While repeal of the so-called SALT deduction cap is a priority for several northeastern state lawmakers, progressives want to prevent the super-wealthy from benefiting. Under an emerging plan, the cap would be repealed from 2021 to 2025, but reinstated from 2027 to 2031, according to a person who requested anonymity to discuss the private talks. 

The $1.75 trillion package is sweeping in its reach, and would provide large numbers of Americans with assistance to pay for health care, education, raising children and caring for elderly people in their homes. It also would provide some $555 billion in tax breaks encouraging cleaner energy and electrified vehicles, the nation’s largest commitment to tackling climate change. 

Much of its costs would be covered with higher taxes on people earning over $10 million annually and large corporations, which would now face a 15% minimum tax in efforts to stop big business from claiming so many deductions they end up paying zero in taxes. 

 
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Elections Across US Showcase Security Steps, New Voting Laws

Elections taking place across the U.S. on Tuesday will be the first to test new voting restrictions in some Republican-controlled states and give elections officials a chance to counter a year’s worth of misinformation about voting security.

Officials said demonstrating secure, consistent and fair practices could help reassure those who still have doubts about last year’s presidential election as they begin preparations for next year’s midterms.

“It is a great dress rehearsal for 2022,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon.

Much of the attention will be on Virginia and New Jersey, where voters are casting ballots for governor and other statewide races. For the rest of the country, voters were making selections on a variety of local races, ranging from mayor and city council to school board and bond measures. Voters in Maine, New York, Texas and a few other few states were considering ballot initiatives on a wide array of topics.

For some, the voting experience will be different from last year, when officials implemented pandemic-related changes to make it easier for voters to avoid crowded polling places. Some states have made those changes permanent, while others have rolled some of them back.

In Virginia, lawmakers last year expanded absentee voting permanently by no longer requiring an excuse. But a requirement for a witness signature on absentee ballots that was waived last year is back, and officials have been working to contact voters who have been turning in ballots without them. Those voters will have until Friday to fix the issue or their ballots will not be counted.

In a few states, voters were encountering tighter voting rules because of laws enacted in states controlled politically by Republicans. Among them are Florida and Georgia, where voters face new ID requirements for using mail ballots.

Republicans have said their changes were needed to improve security and public confidence following the 2020 presidential election. They acted as former President Donald Trump continued his false claims that the election was stolen despite no evidence of widespread fraud.

These claims were rejected by judges and election officials of both parties who certified the results and Trump’s own attorney general, who said federal law enforcement had not seen fraud “on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

Voting rights groups said various hotlines would be available to assist voters who have questions or encounter problems at the polls or with their mail ballots. Damon Hewitt, whose group the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law leads the effort, said Tuesday presented an important test.

“It’s a test of voters to run the gauntlet, to figure out these new rules and restrictions,” Hewitt said. “And frankly, it’s also a test of our democracy: How strong can it be, and are we willing to tolerate these efforts to make it harder for people to vote.”

Tuesday also will be an opportunity for election officials to educate voters about how the system works and counter the misinformation that still surrounds the 2020 presidential vote. False claims have led to harassment and even death threats against state and local election officials.

“We have to do more to combat it, get in front of it and frankly educate the public about the voting process,” said Amber McReynolds, former Denver elections clerk and CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute. “Because part of the reason that there is disinformation and it has been able to flow as it has, is that the vast majority of Americans don’t understand how the election process works.”
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Two US States Hold Elections for Governor

Voters are casting ballots Tuesday for governor in the U.S. states of Virginia and New Jersey, two closely watched races ahead of next year’s midterm congressional elections. 

In Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who served as the state’s governor from 2014 to 2018, is facing Republican Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer. 

Both candidates held final campaign events Monday in the northern Virginia suburbs outside Washington. Youngkin told his supporters “the future of this country is going to be decided,” in Tuesday’s vote, while McAuliffe said “the stakes are huge.” 

McAuliffe has seen his lead in opinion polls slide in recent months, just as approval ratings for Democratic President Joe Biden fell. Former President Donald Trump has supported Youngkin’s campaign, including calling in to a rally for the Republican Monday night. 

In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy is seeking to become the first Democratic governor in the state to win reelection in 44 years as he faces a challenge from former state legislator Republican Jack Ciattarelli. 

Democrats hold a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives with all of the chamber’s 435 seats on the ballot in 2022. 

There are currently three vacant seats in the House that must be filled before then. 

Tuesday features special elections to fill the seats representing Ohio’s 11th and 15th congressional districts. There are also primary elections in the race to fill the seat in Florida’s 20th district ahead of a special election there in January. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Manchin Wavers on Biden’s Plan, Democrats Vow to Push Ahead

Senator Joe Manchin wavered Monday on his support for President Joe Biden’s sweeping $1.75 trillion domestic policy proposal, saying instead it’s “time to vote” on a slimmer $1 trillion infrastructure package that has stalled amid talks. 

The West Virginia Democrat’s announcement comes as Democrats want a signal from Manchin that he will support Biden’s big package. He’s one of two key holdout senators whose votes are needed to secure the deal and push it toward passage.

Instead, Manchin rebuffed progressive Democrats, urging them to quit holding “hostage” the smaller public works bill as negotiations continue on the broader package.

“Enough is enough,” Manchin said at a hastily called press conference at the Capitol. 

Manchin said he’s open to voting for a final bill reflecting Biden’s big package “that moves our country forward.” But he said he’s “equally open to voting against” the final product as he assesses the sweeping social services and climate change bill. 

Democrats have been working frantically to finish up Biden’s signature domestic package after months of negotiations, racing toward a first round of House votes possible later this week.

The White House swiftly responded that it remains confident Manchin will support Biden’s plan, and congressional leaders indicated votes were on track as planned. 

“Senator Manchin says he is prepared to support a Build Back Better plan that combats inflation, is fiscally responsible, and will create jobs,” said press secretary Jen Psaki in a statement. “As a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support.” 

The stakes are high with Biden overseas at a global climate change summit and his party fighting in two key governors’ races this week — in Virginia and New Jersey — that are seen as bellwethers in the political mood of the electorate. 

With Republicans staunchly opposed and no votes to spare, Democrats have been trying to unite progressive and centrist lawmakers around Biden’s big vision.

Progressives have been refusing to vote on the smaller public works bill, using it as leverage as they try to win commitments from Manchin and Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the other key holdout, for Biden’s broader bill. 

Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal, leader of the progressive caucus, indicated her group is ready to push ahead and pass both bills this week in the House. She said she trusts that Biden will have the support needed for eventual Senate passage. 

“I would urge everybody to keep tempers down,” Jayapal said on CNN. “We are preparing to pass through the House both bills in the president’s agenda.” 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer both echoed the White House, suggesting the bills are on track. 

Manchin, though, in a direct response to the progressives’ tactic, said “holding this bill hostage won’t work to get my support” for the broader one. He said he will “not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact” it has on the economy and federal debt. 

Manchin’s priority has long been the smaller public works bill of roads, highways and broadband projects that had already been approved by the Senate but is being stalled by House progressives as the broader negotiations are underway.

“This is not how the United States Congress should operate,” Manchin said. “It’s time our elected leaders in Washington stop playing games.” 

Biden’s top domestic priorities have been a battlefield between progressive and moderate Democrats for months, and it was unclear if this week’s timetable for initial House votes could be met. 

The $1.75 trillion package is sweeping in its reach and would provide large numbers of Americans with assistance to pay for health care, education, raising children and caring for elderly people in their homes. It also would provide some $555 billion in tax breaks encouraging cleaner energy and electrified vehicles, the nation’s largest commitment to tackling climate change. 

Much of its costs would be covered with higher taxes on people earning over $10 million annually and large corporations, which would now face a 15% minimum tax in efforts to stop big business from claiming so many deductions they end up paying zero in taxes. 

Over the weekend, Democrats made significant progress toward adding provisions curbing prescription drug prices to the massive package, two congressional aides said Sunday. They requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations. 

According to a senior Democratic aide, one proposal under discussion would let Medicare negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies for many of their products. Excluded would be drugs for which the Food and Drug Administration has granted initial protection against competition, periods that vary but last several years. 

There would be a cap on seniors’ out-of-pocket drug costs under Medicare Part D, the program’s outpatient prescription drug benefit, said the senior aide, who did not provide a figure. And pharmaceutical makers would have to pay a rebate if their prices rise above certain markers. 

Talks were continuing and no final agreement had been reached. But the movement raised hopes that the party’s 10-year, $1.75 trillion measure would address the longtime Democratic campaign promise to lower pharmaceutical costs, though more modestly than some wanted. 
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Passage of Biden’s Spending Legislation Including Environmental Programs Remains Uncertain

US President Joe Biden is in Glasgow, Scotland, this week for the UN climate summit, while back at home Democrats try to hammer out an agreement on a massive spending bill. Michelle Quinn reports.
Producer: Mary Cieslak
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Texans Unsure of New Abortion Law as Supreme Court Prepares to Hear Arguments

A Texas abortion law that was signed in May by Governor Greg Abbott is considered the most restrictive abortion legislation in the country. After the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in September to at least temporarily uphold the law, the court once again will hear arguments regarding the case on Monday.

Texans across the state, meanwhile, are vigorously debating the new law themselves.

“It obviously violates Roe v. Wade,” said Rose MacKenzie, a San Antonio resident and musician in the U.S. Air Force Band. “It’s restrictive to women who need care when we should actually have control over our body, well-being, and quality of life.”

While a poll conducted this month by The Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston found 69% of Texans believe the law is too restrictive, only 45% said they opposed it. Many residents said they still supported the law despite preferring, for example, that it included exceptions in cases of rape and incest.

“Abortions just feel so horrific and wrong,” said Danielle McCormick, also from San Antonio. “If nothing else, the new law will keep more children safe from voluntary termination.”

While Monday’s arguments are focused on the structure of the Texas law, it could kick off one of the most important months for abortion-related legislation at the Supreme Court in 50 years. This stretch will culminate when the justices hear another abortion case, this one from Mississippi, on Dec. 1, that could challenge the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which has acted as the legal precedent for all abortion laws in the United States since 1973.

US abortion history

For decades, Texas — where the Roe v. Wade case originated — has been near the focal point of contentious abortion debates. The issue hasn’t always been so polarizing, however. Even the Roman Catholic Church, now one of the most adamant abortion opponents, decided in the 13th century that abortion should be allowed until approximately 16 weeks into pregnancy, when the movement of the fetus could be detected.

That view held until 1869, when Pope Pius IX wrote that any woman who had an abortion would be censured. In 1917 the church clarified its stance and eliminated the distinction between early- and late-term abortions by prohibiting all abortions from the moment of conception.

For more than a century, changes in U.S. abortion law roughly shifted in sync with the church’s opinion. Connecticut was the first state to place restrictions on abortion, criminalizing them in certain situations in 1821. By 1900, every state had abortion legislation.

Delivering the opinion of the court in the case of Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackburn noted, “the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage.” He also wrote of the “seemingly absolute convictions” that abortion inspires, but those convictions have only become more absolute — particularly among lawmakers — in the decades since the landmark case.

While the Roe v. Wade decision set the precedent of protecting the right to an abortion until approximately 24 weeks into a pregnancy, or when the fetus could survive outside the womb, the new Texas law draws the line at six weeks, when the fetal heartbeat can be detected.

It’s the first law in the United States to set such an early limit. Experts like Mary Ziegler, a legal historian and professor of law at Florida State University, acknowledge this is in contradiction to the legal precedent set in the past, but also believes that’s being done intentionally.

“They’re trying to run out the clock,” she explained. “Republicans are banking that soon enough Roe v. Wade will no longer be the law of the land. With this law they’re trying to stop as many abortions as they can until that happens.”

Procedural questions

“The law is written in a way that’s been very difficult to successfully challenge,” Ziegler said, “and until it is challenged, abortions in Texas have come to a virtual halt.”

Abortion providers in the state have said, since the law took effect in early September, at least 80% of abortions previously provided are now prohibited. This forces patients to continue an unwanted pregnancy, to drive to neighboring states for an abortion, or to pursue more dangerous methods.

Texas Republicans have accomplished this by creating a law that leaves enforcement to private citizens rather than to the state itself. Under the new legislation, a citizen can sue anyone who performs an illegal abortion or who facilitates one (by, for example, driving a patient to a clinic) for a minimum of $10,000 in statutory damages.

“Monday’s hearing is very important even though it’s not specifically about the law’s position on abortion,” Ziegler said. “If the Supreme Court decides to allow the law to continue — even if it ultimately gets stricken down in the future — then states will see they can have some success temporarily passing laws with this type of procedure.”

Ziegler suggested other states might use this method to, for example, temporarily halt the sale of guns or to restrict voting. This, she said, could have real consequences.

“We’ve seen in the past that when an abortion clinic is forced to close because a law changes, they aren’t always able to reopen for financial reasons. Even if the law is overturned, getting an abortion will likely be more difficult for Texas women because it was passed.”

Shifting the debate

Ziegler also believes the unique way in which Texas Republicans designed the law could affect how some Texas residents define their views on abortion.

“Americans’ abortion views on when they believe life begins or if they think exceptions should be made in the case of rape don’t actually change much over time,” she told VOA, “but what does change is whether people classify themselves as pro-life or pro-choice. That tends to shift based on what the two sides have done lately. A lot of Texans — even Republicans — seem to have issues with how this law pits citizens against each other for enforcement. It might be seen as overreach.”

Gallup recently aggregated polling over the last decade to show where Texans stand on abortion. The results showed 18% of the state’s residents believe abortion should always be legal, 26% believed abortion should never be legal, while a majority (54%) believed abortion should be legal under certain circumstances.

“It’s called the ‘Mushy Middle’ and that’s where most Americans, including Texans, sit,” Ziegler said. “If voters perceive one side is pushing too far in one direction, public opinion might move against them.”

Kimberly Malloy is an example of this. A resident of San Antonio, Malloy said in some ways she’s pro-life, but admitted she also takes issue with many aspects of the new law.

“I think if a woman has to have an abortion, it should be done in the first 10 weeks of the pregnancy,” she explained, “but I don’t see how six weeks is fair. Most women don’t even know they’re pregnant then, and they still need time to schedule the abortion. Also, how can you expect a woman to keep a child in the case of rape? They didn’t even consent to sex. It’s crazy.”

Ziegler said what’s considered legal and illegal when it comes to abortions could soon be redefined.

“It’s a very important month,” she said, “and it starts on Monday.” 
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11 States Sue US Government Over Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors

Eleven U.S. states with Republican governors sued the Biden administration on Friday, seeking to block a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors and arguing it is unconstitutional and violates federal procurement law.

Saying they were necessary to fight COVID-19, President Joe Biden issued on September 9 a pair of executive orders requiring that all executive branch federal employees and federal contractors be vaccinated.

A joint lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri by 10 states: Arkansas, Alaska, Missouri, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Texas filed a separate suit on the same issue, and Florida filed one on Thursday.

The lawsuits on Friday described the mandate as “sweeping in its scope” and “unconstitutional and unlawful,” citing a constitutional amendment on state powers and federal laws on government procurement.

The mandate “is an abuse of power and we won’t stand for it,” Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said in a video on Twitter.

“It will only worsen the workforce shortage and supply chain issues that hinder our economic recovery, and it furthers the unprecedented government intrusion into our lives,” Reynolds said.

The White House set a December 8 deadline for employees of federal contractors to be vaccinated. However, it has signaled that contractors have flexibility in enforcing that deadline.

U.S. courts have largely upheld vaccination requirements imposed by employers, universities, states and cities.

About 58% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and over 66% has received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
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Climate Activists Praise Biden’s Bid for $555 Billion in Green Investment

U.S. President Joe Biden will arrive at COP 26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow next week, with the promise, if not the guarantee, that the United States is about to commit to the largest single investment in combating climate change in history.

The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress on Thursday announced a scaled-back version of the president’s Build Back Better climate and social spending package. While less ambitious than earlier versions, the package contains $555 billion in spending directed at reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to between 50% and 52% of 2005 levels by 2030.

That matches the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) the U.S. committed to when the Biden administration rejoined the Paris climate change accord earlier this year. According to activists and experts, it considerably strengthens Biden’s ability to assert a leadership role for the U.S. in the global effort to slow climate change.

‘Show us first’

“Without this, I think it would have been tremendously hard for the U.S. delegation to appear with a credible claim that the U.S. is ‘back,’” said Michael Mehling, deputy director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“It has an NDC of 50% to 52%, and it has the means to achieve that,” he told VOA. “Without it, I think people would have just said, ‘Yeah, show us first.’”

In a statement released Thursday, Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce congratulated the president and Democrats in Congress for “advancing a bold vision for historic climate action,” and urged lawmakers to finalize an agreement on the legislation as soon as possible.

“This is a bold vision for clean energy and climate action that the President can present at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, to demonstrate that the United States is committed to taking the immediate and bold action necessary to tackle the climate crisis as a top priority,” Pierce said. “We urge Congress to immediately deliver a full Build Back Better Act that fulfills this promise, because we have no time to wait.”

No guarantees

The president and his allies are behaving as though they are on the cusp of a major legislative achievement. However, it remains possible that infighting and policy disagreements among Democrats on Capitol Hill could derail the deal as the final legislative language is being prepared.

The two wild cards are West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, neither of whom has said that they will definitely support the package.

Manchin has already forced his colleagues to remove some of the climate elements of the original package, which he saw as overly punitive toward existing fossil fuel companies. Manchin, whose state has a long history of coal mining and still relies on coal-fired power plants for much of its electricity, also has a financial stake in the coal industry.

He has also expressed hesitation over a non-climate-related part of the package that would deliver benefits to families with young children.

Sinema has shot down several versions of the package over disagreements about how to pay for it. She objected to raising tax rates and to changing the way investments are taxed at death. It is unclear whether she will support the current package, which contains income-tax surcharges on people earning more than $10 million per year, and on income that business owners receive on a “pass-through” basis.

Because the Democrats hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate, either Manchin or Sinema could torpedo Biden’s Build Back Better package – including the climate change provisions – by voting no.

Broad-based spending

The largest part of the climate spending in the bill is $320 billion in tax credits, spread over 10 years, aimed at making a wide array of green technologies cheaper and easier to implement.

Among other things, it would cut the price of installing home solar panels by about 30% and would offer rebates of up to $12,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, provided it is made in the U.S. with domestic parts and unionized labor. The package would also create financial incentives for the development of clean mass transit, buses and trucks.

The next-largest element of the package is $110 billion to incentivize the creation of a domestic supply chain for the delivery of products that will be key to broad electrification of the U.S., including batteries, solar cells and other technologies.

An additional $105 billion would go toward building resiliency in communities that are already feeling the drastic effects of climate change through extreme weather events. This includes funding for a Civilian Conservation Corps that the administration says will hire 300,000 Americans.

Rounding out the spending is $20 billion that would go toward government procurement of next-generation green technologies – essentially helping to create a market for the products and services that the other elements of the proposal will be subsidizing.

Looking on the bright side

Climate activists definitely didn’t get everything they wanted in the package currently before Congress. Among other things, Biden’s proposed Clean Energy Production Program, which would have rewarded electrical utilities that increase their use of renewable energy by 4% per year and punished those that did not, was scuttled after Manchin strongly objected to it.

But on Friday, with the possibility of the $555 billion package actually becoming law, environmentalist groups were focused on the positive side of things.

“I’ve been around Washington for 20 years, and I’ve worked on energy and environmental issues for over 20 years,” said Toby Short, associate vice president for federal affairs with the Environmental Defense Fund. “A half a trillion dollars in climate and energy investments? It’s incredible. From EDF’s perspective, we’re extremely excited about the transformational investments that can occur from this.” 

 
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White House Renews Bid to End ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy

The Biden administration launched a second bid Friday to end a Trump-era policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration courts, while also reaffirming a commitment to reinstate it under court order. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the “Remain in Mexico” policy likely contributed to a drop in illegal border crossings in 2019 but with “substantial and unjustifiable human costs” to asylum-seekers who were exposed to violence while waiting in Mexico. 

The announcement came more than two months after a federal judge ordered that the policy be reinstated “in good faith,” while leaving an opening for the administration to try again to justify ending it. 

The administration said earlier this month that it expected to reinstate the policy, known officially as “Migrant Protection Protocols,” around mid-November, subject to Mexican government approval. Mexico wants cases to generally conclude within six months, timely and accurate access to case information, and better access to legal counsel for asylum-seekers.

Some of the administration’s most prominent pro-immigration allies say the time it took for Mayorkas to draft Friday’s opinion showed a lack of sense of urgency, which U.S. officials dispute. 

Many U.S.-based legal aid groups who have represented asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico say they will no longer take such cases, raising questions about how the U.S. can satisfy Mexico’s insistence on better access to counsel. Administration officials say they believe there are enough other lawyers who will represent asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico.

Begun in January 2019

About 70,000 asylum-seekers have been subject to the policy, which Republican President Donald Trump introduced in January 2019 and his successor, Joe Biden, a Democrat, suspended on his first day in office. Mayorkas ended the policy in June after an internal review, saying it achieved “mixed effectiveness.” 

Illegal border crossings fell sharply after Mexico, facing Trump’s threat of higher tariffs, acquiesced in 2019 to the policy’s rapid expansion. Many asylum-seekers were victims of major violence while waiting in Mexico and faced a slew of legal obstacles, such as access to attorneys and case information. 

Mayorkas said Friday that his second review assumed the policy caused a significant drop in border crossings, calling it the strongest argument to keep it. Still, he said benefits do not outweigh costs in terms of relations with Mexico, resources and risks associated with exposure to violence while waiting in Mexican border cities. 

“[There] are inherent problems with the program that no amount of resources can sufficiently fix,” he wrote. “Others cannot be addressed without detracting from key Administration priorities and more enduring solutions.” 

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri. The administration is expected to ask that the case be returned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, Texas, who ordered in August that the policy be reinstated. 

The administration is rebuilding tent courts in Texas border cities of Laredo and Brownsville to handle “Remain in Mexico” cases. 
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Biden Says Pope Supports His Holy Communion Rights

U.S. President Joe Biden met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday, ahead of his meeting with G-20 leaders. Biden said the pope supported his receiving Holy Communion, while some U.S. bishops want to deny him the sacrament over his stance on abortion. With Anita Powell contributing, White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report from Rome.
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Republican Lawmaker Who Voted to Impeach Trump Will Not Seek Re-Election

U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of the few Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump, said Friday he would not seek re-election in 2022.

The Illinois congressman, who also bucked party leadership by joining a House of Representatives panel investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot lamented national divisions in announcing his exit.

“I cannot focus on both a re-election to Congress and a broader fight nationwide,” Kinzinger said in a video posted on Twitter.

Kinzinger was the latest Republican lawmaker to decide not to seek re-election after 10 House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach the Republican president for inciting supports in the deadly January 6 assault on the Capitol. Trump, the first president in history to be impeached twice, was subsequently acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
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Biden Cuts Social Safety Net Plan in Half

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a $1.75 trillion spending plan he said would provide the “most transformative” aid to American families in decades and at the same time set the United States on a path toward sharply cutting its greenhouse gas pollution.   

Biden laid out the plan — half the amount he had proposed weeks ago — in an early morning meeting with Democratic lawmakers in Congress, and then lobbied for it in a 23-minute White House address.

“Nobody got everything they wanted, including me,” Biden said. “It’s called compromise.” He described the spending proposals, even in their pared-down shape, as “historic investments in our nation and our people.” 

Shortly after speaking, Biden and first lady Jill Biden boarded Air Force One for a trip to Europe. Their agenda includes an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican. The president in the coming days will meet elsewhere in Rome with world leaders about the global economy and then will head to Glasgow, Scotland, for a summit on sharply curbing climate pollution.

Negotiations with centrists

Biden told Democratic lawmakers that the shrunken plan was the product of intense negotiations with a broad swath of politically progressive and moderate Democrats in Congress.

Biden specifically cited his back-and-forth talks with two centrist lawmakers who had objected to the $3.5 trillion price tag and several provisions of his original proposal, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.  

“President Biden is confident this is a framework that can pass both houses of Congress, and he looks forward to signing it into law,” the White House said.

It was not immediately clear whether the warring factions of Democrats in Congress were on board with the White House claim that the curtailed plan could pass, along with a separate $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal to rebuild the country’s deteriorating roads and bridges and expand broadband service throughout the United States.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, was planning a vote later Thursday on the infrastructure legislation. But progressive Democrats have for weeks blocked passage of the measure, already approved by the Senate in a bipartisan vote, in order to retain leverage to include funding for their favored programs in the social safety net measure.

One of the progressives, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, called the latest Biden plan “a major step,” but added, “I want to see it improved.”

Even split in Senate

In the politically divided Senate, all Republicans oppose the Biden social safety net and pollution-control legislation. The Democrats will need all 50 of their lawmakers, along with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, to pass the measure. They can afford to lose only a handful of Democratic votes in the House of Representatives.  

The latest Biden plan would provide universal pre-kindergarten schooling for all 3- and 4-year-old children in the country, but an original Biden call for two years of tuition-free community college education for high school graduates was jettisoned as too costly. Scholarship grants for needy college students would be increased, however.

The White House said the plan would save “most working families more than half of their spending on childcare.”   

“For decades, childcare prices in the United States have risen faster than family incomes,” the White House said, “yet the United States still invests 28 times less than its competitors on helping families afford high-quality care for toddlers.” The White House also said the measure would extend for a year child tax credits for all but the wealthiest families in the U.S., but that was a cutback from Biden’s original proposal for extending the tax break until at least 2025.  

In addition, the White House said the government would increase spending for “affordable, high-quality care for older Americans and people with disabilities in their homes” and increase pay for caregivers. Health care benefits would be improved, to a degree, with spending for hearing aids for older Americans added to the country’s long-standing Medicare health insurance program, but not dental and vision care for elders that Biden originally wanted.   

On pollution, the White House called Biden’s plan “the largest effort to combat the climate crisis in American history.”  

It said $555 billion in new spending would cut a billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, at least 10 times more than in any previous legislation approved by Congress.   

Biden especially wanted this plank included in the proposal as he meets world leaders at the Glasgow climate summit early next week.   

The White House said the $1.75 trillion plan would be fully paid for with increased taxation on the wealthiest two-tenths of 1% of Americans – multi-millionaires and billionaires.

A 15% minimum tax on the profits would be levied on some of the largest companies in the U.S., those with $1 billion or more in profits, and there would be ramped up enforcement against tax cheats by agents at the country’s tax collection agency, the Internal Revenue Service.
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Virginia’s Gubernatorial Election Reflects US National Politics

The increasingly tight race for governor in Virginia has drawn national attention and is being seen as a referendum on President Joe Biden’s agenda. Republican Glenn Youngkin is gaining ground on Democrat Terry McAuliffe – as voters prepare to go the polls Tuesday in a state that has gone for Democrats in recent years. VOA’s Steve Redisch reports.
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US Senate Considers ‘Wealth Tax’ to Fund Biden’s Spending Proposals

As Democrats in Congress fight among themselves over how much of U.S. President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better social and environmental spending package to enact, disagreements over other proposals to raise tax revenue have party members proposing a novel and highly controversial “wealth tax.” 

Put forward by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, the tax would force about 700 of the country’s wealthiest people to pay taxes on unrealized gains on their assets. For example, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be required to pay taxes on the increase in value of the shares he holds in his company, even if he never sells them. 

The tax would also be retroactive. If it were to pass, Bezos would owe a massive tax bill on the aggregate growth of his Amazon-based wealth dating to the company’s founding in 1994. The proposal would allow the accumulated taxes to be paid over a span of five years. Going forward, Bezos’ portfolio would be assessed annually, and the increase or decrease in its value would be the basis for an annual tax bill. 

While supporters of the idea praise the plan for making the ultrawealthy pay their “fair share” in taxes, critics say the plan would be difficult to implement and might even be illegal. 

Wealth taxes are generally rare, with only a handful of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) levying them, primarily in Europe. Wyden’s plan is getting attention now because other Democrats have shot down more conventional methods of raising revenue. 

The Biden administration originally wanted to increase taxes on the wealthy by ending the practice of allowing investments to pass to a deceased person’s heirs without being taxed. When Democrats in Congress balked at that, the party’s leadership proposed a slate of tax rate increases. Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, however, said she would not vote for any tax rate increase, dooming that proposal and prompting Wyden to put his plan on the table. 

Major challenges remain 

As of Wednesday morning, some Democrats, including West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, were concerned about the plan. Manchin said he worried that “targeting” specific individuals with higher taxes could be “divisive.” With only 50 votes in the 100-member Senate and Vice President Kamala Harris available to break a tie, Democrats cannot afford to lose even a single one of their members, given that Republicans are expected to vote unanimously against the measure. 

Some experts warn that the Democrats could run into trouble because they are trying to attach this new tax toward the end of negotiations on the bill.

“This has been picked up pretty late,” said Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a Washington think tank. “They’re trying to develop the details, including the drafted legislative texts that we got this morning, in order to determine how this will be administered.” 

The details will be “tricky,” he said. “I think it still has a pretty arduous path forward, given concerns about how this may affect markets, about its complexity, about the fact that it is targeting a very narrow group of … individuals.” 

Constitutional question 

One legal challenge the proposal will almost certainly face is whether unrealized gains count as “income” under the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which made federal income tax legal. 

If unrealized gains fail to meet the definition of income, the tax will not work. That’s because when the federal government imposes taxes other than the income tax, the burden must be “apportioned” so each state contributes a percentage commensurate with its share of the population. 

Because billionaires aren’t evenly distributed across the country, administering the tax would be practically impossible. 

Measurement problems 

Even those who broadly agree with requiring the ultrawealthy to pay taxes on unrealized gains aren’t sure Wyden’s proposal will work. 

“Finding a way to tax those investment profits is a good idea,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington. However, he added, “I’m not sure that the proposal that’s circulating in Congress right now is the best way to do it.” 

A major problem, he said, is that not all wealth increases are as easily measured as a portfolio of public company stocks. Much of the wealth of America’s richest people is tied up in privately held companies, which are difficult to value, or in highly illiquid assets such as art collections, real estate and yachts.

Wyden’s proposal recognizes that and waits until those assets are sold to tax them. It adds a surcharge, meant to approximate years of tax payments, to the capital gains tax paid on the asset’s appreciation. 

‘Even more complicated’ 

“Now you have two separate systems for taxing very, very wealthy people, and that’s going to create a lot of additional complications,” Gleckman said. “The solution takes what was already going to be a very complex addition to the tax code and makes it even more complicated.” 

And the more complex the system gets, the more potential loopholes there are for wealthy Americans’ tax advisers to exploit. 

“When you impose a tax like this on billionaires, you’re trying to tax people who have unlimited resources to hire the smartest tax lawyers that exist on the planet, and they will find ways to avoid the tax,” Gleckman said. “Congress will try to anticipate all of the tricks that people will use, but they inevitably will miss some.” 

Rarely imposed 

Within the OECD, only five countries levy what the organization refers to as a “recurrent tax on net wealth.” They are Colombia, France, Norway, Switzerland and Spain.

As recently as 1990, a dozen OECD countries had some sort of wealth tax, but over the years, most of those programs were abandoned. 

“Wealth taxes have seen a pretty sharp decline in their use, particularly in Europe and the OECD over the last 20 or 30 years, because they have not been very workable,” said Watson of the Tax Foundation. “The reason is exactly the type of issues we’re running into now as it relates to valuation and liquidity. It just makes more sense to do it when (gains are) realized. And even in this proposal, we see that with non-publicly traded assets.” 

An OECD report found that “decisions to repeal net wealth taxes have often been justified by efficiency and administrative concerns and by the observation that net wealth taxes have frequently failed to meet their redistributive goals. The revenues collected from net wealth taxes have also, with a few exceptions, been very low.” 

‘Buy, borrow, die’ workaround 

The Wyden proposal attempts to fix a serious gap in the U.S. tax code that allows very wealthy Americans to pass vast wealth down through generations of heirs without paying significant taxes. 

In the current U.S. federal system, the ultrawealthy can easily avoid paying taxes on their assets, especially if they are held in investments, because the only taxable event is the sale of those assets. Crucially, when a wealthy investor dies, the assets are transferred to heirs at their present value, meaning that the gains that they may have accumulated over years and decades are never taxed. 

This results in many of the very wealthy using what tax experts call the “buy, borrow, die” method of funding their lifestyles. Instead of selling their assets to obtain cash, they take out large loans from banks, which offer them at low interest rates because the borrowers pledge their investment holdings as collateral. 

As long as their investment portfolio earns a return higher than the interest rate the bank is charging, they can continue to grow their wealth, even as they spend. When they die, their estate pays off the outstanding loans from the accumulated profit, leaving heirs a larger inheritance than would have been available to them had the underlying assets been sold to fund spending during the wealthy individual’s lifetime. 

 
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US Arresting Far Fewer Undocumented Immigrants Under Biden

Reports of dramatically reduced immigration enforcement inside the United States have prompted cheers from rights advocates and derision from critics of the Biden administration who are already incensed over record migration to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that arrests of undocumented immigrants inside the United States dropped significantly in fiscal 2021, which ended September 30. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data showed the total of 72,000 arrests to be the lowest number in more than a decade, according to the news outlet, and about “half the annual totals recorded” during the Trump administration.

By comparison, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers made 104,000 administrative arrests during fiscal 2020 and an average of 148,000 annually from 2017 through 2019, according to the Post.

VOA asked ICE for confirmation and comments on the 2021 data, which have yet to be publicly released, but the agency did not reply.

The Washington-based National Immigration Forum hailed reduced ICE enforcement as “good progress” and “a sign of what happens when law enforcement focuses on public safety threats.

Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee had a different take.

“By drastically reducing enforcement of immigration law within the U.S., despite record illegal immigration, the Biden Administration is elevating the interests of illegal aliens over the rights of Americans,” the senator tweeted.

Upon taking office in January, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ordered a 100-day deportation freeze along with a request to review enforcement policies executed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Three days later, Texas’ Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued to block the freeze. A federal judge temporarily paused Biden’s order, then indefinitely halted it in February.

Despite judicial intervention, interior arrests remained low for the remainder of the fiscal year, continuing a downward trajectory over much of the past decade, partly because of the pandemic but also the Biden administration’s push for a more “humane” approach to interior arrests.

The DHS recently announced new sensitive location enforcement guidance. Effective immediately, U.S. immigration agents are expected to avoid enforcement in places like rallies, religious ceremonies and places where children gather, among others.

ICE interior enforcement arrests topped out around 322,000 in 2011 during the former Obama administration, falling to about 110,000 in 2016 before rising to about 158,000 in 2018 under Trump.

In September, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that immigration agents would primarily target national security or public safety threats as well as recent border crossers.

“Enforcement priorities for apprehension and removal remain focused on noncitizens who are a threat to our national security, public safety, and border security,” a DHS memo stated.

Mayorkas said the guidelines, scheduled to go into effect November 29, would “enable our department to most effectively accomplish our law enforcement mission … [and] help us exercise our prosecutorial discretion to achieve justice.”

The Biden administration has also pledged to halt workplace ICE raids and shift agents’ focus to employers who are hiring and exploiting undocumented workers.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden promised what he called a more humanitarian approach to U.S.-bound immigration. Under Trump, his Republican predecessor, no undocumented immigrants were exempted from immigration enforcement regardless of how long they had lived in the United States or whether they had clean criminal records. 
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Biden, Congressional Democrats Continue Tough Negotiations Over Massive Social Safety Net Bill

Democrats in the U.S. Congress continued to be mired in negotiations on President Joe Biden’s major social safety net and climate control spending plan, particularly which  programs to keep and which ones to remove as well as the means to pay for them.

The president held talks at the White House Tuesday night with Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, two moderate lawmakers in Biden’s own Democratic party who have staunchly opposed much of his original $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan that would provide the biggest expansion of government benefits to American families in five decades. 

Senate Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts unveiled a plan earlier Tuesday that would impose a new minimum tax on corporations, along with a new “billionaires tax” that would impose levies on individuals who own at least $1 billion in assets, or who receive $100 million in earnings for three consecutive years.  

The plan was conceived after Sinema came out against a much simpler plan to raise conventional tax rates on wealthy Americans and corporations. Sinema announced her support for the new minimum corporate tax as “a common-sense step,” but some House Democrats have raised concerns about the legality of the billionaires’ tax.  

For his part, Manchin has come out in opposition of an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid, the government’s health care programs for elderly and low-income Americans, respectively, as well as providing 12 weeks of paid family leave and making the new child tax credit permanent, criticizing them as either costly or unnecessary new government “entitlements.”

Manchin is also opposed to a proposed $150 billion clean electricity program that would replace the nation’s coal and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy. The program is a pillar of the president’s strategy to combat climate change, but Manchin represents one of the largest coal-producing states in the nation. His opposition has left the administration scrambling to create an alternative strategy, such as grants and loans to help utilities switch to renewable energy.  

Biden has expressed hope that he can reach agreement this week on what he has acknowledged will be a more limited spending plan of about $2 trillion or less, with some provisions, such as two tuition-free years of community college, jettisoned from the final package.  

Representative Ro Khanna of California, a key member of the House Progressive Caucus, told the U.S. cable news television program “Fox News Sunday” that the president recently told a group of lawmakers that he needs passage of both the social safety net bill and a separate $1.2 trillion measure that funds key upgrades to the nation’s physical infrastructure before he travels to Glascow, Scotland later this week for the United Nations-sponsored COP26 climate conference.   

With the 100-member Senate equally split between Republicans and Democrats, the policy agreement and votes of Manchin and Sinema are key to passage of the legislation, along with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. Currently, no Republicans support the legislation. 

The infrastructure spending plan drew the support of 19 Republicans in the Senate, along with that of all 50 Democrats, but progressive House Democrats blocked its passage there until agreement could be reached on the social safety net legislation. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the high stakes involved in the difficult negotiations Tuesday. “The alternative to what is being negotiated is not the original package — it is nothing,” she told reporters.  

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Senate Confirms Cindy McCain, Jeff Flake to Ambassador Posts

The Senate confirmed two prominent anti-Trump Republicans to serve in the Biden administration on Tuesday with former Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona approved to serve as the ambassador to Turkey, and Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Senator John McCain, approved to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. 

The Senate also voted to confirm former Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico to serve as ambassador to New Zealand, and Victoria Reggie Kennedy of Massachusetts, the widow of former Senator Ted Kennedy, to serve as ambassador to Austria. 

The nominations were approved through voice vote, a process taking only minutes that can be used so long as no senators object. Republicans, led by Senator Ted Cruz, are requiring the vast majority of Biden’s other State Department nominees to go through a much more extensive and time-consuming process. 

Democratic Senator Chris Coons thanked senators for acting quickly on the four nominations but said he remains concerned about the overall pace of confirmations for the president’s diplomatic corps. 

“There are dozens of countries where there is no confirmed American ambassador, and I hope that this moment of progress will be a predictor of other progress to come soon,” Coons said. 

Flake was a rare critic of former President Donald Trump among Senate Republicans. He served just one term in the Senate, opting not to seek reelection in the face of what was certain to be a difficult GOP primary. 

McCain endorsed Biden in the presidential election, which at the time was viewed as possibly helping Biden broaden his appeal to Republicans and independents in Arizona, a crucial swing state that her husband had represented in Congress for 35 years. 
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Treasury Department Names First Counselor for Racial Equity

The Treasury Department has hired a former JPMorgan Chase executive to head a new government program aimed at combating racial inequality issues in banking and other financial-services industries.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday that Janis Bowdler will be the department’s first counselor for racial equity, part of a multipronged strategy by the Biden administration to deal with systemic racism found in many parts of the economy.

Banking and finance have long had issues with racial inequity, from the lack of representation of Blacks and other minorities at the highest levels of companies to ongoing issues of getting equal access to services for non-white borrowers.

“Treasury must play a central role in ensuring that as our economy recovers from the pandemic, it recovers in a way that addresses the inequalities that existed long before anyone was infected with COVID-19,” Yellen said in a statement. 

Last week the Justice Department announced a new coordinated plan with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Comptroller of the Currency to investigate and prosecute redlining, the historic practice in which Blacks and other minorities were denied access to financing.

Before her Treasury Department appointment, Bowdler was president of the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Foundation, the arm of JPMorgan Chase that tries to target investments into underserved neighborhoods and communities. She also worked at the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy organization for Latino issues. 

 
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Biden: ‘Very Optimistic’ on Approval for Social Safety Net Spending Plan

U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday he is “very optimistic” on completing a deal this week on his pared-down social safety net spending plan, an assessment echoed by one of the centrist Democratic lawmakers who has been holding back on his support. 

Biden told reporters in Delaware that his Sunday meeting with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who has sought sharp cuts in Biden’s original $3.5 trillion package, “went well.” 

They discussed final details in the package that could be trimmed to about half that amount, with Manchin insisting on a $1.5 trillion figure. 

“A few more things to work out, but it went well,” Biden said. 

Later, Manchin said that he believes there will be a “conceptual framework” on Biden’s package later in the week. Even with the spending cutbacks, it would amount to one of the largest expansions of the U.S. government’s social safety net for American families since the 1960s. 

But it remained unclear where the other Democratic holdout, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, stands on the pared-back version. She has opposed Biden’s plan to raise taxes on corporations and individuals earning more than $400,000 a year. 

Subsequently, Biden and key Democratic lawmakers are now proposing to ramp up enforcement against tax cheaters to increase government revenue and craft new tax increases that would target the estimated 700 U.S. billionaires. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN on Sunday that the legislation would take aim at “exceptionally wealthy individuals” and likely tax their unrealized capital gains that now are only taxed when they sell assets.

The support of both Manchin and Sinema, the most politically moderate lawmakers in the Senate Democratic caucus, is essential if any Biden social safety net legislation is to win congressional approval. 

With the 100-member Senate equally split between Republicans and Democrats, all 50 Democrats would need to support the legislation, added along with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. Currently, no Republicans support the legislation. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, told CNN on Sunday that even at half its original size the package is “still bigger than anything we have ever done in terms of addressing the needs of America’s working families,” with universal pre-kindergarten schooling and tax credits for all but the wealthiest parents. 

She said 90% of the measure “is agreed to.”

As details of the social safety net plan are finalized, the House leader said her plan is for the chamber to vote later this week on a bipartisan trillion-dollar infrastructure measure already approved by the Senate to fix the country’s deteriorating roads and bridges and expand broadband internet service throughout the United States.

“I’m optimistic we can do that,” she said.

The infrastructure spending plan drew the support of 19 Republicans in the Senate, along with that of all 50 Democrats, but progressive Democrats in the House blocked its passage there until agreement could be reached on the social safety net legislation that they consider a bigger legislative priority. 

 
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Biden Trying to Finalize Social Safety Net Spending Plan

U.S. President Joe Biden is meeting Sunday with two key senators at his home in Delaware to try to complete details of a pared-down social safety net and climate control spending plan set for introduction in Congress as soon as Monday. 

Biden is hosting Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, along with Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of two pivotal lawmakers who has called for sharp cutbacks in the president’s original $3.5 trillion plan proposing the biggest expansion of government benefits to American families in five decades. 

With the 100-member Senate equally split between Republicans and Democrats, the policy agreement and votes of Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the two most moderate members of the Democratic caucus, are key to passage of the legislation, along with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. Currently, no Republicans support the legislation. 

Biden has expressed hope that he can reach agreement this week on what he has acknowledged will be a more limited spending plan of about $2 trillion or less, with some provisions, such as two tuition-free years of community college, jettisoned from the final package and others, such as paid worker leave and dental insurance for older Americans, trimmed or delayed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show, that 90% of the measure “is agreed to” and that it is being written Sunday, with final details yet to be worked out. She said it will be introduced on Monday. 

“We’re pretty much there now,” she said. 

Pelosi said that despite the likelihood that the original Biden spending proposal will be roughly cut in half, it will be “bigger than anything we’ve ever done in terms of helping families,” with extended tax credits for all but the wealthiest parents and universal pre-kindergarten schooling for three- and four-year-old children. 

As details of the social safety net plan are finalized, the House leader said her plan is for the chamber to vote later this week on a bipartisan trillion-dollar infrastructure measure already approved by the Senate to fix the country’s deteriorating roads and bridges and expand broadband internet service throughout the United States. 

“I’m optimistic we can do that,” she said. 

The infrastructure spending plan drew the support of 19 Republicans in the Senate, along with that of all 50 Democrats, but progressive Democrats in the House blocked its passage there until agreement could be reached on the social safety net legislation. 

Biden had proposed raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals earning more than $400,000 a year to pay for his social safety net measure, but Sinema has balked at both. That has left the White House and Democrats supporting the Biden spending plan to scramble to find other ways to pay for it. 

Pelosi said, “We have an array” of other ways to pay for the measure, including a so-called “wealth tax” targeting the estimated 700 U.S. billionaires. “We’re going to fully pay for the bill.” 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN the legislation would take aim at “exceptionally wealthy individuals” and likely tax their unrealized capital gains that now are only taxed when they sell assets. She said tax payment enforcement would also be ramped up to collect more revenue. 
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‘Strategic Ambiguity’ on Taiwan Apparent as White House Walks Back Biden Comments 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday appeared to walk back President Joe Biden’s statement on Thursday that the United States was committed to defending Taiwan should it come under Chinese attack.

“The president was not announcing any change in our policy, nor has he made a decision to change our policy,” Psaki said during a White House news briefing. “Our defense relationship with Taiwan is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act.”

The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act states that the U.S. will provide arms for Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability. It does not say the U.S. would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. 

Psaki’s statement stands in contradiction to Biden’s comment at a CNN town hall Thursday night. When asked if the U.S. would come to the defense of Taiwan, Biden said, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”

When asked by VOA whether the president simply misspoke or is sending a signal to Beijing, Psaki reiterated that “his policy has not changed.” In what appeared to be an attempt to calm increased tensions following the president’s comment, she echoed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s statement earlier Friday: “Nobody wants to see cross-strait issues come to blows, certainly not President Biden, and there’s no reason that it should.” 

The conflicting statements may well be in line with Washington’s long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity” on defending Taiwan. Still, Beijing, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province, warned Washington to refrain from encouraging its independence. 

“We urge the U.S. to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and stipulations in the three China-U.S. joint communiques, be prudent with its words and actions on the Taiwan question, and avoid sending wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, lest it should seriously damage China-U.S. relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin earlier Friday.

Wang reiterated that “there is no room for China to compromise or make concessions” when it comes to sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

U.S.-China relations have been strained amid Beijing’s increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait and its recent hypersonic missile test. 

Strategic ambiguity

This is not the first time Biden said the U.S. would defend Taiwan if necessary. During an August interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Biden said the U.S. made a “sacred commitment” to respond to action against NATO allies, “same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with Taiwan.”

The defense of Taiwan, unlike that of formal treaty allies Japan and South Korea, is not explicitly stated by the U.S. After each of Biden’s remarks on defending the island, his administration has walked it back. 

While Biden may not intend to signal a change in the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan, his statements suggest that U.S. policy may have shifted informally toward a firmer commitment to Taiwan’s security. 

The comments may be off the cuff, but they are telling, said Matthew Kroenig, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. “If China invaded Taiwan, it would be up to the president to make the final decision about what we should do, and it seems that Biden’s instinct is to defend Taiwan.” 

Biden’s remarks may also be intended to signal that the U.S. military option is not off the table, said Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at Center for American Progress.

“I think it was a clear and smart warning sign from the president to China.” 

Chinese hypersonic missile

The Financial Times recently reported that in late July, China conducted a test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile, stunning American officials. Beijing has denied the report, saying it carried out a routine test of a space vehicle, not a missile. 

Hypersonic glide vehicles are launched from a rocket into the upper atmosphere before gliding to a target at speeds of more than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, about 6,200 kilometers per hour. This is slower than a ballistic missile but no less dangerous because its speed allows for a lower, adjustable trajectory that makes tracking these missiles difficult.

On Wednesday, when asked by VOA whether he was concerned about Chinese hypersonic missiles, Biden answered “yes.” 

U.S. officials have also stated concerns. Austin said earlier this week that Washington was closely watching China’s development of this advanced weapons system. And on Monday, Robert Wood, U.S. permanent representative to the Conference on Disarmament, said this type of technology is “worrisome” because the U.S. has not had to face it before.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Navy and Army tested hypersonic weapon component prototypes that the Pentagon called “successful.” But on Thursday, its booster rocket carrying a hypersonic weapon failed, people briefed on the test result told Reuters.

Analysts say that while China’s space activities are certainly a cause for concern, they reflect an already ongoing arms race. 

“Beijing appears unwilling to accept a situation in which China lags in nuclear capabilities, which might impact both nuclear and conventional balances of power,” said Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “This new capability could embolden China to take more aggressive actions in non-nuclear areas.” 

Cooper noted the U.S. does not need to respond in kind since Washington already has robust capability to strike the Chinese homeland. But the administration must now seriously consider the possibility of Chinese strikes on the American homeland in a military conflict, particularly at a time when China is also ramping up other capabilities such as conventional as well as nuclear-armed submarines and nuclear-capable bombers.

“That is a new reality, and one with which we are still coming to grips,” Cooper said.

In light of this increased Chinese threat, some analysts say that Biden’s remarks on Taiwan are an effective deterrent. 

“The most likely path to war is that (Chinese) Chairman Xi miscalculates; he assumes he can get away with attacking Taiwan without U.S. interference when in fact he cannot,” said Kroenig. “He (Biden) is making it clear to Xi that an attack on Taiwan would mean a big war with the United States and, therefore, not worth the effort.” 

Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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Confirmation Backlog Leaves Biden’s State Department Badly Understaffed

Nine months after taking office, President Joe Biden has seen only 20 of his appointments to the State Department confirmed by the Senate, with nearly half of the 167 American ambassadorships empty and dozens of key policy positions staffed by unconfirmed officials serving in an “acting” role. 

The number of empty desks at the State Department is partly Biden’s own fault, according to analysts. He was slow to nominate candidates for dozens of the 264 positions at State that require confirmation by the Senate, and still hasn’t named 57 of them.

However, many of the key positions remain unfilled because the process of gaining the approval of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has taken many nominees months to navigate.

Finally, sitting at the end of the gauntlet, is Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, who has been using Senate procedures to prevent many non-controversial nominees from receiving a prompt up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. Cruz contends that the Biden administration is in flagrant violation of the law, because it has refused to enforce sanctions on a Russian natural gas pipeline. 

In addition to Cruz, Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley has also blocked a number of Biden’s nominees. 

‘Geometric level of incompetence’ 

“The administration has not covered itself with glory at the pace of its nominations,” said Ronald E. Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. “The Senate multiplies the problem by not moving them. Cruz then raises it to a geometric level of incompetence with his holds, and so they all reinforce each other.” 

Experts worry that the lack of confirmed senior staff is hobbling the Biden administration’s ability to conduct day-to-day diplomacy, and leaving many worried that it would be unable to respond adequately to a severe global crisis. 

“It is undoubtedly diminishing the capability of our State Department, and therefore, our country’s national security,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a non-profit good government organization that tracks the nomination process closely. “It’s a big deal. And that’s not to diminish the acting officials in jobs across the State Department. They are great people, but they’re not set up for success.” 

Neumann agreed that extensive delays in filling key posts is “quite damaging” to operations. 

A former assistant secretary of state who also held three ambassadorships, Neumann said, “Not having your senior team means you don’t have the people that are going to give you the best advice. And it also means that the acting people … are going to be a little more hesitant about pushing back against things they think are dumb.” 

The current state of play 

In total, Biden has sent 106 State Department nominations to the Senate, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Twenty of those have been confirmed, and another 45 have been cleared by the Foreign Relations Committee and are awaiting a final floor vote by the full Senate. 

Biden’s 41 remaining nominees are lost somewhere in the limbo of the confirmation process, attending confirmation hearings or preparing answers to enormous numbers of written questions directed at them by members of the Senate. 

Candidates for ambassadorships have been moving particularly slowly. To date only one of Biden’s picks for an ambassadorship — the nomination of former Senator Ken Salazar to be ambassador to Mexico — has been approved. 

Of the 167 ambassadorships the Partnership for Public Service tracks, only 88 are filled, and 87 of those are “holdover” appointments who were confirmed prior to Biden’s taking office. 

Cruz controls 

Senator Cruz has been in a months-long fight with the Biden administration over its decision to waive congressionally mandated sanctions on Nord Stream 2, a controversial pipeline that delivers natural gas from Russia to Europe.

Cruz points to the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, a law that passed Congress with near-unanimous support in 2017, and included language that said the president “shall” continue to enforce sanctions against Russia, including those on the pipeline.

President Donald Trump signed the legislation, though he simultaneously issued a signing statement in which he argued that the law’s elimination of the president’s discretion in enforcing the sanctions was unconstitutional. 

Cruz has relented on some specific nominations, and he has issued a standing offer to release his holds if the Biden administration resumes enforcement of the sanctions.

But Cruz has not been alone. Senator Hawley has said that he will continue blocking State Department nominees until the department’s entire senior leadership, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, resigns. His reason for demanding the resignations is the administration’s highly criticized handling of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan this summer. 

A procedural blockade 

While it simplifies matters to say that Cruz and Hawley are “blocking” a vote on Biden’s nominees, it isn’t precisely accurate. 

When the Senate operates through what is known as “regular order,” issues before the body progress on a slow path to a final vote on the floor. That path includes several preliminary votes to allow a measure to move from one step in the process to the next. This can take hours, and if the more than 1,200 positions in the federal government that require Senate confirmation were each subjected to it, it could take years to clear the backlog. 

To speed things up, the Senate uses “unanimous consent” agreements to move whole batches of nominees all at once. These agreements, as their name suggests, require every senator to agree to suspend the requirements of regular order. 

What Cruz and Hawley are doing is refusing their consent to suspend regular order when it comes to State Department nominees, forcing Democrats to go through the full process for each of Biden’s nominees. In fact, the Senate’s Democratic leadership has done that for a handful of Biden nominees, but has not been willing to set aside every other item on its agenda in order to concentrate on the State Department. 

On September 28, as the Senate was pushing a handful of nominees over the finish line, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, of New Jersey, made nine consecutive requests for unanimous consent on pending nominations, including several ambassadorships. Senator Hawley objected to each of them. 

 
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Biden Ties Legislative Agenda to MLK Push for Racial Justice

President Joe Biden on Thursday tied his legislative priorities on voting rights, police reform and climate change to Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for racial justice as he marked the 10th anniversary of the opening of the civil rights leader’s memorial on the National Mall. 

Biden, introduced by Vice President Kamala Harris, sought to reassure his supporters that he wouldn’t let up the fight as he works to muscle his massive social spending bill through a divided Congress. Invoking King, Biden said the country was still working to live up to those ideals as a nation and had reached an inflection point on issues including fighting voting restrictions. 

“I know that progress does not come fast enough,” Biden said. “It never has.” 

But he reiterated that protecting the right to vote was central to his administration. “I know the stakes. You know the stakes. This is far from over,” he said. 

Biden spoke at the memorial a day after Senate Republicans blocked debate on Democrats’ elections legislation that they tout as a powerful counterweight to new voting restrictions passing in conservative-controlled states. Biden has promised to push for the legislation, but supporters are growing impatient that he has not embraced changing Senate rules to end the filibuster to break through the logjam. 

Biden also promised to “continue to fight for real police reform legislation,” which has stalled out in Congress after bipartisan talks collapsed this summer. 

Highlighting his agenda of social spending, which remains the subject of heated intraparty negotiations, Biden said the bill would cut prescription drug costs, reduce poverty and fight housing discrimination. 

“We can afford to do this,” Biden said. “We can’t afford not to do this.”

Biden is hoping to rally Democrats around an agreement on that legislation before he departs for an international climate summit next week. 

The memorial was dedicated in the fall of 2011 and is the first honor for an African American on the National Mall. Located on Independence Avenue along the Tidal Basin, the memorial features a huge likeness of King carved out of stone and a separate wall etched with some of his most notable quotes. 

Recalling the struggles of King’s time, Biden said in his speech that white nationalism still poses a threat to the nation and that, in his view, it inspired the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Biden said people of his generation always thought that hate would go away. 

“But it doesn’t,” he said. “It only hides until some seemingly legitimate person breathes some oxygen under the rocks where they’re hiding and gives it some breath.” 

In a reference to former President Donald Trump, Biden said, “We had a president who appealed to the prejudice.” He added, “We cannot and must not give hate any safe harbor.” 

Harris, for her part, praised King as a prophet and said the monument “is dedicated to a man who lived among us.”

“This monument, whatever your age, is dedicated to a man whose voice we still hear, whose words still echo not only across this city, but throughout our country and our world,” she added.
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