Category: US

Senate Democrats after a very long series of votes have approved a massive $740 billion bill that will make significant investments in climate change while lowering the price of prescription drugs and taking steps toward a more equitable tax code.

That the Senate was able to get the bill done is somewhat of a surprise if you look back to December 2021, when Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) appeared to torpedo the efforts with an announcement on Fox News that he could not support the measure because of inflation.

It was just the first time Manchin appeared to kill the bill, only for him to save it with a last-minute deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (DN.Y.) late last month that caught most of Washington and the nation by surprise .

The package now moves to the House, where it is expected to be approved despite opposition from Republicans and some disappointment from Democrats about its size.

Here are five takeaways.

Senate Democrats stuck together

The Senate was in session Saturday, beginning a vote-a-rama at 11:30 pm Saturday that continued through Sunday in which Democrats blocked GOP amendment after GOP amendment.

Republicans had a few goals with their amendment strategy.

One was to force Democrats into tough votes ahead of the midterm elections on gas prices, taxes, immigration and other issues.

Another aim was to add a “poison pill” amendment to the package that might weaken its support in the House and force the whole enterprise to collapse.

None of these amendments were added to the package — at least for the first 14 or 15 hours of the marathon, because Democrats were able to stick together to fight them off.

That changed after 2 pm Sunday, when Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and six other Democrats backed a measure that raised revenue by extending for one year the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions that was a key feature of the 2017 Trump tax cut bill.

Democrats initially worried about the passage of that amendment could hurt the bill, but after its passage they offered another amendment that replaced the SALT cap extension with a different tax provision.

It was somewhat predictable that Democrats stuck together since it was a necessity for final passage, but it was still notable given the stark differences between centrists like Manchin and Sinema and progressive voices such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

During the final vote, several Democrats offered hugs to Sinema. The relief on members’ faces as they said goodbye ahead of the August recess was clear.

Sanders, Dems both showed some frustration

It wasn’t all love and roses for Democrats during the marathon night of voting.

While the larger story was Democrats battling off GOP amendments, Democrats also killed off multiple amendments from one of their own caucus members: Sanders, the two-time presidential candidate.

In one of the night’s most heated moments on the floor, Sanders offered an amendment to revive the expanded child tax credit, which lapsed late last year, as part of the Democrats’ sprawling package.

“Pathetically, the United States has the highest child poverty rate of almost any major country on Earth, and it is especially high among young people of color,” Sanders said. “This is the wealthiest nation on Earth, we should not have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any country.”

The Sanders measure would have restored an expanded $300 credit for four years, and would have been paid for by raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent.

Democrats argued that while much of the party agreed with the Sanders proposal, if added it would have sunk the entire package.

“Sen. Sanders is right, the child tax credit is one of the most important things this body did. It brought down the child poverty rate by 40 percent almost immediately,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who nonetheless urged colleagues against voting for the amendment to avoid bringing “the bill down.”

As the debate continued and Sanders pushed back at Brown, asking what harm there would be in at least forcing those Democrats opposed to the tax credit from killing it while the rest of the caucus—48 senators in all—voted for it, Brown could be heard saying “come on, Bernie.”

In the end, Democrats did stick together — with Republicans but without Sanders — voting down the amendment 1-99.

One senator has a lot of power in the 50-50 Senate

At one time the package House and Senate Democrats envisioned would have included the child tax credit and a lot more.

The package being considered last fall would have topped $3 trillion, representing one of the most ambitious legislative plans in US history.

What ended up passing is a lot smaller — mostly because of Manchin and Sinema, who both opposed various parts of the initial plan.

The result reflected the essential truth that Democrats couldn’t do much of anything without Manchin and Sinema, since no Republicans were going to join them on their legislation. That meant they needed complete unity in their ranks in the Senate to get anything done.

Out went the elimination of the “carried interest loophole,” a casualty to Sinema that was meant to raise taxes on hedge fund money managers.

In came language to bolster oil and gas drilling in a package that overall is meant to steer the US away from dependence on fossil fuels. That was a concession to Manchin, who also whittled the size of the bill down largely because he said he did not want it to increase inflation.

Democrats essentially had to buy off Manchin and then Sinema to get the bill through the Senate, and both used their leverage to get a lot of what they wanted.

It’s another lesson in the basic politics of the Senate. If your vote is needed, you can get paid in provisions for your state and interest, something both Manchin and Sinema got in spades.

Sinema flexed her political muscle early in the negotiations when she ruled out proposals to increase the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent and to raise the top marginal income tax rate on wealthy individuals.

Democratic colleagues were stunned by her hard line as they assumed corporate and top-bracket income tax breaks would be at the core of any budget reconciliation package.

Some other Democrats tried to use their leverage as well by threatening to derail the package if it included language that would be unpalatable to their constituents.

Sen. Bob Menendez (DN.J.) said he would vote against the final reconciliation bill if it included any Republican-sponsored amendments on immigration and some Western Democrats warned they might vote “no” if a drought relief provision sought by Sinema penalized their home states .

Democrats hope for some help in the midterms

The Democratic base has been down in the dumps for months — in part because of a sense that its political leaders were getting little done in Washington.

This feeling was always subjective and partly linked to expectations of members of the party set.

In his first year in office, Biden saw Democratic majorities approve a massive coronavirus relief package months into his term, and later a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that will make major investments in roads and bridges across the country.

But because the Build Back Better agenda was blocked — and because a fair number of Democrats identified that as their real top priority — there was a sense the party had accomplished close to nothing.

That feeling contributed to Biden’s negative polling numbers that were already down because of frustration over inflation and high gas prices.

The expectation for much of 2021 was that Democrats would not get much of Build Back Better done. Instead, they are on the verge of passing a $740 billion chunk of it.

The party hopes it will make the base feel a little more strongly about going to the polls to back Democratic House and Senate candidates in November.

Schumer showed his mettle as a leader

Schumer faced a lot of questions about his ability to lead a razor-thin 50-50 Senate majority when he took over control over the upper chamber in January of last year.

Progressives pressed him from the start to consider tossing out the Senate filibuster to pass big, bold proposals such as election reform despite the slim Democratic majority.

Democratic senators said if they failed to pass legislation to tackle climate change the session would have been something of a disappointment.

Prospects for climate change and tax reform legislation looked bleak after Schumer and Manchin blew up at each other in a July 14 meeting but Manchin came back to the leader a few days later looking to rekindle a deal.

Schumer declared the resulting compromise “one of the most comprehensive and impactful bills Congress has seen in decades.”

Getting Manchin to agree to the most sweeping climate bill ever passed by Congress despite the strong opposition of the West Virginia Coal Association will go down in the books as an impressive example of leadership and deal making.

Getting Sinema to agree to give Medicare power to negotiate lower drug price is another impressive accomplishment. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) hailed it as a “seismic shift” in power between the government and the pharmaceutical industry.

And Schumer kept Sanders, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, from defecting, despite his loud grumblings that the bill fell far short of what the American public needs to better afford health care, child care and housing.

Democrats voted en masse to defeat several attempts by Sanders to change the bill after Schumer urged them to keep the legislation free of changes. The Vermont senator still stuck with his leader to pass the Inflation Reduction Act Sunday afternoon.

Mychael Schnell contributed.

Congress is on the verge of passing President Biden’s signature legislative achievement after Senate Democrats approved a better climate, health care and tax bill on Sunday.

“It’s been a long tough and winding road but at last, at last, we have arrived,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before Sunday’s vote, which came after more than 24 hours of debate and votes on amendments to the Inflation Reduction Act. measure passed after Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote.

The vote is a boost for the president, who ended his isolation at the White House Sunday after testing negative a second time for COVID. Although his approval ratings of him are still underwater, Biden has witnessed an unusual stretch of good news: from blockbuster job numbers to bipartisan legislation passing Congress, and the killing of a terrorist leader. Democrats, meanwhile, have something to campaign on with less than three months left for the midterms, where they are expected to lose ground.

In a statement issued after the Senate vote on the roughly $700 billion package, Biden said “doing the important thing almost always” requires compromises. Indeed, Democrats were initially looking at a $3.5 trillion package.

“I ran for President promising to make government work for working families again, and that is what this bill does – period,” Biden said. He also urged the House to pass the bill as possible so he can sign it into law.

That could happen as early as Friday when the House is scheduled to return from its recess.

“The House will return and move swiftly to send this bill to the President’s desk — proudly building a healthier, cleaner, fairer future for all Americans,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

With less than three months from the midterms, Democrats are eager to move beyond their internal splits and tout the accomplishments they have been able to get through Congress in the past few months: bipartisan gun reform, a veterans health care bill and a legislation boosting semiconductor chip production in the US

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, DN.J., who had appeared skeptical of the measure, said in a statement Sunday he’ll be voting for it.

“This bill passes my key test that I’ve pushed for since day one: it does not raise taxes on individuals, families, or small businesses in my District,” he said.

What’s in the bill

The measure includes several significant policy changes. It includes roughly $370 billion for climate change policies, including tax credits for electric vehicles and money for renewable energy programs. Democrats say these investments will cut greenhouse emissions by 40% from 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

“Very few pieces of legislation will ever make the kind of impact that this climate bill will have, not just for the United States, but for the entire world,” Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said after the measure passed on the Senate floor.

Additionally, the bill allows Medicare to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs, and caps the cost of out-of-pocket costs people on Medicare pay to $2,000 per year, starting in 2025. The powerful pharmaceutical industry lobby has opposed this for years.

The bill also extends the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act that were part of a pandemic relief bill for three more years.

Tax changes include a 15% minimum corporate minimum tax and an excise tax on stock buybacks that will bring in roughly $300 billion in new revenue to pay down the deficit.

republican response

Senate Republicans were united in their opposition to the package.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in a statement, excoriated the bill, saying it would make the deficit worse.

“Democrats have proven over and over they simply do not care about middle-class families’ priorities,” he said in a statement. “They have spent 18 months providing that. They just spent hundreds of billions of dollars to provide it again.”

Democrats, however, argue that the bill will not exacerbate inflation and will actually lower it, pointing to other studies.

A boost for Biden

News of the bill’s passage caps a string of good news for the president. The week began with Biden announcing the killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Senate then passed a bipartisan measure to provide health care and benefits for millions of veterans injured by exposure to toxins, from Agent Orange in Vietnam to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both came a week after the Senate passed a major industrial bill aimed at investing billions in American-made technology like semiconductors.

As recently ads last month, the Democrats spending package appeared dead after more than a year of internal squabbles between moderates and progressives about the size and scope of the proposal.

Schumer and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin secretly renewed talks about 10 days ago and put together the framework. Most Democrats were skeptical after Manchin pulled back from talks citing inflation concerns just days before this deal was announced. Democrats also needed the vote of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who forced leaders to remove a provision targeting how hedge funds and private equity funds are taxed.

A repeat of those exact same circumstances would, of course, depend on the results of other races around the country. But the battle for control of the Senate is finely balanced between both parties right now — and the mere thought of the chamber hanging in the balance well after the November election is filling some Georgia organizers with dread.

“Nobody wants a runoff. Nobody wants a runoff,” Sukari Johnson, chair of the Clayton County Democratic Party, repeated with emphasis. “Because it’s very difficult for people to come back out, and at that point you’re spending time and money to get people to come back out. And nobody wants to do that after November.”

the polling average of the Warnock-Walker race from FiveThirtyEight shows Warnock with a 3-point edge — the same margin the Democratic senator enjoyed in the most recent survey from the home-state duo of the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the University of Georgia. Oliver garnered 3 percent support in that survey published at the end of July.

Warnock’s consistent polling advantage has come even as Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has enjoyed small leads over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams in most surveys. It’s a slice of ticket-splitting that reveals some discomfort with Walker among voters who are prepared to cast GOP ballots in the state’s other big contest.

If the Senate campaign “is a small race, and it’s just down to two personalities, then I think Warnock might win,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia native who appeared with Walker at a campaign event last week in Alpharetta, told POLITICAL. “But if this is a big race, and it comes down to Warnock’s being part of 9 percent inflation and highest price gas in history, and you can go down the list, then I think Warnock loses.”

Those competing cross-currents are what is keeping the race so close — and with a close race comes the chance of a runoff. And at that point, Democrats concede, fatigue could become a factor as there have been near-nonstop political battles in Georgia over the last few years.

“Fatigue, people feeling overworked, and then people not recognizing that their vote is a powerful tool that they can use to change their circumstances and to change the world around them,” said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the Abrams-founded New Georgia Project, listing off challenges she and her voting rights organization are facing this year.

Jacquelyn Bettadapur, chair of the Democratic Party of Cobb County, agreed that the party faced an enthusiasm and energy deficit heading into the midterm’s homestretch. “This race is about who’s better at mobilizing the grassroots and getting people to turnout and vote. And I think the Republicans have a slight advantage with that … we’re seeing a lot of Republican enthusiasm similar to what the Democrats had in 2017 [after Donald Trump was first elected].”

Bettadapur said she believes people will still go and vote in November, but when it comes to getting volunteers to door-knock, text and phone bank and do other direct voter contact, there’s less enthusiasm than there was four years ago. Gwinnett County Democratic chair Brenda Lopez Romero, for example, is leading an effort to knock on doors and prepare media outreach in five different languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese.

Republicans have obstacles of their own to navigate. In Muscogee County, home to the city of Columbus, the party is working to flip the 2nd Congressional District and increase their vote share in a strongly Democratic area. Muscogee County GOP Chair Alton Russell is battling fears among base Republicans that their votes don’t matter. Stoked by former President Donald Trump’s insistent falsehoods about voter fraud and the results of the 2020 election, they’re the same fears that may have cost the GOP critical voter turnout in the last Senate runoffs.

“That’s a concern that I have — about people not voting because they have the opinion that everything is crooked, and Trump really won, and that their vote don’t count, and they’re just not going to vote at all. And I see that every day,” Russell said.

He added that there are several ways to engage GOP voters despite these concerns — including priming Republicans to get ready to vote out Joe Biden in 2024. But some Republicans get mad when they are encouraged to move on and look forward to the next election, Russell continued.

While Warnock is ahead in the polls, no one on his campaign believes the lead with last on his own.

“There are going to be polls in all directions over the course of this campaign. Here’s what we know: this race will be close, which is why we can’t take anything for granted and are working hard every day to reelect Reverend Warnock,” said Quentin Fulks, Warnock’s campaign manager, in a statement to POLITICO.

Walker’s campaign did not respond for comment. But Russell, the Muscogee County GOP chair, noted again how important voter outreach will be for the next three months.

“In Georgia, and in every county in Georgia, what’s gonna make the difference is turnout,” he said. “If we turn out, we will win. If we stay home, we won’t.”

Smash-and-grab robbers in New York City stole a large amount of high-end jewelry in a heist that was caught on video.

The robbery happened at Rocco’s Jewelry in the Bronx on Friday at around 2:30 pm The business estimates that they lost $2.15 million worth of merchandise in the heist.

The jeweler, which is in the Fordham Heights section of the Bronx and a short walk away from Fordham University, was closed on Saturday while police investigated the scene.

Surveillance video shows one of the suspects acting coolly as he approaches the store and waits to be let in.

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After a Rocco’s Jewelry employee buzzed him in, the white T-shirt-clad suspect held the door open for three masked men in black clothing.

One of the thieves is seen using a hammer to smash glass cases as the others shove fistfuls of jewelry into bags.

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The heist – which lasted only around a minute – appears to have been carefully planned. Police have published images and descriptions of the suspects to gather more information.

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Anyone with information regarding the robbery was urged to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted confidentially through the Crime Stoppers website at www.crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or on Twitter at @NYPDTips.