“I’ve been here for cliffs and crises and wars, and this is going to be the biggest mashup we’ve ever had since I’ve been here — with the debt limit, with a government shutdown, with reconciliation and with infrastructure. And I have no idea how it all works out.”
— Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), quoted by NBC News.
Punchbowl News: “We’re not being histrionic, but Congress seems to be stumbling into a shutdown, despite one-party control of Washington.”
“The Senate is likely to wait until Monday to vote on the House-passed government funding bill, which would keep agencies open until Dec. 3. Because that legislation includes a provision suspending the debt limit until December 2022, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP colleagues will block it from being considered.”
“That leaves just three days for the congressional leaders and the White House to find a way to keep the government open. Congress could pass a temporary funding extension to ensure federal agencies remain open while a longer-term funding bill — sans the debt limit — is cobbled together.”
“But the debt limit issue still has to be dealt with, and that could take several weeks if Democrats choose to go it alone.”
“Stacey Abrams this week launched an ambitious national tour that will stretch across months and many swing states ahead of the 2022 midterms — and potentially elevate her standing in the Democratic Party in the process,” Axios reports.
Reuters: “Reuters interviewed 9 of the 15 declared Republican candidates for secretary of state in five battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada — and reviewed public statements by all of the candidates. Ten of the 15 have either declared that the 2020 election was stolen or called for their state’s results to be invalidated or further investigated.”
“Only two of the nine candidates Reuters interviewed said that Biden won the election.”
House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-KY) told Punchbowl News it would be “virtually impossible” at this juncture for Democrats to use the 50-vote threshold afforded to them in budget reconciliation to lift the debt limit.
“Yarmuth is the Budget Committee chair, so if anyone could speak knowledgeably about this, it would be him relaying information from his staff. We’ll have to see how the House and Senate proceed here.”
“Senate sources were quick to say Yarmuth is misreading the situation, and this could move quickly if it needs to.”
“President Biden met Wednesday with warring Democrats in an urgent effort to rescue his first-term agenda from potential collapse, attempting to broker a political truce that would foster passage of roughly $4 trillion in new economic spending initiatives,” the Washington Post reports.
“Biden’s three high-stakes meetings — with party leaders and top members of its liberal and moderate factions — came five days before the House planned to take up a package to improve the nation’s infrastructure that could be doomed unless Democrats of all stripes unify behind it.”
New York Times: “In essence, Mr. Biden’s entire agenda faces a make-or-break moment, with an array of policy disagreements — over how large the domestic policy package should be and how to pay for and structure the programs it funds — standing in the way of action on any of it.”
“Democrats want to bludgeon the GOP over its debt ceiling intransigence as much as they can — though not necessarily hard enough to shut the government down next week,” Politico reports.
“Publicly, Senate Democrats’ preferred option is to continue pressuring Republicans to buckle and accept their proposal linking government funding and a debt ceiling increase. But failing that, they say they need to ensure they avoid a momentum-draining shutdown next week amid the pandemic and internal dissent over acting on President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.”
A new University of Mary Washington poll in Virginia finds Glenn Youngkin (R) leading Terry McAuliffe (D) in the race for governor, 48% to 43%.
This result may be an outlier as the polling average currently shows McAuliffe with a 3.5 point lead.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) will endorse former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) when he launches a campaign for his old job, the Portland Press Herald reports.
“More than $1 million that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) earned from a book trumpeting his response to the coronavirus pandemic will likely be protected from potential lawsuits brought by women whose allegations of sexual harassment pushed him to resign last month,” Law 360 reports.
“That’s because the disgraced Democrat put about a fifth of his $5.1 million book deal into a trust for his three daughters, likely shielding the money from future creditors.”
“The United States in 2020 experienced the biggest rise in murder since the start of national record-keeping in 1960,” the New York Times reports.
“The Uniform Crime Report will stand as the official word on an unusually grim year, detailing a rise in murder of around 29 percent. The previous largest one-year change was a 12.7 percent increase in 1968.”
“As Democrats consider legislation to respond to a new Texas state ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, they have lost the support of one of the few remaining Republicans who support abortion rights,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she opposes the Democrats’ bill, which would prohibit states from enacting restrictions on abortion through fetal viability.”
“Federal Reserve officials indicated on Wednesday that they expected to soon slow the asset purchases they have been using to support the economy and predicted that they might raise interest rates next year, signs that policymakers are preparing to pivot away from full-blast monetary help as the business environment snaps back from the pandemic shock,” the New York Times reports.
“I will continue to support him because I think he’s been extraordinarily effective, but should he decide to step down and no longer serve as a leader, I’ve made it no secret that I would like to succeed him.”
— Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), quoted by the Texas Tribune, on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
President Biden announced that the U.S. is donating an additional 500 million Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines to low- and lower-middle income countries around the world, bringing the U.S. total global donation to over 1.1 billion doses.
Said Biden: “America will become the arsenal of vaccines, as we were the arsenal for democracy during World War II.”
“John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and an influential figure among Democrats in Washington, called on lawmakers in his party on Wednesday to pare back a proposed $3.5 trillion social policy plan that carries much of President Biden’s domestic agenda,” the New York Times reports.
“If they do not, he warned, they risk failure to pass the legislation — and the loss of their congressional majorities next year.”
Punchbowl News: “They won’t say it on the record, but nearly every Democrat we talk to up here is — eager, let’s say — for President Joe Biden to get engaged in pushing his legislative agenda across the finish line.”
Aaron Blake: “The last quarter-century has featured an increasing number of such standoffs, with Republicans generally seeking something from a Democratic president to rein in spending. In almost every case, though, Republicans wound up bearing most of the blame, and they rarely got much in the way of concessions to show for it.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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