Tag: bill

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Jayapal says CBO scores are ‘outdated,’ don’t count ‘wellbeing of planet,’ amid spending bill backlash

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., joined ‘Fox News Sunday’ to discuss the bill, warning it will ‘destroy this country’ if it becomes law.

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal Monday fired Democrats’ latest salvo against a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score that rated their massive reconciliation spending bill, calling it “fictional” and arguing the office itself is “outdated.” 

“CBO scores are outdated to start with in terms of what and how they assess. Many new ideas w/out economic data to help generate a score never get scored accurately,” Jayapal, D-Wash., said. “Future savings, inclu (sic) reductions in poverty, wellbeing of planet, don’t get scored.”

“On top of that, if you now tell CBO that they should score not based on what is in the bill but an assumption of what happens if all the programs in the bill get extended for some period of time, that topples all credibility of scores. That’s fictional scoring,” Jayapal added. “GOP asking for score on Build Back Better that extends all the programs to 10 years is completely ridiculous.” 

ACCOUNTING GAMES: DEMOCRATS ARE DOWNPLAYING THE PRICE OF THEIR MASSIVE SPENDING BILL, WATCHDOG SAYS

Jayapal’s comments come as a score of the reconciliation bill released by the agency last week continues to roil Washington, D.C. 

Senate Republicans asked the CBO to score Democrats’ bill as if all its programs would be permanent, resulting in a total price tag of nearly $5 trillion instead of less than $2 trillion. With the revenue raisers included in the bill staying constant, that would mean Democrats’ proposal would add about $3 trillion to the national debt over 10 years. 

The GOP-ordered CBO score tracks with analyses from outside groups like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), which argued for weeks that Democrats are using dishonest budgeting gimmicks to reduce the price of their bill. 

“They want to spend $2.4 trillion and buy with that almost $5 trillion worth of stuff. So the way they’re doing that is by making a number of the policies temporary,” CRFB senior vice president Marc Goldwein told Fox News last month. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, updates reporters after meeting with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and fellow Democrats as President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion domestic policy package remains in limbo (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite / AP Newsroom)

BIDEN’S SPENDING BILL COULD ADD $3T TO THE DEFICIT IF MADE PERMANENT, CBO SAYS

These programs count as temporary on the official CBO score for the bill, Goldwein said, but there’s a strong chance many of them get extended by a future Congress after people get used to them, running up the real cost of the bill. 

Jayapal argued this approach to understanding Democrats’ bill is incorrect. 

“Absurd for GOP to assume all programs continue for 10 years. We made tough choices to only fund certain programs for fewer years b/c top line number had to come down,” she said. “It is completely illogical to impute a score on a non-existent bill & shows GOP is just trying to kill it.”

JOE-MANCHIN-REMARKS-WASHINGTON-DC

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) delivers remarks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S. November 1, 2021. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Photos)

CBO SCORE ‘BLOWS UP’ WHITE HOUSE LIE THAT BUILD BACK VETTER COSTS ZERO DOLLARS: MORABITO

Jayapal suggested that if members of Congress are scoring bills based on counterfactuals and not actual legislative text, maybe the CBO should “score Pentagon spending for the next 100 years, the GOP Tax Scam for 20 years” and more. Jayapal also said the reconciliation bill would save the federal government money over two decades. 

Democrats suggest that if they pass extensions to any of the programs in their reconciliation spending bill they would include additional taxes to pay for them in the future. But they would technically be under no obligation to do so. 

Meanwhile, Republicans are hammering the reconciliation bill as irresponsible federal spending right when Americans are being hit hard by inflation – and they’re leaning on moderate Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., to block it. In fact, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on “Fox News Sunday” it was Manchin’s idea to have the CBO score reconciliation as if it were permanent. 

A screenshot of Sen. Lindsey Graham from America’s Newsroom on November 10, 2021 (Fox News)

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“You know why I wrote a letter to CBO? Because Joe Manchin came to me and he said, ‘I think this bill is full of gimmicks, that these programs won’t go away, Lindsey, and if you score them for 10 years, I think the bill will double,'” Graham said. 

“Well, it didn’t double, it was almost 2.5 times,” Graham added. “So, I hope this will be a showstopper for Build Back Better.” 

Democrats are shooting to pass the reconciliation bill through at least the Senate before the New Year. But with the days before Christmas dwindling, several outstanding policy disagreements and the Senate parliamentarian still combing through the massive bill to ensure it conforms with the Byrd Rule, that timeline appears increasingly likely to slip into next year. 

Fox News’ Megan Henney contributed to this report. 

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Senate passes funding bill despite vaccine mandate flap, averting shutdown

Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram discusses the battle to avoid government shutdown amid vaccine mandates debate.

Senate lawmakers voted Thursday night to approve a bill that funds the government through Feb. 18, avoiding a government shutdown with roughly 24 hours to spare despite a partisan clash regarding President Biden’s federal vaccine mandate.

The Senate voted 69-28 in favor of the continuing resolution, which approves government funding at the prior year’s levels until a new bipartisan agreement is reached. The resolution includes $7 billion in new funding to support Afghan refugees.

The bill now proceeds to Biden’s desk for final approval.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arrives at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Associated Press)

“I am glad that in the end, cooler heads prevailed. The government will stay open,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “And I thank the members of this chamber for walking us back from the brink of an avoidable, needless and costly shutdown.”

Moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was among the senators who voted in favor of the continuing resolution.

“In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and as the new Omicron variant emerges, I will not vote to shut down the government for purely political reasons,” Manchin said in a statement. 

A standoff between Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans over the federal vaccine mandate nearly derailed the vote. Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah and Roger Marshall of Kansas demanded a separate vote on an amendment to bar funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the entity responsible for implementing Biden’s mandate. 

Schumer allowed the vote on the amendment to proceed ahead of the vote on the continuing resolution. 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021, to speak about immigration at the U.S.- Mexico boarder. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Associated Press)

Senators voted to reject Marshall’s amendment on the vaccine mandate. The amendment fell short of the 51 votes required to pass. Manchin and fellow moderate Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona each voted against the measure.

Republicans widely oppose the mandate, which forces companies with 100 or more employees to ensure their employees are vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo regular testing. GOP lawmakers argue the mandate is too broad and constitutes federal overreach.

“No precedent exists in American history for punishing private employers who don’t enforcement government vaccination edicts,” Marshall said in a floor speech ahead of the vote on his amendment.

Lee said millions of Americans were “being threatened right now with losing their jobs” due to the mandate. He argued that Democrats, not Republicans, risked the shutdown in their effort to prevent a vote on the amendment.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., arrives at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021, as a showdown looms with Democrats over raising the debt limit. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Associated Press)

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“Those in this chamber who shamefully were refusing over and over again to even let us cast a vote on that simple measure threatened to shut down all of government because they didn’t want us to have a chance, as the people’s elected lawmakers, to decide whether or not we should proceed with vaccine mandate enforcement,” Lee said.

The vote on the continuing resolution brought the Senate in sync with House lawmakers, who hours earlier voted 221-212 in favor of the continuing resolution to fund the government through Feb. 18. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., was the lone GOP representative to vote in favor of the resolution.

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Bill Ackman says the Covid omicron variant could end up being bullish for markets

Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Investor Bill Ackman said the new omicron variant of the coronavirus could actually give U.S. stocks a boost if symptoms turn out to be less severe.

“While it is too early to have definitive data, early reported data suggest that the Omicron virus causes ‘mild to moderate’ symptoms (less severity) and is more transmissible,” Ackman said in a tweet Sunday evening. “If this turns out to be true, this is bullish not bearish for markets.”

The founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management added it would be bullish for the equity market and bearish for the bond market.

First detected in South Africa, the new Covid variant has now been found in more than a dozen countries, causing many to restrict travel from southern Africa. The World Health Organization labeled the omicron strain a “variant of concern” on Friday when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 900 points to suffer its worst day since October 2020.

Covid symptoms linked to the omicron variant have been described as “extremely mild” by the South African doctor who first raised the alarm over the new strain.

Still, the WHO said it will take weeks to understand how the variant may affect diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.

Ackman’s comments have been widely watched throughout the health crisis and the market’s turbulent ride over the past two years. At the height of the Covid-19 crisis in March 2020, Ackman came on CNBC to warn investors that “hell is coming” and urged President Donald Trump and corporate America to shut down the country for 30 days to contain the outbreak, calling it the only option to rescue the economy.

Days after the interview, Ackman revealed his firm exited the short positions just as the S&P 500 bottomed, pocketing more than $2 billion in bets against markets that month.

In July when Wall Street was grappling with the Covid delta variant, Ackman said it doesn’t pose a significant threat to the economic reopening and he sees interest rates rising on the back of the big comeback.

More recently at the end of October, the hedge fund manager called for the Federal Reserve to begin reining in the support it has provided to the economy during the pandemic. He said the central bank should “taper immediately and begin raising rates as soon as possible.”

Pershing Square manages about $13 billion in assets and the hedge fund was up 27.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} through October and 21.6{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} net of fees, according to the company’s statements. It followed a banner 2020 during which the fund returned a whopping 70.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} on net.

Ackman has been betting big on a rebound in the restaurant, retail and hotel industries. His top holdings at the end of the third quarter included Lowe’s, Hilton, Restaurant Brands and Chipotle. He picked up Domino’s Pizza shares earlier this year following a pullback.

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‘Gimmicks’ in reconciliation bill cover up over $1T in spending, US Chamber of Commerce says

Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., says the passage of the infrastructure invoice took away Democrats’ leverage to vote on the social expending bundle.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce accused the authors of the Democrat-backed reconciliation bill of using “gimmicks to go over up very well more than $1 trillion in expending,” and named on Congress to identify the bill’s precise “serious-environment impression.”

The small business group printed a letter it despatched to politicians in D.C. on Wednesday demanding that they consider the price tag of the laws, its inflationary affect and how the guidelines will influence potential workforce participation.

President Biden is expected to signal the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill on Monday all through a ceremony at the White Household. The invoice gives funding for actual physical infrastructure initiatives like streets, bridges, drinking water pipes and broadband world wide web. Democrats are now zeroing in on the president’s even even larger $1.75 trillion bundle aimed at expanding overall health, youngster, elder treatment and weather improve plans.

Congress has not been this narrowly break up in 20 a long time, with a Democratic margin of just a couple of seats in the House and the existing 50-50 split Senate.

In accordance to the chamber, the reconciliation monthly bill has sunset provisions that “disguise the correct expense of the monthly bill.” These provisions basically expire after a sure total of time, but then could be prolonged. So the volume seems lesser than the genuine total expense. 

The New York Situations claimed that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WVa., known as these provisions “shell online games” and the precise value of the reconciliation bill could be double the volume being discussed.

GOP congressman Kevin Brady joins ‘Kudlow’ to slam Biden’s social paying out package.

The Congressional Price range Office (CBO) announced Tuesday that there is presently no set timeline for when they will have a rating for the Build Back again Greater Act, the social paying out bill Democrats are striving to go.

BIDEN, DEMOCRATS Rejoice Following $1.2T INFRASTRUCTURE Monthly bill PASSES — Despite SOME ‘NO’ VOTES

The CBO supplies “scores” for legislation that estimate how payments would impact the spending plan by hunting at elements this kind of as expending, income and deficits. Provided the sheer length of the social expending monthly bill, the agency said they are functioning on a score, but it will just take time.

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“In excess of the past several months, we have offered technical guidance to committees as they developed their proposals for different components of the bill,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel mentioned on the agency’s web page. “The examination of the bill’s quite a few provisions is complicated, and CBO will supply a price estimate for the total monthly bill as shortly as practicable.”

Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer and The Linked Push contributed to this report.