•President Biden flies to Rome tomorrow to meet with Pope Francis, ahead of a trip to Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday for next week’s United Nations climate conference.
•Email your comments on the latest news and our debates to editors@thehustings.news
Billionaire Income Tax and Half-Trillion for Climate Change Push Negotiations –Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-OR, released a “billionaires income tax” proposal targeting about 700 Americans to help pay for the White House’s Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill currently under intense negotiations between moderate and progressive Congressional Democrats, according to multiple sources, including Punchbowl News and NPR’s Morning Edition.
The proposal appears to have widespread support among the two Democratic factions. The budget reconciliation framework has a current target price of $1.75 trillion to $1.9 trillion, but that would be spread out over a number of years, and the approximately $300 billion the billionaires’ tax is expected to raise would cover much of the cost.
On the spending side, Axios reports that the White House is telling lawmakers that the climate change provisions in the reconciliation bill are “largely settled” at $500 billion to $555 billion, making it likely the costliest single expense. This would give President Biden something to talk up when he attends the 2021 United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, next week, though he may have to describe it as a proposal, rather than legislation passed by Congress.
How the Billionaire Income Tax Would Work: Wyden’s proposal would tax more than $1 billion in assets, or more than $100 million income over three straight years, including “tradable assets,” known as “marked to market” in which billionaire taxpayers would pay taxes on investment gains or take a deduction on investment losses. This would tax, for example, gains on a stock’s value even if the billionaire investor does not sell the stock to pocket the gain.
Wyden’s proposal also would impose a minimum tax rate on corporations of 15%, regardless of whether the company posts income or loss in a given year.
The Finance Committee notes that the Joint Committee on Taxation has not yet scored the proposal, Punchbowl News says.
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Lost the Election and >130,000 People: Dr. Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator in the Trump Administration, told the House Coronavirus Crisis Select Subcommittee, “I felt like the White House had gotten somewhat complacent through the campaign season,” in an excerpt released by the subcommittee quoted by The Washington Post. Birx is also quoted: “I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30%-less to 40%-less range.” Or about 130,000 people.
Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington responded in a statement: “President Trump led an unprecedented effort to successfully combat the coronavirus, delivering PPE, hospital beds, treatments, and three vaccines in record time. Unfortunately, this approach was not taken up by the current government, and more lives have been lost from covid this year than the entirety of 2020, which the Fake News media places no blame onto Joe Biden.”
Note: Isn’t the phrase “successfully combat the coronavirus” used by Harrington essentially undercut by reality? Aren’t Joe Biden’s declining poll numbers, regularly quoted by news outlets that are undoubtedly considered “Fake” by Trump and his acolytes, associated with the pandemic? Although there have been some 353,000 deaths this year associated with COVID according to Johns Hopkins University, which exceeds the estimated 352,000 in 2020, doesn’t Harrington realize that were people to have undertaken the recommendations that Birx enumerates, there would have been fewer people infected, which means that there would have been fewer fatalities — in 2020 and 2021?
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McConnell Endorses Trump Senate Candidate – In the ongoing gauge of which way the GOP winds are blowing in relationship to Donald J. Trump’s control of the party, this one counts as a “win” for the twice-impeached former president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, has endorsed Herschel Walker for next year’s GOP primary to run against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-GA, who won his seat in Georgia’s January runoffs to help Democrats take their tie breaker-thin majority.
“Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Sen. Warnock, and take back the Senate,” McConnell said in a statement issued to Politico. The Senate’s number-two Republican, John Thune of South Dakota, had endorsed Walker on Monday. There has been some concern among Republicans regarding Walker’s personal life, including allegations he drew a gun on his ex-wife.
Walker, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner as University of Georgia running back, served as co-chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition under the Trump administration. Before playing for several NFL teams, Walker played for the New Jersey Generals, a team of the short-lived U.S. Football League once owned by Trump.
Note: McConnell is still stinging for the GOP’s loss of both Senate seats from Georgia in last January’s special run-offs, after Trump apparently dissuaded Republicans in the state from showing up to the polls with his false “voter fraud” claims, and he clearly sees Walker as providing his best path to retaking the Senate majority leader’s gavel. At a recent rally, Trump threatened another Georgia January: “If we don’t solve the presidential election fraud of 2020 … Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24. It’s the single most important things for Republicans to do.”
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Comedian/Satirist Mort Sahl Dies – Joke-writer for John F. Kennedy and personal friend of Ronald Reagan, and cited by the Library of Congress as the “earliest example of modern stand-up comedy on record” for “At Sunset,” recorded in 1955, according to his New York Times obituary, Mort Sahl has died, in Mill Valley, California. He was 94. Sahl’s particular brand of political humor – explaining the “horse shoe” of left-and-right political philosophy, for example -- in the late 1950s and 1960s made him an influence on numerous comedians to come.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021
•Executives for TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat testify before the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection panel today on how well their social media platforms protect children online (WaPo).
•Moderna has announced it will deliver up to 110 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to countries on the African continent, the AP reports. The first 15 million are to be delivered by the end of this year, with another 35 million doses in the first quarter of 2022, and 60 million in the second quarter.
•President Biden will announce Tuesday a $100 million initiative to strengthen the U.S. relationship with South East Asia Politico reports, citing the White House. Biden joins a virtual summit today with the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations, (ASEAN), the first time for a U.S. president since Donald Trump in 2017.
Billionaire Tax Proposed for Budget Reconciliation – A Democratic proposal for a billionaires’ tax to pay for the Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill – now targeted at $1.75-1.9 trillion – is “gaining momentum,” according to The Hill, while Republicans are calling it “too cumbersome” compared with raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, the Associated Press reports.
These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, though they could indicate why Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, has yet to weigh in on it. Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, seems to approve the provision, according to the AP, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, calls it a “hare-brained scheme.” Some Republicans say the tax scheme, which is meant to raise funds to pay for the budget reconciliation bill without raising the federal debt, could be challenged in court.
It’s based on a 2019 bill by Ron Wyden, D-OR, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and would tax the assets of billionaires, many of whom don’t pay much, or anything in taxes on annual income, but earn millions per year from investments. The proposal also would set a 15% minimum tax rate on corporations, regardless of how they report profits. [GV1]
According to Roll Call, taxing unrealized capital gains – on stock prices that go up over the tax year but are not cashed in, called “market-to-market” – is gaining momentum given Sinema’s opposition to increased taxes on individuals[GV2] earning more than $400,000 per year ($450,000 for couples).
Note: Some Democrats appear ready to call McConnell’s bluff and simply proceed with the tax increases, while Sinema hasn’t publicly weighed in yet – perhaps waiting to see which way the tax winds are blowing.
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UN Report Says Global Emissions Will be Up 16% by 2030 – A new United Nations report says global emissions are set to increase as much as 16% by the end of the decade, The Washington Post reports. The new UN report, coming ahead of its climate summit beginning Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland, is based on 192 countries’ commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
In other words, it’s not enough.
The U.S. and Australia both have committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050, though President Biden’s target date will be affected by cuts to his climate change proposal in the Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill, and Australia plans to do it, according to the BBC, without shutting down coal or gas production. China has committed to carbon neutrality by 2060.
If countries don’t get more aggressive with plans to cut greenhouse gases, the UN report says, the Earth is expected to be 2.7 degrees Celsius warmer by the end of the century, “far above” the 2C benchmark set in 2015, WaPo says.
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Alabama Governor Resists COVID Vax Mandate — “Alabamians are overwhelmingly opposed to these outrageous, Biden mandates, and I stand with them,” Alabama’s Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement, according to The Washington Post. She has signed an executive order that is meant to counter the federal mandate that requires workers at federal contractors, federal employees, and health workers at facilities Medicare and Medicaid money be vaccinated.
Note: Note the “federal.” The vaccination rate, the Post says, was 44.4% in Alabama, as of late Monday. Aren’t governors supposed to protect their people?
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U.S. Aid to Sudan Suspended Following Coup – The Biden administration has suspended $700 million in financial aid to Sudan following yesterday’s military coupe, the AP reports. The aid is on “pause” pending review of developments in Khartoum. The State Department has called for the immediate release of those arrested, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
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Trump Jr. Sells T-Shirts Mocking Alec Baldwin Shooting – Donald Trump, Jr., is selling t-shirts on his website mocking the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on Alec Baldwin’s Rust movie set, The Hill reports. We won’t repeat the t-shirt’s words, nor the website’s address here with the same warning the NRA often made after several multiple shootings, that now is not the time to politicize a tragedy.
Note: Baldwin had done a masterful job of eviscerating Trump Senior on Saturday Night Live. Presumably Junior is still smarting over that.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021
•Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testifies before the British Parliament today, as new revelations show that the social media platform “meticulously” tracked international harms while ignoring warnings by its own employees about the way poor design decisions affected vulnerable communities around the world (WaPo).
•Democrats are looking to wrap up negotiations on the budget reconciliation bill and move its framework along while passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill Wednesday, and finally deliver it to President Biden’s desk before he departs for a trip to Rome on Thursday (The Hill and Punchbowl News.) Details below…
•Sudan’s top general has arrested the nation’s prime minister and other top officials in a military coup Monday, the AP reports. Thousands of citizens are reported to have flooded the streets of the capital Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman, as Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan dissolved the government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
Delivering Budget Reconciliation on Time? – Medicare expansion and taxes on billionaires are among the key remaining issues Democrats must figure out before moving forward a compromise of President Biden’s Build Back Better budget reconciliation, now expected to come in at $1.75 trillion.
“In terms of where we are, I have already said we have 90% of the bill agreed to and written,” House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “We just have some of the last decisions to be made.”
A key swing vote, Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, is amenable to new taxes on billionaires and certain corporations to pay for the pared down social service and climate change programs, the Associated Press reports, after meeting at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY.
Democrats already had missed its latest self-imposed deadline Friday for the budget reconciliation framework and worked through the weekend to get to that 90%.
Note: Congressional Democrats also are crashing against the end-of-the-month expiration of highway funding (already extended by a month), and Biden’s planned appearance at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Biden will have much less to show at that conference, with his Build Back Better program having been cut in half. But wait, there’s more. Virginia’s gubernatorial election is November 2 – one week from tomorrow (early voting has already begun) – and Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe needs a Biden legislative victory to give his campaign against Republican candidate Glenn Younkin a bump. Polls say the two Virginia candidates are in a dead heat, but with momentum on the Republican’s side.
Doing the Math: The numbers behind “trillions of dollars” of White House budget proposals have been thrown around, sometimes willy nilly, in the past half year or so. President Biden had initially proposed $3.5 trillion in spending for 10 years in his Build Back Better budget reconciliation proposal. Sen. Manchin had set an upper limit of $1.5 trillion for the bill, but the latest intel from the AP suggests he will accept up to $1.75 trillion. The bipartisan infrastructure bill – the one the Senate already passed and is sitting in the House waiting for the budget reconciliation bill, is about $1.2 trillion total, though it’s actually just $550 billion in new spending above programs already funded.
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Members of Congress Involved in January 6 Planning? — Two planners of the January 6 rallies in Washington are alleging “that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the January 6 events that turned violent,” according to a story in Rolling Stone by Hunter Walker. Walker also writes, “Along with [Marjorie Taylor] Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar, R-AZ, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-CO, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-NC, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-AZ, and Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-TX.”
Also, Walker writes that the sources say Gosar “dangled the possibility of a ‘blanket pardon’ in an unrelated ongoing investigation to plan the protests.”
Note: If this is even partially true, isn’t this a description of a conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution? Party of law and order?
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Charlottesville Civil Trial Begins – Jury selection is set to begin today in the civil trial filed by nine local residents against organizers of the deadly 2017 rally by white supremacists and militia members in Charlottesville, Virginia, per The Washington Post. Defendants include neo-Nazi Jason Kessler, who was a main organizer, and Richard Spencer, a featured speaker. The jury will decide whether the organized rally amounted to a conspiracy to engage in racially motivated violence. The trial is expected to run through November 19.
Note: Recall that Charlottesville’s rally is perhaps most notorious for the comments of then-President Trump, who said there were “very fine people, on both sides,” which he followed up with several dog-whistle comments through the rest of his administration.
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Pediatric Vaccinations Coming Next Month – A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee meets Tuesday to discuss a request by Pfizer and BioNTech to allow pediatric COVID-19 vaccinations for five- to 11-year-olds, The Washington Post reports. The advisory committee will inform the FDA’s decision on the request, which then will go on to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, which could approve the vaccine for children in that age group, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said on ABC News’ This Week Sunday.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods
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