Big changes coming to reconciliation plan
House votes to find Bannon in contempt over Jan. 6 probe
Change is coming to reconciliation and some Democrats might not be happy. Trump calls Election Day the true insurrection. And Republicans make up more imaginary votes in Congress. This is “Regular Order” for October 22, 2021.
RECONCILIATION. Still searching for the magic formula on a tax and budget reconciliation package, President Joe Biden made clear on Thursday night that major changes are coming to the plan, which has stalled on Capitol Hill. “I do think I'll get a deal,” Mr. Biden said on CNN.
BIDEN. In Baltimore for a CNN town hall event, the President rattled off a list of likely changes - many of them due to the opposition of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). "When you’re President of the United States and you have 50 Democrats in the Senate, every one of them is a President," Mr. Biden noted.
TAXES. Asked about changes in how the plan would be paid for, the President indicated that the opposition of Sinema was likely to doom proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy and big businesses. "She says she will not raise a single penny in taxes on the corporate side and/or on wealthy people," Mr. Biden said.
OTHER CHANGES. The President said his paid leave plan may shrink to four weeks from the original 12 week proposal. Medicare expansion is in limbo because of Sinema and Manchin. Two years of free community college might be replaced by more money for Pell Grants.
CLIMATE. As for climate change provisions, the President said he's still in talks with Manchin about what might make it into the final bill. That's not going to be music to the ears of progressives, either.
FRAMEWORK. Democrats had talked about finalizing an outline of a deal by today. That seems unlikely, given the major changes outlined by the President last night.
BANNON. The House voted Thursday to find ex-Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to honor a subpoena in the January 6 investigation. “The vote to hold him in contempt today strikes a blow for the rule of law,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD). The vote was 229-202.
GOP NINE. There were nine House Republicans who broke ranks to support the resolution: Cheney WY, Kinzinger IL, Meijer MI, Gonzalez OH, Katko NY, Upton MI, Herrera Beutler WA, Fitzpatrick PA, and Mace SC. The first seven in that list voted to impeach Trump in January.
SUBPOENA. "Holding individuals who refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas in contempt is the sole recourse available to Congress to protect its power of inquiry," said Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI).
DEMS. Democrats savaged Republicans for their opposition to the Bannon resolution, and the GOP resistance to the underlying investigation into Jan. 6. “Republicans are bodyguards for the fascists who attacked our own Capitol,’ said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ).
WHAT'S NEXT. The matter now goes to the Justice Department, which could bring the contempt resolution before a federal grand jury. At a House hearing on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said officials would consider the matter, but gave no hints on a decision.
TRUMP. In a written statement, Donald Trump roiled the House floor debate over Bannon by claiming his 2020 election loss was the actual ‘insurrection,’ not the attack on the Capitol. "The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day," Trump wrote. "January 6 was the Protest!"
FLOOR. Democrats swiftly denounced Trump's words, and hung them on the neck of every GOP lawmaker. "If you believe that Election Day was an insurrection, then your election results are illegitimate," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA).
THE BIG LIE. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) compared the never-ending claims of election fraud by Trump to the "Lost Cause" after the Civil War. "We know from our history that when our government is attacked, failing to hold the perpetrators accountable emboldens them," Clyburn said.
THE PROBE. There were some notable tidbits in a floor statement by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), as she shed light on some of the investigative avenues being looked at by the January 6th committee.
THE PLOT. Cheney specifically name-checked four people. “First, the plot we are investigating, involving Mr. Eastman, Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Bannon, President Trump and many others - their plot attempted to halt or delay our count of electoral votes and reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.”
THE MEMO. Eastman is John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who was working with Trump's legal team. He wrote a six-step memorandum which set out a procedure involving Vice President Pence to tilt the Electoral College vote in Trump's favor, and keep Trump in office - despite his loss to Joe Biden.
JIM BANKS. One of the odder moments in the Bannon debate came when Cheney revealed that a GOP lawmaker, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), had been sending letters to federal agencies, demanding to see information turned over to the special Jan. 6 panel.
RANKING MEMBER. In those letters, Banks - who is not on the Jan. 6 committee - signs his name as "Ranking Member." A spokesman for Banks denied that the Indiana Republican had acted like he was on the panel. But his signature sure seems like it.
ETHICS. The House Ethics Committee on Thursday released four reports Thursday from the outside board responsible for reviewing ethics allegations, with all four finding 'substantial reason to believe' that the lawmakers - three Republicans and one Democrat - violated a variety of ethics rules - and even federal laws.
Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), accused of possibly converting campaign money to personal use.
Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who did not file required stock transaction reports in 2019 and 2020.
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), whose wife may have used insider information - obtained from Kelly - to buy stocks in 2020.
Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-MN), accused of using office funds to pay for services with companies owned and controlled by staff members.
ETHICS. All four lawmakers will now go through an investigative process with the Ethics Committee.
ATTORNEY GENERAL. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee threw everything they had at Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday, as a yearly oversight hearing turned chippy and political. Republicans mainly slammed Garland over an October 4 memo, instructing the FBI to help deal with violent threats against school boards and school administrators.
MEMO. Republicans claim Garland issued the memo to help protect his son-in-law's company, Panorama Education, which backs what Fox News calls "left leaning ideas." But the memo says nothing about any company or issue. It just focuses on threats of violence against 'school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.' Read that memo here.
KITCHEN SINK. GOP lawmakers also brought up Hunter Biden, an arrest in a Virginia school, donors to the Clinton Foundation, calls to block Congressional staff from being hired as federal prosecutors, a protest this week at the Interior Department, and more.
CAPITOL ATTACK. Asked about investigation into the January 6 attack, Garland said the probe is not going slower than normal. "I've been in lots of criminal investigations that took way longer," Garland testified. "We've arrested 650 people already," as he noted that 'citizen sleuths' were still helping the FBI identify suspects.
TAX GAP. The IRS says Americans won't pay $7 trillion in taxes that they owe to Uncle Sam over the next decade - what’s known as the tax gap - but efforts in Congress to crack down on tax cheats keep running into opposition from Republicans. More in my weekly column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
GOP ATTACKS. I wrote a column back in June about how House Republicans were making up votes in order to attack Democrats. We saw another example of that on Thursday related to this IRS matter.
TAX CHEATS. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a veteran Florida Republican, straight up accuses Democrats of voting to spy on the bank accounts of Americans. That didn’t happen.
PARLIAMENTARY NERD NOTE. Republicans were trying to say that the approval of a procedural motion known as the 'Previous Question' (which forces an end to debate) was the same as Democrats voting against a GOP bill on how the IRS can track down tax cheats. (Insert sound of wrong answer on 'Family Feud' with the Big 'X' on the screen.)
NASA. A Senate committee on Thursday looked at the future of space research, as a former NASA chief urged Congress to make sure the U.S. retains its leading role in space exploration. "It is absolutely critical that Congress fund America’s replacement for the International Space Station," Jim Bridenstine told Senators.
STATION. "The ISS is a critical tool for projecting American leadership in space especially with China launching the core module of their space station earlier this year," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
CHINA. The mention of China presents an interesting angle for supporters of the space agency. NASA might just see more political support in the 2020’s from a space race with China, just as it did in the 1960’s with Russia.
MONEY. While NASA gets strong support in Congress, there is always bipartisan reluctance to spend money needed for big projects. That could be true for a future space station.
MUSE OF HISTORY. October 22, 1986. On this date, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a sweeping bipartisan tax reform measure. The final plan won 292 votes in the House (where Democrats had the majority) and 74 in the Senate (where Republicans were in charge). "I feel like we just played the World Series of tax reform," Reagan said in a ceremony at the White House, "and the American people won." The 1986 law was a historic overhaul of the tax code, reducing the number of tax brackets, cutting tax rates, and making a number of business tax changes. The New York Times would call it, "A Tax bill for the textbooks."
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:
The House meets at 9 am.
The Senate convenes Monday at 3 pm.
President Biden’s daily schedule link.
Follow me on Twitter @jamiedupree. Email me at jamiedupree@substack.com