Tangle - A wild week in Congress.

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

This week could determine the future of Joe Biden’s domestic legislative agenda — and is perhaps the most important week of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 44-year career in Congress (and her biggest challenge to date). Today, we're setting the table.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to do something a little bit different. We are trying to set the table for this crazy, wild week in Congress that's ahead of us. I'm going to get to it in a minute, but basically we are looking at one of the most active and important weeks in both congressional history,

but also in terms of the Joe Biden presidency and what he's trying to accomplish this week could be maybe the most critical that he's had yet. It's certainly the most critical that he's had yet, and it might end up being one of the most important weeks of his presidency when it's all said and done. So I'm going to explain why and kind of what's going on and hopefully lay the foundation for some coverage

that is coming up later in the week and early next month. Before we jump in, though, as always, we'll start off with our quick hits of the day. Number one, President Joe Biden got a COVID-19 booster shot on live television as additional doses roll out across the country. Number two, Democrat Terry McAuliffe has maintained a small lead in the Virginia governor's race against the Trump-backed Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin. Number three, General Mark Milley is testifying before Congress today on the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Number four, Democratic Representative Karen Bass formally launched her campaign for mayor of Los Angeles yesterday. Number five, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Fed would exhaust its cash reserves by October 18th if the debt limit isn't raised. All right. So those are our quick hits today. As I mentioned at the top of the show,

we are sort of just trying to jump into the wild week ahead of us. The top line of what you need to know is basically that this week could determine the future of Joe Biden's domestic legislative agenda and is perhaps the most important week of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 44-year career in Congress. As we've covered in Tangle, Biden, Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have been trying to pass two bills at once, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. The bipartisan infrastructure package is mostly traditional infrastructure. Roads, bridges, internet expansion, fortifying infrastructure against major climate events, and so on. It's the largest federal infusion of money into infrastructure in America's history, so it's not a small bill, and it's clear it will

have a huge impact on American life. In principle, the infrastructure bill has support from every Democrat in the House and the Senate, and also some moderate Republicans in the House and even some moderate Republicans in the Senate. Obviously, it's called the bipartisan infrastructure bill because they all helped work on it together. The reconciliation bill is the larger $3.5 trillion spending package, which is still being drafted and debated. But the general outlines of what Biden hopes to do are massive. He's trying to invest $200 billion in universal preschool, provide free community college for two years,

provide 12 weeks of guaranteed paid parental leave, expand the child tax credit, expand Medicare, lower the price of prescription drugs, create fees for polluters, and a whole lot more. So, basically, there are two huge bills that, until last night, Democrats have been trying to pass simultaneously. Why, at the same time? The reason that Democrats have had these bills on a two-track process is that each bill has support from different factions of Congress. It's also because the massive $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill can be passed without a single vote from Republicans, thanks to a quirk of congressional Senate rules. So basically, here's how that's playing out. Moderate Democrats and some Republicans in both the House and the Senate support the passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan bill.

Because Democratic leadership knows this, they decided to try and tie that bill's fate to the reconciliation package, the larger $3.5 trillion bill, essentially saying Congress gets both or neither. They tried to do this by forcing near simultaneous votes on the bills and by crafting them together. Progressives in the House and Senate have said they will only pass the smaller bipartisan bill if they are certain they'll also get the larger reconciliation package too. Meanwhile, Democrats need all 50 Democrats in the Senate to vote with them. They're left trying to sell moderates like Senators Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema on the big $3.5 trillion bill that progressives want.

Right now, neither Manchin nor Sinema are supporting this bill, which puts Democrats in a pretty big jam. So why is this such a big deal right now? Because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised moderate Democrats a vote on the smaller infrastructure package this week. Now the House is set to vote on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package Thursday. So progressives have to make a decision. If they get on board and give that bill the votes it needs to pass, they know it will become law. If they don't support it, Pelosi will have to rally enough Republicans to vote for the bill so it won't fail. But progressives also know that if they vote for the bill and it passes, and the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill isn't

yet ready, they could end up passing the smaller bill and then be stuck trying to convince everyone to vote for the massive spending bill later on with no leverage. Basically, they lose the ability to threaten to sink the smaller bipartisan infrastructure bill. So this brings us all to last night when we had our first big movement of the week. Apparently the Democratic caucus met last night and it appears that progressives are softening a bit on the 3.5 trillion dollar price tag. Nancy Pelosi told them that they can no longer wait for a reconciliation bill to be approved in the Senate in order to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Basically she said this vote is coming and we need to act on it. Moderates are signaling that they want the reconciliation bill, they just want a much smaller price tag.

So all signs right now are pointing toward the historically large spending bill being a little bit less historic, a little bit less large, and probably coming a little bit later in the year. Senator Manchin, the moderate whose vote in the Senate is crucial to passing the reconciliation bill, is continuing to say that a deal is going to take a while and nothing happens without his or Senator Sinema's vote. Since Pelosi promised to hold a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Thursday, that vote appears certain to happen. In the progressive and Biden dream world that was laid out, the so-called two-track process, that would mean that Thursday would also see the Senate vote and pass the reconciliation bill, but that doesn't appear to be happening anymore since Manchin and Sinema

aren't on board yet, and because the baggage isn't ready. So what's Joe Biden saying? Not much. The president has not been entirely clear on what he wants to happen, at least publicly, and according to Politico, some House Democrats are legitimately confused about how to signal their support for Biden's agenda. Should they be voting to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill Thursday or not? It's unclear to us whether Biden wants progressives to try and tank this bill to get everything together or if he wants them to simply settle for a large chunk of his legislative agenda. I'm sure they know a little bit more than we do privately, but right now from the outside looking in, it's truly hard to tell. All this at least progresses in a really tough spot, many of

them being saying they won't vote on the bipartisan bill without some kind of ironclad agreement they'll get the reconciliation bill to. Now they're being told that the reconciliation bill is no guarantee, or at least not at the price tag they wanted, and that they need to vote yes on the bipartisan bill this Thursday with very little time to maneuver. So that's basically where the two-track process on these two bills is going. Obviously, as you can tell, pretty complicated. And all that is actually not the only thing going on this week. So yes, there's actually a whole other sort of semi-crisis standoff happening right now, which is that the government needs to pass a new funding bill by Thursday at midnight where the federal government shuts down, the lights go out. Yesterday, Democrats tried to pass that short-term government funding bill that would keep the

federal government open, provide billions of dollars in hurricane relief, and also raise the debt ceiling. But Republicans in the Senate sank the bill. Then Democrats refused to pass a Senate government funding bill that Republicans proposed that came forward without the debt limit increasing. Republicans in the Senate sank the bill. Then Democrats refused to pass a Senate government funding bill that Republicans proposed that came forward without the debt limit increase in it. So we covered the debt limit last week, a couple of weeks ago, actually, I guess now, which is basically, you know, this act of Congress that can raise the amount of money or suspend the debt limit so that Congress can and the Treasury can keep borrowing money to spend. But Republicans sank the

first bill because they're now in obstruction mode. They just want to slow down Biden's agenda by any means necessary. This is actually a pretty good way to do that. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not support raising the borrowing limit because it will allow Biden to push through his nearly $5 trillion in spending, something Republicans don't want. Since Republicans rejected the bill, Democrats are likely to remove the debt ceiling increase and try to pass it again, since that's a fight they can have in a few weeks. As far as we know, the debt ceiling needs to be raised by basically mid-October or we face a financial and probably global calamity. Republicans have said they'll vote for the short-term funding bill so long as the debt

ceiling isn't in it and propose a funding bill along those lines. Democrats demurred and are now regrouping to figure out what they're going to do. Basically, we're in this giant game of chicken. We're waiting to see if Democrats will try to pass a short-term funding bill again without the debt limit increase, and if they do, we'll have to deal with the debt limit increase later in October. Democrats could also propose the same bill that failed yesterday just to shame Republicans or see if any votes move. And if they reintroduce the bill with the debt ceiling increase included, then that's a sign they're just going to try and force Republicans to vote for it, raise the limit or shut down the government and cause this global

catastrophe. If the U.S. defaults on its debt, all these things happen, this huge chain reaction. Basically, it's a standoff. And when it's all said and done, Democrats could end up passing the borrowing limit increase without Republicans. They don't actually need them. But because of how the process works, they'd have to choose a number to raise the debt limit to rather than just suspending it, which is something that's happened on a bipartisan basis for years. So doing that creates all sort of political vulnerabilities for Democrats. Obviously, if they are proposing spending increases, tax increases on the wealthy, they're raising the debt limit ceiling. All these things together could just be put into like a

mashup of attack ads in the 2022 midterms. That's basically saying Democrats are spending a ton and raising the debt limit so they can keep spending and spending and spending. And this is a huge issue. Democrats see the weakness of this politically and they don't want to go that route. In other words, nearly every ball that could be in the air right now is in the air. And it comes at a time when Biden's trying to solve for thousands of Haitian migrants still stranded in Del Rio, Texas. He's just got past the withdrawal from Afghanistan and he's trying to institute new vaccine and testing requirements to get a handle on the still dangerous pandemic. So it is a wild time, and this week in Congress is going to be just, you know, a tornado of news. So we're trying to set the table just to get

everybody prepared for that and also make sure you have some foundational knowledge so as we break down some opinions about this throughout the week and in the next month, you know exactly what's going on. So speaking of that, what's everyone saying? We're not totally going to get to it today. We're not going to jump into the left and right views today. Just want to, again, set the table. But basically, broadly speaking, you should know that progressive pundits are worried that Biden's going to drastically scale down the reconciliation bill, which has all these priorities in it, health care spending, community college, pre-K, parental leave, climate change

stuff. The progressives are just worried that that stuff is going to shrink or disappear. Moderates want to see the infrastructure bill passed. Obviously, they know it'll have a big impact on the country. They want something to run on in 2022. And conservative pundits are okay with swallowing the bipartisan package. But what they really wanted to see was this, which was the reconciliation bill and the infrastructure bill being broken up into two separate things so they can fight them individually. That's basically where things are. We'll have more on this later in the week, maybe tomorrow, depending on how the news breaks.

I don't know exactly what tomorrow's issue is going to be yet, but we'll narrow our focus a bit onto the debt ceiling stuff, onto the infrastructure packages, the reconciliation bill, the infighting going on, all that stuff. We can just focus down a little bit and give you some opinions from across the spectrum as the week unfolds. We do have a reader question today. This one is from Logan in San Jose, California. They asked, how much does federal politics really matter? I work for a local city government, and it seems to me that state and municipal government policies have much more effect on

your day-to-day life than anything the federal government does. Do we care too much about who the president is, and should we absolutely do. One thing I often tell friends and readers is that I find it a bit shocking and disheartening how much more active your average American is in national politics than in local politics. They have different functions, obviously, and I certainly don't think we care too much about who the president is, but I do think we care far too little about who the mayor, sheriff, district attorney, or local boards are. One way to think about it is that the federal government creates guardrails that the state governments have to play within, and then the local government has to work inside

the boundaries the state government sets. Another way to think about it is that state and local governments together should have equal or greater power than the federal government, and that reforming your government in a more local way is the simplest route to creating a community outside the direction of federal government. Another way to think about it is that state and local governments should have equal or greater power than the federal government when they work together, and that reforming your government in a more local way is the simplest route to creating a community outside the direction the federal government is going. Obviously, the federal government matters

more for certain issues. Military, health care, immigration all come to mind as areas where the local government has far less power. But police reform, gun control, education, housing, public services, changes in all those areas will be much more efficiently achieved by your participation in state and local government. I write a national politics newsletter, so obviously I think national politics matters a lot, but I'm continuously shocked at how little it bleeds into local participation. One good recent example was the New York City mayoral race, which just had its primary this summer. Only 23% of registered Democrats and Republicans turned out for the election, and that dwarfed the turnout in the

2013 primaries. The turnout rate for the presidential election in 2020, though, a race that was a foregone conclusion here, obviously Biden was going to win, was 53.4%. 2.97 million New York City voters cast the ballot in the 2020 presidential race, compared to 998,000 voters in the primary for mayor. A primary, I'll add, that basically is determining who the mayor is going to be, because recently Democrats have been winning basically every mayoral race. So the fact that so few New Yorkers voted in a race that had a much bigger impact, a more direct impact on their lives, and that their vote would have had a much bigger impact in is kind of difficult to conceive. But for whatever reason,

that's where we are right now. So yes, national politics mean a lot. The federal government has a ton of control, more control than it's ever had in American history. The federal government is huge and it can set the table for what state and local governments can do. But I totally agree that, you know, voting and participating in your local and state government elections is probably more important for, you know, what's going to impact your day-to-day life, your routine, that brings us to our story that matters for the day. This is sort of an update on something we covered previously, but Facebook has announced that it is pausing its effort to build Instagram for kids. The news comes after a series of devastating leaked internal reports on the impact Facebook has on the mental health of teenagers, especially girls. Facebook had been

developing a new Instagram app that was designed specifically for kids aged 10 to 12 years old. Their announcement came after a Wall Street Journal report showed that Facebook repeatedly found its Instagram app was harmful to teenagers and research studies that the company funded. While we believe building Instagram for kids is the right thing to do, Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, will reevaluate the project at a later date, Facebook said in a statement. In the interim, Instagram will continue to focus on teen safety and expanding parental supervision features for teens. This is a pretty interesting story. The public pressure, the blowback has basically stopped a major corporation from pursuing one of its top goals. CNBC has a great piece on this,

sort of laying out how this all went down. All right, and that means our numbers section is next. Some of the numbers we have today are related to COVID. 81% is the percentage of Democrats who say that they trust Joe Biden on COVID-19. 42% is the percentage of independents who say they trust Biden on COVID-19. And 11% is the percentage of Republicans who say they trust Biden on COVID-19. Obviously a huge disparity there amongst political groups. 86% is the percentage of Democratic voters who have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. 60% is the percentage of Republican voters who have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. 70% is the percentage of Americans who say they are very or somewhat worried about climate change, which is a new all-time high.

All right, and your have a nice day section today, I don't know why, I just love this story, but it's about Betty Soskin, who at 100 years old is the National Park Service's oldest active ranger. That's right, she's a 100-year-old park ranger in the National Park Service. She was born in Detroit on September 22, 1921, actually the same year my grandmother was born, and is currently a ranger at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Homefront National Historical Park in Richmond, California. That is a mouthful. Her career as a ranger began in 2004, and she has had a huge impact on the park service ever since. To celebrate her birthday, the park announced that it was going to give out limited edition ink and virtual stamps honoring her.

NPR has a great story on that today. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want more, please go to www.readtangle.com. Also, we are going to continue mentioning it and continue plugging it until you help us out. But we have a support page now. If you go to the episode description on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, there is a link that says you can support this page. Click here, whatever it is.

If you go there, you can make a monthly pledge to keep this podcast going. Please do consider doing that. We need your support. I'm Isaac Saul, and I'm signing off here from Brooklyn, New York with the sirens going outside. I hope everybody has a great day. our newsletter is written by isaac saul edited by bailey saul sean brady ari weitzman and produced in conjunction with tangle's social media manager magdalena bakova who also helped create our logo the podcast is edited by trevor eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by diet 75 for more fromangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. you