Monday News & Notes

DECEMBER 13, 2021 -- AL GORE CONCEDES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2000

•Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) is expected to meet with President Biden today to discuss the $1.75-trillion Build Back Better program and whether the Senate might pass it this year, according to Punchbowl News. Manchin is scheduled to meet with moderate Democrats Tuesday with hopes he can be convinced to carve out a special filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation.             

Next Up on Contempt of Congress: Mark Meadows – The House has scheduled 7 p.m. Monday to consider contempt of Congress charges against Donald J. Trump’s last of four chiefs of staff, Mark Meadows, after he has flip-flopped on whether to testify before the Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson’s (D-MS) is seeking the contempt charges because he wants to ask Meadows about a trove of communications from the chief of staff regarding the insurrection, including text messages offering guidance to a “Stop the Steal” rally organizer, and an email saying the National Guard would be present to “protect pro Trump people,” according to The Hill.

Last Friday, the House issued subpoenas to former Trump aides Robert “Bobby” Peede Jr., and Max Miller, whom the committee says met with Trump on January 4 to talk about the upcoming rally on the Ellipse to support the lame-duck president’s stolen election claims and to discuss people he had wanted to speak at the gathering, according to Roll Call. [Miller is the Trump-endorsed candidate for a House seat from Ohio, whose primary candidacy has been derailed by allegations he physically abused his former partner, Stephanie Grisham, another Trump aide. Someday, this will make either a Netflix movie or a Hallmark movie, depending on Trump’s political success going forward.]

Former Trump campaign official Katrina Pierson also was present at that meeting and was issued a subpoena last September. She is also a candidate for an Ohio seat in the U.S. House.

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About that CBO Report – Making the $1.75-trillion Build Back Better safety net programs -- in particular the Child Tax Credit -- permanent will add $3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported Friday, Roll Call says. Conversely, let the Child Tax Credit expire in one year, as in the version of the bill passed by the House and awaiting Senate approval, and the program costs $231 billion over 10 years.

Overall cost of the House bill is about $2.2 trillion before offsets, CBO says.

“I’m urging the Democratic Party to stop the madness,” said South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, the Ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, who requested the CBO report with his House counterpart, Jason Smith, of Missouri.

Note: Democrats promote the child tax credit as one of the centerpieces of the BBB, making it unlikely they would let it expire in a year if or when the package becomes law.

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Person of the Year – Time magazine has named Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk its 2021 Person of the Year, calling him: “Visionary. Iconoclast. Troll.” He is also one of the richest people in the world, and in its Sunday Business section The New York Times describes Musk’s aversion to charitable donations, at least in any conventional way: In a “public spat with the director of the World Food Programme on Twitter,” Musk announced: “If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics