•Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, criticized Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-CA, mask mandate for the House of Representatives, saying the decision was not based on science. Pelosi responded by calling McCarthy a “moron” for his comments (The Washington Post).
GDP Grows 6.5% in Second Quarter, Eats Up Pandemic’s Drop – The U.S. Gross Domestic Product grew by 6.5% in the second quarter of 2021, more than enough to eat up the pandemic-related drop last year, the U.S. Commerce Department reports Thursday morning. Still, the increase was a couple of percentage points below growth predicted in a survey of economists by The Wall Street Journal.
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Let’s Make an Infrastructure Deal – As a sure sign this big bipartisan bill is matriculating through Congress the way such bills usually do, going down to the last minute and pushing after-hours sessions, the Senate last night moved it forward with a 67-32 procedural vote for cloture, as the August recess looms. In that vote, 17 Republicans – seven more than necessary for cloture and including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – agreed with Democrats on key points of a $1 trillion-ish infrastructure deal before the bill is even written. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, is confident that with the hard part over, negotiators from both parties can get that done before the recess.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-DE, noted on NPR’s Morning Edition that the bipartisan bill makes infrastructure spending on such basics as roads, bridges, rail, and broadband an integral part of Congress’ regular budgetary structure for years to come. The bill, which includes about $550 billion (a $30 billion cut) in new funding (in addition to carryover spending, including unspent COVID-19 relief funds) spends more on Amtrak than when the public passenger rail system was created in 1970, Coons noted.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, says the House will not take up the infrastructure bill until President Biden’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation spending program – that’s the one that will only require 50 votes in the Senate – is introduced in her chamber. That’s an easy request, as House Democrats need only their slim majority to ensure passage, although there was some concern that Senate Republicans might hold up infrastructure to object to the reconciliation bill. But with last night’s cloture vote, they can let the House deal with it and consider the bill after recess.
Roll Call called out “relative surprises” among the Republican yes votes; Jim Risch of Idaho, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and one big surprise, John Hoeven of North Dakota.
Politico points out two Republican senators who were not among the 17 “aye” votes: Florida’s Marco Rubio and South Carolina’s Tim Scott.
Note: Ex-President Donald J. Trump predictably slammed Republicans voting for the infrastructure bill, in a statement, as “weak, foolish and dumb,” according to Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire. “If this deal happens, lots of primaries will be coming your way.”
Lots of primaries, like lots of “infrastructure weeks” during the Trump administration? This could have been a rare bipartisan victory for the 45th president, but he was always preoccupied with other issues and never pushed it forward. Meanwhile, this bill can legitimately be considered the Biden White House’s first major victory (as his pandemic response wobbles under weight of the delta variant), and it’s legitimately a victory for moderate Republicans whose home states will benefit from road and bridge repairs and broadband improvements while funneling cash back into private subcontractors and jobs.
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‘Cordial’ Call from the Ex-Prez – The Texas 6th District’s new Republican representative in the House, Jake Ellzey, took a “cordial” call from Trump yesterday after beating the ex-president’s favored choice, Susan Wright, in a runoff election, Ellzey’s consultant told Roll Call. That’s not what politicos expect from grudge-holding Trump, who is counting on his ability to “primary” next year insufficiently Trumpian Republicans to maintain his control of the GOP.
But even as he warns Republican senators who voted for Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill (see above), Trump also is reminding us of his knack for recasting a failure as a sort of victory when it serves him politically.
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Fed Chairman Sanguine on COVID — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference yesterday, “what we’ve seen is with successive waves of COVID over the past year and some months now there has tended to be less in the way of economic implications from each wave. We will see whether that is the case with the delta variety, but it’s certainly not an unreasonable expectation,” according to the AP. He went on to acknowledge, however, that “dining out, traveling, some schools might not reopen. We may see economic effects from some of that or it might weigh on the return to the labor market. We don’t have a strong sense of how that will work out, so we’ll be monitoring it carefully.”
Note — While there might not be massive implications, talk to parents about the potential of schools not opening (or even the challenge of getting their elementary school-age kids to wear masks) or restaurant owners about another lost period of customers. For them, delta is devastating.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods