Monthly Archives: April 2021

Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are betting that the era of big government is back. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are betting that the era of big government is back.

After years of avoiding words such as redistribution and labels such as socialist, the core of the Democratic Party is embracing big government.

The coronavirus pandemic, a changing party makeup and a softening approach to debt and deficit have combined to give Democrats the space to embrace expensive policies and federal government expansion that would have been unheard of a few years ago. President Biden is leading the charge, and many Democrats, not just progressives, are eagerly jumping on board.

In less than 100 days, Biden and congressional Democrats have passed the second-largest stimulus bill in U.S. history and launched an infrastructure plan that would spend trillions to remake the economy over the next decade. Polls show significant public support, even as Republicans in Congress have uniformly opposed the president's plans.

It's a dynamic Biden is facing without apology.

"I haven't been able to unite the Congress," Biden told reporters at the White House. "But I've been able to unite the country, based on the polling data."

Democrats are betting that a majority of voters, including many Republicans, actually want the federal government to step in and help heal the social and economic wounds caused by the pandemic.

Republicans argue that voters may like checks and support today, but the policies Biden is advocating, particularly changes to oil and gas production and an expanded focus on climate change, are far too progressive for average Americans.

Republicans called Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package a Trojan horse for left-wing policies as they voted against it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has repeatedly referred to Biden's plans, particularly on infrastructure, as a liberal wish list.

"Joe Biden may have won the nomination," McConnell told reporters in his home state of Kentucky. "But I think Bernie Sanders won the war over what the Democratic Party is these days."

So far, the majority of Democratic leaders are ignoring that message.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has explicitly embraced the term big government. He said the crisis caused by the coronavirus made clear that people want help and they want it to be more than just a one-time check from the federal government.

"We need big, bold change, and the federal government has to be a big part of it," Schumer told reporters last month in the Capitol. "I believe the American people want it and are ready for it."

It is a dramatic shift for a party that spent millions of dollars during the 2018 and 2020 campaigns carefully avoiding talk of big structural change and warding off the word "socialist."

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of Democratic leadership and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Democrats are simply addressing persistent problems that the coronavirus exacerbated.

"You just look at so many women in the workforce today who have quietly stressed every single day about how they were going to get their kids to school and get to their job, and were they being paid enough? And did they have health care? And oh, gosh, is the child care provider going to show up? Or is there a place for my kid, you just stress through it," Murray said in an interview. "And now they realize that on their own, they can't deal with that; we need a country that helps us together solve these problems."

Democrats are responding to those questions with long-standing policy ideas that couldn't previously get traction. Murray said people are ready for the policies now and they like them.

"They're not saying, 'Leave us alone. Don't worry. We'll take care of this,' " she said. "I think some of the bigger impacts are just people seeing some of the stress taken off their individual life that has just kept them under for so long."

The shift in approach has been driven by more than the immediate needs of a public health crisis. Much has changed for Democrats in recent years, including the central philosophy of the people elected from the party.

Traditionally big spending, such as $1.9 trillion in COVID-19 relief and the idea of more than $2 trillion for infrastructure, would set off alarm bells about the deficit. That's what happened in 2009 when then-President Barack Obama passed a fraction of the spending Democrats are discussing now.

Phil Schiliro, a Democratic strategist and Obama's legislative director in 2009, said a number of Democrats in Congress truly viewed themselves as deficit hawks. The party as a whole worked to avoid being branded as big spenders.

Schiliro said Democrats have also shifted away from worrying about the deficit as they watched Republicans do the same.

"The first thing the Republican majority did with Donald Trump was pass the $2 trillion tax cuts, and the deficits exploded again," Schiliro said. "I think most Democrats have figured out this isn't on the level, that there's a double standard: one rule for Democratic presidents, and a different rule for Republican presidents."

With deficits on the back burner old Democratic ideas about big government had room to grow. Plus, many of the deficit-driven Democrats retired or lost reelection in the last decade.

"In the beginning of 2009, there were 58 Democrats, 14 of them, at least 14 came from Republican states," he said. "So putting aside any pressures from Republicans, there had to be a real effort to find common ground among Democrats."

Now, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is one of the only Democrats representing a state that former President Donald Trump won in 2020. And Manchin has made it clear he doesn't like partisan tactics, such as using budget reconciliation or ending the filibuster to pass all of this spending with a simple majority of Democrats in the Senate.

But there's still support for Biden's plans among many other moderate Democrats. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., represents a district Trump won twice. She said people there aren't complaining about spending or socialism or Senate tactics.

"They want us to figure out how we're going to get the job done. I don't hear anybody bring up to me reconciliation," Bustos said in an interview. "I'm not getting asked about the filibuster. I'm being asked to get the job done."

The main risk for Democrats, Bustos said, is that voters need the party to follow through on the promise of jobs and growth, with or without bipartisanship or GOP buy-in.

"I hope that we'll be able to come together," she said. "But if the other side of the aisle is not willing to do that, we're still going to get the job done."

Another risk is that the more progressive wing of the party is already warning that Biden's plans are too small. In an interview with NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said this of Biden's infrastructure plan: "It's disappointing. The size of it is disappointing. It's not enough."

Ocasio-Cortez wants something closer to $10 trillion, meaning Democrats may still have to revisit their past woes of finding agreement among themselves.

Read more:

Democrats Used To Run From Big Government Label; They're Now Embracing It - NPR

But Mr. Biden may also be benefiting from some forms of progress that were not entirely of his own making. Millions of Americans are being vaccinated daily, moving the country closer to emerging from the coronavirus pandemic. As the United States moves slowly but steadily toward herd immunity, forecasters anticipate a quickly expanding economy, with even Republicans like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, predicting a financial boom that could last into 2023.

Mr. Biden took steps to hasten virus vaccine production, but some of his political success on that front can be attributed to savvy public positioning. By tamping down expectations for vaccine distribution during his first weeks in office, when Mr. Biden beat his own expectations, his team conjured an image of a White House working overtime to leave the efforts of the previous administration in the dust.

Though Mr. Trump laid the groundwork for widespread vaccine production with his Operation Warp Speed program, it is Mr. Biden who may be reaping the political benefit from that push especially within his own party.

Indeed, Democrats antipathy for Mr. Trump has a lot to do with their fondness for the new president, said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. Democrats utterly detested Donald Trump and Joe Biden saved them from Donald Trump, and so they love him, Mr. Ayres said. If you look at the overall job approval, not just among Democrats, Bidens job approval is the inverse of Donald Trumps.

Mr. Biden is hardly the first president to enjoy broad support from his party upon taking office. It is typical for commanders in chief to start their first term with a broadly positive approval rating, as Mr. Biden did, although that is always subject to the pull of gravity after the first few weeks are over.

But in the history of Gallup polling going back to the mid-20th century, Mr. Biden is the first president to have started his term with the approval of more than 90 percent of partisans.

To a degree, this reflects the fact that as the two major parties have grown more entrenched in their ideological identities, voters at the center have become slightly less likely to identify with either one. As a result, there has been a recent uptick in the share of Americans calling themselves political independents.

See the rest here:

Democrats Were Lukewarm on Campaign Biden. They Love President Biden. - The New York Times

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono speaks during a press conference on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act at the Capitol on Tuesday. Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images hide caption

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono speaks during a press conference on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act at the Capitol on Tuesday.

Top congressional Democrats are calling on their Republican colleagues to support legislation introduced by Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Grace Meng that addresses the rising number of hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans.

"For more than a year, the Asian American community has been fighting two viruses, the COVID-19 pandemic and anti-Asian hate," Meng told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday. "We've heard about and seen videos of both young and elderly Asian Americans being shoved to the ground, stomped on, being spat on and shunned. These heinous acts have been outrageous, unconscionable and they must end."

"Combating hate should not be a partisan issue," the New York Democrat added. "We must all as Democrats and Republicans stand together against this racism and violence and say enough is enough."

The AAPI community has experienced a dramatic spike in the number of hate crimes in the past year. The organization Stop AAPI Hate documented at least 3,795 attacks from last March to February of this year, and leaders say the true number is much higher as many attacks go unreported. Community-led programs in major cities have grown to help AAPI residents commute safely.

Meng and Hirono's COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act would instruct the Department of Justice to designate a point person to expedite the review of COVID-related hate crimes, expand public reporting efforts, and provide guidance on how to make the reporting of hate crimes more accessible at the local and state level, including ensuring online reporting processes are available in multiple languages.

Sixty votes are required to advance such legislation, which means getting some Republican support is crucial for the bill to be debated and brought to a final Senate vote.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate has a "moral imperative to take action."

The top Democratic leader told reporters he is "open to strengthening the bill" and referenced an effort to add an amendment with bipartisan sponsors that would boost resources to law enforcement for training on how to identify hate crimes, establish hate crime hotlines and provide rehabilitation for perpetrators of hate crimes through community service.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Capitol Hill reporters he hopes to work out an agreement to "get on the bill in a normal way, have some amendments and move to final passage."

"As a proud husband of an Asian American woman, I think this discrimination against Asian Americans is a real problem," said McConnell, who is married to Elaine Chao, the former Bush and Trump-era Cabinet secretary.

On Tuesday, GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas echoed McConnell's comments, saying a discussion of the bill at the GOP luncheon "generally was in favor of getting on it and seeing if we could then get some amendments."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she hopes her Republican colleagues will join her in supporting Hirono's bill.

"I certainly hope so," she said. "I think it's an important issue and one that's worthy of our consideration."

"Words matter"

Hirono praised President Biden for his support in passing the legislation.

"Words matter," the Hawaii Democrat said. "When you have a president who deems the virus to be the 'China virus' or to have members of his administration refer to it as 'kung flu,' you create an environment where people will be motivated because of whatever reasons they have to commit these kinds of crimes."

Former President Donald Trump frequently used racist phrases like "kung flu" to describe the coronavirus.

During Tuesday's press conference, lawmakers described personal experiences with discrimination this past year.

"Before, if I was walking around outside I would have my earbuds on, I'd be listening to books on tape," Hirono described. "I would never do that now because of the incidents of totally unprovoked hate crimes against AAPIs."

Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said he has never before felt this "level of fear and vulnerability."

"Over the last month, I've shared stories I've never shared before, I've opened up in ways that I never had before because the moment calls upon [you]," he said. "When I worked at the State Department as a diplomat, I was banned from working on issues related to Korea, because I'm Korean American."

He said his 5-year-old son came home and told him "a bigger kid kept calling him 'Chinese boy, Chinese boy' over and over again."

"I really do believe that the next few weeks will determine the next few decades of how Asian Americans are treated and understood and accepted in this country," Kim said.

Continued here:

Democrats Push Bill To Address Spike In Hate Crimes Targeting Asian Americans - NPR

Over the past few weeks, how much have you been thinking about Dr. Seuss? Your answer to that question will reveal a lot about where you land politically and what kind of media you consume. Because back in March, Dr. Seuss made headlinesat least, on one channel: Fox News.

In case you werent follow this story, heres what happened: The estate of Dr. Seuss said it would no longer be selling six of the 40-plus childrens books authored by Seuss. Were not talking about Cat in the Hat or Red Fish, Blue Fish, but more obscure titles, like the first book published under Seuss name. The estate offered very simple reasoning here, saying, These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong. If you flip them open, illustrations of Asian characters in particular look like crude racial stereotypes.

On Fox News, what happened here could be summed up in one word: canceled. If you read Slate, you probably have a different take on all this. You probably agree with Dan Pfeiffer, from over at Pod Save America. This is not the banning of books. This is not cancel culture, however you define it, he said. This is the decision of the people who own the intellectual property to not continue to publish it. That is the sort of free-market capitalism that Republicans would generally celebrate.

But Pfeiffer, who served in the Obama White House, sat up and paid attention when this so-called canceling started taking root with Republican politicians. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy posted a dramatic reading of Green Eggs and Ham. Sen. Ted Cruz offered to sign Dr. Seuss books and send them to constituents if they donated $60 to his campaign war chest.Republicans do not make these decisions out of thin air. There is a reason behind it, Pfeiffer said.

You may be rolling your eyes about all this back-and-forth over cancel culture, but a lot of the time, these rallying cries actually work for Republicans. On Wednesdays episode of What Next, I spoke with Pfeiffer about the Republicans strategy and why Democrats cant afford to ignore it much longer. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mary Harris: If I had to ask you to define wokeness or cancel culture, could you do it?

Dan Pfeiffer: No. Cancel culture is a little bit like fake news. Its a term that means everything and nothing. Its just shouted out there as a signal. If you say that the Suess family choosing to not publish some books is cancel culture, then you have no idea what that means.

Perry Bacon Jr. at FiveThirtyEight talked about how this is a feature, not a bug, because it allows so many things to just get swept into this big umbrella. Youre talking about everything and nothing at the same time, but youre very angry about it.

The key features is you must yell about it. You cant talk about it, and you must scream at the top of your lungs, because what youre trying to do is create this existential fear among your voters that America is changing and is changing in ways that are not good for you. And cancel culture is, as broadly defined by the Republicans, part of that.

A writer in New York magazine made this point that cancel culture allows Republicans and their supporters to pose as innocent victims of persecution rather than as culture warriors themselves.

I think thats exactly right. Victimization has been at the core of conservatism for a very long time. Despite the fact that they have every advantage in terms of political power in this nation, from the Electoral College to the Senate, theyre always the victims, right? Donald Trump, billionaire president of the United States, was a victim every day he woke up. And this is all part of it. It allows you to say that these otherswhich is a combination of nefarious forces, of Black people, brown people, young people, Hollywood elites, college professorsare coming for you and your traditionally American culture. Youre going to be a victim of this change that the Republicans are going to try to stop.

And it gets Republican voters to focus on what unites them, not what divides them. Plenty of people who vote Republican are in favor of stimulus checks or a $15 minimum wageissues Republican politicians have been ignoring.But Republican voters and politicians agree on the cultural stuff: a desire to slow down the rate of societal change, a yearning for an imagined American ideal.Focusing on cancel culture also exploits a Democratic weak point, right?

Democrats are always going to be more divided than Republicans because the very nature of the districts and the states that we have to win to win political power requires us to appeal to a set of voters who are much more conservative than the median Democratic voter. And so we need Joe Manchin and we need AOC. We need everything in between. So theres always going to be more debate between us. This is where much of the intellectual capital of the Democratic Party needs to be spent: finding ways to tell our economic message that are as compelling and interesting and evocative as the Republicans have been able to do with their cultural issues.

But why isnt that happening? Its cooled down a little bit, but I look at that month of December where you had Conor Lamb, who is a Democrat representing a fairly conservative district in Pennsylvania, calling out how he had to talk about defund the police. And then you have AOC coming out and saying this is a racialized critique. And when I saw that, I was like, You guys need to get your house in order. If youre going to be fighting with each other, youre never going to get going here. And that seems like a real weakness to me of Democratic Party strategy right now. Why isnt this getting addressed?

We can always do more to have unity. And these party debates are good to have out in the sunlight for people to see. But there are also times when maybe they can better be resolved with a conversation between two people that was not mediated by Politico. But its also true that the division is maybe 10 percent of the problem, but it gets 100 percent of the attention. And when you look at how the party has reacted over the first couple of months of the Biden administration, weve been remarkably unified on a whole bunch of things, which is really impressive, considering the historically narrow margins we are dealing with in the House and in the Senate. Thats all going to be tested as time goes on. It always gets harder, not easier, the further you get from Inauguration Day. But the challenge we always have is the incentives for focusing on division are greater than the incentives for focusing on unity. And this is how we sometimes end up in these situations.

This idea of cancel culture, its not just a left-wing thing. There are also right-wing efforts to cancel left-wing ideas. You see this happening all over the country with local legislatures talking about the 1619 Project. Its valuable to look at this in this way because it makes it really clear to me that this is a battle over whose perspectives we value and why, and its not just left-wing folks flying off the handle. This is a really subtle conversation about our culture and who were talking to and who Americas for.

Thats exactly right. And this is why its so important to recognize that the Republican argument here is very much in bad faith. They are not making defenses of the First Amendment or anything else. It is trying to protect themselves from being able to say what they want to say, even if it carries great offense, and protect themselves from alternative viewpoints. The Republican focus on the 1619 Project is the perfect example. This has become a huge part of Republican politics over the past year. This is a focus on a series of Pulitzer Prizewinning articles in the New York Times, yet now we have laws being passed about that. We have people trying to put it in the Republican platform. Republicans, for political reasons, and right-wing media figures, for political reasons and economic reasons, go trolling for examples, real and fake but most often fake, to try to make themselves the victims of something that is happening even when that something else is not real and something they are also doing on their side.

Do you see any Democrats out there right now who are responding to this cancel culture/wokeness divide conversation in the right way?

I think Joe Biden is doing it the exact right way, which is for Joe Biden, the best thing you can do is not get pulled into these debatesto ignore them and focus on the things that are very popular. But this proposition is really going to be tested as the 2022 campaign gets going.

Why?

When you are not in an active campaign, its very easy to just focus on the things youre doing in Congress and the popular things that you have just passedselling the American Rescue Plan and trying to pass the American Jobs Plan. But once you are running against a person who is attacking you on these points, youre going to have to find a way to respond.

I am in no way arguing that we should ignore cultural issues. Democrats should speak up against racism and misogyny. We should speak up against the array of incredibly bigoted bills that are being passed targeting the trans community. We should do all of those things. But we also need to move the conversation to places that unite us and divide them.

So what does that look like if Im a local politician in rural Pennsylvania?

The key thing hereand my advice is based on how Barack Obama dealt with some of these issuesis you cant ignore the issue and you cant buy the premise of the argument. What you have to do is explain why the opponent is bringing this up. So that would be saying something like Opponent X is talking about Dr. Seuss, and Potato Heads, and insert your right-wing outrage du jour, because they want to divide and distract you from their opposition to a $15 minimum wage and the fact that they are going to give additional tax cuts to corporations to be paid for by cuts in Medicare. Explain why theyre doing it, because I think voters will understand that. They have a much more sophisticated understanding of politics than we give them credit for. So if you actually can speak to the motivation behind the attack and what its trying to conceal, you will have your success in taking the issue, addressing it, and then pivoting to a much more safe ground on the issues that animate your voters and divide their voters.

But sometimes thats easier said than done. Even Obama himself had a tough time navigating this terrain. And the Democratic response to the culture war can get a lot worse than that. When many political advisers think about how to push back on issues of identity politics, they talk about having a Sister Souljah moment, which recalls this incident from back when Bill Clinton was first running for president. He wanted people to know he wouldnt be in the pocket of Black activist groups. And he made this infamous speech. What happened there?

In the 1992 presidential elections, Bill Clinton was running for office and speaking at a Rainbow Push conference, which is the organization started by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. One of the speakers at that conference was an activist and a rapper named Sister Souljah who had performed with Public Enemy and some other groups and had made a series of comments about white people and police officers that had gotten a ton of attention, certainly probably an undue amount of attention, which speaks to some pretty disturbing dynamics in American media.

Shed been talking about the Rodney King riots. I think she said Black people kill Black people all the time, so why not have a week where we kill white people? And oof, its not an easy thing to hear, although the full context was a little bit different than that.

Yes, in that conference, Bill Clinton went out of his way to criticize Sister Souljah. The comments were very aggressive. It was seen at the time and aggressively pitched by the Clinton campaign as Bill Clinton showing that he would stand up to Black activists. Essentially, that he was different than previous Democratic presidential candidates.

At the time was it good politics?

It was seen as great politics at the time and has become this thing people say all the time: When are you going to have your Sister Souljah moment? And what it came to mean is that youre going to go someplace and separate yourself from a constituency in your party in order to appeal to middle-of-the-road swing voters.

I think in hindsight, it is a pretty gross moment. There was no reason for a presidential candidate to make this thing an issue and do it in such a blatant and pretty cynical way. And I do not believe that moment has aged particularly well over time.

There was some talk about this during the postGeorge Floyd protests. When is Joe Biden going to separate himself from some of the looting and rioting? And whats his Sister Souljah moment? I think its a very bad look at politics. And I have been trying to not reiterate that as this example of good politics, to try to treat it for what it really was, which is victimizing someone within your party. This is a little-known activist and rapper who was elevated by the media and then turned into this historical punchline by a presidential candidate. It doesnt feel very good when we talk about it now.

Has your thinking on this culture stuff evolved?

It has. I think some of the core lessons for how you deal with these things are things that we learned from Barack Obama as you had a Black candidate with the middle name Hussein trying to win over conservative voters all across this country.

And so you had to think about this stuff a lot.

We had to think about it. And in some ways, it was thought at the time to be unique to Obama because he was in very uncharted territory. But I think its bigger than that. Joe Biden had to deal with many of the same challenges. And the fact that these issues had the same effect with voters with Biden on the ticket as they did with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton suggests that this is a much bigger thing that all Democrats have to deal with. Its not something that is just specific to when there is a Black candidate on the ballot or theres a woman running. This is the next generation of politics. And I have learned a lot of lessons and am obviously still learning them. We dont have the answers to all of this, but the party has changed, and the Republican Party has changed, too. And we have to adjust our strategies for that.

Get more news from Mary Harris every weekday.

Slate is covering the stories that matter to you. Join Slate Plus to support our work. Youll get unlimited articles and a suite of great benefits.

See the article here:

How Democrats Can Win the Fight Over Cancel Culture - Slate

Democrats are trying to figure out how to pay for President Joe Bidens infrastructure plan and raise hundreds of billions of dollars to put toward rebuilding American roads and bridges. And yet somehow one of the big internal battles happening on the left is not about putting in place a more progressive tax regime, but reinstating one that can look quite regressive.

In their 2017 tax bill, Republicans partially closed a tax loophole that mainly affected higher-income people in high-tax areas i.e., relatively well-off people in blue states. They capped the state and local tax deduction (SALT) people can take when calculating their federal income tax at $10,000. People can still deduct state and local taxes from their federal tax bill, but only up to that point.

Many Democrats namely, those from states such as New York, New Jersey, and California want to repeal the SALT deduction cap and go back to the old regime, where people could deduct all (or at least more) of their state and local taxes. They argue the cap unfairly drives up their constituents tax bills, might keep their states from implementing more progressive tax regimes on high-income people, and was a vindictive move by the GOP in the first place.

It was mean-spirited to begin with, politically targeted, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference on April 1.

But some Democrats, Republicans, and economists are saying hold the phone.

The vast majority of the benefits of repealing the SALT cap would go to the people at the very top. It would also be costly and for that amount, we could finance much more worthy efforts to support American families and workers. We can say we are for a progressive tax code and for fighting inequality, or we can support the SALT deduction, but it is really hard to do both, said Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) in a statement to Vox. When the Senate took up a vote on whether to repeal the SALT cap in December 2019, he was the only Democrat to vote against it.

Its an issue where, ideologically, the stars dont entirely align: Rep. Katie Porter wants to scrap the SALT cap; JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon doesnt.

A poll conducted by Vox and Data for Progress found that repealing the SALT cap isnt popular among the broader electorate. Independents and Republicans generally oppose axing it, though a plurality of Democrats support repeal. According to the survey, which was conducted from April 9 to 12 of 1,217 likely voters, urban voters were likelier to support repealing the cap than rural and suburban voters. The poll noted that restoring the full state and local tax deduction would primarily benefit well-off Americans.

Many moderate Democrats are arguing for the SALT deduction cap to be lifted, but so are some progressives. Take a look at New York Rep. Tom Suozzi, a moderate who represents parts of Long Island and Queens in New York, and has adopted No SALT, no deal as a sort of tagline on infrastructure as of late. The first thing is just basic fairness, its not fair that you pay taxes on taxes youve already paid, he said in an interview with Vox. Suozzi is joined by Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones on the issue. Theyre both Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-aligned progressives and newly minted members of the Squad.

The debate over Democrats next move on infrastructure, which Biden has put forth as part of his American Jobs Plan, and whether and how to pay for it through taxes, is just getting started. Plenty of proposals are going to be on the table, including SALT. The White House has signaled some openness to it, but the matter is far from settled.

If Democrats want to propose a way to eliminate SALT which is not a revenue raiser, as you know; it would cost more money and they want to propose a way to pay for it, and they want to put that forward, were happy to hear their ideas, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a press briefing on April 1.

When people file their taxes, they can deduct certain expenses to make their taxable incomes lower. A lot of people just take the standard deduction and lop off a flat amount. Others, however, choose to itemize their deductions, so they can subtract things like charitable deductions and medical expenses. Generally, taxpayers choose whichever avenue will be more beneficial for them as in, whichever will leave them with less income to be taxed.

For decades, taxpayers who itemized their federal income taxes could deduct what they paid in state and local property taxes and either income or sales taxes (whichever was higher). It was one of the biggest federal tax expenditures, according to the Tax Policy Center. One way to view the deduction was as an indirect subsidy for states, and basically, the federal government was saying to taxpayers, Well take up 37 percent of the cost of your state and local taxes, said Frank Sammartino, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

But with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 under then-President Donald Trump, that changed: The law capped the state and local deduction at $10,000. Sammartino explained who was hit: If youre high-income and in a state with high state and local taxes, this is going to bite you.

The legislation also basically doubled the standard deduction from $6,500 to $12,000 for individuals and from $13,000 to $24,000 for couples, which softened the blow a bit. But for many taxpayers, it still stung.

Prior to the 2017 tax bill, about 30 percent of taxpayers itemized deductions on their federal returns, including claiming the SALT deduction. The higher-income the household, the likelier the deduction: In 2017, 16 percent of taxpayers with incomes between $20,000 and $50,000 claimed the deduction, compared to two-thirds of taxpayers in the $100,000 to $200,000 threshold and 9 in 10 taxpayers with incomes above $200,000. After the 2017 law, the proportion of people who itemize deductions on their taxes fell to about 10 percent, and an estimated two-thirds of them have an income of over $100,000. Those that continue to itemize are generally high-income taxpayers, Sammartino said.

According to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, if the SALT cap which is set to expire in 2025 were to be repealed earlier, it would overwhelmingly benefit those at the higher end of the income scale the ones who were hurt by the bill back in 2017. The CBPP estimates that more than half of the benefit would go to the top 1 percent, and over 80 percent would go to the top 5 percent, of earners.

The deduction is geographically concentrated as well. Prior to the TCJA, the 10 counties benefiting the most from the deduction were in four states: California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. And six states claimed over half of the deduction: California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Its popular in other states, too, including Utah, Minnesota, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, DC.

While the burden of the SALT cap falls disproportionately on high-income taxpayers in those states, it can affect other people, too. In a state like New Jersey, property taxes can be high even for people who arent superrich. And in New York City, $150,000 in annual income isnt landing you in a Fifth Avenue penthouse. Still, given the data, its hard to argue that scrapping the cap on SALT deductions is squarely aimed at helping the middle class.

Some economists have even changed their minds on it. Jason Furman, President Barack Obamas chief economist, did a tweet thread in 2017 that my colleague Dylan Matthews documented at the time, arguing lawmakers should keep the SALT deduction in place, making the case that Republicans were doing away with it to pay for tax cuts for even richer people (which, to a certain extent, they were). Furman has since described restoring the deduction as a waste of money and the Democratic version of trickle-down economics.

Jared Bernstein, one of Bidens top economic advisers, isnt a fan of putting the full SALT deduction back in place, either.

Many lawmakers Democrats and Republicans alike have been mad about the SALT cap since before the ink on the 2017 law was even dry. Since-retired Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey voted against the legislation in 2017, when he was chair of the House Appropriations Committee. He specifically cited the SALT limit in his reasoning, warning that it would hurt New Jersey families who already pay some of the highest income and property taxes in the nation. The SALT cap may have hurt Republicans in the 2018 midterms, as they wound up losing in some key impacted districts.

In 2019, the House of Representatives voted to roll back the SALT cap, with many Democrats and some Republicans going along. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) voted against the bill at the time, but she left the door open to doing something to restructure SALT. The bill failed in the Senate, which was then controlled by Republicans, but all Democratic senators voted for it except for one Bennet from Colorado.

Now, SALT is back up for discussion as part of the broader conversation around Bidens plan for spending on infrastructure and jobs, which includes talk of potential changes to the tax code. Some Democrats are pushing for the restoration of the full deduction or, at the very least, some changes to the current cap, to be included as part of a broader upcoming package, even though those changes would mean a decrease in revenue at a moment when the White House is looking to raise it. How on board Biden is with that is unclear: Axios reports the president isnt planning to rejuvenate the SALT deduction, but there are some big names encouraging him to go along.

Pelosi has described the limit as devastating to California voters and said she shares the exuberance of lawmakers who are looking to do something about it. Hopefully we can get it into the bill, she said in April. I never give up hope for something like that.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is up for reelection in New York in 2022, has also urged Biden to bring back the SALT deduction in full and has tried to further his argument by noting how hard-hit his home state has been by the Covid-19 pandemic. Double taxing hardworking homeowners is plainly unfair; we need to bring our federal dollars back home to ... cushion the blow this virus and this harmful SALT cap has dealt so many homeowners and families locally, he said in a statement in January.

Some Democratic members of the House have gone as far as to declare, No SALT, no deal, in an effort to force the presidents hand on the issue.

Im going to talk to my colleagues on the Ways and Means staff and Im going to talk to the White House and I am going to talk to my other colleagues that are in a similar predicament as my state is in, Suozzi told Vox. Right now, no SALT, no deal.

Proponents of restoring the SALT deduction make multiple arguments. One is that capping it will cause wealthy people to flee high-tax states. Theres not really a lot of evidence for millionaire mass migration when their taxes go up. The SALT deduction is a relatively bigger hit, but theres not clear proof that rich people are fleeing high-tax states en masse because of it plus, people move for plenty of reasons. (See: the pandemic.) They also say that the SALT deduction lets state and local governments tax high-income people to pay for public services for low- and middle-income people. The reasoning goes that letting rich people deduct their state and local taxes means states can tax them more to pay for health care, education, public transit, etc., and that it stops states from engaging in a race to the bottom to cut taxes.

For my progressive friends, I want to say very clearly, dont be bamboozled by the conservative movement. Theyve been planning this for 40 years to figure out how to undo the progressive policies in progressive states by getting rid of the state and local tax deduction, Suozzi said.

Richard Reeves, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution and co-author of A New Contract with the Middle Class, said that to the extent the SALT deduction is an attempt to accomplish those goals, its doing so in a very roundabout way. The idea that the best way to get states to spend more money, particularly on services that are actually progressive, is to give a massive tax break to the people who live there in the hopes that it will allow the states and cities to therefore tax them a bit more because they know theyve got a break, and that that extra revenue will be used in a progressive way that might be happening, but wow, thats a pretty long way around, he said.

Democrats also make the point that the deduction limit wound up in the 2017 tax bill as a way for Trump to exact revenge on blue states that didnt support him. The notion that if Democrats had enacted a policy specifically targeted at Texas and Florida, the members from Texas and Florida wouldnt try to reverse it obviously [they would] if the shoe were on the other foot, one Democratic aide said. Republicans were so clear about what they were doing in 2017, they wanted to shift money from wealthier people in New Jersey and New York to wealthier people in Texas and Florida and other red states.

Reeves sees it a different way: Good policy gets made for bad reasons.

The fault lines around the SALT deduction arent really so ideological as they are geographic, which makes sense, given whose constituents are impacted by this and whose arent. Its a non-issue for voters in many parts of the country, but in places where it matters, it really matters: Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat now representing the district Frelinghuysen retired from, ran ads during the 2018 about the SALT deduction.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents the left-leaning faction of the House, has declined to take a position on the matter its membership is split. There are some members that feel very strongly about it because theyre in a state where thats a very big issue for their revenue, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the CPCs chair, told the Hill.

The politics of the SALT deduction are a bit messy, but the bigger issue is really the policy angle, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who advised Bidens 2020 presidential campaign. The Biden team wants to raise revenue to pay for infrastructure and other priorities, and lifting the SALT cap will do the opposite. It would cost an estimated $600 billion through 2025.

I dont think it has much downside politically; its more of a dilemma for the economic team and the budget team, Lake said. Democrats right now are concentrating on whos not paying their fair share as opposed to whos paying their fair share.

The debate over what to do about the SALT deduction doesnt have to be a binary one. There are other alternatives, like reducing all itemized deductions or limiting the tax rate applying to itemized deductions. Or the federal government could raise the SALT cap to $20,000 for couples to at least get rid of the marriage penalty currently in place, or raise the top individual income rate back to 39.6 percent, where it was pre-TJCA.

If you wanted to raise revenue from higher-income people, you could just raise the top rates. Its pretty straightforward, and it doesnt distinguish between different regions of the country, Sammartino said.

Reeves chafed at the idea of raising the top rate to counterbalance lifting the deduction cap. Why would you take with one hand and give back with the other? Why not just take with one hand and make the tax code a bit simpler? he said. He instead pointed to a proposal from the Tax Policy Center for the federal government to help create a kind of rainy day fund to help states.

Lake said she believes it would be fairly easy to obtain some kind of compromise.

Biden ran on his ability to bring Democrats and Republicans together. Its become increasingly obvious Republicans arent coming along for the ride with him on much of anything, and even though some of them might want to restore the SALT deduction, its likely to be tucked into a broader package that the GOP isnt going to go for. And so the challenge on state and local taxes, as with so many other issues, is for the White House and congressional leadership to keep Democrats together. The debate on this, and myriad other tax proposals, is just beginning.

View original post here:

SALT tax repeal: Democrats weigh restoring the state and local tax deduction - Vox.com

Groton Two Democrats one the partynominee and the otherthe incumbent running as a write-in candidateand both former Republicans, arevying for the city's top office inthe Maygeneral election, without a Republican opponent.

In the unprecedented and contentiousrace, the City of Groton Republican Committee chairman said the committee plans to stay neutral, even if individual members support either candidate.

Meanwhile, some Democrats in the city are supportingTown Councilor and former stateRep. Aundr Bumgardner,who won theDemocratic primary after he challengedMayor Keith Hedrick,while others are backing Hedrick, who is the chairman of the city's Democratic Committee and isrunning as a write-in candidate after losing the primary by five votes.

The City of Groton Republican Committee, which did not put forward a slate of candidates after citing a hostile political climate for Republicans, recently issued a news release that the committee "is not involved, supports, favors or endorses in any way either individual candidate in this process."

"Any statement to the contrary is false and misleading," the release states.

Republican Chairman Robert Zuliani said by phone that while he, as an individual, is supporting Hedrick, the committee is not involved.Zuliani said heissued the news releaseafter Bumgardner made statements in a campaign fundraisingemail that his opponent "decided to put personal ambition and love for power ahead of what it means to be a Democrat. He has announced a write-in campaign led by the leadership of the Groton Republican City Committee." Bumgardner added that his "opponent refused to concede, turned his back on the Democratic Party, and is now working with Republicans."

Bumgardneralso posted on Twitter: ".@GrotonDems, I heard we won the Democratic primary for Groton City mayor. Why is our Dem leadership, including (Democratic Town Committee) Chair Conrad Heede, promoting the candidacy of a write-in candidate now colluding with the local GOP City Committee? Asking for 100s of Democratic voters in our city."

In a phone interview, Bumgardner cited that Hedrick's campaign treasurer is Irma Streeter, a member of the city's Republican committee. Hedrick said Streeter brings experience, and Irma and her husband, Jim, who are Republicancommittee members and longtime volunteersin Groton, said they are supporting Hedrick as individuals.

Zuliani said he is not sure whom the other members of the 11-person committee are supporting individually, and he thinks at least one is supporting Bumgardner. He said they have not discussed it as a committee and the committee has never endorsed a Democrat in the general election.Jim Streeter and Zuliani said they are supporting Hedrick as individuals because they feel he is the best candidate.

Zuliani said he was disappointed with the accusation of "colluding." He said there are Democrats and Republicans supporting both candidates and there's nothing wrong with that.

Hedricksaid he is a registered Democrat and is running a grassroots campaign with support from hundreds ofpeople across the city, including Democrats, unaffiliated voters, independents, Green Party members and Republicans.He said he is running as a write-in candidate because voters asked him to get back in the race so they could have a choice, and his campaign is not about "partisan politics."

"The race is about the residents of the City of Groton and about who is qualified to lead the City of Groton for the next two years," Hedrick said.

Bumgardnersaidthat while individuals in the community are entitled to support the individuals of their choice, he committed to supporting the Democratic candidate if he lost the primary. He saidHedrick,as chair of the city'sDemocratic committee,"is obligated to support the entire Democratic slate, just as I have committed to doing."

"I would challenge Mr. Hedrick to reassess his involvement with the Democratic committee, considering he is chair of the very committee that has an endorsed Democratic slate, and he has now launched a write-in candidacy against the top of the ticket of the Democratic slate," Bumgardner added.

Hedrick said individuals on the committee can make their own decisions about whom they support in the election and don't need to be "in lockstep." He also pointed out that the Democratic slate of councilors andcity clerk are running unopposed.

"The race is between me and my opponent," Hedrick said. "There is no need to drive the Groton City Democratic Committee into this. They can support who they want to support and once the election is over, then the Groton City Democratic Committee will need to determine where they will go in the future."

The town committees also said they are staying out of the city elections.

The Groton Republican Town Committee responded on its Facebook page to campaign text messages sent by Bumgardner "stating that the Republicans are working with his opponent. WE ARE NOT. People working with Keith Hedrick, who may or may not be Democrats, are doing so as individuals and their efforts do not represent Groton Republicans in any way shape or form."

Meanwhile, Heede, chair of the Groton Democratic Town Committee, said that committee has "never endorsed candidates for City elections. Since the only two candidates competing in the May election are both Democrats, we expect some of our members will support one or the other candidate."

k.drelich@theday.com

See original here:

As two Democrats face off in unprecedented Groton City election, Republicans say they will remain neutral - theday.com

WASHINGTONLegislation with bipartisan support in Congress would expand the role of the National Science Foundation and provide up to $200 billion in tech and related research funding to meet what backers say is a growing threat from China.

The centerpiece of the package is a bill that would rename the federal governments science agency as the National Science and Technology Foundation, and authorize it to spend $100 billion over five years for research into artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics, high-performance computing and other advanced technologies.

An additional $10 billion would be authorized for the Commerce Department to designate at least 10 regional technology hubs for research, development and manufacturing of key technologies.

Additional funding would likely be made available for domestic semiconductor manufacturing and other tech-related supply-chain proposals.

The Endless Frontier Act got a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday, drawing support from Republicans and Democrats.

Here is the original post:

China Rivalry Spurs Republicans and Democrats to Align on Tech Spending - The Wall Street Journal

Democrats are exploring adding a huge array of health policies to upcoming spending legislation, ranging from further enhancing Affordable Care Act subsidies to allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.

Why it matters: The next few months may give Democrats the opportunity to walk the walk after campaigning extensively on health care for years, and to plug some of the glaring holes in the system that were exposed by the pandemic.

What they're saying: Its not just a moment, its the opportunity to address an undeniable set of problems that have been highlighted to a great degree during the COVID pandemic crisis," Democratic health strategist Chris Jennings said.

Where it stands: President Biden is expected to release his blueprint for a giant package of family-related policies, including health care, in the coming weeks.

Details: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing the White House to prioritize a permanent expansion of the ACA's premium subsidies, the Washington Post reports. The last coronavirus package expanded them through 2022.

More controversial moves are also on the table, including lowering the Medicare eligibility age which Sen. Bernie Sanders is pushing for, per the Post. Hospitals strongly oppose that change.

Between the lines: Democrats want to help pay for these coverage expansions by lowering prescription drug prices, including by letting Medicare negotiate prices.

What we're watching: Passing any combination of the above policies would be a big deal.

Continued here:

Democrats, led by Biden, are aiming big on health care - Axios