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January 29, 2021

Democrats Reconcile Themselves to Reconciliation

Also, another vaccine on the horizon

 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer isn't waiting around for
Republicans. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

The Chief

The fate of Joe Biden's first and most important legislative priority
looks like it will become an all-Democratic affair. After some
discussions yesterday, Democrats are ready to take the first steps to
use the budget reconciliation process to pass the $1.9 trillion American
Rescue Plan. That begins with passing a budget resolution through the
House and Senate, which will happen as soon as Tuesday, a congressional
source tells me.

Once the budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2021 passes through both
houses of Congress, with specific reconciliation instructions, than a
reconciliation bill can be readied. It does look like that
reconciliation bill will be set at the $1.9 trillion level. As Lindsay
Owens of Groundwork Collaborative explains
, that
means that any amendments that cost money will take the bill over that
limit and force some bargaining over what to keep in or take out. There
are some mitigating factors that I'll explain in a separate post, but
it would be better to write in some flexibility there.

That's a minor issue, however. The big thing here is Democrats want to
retain the size of the package and have the threat of going it alone
available. They might put the full bill on the floor for Republicans to
reject, but at that point, reconciliation will take over. In theory that
forces Republicans to the table if they want to have any say over the
bill. In practice I think it means that you just get a reconciliation
package. But Democrats aren't wasting their time on bipartisanship,
which is a sea change.

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It does not look like the bill will be split
,
at the White House's request, meaning the checks and shots strategy

is dead. It was my strategy, so of course I think this is a mistake. But
it was going on a bad trajectory anyway. Republicans and some Democrats
were looking to nickel and dime the checks, bringing eligibility down to
individuals making under $50,000/year ($75,000 for couples). Even the
vaccine money was said to be on the way to crushed down. A checks and
shots strategy doesn't mean little checks and fewer shots. It means
daring Republicans to vote down popular bills that they have previously
supported. So at this point, maybe reconciliation is the safer ground.

However, it's a much more lengthy process. Once you get the budget
resolution done, hopefully smoothly, you have to write the
reconciliation package, and with Biden determined to give bipartisanship
a chance you have to put the full bill to a vote to see what it can
garner. Then reconciliation itself is a protracted process in the
Senate, with a "vote-a-rama" that could lead to dozens if not
hundreds of short votes (there could be as many as 1,000 amendments
introduced). And after the amendment process you have to reconcile the
reconciliation bill, meaning you have to make sure the Senate's bill
matches the House's.

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Through all of that, there are going to be negotiations, as literally
every Senator will be in the position to make demands on the bill, not
to mention every small group of House members given the narrow
Democratic majority there. (Progressives are talking about recurring
stimulus checks
,
for example, rather than another one-time check.) The sort-of deadline
is when extended unemployment expires in mid-March. Obviously Democrats
would like to pass something before then, but I don't think that's
going to be all that possible.

The main cost of reconciliation is time. We need the vaccines out as
fast as humanly possible, as we're in a race

with the more contagious variants. (Here's Ezra Klein
with
more.) Delaying the money needed to really ramp up distribution is
unconscionable. And this really puts out to dry the Georgia Senators who
won Democrats back the majority. They finally spoke up

yesterday, arguing that they made a distinct promise on the checks that
needed to be honored quickly. Maybe March is good enough for them, but
you can sense the discomfort.

If checks and shots hit the floor next week along with the budget
resolution, in a way that forced Republicans to go on the record against
very popular programs they themselves have said they support, that would
be politically valuable whether Republicans block them or not. The
policy value of passage is significant, especially on the vaccine side,
where even red-state governors

are begging for more support. Checks and shots appear dead, but the idea
was never taken in the proper spirit anyway: make your opponent take a
tough vote. Why else hold the majority?

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Pfizer & Moderna & Johnson & Johnson

The big news this morning is that Johnson & Johnson revealed results

on its one-dose coronavirus vaccine, which doesn't require the
ultra-cold storage of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. It's
also not quite as effective as those two. The vaccine was 72 percent
efficacious in the U.S., but only 57 percent in South Africa, where a
variant of the disease has been dominating.

First of all, even 57 percent is on par with things like the annual flu
vaccine. Getting more shots of this level of effectiveness out gets you
closer to herd immunity and reduces hospitalizations and deaths. Second,
as a one-shot vaccine, every dose is effectively doubled, compared to
Pfizer and Moderna. J&J expects 30 million doses by April, so that's
10 percent of the population that could get the shot; it really helps
with the supply snag. Third, the better results in the U.S. argue for
faster approval here, before the variants take hold. The South African
variant has been found in the U.S., but it's not yet dominant, and
getting people inoculated now would reduce the worst effects of that
changeover, and potentially prevent the mutations from becoming
dominant.

Johnson & Johnson will apparently file for emergency use authorization
next week. How about today instead?

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What Day of Biden's Presidency Is It?

Day 10. There were supposed to be executive actions on immigration today
but they have been delayed
,
for unclear reasons.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* Charlie Pierce takes a well-deserved shot

at the New York Times' sudden distaste for executive action. (Esquire)

* The right tried to smear Rob Malle
y
but it looks like he's got the Iran envoy position anyway. (The
Intercept)

* I missed where Janet Yellen floated a global tax on tech firms
,
but Europe didn't. (CNBC)

* Trump tried to fill up Defense Department advisory boards with
loyalists, but the Pentagon just kicked them off
.
(Politico)

* The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's rule forcing banks
to lend to oil and gun companies has also been suspended
.
(The Hill)

* A power-sharing agreement is imminent in the Senate, enabling the
Biden agenda to move forward. (Politico)

* I'm starting to get concerned that the old "we can't leave
Afghanistan because then it'll look like we lost it" mentality is
taking hold
.
(Associated Press)

* We could see troops giving shots

soon. (New York Times)

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