lawmakers are set to return to Washington this week and confront pitched fights over the financial and physical health of the country.
For Democratic leaders, the list includes a need to confirm a slate of nominees for the Federal Reserve, finalize about $10 billion in stalled pandemic aid and refashion the White House signature social spending initiative, which has been bogged down for more than a year.
Each of the debates promises to train attention on the vexing state of the economy. Unemployment is low, yet labor needs remain high. Wages have grown while prices are on a steep incline. National gauges for inflation alone reached their highest levels in four decades last month, a spike that left lawmakers hearing an earful from voters in their states and districts during the recess.
Setting the stage for the week, Democrats and Republicans took to the airwaves on Sunday, squaring off on competing news shows about the extent of inflation and the role Washington should play in combating it.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) stressed it “is the responsibility of Congress, of the president, to get out there and make the changes we need to make to bring down those prices for families.”
She accused Republicans of focusing their time on trying to “fight the culture wars,” even as she warned Democrats about the consequences if they fail to advance their own economic agenda. “If we don’t get up and deliver,” Warren said, “then I believe that Democrats are going to lose.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), meanwhile, said rising prices will be a key driver for Republicans reclaiming the House in November. “I predict we’re going to get probably at least 40 seats because this president has been so unpopular when it comes to inflation” and other issues, McCaul said on “Fox News Sunday.”
For now, the immediate task in the Senate involves the future composition of the central bank. The chamber is set to vote as soon as this week on four nominees for the Federal Reserve: current Chair Jerome H. Powell, Davidson College professor Philip Jefferson, board governor Lael Brainard and Michigan State University professor Lisa Cook, who would become the first African American woman on the board.
All four nominees are expected to prevail, thanks to the tiebreaking majority held by Democrats. The process is likely to begin “starting Monday night,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who leads the Banking Committee, adding that the exact timing would depend on “how much” Republicans try to slow down debate.
An earlier candidate, Sarah Bloom Raskin, withdrew her nomination amid opposition from Republicans and division among Democrats.
Still, the votes are likely to touch off another round of sparring over the White House economic policies and the Federal Reserve commitment to raising interest rates as a means of curtailing inflation.
Manchin, for one, accused the central bank and the Biden administration this month of having “failed to act fast enough,” as he called for “more aggressive action by a Federal Reserve that waited too long to act.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are readying their own rhetorical barrage. While they support Powell and Jefferson, and lack the power to block Brainard and Cook, the upcoming votes offer an opportunity for them to swipe again at the Biden administration for the pace at which costs are rising.
“Inflation has risen steadily since the day Biden took office, and it’s taxing working families the hardest,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a member of the Banking Committee, said in a tweet Friday. “It seems like the very people Biden administration’s policies claim to help are paying the highest price.”
Republican lawmakers sharply disagree with recent White House plans to lift an order that had curtailed the ability of migrants to seek asylum in the United States.
In response, Senate Republicans sought to use the coronavirus aid as leverage. They thwarted swift passage of the money to try to force Senate Democrats to hold an uncomfortable vote on an amendment targeting the White House border policies. That essentially scuttled hopes in Congress to approve the pandemic relief package in the short time before they departed on their holiday recess.
wo weeks later, the fight is messier, as (Title 42) Democrats increasingly come to disagree with Biden themselves. Some of the dissenting voices, including Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), also count among the most vulnerable in the party ahead of the election.
In the meantime, the White House has sounded increasingly dire notes about the ability to respond to the pandemic, especially as case counts again trend upward.
Even the $10 billion compromise that lawmakers failed to approve marked a significant departure from the roughly $22 billion the administration initially sought, a request that Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, described at the time as a down payment for what the government ultimately would need. “We’re still banging the drums about the covid money,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/04/24/democrats-federal-reserve-inflation-biden/
For Democratic leaders, the list includes a need to confirm a slate of nominees for the Federal Reserve, finalize about $10 billion in stalled pandemic aid and refashion the White House signature social spending initiative, which has been bogged down for more than a year.
Each of the debates promises to train attention on the vexing state of the economy. Unemployment is low, yet labor needs remain high. Wages have grown while prices are on a steep incline. National gauges for inflation alone reached their highest levels in four decades last month, a spike that left lawmakers hearing an earful from voters in their states and districts during the recess.
Setting the stage for the week, Democrats and Republicans took to the airwaves on Sunday, squaring off on competing news shows about the extent of inflation and the role Washington should play in combating it.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) stressed it “is the responsibility of Congress, of the president, to get out there and make the changes we need to make to bring down those prices for families.”
She accused Republicans of focusing their time on trying to “fight the culture wars,” even as she warned Democrats about the consequences if they fail to advance their own economic agenda. “If we don’t get up and deliver,” Warren said, “then I believe that Democrats are going to lose.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), meanwhile, said rising prices will be a key driver for Republicans reclaiming the House in November. “I predict we’re going to get probably at least 40 seats because this president has been so unpopular when it comes to inflation” and other issues, McCaul said on “Fox News Sunday.”
For now, the immediate task in the Senate involves the future composition of the central bank. The chamber is set to vote as soon as this week on four nominees for the Federal Reserve: current Chair Jerome H. Powell, Davidson College professor Philip Jefferson, board governor Lael Brainard and Michigan State University professor Lisa Cook, who would become the first African American woman on the board.
All four nominees are expected to prevail, thanks to the tiebreaking majority held by Democrats. The process is likely to begin “starting Monday night,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who leads the Banking Committee, adding that the exact timing would depend on “how much” Republicans try to slow down debate.
An earlier candidate, Sarah Bloom Raskin, withdrew her nomination amid opposition from Republicans and division among Democrats.
Still, the votes are likely to touch off another round of sparring over the White House economic policies and the Federal Reserve commitment to raising interest rates as a means of curtailing inflation.
Manchin, for one, accused the central bank and the Biden administration this month of having “failed to act fast enough,” as he called for “more aggressive action by a Federal Reserve that waited too long to act.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are readying their own rhetorical barrage. While they support Powell and Jefferson, and lack the power to block Brainard and Cook, the upcoming votes offer an opportunity for them to swipe again at the Biden administration for the pace at which costs are rising.
“Inflation has risen steadily since the day Biden took office, and it’s taxing working families the hardest,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a member of the Banking Committee, said in a tweet Friday. “It seems like the very people Biden administration’s policies claim to help are paying the highest price.”
Republican lawmakers sharply disagree with recent White House plans to lift an order that had curtailed the ability of migrants to seek asylum in the United States.
In response, Senate Republicans sought to use the coronavirus aid as leverage. They thwarted swift passage of the money to try to force Senate Democrats to hold an uncomfortable vote on an amendment targeting the White House border policies. That essentially scuttled hopes in Congress to approve the pandemic relief package in the short time before they departed on their holiday recess.
wo weeks later, the fight is messier, as (Title 42) Democrats increasingly come to disagree with Biden themselves. Some of the dissenting voices, including Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), also count among the most vulnerable in the party ahead of the election.
In the meantime, the White House has sounded increasingly dire notes about the ability to respond to the pandemic, especially as case counts again trend upward.
Even the $10 billion compromise that lawmakers failed to approve marked a significant departure from the roughly $22 billion the administration initially sought, a request that Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, described at the time as a down payment for what the government ultimately would need. “We’re still banging the drums about the covid money,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/04/24/democrats-federal-reserve-inflation-biden/