WASHINGTON — With inflation on the rise - and coronavirus cases once again climbing - congressional lawmakers are set to return to Washington this week and confront pitched fights over the country’s financial and physical health.
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 President Joe Biden’s signature social spending initiative, which has been bogged down for more than a year.
Each of the debates promises to train the Capitol’s attention on the vexing state of the U.S. economy: Unemployment is low, yet employers’ 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 this month, a spike that left lawmakers hearing an earful from voters in their states and districts during the recess.
“They’re concerned about the rising costs of living, and that’s everything from the rising costs of gas to groceries,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., adding that the shortages on store shelves recently in her Orange County district seemed reminiscent of hurricane season.
Much of the economic tumult stems from a pandemic that remains impossible to predict - and the still-unfolding aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the dynamic nonetheless offers fertile ground for fresh, high-stakes political squabbles between Democrats and Republicans, just over six months before Americans head to the polls in the 2022 midterm elections.
“My sense is this is a make-or-break moment,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said about the fate of Democrats’ spending agenda. “This will be the moment people have to look at each other, eyeball to eyeball, and make a determination of whether we’ll move forward.”
Setting the stage for the week to come, 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 that 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-Texas, 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 nation’s central bank. The chamber is set to vote as soon as this week on four nominees for the Federal Reserve: Jerome Powell, the current chairman; Philip Jefferson, a professor at Davidson College; Lael Brainard, a Fed governor selected for its second-most powerful slot; and Lisa Cook, a Michigan State University professor who would become the first African American woman on the board.
All four nominees are expected to prevail, thanks to Democrats’ tiebreaking majority. The process is likely to begin “starting Monday night,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the leader of the chamber’s 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 as well as Democrats’ own ranks. Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., a moderate from coal country had faulted Raskin in part because of her views that climate change threatens the U.S. financial system.
Still, the votes are likely to touch off another round of sparring over the White House’s economic policies - and the Federal Reserve’s 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 GOP lawmakers 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.”
Along with the Fed, Senate Democrats also are scrambling to approve a roughly $10 billion package that would replenish key federal coronavirus aid programs. The measure passed the House but has remained stuck in the Senate, where partisan warfare continues to cut deeply into government efforts to provide Americans access to vaccines, tests and treatments.
The stalemate stems from a Republican-led broadside in an unrelated fight over immigration. GOP lawmakers sharply disagree with Biden’s recent plans to lift a pandemic-era order that had curtailed migrants’ ability to seek asylum in the United States.
In response, the 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 Biden’s border policies. That essentially scuttled congressional leaders’ hopes to approve the pandemic aid package in the short time before they departed on their holiday recess.
Two weeks later, the fight has become messier, as Democrats increasingly come to disagree with Biden’s plans themselves. Some of the dissenting voices, including Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, also count among the party’s most vulnerable in this year’s election.
In the meantime, the White House has sounded increasingly dire notes about the country’s ability to respond to the pandemic, especially as case counts again trend upward nationally. Even the $10 billion compromise that lawmakers failed to approve marked a significant departure from the roughly $22.5 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, tapping the podium for added effect.
Separately, a White House official added in a statement that the Biden administration “will be focused on working with lawmakers” to secure adoption of the pandemic aid as well as an additional tranche of funds to assist Ukraine. Biden previewed the formal request with reporters last week, noting that the intensifying conflict had cut deeply into the roughly $14 billion that Congress adopted in emergency support earlier this spring.
Some lawmakers have additional priorities, including a nascent, bipartisan effort in the Senate to try to lower the price of insulin, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., previously pledged to bring to the floor in the weeks ahead. Another crop of members is working on a measure to boost U.S. science, technology and research. The chamber is set to take its next steps on the bill, which includes about $50 billion to help produce more high-powered computer chips in the United States, later this week.
“The chip shortage is enough to tell you we need to start making investments in the United States to catch up,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., one of its chief authors.
For Democrats, though, the mounting workload means they must balance matters of routine governance with their broader political aspirations. Central to their task is a renewed attempt to pass a sprawling overhaul to the nation’s health care, education, climate and tax laws - a package of spending once known as Build Back Better.
In recent weeks, Biden’s top aides have revived discussions with their chief antagonist, Manchin, whose prior opposition to the size and scope of the party’s roughly $2 trillion plan scuttled it last year. His demands jeopardized Democrats’ hopes to lower drug costs, rethink the tax code, expand health insurance, invest anew in child care and boost other safety-net programs - promises that helped the party take control of Congress in the first place.
Democrats now hope to finalize their work on a new version of the long-stalled measure by July 4. Manchin has demanded a lower price tag - and more deficit reduction - in exchange for his must-have vote.
But Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., a leading voice for the proposal’s climate provisions, said she has been in conversations in which lawmakers acknowledge they have far less time than it appears - and they need instead to broker a deal around Memorial Day, which marks the end of the upcoming work period.
“It doesn’t get easier, the longer we wait,” she said.
For now, the uncertainty has stoked fresh speculation that Manchin might once again upend his own party’s political ambitions. And it has unnerved fellow Democrats, coming at a time when anxieties are high that voters could penalize lawmakers if they fail to deliver before the election.
“I think there’s more we need to do to earn their vote in November,” said Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., a senior member of the left-leaning Congressional Progressive Caucus. “I think we are very clear demonstrating the economy we’re fighting for is an economy that will help families have more money in their pockets.”