House Hopes To Jam Senate On Border
House GOP seeks to pressure Senate Dems on border bill. Politico: "As Congress moves closer to the monthlong August recess, the speedy action sends a clear message to Senate Democrats: Take it or leave it ... The House Republicans’ measure could be filed as soon as Thursday and passed next week ... Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have yet to coalesce around a plan of their own and are instead waiting to hear from top administration officials during a closed-door briefing on Wednesday."
House Republicans propose cutting Obama's funding request to address child migrant influx. Bloomberg: "'We’re trying to sift out of his request those items and dollar numbers that need to be done immediately,' [Appropriations Chair] Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters yesterday in Washington. 'The rest of what he’s requested we can consider as we process the regular 2015 appropriations bills.' ... The Republican approach is likely to spark opposition from both parties ... Some House Republicans will oppose new spending, especially if it’s not offset with budget cuts elsewhere."
Dems dig in against changing 2008 trafficking law. The Hill: "Democrats in the House and Senate said Tuesday they would oppose any changes to a 2008 human trafficking law Republicans have blamed for the wave of child immigrants crossing the border. The opposition sets up a standoff and raises serious doubts about whether Congress will be able to act before its summer recess in response to what both parties argue is a humanitarian crisis ... House Republican leaders on Tuesday said they would demand that changes to the law be included in any funding bill for the border."
House Advances Highway Trust Fund
Highway Trust Fund extension passes House. NYT: "The 367-to-55 vote was more grudging than it appeared. Democrats, led byPresident Obama, denounced Congress’s failure to pass a multiyear transportation bill that likely would have needed tax increases to fund the nation’s infrastructure needs. Conservatives — and some liberal Democrats — called the funding mechanisms for the $11 billion House bill gimmicks that masked the true cost ... With legislative days running short, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader, is likely to ignore the bipartisan highway funding bill that emerged last week from the Senate Finance Committee and put the House’s version to a vote, likely just before the long August recess."
Obama declines to praise House. CBS: "...Obama warned that although he supports the temporary fix, it will 'set us up for the same crisis a few months from now.' 'Congress shouldn't pat itself on the back for averting disaster for a few months ... Instead of barely paying for our bills in the present, we should be investing in the future. We should have a plan for how we're going to make sure that our roads, our bridges, our airports, our power grid, our water systems, how all those things are going to be funded.'"
CBO Releases New Debt Projections
CBO projection fingers rising cost of Medicare and Social Security. The Hill: "The CBO said the rising costs of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security as the U.S. population continues to age are the drivers of U.S. debt. 'Debt would be on an upward path relative to the size of the economy, a trend that could not be sustained indefinitely,' the report said."
Dean Baker puts in perspective: "...most of the projected rise in the annual deficit between 2014 and 2039, is due to an increase in the interest burden ... The assumption of higher interest is at least peculiar in the slow growing economy projected by CBO. If interest rates remain closer to current levels, then the story of exploding deficits/debt largely vanishes ... The other point is that this is overwhelmingly a health care story ... In the projections that assume no excess health care cost growth, projected non-interest spending is 20.0 percent of GDP, less than 1.0 percentage point above its current level. That hardly seems like the sort of crisis that need to bother people 25 years ahead of time."
Breakfast Sides
WH seeks to limit tax-dodging "inversions". Bloomberg: "The Obama administration called for immediate congressional action to stop U.S. companies from using cross-border mergers to escape the country’s tax system, the latest trend in corporate deal-making. In a letter calling for a 'new sense of economic patriotism,' Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said Congress should approve tax changes retroactive to May ... Congressional Democrats, including Representative Sander Levin and Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, have already introduced bills that echo the administration’s approach. Those measures haven’t advanced because of Republicans’ insistence that any changes be made as part of a broader revamp of the tax code that isn’t likely to happen until 2015 at the earliest ... [The Senate Finance Committee] is planning a July 22 hearing on international taxation, including inversions..."
Support for coal turning Dems off to Ex-Im Bank bill. The Hill: "Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) are promising to fight any efforts to roll back Export-Import Bank restrictions on financing overseas coal plants ... t's not yet clear whether Democratic leadership would be willing to consider Ex-Im reauthorization with the coal language on the floor, or whether Manchin will need to offer it as an amendment. Boxer vowed to 'organize against' the measure, and said she's 'confident' it can be defeated, allowing a clean reauthorization of Ex-Im to go to the floor."
Rep. Alan Grayson forces roll call vote on raising minimum wage for federal employees. HuffPost: "After the amendment failed in a voice vote Tuesday night, Grayson requested a roll call vote, which was postponed until Wednesday. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Grayson said the roll call will force House members -- including those who repeatedly vote against measures that would improve conditions in poor home districts -- to go on the record to oppose a livable wage."
"Ready for Warren" rises. Politico: "A group encouraging Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president is ramping up, launching a website Tuesday just ahead of the liberal Netroots Nation conference. Ready for Warren’s site, ready4warren.com, went live after several months of the group pushing its cause on Twitter and Facebook ... The Ready for Warren site includes a petition urging Warren to run ... Warren spokeswoman Lacey Rose said in an email to POLITICO that the senator 'does not support this effort.'"
