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125 Democrats urge Pelosi, Schumer to protect housing funds Congressional Democrats are ratcheting up pressure on House and Senate leaders to preserve hundreds of billions of dollars in housing funds at risk of elimination from their sweeping social spending package as the leaders seek to pare down the massive bill. New York Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres led 125 lawmakers in sending a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday urging them to keep $90 billion for rental assistance, $80 billion for public housing repairs and $37 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund in the final version of the bill.

Democrats across the ideological spectrum of the caucus from the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to members of the moderate New Democrat Coalition signed on to the letter, indicating broad support across the party for keeping the majority of the more than $300 billion in housing funds approved by the House Financial Services Committee last month. Committee Chair Maxine Waters has vowed to fight to protect housing aid in the bill and last week said she received assurances from President Joe Biden that the White House also wants to preserve it.

But industry lobbyists and housing advocates worry that their programs could be in trouble, as White House and congressional negotiators try to cut the $3.5 trillion package nearly in half. Advocates are warning that doing so would amount to nixing racial equity from the bill. While congressional leaders continue to negotiate the size and scope of the economic recovery package, it is critical that any cuts made to the overall package do not come at the expense of affordable, accessible homes for Americas lowest-income and most marginalized people, the lawmakers wrote in the letter, a copy of which was shared with POLITICO. Read more from Megan Cassella here.

ITS TUESDAY Send any tips to me at [emailprotected] or @KatyODonnell_ and to Aubree Eliza Weaver at [emailprotected] or @AubreeEWeaver.

A message from the American Bankers Association:

Americas banks firmly believe that everyone should pay their taxes, but a proposal in Congress would force banks to provide details to the IRS on whats going in and out of almost every bank account in the country. This dragnet of data collection raises serious questions about Americans right to privacy. Learn more about the issue and take action here.

The Census Bureau releases the monthly new residential construction report for September at 8:30 a.m. Senate Banking holds a hearing on sanctions policy with Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo at 10 a.m.

SEC GAMESTOP REPORT SIGNALS ROBINHOOD WILL FACE MORE HEAT Our Kellie Mejdrich: Securities and Exchange Commission staff said Monday in a long-awaited report on the GameStop stock trading tumult that game-like features used by Robinhood and other online brokerages warranted further scrutiny by regulators. Agency officials said in the report which dissected January's flood of trading in so-called meme stocks and the impacts of the volatility that the agency should consider whether things like celebratory animations used to create positive feedback lead investors to trade more than they would otherwise. They said that incentives triggered by payment for order flow the practice in which wholesale trading firms pay brokerages to execute their customers' orders may cause broker-dealers to find novel ways to increase customer trading, including through digital engagement techniques.

The SEC also praised the equity market structure and absolved short sellers Reuters Katanga Johnson and Chris Prentice: The U.S. markets functioned well during January's GameStop volatility, while short selling was not the main cause of the unprecedented rise in the 'meme stock,' according to a long-awaited Securities and Exchange Commission report. The report published on Monday provides a post-mortem into how amateur traders using commission-free retail brokerages drove shares in GameStop and other popular meme stocks to extreme highs, squeezing hedge funds that had bet against them.

SURVEY: SUPPLY-CHAIN BOTTLENECKS, ELEVATED INFLATION TO LAST WELL INTO NEXT YEAR WSJs Gwynn Guilford and Anthony DeBarros: Uncomfortably high inflation will grip the U.S. economy well into 2022, as constrained supply chains keep upward pressure on prices and, increasingly, curb output, according to economists surveyed this month by The Wall Street Journal. The economists inflation projections are up dramatically from July, while short-term growth outlooks are lower.

REGIONAL FED ANALYSIS SUGGESTS BIDENS STIMULUS IS TEMPORARILY STOKING INFLATION NYTs Jeanna Smialek: Inflation is likely getting a temporary boost from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that the Biden administration ushered in early this year, new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco research released on Monday suggested.

The analysis may add fuel to a hot debate in Washington over whether the administrations policies are contributing to a spike in prices. Critics of the government spending package that was signed into law in March, including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, have said it was poorly targeted and risked overheating the economy. Supporters of the relief program have said it provided critical aid to workers and businesses still struggling through the pandemic.

U.S. REVIEWS SANCTIONS POLICY, WARNS OF THREAT FROM CRYPTO Reuters Daphne Psaledakis and Matt Spetalnick: President Joe Biden's administration on Monday announced a set of recommendations to revamp its use of economic sanctions to make them a more effective tool of U.S. foreign policy but warned that more had to be done to protect against the threat posed by the rise of cryptocurrencies. Following a broad review launched shortly after Biden took office in January, the U.S. Treasury Department unveiled a revised framework intended to take a more surgical approach to sanctions instead of the blunt-force method favored by his predecessor, Donald Trump.

A message from the American Bankers Association:

BITCOIN FUNDS REACH THE MASSES; EXPERTS SAY ITS DANGEROUS From our Kellie Mejdrich: The Securities and Exchange Commission is beginning to bless the first widely available investment funds that track Bitcoin, opening a rift with watchdog groups who argue increased exposure to the volatile market puts consumers at risk. The SEC has signaled that it won't block industry proposals to launch exchange-traded funds based on Bitcoin futures contracts as regulatory deadlines come to pass this month. When the first fund begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange early this week, it will be a landmark moment for the booming cryptocurrency market. The emerging controversy around the SEC's approval of the funds underscores the broader political tensions that regulators are facing as they grapple with how to impose safeguards on the red-hot market. The funds would address growing demand from investors who want exposure to the rising value of Bitcoin.

DOLLAR FIRMS AS INFLATION, RATE HIKE EXPECTATIONS PUSH UP BOND YIELDS Reuters Karen Brettell: The dollar gained slightly on the day on Monday as Treasury yields rose on expectations the Federal Reserve will need to hike interest rates sooner than previously expected to quell rising price pressures. Market participants expect the U.S. central bank will need to act as inflation looks to be stubbornly persistent and unlikely to fade anytime soon.

Global increases in inflation are also increasing expectations that rate hikes will need to be global, as New Zealand faced its highest price pressures in a decade and after Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey sent a fresh signal that the central bank was gearing up to raise interest rates as inflation risks mount.

WARREN DOESNT GET FED TRADING BAN PROPOSAL BY DEADLINE REQUESTED WSJs Michael S. Derby: Regional Federal Reserve Banks havent presented Sen. Elizabeth Warren with a plan to ban stock trading by senior central bankers as the Democrat from Massachusetts requested last month. Ms. Warren had written to the 12 bank presidents on Sept. 16 asking for the ban, following disclosures that the leaders of the Dallas and Boston Fed banks had been trading stocks and other investments even as they helped set the nations monetary policy. Both officials later resigned. The senator had asked for a response by Oct. 15 on plans for a trading ban, followed by its implementation within 60 days of her letters.

INTERNAL TRIBUNE FINDS WORLD BANK MISHANDLED SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIMS WSJs Santiago Perez: The World Bank failed to protect two young employees who filed sexual-harassment allegations against a veteran, high-ranking official who is now a presidential candidate in Costa Rica, according to findings released by the banks internal labor tribunal. The World Bank Administrative Tribunal found that senior management under bank President David Malpass and his two predecessors didnt adequately sanction Rodrigo Chaves. He was demoted but not fired despite a documented pattern of harassment that lasted at least four years and involved six women, according to case-related documents that were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

STOCKS WOBBLE APs Damian J. Troise: Stocks wobbled to a mixed finish on Wall Street Monday as the markets momentum slowed down following its best week since July. The muted trading comes ahead of a busy week of corporate earnings that could help investors find a smoother path ahead for stocks after weeks of choppiness. Investors are also trying to figure out how the broader economy will continue its recovery with COVID-19 lingering as a threat, while businesses and consumers face rising inflation. The S&P 500 rose 15.09 points, or 0.3%, to 4,486.46, with stocks roughly split between gainers and losers. The benchmark index has been choppy for weeks. It rose 1.8% last week for its best week since July, though it shed 2.2% just two weeks prior. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 36.15 points, or 0.1%, to 35,258.61. The Nasdaq rose 124.47, or 0.8%, to 15,021.81.

WALL STREET TREASURY BULLS BACK DOWN Bloombergs Hema Parmar: Wall Street strategists who thought the coast was clear for bets on lower Treasury yields are abandoning ship after the market moved against them in a global bond selloff. Those at Toronto-Dominion Bank and Barclays Plc reversed course on recommendations to buy five- and three-year notes, respectively, as Treasury yields extended their recent climb. Yields on the securities rose nearly seven basis points Monday to the highest levels since at least March 2020.

A message from the American Bankers Association:

A proposal in Congress would force financial institutions to provide details to the IRS on the inflows and outflows of any bank account worth $600 or more. While supporters say the proposal is aimed at reducing the tax gap by targeting wealthy tax cheats, this data dragnet would actually capture information from almost everyone with a bank account, not just those suspected of tax avoidance.

Everyone should pay their fair share of taxes, but this proposal goes too far and raises serious questions about Americans right to privacywhile damaging the hard-earned trust between banks and their customers. Tell Congress to oppose this misguided proposal and demand that the IRS focus on tax cheats, not all taxpayers.

Its not too late to protect your financial data. Learn more about the issue and take action here.

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Democrats amp up pressure on Pelosi, Schumer to save housing aid - Politico

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Democrats wont be rallying voters with claims they can flip control of the Texas Legislature in the general election a year from now.

The redistricting maps nearing approval in the current special legislative session make that a near impossibility.

Missing their last chance to win a majority in the Texas House in 2020 remember that Turn Texas Blue battle cry? was politically expensive for the states Democrats. It meant the new political maps drawn to fit the new 2020 census would be tailored by Republicans, for Republicans, and that Democrats wishes would end up in the dustbin or, at best, in the courts.

Thats whats happening, and those are the maps that will be used in the 2022 elections. Theyre not quite law yet but will be soon, and they are markedly more Republican than this conservative states recent voting history.

Because those maps almost guarantee Republican majorities in the states congressional delegation, in the Texas House and Senate, and in the State Board of Education, the 2022 elections will really be about the executive branch. The odds there arent great for the Democrats, either.

In the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump got 52.1% in Texas and Joe Biden got 46.5%. With that baseline, Republicans should have 78 seats in the House, 16 in the Senate, 20 in the congressional delegation and eight on the SBOE. In the new maps, voters in 85 of the House districts favored Trump, along with 19 Senate districts, 25 congressional districts and nine SBOE districts.

The proposed maps favor Republicans more than the states voters do. But even if they were precisely representative of how Texans voted in the last statewide elections, the GOP would have an edge: They won all of those contests.

Whatever else you might say about that situation whether its to the majority go the spoils or gerrymandering is undemocratic those are the maps that will be used in the 2022 elections. And if they arent given wholesale makeovers, they strongly favor Republican candidates and are designed to keep Republican majorities in all four places.

Democratic candidates havent won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. Midterm elections those that fall between presidential elections are typically hard on the party of whoever is in the White House. Thats a Democrat right now, and Republicans running for office in Texas (and everywhere else in the country) will be campaigning against whichever Biden administration policy happens to be most unpopular with voters at the time.

To top it off, the Democrats do not yet have a standard-bearer, though it would be a surprise at this point if former U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke of El Paso did not enter the governors race before the start of the holiday season. While there has been a lot of conversation about who else might run for this or that, that late-forming Democratic ticket shortens the time available to raise the money and build the public reputation and recognition needed to win a statewide election. It takes time to become a household name, even if only the political households in the state are in the audience.

Having missed their shot at real influence on the maps, Texas Democrats start the next decade trying to find ways to win on Republican turf. At the end of the last decade, their biggest advances came in legislative races, particularly in the Texas House.

The new maps will make that difficult, particularly in the next couple of election cycles. The current maps were drawn in 2010 by Republicans trying to bolster their majorities, then tinkered with by federal judges who found intentional racial discrimination by lawmakers and other problems in the designs of some districts. Over the next 10 years, the states growth and changing politics eroded that advantage. That might happen again between now and 2030, but that wont help the Democrats in 2022.

Their best chances are at the top of the ballot, where Republican incumbents are known to voters and have money, organization and an undefeated winning record that stretches back more than a quarter of a century. Those chances arent all that great; theyre just better than the chances Democrats have for legislative majorities.

Judging by their governing record this year, the Republicans starting with Gov. Greg Abbott are most worried about competition from members of their own party in next years primaries. Theyre defending their right flanks from conservatives, not their left flanks from liberals.

Its not hard to see why.

See more here:
Analysis: Texas redistricting leaves Democrats with poor 2022 odds - The Texas Tribune

Democratic fundraising giant ActBlue says it raised more than $305 million in the third quarter, more than tripling its totals over the same period in 2017, the most recent comparable election cycle, according to documents first obtained by The Daily Beast.

The internal data shared with The Daily Beast shows the Democratic money machine marked dramatic increases across the board. Raw totals of donors and contributions both more than doubled over this point in the previous midterm cycle, as did the amount of cash funneled to Democratic House and Senate candidates, many of whom face tight races in 2022.

That $305 million came from 2 million individual contributors, with an average donation amount of $35.26. And the combination of gifts to outside groups and to candidates at the federal, state, and local levels brings ActBlues sitewide totals on the year to an eye-popping $906 million.

ActBlue executive director Erin Hill provided a statement touting the platforms responsiveness.

Grassroots donors are not letting up the gas pedal as we head into 2022, Hill said. This quarter particularly showed that donors are ready to mobilize at a moments notice and committed to supporting candidates and causes long-term. As donors fuel movements and expand their investment in campaigns and organizations demanding change, theyre setting the stage for the pivotal midterm year.

In Q3 of 2020a record-busting yearActBlue pulled in $1.5 billion. And while midterms dont carry the same high stakes, it appears Democratic candidates have found their fundraising footing, even without President Donald Trump in the White House as a foil.

Still, Democrats have a daunting task ahead of them to keep the House of Representatives, with Republicans redistricting enough seats that they should start the midterms at a small advantage, even though Democrats currently hold the House by four seats.

Democrats also hold the Senate with a 50-50 split and Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tie-breaking vote. But the map for whos up in the Senate should slightly benefit Democrats, as two GOP incumbents in purple statesRichard Burr (R-NC) and Pat Toomey (R-PA)arent running for re-election, and Democrats are hopeful about turning seats like Ron Johnsons in Wisconsin.

Campaign finance reports filed over the last week show both parties have already raised a staggering amount of money, with even House candidates regularly turning in million-dollar quarterly sums. The two party committees dedicated to re-electing members of the House have accumulated a combined $128 million this year, according to the federal filings.

But ActBlues numbers indicate that Democrats are activated at the state and local levels as well, nearly tripling its receipts in gubernatorial and state legislative contests alike over 2017.

Gubernatorial races in particular have attracted donors. ActBlue recorded triple the amount of contributors to those races over Q3 2017, distributing tens of millions of dollars to Democratic candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, and to defending the GOP effort to recall Californias Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, which failed last month. Virginias Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, who finds himself neck-and-neck with GOP challenger Glenn Youngkin, has posted more than $30 million overall, including his ActBlue receipts.

Democrats are starting to fill war chests on an even more granular level, however, indicating grassroots activism efforts have found traction. ActBlue says it nearly tripled what it raised for state attorneys general candidates compared to the same period in 2017, and about three in four of those donors had never given to a state AG through ActBlue.

And as Republicans focus on election administration in the wake of state-level challenges to the 2020 election, ActBlues data evinces a Democratic responsepulling in more than five times the amount raised for secretary of state candidates in Q3 2017.

But like WinRed, ActBlue relies heavily on recurring small-dollar contributions. After the 2020 fundraising bonanza, that practice came under scrutiny from attorneys general in several states. And while the number of ActBlue donors more than doubled over Q3 2017, the average contribution amount appears more or less equal, about $35 to $34.

This quarter, recurring donations accounted for about $57 million of ActBlues receiptsabout 20 percent.

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Democrats Are Winning the Race to Raise the Most Cash Online - The Daily Beast

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 19: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) departs a press conference ... [+] at the U.S. Capitol September 19, 2019 in Washington, DC. Pelosi and House Democrats introduced legislation intended to lower prescription drug prices.Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

As part of their spending bill, Congressional Democrats are advancing legislation that'll empower Medicare to "negotiate" drug prices in the program's Part B and Part D benefits. They insist this policy enjoys broad support among voters.

But they're misleading the public.

What Democrats are proposing is in fact a sweeping system of price controls. Evidence from abroad demonstrates that such schemes are certain to restrict access to new medicines, particularly for those who are older, living with disabilities, or fighting serious illnesses.

To the extent that Americans support "negotiations," it's only because they've been lied to.

The two drug-pricing reforms under consideration by Congressional Democrats would give the Department of Health and Human Services immense power to dictate the prices Medicare pays for drugsan arrangement more akin to a shakedown than a negotiation.

Under the House proposal, the price that Medicare pays for the most popular brand-name drugs would be capped at 120% of the average price paid in six foreign countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Companies that refuse to sell their medicines at this artificially low price would be subject to an excise tax of as much as 95% on each drug's gross sales.

In other words, drug companies would be given a choice: Either submit to the government's pricing demands, or forfeit nearly every penny a medicine earns.

The Senate Finance Committee's proposal takes a domestic tack, limiting Medicare's drug prices to the prices the Department of Veterans Affairs' health system pays.

In deciding prices, the VA and the governments of Canada, the UK, and other nations calculate what they are willing to pay for certain drugs with a metric known as a quality-adjusted life year or QALY.

Take my native Canada. By some estimates, that government's drug-pricing board values one year of perfect health at $50,000 Canadian (or about $40,000 US). From this benchmark, the government can then calculate whether a drug extends a patient's life sufficiently to justify its costs. If it fails this test, the government doesn't cover the medicine.

There is plenty to find reprehensible about such analyses. For one, they place a dollar value on human lifesomething no government should do.

Such analyses also lead to severe restrictions on which drugs patients can access. Of the new medicines launched between 2011 and 2018, for instance, fewer than half were available to Canadian patients. And just 60% were available to patients in the UK. By comparison, American patients had access to nearly 90%.

QALY analyses are also inherently discriminatory, as they place less value on the lives of sick and disabled patients compared to healthy ones. In practice this means that health systems which rely on QALY calculations are less willing to pay for medicines that benefit chronically ill patients or those with physical impairments.

By basing Medicare's drug prices on those paid at the VAor Canada and the UK among otherslawmakers are in fact smuggling discriminatory QALY-based policies into Medicare through the backdoor.

These facts rarely reach patients, of course, which is why the idea of drug price "negotiations" polls well. But as I detail in a new issue brief, when Americans learn the facts about price-control policies, they reject them by wide margins.

In a recent survey of likely voters, nearly 78% opposed the use of QALYs under Medicare. When told that the Democrats' drug-pricing policies would likely restrict access to medicines for older Americans and those with disabilities, 72% said they were less likely to support the reform.

After learning that these reforms would take treatment decisions out of the hands of doctors, leaving them to bureaucrats and their calculations of the value of a human life, three quarters of voters were less likely to support these reforms.

Democrats aren't looking to encourage "negotiations." They're simply trying to save the government money on drugs by dictating the price. Their strategy for achieving this goal is to deny access to the latest medicationsespecially to the oldest and sickest patients.

This policy will garner public support only to the extent Democrats continue to hide the truth.

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Democrats Drug Pricing Reforms Arent What They Seem - Forbes

America has a lot of free stuff. Get to the United States and you will be able to have nearly everything taken care of by the U.S. government. That seems to be the prevailing wisdom held by many migrants who make the journey from Central America through Mexico to our southern border, and eventually, with our lax immigration policies, into America.

It should be noted that two of the many reasons why the Roman Empire failed is because they were unable to protect their borders and the lavish spending of its Emperor Nero, which brought on an economic recession.

Countries have borders, which they control for their own protection. Most countries allow new people to enter only systematically, legally. We forget this point, or the Biden administration is not able to manage this situation.

Forget about the risk of spreading COVID-19 and the possible encroachment of drug cartels and the drug trade, the impact of which play an integral role in the carnage on our streets, many of these people could be seeking to do us harm in other ways.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the border czar, was seeking the root cause. That is as clear as asking why birds fly to get from one point to another. Answer: America gives free stuff!

Let us start with food, shelter, education and health care, including Medicaid. The Democrats, if they get their way with their Build Back Better $3.5 trillion package, would be able to hand out free community college, as well as free universal pre-K, free family leave, free child care. There would be little the U.S. government would not provide even for someone forcing their way into America. So, why not make the journey?

Who pays?

By law, some entitlements have established the means/resources to always be able to pay its recipients, at least theoretically, such as Social Security and Medicare. Other entitlements like food nutrition programs and housing assistance are far more unruly and pay out to recipients from tax revenues or tax increases from the rest of society. The latter are considered a safety net for deserving and needy Americans.

The Democrats want to increase the latter group, plus expand Medicare benefits, which could be fatal to our fiscal stability. Already we spend 62% of our budget on entitlements, 8% on servicing our nearly $29 trillion debt, and 15% on our national defense. This leaves only three nickels for all discretionary spending. Going beyond adds to the $29 trillion debt.

To say that the new programs filled with FREE STUFF will be paid for at least for X number of years is being disingenuous. It is not like Social Security or Medicare. In those programs we all contribute via our FICA and through Medicare deductions from our paychecks. Those dollars are placed in a trust account within the federal government. Those of working age help fund the respective trust accounts so those who are retired rightfully have those promised benefits.

Primary and secondary education is provided for every American as we pay for it in state and local taxes, mainly property taxes. The extension of free education for all pre-K children must also have a permanent revenue stream or else it will be added to our $29 trillion national debt.

All new programs must have a permanent source of revenue as there has never been a social entitlement program that has not become permanent.

So, the breachable border and getting FREE STUFF is where we stand today in Congress. Democrats refuse to see or address one of Americas biggest crises.

Gary Franks served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticuts 5th District. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years and New Englands first Black member of the House. He is the host of the podcast We Speak Frankly and author of With God, For God, and For Country.

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Franks: Democrats ignore crisis they contribute to at southern border - Boston Herald