The Senate will reconvene at 3 PM on Monday and will consider the nomination of Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be UN Ambassador and Thomas J. Vilsack to be Secretary of Agriculture. Previously, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) delayed a vote on Thomas-Greenfield in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over concerns about a speech Thomas-Greenfield gave in 2019 at the Confucius Institute, funded by the Chinese government, during which she said both the U.S. and China could be positive influences in Africa. Regardless, the committee voted 18 to 4 in favor of Thomas-Greenfield.
The Labor Department on Thursday adjusted last week’s jobless claims numbers upward, showing claims surged to a seasonally adjusted 861,000, a sign that the labor market continues to struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Data for recent weeks, which showed claims dipping below 800,000 for the first time in weeks, has regularly been revised upward. Weekly jobless claims remain similar to their August levels, having left behind the slight improvement seen in October and November, and briefly in January.
The House will now reconvene for votes on Tuesday, February 23rd, however on Monday, House Democrats will take a key procedural step toward moving their $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. Budget Chairman John Yarmuth, (D-Kentucky), has scheduled a 1 p.m. markup to staple together the reconciliation submissions from nine House authorizing committees before sending the measure onto its last stop before the floor, the Rules Committee. Rules is where the substantive changes will occur, including the likely necessary step of bringing the combined package into compliance with its overall $1.89 trillion limit under the fiscal 2021 budget resolution. The nine committees have so far approved pieces the Congressional Budget office has tallied up to $1.95 trillion. House Democrats are seeking offsets to bring the combined cost back down. That includes extending limits on tax losses that owners of noncorporate businesses, like partnerships and S corporations, can apply against other income, as well as capping net operating loss “carrybacks” that firms could use to get refunds on prior tax bills. Those provisions would have raised a combined $254 billion in the two big relief bills House Democrats passed last year that died in the then GOP-controlled Senate. Meanwhile, the Senate Budget Committee is also working on the package with the chamber’s Parliamentarian’s office to see which provisions will be allowed under the Byrd Rule. One such provision that will test those limits will be the $15 minimum wage provision. Even if the minimum wage passes the Byrd Rule, opposition from Democratic senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D- Arizona) will probably make leadership pull it from the bill. Last week, President Biden privately told a group of mayors and governors that his minimum wage proposal was unlikely to happen through budget reconciliation.
President Joe Biden heads to Kalamazoo, Michigan, today to visit the Pfizer Inc manufacturing plant that is churning out COVID-19 vaccines. Biden is due to tour Pfizer’s largest manufacturing site and its only facility in the United States making the COVID-19 vaccine at a time when less than 15% of the U.S. population is vaccinated. The United States has rolled out ambitious vaccination programs in recent weeks that include large sites capable of putting shots into thousands of arms daily, as well as hospitals and pharmacies. The Biden administration has been working to increase the number of doses it sends out to states, cities and pharmacies every week, but Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top medical adviser, said on Tuesday that demand far outpaced supply at the moment. The White House said earlier this month it was using the Defense Production Act to help Pfizer get additional equipment fast so that it could keep ramping up production. Biden is expected to discuss that initiative – which officials say is starting to pay dividends, with Pfizer executives during his tour.
The White House said President Biden will pledge $4 billion in support behind COVAX, an initiative to get vaccine doses to countries that have been cut out of the vaccination race. The Trump administration had declined to participate in the program which helps low-and middle-income countries. Biden will make the announcement at the G-7 meeting on Friday.
