Both the House and Senate are not in session today. The House will reconvene on Monday, July 26th with votes at 6:30 p.m. The Senate will reconvene at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, July 26th.
A bipartisan group of Senate negotiators who have been working with the White House for months to fill out the $1.2 trillion, eight-year spending proposal say they’re on track to get it done next week, but frustrations are starting to mount as a final deal eludes them. The current biggest sticking point is Democrats demand of more federal money for public transit and Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania), the top-ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, who has balked at an additional $48.5 billion in funding, which he believes would skew the traditional allocation between highway and transit spending. Democrats want 80 percent of the funds allocated for transportation projects for highways and 20 percent for transit, citing past precedent. Republicans want less than 20 percent to go to mass transit, saying that ratio hasn’t been fixed. The bipartisan group overcame a major hurdle after agreeing to pay for the package in part by delaying a costly Trump-era Medicare regulation. The Medicare rule, promulgated under former President Donald Trump, eliminates rebates drug companies give benefit managers in Medicare Part D and was aimed at reducing out-of-pocket costs for patients outside Medicare. Delaying the rule reduces expenditures by the Medicare program, producing a budgetary windfall the negotiators want to use to help pay for roads, bridges and other projects. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealing the rule would cut federal Medicare spending by about $177 billion over a decade. Negotiators are delaying it for less than 10 years, but have not revealed how long. The group does not expect to announce details until at least Monday and will continue working over the weekend. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said he will set up the reconciliation process on the larger $3.5 trillion package by scheduling a vote on a budget resolution after the bipartisan infrastructure bill passes the Senate.
In advance of the first meeting next week of the January 6th Select Committee , House Democrats are plowing ahead with their investigation brushing off the boycott from Republican leaders and weighing the addition of other Republicans to help negate criticism that the panel will be overly partisan. The eight members of the select committee examining the siege huddled for more than an hour Thursday in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) office, a strategizing session ahead of the panel’s first hearing next week as they consider whether to boost their GOP roster beyond Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming). The select committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), confirmed that GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois.) could be invited to serve on the panel. Kinzinger is a centrist who, like Cheney, voted to impeach former President Trump for his role in inciting the insurrection and has been critical of GOP leaders for advancing Trump’s lies about the results of last year’s presidential election.
