Tag: House Democrats

Democrats gear up for major push to lower drug prices

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Democrats are planning a major push to lower drug prices as part of a coming infrastructure package, seeing an avenue to move forward on a long-held goal for the party.

House Democratic leaders are intent on including a measure that would allow the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs, sources say.

That bill, first passed by the House in 2019, would provide about $450 billion in savings that in turn could help fund a spending package with a price tag as high as $3 trillion. Continue reading.

Democrats demand repeal of ‘obscene’ tax cut for millionaires that GOP buried in previous COVID relief bill

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A group of 120 Democratic members of Congress is calling on their party’s leadership to ensure that a tax break for millionaires that Republicans quietly buried in an earlier coronavirus relief package is repealed in upcoming aid legislation, arguing the rollback would free up hundreds of billions in revenue which could be used to help struggling families.

Led by Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) in the House and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in the Senate, the coalition of lawmakers sent a letter to Democratic leaders on Tuesday demanding the reversal of “costly tax breaks for so-called ‘net operating losses’ that Republicans tucked into the CARES Act,” a $2 trillion relief measure that former President Donald Trump signed into law last March.

“These special-interest giveaways will confer over 80 percent of the benefits to just 43,000 taxpayers, each earning at least $1 million per year,” reads the letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “We urge you to repeal these unwarranted tax cuts, as HEROES and HEROES 2.0 proposed and President Biden has recommended. This would save over $250 billion, which should be repurposed to help Americans who have lost income due to the pandemic and its economic fallout.” Continue reading.

House Democrats debut bill that would rein in Trump’s abuse of power

The Protecting Our Democracy Act seeks to reassert congressional oversight over the Executive branch.

House Democrats called out Donald Trump directly this week while introducing a number of broad, sweeping reforms aimed at presidential corruption and abuse of power.

The 158-page bill called Protecting Our Democracy Act aims “to restore our system of checks and balances,” according to a press release from the House oversight committee.

“Since taking office, President Trump has placed his own personal and political interests above the national interest by protecting and enriching himself, targeting his political opponents, seeking foreign interference in our elections, eroding transparency, seeking to end accountability, and otherwise abusing the power of his office,” seven House committee chairs said in a joint statement. Continue reading.

Covid talks going nowhere as deadline nears

Negotiators met for more than three hours but remain far apart on an agreement.

Negotiations between the White House and Democratic congressional leaders on a new coronavirus relief package were on the brink of failure Thursday night, both sides said after a fruitless three-hour meeting in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.

The apparent deadlock in the high-level talks now shifts the focus back to President Donald Trump, who warned earlier in the day that he will issue a series of executive orders to address the economic crisis facing millions of Americans if no deal can be reached with Congress. Trump could issue these orders as early as Friday, senior administration officials said.

After their 10th face-to-face session with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blamed the White House for failing to reach a bipartisan agreement that would allow the resumption of federal unemployment payments or provide hundreds of billions of dollars in new aid to state and local governments. Democrats are pushing a relief package costing more than $3 trillion, while the White House and Senate Republicans want to keep the price tag closer to $1 trillion. Continue reading.

White House, Democrats fail to reach agreement on virus relief bill, and next steps are uncertain

Washington Post logoParties meet for more than three hours but say they remain far apart on key issues

White House officials and Democratic leaders ended a three-hour negotiation Thursday evening without a coronavirus relief deal or even a clear path forward, with both sides remaining far apart on critical issues.

“We’re still a considerable amount apart,” said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after emerging from the meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. President Trump called into the meeting several times, but they were unable to resolve key issues.

Pelosi called it a “consequential meeting” in which the differences between the two parties were on display. Continue reading.

House Dems seek to hold suburbs as Trump’s slide worries GOP

WASHINGTON — In a suburban Houston congressional district that backed President Donald Trump in 2016, a twice-elected Republican sheriff is battling a Democrat who’s the son of an immigrant from India. To Democrats, that smells like an opportunity.

Things are flipped in central New York, where freshman Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi faces the Republican he ousted two years ago from a district near Syracuse that includes smaller cities like Binghamton and Utica. Trump won there easily, and Republicans say his place atop the ticket will help propel Claudia Tenney back to Congress.

The tale of two districts 1,600 miles apart spotlights that many pivotal House races hinge on suburban voters. While some like Brindisi’s have a more rural, blue collar feel than the diverse, better educated one outside Houston, an overriding factor will be how Trump is viewed in the district.

And that’s a problem for the GOP. Continue reading.

Democrats drop controversial surveillance amendment

The Hill logoHouse Democratic leaders have dropped plans to vote on a controversial amendment aimed at blocking law enforcement from accessing Americans’ web browsing history that had threatened to scuttle a vote on reauthorizing three surveillance programs, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer‘s (D-Md.) office confirmed.

Support for the amendment, sponsored by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), has fractured over the last day, with progressive groups and lawmakers pulling support.

House lawmakers seeking the amendment initially pushed for language mirroring a measure offered by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Steve Daines(R-Mont.) in the Senate that would require a warrant anytime law enforcement wanted to access web browsing data. Continue reading.

EXCLUSIVE: Treasury IG sends report to House Dems on handling of Trump tax returns

The Hill logoThe Treasury Department’s inspector general’s office on Wednesday sent a report about the department’s handling of House Democrats’ request for President Trump‘s tax returns to key lawmakers.

Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar, who is currently the acting IG for Treasury, said in an email to The Hill that his office’s “inquiry report” was sent to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who requested the report, as well as the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas).

The contents of the report were not immediately known. The Hill has reached out to Neal’s and Brady’s offices. Continue reading.

How Democrats are trying to save the right to vote in a pandemic — and fight GOP suppression tactics

AlterNet logoThe Democrat-led House’s massive pandemic bill seeks to counter years of Republican voter suppression tactics that have shadowed swing states, a contrast to a more circumspect proposal from Senate Democrats who are seeking to expand voting by mail without specifying additional reforms.

Pages 856 to 918 of the House bill produced under Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not just expand early and absentee voting as part of creating emergency voting rules in a natural disaster or pandemic. It would replace many suppressive rules, procedures and technicalities that have emerged in recent years in red-run states with specific steps to encourage participation and make the process easier.

The Democrat-led House’s massive pandemic bill seeks to counter years of Republican voter suppression tactics that have shadowed swing states, a contrast to a more circumspect proposal from Senate Democrats who are seeking to expand voting by mail without specifying additional reforms.

Pages 856 to 918 of the House bill produced under Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not just expand early and absentee voting as part of creating emergency voting rules in a natural disaster or pandemic. It would replace many suppressive rules, procedures and technicalities that have emerged in recent years in red-run states with specific steps to encourage participation and make the process easier. Continue reading.