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D.C. Dispatch: Here’s the latest on the infrastructure and spending bills

['Katie Akin', 'More From Author', '- October']

Date: 2021-10-01 00:00:00


It was a big, confusing week in D.C. and Iowa’s delegation was right in the thick of it. Welcome to the D.C. Dispatch, your weekly round-up of politics in the nation’s capital.

This week, negotiations continued and faltered on the infrastructure bill and spending bill, Congress narrowly avoided a government shutdown, and the lawmakers played baseball.

Negotiations over major spending priorities continue past self-imposed deadlines

There are two major bills working through Congress right now.

The first is an infrastructure package with $1.2 trillion for roads and bridges, broadband internet and public transportation. Lawmakers reached a bipartisan compromise on that bill over the summer, and the Senate passed the bill in August.

The other bill is a much larger, $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that includes several of President Joe Biden’s priorities: free community college, universal pre-K, paid family leave and more.

Democrats knew they would need to push the larger bill through on party lines, without any Republican support. Iowa’s Republican representatives have railed against the measure, calling it a “tax and spend spree.”

But the true challenge this week came from within the Democratic block: Politicians from more conservative states shied away from the price tag of the spending bill and negotiated for a smaller package. But progressives in the caucus demanded a vote on the spending bill before they would let the infrastructure bill pass, threatening to tank the infrastructure proposal.

Rep. Cindy Axne, Iowa’s only Democrat, issued a statement Thursday calling for the House to pass the infrastructure bill before the spending package. She argued that Iowa’s “greatest benefit” would come from both bills, but that there was no reason to delay the passage of the infrastructure bill.

“This (infrastructure) bill will be invaluable to the future of our state and create thousands of Iowa jobs over its lifespan,” she said. “Its passage should not be delayed.”

Democrats met throughout Friday to find a path forward on the two proposals.

Lawmakers keep the government open with stopgap bill

The House and Senate passed a bill on Thursday that will keep the government open through December, averting a looming shutdown, for now. Biden signed the bill into law on Thursday evening.

The bill does not address the debt ceiling, which is the maximum amount of debt the country can take on. The U.S. needs to raise the debt ceiling within the next few weeks to avoid defaulting on existing debts, but Republicans are insisting they won’t vote for the measure.

“We’ve said pretty plainly for months we will not abet the tax and spending spree, and that we’re going to vote against the raise of the debt ceiling,” Sen. Chuck Grassley told Iowa reporters this week.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the country has until Oct. 18 to increase the debt limit.

In addition to the government funding, the bill allocated $28.6 billion to disaster relief and $6.3 billion to Afghan refugee resettlement.

Iowa’s Republican representatives and senators voted against the bill. Axne voted in favor.

Axne and Hinson take on workforce shortages

Iowa businesses are still experiencing a shortage of workers. Two of the state’s representatives took different approaches to the issue this week.

Axne asked Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell about how additional federal investments could ease the shortage. She focused on child care, which has been a major talking point in her recent visits to Iowa.

Yellen agreed that child care was an important part of bringing “prime age workers” back to the workforce.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ashley Hinson was looking at the role of pandemic unemployment on the shortage. Iowa was one of many states to discontinue the additional unemployment benefits early in an attempt to fill empty positions.

She introduced a piece of legislation, the Back to Work Act, that would create a Bureau of Labor Statistics study on the negative effects of additional unemployment benefits on the workforce. She also raised concerns about fraudulent claims of the additional benefits.

“With 10.9 million open jobs nationwide, record high prices as a result of massive overspending, and COVID-19 vaccines widely available, what good reason is there to spend more taxpayer dollars we don’t have to pay people to stay home instead of work?” Hinson said in a statement. “There isn’t one.”

There’s always time for baseball

Despite a chaotic week on the hill, lawmakers on Wednesday evening played in a baseball game for charity.

Rep. Randy Feenstra and Sen. Joni Ernst competed for the Republicans, who won 13-12. Money from the game will go toward The Washington Literacy Center, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington and the United States Capitol Police Memorial Fund.

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