🤫 Dems expect payback

Plus: Paid leave Plan B | Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Open in app View in browser   Presented By Facebook   Axios Sneak Peek By the Axios Politics team ·Nov 17, 2021 Welcome back to Sneak. 📅 Join Axios' Erica Pandey tomorrow at 12:30pm ET for a virtual event about America's caregiving crisis. Guests include Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and National Women's Law Center president and CEO Fatima Goss Graves. Register. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,230 words ... 4.5 minutes. Edited by Glen Johnson.     1 big thing: Paid leave Plan B Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   Democrats are privately reaching out to Republicans to cinch a separate, bipartisan deal for paid family leave after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) crushed hopes of including it in the president's $1.75 trillion social spending plan, Axios' Sophia Cai and Alayna Treene report. Why it matters: The end-around is part of a broader effort to provide paid time off from work to care for others, regardless of the method. Some Republicans sound amenable, depending on the timing. Senate Republicans plan to sit on the sidelines until Democrats concede it won't be in the Build Back Better agenda the president is trying to pass through the partisan budget reconciliation process, aides tell Axios. Once that concession is made, the aides say, GOP senators will be more open to negotiations. President Biden's also signaled he'd support a separate effort. During a closed-door meeting with House members on Oct. 27, he promised he'd do his best to move it separately if it's not included in his Build Back Better package, a Democratic source told Axios. What we're hearing: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who's been leading paid leave negotiations in the Senate, and her staff have been talking generally with fellow senators and Republican staff to lay the groundwork for a potential bipartisan deal. Gillibrand told Axios she's had discussions with 10 Republican senators and hopes Manchin would support it. Her outreach has included conversations with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), one aide told Axios. The process has been "slow, and in the nascent stages," the aide said. Keep reading.     2. Scoop - Senators quiz Powell on inflation Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell walks through the Hart Senate Office Building last month. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images   Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is facing questions in private meetings with Democratic senators this week about how he plans to counter soaring inflation, people familiar with the matter tell Axios' Hans Nichols. Why it matters: The Democrats' intense focus on inflation reveals their concern rising prices are becoming a political liability. It also shows they're looking to the next Federal Reserve chair to devise a strategy to defeat it. The president promised to announce his choice as early as Friday. Powell's private answer — that he plans to reduce the Fed's $120 billion in monthly asset purchases by $15 billion a month, and then consider raising interest rates — tracks with his public pronouncements. Congressional Democrats, and the White House, are bracing for Republicans to turn the Fed nomination — regardless of Biden's choice — into a venue to air their inflation complaints. The big picture: Having already signed more than $3 trillion of new spending into law, Biden's decision about who to appoint as Fed chair — as well as three other open seats — will be among the most consequential of his presidency. Inflation looms large in the overall political debate, with 87% of Americans concerned about rising prices, according to a new Morning Consult poll. Steve Rattner, a former Obama economic adviser, lashed out at the Biden administration today in a New York Times op-ed titled: "I Warned the Democrats About Inflation." Biden also tried to address one aspect of inflation — surging gas prices — by directing his Federal Trade Commission to consider whether "illegal conduct" by the oil industry was driving up prices at the pump. Keep reading.     3. Dems ready for retaliation Rep. Paul Gosar rides a Capitol subway car today, before he was censured. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images   House Democrats are braced for retribution if Republicans retake the majority next year, after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy promised it as he complained about the effort to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.). Why it matters: The speeches that preceded today's vote illustrated how an effort to hold a member to account only exacerbated the divide between congressional Democrats and Republicans, writes Axios' Andrew Solender. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who's been subject to GOP calls for removal from the House Intelligence Committee, believes McCarthy is "capable of anything," and would "do whatever [former President] Trump told him to do." Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) agrees. "I think they'll set the threshold so low and they'll look for any excuse to do this," he said. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told Axios the vote breaks a precedent of party committees determining their members' committee assignments. He said a GOP effort to strip Democrats' committee assignments "will happen." Between the lines: McCarthy lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during his floor speech, saying she leads a "broken Congress" and accusing her of "burning down the House on the way out the door." "What they have started cannot be easily undone," McCarthy said. He stated the "Pelosi precedent" means "all members will need the approval of the majority to keep their positions in the future." McCarthy pointed to Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) as targets. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) took it a step further, saying Republicans would retaliate against Omar, "the jihad Squad member," and Swalwell, who she accused of having sex with a Chinese spy. Pelosi told Axios, "Democrats don't threaten the lives of other members" — and thus their committee assignments are not in danger. Keep reading.     A message from Facebook Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations     Rochelle is one of many experts working on privacy at Facebook — to give you more control over your information. Hear more from Rochelle on why Facebook supports updating regulations on the internet's most pressing challenges, including federal privacy legislation.     4. By the numbers: Ramp-up time Reproduced from GeoEconomics Center Calculations; Note: This graphic assumes Powell or Brainard would be nominated this Sunday, Nov. 20; Chart: Axios Visuals The president is late in announcing his decision for the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, according to data and analysis by the Atlantic Council reviewed by Hans. Why it matters: Presidents typically give markets — and the Senate — much more time to digest such monumental financial news, especially during a time of economic turmoil. Senators also have the important job of confirming the nominee. By the numbers: With the international economy still reeling from the global financial crisis in the summer of 2009, President Obama announced a second term for Ben Bernanke some 162 days before his term expired. Twelve years later — with the world now battling COVID-19 and struggling with supply chain disruptions — Biden is poised to give markets fewer than 80 days to process a potential Powell reappointment. If Biden decides against renominating Jerome Powell and opt for another potential choice, Lael Brainard, her nomination would be much later than the previous three nominees. Brainard, however, would be in some good company: Markets only got a 69-day warning from President Ronald Reagan before he named Alan Greenspan to the first of his five terms.     5. First look: Biden invites public scrutiny President Biden takes GMC Hummer EV on a test drive Wednesday as he visits a General Motors assembly plant in Detroit. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images   The White House is making public all agency-waiver requests to the administration's "Buy American" rule, Hans and Axios' Sarah Mucha have learned. Why it matters: The federal government is the single largest purchaser of consumer goods in the world, spending nearly $600 billion annually on procurement. The new process allows the public to scrutinize the president's commitment to foster sales of U.S.-made products. It also will keep the administration accountable when agencies seek to purchase materials not domestically available. How it works: Agencies have historically had the ability to waive requirements that non-mission-critical products be domestically made, when that product was not available at a reasonable cost or if it was not "in the public interest." The waivers the Biden administration will make public are for products not available in the United States, an administration official told Axios. The updates will be provided in real time on MadeinAmerica.gov, and will follow the process from when a proposed waiver is submitted to when the office issues the decision. The decision also will be made public. Keep reading.     6. Pic du jour Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images   An aide fixes her hair before singer Ciara Princess Wilson poses for photos in the James Brady Press Briefing Room. She was at the White House to discuss promoting child coronavirus vaccines with first lady Jill Biden.     A message from Facebook Facebook invested $13B in teams and technology to enhance safety     It's working: we lead the industry in stopping bad actors online. In the past few months, we took action on: 1.7B fake accounts. 3.8M drugs and firearms sales posts. 7.1M terrorism-related posts. 32.8 million explicit adult posts. Learn more about how we're making our platforms safer.   🐫 We made it through Hump Day! Thanks for reading. A reminder your family, friends and colleagues can subscribe to Sneak or any of Axios' other free local and national newsletters through this link. Like this email style and format? Learn more about Axios HQ. 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