Move Fast and Get Things Done

[Celerity]

Three priorities the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress should tackle before their window of opportunity closes this fall

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/move-fast-and-get-things-done


Workers at Wolfspeed, Inc’s microchip factory clean room in New York state. Credit: Heather Ainsworth, WSJ

After last week’s massacre in Uvalde, Texas, attention in Washington has understandably turned once again to gun control. House Democrats aim to pass new legislation by early next month, while Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has “encouraged” his Texas colleague John Cornyn to work with Democrats on the issue. This new focus comes just after Congress passed $40 billion worth of military and economic aid for Ukraine, and there may be more assistance coming down the pike.

At the same time, however, the Biden administration and Congress also have opportunities to take action on three important policy priorities: the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, investment in innovation, and the remnants of the administration’s Build Back Better proposals. Congress has already made significant progress on these priorities, with two of them working their way through the legislative sausage-grinder and the third still under active consideration. The sooner Congress acts on these priorities, the better. Let’s take a closer look at them.

COVID funding.

At the beginning of March, the Biden administration requested $22.5 billion in funding to fight the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Without this additional money, the United States would run out of vaccines, therapeutic treatments, and testing supplies even as new COVID variants continue to appear. It would also be unable to fund research into antiviral treatments and new vaccines that would protect against multiple variants moving forward.

This rather straightforward request has been languished in Congress for almost three months now. The administration and Democrats in Congress attempted to tie this funding into new Ukraine aid, only to be rebuffed by Republicans. An early April compromise brokered by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) eliminated funding for global vaccination efforts and reduced the cost of the package to roughly $10 billion.

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[Auggie]

1. Can we also please finish the January 6th investigation?