This morning, the House Passed Biden’s $2 trillion Build Back Better Bill so it moves on to the Senate where it’s sure to be modified.
Democrats initially hoped to pass the bill Thursday night, but an eight-and-a-half-hour speech by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) slamming the legislation prompted Democrats to postpone the vote until later Friday morning. Republicans in both the House and Senate have united against the bill, arguing that it would exacerbate rising inflation and slow the economy’s growth.
“This is the single most reckless and irresponsible spending in the history of this country,” Mr. McCarthy said in his floor speech, which stretched past 5 a.m.
Some centrist Senate Democrats haven’t committed to supporting the House legislation, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) has called for removing a proposed paid-leave program. Other Democrats are seeking changes to the House plan for raising the $10,000 cap on the deduction for state and local taxes, warning that the proposed $80,000 cap with no income limit offers unnecessary tax cuts for high-income households. A measure giving temporary legal protections to immigrants in the U.S. illegally may face parliamentary problems that could force Democrats to strip it from the bill.
Many of the bill’s measures are funded only temporarily, though, a step Democrats took to keep down the package’s sticker price. For example, the expanded child tax credit would last only through 2022, neither indefinitely, as some had sought, nor for four more years, as Mr. Biden proposed.
Modifications Coming Up
The protection for immigrants is nearly certain to be removed.
Second, Democrats seek changes to State and Local Taxes (SALT). On the surface, that means a revision but only if republicans stay united.
If the SALT deduction is lowered, there is a chance the Bill will actually become revenue neutral. But that also assumes all of the temporary measures really are temporary. Some might be, but it is difficult in practice to kill entitlements once offered.
Manchin has demanded that Democrats cut four weeks of paid leave provided in the House bill.
He is likely to demand other unknown modifications and he could easily kill the whole thing if he wanted to.
In the end, I expect the Senate to approve something, but with at least a few modifications.
Then What?
After the Senate makes amendmendments, the bill goes back to the House. AOC and the progressive caucus will piss and moan about the changes.
Democrats and Republicans from high tax states like New York will also moan.
But in the end, all the Democrats and perhaps a few Republicans from New York will vote for the bill.
When Biden signs it, many of those pissing and moaning will turn to bragging about getting it done.
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Mish
It’s a very
good article and explains in detail the working of a market where OTC contracts
are dominantly used by the major players. It also explains well how the Hedge
Book Managers hedge the OTC contracts that they have written and the complexity
involved as well as underlying that the service the traders provide are
valuable to the producers and the consumers alike. How valuable these services
are will surprise you. OTC contracts even on more exotically vanilla products can
give the seller 5 or 6% margins on the sell easily. On an exotic commodity like
uranium I could imagine that it could be higher. If that doesn’t make you
salivate then you are probably dead. The Sprott system looks to me as
the way traders “book” their transactions among themselves and may not exactly
be the market price but the price at which large blocks are recorded, exchanged,
or switched between accounts. The price may have been agreed upon days or weeks
before and depends not on demand of the underlying but more on the needs of the
hedge. There are few things on Earth more complicated and strange than an OTC
Hedge Book; women maybe but that’s about it.
Électricité
de France is I believe the biggest player the electricity markets in Europe and
they have a very large and sophisticated trading team. Since they have a 10
year supply of uranium fuel on French soil I would imagine that they are one of
the dominate players in the uranium market as well. Being a large producer of
electricity gives you a certain advantage in trading. You can never be naked
short which caused a lot of problems for Texas electric companies last winter.
Since they also are sitting on a large stock of uranium they are in the same
good position. I would guess that EDF made a lot of money trading these last
six months.
If the Ds from NY are crying about not getting tax cuts for the rich, why would Republicans from NY vote for it? Of course, they would want tax cuts for the rich too – unless they are thinking that the 10K SALT limit was Trump’s idea and want to pretend that they fought to lower the SALT deduction cap.