Subject: Update -- Last Week and This
From: Dana <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 15:19:50 -0500

Mike & Co.,

A quick review of where topline issues stand after last week, followed by events of note this coming week. 

Tomorrow, a focus on what the Fed is facing next month or one of the items below if you're fed up with Fed watching.  

Best,

Dana

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Last Week

•  Highway Trust Fund to Conference.  Reauthorization bills adopted by both Houses last week with differences.  Staff are at work preparing a compromise to pass by November 20. Although many conferees remain to be named, timely enactment is likely.

   --  HTF/Offsets.   Stripped from the House bill were 1) a reduction to the Federal Reserve dividend rate and 2) an increase in the fees charged by Fannie Mae.

   --  HTF/Ex-Im.  House defeated 10 amendments that would have constrained the Export-Import Bank.  This insures that the original Bank reauthorization language will make it to conference with the Senate, probably next week. 

•  Strong October Jobs Report.  Main points:

   --  271,000 jobs were added to the economy, the most in a month this year, beyond analysts’ most optimistic forecast

   --  the unemployment rate dipped to five percent, now at or approaching full employment for the first time since February 2008

   --  wages rose at the fastest pace since 2009

•   TPP Text and Timing:  The TPP text was released last week.  Congress still gets an up-or-down vote, and there will be at least three months of debate.  Because the president got fast-track authority in June, there can be no amendments or filibuster.  Obama must wait 90 days before he signs and sends the agreement to Congress, and the text of the accord must be made public for at least 60 of those days.  So the congressional vote could happen in January, just before the Iowa caucuses.

This Week

•  Recess.  The House is in recess until Monday, Nov. 16.   The Senate is off Wednesday.  

•  Debate.   Republicans debate again Tuesday, this time on the Fox Business Network, in Milwaukee

•  Budget Process. Senate Budget hearing 10:30 am Thursday to "examine spending on unauthorized programs"

Ongoing

•   FY16/17 Budget.  Democratic leaders are anticipating a weeks-long fight with Republicans who could attach controversial provisions, like defunding Planned Parenthood, to the spending legislation necessary to prevent a government shutdown later this year.  Possible repeal targets:  Obamacare, new environmental rules, and executive actions on immigration.

> On Nov 4, 2015, at 8:02 PM, Dana <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> Mike & Co. --
> 
> The most significant personnel question opened up by Paul Ryan's promotion was resolved this evening when the GOP members of House Ways and Means elected Kevin Brady of Texas the Committee's new Chair, succeeding Ryan.  
> 
> So the parlor game now is what this means for comprehensive tax reform.  Some say just fast forward to 2017 and tell me which is the president's Party.  But for some play-by-play, below is speculation about whether conditions for reform are propitious in the new regime. 
> 
> Best,
> 
> Dana
> 
> -----------
> 
> Almost no one thinks sweeping tax change will happen this year, with Congress staring at a stack of unfinished business — or next year, when the 2016 election will loom larger.  But it’s suddenly a lot more likely in the early years of the next presidency, especially if the Republicans win the White House.   “It certainly comes as close to guaranteeing it as possible,” said a senior Republican staffer. “It’s his No. 1 priority — it’s what he cares about most.”
> 
> He is Paul Ryan, who as Speaker would be able to move a tax bill to his liking.  What that is is no mystery -- he aims to cut both individual and corporate tax rates in exchange for ending scores of credits, deductions and other special provisions.  Ryan was a driving force behind Republicans’ promises to cut the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25 percent, a pledge that debuted in one of his annual budgets. 
> 
> Like Obama, Ryan wants to expand the earned income tax credit, a wage supplement to the working poor.  He’s seconded the administration’s call to expand the program for childless workers, and increasing the maximum aid.
> 
> Earlier this year, he pushed for a corporate-only tax reform, arguing it was one area of the code in which Republicans might be able to work with the administration.  When that failed, he tried a more narrow reform with Sen. Schumer focused on rewriting the tax rules for multinational corporations.  That has stalled as well. 
> 
> Ryan wants to kill a long-standing deduction for state and local income taxes, something especially important to high-tax — and Democratic-leaning — states like California and New York. The federal government should not be forcing people elsewhere to subsidize them, Ryan has argued.
> 
> He’s pushed to pare back the so-called tax extenders, the mishmash of ostensibly temporary breaks for big banks, charities, teachers, energy companies and sundry others that Congress has been rolling over for years.
> 
> To be sure, Ryan will have plenty on his plate as speaker to keep him busy, and some predict his move will actually hurt the cause of tax reform.  A GOP Hill staffer said:  “If you don’t have your best mind on tax reform devoted to it, and instead have to run the entire House, then it certainly diminishes the prospects. Tax reform isn’t just a matter of the will of the House — it’s also the work of the committee,” [and Ryan is] uniquely qualified to go through all the nuts and bolts of this, and knows where the bodies are buried and who’s going to hate what, and who has to be accommodated here versus there.
> 
> The opposite view says Speakers can involve themselves in whatever issue they like. And though Ryan said he wants to decentralize power by having the committees take the lead in writing legislation, many predict he would be heavily engaged in any overhaul, even if he’s not running Ways and Means.
> 
> -------
> 
> Recent Updates:  
> 
> Ryan and Tax Reform (Nov. 4)
> HTF/Pay-fors  (Nov. 3)
> FRB System Risk Rule  (Nov. 2)
> Ex-Im Reauthorization  (Oct. 30)
> FRB Interest Rate Policy  (Oct. 30)
> Tax Extenders  (Oct. 30)
> Boehner Budget Deal (Oct. 27)
> Debt and Debt Limit  (Oct. 22)
> SEC Nominations  (Oct. 20)
> TPP/Currency Manipulation  (Oct. 15)
> FRB Dividend  (Oct. 7)
> Jobs Report (Oct. 2)
> Fiduciary Rule  (Oct. 1)
> FY2016 Budget/CR  (Sept. 29)
> Trade/TPP  (Sept. 25)
> GSE Reform  (Sept. 25)
> Carried Interest  (Sept. 23)
> Bush Tax Cuts  (Sept. 15)
> Puerto Rico  (Jul. 23)
> Shelby 2.0  (June 24)