Dour Dems Struggle to Settle Doubts About Biden

Plus: Republican Platform drops any mention of national debt ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ [The Fisc](   By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey Good Tuesday evening! Here’s what’s happening. Biden at a NATO event Tuesday (Reuters) Democrats Struggle to Overcome Doubts and Divisions Over Biden Democrats continue to wrestle with the thorny problem of whether to press President Joe Biden to give up his bid for a second term. Discussions held by House and Senate Democrats Tuesday did little to conclusively resolve the question or settle the intraparty divisions that have emerged since Biden’s calamitous debate performance nearly two weeks ago. Rep. Steven Cohen of Tennessee was asked by reporters if Democrats were on the same page. His response: “We are not even in the same book.” But Tuesday’s Democratic meetings also suggested that any efforts to collectively push Biden to withdraw could be petering out, even as many lawmakers still say the president must demonstrate to voters that he’s up to the job. Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey became the seventh House Democrat to publicly call on the president to pull out of the race, but Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, who reportedly had told colleagues privately two days ago that Biden should withdraw, said he would set aside his concerns. “He’s going to be our nominee, and we all have to support him,” Nadler told reporters. Perhaps most importantly, top party leaders who might hold the most sway with the president have not put any public pressure on him. “As I’ve said before, I’m with Joe,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer repeated in response to three separate questions at an afternoon news conference. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that the party’s discussions “will continue throughout the balance of the week.” Trump’s Republican Platform Drops Any Mention of National Debt Ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, the GOP on Monday published its 2024 platform — a [16-page outline]( of the party’s policy positions for a second Trump term. The document, dedicated “To the Forgotten Men and Women of America,” makes clear — as if there were any doubt at this point — that this is Trump’s party now and is much different compared with just eight years ago. The platform “cements Mr. Trump’s ideological takeover of the G.O.P.,” The New York Times [reports](. “The platform is even more nationalistic, more protectionist and less socially conservative than the 2016 Republican platform.” Trump wrote and edited some parts of the platform himself, CNN [reports](. News reports about the policy framework have focused largely on its softening the GOP’s position on abortion rights in keeping with Trump’s recently adopted stance that defers to the states, or its elimination of earlier references to “traditional marriage” as being between “one man and one woman,” or its promise to launch the largest deportation program in the nation’s history. But the platform also highlights the Republican Party’s shifting positions on a range of fiscal matters. Gone is any reference to the national debt and budget deficits. The party’s [66-page platform]( from 2016 referenced the debt 10 times. The new platform includes only a promise to rein in “wasteful spending” as part of a list of steps meant to tackle inflation. The document’s single page specifically dedicated to building “the greatest economy in history” promises to cut regulations and make permanent the 2017 Trump tax law provisions that “doubled the standard deduction, expanded the Child Tax Credit, and spurred Economic Growth for all Americans.” It also pledges to eliminate taxes on tips, an idea Trump embraced recently, and to pursue additional tax cuts. In another shift away from conservative orthodoxy, the platform says that Trump “has made absolutely clear that he will not cut one penny from Medicare or Social Security,” a contrast with the 2016 platform, which said that “all options should be considered to preserve Social Security.” The new platform specifies that no changes will be made to the retirement age. It pledges that Republicans will “ensure the long-term sustainability of Social Security” and protect Medicare from what it baselessly describes as a “Democrat plan to add tens of millions of new illegal immigrants to the rolls.” Why it matters: Republicans have long talked about restoring fiscal responsibility only to add to the debt when in power. The Trumpified party platform is now officially ditching even the talking points, much to the dismay of debt and deficit hawks. “Ever since the party was taken over by Donald Trump, Republicans have backed away from speaking of debt reduction as an important goal — even as the situation has deteriorated,” writes Philip Klein at the conservative [National Review](. “Now, they have made that fiscal irresponsibility part of their official platform.” The platform has additional political significance for Trump. It was released at a time when he has been trying to distance himself from “Project 2025,” a conservative plan overseen by the Heritage Foundation detailing a [sweeping agenda]( for overhauling the government in a second Trump term. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts drew new attention to the plan when he said in a recent interview that the United States is “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Many of those involved in the plan served in the first Trump administration and are expected to play key roles in government should the former president be re-elected in November, though the group also sought to separate itself from the Trump campaign. “As we’ve been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign. We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy & personnel recommendations for the next conservative president,” the project said in a social media post last week. “But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement.” Extending Trump Tax Cuts Would Benefit High Earners Most: Analysis Many of the key individual and small business tax cuts provided by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are set to expire at the end of 2025, and the Congressional Budget Office has [warned]( that extending them would cost upwards of $4.6 trillion over 10 years. Beyond the aggregate cost, a new analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center finds that an extension would benefit high-income households the most. According to the TPC analysis, households earning over $450,000 a year in 2027 would receive about 45% of the benefit of extending key elements of the Trump tax cuts. That group, which roughly corresponds to the top 5% of households, would see their after-tax incomes increase by 3.2% on average. Households in the top 1%, earning $1 million or more per year, would gain $70,000 in after-tax income annually, compared to the scenario in which the tax cuts expire. Households in the top 0.1%, earning $5 million or more, would see an extra $280,000. TPC’s Howard Gleckman [said]( Monday that policymakers have yet to provide details about how they plan to handle the expiration of the tax cuts. “But one thing is clear,” he wrote. “While extending the law as is would benefit most taxpayers, the biggest winners would be those making $450,000 or more.” Senate's 2025 Spending Deal Sets Up Clash With House Bipartisan negotiators in the Senate have agreed on spending levels for the 2025 fiscal year, which include a 3.4% increase for defense and a 2.7% increase for non-defense programs. The agreement sets up a fight with the Republican-led House, which wants lower spending in both categories. House Republicans propose to increase defense spending by 1% in 2025, in line with the agreement made last year between President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But they want to cut non-defense spending by about 6% overall, with some programs seeing much steeper reductions. In the Senate, there is interest on both sides of the aisle in an increase in defense spending, but Democrats say they will push for increases across the board. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said “I have made clear that we cannot fail to address the insufficient funding levels facing us and that I absolutely will not leave pressing nondefense needs behind.” Powerful Middlemen Are Jacking Up Drug Prices: FTC The middlemen who buy and sell prescription drugs throughout the U.S. healthcare system are inflating prices for consumers, according to an [interim report]( released Tuesday by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC says that increasing concentration in the healthcare industry has allowed pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, to push drug prices higher, creating billions of dollars in profits for the massive healthcare firms that own them. “PBMs are part of complex vertically integrated health care conglomerates, and the PBM industry is highly concentrated,” the FTC says, adding that “this concentration and integration gives them significant power over the pharmaceutical supply chain.” (See the chart below.) The three largest PBMs — CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx — processed 79% of the roughly 6.6 billion prescriptions written in the U.S. in 2023, while the top six PBMs processed more than 90%. As a result of this market concentration, PBMs now have an enormous influence over what drugs are available to Americans, and at what prices. “PBMs oversee these critical decisions about access to and affordability of life-saving medications, without transparency or accountability to the public,” the report says. In some cases, PBMs appear to direct business to the pharmacies they are affiliated with, disadvantaging independently owned pharmacies. And they appear to inflate drug prices through the use of rebate programs that make generic drugs less attractive. “Evidence suggests that PBMs and brand pharmaceutical manufacturers sometimes enter agreements to exclude lower-cost competitor drugs from the PBM’s formulary in exchange for increased rebates from manufacturers,” the report says. The FTC says the pricing power of PBMs has dire consequences for patients who need prescription drugs, including those being treated for cancer. In one example cited by the FTC, a drug used to treat leukemia, imatinib mesylate, cost almost 250 times more through a PBM than it did through a “non-preferred” pharmacy, as noted by a consultant worried about the “optics” of such a pricing discrepancy. “[Y]ou can get the drug at a non-preferred pharmacy (Costco) for $97, at Walgreens (preferred) for $9000, and at preferred home delivery for $19,200,” the consultant wrote. “Compounding the challenge/optics is the fact that we’ve created plan designs to aggressively steer customers to home delivery where the drug cost is ~200 times higher. The optics are not good and must be addressed.” Despite the evidence laid out in the FTC report, the industry denies the findings and blamed drugmakers for the upward trajectory of prices. “These biased conclusions will do nothing to address the rising prices of prescription medications driven by the pharmaceutical industry,” Justine Sessions, a spokesperson for Express Scripts, [told The New York Times](. In a statement, FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said her agency would continue to gather information about how PBMs operate, despite a lack of cooperation from the industry. “The FTC’s interim report lays out how dominant pharmacy benefit managers can hike the cost of drugs—including overcharging patients for cancer drugs,” she said. “The FTC will continue to use all our tools and authorities to scrutinize dominant players across healthcare markets and ensure that Americans can access affordable healthcare.” Fiscal News Roundup - [Senate Democrats Emerge From Party Meeting Stuck in Limbo on Biden]( – Politico - [House Democrats Still Split on Biden After High-Stakes Meeting]( – Roll Call - [Poll Finds Biden Damaged by Debate; With Harris and Clinton Best Positioned to Win]( – Politico - [Key Senators Reach Agreement on Spending Levels for Next Year, Setting up Clash With House]( – Associated Press - [F.T.C. Slams Middlemen for High Drug Prices, Reversing Hands-Off Approach]( – New York Times - [New GOP Platform Drops Reference to Debt and Deficits, Previously a Focus]( – Washington Examiner - [US Economy No Longer Overheated, Fed's Powell Tells Congress]( – Reuters - [Fed's Powell Highlights Slowing Job Market in Signal That Rate Cuts May Be Nearing]( – Associated Press Views and Analysis - [Biden’s Fate Is on the Line in the Most Critical Days of His 50-Year Political Career]( – Stephen Collinson, CNN - [Why the Bid to Push Out Biden Is Losing]( – David Dayen, American Prospect - [If Biden Steps Down, Democrats Could Win the Election]( – William A. Galston, Wall Street Journal - [Republicans Make Fiscal Irresponsibility Part of Their Official Platform]( – Philip Klein, National Review - [What Is Project 2025? Biden Team Zeroes In on GOP Agenda Under Trump]( – Talia Jane, New Republic - [Trump Says He Knows ‘Nothing’ About His Party’s Dystopian Plans. Right]( – Catherine Rampell, Washington Post - [There’s a Reason Trump Is Suddenly Lying]( Project 2025]( – Norman L. Eisen and Joshua Kolb, Slate Copyright © 2024 The Fiscal Times, All rights reserved. You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed at our website or through Facebook. The Fiscal Times, 399 Park Avenue, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10022, United States Want to change how you receive these emails? [Update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe](