Centrist Dems Explore ‘Secret’ Deal to Raise Debt Limit: Report

Plus: $300 million for an Alzheimer's database ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ [The Fisc](   By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey Good evening! Congress is out this week and next. President Joe Biden traveled to Minnesota on Monday, where he discussed his economic agenda at an event at the Cummins Power Generation Facility. Cummins also announced that it will invest more than $1 billion to upgrade its Indiana, North Carolina and New York manufacturing plants to support the production of greener engines. But it was the travels of a former president that got wall-to-wall coverage as cable news networks salivated over every detail of Donald Trump’s trip from Florida to New York City, where he is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday. The Trump campaign has been fundraising off the criminal charges and says it has raised $7 million in the days since his indictment. Here's what else is happening. Centrist Dems Explore ‘Secret’ Deal to Raise Debt Limit: Report With House Republicans so far unable to agree on a proposal to slash federal spending in exchange for helping to raise the debt limit, a group of centrist Democrats is reportedly working on a fallback plan to avoid a potentially ruinous default on the nation’s debt. According to [Politico’s]( Sarah Ferris, Adam Cancryn and Burgess Everett, a “rogue” group of House Democrats has been holding talks with moderate Republicans on how to proceed if Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is unable to wrangle his combative caucus and come up with a coherent plan that raises the debt limit before the U.S. is unable to pay its bills — a crisis point that could arrive as soon as June 5, though it’s more likely to occur later this summer, with some experts targeting mid-August. There are no details about the prospective centrist plan itself. But the planning effort and the lines of communication it requires could help produce a last-minute solution should lawmakers find themselves teetering on the edge of disaster in a few months. Whatever the specifics, the White House and senior Democratic lawmakers are cool to the idea. Democratic officials think they have gained the upper hand in the dispute and are happy to let Republicans bicker among themselves as they struggle to square conflicting demands for spending cuts while insisting they will not raise the debt ceiling without concessions. President Joe Biden has maintained his position that he will not negotiate over the debt limit and wants lawmakers to pass a “clean” bill to raise it. Senior Democrats also warn that the moderates’ efforts probably won’t work and could make it harder to pass a clean bill. “We’re gaining ground because of [House Republicans’] inability to put together a plan,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told Politico. “I’m certainly willing to entertain a mix of things on the budget. Not on the debt ceiling.” Apparently lacking a working majority, Republicans have backed away from an earlier plan to release their own budget proposal that would set the stage to negotiate spending cuts. “GOP leaders are struggling to coalesce around a viable blueprint thanks to their members’ ever-expanding wish list and the realization that, for some hardline conservatives, there may be no level of austerity that would cut deep enough,” Ferris, Cancryn and Everett write. The bottom line: With debt ceiling talks between party leaders going nowhere, centrists in both parties are seeking a potential solution to the problem. But it’s not clear that there is a compromise available right now that can win sufficient support to avert disaster — though that may change as the day of crisis draws nearer. Editorial of the Day: The GOP Debt Threat David Firestone of The New York Times lambastes Republicans for leading the country toward a debt ceiling crisis: “Republicans, it turns out, don’t even know what they want in exchange for dropping their threat to cause a default, beyond a fuzzy shared goal of cutting federal spending. … Cutting spending as a concept might sound attractive to many voters until you explain what you’re actually cutting and what effect it would have. They cut taxes so they can then rail about the resulting deficits, but don’t want to discuss how many veterans won’t get care or whose damaged homes won’t get rebuilt or which dangerous products won’t get recalled. That’s why there is still no official budget statement from the House G.O.P., because its different factions can’t agree on how open they should be about the results. The details of austerity are unpopular, and it’s easier to just issue fiery news releases. … “In the end, the best solution is to eliminate the debt ceiling charade once and for all. There are bills in Congress to do so, though few Republicans would support them. And there was a strong argument during the Obama years to test the constitutionality of the ceiling in court, since it appears to violate the 14th Amendment, a tactic still worth trying. Mr. Biden, however, has shown no interest in pursuing that path, and seems to be hoping that this year, Republicans will finally learn that the debt ceiling is not a tool for leverage, because the cost for using it is too high. The country can only brace itself and hope he’s right.” [Read the full piece at The New York Times.]( Number of the Day: $300 Million The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, is funding a six-year project with up to $300 million to build an Alzheimer’s research database that can track long-term health information on 70% to 90% of the U.S. population, Julie Steenhuysen of Reuters [reports](. “The platform will draw on data from medical records, insurance claims, pharmacies, mobile devices, sensors and various government agencies,” Steenhuysen writes, citing officials. “Tracking patients before and after they develop Alzheimer’s symptoms is seen as integral to making advances against the disease, which can start some 20 years before memory issues develop.” A number of measures will reportedly be taken to ensure patient privacy. "Real-world data is what we need to make a lot of decisions about the effectiveness of medications and looking really at a much broader population than most clinical trials can cover," Dr. Nina Silverberg, director of the NIA's Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers program, told Reuters. --------------------------------------------------------------- Send your feedback to yrosenberg@thefiscaltimes.com. 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