华盛顿政策脉搏：国会9月议程与政府拨款决议

[music] Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio, news. This is your weekly Washington [music] policy pulse on the Balance of Power podcast. I'm Joe Matthew. Every Monday, Bloomberg Intelligence senior policy analyst and friend of the show, [music] Nathan Dean, shares his weekly call on upcoming catalysts in the nation's capital. Listen for the most recent and relevant policy research from our [music] team at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Now with today's installment, here's Nathan Dean.

Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the Washington Policy Pulse. My name is Nathan Dean. I'm a senior policy analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence here in Washington DC. Although if you're watching us on the Zoom, you know I'm just playing around with our background. We are using the pantry out of 731 Lexington, which I highly recommend if you ever go to New York. Take as much of that candy as you can see back onto the train or back to your office.

It's that's what it's there for. Uh today is August 10th. It's 10:02 a.m. We are on August recess. The Senate is out until September 14th. The House is out until August 31st. And so for the next 21 days, uh, should be pretty easy to get into a restaurant around town or if on the commute side. So, I'm not going to see a lot of things happening, but again, I just wanted to take you through what happened at the tail end of that last week and really talk about what does it mean for September.

And let's talk about the first thing that I think is the most important. So, I want to balance power on Friday afternoon. And I said the most important thing that the majority leader SC uh Senator John Thun could do is to get this continuing resolution for the government funding off of his plate. So, the Senate has a deal that would extend the government funding from September 30th to December 11th. So, it puts it after the midterms.

It's a short kick of the can. Uh and it passed overwhelmingly bipartisan. Now, there are a couple things in here that the White House may not like. In fact, there is a provision in there that would uh prevent political appointees from from approving grants. Um, but this remember this only runs through December 11th. So, uh, I'm going to update my note later this week. I was at a 30% chance of a shutdown before. I'm at a 30% chance of a shutdown now.

I just don't think a shutdown's going to happen. Uh but there could be some fireworks when we get back in September because what this deal does is it essentially changes it from a Democratic versus a uh Republican fight and now it's a White House versus the Senate versus the House fight because the Senate has done their job. They'll say, "Yep, we've shipped it off to the House. Now it's the House's concern." If the White House has any issues with it or if Speaker Johnson, you know, has an issue with it, well then next thing you know, you have a Senate versus House discussion.

And that's not something that people want right before the midterm elections. So I think ultimately they kicked the can on that. Now embedded though was instructions to kick other things that have this September 30th expiration date until December 11th. Things like the farm bill and things like the highway bill. Now let's talk about the farm bill first. So this is not all that exciting if you are looking at this from a commodities perspective.

Uh just remember uh you know there's we have farm a reconciliation 3.0 0 and there's some other things to keep in mind there. But in the farm bill in particular, the Senate Agricultural Committee tried to have a markup last week and it actually failed the markup. I was a little surprised on this. Uh Senator Tubberville of Alabama didn't show up. Senator Mitch McConnell was trying to vote via proxy from Kentucky, but ultimately the markup failed.

And the reason why it failed is because of SNAP benefits. So, if you remember going back to the one big beautiful bill in 2025, uh a tremendous amount of both administrative and benefit costs. Those are the two costs to keep in mind. So, the benefit cost of actually paying out the nutrition assistance program, formerly known as food stamps, and then the administrative cost. So, those two costs were transferred from the federal government to the states.

Now, not in its entirety, but it depends over time, etc. Now, the Democrats obviously were not pleased with this and they have taken the position that they are not going to support any form of farm bill until that is changed. Now, there are some Republican senators who are somewhat okay with the idea of staving off the benefit cost, but not the administrative cost. And that's where things broke down and the Democrats just said, "No thanks.

I'm not going to do it." So, this is now getting put back into the government resolution through December 11th. Um, you know, ultimately, will they come up with a deal? Yes. But will that deal really be all that exciting? Probably not. Uh, you know, in fact, there is some discussion if they can't get some of this stuff done, they'll throw it in part of the farm a provision of reconciliation 3.0, which again, I don't think is going to pass, but we'll see more hiccups on the farm bill when we get back.

Same similar story on the highway bill. Uh, this is a $580 billion infrastructure package. This is because the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, the IIGJA of 2021 expires in 2026, which is crazy because I feel like I just worked on that yesterday. But this is a $580 billion package that goes to roads, bridges, highways, etc. So, think of Vulcan, CR, Marietta, etc. Those, you know, those companies that actually deal in cement.

Now, where the highway bill is actually falling apart is a little bit on EV tax uh expenses. So, you know, obviously highways in the United States, there is this federal gas tax which then goes and fills up the coffers of the highway authorization program, but there's a question of what to do with electric vehicles. You know, obviously they don't pay the gas tax. So, there is a an electric vehicle tax. Uh it's about $80 to $130 depending if you're a hybrid or if you're full EV per annual uh you know, perom.

Uh it actually shouldn't really impact EV makers all that much. I remember asking our EVs analyst uh if he had any concerns over this and he said no I don't have any concerns over this but there are enough concerns here that some of the Democrats are saying maybe we should take a little bit more time to figure this out then try and pass something at the last second and so that's the status of the highway bill so they'll come back in September they'll work on it they'll either work on it in September or they'll come back after the lame duck but I do think think that is so if you're looking at that types of uh you know expenditures and you're looking at it from an infrastructure perspective I do think somewhere around that 580 billion dollar, maybe a little bit lower, maybe a little bit higher, some more will get approved.

Now, on reconciliation 3.0, last week, the Senate failed to advance this. Uh, you know, this was key to get it done before the midterms. And Senator Thun just didn't have the votes. I mean, he tried to warn the White House multiple times. Said, "You don't have the votes." But you have senators like Mike Lee of Utah out there saying, "Look, we got to have a vote on this. Yay or nay. Let's do it right now." Uh, ultimately, they didn't have a vote.

Now, the problem with the reconciliation 3.0, know as we've talked about on other calls before is a the price tag is around $95 billion. Uh bulk of that is for the department of defense. There's about $12 billion worth of farm aid. There's about $10 billion worth of implementing the save America act as form of grants. You know there's no offsetting measures here. So if you're a fiscal hawk and you're like look I don't want to increase the deficit.

I'm not going to support it. You're also not going to support it if you're a senator who is