Rep. Andy Biggs is now the MAGA conductor leading a symphony of the damned
Phil Boas, Arizona Republic – January 5, 2023
Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., speaks on Capitol Hill on Dec. 3, 2020, in Washington, D.C.
Arizona U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs was there for the creation of the new Republican Party. He thrilled at its new populist leader and marched side by side with him to shake up the establishment.
He became an evangelist of the new national populism and obediently voted for its policies.
It has been battered in three successive election cycles, but it is fully formed and still manages to control one wing of government – the United States Congress.
If MAGA didn’t work, give them more MAGA
Today, for just a moment, Andy Biggs is directing the orchestra, with its wheezing bassoons and screeching trumpets, playing a music that is pure pandemonium – clapping symbols, broken violins and honking trombones all crashing into one another.
And because no one can control this orchestra, Biggs, by default, is the man in the swan tails and gloved hands who taps the baton and holds its fate.
From Biggs’ perspective, the problem is quite clear. The new Republican Party is not populist enough. If Make America Great Again didn’t work, well, then, we must Make America Even Greater and Greater and Greater.
More trombone. More wheezing bassoons.
Never flinch. Never change the music. Never surrender to the gathering facts.
Just keep playing this symphony of the damned to its crescendo.
Biggs and his band don’t mind the turmoil
Even its chief conductor Donald Trump has seen enough to know that something has to change. He has called on the GOP caucus to bring some order to this mess by finally electing California Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.
But Biggs is in control now. His merry band of renegades has just enough votes to stop McCarthy’s ascension and to hold the House in perpetual dysfunction.
And without a speaker, nothing else gets done in Congress.
At any moment a deal may be struck and speaker named, but it is clear now that the Republican Congress is an ungovernable mess. No matter who becomes speaker, he or she will be held hostage to the whims of cranks and scofflaws who can create turmoil with a flick of their finger.
Republicans who had hoped to take back the House and Senate saw their red wave flatten and now hold Congress by only a 222-213 margin. That razor-thin governing majority means the GOP will struggle to wield influence in the federal government.
This is the legacy of Trump populism
This is the legacy of Donald Trump and MAGA – a movement filled with misfits and mediocrities who could never play well together or with others.
And there is Andy Biggs, the Professor Harold Hill to this River City Boy’s Band, pretending that the noise emanating from the instruments is music and not discord and anarchy.
Donald Trump populism is dying, and if you could choose anyone to lead its dirge, I could think of few more fitting than Andy Biggs – the consummate believer, the pure zealot, the man who won the sweepstakes to direct the Trump orchestra to its inevitable oblivion.
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic.
Using the Peru governance model, former President Donald Trump on Dec. 3 called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” because his fragile ego cannot admit he lost an election. The Constitution Terminator might have inspired President Pedro Castillo of Peru three days later to address his country by telling Peruvians he would dissolve its Congress and then rule by decree until a new constitution was drafted.
Luckily Peruvians declined the honor of a dictatorship, and hours later Castillo was impeached by a vote of 101 to 29 and promptly removed from office.
Donald Trump’s plan for a coup to reinstall him by terminating the federal Constitution is all anyone with a three-digit IQ needs to see that he remains morbidly fixated on the 2020 election.
How is that 7,000,000-vote loss to Joe Biden going to motivate independents to vote for election denier GOP candidates? Apparently not at all. Senate candidates Bolduc, Oz, Walker, etc. won their primary because of Trump’s backing and then blew their election because most people in the country think Joe Biden won, not stole, the 2020 election.
Republicans in New Hampshire need to move on once and for all from our self-proclaimed “greatest president.” The 40% of the voters here and nationally who are not enrolled in either major political party have clearly put him in their rearview mirrors. In Pennsylvania, 58% of independents voted against election denier Mehmet Oz and in our state 54% voted for Maggie Hassan to enable her to win over Don Bolduc.
What is amazing is how the Trump endorsed candidates here and around the country lost when only 44% of the electorate has a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, Biden is unpopular and we have 8% inflation. The dead weight? Donald Trump’s obsession with his loss forced his endorsed candidates to ride the Great Stolen Election bandwagon in the face of no evidence and over 60 court rulings against such fraud claims.
To broaden his appeal among white supremacists, and further alienate most of the rest of the country, is the famous dinner at Mar-a-Lago last month. “I love Hitler,” Kanye West and the “Holocaust-never-happened” Nick Fuentes were actually allowed to have dinner with a presidential candidate who should know better. Last spring at a right-wing conference Nick Fuentes asked the crowd to give a round of applause for Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. In December, Fuentes said the Taliban represented “ideal” government with its policies toward women, who should not be able to vote here either according to Fuentes.
Can you think of any president since Jefferson Davis who would dine with such whackos?
To cap off his broad appeal to haters and rioters, Trump told a group helping to pay for the Jan. 6 rioters’ legal defense that the country “was going communist” and that if reelected he would issue pardons and apologies to those who beat the police and threatened harm to elected officials.
No wonder he does not believe in enforcing riot laws and that he should be re-installed as president after the Constitution is suspended.
If Peru is not quite Trump’s model for governance we can reach back in time to Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti who at age 19 became president for life in 1957. The plus for Baby Doc Duvalier was that you can’t lose elections if you never have them.
Donald Trump should have “terminated” the Constitution when he was still president, and then declared that he was president for life.
Having missed that opportunity, the Republican Party should not give him the chance again to lose and rain havoc down on the ticket of Republicans like he did to the Senate this year.
The anti-Semitic and white nationalist stench of Mar-a-Lago is not the tradition of the party of Lincoln, nor should it become one.
Republicans are not losing elections because of RINOs, but because of Donald Trump. It is time to move on to new faces who believe in our Constitution.
Chuck Douglas is a former judge and New Hampshire 2nd District Republican U.S. congressman.
Democrats Are One Vote Shy of Bypassing the Filibuster. Some Say They Should Have Won It in Wisconsin
Mini Racker – January 3, 2023
WI Democratic Senate Candidate Mandela Barnes Campaigns 2 Days Before Midterms
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who lost a bid for U.S. Senate last year, speaks to supporters on November 6, 2022 in Milwaukee. Credit – Scott Olson—Getty Images
Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, is set to gavel in the new Senate on Tuesday after midterm elections in which his party retained all of its seats and picked up an additional one in Pennsylvania. Yet despite the good fortunes for Democrats, efforts to advance their agenda in the Senate will largely remain blocked by two speed bumps: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
In the Senate, opponents can derail most bills with a filibuster unless supporters have 60 votes. Democrats need 50 votes to bypass the filibuster. They have 49. Manchin, the most conservative Senate Democrat, opposes changing Senate rules to allow his party to pass more bills with a simple majority. So does Sinema, who recently became an independent and has said she won’t caucus with Democrats. That leaves Democrats one vote shy of bypassing the filibuster on issues like abortion and voting rights.
In the minds of some progressives, the crucial 50th vote was within reach in Wisconsin, where right-wing Sen. Ron Johnson’s margin of victory was 1%. It was the closest Senate race that Democrats lost last year, and one that supporters of Democrat Mandela Barnes say raises uncomfortable questions about the limits of the party’s support for progressive candidates, particularly Black ones.
“I think that there’s certain powers that be that also have a vested interest in progressives and people of color not winning in swing states, because what that means is that the floodgates are open and more progressives can run,” says Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which supported Barnes’ campaign.
In the weeks before Election Day, Republicans seized on crime as a sore spot for Barnes. Ads against the Wisconsin Democrat painted him as “too dangerous” for the state. One included his name overlaid on a crime scene. Critics said the ads played on racist fears of Black men. Democrats both in Wisconsin and nationally feared the strategy was working.
“Every digital outlet, anything with a screen, was screaming with anti-Barnes propaganda,” says Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “I don’t know a single Democrat in Wisconsin who wasn’t ripping their hair out in September. There was a sense of worry, bordering on panic.”
Barnes’ campaign raised more than $40 million and outside groups spent tens of millions more backing him. But all that paled in comparison to what Johnson supporters poured into the race. Johnson’s backers included the usual Republican juggernauts, as well as a super PAC partly funded by Liz and Dick Uihlein, top GOP megadonors who have a summer home in the state.
While earlier polls saw Barnes leading, Johnson began to eclipse him in September. Johnson ultimately won re-election by about 27,000 votes, out of more than 2.6 million cast. Some Barnes supporters are convinced a little extra money in the final stretch could have made all the difference. “The reality here is, five million more dollars spent in September, we probably win this race,” says campaign manager Kory Kozloski.
‘Garbage Partisan Polls’
Heading into the election season, Johnson was widely viewed as the most vulnerable Republican Senator. Not only was he the only one running in a state that President Biden narrowly won in 2020, but his approval rating was among the lowest in the Senate. In recent years, he has expressed openness to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, advanced baseless claims of election fraud, and downplayed the Jan. 6 attack. To Democrats, his positions appeared too extreme for voters in battleground Wisconsin.
Throughout the Democratic primary, Barnes remained the frontrunner. The state’s first Black lieutenant governor, Barnes frequently drew comparisons to former President Barack Obama for his potential to make history again—he would have been Wisconsin’s first Black senator—but also for his ability to appeal to a multiracial coalition of working-class people.
His record also included potential drawbacks. While serving in the state assembly, Barnes built a reputation as a staunch progressive, particularly on criminal justice issues. His sponsorship of a plan to end cash bail became an especially salient campaign issue last year after a man released on bail killed six by driving his car through the Waukesha Christmas parade. Barnes argued that his proposed bail reforms would have kept the perpetrator in jail, but Republicans pounced anyway. They also highlighted his history of questioning police budgets and a photo of Barnes holding an “Abolish ICE” T-shirt. His campaign insisted Barnes did not support defunding the police or abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Among Barnes’ progressive allies, there’s a sense that national Democratic strategists and donors may have supported Barnes, but that their support was halfhearted, because they viewed his past statements on criminal justice as major liabilities. In the weeks ahead of Election Day, the pessimism around Barnes’ chances grew, with some Democrats privately predicting he could lose badly.
“The takeaway to me is to not pay attention to garbage partisan polls from the right,” Wikler says.
Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, argues that those Democrats who painted Barnes as too progressive didn’t support him strongly enough in the aftermath of the primary, a lack of enthusiasm that dampened efforts to get deep-pocketed donors to spend what was needed on his behalf in Wisconsin.
“We have to invest in our young talent,” Mitchell says. “When Mandela is one of the more talented voices in the Democratic Party, this was the opportunity to show full investment, and it was a missed opportunity.”
Apart from their efforts protecting incumbents, Democrats made their most significant investments last year in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman flipped a Senate seat. He did so despite a criminal justice record that Republicans portrayed as prioritizing the treatment of criminals over public safety—the very same attack that stymied Barnes.
To be clear, national Democrats also put lots of money into helping Barnes win. After Fetterman, Barnes was the non-incumbent who got the most outside spending. Senate Majority PAC, which is affiliated with Schumer, and other affiliates invested over $40 million in paid media in the race, starting attacks against Johnson early in the year and outspending its Republican counterpart during the general election period. But according to data provided by the Barnes campaign, that dynamic shifted drastically in September, when outside spending on ads attacking Barnes dwarfed outside spending on anti-Johnson ads, largely thanks to Johnson’s wealthy backers.
One Wisconsin political strategist noted to TIME that John Stocks, a former executive director of the National Education Association who now advises some of the country’s wealthiest left-of-center donors on which candidates to support, did not push donors to invest in Barnes. Stocks declined to comment.
‘A Strategic Mistake’
The closeness of Johnson’s win has some progressives lamenting the money Democrats spent elsewhere. They complain most frequently about Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee in the Ohio Senate race who portrayed himself as a moderate and lost by six points to J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy who won the GOP primary with the backing of Donald Trump.
“Whether explicitly or implicitly, it’s like, ‘Oh, we have kind of a white guy populist running in Ohio,’” says Green, with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “It spoke to some people in a way that a Black progressive running in Wisconsin did not, and that’s really unfortunate, resulting in some very bad political choices.”
Ryan was long considered a longshot in Ohio, where Trump won two years earlier by 8 percentage points. Senate Majority PAC did not spend in the Ohio Senate race, but other Democratic groups did. Among those who prioritized Ohio was Dmitri Mehlhorn, who advises LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and other wealthy donors.
“We got [Republicans] to spend a bunch of money,” says Mehlhorn, reflecting on the decision to spend in Ohio. “That money, along with critical attention and time, came at the expense of Republican efforts in other battlegrounds. If the GOP hadn’t had to spend that effort in Ohio, would they win Nevada?”
Mehlhorn adds that his network of donors did invest millions in Wisconsin, including by donating to Barnes’ campaign directly.
“That said, we believe that our allies in Wisconsin benefit from our work to expand the map,” he says.
The contrast between the Ohio and Wisconsin results could inform how Democrats approach a tough Senate map in 2024. Barnes’ narrow loss provides a proof point that a young, Black progressive can be competitive in a swing state in the middle of the country, and suggests the fears about his criminal justice record were not as much of a handicap as some Democrats had feared.
“I think in the end, you see that that underestimated how good a candidate he was,” says Charles Franklin, who runs the Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin.
But while progressives suggest that the difference between a win and a loss in Wisconsin was more investment, others wonder if the Barnes campaign made a strategic error in not directly rebutting Johnson’s attacks earlier on.
“The remaining question is, was there a campaign strategy during that first month, where he might have hit back harder, might have moved away from his more positive campaigns sooner?” Franklin asks.
Throughout the general election, Barnes’ campaign centered the Democrat’s own uplifting biography, while attacking Johnson mostly on abortion.
“When [voters] got to know him, they didn’t believe the ads,” says Kozloski. “They saw through all the BS that the Republicans were trying to throw at him.”
Ultimately, what Republicans threw at Barnes cost him the race. What remains to be seen is what strategy Democrats will pursue to shield their candidates from such attacks in the future—or if they’ll pursue any new strategy at all.
“It’s very easy, after electoral losses like that, to learn the wrong lessons, or not learn a lesson at all, and just kind of move forward,” Mitchell says. “And we think that that would be a strategic mistake.”
Incoming Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird tells 19 staffers to resign
Jared Strong/Capital Dispatch – January3, 2023
The incoming, newly elected Iowa attorney general has asked for the resignations of 19 current staffers, including many in leadership positions but also some longtime staff attorneys, according to Lynn Hicks, a spokesperson for the office who was among those asked to resign.
Brenna Bird, a Republican county attorney who defeated longtime Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat, in the November election, requested the resignations on Dec. 22, according to letters obtained by Iowa Capital Dispatch.
“We appreciate your past service to the State of Iowa,” wrote Sam Langholz, whom Bird has selected as her chief deputy when she takes control of the office next week. “But the people of Iowa have elected a new attorney general. To best serve them — and to do the things she told Iowans she would do — the Attorney General-Elect is realigning the office and building a new team that matches her vision for the office.”
Bird pledged during her election campaign to more vigorously defend laws enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature and to challenge policies enacted by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Langholz, former senior counsel for Gov. Kim Reynolds, has worked for the attorney general’s office for about two years and has helped defend against challenges to the governor’s policies and administrative actions.
His letter to 19 of his colleagues asked that their resignations be effective at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 3, at the latest.
“We are timing this transition date and time so that you will receive holiday pay on January 2, regular pay for 30 minutes on January 3, and your normal health insurance coverage for the month of January,” Langholz wrote.
He said the notices of resignation were due on Dec. 28 — six days after the letters were sent.
Hicks, who is Miller’s chief of staff, is among at least 10 who have acquiesced to the requests or had already planned to resign, according to copies of the resignation letters and other information he provided to Capital Dispatch with the consent of the employees. He identified a total of 13 of those asked to resign.
The 19 employees represent less than 10% of the total staff, which has about 150 assistant attorneys general and more than 200 people total, according to state salary records.
Replacing top staffers is common when someone new is elected to a statewide executive position, especially when they are tied to a different political party. However, the letters also targeted attorneys more closely involved in litigating cases, several of whom have been with the office for more than two decades.
“It has been my great honor serving the people of the state of Iowa — particularly the most vulnerable amongst us including older Iowans, veterans, and other at-risk individuals — and am disappointed that I was asked to resign,” wrote Chantelle Smith, an assistant attorney general whose focus is elder abuse and who has been employed by the office since about 2000, according to state records.
Hicks said others who were asked to resign include:
Nathan Blake, the chief deputy attorney general.
Jessica Whitney, the deputy attorney general for public protection and the director of the office’s Consumer Protection Division.
Matt Gannon, the first assistant attorney general, who wrote in his resignation letter: “I wish you success. I have my doubts.”
Chandlor Collins, director of the Human Services Division.
Emily Willits, director of the Licensing and Administrative Law Division.
Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, director of the Crime Victim Assistance Division who wrote in her resignation letter: “It has been a singular honor to serve the people of Iowa, and specifically victims of crime, as part of this Division and I hope that its groundbreaking and pivotal work continues unabated.” Bird has said she might overhaul the division, given her experience prosecuting crimes and interacting with victims of those crimes.
Heather Adams, an assistant attorney general who specializes in licensing and administrative law and public health who had worked for the office since 1994. She told Capital Dispatch: “I do not know why I was asked to resign. I, too, was deeply disappointed to be asked to submit my resignation. I have faithfully served the office, the public, and my public health clients for nearly 30 years — in a nonpartisan manner.”
Mari Culver, an assistant attorney general who specializes in consumer protection. She is the spouse of former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat.
Ashlee Kieler, a communications specialist who had already submitted her resignation.
Ellen Ramsey-Kacena, an assistant attorney general who specializes in human services and family law.
Donn Stanley, an assistant attorney general who specializes in consumer protection. Stanley has worked for the office for about two decades and previously held leadership roles. He also took a leave of absence from the office to be campaign manager for Gov. Culver in 2010.
Sharon Wegner, an assistant attorney general in the Special Litigation Division.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who took office Tuesday.
Langholz noted that Miller also installed his “own team” to lead the office after he was first elected in 1978, based on media accounts at the time, and that the number of requested resignations are less than 8% of the total staff. They are at-will employees and “can be terminated at any time and for any lawful reason,” Langholz said.
“To implement her vision for the office, the Attorney General-elect will build a new team that shares her goals and values,” according to a prepared statement Langholz provided. “The Attorney General-elect appreciates the service to Iowa from the individuals leaving the office.”
Outgoing NY House rep on George Santos: ‘I’m being succeeded by a con man’
Caroline Vakil – January 3, 2023
Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D), whose New York seat was won by Rep.-elect George Santos (R) in November, said in an op-ed published on Tuesday that he was being “succeeded by a con man” amid rising controversy about Santos’s credentials.
Suozzi, who currently represents New York’s 3rd Congressional District and will be leaving Congress after he forwent reelection to run for governor, wrote in an editorial for The New York Times that Santos “must be removed by Congress or by prosecutors, because there is no indication that he will be moved by conscience to voluntarily resign.”
“Sure, some candidates say and do anything to get into office and then abuse the public trust. In Mr. Santos, we have someone who abused the public trust even before he got into office; it’s mind-boggling to think what his actions and conversations will be like in Congress on behalf of his constituents,” Suozzi wrote in the Times. “I know from my experience as a mayor of my hometown, as a county executive and as a member of Congress that you cannot get things done without building trust with your colleagues. How can Mr. Santos be trusted? How could he be effective?”
House lawmakers have urged for an investigation into the New York Republican after reporting from the Times published last month noted inconsistencies about Santos’s claims about his personal and professional history, including graduating from Baruch College in New York and working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
The Long Island Republican eventually admitted he had been guilty of “embellishing my resume” during an interview with the New York Post later in December, and a prosecutor in New York, who is a Republican, later announced she would be opening an investigation into Santos.
It’s unclear if Santos will resign, though many, including Suozzi, have called on him to step down. House GOP leadership has largely remained silent about the controversy given the slim Republican majority in the House and Santos’s expressed support for a Speakership vote for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
For first time in decades Iowa has an all-Republican congressional delegation. Here’s what they want to do
Katie Akin, Des Moines Register – January 3, 2023
When U.S. Rep-elect Zach Nunn swears into office on Tuesday, it mark the first time since the 1950s that Iowa’s D.C. delegation will be comprised of entirely Republicans.
It’s the result of a strong midterm election cycle for the Iowa GOP: Nunn won election to Iowa’s 3rd District seat in November, ousting two-term incumbent Democrat Cindy Axne. Republican incumbents won reelection to the state’s other three U.S. House seats.
Nunn anticipates Iowa’s four Republican votes will give the state more power in the House, where Republicans will hold a majority in 2023.
“This is the loudest voice that Iowa is going to have in Washington, basically since the Eisenhower administration,” Nunn told the Des Moines Register.
Flanked by his family, 3rd Congressional District candidate Zach Nunn, a Republican, addresses his supporters during the Iowa GOP election night celebration on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, at the Hilton Des Moines Downtown.
However, Iowa’s “red wave” was an outlier in the country where Democrats hung onto seats and cling to their control of the U.S. Senate. After two years of a Democratic trifecta, Congress will be divided in 2023, making it harder for either party to push through their priorities.
In pre-election candidate surveys, recent statements and interviews with the Register, Iowa’s congressional representatives outlined their goals for the upcoming term: curbing inflation, addressing illegal immigration and promoting the year-round sale of biofuels. They also highlighted potential bipartisan efforts, including bills to lower prescription drug prices and support community colleges.
Lawmakers promise to focus on biofuels, economy, ‘reducing government interference’
Incumbent U.S. Reps. Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks each said in pre-election surveys: promoting and legalizing the year-round use of biofuels would be a top domestic priority for 2023.
Under current law, higher ethanol blends may not be sold in the summer months due to concerns about increased air pollution. President Joe Biden temporarily waived that standard in 2022 to help combat high fuel prices, but Iowa leaders called for a more permanent change.
“I am committed to proving that clean, renewable energy is attainable for every state by using Iowa as a framework to show how it can be done,” Miller-Meeks had said.
Hinson argued that focusing on biofuels will help address inflation, which appeared to be soaring before the election.
“I am championing an all-of-the-above energy strategy that prioritizes Iowa biofuels to bring down the cost of gas and restore our energy independence while boosting Iowa’s agriculture economy,” Hinson had said.
Nunn said his top domestic priority would be addressing inflation and “reducing government interference with our lives.” As he did on the campaign trail, Nunn called for the federal government to mirror Iowa, where the Republican-led Legislature championed tax cuts and a budget surplus.
“It was the number one issue that I heard when I knocked on doors,” he said. “It’s the number one issue that I still continue to get email about.”
Meanwhile, Grassley said Friday he was calling on the Biden administration to make a New Year’s resolution for “border security.”
“The Biden administration’s border policies are allowing Mexican drug cartels to rule the roost along our southern border. And that has created grievous harm to the social fabric of America,” Grassley’s statement said. “Let’s ring in the New Year with a commitment to stop the humanitarian and drug trafficking crises at our border once and for all.”
Ernst also said “our national security and defense remain top of mind” as she goes into the 2023 session.
“While we secured a number of strong priorities in this year’s defense package, I’ll continue to push legislation that ensures our military remains the most lethal fighting force on the face of the planet,” Ernst said in a statement Thursday.
Iowa may be all red but ‘there’s still a lot of opportunity for good bipartisan work’
Republicans won a slim majority in the U.S. House — a power shift that included Nunn’s flipped 3rd District seat.
But with Democrats controlling the Senate and Biden still in office, Iowa’s all-red delegation will need to work across the aisle to get anything signed into law.
“I’m not naive,” Nunn said. “I think it’s gonna be challenging… but there’s still a lot of opportunity for good bipartisan work to happen.”
Nunn and Grassley had said they were interested in working with Democrats to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Grassley has pointed toward a 2019 bill he sponsored with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, to cap out-of-pocket prices for medication. That bill passed a Senate Finance Committee vote that year, when Republicans controlled the Senate. It has not advanced since.
“Our bipartisan bill would lower costs without harming life-saving cures and treatments the American people expect,” Grassley has said.
Miller-Meeks, an ophthalmologist, was also hopeful that lawmakers could find common ground on medical issues. She highlighted a bipartisan proposal to improve protocols for step therapy, a practice that requires patients to try cheaper medications before being prescribed more costly prescriptions.
Ernst said she intends to use her role on the Democrat-led Senate Small Business Committee to address childcare shortages. She also emphasized the importance of the annual farm bill, promising to “prioritize the needs of Iowa’s farmers and growers on the Senate Agriculture Committee.”
Hinson said hopes to work with Democrats on community college programs and expanding Pell Grants. Feenstra said he intends to keep pushing for a bipartisan bill to require more price transparency from major meatpacking companies.
Op-Ed: The next stage of Russia’s secular decline comes in 2023
Simon Johnson – January 3, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech in September declaring the annexation of four regions of Ukraine. (Associated Press)
After a year of big surprises, led by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the global spike in inflation rates, and the collapse of cryptocurrency ventures, what kind of year will 2023 prove to be? This kind of short-run question is hard to answer because repercussions of global events can spread so quickly and unpredictably. But the last 12 months highlighted one major trend that will shape what happens next, in 2023 and beyond: the decline of Russia.
Russian aggression is nothing new. Moscow has been invading other countries since the mid-1990s and has occupied parts of Ukrainian territory since 2014. But the brutality of Russia’s attacks in Ukraine since last February and the most recent phase, destroying civilian energy infrastructure, is widely seen as amounting to a war crime. It is unlikely to change the course of the war, which Russia is losing.
In the bigger picture, Russia has again entered a period of secular decline, during which it will have limited access to Western investment, technology or consumer goods. Russia’s empires have collapsed before, in 1917-18 and again when the Soviet Union imploded in 1989-91. In both cases, the collapse took a while to get going, and then proved quite complete. Of course, historically Russia has also been able to reassert control over time, and during the 1990s, by getting a lot of help from Western companies.
This time, too, we should expect a long struggle for power within Russia, with serious existential risks for the world, including who ends up controlling Russian nuclear weapons. But the more direct economic impact will be reflected in the world energy market.
Demand for Russian fossil fuels is way down. Before its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia produced about 10.8 million barrels of oil per day, of which around 8 million were exported either as crude or refined products. The sharp decline in Russian economic activity means that more oil is available for export, but the European Union, the United States, and their allies are now buying crude from other suppliers — and the same will be true for refined products from February 2023.
The International Energy Agency predicts that Russian oil exports will fall to around 6 million barrels per day over 2023-24. Over the medium term, India might buy 1-2 million barrels and China could sop up the rest — assuming both countries want to become more dependent on a malevolent and unreliable partner.
Purchases by India, China, and a few others can still result in a lot of free cash flow and tax revenue for Russia. Whoever leads Russia will put much of these proceeds into building and buying weapons — including missiles with which it can hit a wide range of countries from long distance. NATO member countries are, one hopes, protected to some extent by the threat of retaliation, but Russia can be expected to engage in sabotage and other deniable attacks on Western energy infrastructure and similar vulnerable strategic targets.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was careful not to attack Western Europe and the U.S. too directly (and vice versa). Instead, both sides used proxy wars and other forms of pressure. This time, however, we should expect much more direct confrontation. The Russian elite have boxed themselves into a corner, with a bizarre set of beliefs — right-wing nationalism on steroids — and long-range weapons. Giving ground to these extremists will only embolden them to take more.
The need to limit over time how much cash Russia can spend on aggression is why the price cap on Russian oil exports is so important. The evidence so far is that this is working as intended.
But further measures are needed, including accelerated investments in renewable energy to reduce world demand for oil. If we continue to depend on Russia and its allies in the OPEC+ cartel, the ability to disrupt our economies will remain immense. There is now a pressing national security dimension to the energy transition.
High inflation in the 1970s had multiple causes, beginning with tight economies in the 1960s and the Vietnam War. But the problems were exacerbated by two oil price shocks, in 1973 and 1979. OPEC+ members understand that they have the power to do this again, at a time of their choosing — or the next time Russia asks for a favor.
Oil demand and supply are quite unresponsive to oil prices in the short run, but historically quite responsive over five to 10 years. In 2023 and beyond, the West needs to focus more intently on reducing demand for fossil fuels, particularly oil, and increasing the supply of alternative energy sources outside the control of Russia and OPEC.
Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management.
