As chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee, Congressman John Yarmuth had the unenviable task of brokering a deal among his fellow Democrats to advance two major spending packages that would dramatically reshape the nation.
“My job over the last couple of months has been cat herding,” says Yarmuth, who represents Kentucky’s 3rd district. “In the Democratic caucus, that’s quite a responsibility.”
The split arose over how the House should act on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that passed the Senate with bipartisan support earlier in August, and the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation measure that would fund a dramatic expansion of the nation’s social safety net, including early childhood education, child and senior care, enhanced Medicare benefits, and job training.
“The proposal was designed to implement a futuristic vision for what the country will look like and to remedy some long-standing deficits in the country, which if we don’t correct them are going to impede the growth of society,” says Yarmuth.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had wanted to vote on both measures at the same time, while a group of centrist Democrats demanded a separate vote for the infrastructure bill as soon as possible. Yarmuth helped negotiate a deal that allowed the House to pass a budget framework last week on a party-line vote. In return, Democratic leaders promised a vote on the infrastructure bill by Sept. 27. They also hope to vote on a full budget reconciliation bill by Oct. 1.
Yarmuth says the House will pass the infrastructure bill without any amendments. As for the budget measure, he says he understands the concern about the price tag, acknowledging that $3.5 trillion is “a lot of money.”
“But if you look at what the federal government is going to spend over next 10 years without any new programs, this is a 5 to 6 percent increase of what we’ll already spend,” he says.
Negotiations continue about how to pay for those investments. Yarmuth says President Joe Biden has proposed several options, including raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to between 25 and 28 percent. He has also called for an increase to the capital gains rate on those making more than $1 million a year, and stricter enforcement of existing tax laws.
“In total the Biden Administration projects that what they’ve proposed, and I’m not sure what exactly the House will accept, will pay for all of these expenditures over the next 13 years,” says the Congressman.
If the reconciliation bill can pass the House, where Democrats hold a slim eight-vote majority, it would then go to the evenly divided Senate, where it would only need a simple majority to pass. But even that won’t be easy. Two key Democrats there have already balked at the size of the proposed spending plan: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
Yarmuth says Sens. Manchin and Sinema need to understand that the package won’t add that much to the deficit, depending on how it’s paid for, and that the benefits the bill will fund are popular among voters.
“All of these things poll in the two-thirds- to 85-percent-support range,” says Yarmuth. “So there’s really no political reason and there’s really no fiscal reason not to support any of these priorities.”
Voting Reforms
Voting rights legislation is another priority for Congressional Democrats. In March the House passed the For the People Act, which Yarmuth says will address “the nuts and bolts” of voting, including same-day registration, voting by mail, and early voting as well as issues of election security and campaign finance.
Last week the House approved a second measure, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Yarmuth says it is designed to restore the part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires states with a history of voter discrimination to preclear any changes to their voting laws with the U.S. Department of Justice. (The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated provision in a 2013 ruling.)
“It just adds another layer to make sure that you don’t have systematic voter suppression in a state over time,” says Yarmuth. “I think that it’s important that we don’t get into the trap where we see a reversion to the Jim Crow era where you have states that are blatantly discriminatory, whether it’s partisan discrimination or racial discrimination.”
Opponents of the For the People Act contend it removes responsibilities from local election officials. Yarmuth says the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to set the time and manner of elections for federal officeholders. The question is how might those rules apply to state and local elections.
“I think we’re on very sound constitutional ground and we’re on very sound moral ground,” he says.
Democrats can’t rely on the reconciliation process to pass either of the voting bills through the Senate since they involve policy changes. Yarmuth says he thinks it’s unlikely either measure will clear the Senate unless Democratic leaders there change the filibuster rule.
Afghanistan
As the chaotic withdrawal of Americans from Afghanistan continues to unfold, Yarmuth acknowledges the process has not gone smoothly.
“In a lot of these foreign situations, there’s no good answer… only the least bad answer,” he says.
The Democrat says President Biden was left with a difficult situation in Afghanistan that he couldn’t fully control. Critics of the president have questioned the wisdom of setting a certain date for U.S. forces to exit the country. But Yarmuth contends that minimized the opportunity for the Taliban to misbehave during the withdrawal process. He does say the Biden Administration could have started evacuating Americans earlier, even though he says the president encouraged them to leave back in April, ahead of the May 1 withdrawal deadline the Donald Trump Administration set last year.
Although the Biden team is holding to their Aug. 31 exit deadline, Yarmuth says the administration has asked the Department of Defense to prepare contingency plans in case that process takes longer.
“They’ve left the door open to do whatever they need to do over the next week or so, and I think that’s very responsible,” he says.
Yarmuth acknowledges the Russians or the Chinese may step in to fill the void Americans are leaving in Afghanistan. But he adds that history shows no outside power has ever been able to take control of the country. He says the Taliban may find it hard to govern Afghanistan as well since 70 percent of Afghanis are less than 25 years old and they have grown accustomed to the greater freedoms the Americans encouraged during the occupation.
“Many of them if not most of them have been educated because we allowed them to be educated, especially the women,” says Yarmuth. “You’ve got a generation of people who have never known that kind of oppression and are not going to take it very well.”
Yarmuth’s Political Future
The 73-year-old Democrat is now in his eighth term representing Metro Louisville. He says whether he decides to run for reelection in 2022 partially depends on what happens during the redistricting process. He says he won’t run again if the Republican-controlled state legislature splits his district into three parts, as one potential plan proposes.
“At what clearly is toward the end of my Congressional career, I’m not going to try to learn an entirely new district or a predominately new district,” says Yarmuth. “I don’t think they will [break up the district], but you never know what’s going to happen.”
If he does seek another term, Yarmuth will face a primary challenge from Democratic state Rep. Attica Scott, a community organizer from West Louisville. The Congressman says he respects Scott and thinks they agree on 90 percent of the issues. Still, he is confident of his support among Democrats.
“If I run again and Attica Scott follows up on her announcement to run, then we’ll have a good primary,” Yarmuth says.
