No shortage of carbs for this ❄️🌨️ 😂

The Federal Reserve is still playing defense. Here are four takeaways from the latest bouts between Trump and the Federal Reserve. Read the latest from @sarahbinder.bsky.social & Mark Spindel: goodauthority.org/news/the-fed...

The Fed might seem on a roll. Today it drew support from SCOTUS; last week, from markets & key GOP senators. But the Fed is not out of the woods. New @goodauth.bsky.social post w/ Mark Spindel on why Fed remains on defense & vulnerable to POTUS efforts to steer it. goodauthority.org/news/the-fed...

New post for @democracyproject.bsky.social's "100 ideas" on the challenges of president-proofing legislative agencies-- especially GAO. Time is running out for Congress to consider ways to protect its non-partisan watchdog from a vortex of presidential power. democracyproject.org/posts/insula...

Powell goes full Schattschneider 🤓! Expand the scope of conflict, get audience off the sidelines & into the game. Gambit to rally political support for Fed & put Trump on defensive. Reminder that Fed depends on political support (from lawmakers, markets, judges, POTUS) to secure its “independence”

Where's Congress on Venezuela? New Brookings post: Don't count on Congress but don't count it out either. Bipartisan Sen. WPR discharge vote today is case in point: WH failed to keep GOP in line. POTUS use of force is not a cakewalk for POTUS or slim GOP majorities. www.brookings.edu/articles/the...

Discharge rule continues campaign for 2025 MVP award🏆! Coalition to extend ACA support hits 218 signatures, matching record 4 "entered" discharge petitions set 90 years ago (1937-8). Speakers today may have peak agenda power, but that's no match for angry 218 (and an organized minority).

Rare House discharge success today. Reminder that the rule was born of legislators' frustration with an overbearing and overreaching Speaker (Czar) Joe Cannon in 1910. Granted, Speakers Cannon & Johnson had different reasons to batten down the floor agenda. But overreach can sometimes prove costly!

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Family of four 🤗

Now this is a great speech for a POTUS to deliver when he visits the Federal Reserve (in 1937). Watch FDR live! (starts at .22) sarahbinder.weebly.com/uploads/3/1/... Or read the whole speech here 🤓 www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/ad...

What to expect while you're expecting (Massie's discharge petition ...)

Senate GOP tactics to make 2017 tax cuts "permanent" required nuclear move on Senate floor-- weakening authority of the parliamentarian, blowing hole in Byrd Rule, & possibly making future debt crisis more likely. New @goodauth.bsky.social post on fallout from OBBB goodauthority.org/news/three-b...

No kings 🤣

Reminder on Byrd process: Parliamentarian has identified OBBB text that violates Byrd rule. Her advice doesn’t block text. She’s saying: If GOP still keep Byrd-offending text in OBBB & send it to floor, a senator can cry fowl (😉). Supporters would then need 60 votes to keep each proposal in bill.

Senate parliamentarian never sleeps! More Byrd droppings! These Ag panel droppings will get most 👀: Mandating ⬆️ state $$ contributions to fund SNAP & banning undocumented from food benefits These Byrd calls very slightly shift OBBB to center. Likely angers hawks, but might help Thune. Full list ⬇️

'Tis the (Byrd bath) season!

Byrd droppings piling up from S Banking text. GOP-sought savings from Fed/CFPB are good reminder of Fed's *structural* independence. Guessing Byrd rule blocks zero'ing out of CFPB & Fed staff salary cuts, since Fed is self-funded & not reliant on Congress for appropriations.

Why did Trump send such a narrow and small rescission request to Congress? New @Brookings.edu FixGov post on the politics and rules of rescinding appropriations spending under federal budget law— and what’s at stake. www.brookings.edu/articles/tru...

Time flies 🥲

House GOP pay-fors more draconian for tax cuts this year compared to 2017 TCJA. Primary 2017 revenue raiser was🧂🧢 (after "border tax" killed). This time, slimmer GOP seeks more costly tax cuts & more politically salient revenue raisers (Medicaid/SNAP/ACA/Pell✂️). Pulls bill much farther to the right.

Congress was hiding in plain sight 🤓. Join me & @johnsides.bsky.social for Episode 2 of @goodauth.bsky.social's Where's Congress? We consider the big (yes), beautiful (eye of beholder) bill House GOP are trying to pass thru House --Senate GOP views be damned (for now) www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvfR...

Would Democrats take advantage of GOP-proposed tax-free "MAGA savings accounts" for their kids? Would be a good test of "partisanship is a powerful drug." Pre-register your survey experiment(s) now 🤓

Re-appointed [Faculty] Senate parliamentarian. Unanimous consent, no objections 🤣 🤞🏻🤞🏻I don’t get ignored or fired 😳

House GOP struggles to identify politically-palatable cuts to Medicaid shouldn't surprise (esp given slim majority). Figure shows % district enrolled in M'caid/CHIP vs Trump vote (2024). Significant cuts would hit across red states, esp in those that expanded M'caid (comprising 60% of House GOP).

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House & Senate GOP likely view big cuts to Medicaid differently--especially S GOP from states that expanded Medicaid post ACA. Graph shows % of Medicaid recipients enrolled via expansion (Q3 2024 data). You can see impact on red states, especially (but not limited to) red states above trend line.

Truer words never spoken (even if not limited to the House...)

Pretty remarkable (not surprising) that recap of Trump's 1st 100 days mentions Congress just 3 times: Judge says Congress has power of 👛, Trump tells Congress he will shutdown USAID, & 2 House Dems introduce a bill to require weekly DOGE reports to Congress www.axios.com/visuals/trum...

Defenders of "Fed independence" have, for now, deterred Trump from firing Powell. But Fed independence remains contingent & fragile. New @goodauth.bsky.social post w/ Mark Spindel on legal, political & historical forces that imperfectly insulate Fed from politics. goodauthority.org/news/federal...

Back by popular demand ... Hope it's not too early to gear up for the next Peepal Conclave 🐤 🐤

Lots of questions abt Trump's (implied) threat to fire Fed chair. NB: Federal Reserve Act dictates "for cause" removal protection for Fed governors. When lawmakers amended the act in 1977 (1st time they required Senate confirmation of governors as *chair*) they dropped for cause protection for chair

We're live with "Where's Congress?" 🤓🤓 Got topics or questions you'd like me and @johnsides.bsky.social to tackle in future @goodauth.bsky.social episodes? Send them along!

I give Senate approps 🥇 for best named 🍒🌸🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏾Congressional team Would be funnier team name had the March CR not eliminated most earmarks !

Would you read 800 words on the difference (if any) between “not overruling” and “ignoring” the Senate Parliamentarian?

Times like these (as Booker closes in on Strom's Senate record) require listening to former Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin explain the "porta potty" incident. You can guess what the 🚽 story is about. Start at 21:17 on the great Civics 101 podcast 🤓 www.civics101podcast.org/civics-101-e...

“Gavel.”

Only one of these top stories is meant to be satire 😂

Ladies & gentlemen: We have a winner! Rob Oldham is now the proud owner of decades of my hand collected and coded NYT editorials (before they were available online) to juice his research on crisis & legislative action And no, I'm not retiring. Just some purging to clear space on my office floor! 🤓

Crunch time for Senate Democrats on funding the government. New @goodauth.bsky.social post on why and how the GOP has put Democrats in a vise — and Democrats’ limited options for getting out of it. goodauthority.org/news/us-gove...

Another sign of a disappearing Congress: “Oversight” conducted via evidentiary hearing in federal court rather than by a congressional committee under the lights. Here, tough to shine public spotlight on policy consequences of dismantling CFPB & impact on consumers. www.cnn.com/2025/03/10/p...

Still life with … 🐔🍞🍞🍞

Variation in poverty by cong. districts-- between and within parties. Swing district GOP wary of slashing Medicaid/SNAP, but poverty rates are higher in GOP-held safe red districts. Still, poverty rates vary markedly across the 20 most competitive GOP-held districts-- from <4% to >15% of families

Come to hear @sarahbinder.bsky.social and I weigh in on what’s happened to our system of checks and balances, stay to listen us debate whether our jokes are funny. www.brookings.edu/articles/how...

New post w/ Mark Spindel on the Fed's precarious political position during Trump 2.0. Past guardrails that protected Fed from Trump attacks (less-MAGA GOP, low inflation & legal precedents insulating agency authority) are far weaker today than during Trump 1.0 www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Clarifying! The text also appears in recent appropriations bills and according to NIH carries over into this current CR that expires March 14. bsky.app/profile/eric... grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Also, Federal Records Act RIP www.npr.org/2025/02/08/n...

Here's text Congress wrote into a 2017 CR. Blocked Trump/NIH from lowering the "indirect cost" rate to 10%-- which would have slashed billions from biomedical research. Would Trump/Musk comply this time? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But lawmakers opposed to cuts do have options in a likely March CR

GOP Congress in 2017 rejected Trump proposal to reduce university overhead to 10%. Blocked change in stopgap CR & later in appropriations bill. True, GOP team play seems stronger today than 2017. And Trump acted, didn't ask this time. But lawmakers not powerless here www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/u...

This sort of “conditional independence” by the Fed is hardly any independence at all. Reminder that Fed (including its quasi-private reserve banks) can’t seal itself off from national politics. @PotomacRC press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...