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Police department offering gas money for gun buyback overwhelmed by interest

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — The Sacramento Police Department said 134 firearms were received at its “Gas for Guns Buyback,’’ a program aimed at getting firearms off the streets. The department, which was offering $50 gas gift cards per firearm, ran out of gift cards 45 minutes into the five-hour event.

Over 100 people exchanged their guns for gas money. The program required people to arrive at an area police station with the firearm unloaded and in the trunk. People who turned in their guns were not required to give their identities to the police. 

Among the guns received were at least one assault weapon, numerous components for “ghost guns” and multiple illegally configured firearms, police said in a statement on Sunday. 

The event was meant to last from noon until 5 p.m., but due to an overwhelming response, they had to end the event an hour early. Police did continue to accept guns even after the gift cards ran out.

According to the department, officers were told by the public that a “lack of experience” with firearms and a “lack of knowledge” of the legality of guns or the “inability” to safely store the firearms were the main reasons they turned in their weapons. 

“As a department, we will continue to use innovative ideas to increase the safety of our community,” said Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester. “I truly believe violent crime prevention is a shared responsibility and today’s overwhelming community participation is evidence of the success we can achieve together.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Boise State punished a coffee shop owner for her speech

In late April, an Idaho judge allowed a vital free speech lawsuit against Boise State University to go forward. Big City Coffee, the plaintiff, had lost its contract with the university because some administrators and students were offended that the café supports local police. Thankfully, Judge Cynthia Yee-Wallace has denied Boise State’s recent motion to dismiss the case, and Big City Coffee will get a shot at justice for the latest episode of cancel-culture extremism. 

Big City Coffee’s experience reflects a growing trend among universities — an ugly mutation from enlightened beacons of free inquiry into cloisters huddled in a miasma of orthodoxy. A recent federal appeals court judge, in a case challenging a Florida university’s anti-speech policy, warned that many universities “have turned themselves into cathedrals for the worship of certain dogma.” In its shabby treatment of Big City Coffee, Boise State leadership has slouched toward this dismal trend. 

Sarah Fendley, Big City Coffee’s owner and a political moderate, is an enthusiastic supporter of first responders and police officers, especially those injured in the line of duty. This is a personal issue for Fendley, who is engaged to a retired Boise police officer who was paralyzed after being shot by a violent fugitive. She placed several signs and flags at her downtown coffee shop that display her support for this cause, including the Thin Blue Line emblem on the front door. 

In 2020, Fendley secured a contract with Boise State to open a Big City Coffee location in the campus library. She took out a $150,000 loan, hired staff, bought equipment, and sunk many extra hours into the new café. But her support for the police riled a faction of students who wailed to the administration that the contract with Big City Coffee was a “submission to white supremacy.” So, one day, with no warning or negotiation, Fendley says university leaders informed her that the café’s presence on campus was too controversial and canceled the contract.  

This is a disturbing example of how far universities will go to purge even the shadow of heresy from their midst. Fendley’s views are not outside those of mainstream America, yet she was punished for offending a few vocal students. The result was lost time, investment and opportunity solely because of her viewpoint.  

If only Fendley’s plight were an anomaly. Unfortunately, universities across the country too often bow to dogmatic zealots bent on cleansing their campuses of any hint of dissent. A UCLA professor, for example, was put on administrative leave and openly slandered by his superiors for declining to grade minority students more leniently based on their race. And Georgetown University recently placed legal scholar Ilya Shapiro on leave for tweeting that judges should not be nominated based on their race, yet defended on “free speech” grounds their recent decision to invite a speaker who has called for torturing and murdering Jews. The point is, selective free speech is not free speech at all.  

Sarah Fendley and these other examples are not the only victims of universities’ intolerance — viewpoint uniformity on campus hurts students, too. When schools narrow the sphere of legitimate debate or shout out differing views, students are left intellectually unarmed to grapple with the complexity, nuance and soul-searching offered by a true marketplace of ideas. Students’ growth depends on exposure to views that they oppose. A cloistered asylum, cut off from anything that clashes with the orthodoxy du jour, does not keep students safe; it only shelters their fragility. 

As Van Jones, Barack Obama’s green jobs adviser, put it: “I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.” 

Rather than sheltering students from differing viewpoints, the university should welcome debate on campus and respect those who don’t conform. And the First Amendment forbids government actors from punishing people for their viewpoints. Sarah Fendley’s case is a chance for a court to affirm not only this First Amendment principle, but also the simple premise that dissenting viewpoints make us stronger. 

Ethan Blevins is an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit legal organization that defends Americans’ liberties when threatened by government overreach and abuse. Follow him on Twitter @ethanwb. Pacific Legal is not representing Sarah Fendley.

Source: TEST FEED1

Juan Williams: The Supreme Court is on the brink of disaster

The most intense political fight in Washington today is at the Supreme Court, in advance of the imminent ruling on abortion rights. 

Inside players at the court are leaking to Politico. They are talking to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. They are telling The Washington Post that a draft opinion still has the votes.  

All the leaks point to one of two outcomes.  

It is nearly certain the conservative majority on the court will uphold the state law central to the case — Mississippi’s proposed 15-week limit on abortion. 

But there is a second possible outcome. 

The court may completely end constitutional protection for all abortion rights. 

Take your pick. 

Whatever the court decides, this is now a purely political fight.  

The law books have gone out the window.  

The power play underway is damaging to public confidence that America is a nation of laws, not the whims of whatever group currently holds power. 

Did Congress force the court to consider the issue by passing a law banning abortion? No, the votes are not there. 

Instead, the court made a political decision to take up cases designed by anti-abortion groups and their political allies in state government to intentionally undermine Roe v. Wade. 

Oklahoma lawmakers are also pushing to totally end abortion rights. Last week, they passed a state law to ban abortion at “fertilization.” 

Abortion foes have been at it since Roe was decided in 1973. 

But for the last 49 years, the principle of a person’s right to make a private decision about abortion, the heart of the Roe ruling, has been affirmed by a variety of justices sitting on the Supreme Court.  

Every one of those decisions, even those allowing states to set some conditions on abortion, left in place the established legal right of all American women to decide if they want an abortion. 

The current leaks reveal the extent of the political infighting now underway. 

The leaks might be intended to stir a public backlash to keep Roe. 

They might be intended to pressure individual justices to retain a majority vote to end Roe. 

Either way, it reveals that politics are overwhelming legal reasoning and the independence of the court. 

Chief Justice John Roberts once complained about former President Trump calling out an “Obama judge” for a ruling Trump did not like. 

Roberts said the nation does not have “Obama judges or Trump judges,” but an “independent judiciary…we should all be thankful for.” 

But Trump’s view of the court as a political institution is now a sad reality. 

Ending abortion rights is only possible because the high court is ideologically unbalanced as the result of Senate Republicans maneuvering to deny a vote on President Obama’s final nominee, current Attorney General Merrick Garland.  

Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) success in thwarting Garland resulted in three Trump nominees rising to the court. Overall, six of the nine current justices are Republican nominees.  

This is a remarkable show of political power over a supposedly independent branch of the government. 

This power play is working against the powerful fact that most Americans want no change in the current abortion law. A recent Fox News poll found that 63 percent of Americans — including 51 percent of Republicans — want Roe to stay in place.  

Democrats, who favor keeping abortion legal, have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. 

But Republicans won the presidency in three of those eight elections, thanks to the vagaries of the electoral college. And the Republican presidents elected by the minority still got the right to nominate Supreme Court justices. 

Similarly, Republicans in the Senate represent far less than half of the nation’s population. 

The Republican indifference to majority rule in undoing Roe threatens to tear this already fractured country apart. The only comparable ruling would be the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision, which precipitated the Civil War.  

The most recent Gallup poll on approval of the Supreme Court, taken in September 2021, found that 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the court is handling its job.  

A Monmouth University poll taken earlier this month asked the same question and found essentially the same result, with 52 percent disapproving.  

Roberts has said that restoring the public’s faith in the Supreme Court as a fair and impartial institution is a top priority for him.  

However, if his court issues a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade that resembles the one that was leaked, it will make his time as chief justice a failure. He will not have protected the court’s legitimacy as a foundation of American democracy.  

I have written a best-selling book on the court. I know members of the court. I have covered the confirmation hearings of every justice on the court. 

I close with a personal appeal to Roberts.  

Mr. Chief Justice, please save this country from the consequences of the Supreme Court becoming just another extremist political player. 

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Keeping pressure on the global COVID fight

Gayle Smith, CEO of the nonprofit, nonpartisan global advocacy group ONE Campaign, is making it her mission to vaccinate the world against COVID-19.

To date, only about 16 percent of people in lower-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose, according to figures from the Our World in Data project. 

Global vaccination efforts have stalled as world leaders look to other priorities and threats, including the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“I think the challenge right now is that the pandemic is not over. I think people are very tired of it, but we’ve got to maintain the momentum because the virus is still out there replicating and mutating and in addition to that, it’s still inflicting tremendous economic damage on countries that can least afford it,” Smith said.

“Ukraine is obviously extremely important. The aftershocks of the Russian invasion, food security, [a] new energy crisis, those things demand attention, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that we are still living in a global pandemic,” she added.

Smith, 66, is an international development veteran who is no stranger to global challenges. She has spent her career working to combat issues including Ebola, extreme poverty and famine both inside and outside of government. 

She was tapped by former President Obama to lead the ​United States Agency for International Development in 2015, and prior to that was a senior official on the National Security Council for both Obama and former President Clinton.

Still, Smith told The Hill in a recent interview the COVID-19 pandemic is “bigger than any of those” because the world failed to properly unite to fight the virus.

“If you go back five years, imagine there’s a global pandemic that starts killing people everywhere. It’s wracking the entire planet. That should cause all of the world to come together, put some of their political differences to the side, [and] take the steps needed to marshal the capital to move fast and quickly,” Smith said.

But that didn’t happen. In the first year of the pandemic, the U.S. didn’t fully engage its international allies, and responses to the pandemic became political very quickly. 

“So the world was late to the game,” Smith said. “I think the world has mobilized some resources. But the response has been underfunded since day one.”

Smith has spent decades working in Africa. She started as a journalist for outlets including the Associated Press and BBC. But then, in 1984 and 1985, she encountered the Ethiopian famine, one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the 20th century. 

It spurred her to become an aid worker and shaped her views on humanity and dignity for the rest of her life.

When Smith was a senior official on Obama’s National Security Council, she helped convince the administration to send troops into West Africa on a humanitarian mission to stop the Ebola epidemic. Once the U.S. made its commitment clear, other nations filled in the gaps with their own pledges. 

With the coronavirus, countries have been pledging resources including money and vaccines, 

but the response has been needlessly fragmented, Smith said, adding that it doesn’t appear there is a concerted effort to pursue a plan that will bring the pandemic to an end quickly.

“Leaders have had to be focused within their borders and externally at the same time. And we’re not at the volume in terms of either the financial or political capital that we need to get us over the finish line,” Smith said. 

“What’s needed is …  agreement on a plan to say how are we going to manage vaccine coverage over the next six months? How do we keep the momentum going on testing? Because there’s a danger that as the response goes on, and there’s less interest and less funding, we’ll fall back on testing.”

Last year, Smith took a six-month leave of absence from the ONE Campaign to serve as President Biden’s coordinator for global COVID-19 response. She made it clear her priority was to get the U.S. to share vaccine doses with other countries.

The administration was facing criticism for procuring more vaccines than it needed before donating the surplus doses after Biden took office promising to be a world leader in donating the vaccine abroad.

Under Smith’s leadership, the U.S. pledged 1.2 billion doses to poorer nations in need. Biden also called on world leaders and drug manufacturers to do everything they can to send vaccines abroad.

According to the State Department, the administration so far has delivered more than 500 million doses to more than 115 countries. Those doses will help, Smith said, but many of the nation’s poorest countries have vaccinated less than 20 percent of their population.

There are 18 countries with less than 10 percent of their population vaccinated, including South Sudan and Yemen. Meanwhile, about two-thirds of the world’s wealthiest countries — not including the U.S. — have crossed the 70 percent vaccination threshold. 

Smith said she thinks other wealthy nations missed an opportunity to close the gap by not matching the Biden administration’s commitment.

“The decision to buy 500 million, and then another 500 million vaccines… had that level of commitment been matched by some others, that could have made a big difference,” Smith said. 

Still, Smith said she doesn’t want to seem like she is criticizing countries for not contributing to the global vaccination effort.

“I think what the world’s done a lot, there’s just a gap between a lot and enough,” Smith said. 

To get those vaccines into arms, the Biden administration is asking Congress for $5 billion as part of a larger funding package for coronavirus aid. The total is far less than what advocates say is needed, but even that amount is stalled in Congress with no clear path forward.   

“What’s critical now … is getting this $5 billion through Congress because that money is needed in order to actually deliver those vaccines. So we urgently need that to happen,” Smith said. 

“And I understand, having served in government … the cost of getting where we need to be on the global response. It’s not cheap. But it’s a lot cheaper than failing to do so.”

One other benefit of passing the $5 billion in global aid, Smith said, is that the U.S. would be leading by example. It’s difficult to ask other nations for more funding without being able to do so domestically.

“And this $5 billion, makes a difference. As always is the case, when we’re putting additional resources on the table, it’s easier to get other countries to do so.”

Source: TEST FEED1

DC housing market hot despite rate hikes

Rising interest rates are expected to cool the housing market, but some markets may be immune — chiefly in Washington, D.C., where decision-makers are raising rates.  

The housing market in the nation’s capital has shaken off previous economic swoons, and it is continuing to stay hot even as rising interest rates and record prices cool demand across much of the nation.  

Sales in the district and Montgomery County, Md., soared 11.3 percent from March to April, according to the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors. Northern Virginia home sales rose 5.8 percent month-over-month, according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.  

Those figures defy national trends, where rising prices and mortgage rates caused U.S. home sales to drop 2.4 percent from March to April, according to data from the National Association of Realtors released Thursday. 

Realtors say that the D.C. metro area’s high incomes and education levels, coupled with low housing supply, make the region resilient to spiking mortgage rates that are further driving up prices.  

But they note that much of the recent activity has centered around pricier homes, with higher-income buyers paying above-list price to lock in mortgage rates over fears that they will rise further. Price hikes are making homeownership less attainable for first-time buyers. 

“Towards the lower entry points of our market, you’re seeing the biggest impact from interest rates, as they’re causing people to not be able to afford what they were seeking,” said Harrison Beacher, president of the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors.  

The median sold price in D.C. reached $699,000 last month, up 5.9 percent from both March 2022 and April 2021, according to the association.  

The district’s prices didn’t rise as much as the national average, which spiked an unprecedented 14.8 percent month-to-month. That’s because prices were already elevated in the region, experts say.  

The median house sale price in the D.C. metro area has risen every year for the last nine years, increasing by 50 percent since April 2013 and seeing its largest hikes during the pandemic, according to data from real estate firm Bright MLS.  

One major factor driving high prices is the meager number of homes for sale. The D.C. metro area’s housing inventory has been cut in half since the start of the pandemic, falling from 1.78 months of supply in April 2020 to 0.86 last month, according to Bright MLS. The same analysis found that housing supply improved from March to April, jumping 26 percent.  

Another is the influx of high-paying jobs coming to the region, bolstered by prominent corporations and federal government contractors looking to get closer to Washington policymakers.  

Aerospace giant Boeing, which relies heavily on federal contracts, announced earlier this month that it would move its corporate headquarters to Arlington, Va. That comes after Amazon announced plans to build a massive headquarters in Arlington and hire 1,900 new employees in the area, which some advocates warned will only worsen housing affordability.   

Those factors, coupled with the fact that the D.C. metro area has quickly bounced back from previous downturns, including the 2008 housing crisis, raise the question of whether home prices will come down anytime soon, even if prices start to dip in other parts of the country.  

“If there is a national correction or adjustment, not being drastic, jobs and income will stay strong, which helps protect prices,” Beacher said. “Nationwide, when prices go down 20 or 25 percent in some markets, D.C. has never really contracted more than 8.5 percent.” 

Soaring mortgage rates are adding to the cost of buying a home. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 5.3 percent last week, up from 3.2 percent at the start of the year, according to Freddie Mac. 

Mortgage rates shot up shortly after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates in mid-March to combat the nation’s surging inflation. Chairman Jerome Powell has said that the Fed could hike interest rates again if inflation persists, a move that would drive mortgage rates up further. 

Those rates are forcing some prospective buyers, particularly low- and middle-income families, to reduce their budget or stay out of the market entirely. According to Zillow, a buyer with a $1,500 monthly budget could afford a $340,000 house under last year’s rates. Now, that monthly payment would only get them a $275,000 home.  

“We do expect the market to begin rebalancing this spring as rising costs keep enough would-be buyers on the sidelines for inventory to begin catching up with demand, but we have not yet reached that point,” Zillow economist Nicole Bachaud said in a statement. 

D.C. area realtors note that sales are down from their peak last year, when mortgage rates hit record lows and cash-flush buyers quickly bought up the region’s housing inventory. Closed sales in the nation’s capital fell 11.9 percent from April 2021, while Northern Virginia sales dipped 13 percent.  

“Rising mortgage rates and limited supply have finally cooled the market but when considered in context of our pre-covid world, we are still experiencing outstanding growth in housing sales,” Derrick Swaak, managing broker at TTR Sotheby’s International Realty and a Northern Virginia Association of Realtors board member, said in a statement. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Americans keep spending despite record inflation squeeze

Despite high inflation, rising gas prices, deepening concern about the economy and rising recession risks, Americans keep spending money.  

Stocks have fallen sharply over the past week as Wall Street frets over a likely dip in consumer spending. 

Polls of consumer sentiment have fallen steadily — along with President Biden’s approval rating on the economy — and a growing number of economists fear a recession could come as soon as next year. 

The combination of higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve and prices lingering at inflated levels is likely to take a chunk out of consumer spending as the year continues. 

Even so, Americans as a whole have powered through rising price pressures, shifting their purchases away from pricier goods and towards budget items and services. 

“April’s solid spending growth won’t likely change the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise rates by 50 basis points in each of the next two meetings. Instead, it will help to alleviate some of the recession concern that might stem from increasing interest rates,” wrote Tuan Nguyen, economist at audit and tax firm RSM, in a Tuesday analysis. 

Retail spending rose 0.9 percent in April, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday, with an uptick in spending at restaurants, bars and automobile dealers leading the increase. While spending dropped off at hobby, sporting goods, book and home supply stores, e-commerce and department store spending rose.  

Spending on airline tickets and other forms of transportation also skyrocketed last month, due in part to high gas prices pushing fares higher. 

Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. economist at S&P Global, said that while consumers are not happy about higher prices, they’re still depleting pent-up savings and money not spent on travel, entertainment, and other potentially infectious activities during the depths of the pandemic. 

“There has been a shift in the kind of spending in the consumer basket away from ‘stay at home’ spending towards ‘let’s go out’ spending,” Bovino said in a Friday interview. She pointed to an increase in spending on clothes, restaurants and bars and a decline in spending at grocery stores. Sales of home furnishings and garden goods have also held largely steady after two years of soaring home sales. 

“We were pretty much stuck at home for almost two years and a lot of a lot of that discretionary spending wasn’t spent. People are still sitting on cash and that means they can be more resilient at this time,” she said. 

The resilience of the U.S consumer is largely due to an unprecedented injection of fiscal and monetary stimulus since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020.  

The most recent round of stimulus checks, issued in March 2021, helped fuel higher demand for goods while the country was in the early stages of national COVID-19 vaccine rollout.  

But many Americans were still wary of returning to restaurants, shows, and hotels — particularly after the emergence of the delta and omicron variants. The result pushed more pent-up demand toward goods, which were already in short supply and deeply backlogged, and fueled higher inflation. 

If consumer spending keeps increasing but shifts more toward services over goods, it could help the economy stay strong as the Fed fights inflation through higher interest rates. Demand for labor remains historically strong with roughly two open jobs available for each unemployed American, and economists are hopeful the labor market can hold up as the economy finds a better balance between what consumers want and what businesses can provide. 

“There will be a little bit of a pull down, but I think that the shift in the mix from goods to services will be helpful for inflation. Goods demand is where we see demand pretty far beyond supply and where we see prices have gone up the most,” said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group, a research nonprofit. 

“So as spending normalizes there, we’ll hopefully see some of those huge price increases going the opposite direction. That should be a help to the Fed.” 

Ozimek, however, warned there are many obstacles in the Fed’s path beyond U.S. borders that could drive inflation higher and make it difficult to curb inflation without causing a broad economic downturn. 

Oil, natural gas and food prices have skyrocketed as the war in Ukraine and its economic ripple effects dramatically reduce the availability of key commodities. Ongoing lockdowns in China, where the government has pledged to eradicate COVID-19 by any means necessary, have also spurred more factory shutdowns, port bottlenecks, delivery delays and other inflationary supply chain snarls. 

Those forces together may not push the U.S. economy into recession. But if inflation continues to spiral higher, the Fed may need to hike rates fast and far enough to drastically reduce how much money consumers have to spend. 

“What the Fed should do is ignore temporary supply shocks and their impacts on inflation. But where inflation is now, it’s harder to do that,” Ozimek said. 

Bovino also said the if consumer spending is too resilient in the face of inflation, it could force the Fed to push even harder against consumer demand. 

“Household balance sheets are relatively healthy, and that we see as a cushion to absorb these shocks,” Bovino said. 

“That also means they have the wherewithal to buy more product at higher prices, making it difficult for the Fed’s policy to work. And that’s the challenge that the Fed has.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Fizzling legislative agenda leaves Democrats wondering about midterms 

Democrats once hailed Build Back Better as the policy that could help them win the midterms.  

But as even the possibility of a scaled-back version of President Biden’s signature legislation fizzles in the 50-50 Senate, some are wondering if the president will have anything comparable to campaign on as the election season inches closer. 

The White House considers the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law passed last fall as a major legislative accomplishment. They also see Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill as a win. And they say the fight over some version of Build Back Better isn’t over. 

But some in the party question whether those feats are enough to energize voters, particularly after Democrats spent months last year talking about lowering childcare costs, paid leave, and extending the now-expired temporary expansion of the child tax credit as an answer to the pressures families are feeling from inflation.  

“It gives them fewer weapons in the fight to retain the control of the House and Senate going into the midterms,” said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist and director of the public policy program at Hunter College. 

Another Democratic strategist added: “For the longest time, all they talked about was Build Back Better and how it would be this incredible thing. And guess what? It imploded and now what do we have? Infrastructure?”  

Other Democrats insist the party has plenty to tout on the campaign trail in the coming months and should focus on those legislative wins. 

“Between the Recovery Act and the bipartisan infrastructure bill, there are a lot of great policy wins in those bills,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau, referring first to the coronavirus relief package. “We just need to deconstruct it because most people don’t remember what was accomplished.” 

“I would urge lawmakers to not bitch about what wasn’t in the bill but to celebrate and promote what is in the bill. We tend to obsess on what we did not get done,” Mollineau said. 

“In Washington, D.C., I think the sentiment will be ‘You have the White House, the Senate and the House and you couldn’t pass the entirety of your agenda,’” he added. “Outside D.C., it’s not as if the American people are waiting with bated breath but they do want to see policies that are going to help them.”  

White House officials say they haven’t given up on passing Biden’s signature domestic proposal. But even Democrats who have been optimistic about passing some version of Build Back Better are losing hope as the November midterms draw nearer.  

White House press secretary Jen Psaki singled out the failure to pass Build Back Better as one of her disappointments during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters earlier this month just before she left the West Wing.  

“There are things you would have liked to have seen done that are not done yet. There were many moments, as you all know, where we thought Build Back Better, the reconciliation package, our plan to lower costs – whatever you want to call it – would have been done,” Psaki said. “Getting that done, yes, would have felt really good. Obviously hopefully we’ll still do it.”  

During a Center for American Progress event Friday, White House senior adviser Gene Sperling expressed regret at the inability for Democrats to pass another extension of the child tax credit — which they envisioned as part of the Build Back Better bill. 

“I’m heartbroken that at this point we haven’t extended what was done in the American Rescue Plan and will not give up hope,” he said. “But what did we show? We showed that we could deliver a monthly child tax credit.” 

The White House has made a deliberate effort this year to focus on touting what Congress has passed under Biden’s watch – the COVID-19 relief package and bipartisan infrastructure bill. 

Biden is getting out on the road regularly to sell his accomplishments, something he has acknowledged he regrets not doing more.  

Biden told a group of supporters at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser last month that he was repeating a mistake from the Obama years by not talking enough about what the administration has done.  

“I remember saying to Barack after we passed the Affordable Care Act, I said, ‘Let’s take a victory lap.’ He said, ‘We don’t have time. We don’t have time,’” Biden told the group in Portland, Ore. “But guess what?  No one knew what was in it. They didn’t know why they had what they had.” 

Biden will sometimes reference pieces of Build Back Better in public speeches, but they’re rarely the central focus of his remarks. Administration officials have done away with the “Build Back Better” branding entirely, instead opting for a “Building a Better America” tagline that encapsulates Biden’s policy agenda, including the infrastructure bill.  

For the time being, the White House is eyeing another immediate bipartisan legislative win – a bill aimed at boosting domestic production of semiconductors.  

Different versions of the bill passed the House and Senate and it recently went to conference. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this week she hoped Congress would pass the legislation, the Competes Act, before the July 4 recess.  

“‘Competes’ is a cost-cutting bill,” Pelosi said at a Thursday press conference. 

The Build Back Better agenda was envisioned as getting to Biden’s desk through a complicated budgetary process that would have prevented a GOP filibuster. It was torpedoed when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he’d oppose it in December over inflation worries. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), another Democratic centrist, had also been an impediment because of her opposition to higher taxes as part of the plan. 

Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have continued to talk, but there’s little optimism a deal will be reached. 

Democrats express a mixture of regret and helplessness over its fate. 

“There is a lot of stuff in Build Back Better that is extremely popular, that we said we would pass and wanted to campaign on,” said Democratic strategist Eddie Vale. “And it’s not just progressive members. There’s a ton in here every part of our caucus wants in their districts.   

“But there’s really nothing most of us can do right now except yell serenity now because it’s basically just up to Manchin and Sinema at this point,” Vale said. “And if nothing else passes we do have a pretty good list of things that have been done so far and then the main thing left to do is how much Biden get done with executive orders after BBB is officially dead.”  

Vale pointed to Biden’s former partner as proof: “Obama got quite a lot done when he picked up his pen, as he liked to say.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Harris, Murthy to outline recommendations to address health worker burnout

Vice President Harris and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Monday will visit Children’s National Hospital to highlight the issue of burnout and mental health among healthcare workers.

The two officials will detail a new advisory from the surgeon general highlighting the need to address burnout among healthcare workers, who have been inundated with patients and put at risk during the last two years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The advisory details efforts to combat burnout and provide additional resources to healthcare workers. While at Children’s National Hospital, Harris and Murthy will meet with staff to discuss their experiences with stress and anxiety on the job.

“The nation’s health depends on the well-being of our health workforce. Confronting the long-standing drivers of burnout among our health workers must be a top national priority,” Murthy said in a statement.

“COVID-19 has been a uniquely traumatic experience for the health workforce and for their families, pushing them past their breaking point. Now, we owe them a debt of gratitude and action. And if we fail to act, we will place our nation’s health at risk.”

The recommendations in the Surgeon General’s advisory released Monday include eliminating punitive policies for seeking mental health and substance abuse care; ensuring adequate staffing, particularly during public health emergencies; increasing time spent with patients instead of on administrative work; and encouraging healthcare workers to speak out about their issues.

The issue of burnout and mental health has received greater attention during the pandemic, with hospital workers being hailed as frontline heroes and the public having broader discussions about the toll the pandemic has taken emotionally and mentally.

Burnout among healthcare workers has been a particular point of focus, as experts have warned a shortage of hospital workers or a lack of capacity to take in patients could exacerbate any future surges in COVID-19 cases.

The Biden administration previously allocated more than $100 million through the American Rescue Plan to promote mental health and wellness among health workers, and President Biden spoke in his State of the Union address earlier this year about tackling the mental health crisis.

Source: TEST FEED1