December 17, 2021
Patrick Robertson’s Washington Whispers looks at one of the causes of President Biden’s slipping poll numbers. Congressman Erik Paulsen dives into causes of the spike in inflation, and Ramona Lessen shares a glimpse at a hearing held this week before the Senate Banking Committee on stablecoins. As always, be sure to check out the Infographs for an in-depth look at current hot topics.
This is our last This Week in Washington of 2021, so allow us to close with a few random thoughts.
The House of Representatives has finished its work and is preparing to leave Washington. The Senate has passed a debt ceiling bill, as well as the National Defense Authorization Act. The Build Back Better bill is not moving in 2021 and will be kicked into 2022. A Republican Senator described the dilemma faced by Democrats, saying that “Senator Manchin doesn’t want to support a bill that has a number of short-term programs that progressives intend to extend later, and he wants to have the program paid for with a full decade of offsets. Senator Manchin also wants the bill paid for and Democrats can’t agree on which taxes to increase.”
2021 was a year of rising expectations and sobering realities. Americans want to get beyond the COVID pandemic and get on with their lives. The vaccines surely are a light to that bright future, but we’re sobered by the reality that over 800,000 Americans have lost their lives. We are trying to come out of our siloed existence that we had during the worst of the pandemic and that gives us hope, but now we must contend with rising inflation and staggering shortages. Yet, we tend to believe better days for all of us are surely to come. We just need to look past AND get past the trees.
We’ll be back after the first of the year with the next issue of This Week in Washington and the Gold Dome Report. We at Total Spectrum wish you a very Merry Christmas and all best wishes for a healthy and successful New Year.