Brace Yourselves for Another Rough Week in Stocks, FY 2025 Budget in the House, Nominations in the Senate
Jason Pye - Vice President, Due Process Institute
Point of Order is a (mostly) weekly preview of key congressional activity for those with more than a passing interest in federal policy.
In defense of free trade: One of my favorite quotes comes from Nobel prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek, who, in his book, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, wrote, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Hayek was a critic of central planning, the dangers of which aren’t limited to socialism. We’re seeing central planning play out right before our eyes. If futures and Asian markets are any indication, it could be another brutal week on the stock market. Look, the trade war that we’ve entered into is a policy choice. It’s based on the myths that manufacturing in the United States is in decline, that trade is responsible for that decline, and that trade deficits matter. Manufacturing out in the United States is actually doing well. Although the number of people employed in manufacturing in the United States has fallen, this trend has existed for quite some time, pre-dating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by several years. A Ball State University study shows us that roughly 88 percent of the jobs lost in manufacturing are due to increased productivity, including automation, not trade. Finally, the trade deficit is a good thing. Why? Because it shows a healthy demand for products. We also see a lot of money coming into the United States for investment. If you look at when the trade deficit shrank in recent years, you’ll note that it occurred during the Great Recession. There wasn’t as much demand for goods in those years. (We run a deficit in goods but a surplus in services.) The trade deficit isn’t like the budget deficit. Trade isn’t a zero-sum game. What’s playing out right now is economic lunacy. It hurts consumers, particularly the middle class, and businesses. The declines in stocks hurt your retirement. Congress must step up and reclaim its Article I, Section 8 power over tariffs. One person should not have this much power over our economy.
Schedule and suspensions in the House: The House returns at 2:00 pm today for legislative business. Votes are postponed until 6:30 pm. The House will also be in session on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The last votes for the week are expected no later than 3:00 pm on Thursday. No votes are expected on Friday. Nine (9) bills are expected to be considered under the suspension of the rules (listed below). The cost estimates for those bills are available here.
H. Con. Res. 9, Authorizing the use of the Capitol Grounds for the National Peace Officers Memorial Service and the National Honor Guard and Pipe Band Exhibition. (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee)
H.R. 1228, Prioritizing Veterans' Survivors Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 981, VETT Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 586, Vietnam Veterans Liver Fluke Cancer Study Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1039, Clear Communication for Veterans Claims Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 983, Montgomery GI Bill Selected Reserves Tuition Fairness Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 877, Deliver for Veterans Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 1912, Veteran Fraud Reimbursement Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
H.R. 970, Fairness for Servicemembers and their Families Act (Veterans’ Affairs Committee)
Bills that come to the floor under suspension of the rules require two-thirds of members present and voting for passage. This is the most common way that bills considered by the House come to the floor. Some of these bills may be passed by a voice vote, rather than a roll call vote. Most bills that come to the floor under suspension aren’t widely considered controversial, although leadership may occasionally test a bill under suspension to gauge opposition or sneak a bill through the chamber.
Rule bills: The House Rules Committee will meet at 4:00 pm today to markup the rule providing for the consideration of the No Rogue Rulings Act, H.R. 1526; a disapproval resolution under the Congressional Review Act relating to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule, "Overdraft Lending: Very Large Financial Institutions,” S.J.Res. 18; a disapproval resolution under the Congressional Review Act relating to the Consumer Financial Protect Bureau’s rule, "Defining Larger Participants of a Market for General-Use Digital Consumer Payment Applications,” S.J.Res. 28; and the SAVE Act, H.R. 22. The two disapproval resolutions have already passed the Senate, so this is the last stop in the legislative process before heading to the White House. Yes, these are the same rule bills as last week. More on that in a moment. Before we get into why the same rules are coming up this week, there’s one more item that could be on the floor…
The House gets the budget resolution: The Senate passed the amended FY 2025 budget resolution in the early hours of Friday morning, sending it back to the House for consideration this week. This is the Senate amendment to H.Con.Res. 14. The budget resolution is necessary to start the process for budget reconciliation to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), as well as other tax and policy priorities wanted by the White House. House and Senate committees with reconciliation instructions will have until May 9 to submit their recommendations to their chambers’ respective Budget Committee. Senate Republicans appear to be proceeding with their plan to have the Congressional Budget Office treat TCJA as though it won’t expire at the end of the year, known as the “current policy baseline.” Frankly, this is an abuse of the reconciliation process. The budget resolution would also increase the debt limit by $5 trillion. In a letter to their members, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) emphasized that “[t]he Senate amendment as passed makes NO CHANGES to the House reconciliation instructions that we voted for just weeks ago.” (Emphasis in the original.) Republican leadership also wrote, “We have and will continue to make it clear in all discussions with the Senate and the White House that—in order to secure House passage—the final reconciliation bill must include historic spending reductions while protecting essential programs.” Do they have the votes? Look, you have to start with the assumption that the budget resolution will pass. I know some members are criticizing the Senate version of the budget resolution, but there was criticism of the original House budget resolution. More than a few conservative members said they would vote against it. Trump pressured those members. The only one who followed through in the end was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). Trump will undoubtedly pressure members who are saying they’ll vote no. Are they willing to see it through? I guess we’ll find out.
Here’s why the same rule bills are back on the floor: I planned to mention Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-FL) discharge petition to change the House rules to allow new parents to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks in last week’s Point of Order. Then, I forgot about it. I really should write stuff down before I begin writing for the week. Explaining this can get a little weird, so bear with me. Luna filed a discharge petition to bring H.Res. 164, a rule that would provide for the consideration of H.Res. 23. H.Res. 23 is the change to the House rules that would allow proxy voting for new parents. On April 1, she gave her intent to force a vote after getting the 218 signatures she needed on the discharge petition. Johnson got a lot of pressure from the far-right, who claim proxy voting is unconstitutional (more on that in a second), and the House Rules Committee included language to effectively kill the discharge petition in the rule, H.Res. 282, providing for the consideration of the bills that were supposed to be on the floor last week. (Yes, they can do that. They also did it for joint resolutions to terminate the national emergency through which Trump has imposed tariffs.) Luna, who was a House Freedom Caucus member up until last week, and eight other Republicans took down H.Res. 282 on the floor. House Republican leadership sent members home on Tuesday. Johnson and Luna have reached a deal that falls far short of her goal, but it’ll break the impasse that could’ve carried over into this week. By the way, I know some members claim proxy voting is unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia determined it wasn’t in part because the House sets its own rules. The Supreme Court denied then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) cert petition on the matter, upholding the D.C. Circuit’s decision. What Luna was pursuing was narrowly tailored, applying only to new parents. It’s hardly the same thing the House saw during the pandemic.
Party divisions in the House: Reps. Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) and Randy Fine (R-FL) were sworn in during a pro forma day last week. Republicans now have 220 seats in the House while Democrats have 213 seats. For purposes of a simple majority, the threshold is 217 votes. For two-thirds, it’s 289 votes. The vacancies are AZ-07 (Grijalva) and TX-18 (Turner). The general special election in AZ-07 has been set for September 23. The date for the special election in TX-18 still hasn’t been announced because reasons, apparently.
House committee schedule: The full House committee schedule for the week is here. If you’re interested in watching any of these hearings online, you can find committee websites here.
Nominations in the Senate: The Senate returns today at 3:00 pm to resume consideration of the nomination of Elbridge Colby to serve as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. The Senate will begin the vote on the cloture motion for the Colby nomination around 5:30 pm. Cloture was filed on several other nominations as well. Those nominations are George Glass to serve as United States Ambassador to Japan, Mike Huckabee to serve as United States Ambassador to Israel, Pete Hoekstra to serve as United States Ambassador to Canada, Ronald Johnson to serve as United States Ambassador to Mexico, Kevin Cabrera to serve as United States Ambassador to Panama, and Paul Atkins to serve as a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Just a reminder that the Senate isn’t as transparent as the House when it comes to legislation and nominations that may be considered. We usually know what’s happening at the beginning of the week, but it’s often unclear what will happen after that.
Senate committee schedule: The full Senate committee schedule for the week is here. If you’re interested in watching any of these hearings online, you can find committee websites here.
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