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But Biden’s more incremental approach still will face opposition from Republicans and powerful health care lobbies, which have spent the past two years preparing a furious assault against further expansion of government coverage if Democrats took back control of Washington. Republicans certainly won’t support a public option, and Democrats’ narrow majorities in both congressional chambers leave Biden with little room for error.

A strong public option was stripped out of Obamacare because moderates saw it as toxic. While centrist Democrats now back the idea and polls show strong public support for it, Democratic leaders in Congress could be wary of getting bogged down in another health care fight when they will be facing other priorities, like battling the pandemic and providing more economic relief. And even if Biden gets through a version of the public option, the health care industry could still water it down through negotiations — as was the case in Washington state when it created the nation’s first public option two years ago.

But an even bigger hurdle than winning the presidency stands between Mr. Sanders and his goal of generous government health insurance for all Americans: Congress.

No legislation to advance or achieve universal health care has succeeded over the past 70 years without Democrats not only controlling all three branches of government, but also having a supermajority in the Senate. At this point, Mr. Sanders’s plan has nowhere near that support.

Yesterday the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 85-13, to approve a non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution sponsored by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) that puts the body on record as opposed to a value-added tax (VAT).

The resolution states:

Although VATs have been lucrative elsewhere, the levy faces political hurdles in the United States, said Bunn.

Some Democrats see the VAT as regressive because it hits families regardless of income, whereas Republicans may fight a broad-based tax increase, he said. Plus, it may also be a tough sell to lawmakers in states without a sales tax, Bunn added.

So why did Cruz try so hard to distance himself from the term? Graetz explains that while a VAT certainly isn't as lethal a third rail as, say, social security, there's certainly lore about it being a candidate killer in American politics.

"President Nixon actually thought about adding a value-added tax shortly after the European countries had adopted them. He was in a meeting, and Dale Bumpers who was governor of Arkansas, stood up and said, 'Sales taxes belong to the states, they're the state's sources of revenue, and the federal government shouldn't get involved.' Nixon backed down fearing he would lose favor of the governors, who had much more sway back then," Graetz told me.

And we lived with them for a long time. And then when COVID hit, it really obviously hit everyone hard, hit the hospitals, hit all the providers hard. And sequestration is a 2% cut across the board for all the Medicare providers. And it hit in a way that they realize that they needed to give some relief.

And so we got some relief in some of the early COVID packages. And then last year when we were facing again, we were told 2020 was the last year but that was it. And we kept pressing. We were told, you're not getting more.

On Capitol Hill, there are two ways that people tend to talk about the sequester -- a slate of automatic federal spending cuts that are difficult but necessary, or a blunt tool that will inflict tremendous suffering.

But a growing chorus of researchers, political analysts and economists say that the cuts are poised to inflict particularly intense pain on people of color and impede the country’s ability to prosper as these populations grow.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, called today for immediate action to lift the debt ceiling and end across-the-board budget cuts.

“At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, let’s work together on a budget that is fair,” Sanders said during a Budget Committee hearing. “Let’s end sequestration. And, at the very least, I hope we can all agree right now that we will pay our bills on time and we will not allow the United States of America to become a deadbeat nation.”

Don’t look now, but the much ballyhooed budget ‘sequestration’ shenanigans under way in the Nation’s Capital are beginning to have some pretty sobering effects on the nation’s climate change science efforts. Round and round, but where it goes … nobody [yet] quite knows ….

Furloughs, potential layoffs, hiring freezes, “early-outs,” and “reductions-in-force.” Delays on planned equipment upgrades. Fenced-off travel budgets and anemic new grant funding opportunities.

The arrival of the March 1 deadline for automatic federal spending cuts known as sequestration had policymakers and administrators from Washington to local school districts bracing for the possible effects. The outcome—political and financial—was unclear as of press time. Here, though, is a primer on what educators should know about “the sequester.” For up-to-the-minute developments on the federal budget crisis, follow Education Week‘s Politics K-12 blog.

What exactly is “sequestration”? Sequestration is a series of across-the-board cuts to a broad range of federal programs, including those in the U.S. Department of Education, that was designed to hit on March 1, unless a last-ditch effort by Congress and the Obama administration stopped them. Programs in the Education Department would be cut by about 5.3 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office. The cuts wouldn’t be just for this year, either. They’re aimed at chopping $1.2 trillion out of the federal deficit over the next decade.

The backstop mechanism House Republicans inserted into last month’s debt ceiling package to ensure the completion of full-year appropriations would cause some collateral damage if triggered: cuts to bipartisan infrastructure law funding enacted two years ago.

That 2021 measure’s $68.5 billion in advance appropriations, which become available starting on Oct. 1, could get hit by across-the-board cuts starting more than halfway through the fiscal year next May — impacting grants for Amtrak, bridge repairs, clean energy research and drinking water and sewage line upgrades.

The United States should adopt a new nuclear strategy of innovation for deterrence resilience.

The newly released 2022 Nuclear Posture Review continues a Cold War strategy that prioritizes modernizing legacy nuclear weapons systems and arms control.. Reducing the risk of nuclear war requires us to update our policy and strategy to respond to changed geopolitical and technological realities.

The looming possibility of deep, across-the-board budget cuts—known as sequestration—poses historic risks for U.S. research and development, experts said at a Capitol Hill briefing organized by AAAS. Unless lawmakers find a compromise by year’s end to avert the cuts, the crippling devastating impact could be felt for a generation, they warned, even as other nations are increasing R&D investments.

Without an agreement, sequestration would be imposed automatically beginning in the first week of January. It could slash the U.S. R&D investment by 8.4%—some $58 billion—over five years. That would mean laboratory closures and layoffs, the experts said, and it would jeopardize current research in areas ranging from genetic medicine and advanced manufacturing to batteries that could allow a 10-fold increase in the range of electric cars. It might also discourage a new generation from careers in science and engineering.

Defense spending will come under pressure in an era of trillion-dollar COVID-19 deficits. As a result, the Defense Department will need to make trade-offs that it previously could avoid.

In the past, Pentagon leaders have prioritized spending for nuclear weapons programs. That would mean taking any budget hit out of funding for conventional forces and readiness.

Leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee announced on Thursday that they would mark up their defense spending bill above the caps established in the debt ceiling deal earlier this summer.

News of the boosted numbers was revealed by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA), who announced her and ranking member Susan Collins's (R-ME) deal to add $8 billion for defense and $5.7 billion for nondefense emergency funds at a committee markup on Thursday.

Putting itself at odds with the House’s spending plans, the Senate Appropriations Committee has added $13.7 billion to the spending limits agreed on in the debt ceiling deal in its markup of its plan for next year’s budget.

The chairwoman of the committee, Senator Murray, struck an agreement with the vice chairwoman, Senator Collins, adding $8 billion in defense spending and $5.7 billion in non-defense spending.

The Senate continues to advance spending bills without controversy and with bipartisan support, offering hope that lawmakers will avoid a lapse in appropriations this fall.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved three more fiscal 2024 funding measures on Thursday, two of which—those funding the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Energy Department—received unanimous, 29-0 votes. The third, which would set spending levels for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, received just two dissenting votes.

Senate GOP negotiators Thursday joined Democrats in advancing three significant federal funding bills out of the upper chamber’s Appropriations Committee, as the panel moves quickly to pass its dozen annual spending bills in the weeks ahead.

The panel voted overwhelmingly to pass three pieces of legislation laying out proposed fiscal 2024 funding for agencies ranging from the departments of Justice (DOJ), Commerce (DOC), Treasury, NASA, the Small Business Association (SBA), the United States Capitol Police and the legislative branch, among others.

Nearly every week features a familiar plotline for the House Republican conference: Right-flank pressure spurs last-minute scrambles that appear to put Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) and GOP leaders in peril – before they squeak out a compromise or victory.

In the latest episode, the House Freedom Caucus’s push to add culture war amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) tanked Democratic support for the normally bipartisan bill — but won over enough hardline conservatives that Republicans passed it without needing Democratic help.

Lawmakers approved the must-pass bill largely along party lines after Republicans backed a slew of controversial amendments that alienated Democrats and imperiled the typically bipartisan bill.

The House narrowly passed the nation’s annual defense policy bill on Friday, after Republicans backed a slew of controversial amendments late Thursday that alienated Democrats and imperiled the typically bipartisan bill.