On The Money: Senate in talks to quickly pass infrastructure bill | CBO says bill would add $256B to debt in 10 years

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THE BIG DEAL—Senate in talks to quickly pass infrastructure bill: Senators are aiming to wrap up a bipartisan infrastructure bill likely this weekend, though Republicans didn’t rule out that it could be as soon as Thursday.

• GOP senators, coming out of back-to-back meetings, said the roughly $1 trillion bill is likely to pass on Saturday, which would require a deal to cut down on hours of extra debate time. But they could also hit the gas and vote later Thursday night.
• Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), asked about a possible vote on Thursday, described it as in flux but said that senators didn’t see a point in dragging out their debate.

“Everybody understands that right behind this is going to be the budget and I don’t think anybody is looking to extend this out any longer than necessary,” Cornyn told reporters after a meeting of key senators. 

The background: The attempt to move at the Senate’s version of warp speed isn’t final, and would take the agreement of all 100 senators. Senators are still haggling over how to set up votes on a last batch of roughly a dozen amendments, but the recent release of the Congressional Budget Office’s score of the legislation could affect the process.

The Hill’s Jordain Carney brings us up to speed here.

CBO says bipartisan infrastructure bill would add $256B to deficit over 10 years: Speaking of that CBO score, the nonpartisan budget analysis office said the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package would add $256 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade.

• The budget office estimates the bill would increase discretionary spending by $415 billion over 10 years while increasing revenues by $50 billion and decreasing direct spending by $110 billion.
• That means just more than half of the new spending — $294 billion — would be offset by pay-fors, according to CBO’s stringent standards for scoring legislation.

Why it matters: CBO scores are best estimates about how a bill would impact the economy and are often rendered irrelevant by, well, the economy changing. But the analysis is still a difficult pill to swallow for GOP senators who have insisted on paying for the entire cost of the legislation.

Many Republicans have said for weeks that they wanted to see an official analysis showing the $1 trillion infrastructure bill is being “credibly” paid for. But the CBO score backs up conservative Republicans who criticized some of the bill’s pay-fors as budget gimmicks.

“It’s easy to get so wrapped up in it and so wrapped up with the things that you see in the bill that are good … sometimes when you get so wrapped up in that, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the pay-fors are fake,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). “As much as half of the pay-fors are just fake,” he added

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton breaks it down here.

LEADING THE DAY

Delta variant casts shadow on upcoming jobs report: A surge of COVID-19 cases among unvaccinated Americans may have thrown a wrench into the labor market’s pandemic recovery, casting a shadow on the July jobs report slated for release Friday morning.

The Labor Department will publish its monthly employment report Friday amid increasing concern about the economic impact of the delta variant of COVID-19.

Economists are expecting the new data to show hiring remained strong in July thanks to spending on travel, dining and entertainment. The consensus estimate is that employers added 850,000 jobs, the same as June.

But several red flags have since emerged from private sector data released this week:

• The ADP National Employment report showed a gain of just 330,000 jobs for private payrolls in July, just more than half of the 650,000 consensus estimate among economists. 
• Data from payroll processor Homebase also showed a 0.4 percent decline in the number of hours worked by small businesses in July, while UKG reported a 0.6 percent decline in shifts worked among the companies it tracks.
• And even though jobless claims fell by 14,000 in the final week of July, to 385,000, the figures are still higher than the post-lockdown low of 360,000 set earlier in the month.

“People are returning to work. We just haven’t seen the surge of people returning that businesses desperately need,” said Dave Gilbertson, UKG vice president, in the company’s July workforce activity report. I’ve got more here.

AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka dies at 72: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has died at the age of 72, the labor organization said Thursday. 

“The labor movement, the AFL-CIO and the nation lost a legend today,” AFL-CIO Communications Director Tim Schlittner said in a statement. “Standing on Rich’s shoulders, we will pour everything we have into building an economy, society and democracy that lifts up every working family and community.” Trumka reportedly died of a heart attack.

• A third-generation coal miner from Nemacolin, Pa., Trumka rose to prominence in 1982 when he became the youngest-ever president of the United Mine Workers of America. 
• He was elected president of the AFL-CIO in 2009.
• Tributes to Trumka immediately came from political figures, including President Biden, who called him a “good, close, personal friend” during a Thursday event. 

Trumka served as president of the influential labor group, which represents more than 12 million workers, for more than a decade. The Hill’s Karl Evers-Hillstrom has more here.

GOOD TO KNOW

• Senate Republicans are about to hand President Biden a huge political victory by voting for a historic $1 trillion infrastructure package that the president can then tout as fulfilling a campaign pledge to restore bipartisanship in Washington.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday said Senate Republicans will not vote for legislation to raise the debt limit if President Biden and Democrats stick to their plan to push through a $3.5 trillion spending and tax reform proposal this fall.
• A majority of likely voters in a new poll obtained exclusively by The Hill supports Congress passing a $3.5 trillion spending bill that includes Democratic priorities, like universal prekindergarten and extending the child tax credit expansion, through reconciliation.
• Lawmakers and housing advocates are struggling to figure out how to get billions of dollars in rental assistance to tenants who desperately need the help, even with the action taken Tuesday by the Biden administration to extend an eviction moratorium for most of the country.

ODDS AND ENDS

• Amazon has pushed back its corporate return-to-office date until the beginning of 2022, the company confirmed Thursday.
• The White House on Thursday announced more than $3 billion in extra funding for projects to increase state and local resilience to storms and other climate-related disasters.