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      US, NATO and the Question of Russia

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      If the question of a rising China and its possible collision with the United States is a central issue in world affairs today, then the rivalry between Russia and the US is the most pressing security challenge in the European theater. From the second half of the Obama administration, through Donald Trump’s first term and now President Joe Biden’s initial mandate, the US has ramped up pressure on Russia. Washington has imposed sanctions, expelled Russian diplomats, strengthened the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), rotated troops through Poland and the Baltic states and conducted military drills next to the Russian border. Defender Europe 2021, “One of the largest US-Army led military exercises in decades,” will run until June, with 28,000 total troops from 27 nations taking part.

      No Credible Alternative to the US Grand Strategy in Europe

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      If we are to believe the prevalent narrative that Beijing is Washington’s most dangerous rival, then the US and its allies who fear Russia and are hell-bent on defending Europe from supposed Kremlin interference are misguided — or are they?

      Security Dilemma

      Much like the tensions around the status of Taiwan, for instance, Ukraine is a hotspot for the complex power struggle between East and West on the European continent. Ukraine as a sovereign state and Taiwan as a self-governing entity share common features: Both are located in dangerous geopolitical regions on the periphery of the US-led order, and both are increasing their military spending. Furthermore, the US provides no explicit security guarantees for either. In somewhat different ways, both Beijing and Moscow do not think that Taiwan (in case of China) and Ukraine (in case of Russia) have a right to self-determination, especially in the domain of foreign policy.

      However, there is a major difference between the two. When it comes to Ukraine, events have probably passed a point of no return, especially with regards to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in what some argue was a preemptive effort to prevent the peninsula from becoming a potential NATO naval base in the future.

      Supposedly defensive moves by Russia to increase its own security in areas along its periphery are perceived by the US and NATO member states as offensive, compelling countervailing actions. These include increased US military presence in the Baltics and elsewhere along NATO’s eastern borders and further expansion into southeastern Europe. The measures, in turn, provoked retaliatory steps from Moscow, such as nuclear military modernization, taking aggressive positions toward neighboring states or fanning the flames of internal crisis in Montenegro in 2015-16 and the Republic of Northern Macedonia in 2017-18. This month, Russia and Serbia launched joint military exercises to coincide with the Defender Europe drills being held in neighboring Balkan states.

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      The US-Russia dyad in Europe is not only about a security dilemma. Moscow keeps its adversaries in check with ambiguity as well. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly warned the West of undeclared red lines. He amassed and then begun the withdrawal of more than 100,000 troops from Ukraine’s border to demonstrate Russia’s capacity to both escalate and de-escalate the conflict in eastern Ukraine but without revealing Moscow’s strategic plans.

      Moscow is on a mission to correct “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” as President Putin once described the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia is seriously interested in replacing the existing US-led liberal order, primarily the one extended beyond the Iron Curtain, with favorable and less democratic European regimes that fit Russia’s mold. These ideas were widely propagated by Russia’s neo-Eurasian movement since the 1990s. Igor Panarin, professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, advocated in favor of a Eurasian Union with four capitals, for example, including one in Belgrade.

      More recently, Anton Shekhovtsov, the director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity, has highlighted a critically important tendency: the growing links between Russian actors and Western far-right politicians to gain leverage over European politics and undermine the Western liberal order. In so doing, as David Shlapak writes for RAND, “Russia would seek to divide the [NATO] alliance to the point of dissolving it, break the transatlantic security link, and re-establish itself as the dominant power in Eastern and Central Europe.”

      Power Projection

      Some may argue that Russia’s goals are tangential. What really matters is Moscow’s capability to project hard power across the European continent. In this regard, skeptics largely question Russia’s ability to challenge the European nations in a scenario where the US stops extending protection to its European allies. Their typical point of reference is that Russia is but a “giant gas station” or that its annual GDP is “smaller than Italy’s.” However, what is usually overlooked here is Russia’s nuclear capability “to destroy the United States — and, not incidentally, its European allies — as a functioning society.” While it is highly unlikely that Moscow will ever resort to such an extreme, the fact that it does have the nuclear option should serve as a reminder of its power potential.

      Russia’s sheer size, vast natural resources and an impressive cyberweapons arsenal have also enabled the Kremlin to punch above its weight and pursue not just defensive policies, as we have seen in Georgia in 2008, and in eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. Russia has sent troops into Syria and mercenaries into Libya, and provided support to Venezuela’s embattled president, Nicolas Maduro. Then there was the alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election and the more recent SolarWinds cyberattack attributed to Russian hackers. Moreover, according to Rand Corporation analysis, Russia could inflict a decisive defeat on NATO forces in the Baltic region and reach the outskirts of Tallinn and Riga within 60 hours.

      If the US decided to diminish its presence in the European theater, much like it has done in the Middle East under Donald Trump, Russia would face little pushback to the expansion of its sphere of influence in eastern Europe. The European continent would no longer be unified and free in accordance with collective security and liberal principles. Populist and nationalist governments in central and southeastern Europe would be tempted to seek other security solutions. One can only imagine a European subsystem in Russia’s image, divided between European poles trying to balance against each other.

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      Skirmishes over new borders in the Balkans, for example, recently discussed in a “disputed non-paper,” could potentially spin out of control and into new regional wars. America’s allies in western Europe would not only be disappointed but fearful for their own future. Finally, other US allies around the world, especially members of the balancing coalition in Asia Pacific, such as Australia, would also know that they could no longer count on Washington.

      So far, no US administration has shown any intention to leave Europe as a vital area of America’s global footprint in which it had invested a vast amount of blood and treasure over the past century. Russia also wants what every nation wants — security and the absence of competition along its borders. This brings us to what the historian Michael Howard once called “the most dangerous of all moods,” in which the US would not accept relegation to the second rank in the European subsystem. Russia would also never tolerate a similar outcome for itself in its own neighborhood.

      Thus, Ukraine, which the US is not treaty-bound to defend, will remain a hotspot. The most exposed states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — to which the US does have an obligation under NATO’s Article 5, will remain vulnerable largely for reasons of their geography. Other central and eastern European countries, such as Poland, Romania or Bulgaria, will continue to harbor fears of Russian geopolitical ambitions. The only question is how long this strategic rivalry may mitigate the most dangerous outcome and evade a spiral toward a wider European disorder.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Republican resistance: dissenting Texas leads the anti-Biden charge

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      First it was tighter restrictions on voting. Then stringent limits on abortion. Then a relaxation of gun laws. And that was just May.Texas, a state famed for its independent streak and doing everything bigger, is staking an early claim as the bulwark of Republican opposition to Joe Biden’s administration. It is a mirror image of the previous four years when California, the only state more populous than Texas, emerged as the bastion of Democratic resistance to Donald Trump’s agenda.The defiance of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and then attorney general, Xavier Becerra, in filing more than a hundred lawsuits against the Trump administration over gun control, immigration and other issues was seen as a ray of hope for liberals during some dark years.Now the shoe is on the other foot. Texas – which sued Barack Obama’s administration 48 times during his two terms – became thefirst state to file a suit against Biden’s White House in January, just two days after he took office, successfully blocking a freeze on deportations.Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, has since unleashed a barrage of legal challenges regarding everything from environmental regulations to funding for a healthcare program to tax policy under Biden’s coronavirus relief package.It was also Texas that led a lawsuit in January seeking to overturn the presidential election results in four battleground states that Donald Trump lost. The effort was thrown out by the supreme court but helped establish Texas as a voice of dissent in the Biden era.“I think this is going to be home base for the Republican reactionary forces,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “Federalism in America turns out to be an enclave for increasingly ideological politics and, especially when the out party in Washington is looking for hope and new ideas, they’re turning to these ideological enclaves at the state level.”There is an important difference from the California example, however. The Golden State might have produced Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan but has since become overwhelmingly Democratic: Biden won it with 11m votes to Trump’s 6m. In Texas, however, the Republican advantage has been eroding since George W Bush was president: Trump gained 5.9m votes to Biden’s 5.3m.Jacobs added: “You look at the growing numbers of American ‘immigrants’ coming from California to Texas, the growing number of educated voters who tend to vote Democrat and the potential Latino vote, particularly in the main urban areas, and how long Texas remains a stronghold for the Republican party is something that’s been debated for some time.“You’re seeing this hard-right move in Texas, but it’s not clear that Texas is going to remain hard right.”Republicans’ current domination of the state government, however, is enabling them to embrace Trumpian politics while the going is still good. Like their colleagues in other state houses, party officials in Texas have exploited Trump’s baseless claims of fraud to justify new rules in the name of election security.Proposed legislation includes expanding what poll watchers are allowed to do, creating an oath for people who volunteer to help voters who need assistance, and establishing criminal penalties for election officials for sending mail ballot applications. Activists say the measures will make it harder for poor people and people of colour to vote. The measures failed to pass on Sunday before a midnight deadline, after Democrats staged a walkout. However, governor Greg Abbott has vowed to bring the bill back at a special session. Abbott recently signed a law that bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, possibly as early as six weeks – before many women even know they are pregnant. “The life of every unborn child with a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion,” he declared.This week a bill that would let Texans carry concealed handguns without any permit passed the state legislature and headed to the desk of Abbott, who has promised to sign it. The move was cheered by the National Rifle Association and Ted Cruz, a Texas senator, who tweeted: “This is excellent news for law-abiding, second-amendment loving Texans.”The Texas Democratic party argues that such policies are the work of one Republican faction, not all of it, and out of step with the wishes of the population and that Republicans will be punished in next year’s midterm elections.Luke Warford, its chief strategy officer, argues this makes the situation different from California during the Trump years. “The California Democratic party and their elected officials are probably doing stuff that’s in line with what the population of California supports and believes,” he said by phone from Austin, the state capital.“All this stuff the Texas Republicans are doing right now is not wildly popular. It’s not in line with the populace writ large. I understand the right wing of the party’s logic in trying to drum up their base and be Trump version 2.0 but I think they’re going to pay for it in [midterm elections in] 2022. When we look at the Republican party of Texas, we see fragmentation.”Warford points to the example of February’s winter storm that killed 111 people and caused one of the biggest power blackouts in American history, when more than 4 million customers lost heat. “Texans are dying in their home and we just had an entire legislative session where they didn’t meaningfully address that. It wasn’t a priority.”He also dismissed Texas Republicans’ attempts to sue the Biden administration as “performative”, adding: “It’s good for a fundraising email and to be able to beat your chest and say, ‘I stood up to the administration’, but I think they’re not going to be successful in a lot of those instances.“The reality is that Texans are not looking at the Biden administration being like, ‘They’re terrible, let’s stand up to them’. I think they’re looking at the Biden administration being like, ‘We all got vaccinated and we all got cheques. This is pretty good. Why are our Republican leaders screaming about them?’”Texas has its fair share of Trump cheerleaders. Cruz has swallowed his pride to become a loyal devotee, while his Senate colleague John Cornyn recently questioned whether Biden is “really in charge”. Dan Patrick, the Texas lieutenant governor, offered up to $1m for evidence of voter fraud after Trump’s defeat. Louie Gohmert, a US congressman from Texas, downplayed the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.And next month Dallas in Texas hosts a spin-off from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a staunchly pro-Trump gathering, under the banner “America UnCanceled”.But the vast state, which like California borders Mexico, faces stiff competition for the crown of Republican government in exile. Florida is Trump’s adopted home and its governor, Ron DeSantis, has gained a higher profile than Abbott as a rightwing populist who might himself run for president.Bill Whalen, a former media consultant for California politicians including former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said: “Governor Jerry Brown got very vocal with Trump, especially on climate change stuff, but Newsom took it to a whole other level when he came into office, I think at one point calling himself the leader of the resistance.“That was about Gavin Newsom having White House aspirations. I look at Florida now because I see DeSantis doing the same as Newsom, really trying to put himself as the vanguard of his party and the lead voice of opposition. I see Florida being held up by its governor as the anti-Biden, anti-Democratic model.”But Texas does retain one advantage, at least for now. Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, added: “Florida is still a swing state. As much as Democrats would like to talk about Texas being a swing state, it’s not there right now.” More

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      ‘Real compromise’ possible on Biden infrastructure plan, key Republican says

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      Negotiations with Joe Biden over a potentially massive infrastructure investment package are inching forward even though disagreements remain over the size and scope of such legislation, Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito said on Sunday.“I think we can get to real compromise, absolutely, because we’re both still in the game,” Capito told Fox News Sunday.Capito leads a group of six Republicans in regular contact with Biden and White House aides over a bill the administration wants to move through Congress promptly.The Republicans have proposed $928bn to improve roads, bridges and other traditional infrastructure projects. Much of the funding would come from money already enacted into law for other purposes.The administration’s latest offer in negotiations is for $1.7tn and would include spending on projects that go beyond traditional infrastructure, such as homecare for the elderly.The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, told ABC’s This Week: “There’s movement in the right direction, but a lot of concern … We need to make investments over and above what would have happened anyway.” He also highlighted the need for using the infrastructure bill to address climate change and indicated opposition to shifting Covid-19 relief money to infrastructure accounts.Capito said that following a White House meeting which Republicans viewed as productive, Biden aides stepped away from some ideas Republicans pushed.“We have had some back and forth with the staff that sort of pulled back a little bit but I think we’re smoothing out those edges,” said the West Virginia senator, whose state stands to benefit significantly from infrastructure investment.Republicans continued to balk at raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to help finance the projects.“I’m not going to vote to overturn those,” Capito said when asked about rolling back some tax cuts enacted during the Trump administration.She also held the line against including new funding for projects that go beyond physical infrastructure, saying those could be considered in other measures.Talks are expected to continue this week even though Congress is on a break, with the Senate returning on 7 June. When lawmakers return to Washington, Biden will be under pressure from Democrats to sidestep Republicans if talks do not show signs of significant progress.Buttigieg told CNN’s State of the Union there needed to be a clear direction on the infrastructure bill. “The president keeps saying ‘Inaction is not an option’ and time is not unlimited here,” he said.The New York Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand told CNN: “I think waiting any longer for Republicans to do the right thing is a misstep … I would go forward.”The Senate could use the “reconciliation” process that requires only a simple majority to advance legislation, instead of the usual 60-vote threshold. The Senate is split 50-50 with Vice-President Kamala Harris having the power to break deadlocks.It is not clear if all Democrats would go along with such a process. More

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      ‘Wrong and un-American’: Biden blasts Texas Republicans’ SB7 voting bill

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      Joe Biden has condemned as “wrong and un-American” a Texas state bill set to pass into law which the president said “attacks the sacred right to vote”, particularly among minorities.The bill, known as SB7, clamps down on measures such as drive-through voting and voting on Sundays. It would also empower partisan poll-watchers. Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, has said he will sign it. Democrats have said they will challenge it in court.The bill follows moves in other Republican-controlled states which sponsors insist merely seek to guard against voter fraud but which are seen by most analysts to be aimed at restricting voting by sections of the population which tend to vote Democratic.According to the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, nearly 400 such bills have been filed this year across the US, in 14 states.Biden has already blasted such measures, for instance calling laws in Georgia “Jim Crow in the 21st century”, a reference to the system of racist segregation which remained in place for 100 years after the civil war.As in other states, major corporations have warned Texas that SB7 could harm democracy and the economy. Republicans have shrugged off such objections and in some cases ripped business leaders for speaking out.The two Republicans who put SB7 together, Texas senator Bryan Hughes and representative Briscoe Cain, called the bill “one of the most comprehensive and sensible election reform bills” in state history.In a joint statement, they said: “Even as the national media minimises the importance of election integrity, the Texas legislature has not bent to headlines or corporate virtue signalling.”Biden countered: “Today, Texas legislators put forth a bill that joins Georgia and Florida in advancing a state law that attacks the sacred right to vote. It’s part of an assault on democracy that we’ve seen far too often this year –and often disproportionately targeting Black and brown Americans.“It’s wrong and un-American. In the 21st century, we should be making it easier, not harder, for every eligible voter to vote.”Republicans have acted to tighten voting laws as the man Biden beat in the presidential election, Donald Trump, continues to dominate GOP politics and to claim his defeat was the result of mass electoral fraud, a lie repeatedly thrown out of court.On Saturday, Biden said Congress should pass two federal measures, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Both face failure in a Senate split 50-50 and where key Democrats have said they will not support moves to abolish the filibuster, the 60-vote threshold by which the minority can block legislation.Trump’s lies about the election fuelled the deadly attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on 6 January. On Friday, Senate Republicans used the filibuster to block the formation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate that riot.Regarding the Texas bill, Biden said he “continue[d] to call on all Americans, of every party in persuasion, to stand up for our democracy and protect the right to vote and the integrity of our elections”.Prominent Texas Democrats were equally quick to register their dismay.Julián Castro, a former US housing secretary and candidate for the presidential nomination, said: “The final draft of Texas Republicans’ voter suppression bill is as bad as you can get.”SB7, he said, “restricts registration, absentee, weekend voting and polling hours … ends curb-side voting and discourages rides to polls” and includes a “disability check” for mailed ballots.“We must defeat SB7,” Castro said.The former congressman and Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, who also ran for the presidential nomination and like Castro is seen as a potential candidate for governor, thanked Biden for supporting voting rights in the state.“As you said, we should be making it easier, not harder, for every eligible voter to vote,” he wrote. “The only way to do that now is by passing the For the People Act.”Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has said he will force a vote on that measure in June.The Texas Democratic party called SB7 a “Frankenstein’s monster”. In an emailed statement, Rose Clouston, the party’s voter protection director, said: “A bedrock principle of our democracy is that voters pick their leaders. However, right now, Texas Republicans are trying to hand pick their voters.”Sarah Labowitz, policy and advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, told the New York Times SB7 was “a ruthless piece of legislation”, as “it targets voters of colour and voters with disabilities, in a state that’s already the most difficult place to vote in the country.” More

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      Joe Biden seeks Republican buy-in but how long before patience snaps?

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      It’s become a familiar process in the Joe Biden era.Biden and Democrats say they will work with Republicans. Republicans say they want a seat at the negotiating table. Then the prospect of Democrats going alone begins to hover over the negotiations.As Biden tries to pass an ambitious and transformative agenda as part of America’s recovery from the pandemic, he has repeatedly said he wants to bring Republicans over to his side. Yet at the same time he has tried to draw a line in the sand beyond which compromise is impossible.It has been like that on how the Biden administration has approached tackling a coronavirus relief package. It’s been like that on confirming some of Biden’s cabinet secretaries. And it’s how Biden has approached his next set of major initiatives, which range from upgrading roads and bridges to helping Americans with childcare.The jury on whether the White House’s political strategy will work is still out. Biden and his team have not yet walked away from talks with Republicans on major legislative proposals. But they have also actively kept the go-it-alone option alive.Case in point: on Thursday the Republican group charged with negotiating an infrastructure deal with the Biden administration rolled out its latest counter offer, a $928bn plan with about $257bn in new spending.When those Republican senators unveiled their latest proposal the divide between the White House’s new infrastructure spending and Republicans’ was about $1.4tn. It’s a gap that would seem like the last straw.Less than a week before this latest proposal, Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the lead Republican negotiator, left a meeting at the White House and released a statement from her team saying “the groups seem further apart after two meetings with White House staff than they were after one meeting with President Biden.”But on the day Capito’s team revealed the newest offer, the senator was optimistic. She briefly spoke with Biden later on Thursday. She described the call as “very positive”.But if there was any agreement on Thursday it was that these discussions would not last endlessly.“He’s said this consistently and I think I feel this way too – you don’t want to drag this on for ever,” Capito added.Biden himself said as much the same day.“We’re going to have to close this down soon,” he said.At stake is hundreds of billions of dollars for not just the common types of improvements an infrastructure bill would cover – like roads and bridges – but also incentives for setting up a national grid for electric vehicles, significant investments in the education system, updating research and development and improving the US supply chain.But the sense of urgency is not unique to infrastructure negotiations. Even with Democrats controlling the presidency, Senate and the House of Representatives they have to grapple with the filibuster legislative mechanism in the Senate and slim majorities in both chambers.As a result, there’s always a threat. With infrastructure, Democrats have allowed the possibility of passing some kind of package through a budgetary maneuver called reconciliation. And with other priorities, like a voting rights overhaul or setting up a bipartisan commission to investigate the 6 January attack on the Capitol, Democrats have increasingly shaken their fists and said something must be done if Republicans won’t compromise.On Thursday Republicans showed just how far their interest in compromising went. The Senate failed to move forward on the 6 January commission after the bipartisan panel fell short of the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold, with just six Republican senators joining Democrats in a 54-35 vote.Some Republicans had argued that a commission was unnecessary. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said on Thursday that while he supported investigations into the 6 January mob attack, he saw no reason for the type of committee Democrats have been pushing.Democrats have argued that congressional gridlock on the commission and a voting rights bill could lead even the final filibuster reform holdouts to throw up their hands.Democrats have argued that the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold is too often impossible to achieve and effectively stalls almost all legislating in the Senate.“There is no excuse for any Republican to vote against this commission since Democrats have agreed to everything they’ve asked for,” the Democratic senator Joe Manchin said on Thursday. “Mitch McConnell has made this his political position, thinking it will help his 2022 elections. They do not believe the truth will set you free, so they continue to live in fear.”On infrastructure, Biden and his advisers have signaled a willingness to keep negotiating with Republicans for a few more weeks, longer than they had previously said. But Democrats’ patience is dwindling.On Wednesday Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia stressed the importance of passing some kind of voting rights bill soon.“I think we’ve got to get something done in time to do something about voter suppression bills that have already passed,” Warnock said. More

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      Joe Biden stakes out position against discriminatory abortion rule

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      For the first time in nearly 30 years, a US president has released a budget that doesn’t ban federal funding for abortion.On Friday Joe Biden released his full budget proposal for fiscal year 2022, and in keeping with his campaign promise on abortion access, Biden did not include the Hyde amendment, an annual budget rider that bans federal Medicaid money from being used for almost all abortions. (There are exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or that would threaten the pregnant person’s life.)Hyde dramatically limits abortion coverage for millions of people with low incomes enrolled in the federal health insurance program, creating a two-tiered system of access. Advocates and lawmakers have called Hyde discriminatory, harmful and racist. But for years, Democratic and Republican administrations upheld the ban because of voter support and anti-abortion stigma.“We are thrilled that President Biden kept his campaign promise and submitted a budget without the Hyde amendment,” said Destiny Lopez, the co-president of All* Above All, a reproductive justice organization that has led the effort to repeal abortion coverage bans. “The Hyde amendment has, for more than 40 years, denied insurance coverage of abortion for people working to make ends meet and today will mark the first time in literal decades that our president has submitted a budget without the Hyde amendment.”Reproductive rights and justice advocates have long noted that a right to abortion without access is a right in name only, and restrictions like Hyde can place often insurmountable barriers to access abortion, while perpetuating racial and economic inequality – two issues Biden campaigned on. Black, Latino and LGBTQ people are disproportionately likely to have low incomes and get insurance through Medicaid, thereby facing the coverage ban.Abortion at 10 weeks of pregnancy costs an average of $550, and costs increase as the pregnancy progresses. People face other costs including taking unpaid time off work, childcare as most people seeking abortions are already parents, and travel costs. People with low incomes may need time to gather funds because their insurance doesn’t cover abortion and they can get caught in a cruel cycle as the procedure just gets more expensive, or even approach the gestational limit in their state.Taken together, Hyde functions as a de facto abortion ban for many. A 2009 literature review estimated that one in four women with restricted Medicaid would have an abortion if their insurance covered it but instead are forced to carry the pregnancy to term. A 2019 study in Louisiana came to a similar conclusion. Women denied a wanted abortion are more likely to experience poverty both six months and four years later than are those who receive an abortion, per a 2018 study.A 2019 poll commissioned by All* Above All found that six in 10 registered voters believe Medicaid should cover abortion services just like it covers other pregnancy-related care. And Lopez said ending Hyde fits squarely within Biden’s stated priorities of racial equity and economic security. “The president and the administration understand that the same folks who are bearing the brunt of this pandemic, and the brunt of this national reckoning on racial justice, are the ones who have been harmed by Hyde,” she said.Friday’s budget is historic, said Yamani Hernandez, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, a membership organization for mutual aid groups that help people pay for abortion expenses and coordinate travel. “For years, Black, Indigenous and people of color have organized to highlight abortion injustices that have disproportionately weighed on their shoulders, and today they have finally been heard,” Hernandez.While 16 states use their own funds to cover abortion for Medicaid enrollees, in 2019, 7.7 million reproductive-age women with Medicaid lived in the 34 states and Washington DC that ban abortion coverage. Of the women subject to the bans, 51% are women of color. The move will have less effect in the 12 states that still have not expanded Medicaid because without higher income thresholds, it’s harder for low-income adults without children to qualify for the program.Biden’s budget also removes a ban on abortion coverage for low-income residents of Washington DC. It was not clear at press time if the budget included other restrictions similar to Hyde that limit coverage for people with disabilities insured through Medicare, as well as for federal employees, military personnel, Native Americans using the Indian Health Service (IHS), Peace Corps volunteers, people incarcerated in federal prisons, and. In fiscal year 2015, federal funds covered just 160 abortions.Hyde has been passed every year since 1976 and not since 1993 has a president released a budget without Hyde, though that effort from President Bill Clinton failed in the House. Repealing Hyde was in the Democratic party platform for the first time in 2016 and in the 2020 cycle, Biden was the last Democratic presidential candidate to support its repeal. Following criticism in June 2019, Biden reversed his long-held support and said, “I can’t justify leaving millions of women without access to the care they need and the ability to … exercise their constitutionally protected right.”Proponents of repealing Hyde were worried that Biden might not follow through with his campaign promise, especially since he has yet to even say the word “abortion”. Advocates say it is an important show of support at a critical time: Last week, the supreme court agreed to hear a case regarding a Mississippi 15-week ban that directly challenges Roe v Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion.Biden’s move may be largely symbolic, though an important act to advocates. The president’s budget proposal is non-binding, and it’s up to Congress to write and pass the final version that gets sent to his desk. The House appropriations committee chair, Rosa DeLauro, has vowed not to include Hyde in future House spending bills, a move that the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, supports. If the budget passes the House, it will face a 50-50 Senate, with several centrist Democratic senators who support Hyde. Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Tim Kaine of Virginia all voted to include Hyde in the Covid-19 relief bill passed in March, but the effort ultimately failed.“As with many progressive issues, the Senate is more challenging,” Lopez said, adding: “We will get there. It’s important to put down these markers of support, for the leader of our party to put down a marker that he supports abortion justice, that he supports lifting of abortion coverage bans.”Separately, the House has introduced legislation known as the Each Act that would permanently repeal the Hyde amendment, removing it from the annual budget process. Vice-President Kamala Harris co-sponsored the bill when it was first introduced in 2019. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden proposes $6tn budget to boost infrastructure, education and climate

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      Joe Biden set out a $6tn budget proposal on Friday that, if passed, would fund a sweeping overhaul of US infrastructure and pour money into education and climate action, while driving government spending to its highest sustained levels since the second world war.The president’s first budget is largely a political document, and faces months of difficult negotiations in Congress where Republicans are already balking at the scale of his spending plans. But it clearly sets out Biden’s ambition to remake the US after the coronavirus pandemic.“Now is the time to build on the foundation that we’ve laid, to make bold investments in our families, in our communities, in our nation,” Biden told a crowd in Cleveland on Thursday. “We know from history that these kinds of investments raise both the floor and the ceiling of an economy for everybody.”Republicans immediately attacked the plan. Senator Mitch McConnell said it would “drown American families in debt, deficits, and inflation.”The White House has set out a two-part plan to overhaul the US economy by upgrading its infrastructure and expanding its social safety net. The costs of the programmes would lead to the US running annual deficits of over $1.3tn over the next decade and debt rising to 117% of the value of economic output by 2031.Alongside rebuilding bridges, roads, airports and other infrastructure, Biden has proposed a $13bn federal investment to roll out broadband internet access. Democrats are also pushing to expand and reform the US’s social programmes with government money for paid family leave and universal pre-school.In part the plan would be funded by tax increases on corporations and the very wealthy. Biden has already proposed increasing US corporation taxes to 28% from 21%, a plan opposed by all Republicans and some Democrats.Biden has said he is willing to negotiate with his political opponents on the shape and size of his proposals, but he will struggle to find Republican support for his agenda. No Republicans voted for his $1.9tn Covid stimulus bill and he has already been forced to scale back his infrastructure bill to $1.7tn from the originally proposed $2.2tn effort.The economy has improved markedly since Biden took office and the pandemic began to wane in the US. More than half of the country is now fully vaccinated and hiring has picked up as the economy has reopened.But the Biden administration believes the pandemic highlighted many structural issues with the US economy that need to be addressed by federal spending.Unemployment rates for Black and Latino Americans remain disproportionately high and women were hit particularly hard by the pandemic recession – in many cases because a lack of affordable childcare prevented them from working.A huge increase in government spending has fueled concerns about rising inflation. Prices on goods including lumber, cars and chicken have soared in recent months, and the commerce department said on Friday that the personal consumption expenditures index, a key measure of inflation, increased by 3.1% in April from a year ago, its highest level since 1992.On Thursday the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said the budget would push US debt above the size of the US economy, but said the proposed plan was responsible and would not contribute to inflationary pressures.“I believe it is a fiscally responsible program,” Yellen told a House appropriations subcommittee. More