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Capital Journal
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Good morning from the WSJ Washington bureau. We produce this newsletter each weekday to deliver exclusive insights and analysis from our reporting team in Washington. Sign up here.
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Biden Administration: President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris receive the daily brief at 10 a.m. ET. Ms. Harris hosts a reception for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for National Hispanic Heritage Month.
Congress: The House takes up the infrastructure bill (BIF) this afternoon; no vote is expected until Thursday. The Senate meets at 3 p.m. to take up a bill to avert a government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling. A cloture vote on the motion is expected at 5:30 p.m., but is unlikely to get the 60 votes needed to proceed.
Supply Chain: Tens of thousands of containers are stuck at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., the two West Coast gateways that move more than a quarter of all American imports.
Crypto Market: The U.S. is starting to lay a foundation for cryptocurrency rules. As early as this week, the Federal Reserve is set to lay out its views on the potential benefits and risks of issuing a U.S. digital currency.
Social Media: Facebook will pause the development of its Instagram for kids project, the company’s head said. The move follows WSJ reporting on Instagram's impact on teens.
Community Mediation: Political divisions in Cortez, Colo., grew so bitter the mayor and a team focused on violence prevention planned what was, in effect, a communitywide intervention.
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Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has said more than half her group of nearly 100 lawmakers won’t vote for the infrastructure bill until there is an agreement on the broader package. PHOTO: ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES
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Congress faces converging deadlines this week, report Kristina Peterson and Andrew Duehren. Government funding is set to expire at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 1, which would partially shut down the government if Congress doesn’t act. Lawmakers also are feuding over who is responsible for raising the debt limit and avoiding a potentially catastrophic default.
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Absent swift action, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress that the Treasury may be unable to keep paying all of the government’s bills on time during October.
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If the federal government can’t pay all its bills because of a political standoff, options include some measures Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has called loathsome.
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Meanwhile, Democratic leaders are trying to shepherd two legislative packages—a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion healthcare, education and climate package—that are caught up in a struggle between the party’s centrist and liberal wings. Here are five areas of disagreement among Democrats in talks over the broad budget bill.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter Sunday to House Democrats that the chamber wouldn’t vote on the infrastructure bill until Thursday, after earlier setting the vote for Monday.
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Liberal Democrats in both chambers have said their support for the infrastructure bill has always been linked to the Senate’s passage of the broader healthcare, education and climate package.
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PHOTO: MICHAEL BROCHSTEIN/ZUMA PRESS
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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.), a centrist, is an enigma in talks over the broader bill. She has said publicly she doesn't support the current $3.5 trillion price tag. But many Democrats remain uncertain over her policy stance and political calculations, report Eliza Collins and Kristina Peterson.
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PHOTO: JOEL MARTINEZ/ ASSOCIATED PRESS
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The American Dental Association is fighting a proposal in the broad bill to include dental coverage for all Medicare recipients, saying that Medicare won’t reimburse enough to cover their costs, reports Julie Bykowicz. It is pushing an alternative plan that would limit benefits to the poorest Medicare recipients.
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Democracy Is at Risk, but Both Parties Can Do Something to Protect It
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PHOTO: CAROLINE BREHMAN/SHUTTERSTOCK
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Doubts about election integrity are like a deadly virus moving through the body politic. Politicians should beware: Like any virus, this one can’t be contained on one side or the other of a partisan divide. Eventually it will infect and undermine all of democracy.
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In an ideal world, this should provide grounds for a legislative deal: protect and expand the right to vote on the one hand, while setting standards to ensure ballot integrity on the other. Whether we live in anything approaching that ideal world is a question tested right now in the U.S. Senate. Read the full Capital Journal column.
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DHS today plans to issue a proposal re-creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, through a formal regulation, reports Michelle Hackman. The program, which shields 600,000 young immigrants from deportation has been at the center of a yearslong legal battle focused in part on whether it was properly created.
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A federal judge in Texas ruled in July that Congress hadn’t given the government the necessary authority to create the program. The judge also said the program wasn’t properly implemented.
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The department’s proposal seeks to address the judge’s concerns over how the program was implemented but likely wouldn’t resolve the issue over congressional authority.
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Visit WSJ's coronavirus tracker page to see the areas where Covid-19 infections are rising fastest and trends in new U.S. cases and deaths.
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WHO is seeking to revive its inquiry into the origins of Covid-19. It is assembling a new team of about 20 scientists, whose members will be chosen by the end of the week, with a mandate to hunt for new evidence in China and elsewhere, report Drew Hinshaw and Betsy McKay. The latest effort could encounter resistance from Beijing.
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An estimated 1.1 million children lost a primary caregiver to Covid-19. Public-health experts predict lasting consequences for them.
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More than 19 months into the pandemic, many large employers have expanded their paid sick-time and leave offerings.
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The U.S. spent $145 billion to build a self-sustaining economy in Afghanistan—an economy that is now on the verge of collapse, report Sune Engel Rasmussen and Josh Mitchell. Afghanistan’s economy did grow, and millions of Afghans gained access to education, healthcare and jobs. But it relies overwhelmingly on foreign aid.
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The Taliban and Islamic State’s regional affiliate have repeatedly clashed in Afghanistan, as the Taliban seek to solidify control.
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In a troubled U.S.-China relationship, there are moments of pragmatism. Behind-the-scenes dealings that freed a Chinese executive from U.S. prosecution demonstrated a little-noticed dimension to the relationship between the nations, report James T. Areddy and Andrew Restuccia.
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A cryptocurrency expert is set to begin trial today on a charge that he conspired to violate a U.S. law prohibiting citizens from exporting technology to North Korea.
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Some House Democrats are alarmed by a lack of urgency from the White House over the whipping process for the infrastructure package going into a critical week. (Politico)
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Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney on "60 Minutes" said she was wrong in opposing gay marriage, a policy stance that broke with the stance of her father and sister, who is gay. "Freedom means freedom for everybody." (CBS News)
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The political style of Olaf Scholz, who has the best shot of forming a new government in Germany, is not dissimilar to that of Angela Merkel, despite hailing from a rival party. (CNN)
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This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Kate Milani, Troy McCullough, James Graff and Toula Vlahou. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter.
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