October 2021

A friend of mine called me this week to get my take on the reconciliation and infrastructure bills making their way through Congress. He’s a small businessman who owns and operates more than 20 fitness centers across the state of Maryland, and his primary concern is over how Employee Retention Credits (ERCs) will be treated in the bills. As you can imagine, the past year and a half have been extremely challenging for his business, and the ERCs provided some degree of financial support. The issue he faces is while previous Covid relief legislation extended the credits through the fourth quarter of this year, the infrastructure bill inadvertently ends them after the third quarter. However, there has been discussion among lawmakers about rectifying the disconnect in the reconciliation bill. Although the ERCs are his immediate concern, and their eventual treatment will mean hundreds of thousands of dollars to his business, his longer-term concern is the breakdown in the legislative process.

My son is a huge comic book enthusiast. He was first introduced to them as a child; had his own Odd Couple-like strip called “Hubert and Brian” about the adventures of polar bear and penguin trying to find their way home; moved on to Manga, the Watchmen, and graphic novels like Saga; and now uses the medium to connect with his elementary school students. So, while it shocked me that Superman changed his motto from “Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” to “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow,” my son had seen it coming for some time. While I’ve always felt that the American way is the path to a better tomorrow, it was still jarring to see how starkly segments of our society no longer view the country in this way. As a practitioner of government affairs, I am well aware of the deep partisan divides in our country as well as the grievances that have led some to want to fundamentally transform America.

Last night, former Washington National and future Hall of Famer, Max Sherzer recorded the first save of his career to send the Los Angeles Dodgers to the National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves. As exciting as the game was, for politicos it was nowhere near as intriguing as the “inside baseball” that is going on in the nation’s capital.

Thought of the Week: What is the MTB? And why is the Washington office lobbying for it?  The What: The Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) temporarily suspends or reduces tariffs on certain imported products. Many in Congress support MTBs as a relatively low-cost method of providing a competitive edge to U.S. businesses by reducing tariffs on