ICYMI: Democrats’ bid to keep the Senate will involve plans to fight inflation and promises for a renewed agenda [CNBC]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

CNBC: Democrats’ bid to keep the Senate will involve plans to fight inflation and promises for a renewed agenda
By Thomas Franck
January 26th, 2022

Key Points:

• Democrats… plan to tout their party’s legislative accomplishments and ambitions – and to make the case that those policies are the best answer to voters’ concerns about Covid-19, inflation and the broader economy.

• They can promote their quick action under the Covid relief bill passed in the earlier, more successful stretch of President Joe Biden’s tenure, as well as a generational investment in the nation’s infrastructure.

• Uniting all factions of the Democratic Party and its supporters is a focus on one critical topic: fighting rising costs.

• A representative for Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign highlighted several efforts to lower costs and combat inflation.

• The campaign said the Georgia Democrat has in the last 12 months pushed the Biden administration for federal funding for the state’s ports, secured more than $140 million in grants to address affordable housing needs and introduced legislation to lower drug prices.

• “It shouldn’t cost working people an arm and a leg to get their prescriptions filled,” Warnock said in a Twitter post on Dec. 10. “I’m urging my Senate colleagues to support my Capping Prescription Costs Act to ensure every American can access the medication they need.”

• Many Democrats are touting efforts to lower costs. Jazmin Vargas, a representative for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Democrats running for office will tailor their messaging to that end.

• “We’re talking straight on about how we’re going to help people, get them back on their feet, put more money in the pockets of working families, lower costs, and also how Republicans are opposing these proposals,” Vargas said in an interview.

• She added that the economy added about 6.4 million jobs in 2021 — a record for a calendar year — as the U.S. rebounded from the Covid-19 recession. The recently passed bipartisan infrastructure bill, she added, should foster further job gains in the years ahead.

• Democrats from the White House to Capitol Hill have in recent weeks criticized their Republican rivals for changing their minds on transportation funding the majority of the GOP opposed but nonetheless promote in their home districts.

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