Good morning—I’m Walter Shapiro, staff writer for The New Republic, who will be your spirit guide this morning. First of all, if you’re yawning as you read this, I hope it’s because you were up at 4:00 a.m. (Eastern) in the morning watching the longest eclipse of the moon in 580 years. But if you took the other route and watched the longest House speech since at least 1909, then you have my deepest sympathies. Also, I have a few recommendations of therapists.

For eight hours and 32 minutes, as night shifted into morning, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy railed against the Democrats’ Build Back Better plan that was poised to finally pass the House last night. I will not attempt to summarize McCarthy’s remarks, but I will offer a hint: It wasn’t Demosthenes.

It is hard to come up with tactical logic for McCarthy’s logorrhea since all it did was to move the vote on the centerpiece of the Joe Biden social agenda to this morning. Maybe when McCarthy started, he wanted to be able to claim that the Democrats were so embarrassed by the $1.85 trillion spending plan that they passed it in the dead of the night. Or maybe the shameless McCarthy was going to express shock that even the moon shut down its light in the face of the Democratic socialist agenda.

My own guess is that McCarthy is getting spooked by the talk that maybe Donald Trump should be installed as House speaker if the voters give the GOP a majority next year. Earlier this week, Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, said on Steve Bannon’s podcast, “I would love to see the gavel go from Nancy Pelosi to Donald Trump. You talk about melting down, people would go crazy.” (A bit of constitutional trivia: The House speaker does not have to be a member of the House.)

McCarthy’s antics obscured the big news from Capitol Hill yesterday—the Biden social spending plan will probably have minimal impact on the long-term federal deficit. The rituals of Capitol Hill demand that the Congressional Budget Office do a cost assessment (a “score,” in congressional lingo) of every spending bill. At long last, the CBO estimated that the Build Back Better agenda would add a paltry $160 billion to the federal government’s $28 trillion debt over 10 years. Put another way, the CBO’s estimate is a rounding error. And there are serious economists, starting with Larry Summers, who is back in favor with the White House, who persuasively argue that better IRS enforcement could bring in as much as $400 billion in new revenues. The CBO puts that figure at just $200 billion.

The truth is that nobody knows what anything will end up costing over 10 years, starting with the Trump 2017 tax cuts. That’s why I am exasperated by the alarmist lead headline in this morning’s (print) New York Times: “Budget Analysts See Spending Bill Adding to Deficit: Democrats Pressing On: Forecast Contrasts With President’s Pledge on Safety Net Plan.”

In nonpolitical news this morning, I was struck by an eye-catching Wall Street Journal front-page investigative story on America’s largest chain of eye-surgery clinics, LasikPlus, which controls about one-third of the national market. According to the Journal, some doctors who had worked for LasikPlus “said they were expected to perform so many procedures each day they worried they couldn’t keep up.” As one doctor who quit the chain two years ago put it, “It felt like we were in a war zone all the time.” Scariest part of the Journal story was its discussion of the “100 Eye Club.” To join, you have to perform that many laser surgeries in a single exhausting day.

Finally, I was saddened to read of the death of songwriter and jazz pianist Dave Frishberg, at age 88. Whether you’re familiar with him or not, take a moment to listen to his comic song, “My Attorney Bernie.” It will be a highlight of your day.

Here at NewRepublic.com, health care expert Natalie Shure offers some cautionary words about Covid antiviral pills now on their way toward emergency approval. Shure’s point: They only will be effective in conjunction with still elusive rapid testing. Otherwise, as she puts it, “This is no silver bullet.” Our fearless editor, Michael Tomasky, has fun with the censured Paul Gosar’s pathetic attempts to liken himself to Alexander Hamilton. And Michael A. Cohen tries to defuse the growing fears—particularly among hawks—that China is poised to invade Taiwan.

May you have a glorious Build Back Better Day,
Walter Shapiro, staff writer

Yesterday’s history question: Paul Gosar is the first House member to be censured since Charlie Rangel 11 years ago (for various financial irregularities). Only five people have ever been expelled from the House. The two most recent expulsions followed bribery convictions in 1980 for Pennsylvania Democrat Michael “Ozzie” Myers (“Money talks in this business and bullshit walks”) and, in 2002, for Ohio Republican James Traficant (“I never do anything without a reason”). The other three expulsions occurred after the members in question committed a different offense. What was it? (Hint: The three expulsions all occurred in the same year.) 

Answer: Fighting for the Confederacy. The expulsions all happened in 1861, the first year of the Civil War.

Today’s question: A Senate election in 2006 featured two candidates whose fathers had been Yale roommates in the 1940s. Name the 2006 Senate candidates. And for extra credit, tell us something about the Yale roommate fathers. Hint: The winner of that election is still in the Senate.