Daily Spending Update

The Hill reports, “Weak June manufacturing numbers released Monday intensified concern about the fragility of the economic recovery and turned election-watchers’ attention toward unemployment numbers due out at the end of this week. The reports, just four months before voters cast their ballots in the presidential election, come amid a wave of bad news on the global economy, which is seen by both the White House and President Obama’s critics as the most potent threat to his chances of securing a second term in office.”

While Congress has some important items on its plate, including the farm bill, postal reforms, and appropriations legislation, lawmakers face a very short window of time to get things done. According to The Hill, “Congress has been surprisingly productive during the first half of 2012 on bills ranging from highways to student loans to a ban on insider trading for lawmakers. But most on Capitol Hill believe that trend is in jeopardy. For a number of bills that have been in the works since the beginning of the 112th Congress, the next several weeks will be crucial. And those measures will have to compete for floor time with political messaging votes — like House moves to repeal the 2010 healthcare law and extend the full slate of Bush tax rates — that will take up a bulk of the election-season legislative calendar.”

Republican governors in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana have sworn to refuse to participate in the Medicaid expansion, a part of the Affordable Care Act. But the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein says, “Ignore them. The deal the federal government is offering states on Medicaid is too good to refuse. And that’s particularly true for the red states. If Mitt Romney loses the election and Republicans lose their chance to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they’re going to end up participating in the law. They can’t afford not to.”