Here’s what’s in the deal, which economists gave a decent grade:
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Two years of federal spending limits in exchange for pushing future debt-ceiling discussions beyond the 2024 elections.
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An end to the Biden administration’s freeze on student loan payments.
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Stricter work requirements for public assistance programs, including food stamps, though Medicaid won’t be affected. (The requirements drew opposition from both sides of the aisle.)
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A streamlined approval process for energy projects — known as permitting — through the creation of a single agency to oversee the matter. The deal also includes approval for a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline through West Virginia, a win for Senator Joe Manchin.
Not included in the bill are any major commitments to reduce the $31.4 trillion national debt. But The Times calculates that nondiscretionary spending cuts could save $860 billion over the next decade, and the reductions aren’t expected to inflict much pain on the economy.
The House could vote on the deal as soon as Wednesday. But some Republican members of the Rules Committee have already come out against the bill. (One, Representative Chip Roy of Texas, has argued that all nine of the committee’s Republicans must sign off on all legislation before the panel.)
There are hurdles in the Senate as well, with Republicans including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah objecting to the bill and threatening delays.
The clock is ticking. As of last Thursday, the Treasury Department’s cash balance was at a six-year low of less than $39 billion. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen now reckons that the government will run out of money on June 5.
Why music stars can’t say no to the “private”
Private gigs — “privates,” in music industry lingo — are seemingly popping up everywhere, from charity galas in Manhattan to luxury hotel openings in the Persian Gulf. Bankrolled by the ultrarich and companies, these intimate star-studded performances are off-limits to the general public.
The private has become a reliable moneymaker for both chart-toppers and performers well past their prime, Evan Osnos writes in an entertaining, f-bomb-filled article in The New Yorker that opens with Flo Rida, the rapper, playing a bar mitzvah in Lincolnshire, an affluent Chicago suburb.
For years, the world of privates was dominated by aging crooners, a category known delicately as “nostalgia performers.” Jacqueline Sabec, an entertainment lawyer in San Francisco, who has negotiated many private-gig contracts, told me, “Artists used to say no to these all the time, because they just weren’t cool.”
But misgivings have receded dramatically. In January, Beyoncé did her first show in more than four years — not in a stadium of screaming fans but at a new hotel in Dubai, earning a reported $24 million for an hourlong set.
Few turn down the money from doing a private nowadays, with Jennifer Lopez, Maroon 5 and Eric Clapton all agreeing to them. Even younger artists don’t fear any stigma from what one agent said is ultimately a situation where “it’s a convention or a party, and you just happen to be making noise at one end of it.”
