Joseph O’Sullivan notes that “Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is on a quest to bring back the Blue Dogs: The Democratic congresswoman’s strategy of appealing to working-class rural moderates won her Washington’s 3rd District,” and asks. “Will it work anywhere else?” at cascadepbs.org. As O’Sullivan explains, “Standing beneath towering shelves of kegs in the back of Vancouver’s Loowit Brewing, U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has just given a thank-you talk to her supporters after squeaking through another tight election. As she wraps up her remarks in that December gathering and pauses for questions, a man in the crowd speaks up: “I’d like to see you expand the Blue Dog Coalition … I think that’s exactly what we need at the broader level.”…The Blue Dog Coalition, an ever-shifting group of moderate and independent House Democrats, might not be a household name. But it’s not the first time the auto-mechanic-turned-congresswoman, who won reelection even as her southwestern Washington District voted for President Donald Trump, has heard a comment like this… “I have had so many people come up to me in D.C., and be like, ‘Hey, you know, I think we should, like, maybe start something that’s oriented around people in the trades and who are working for a living,” Gluesenkamp Perez said to the crowd. “And I’ll slowly put on my Blue Dogs hat, ‘Like you mean what we’ve been doing?’”…In 2022, Gluesenkamp Perez’s first win shocked the political world. A young mother, auto-shop owner and Latina from rural Skamania County with little political support managed to win an open seat that had been held by a Republican for a decade…As the Democratic Party struggles to respond to its November losses, aging leadership and the Trump administration’s aggressive attempts to expand executive power and impose its will, Gluesenkamp Perez and the handful of Blue Dogs are offering a different brand of politics to expand the party’s tent…The congresswoman and her colleagues are also trying to do something more ambitious than next year’s elections: They want to deliver a policy agenda that serves working people and brings more rural voters back to the Democratic Party for the long term.”

O’Sullivan adds, further, “Retaking the House might be the easiest of Democrats’ challenges, with the party needing to pick up just three seats in a midterm cycle – when the president’s party often loses seats…But as population growth has shifted toward big, Republican-leaning states and the GOP’s redistricting efforts have made it harder for Democrats to win, the party faces a steep challenge in expanding their appeal. One need only look at the U.S. Senate, where on paper, Democrats have little discernible path to a majority in the near future…It remains to be seen whether Gluesenkamp Perez’s political approach will translate beyond Washington’s 3rd Congressional District – which includes all of Clark, Cowlitz, Lewis, Pacific, Skamania and Wahkiakum counties as well as a nibble of Thurston County. Meanwhile, when the representative defends her seat again next year, she’ll face a new dynamic…Late last month at a Vancouver town hall, the congresswoman drew protests and anger from constituents upset about her vote for the SAVE Act, a Republican-sponsored bill aimed at securing elections from voter fraud. Gluesenkamp Perez will have to hold together her fragile coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans against what is likely to be a fresh GOP opponent…In a phone interview a few hours after she questioned Bessent, the congresswoman said that “Tariffs are one tool, but to actually bring back domestic manufacturing is going to require, you know, some of the antitrust work.”…”It’s gonna require permitting reform,” she added. “It’s gonna require shop class in junior high.”…That Gluesenkamp Perez and other Blue Dogs, like Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, don’t necessarily reject some Trump policies might leave some Democrats with heartburn – but that’s part of their appeal to voters in conservative-leaning districts.”…Today, there are 10 Blue Dogs, hailing from Texas, New Jersey, California, Maine, Washington and Georgia.” Make this entire article your must-read for the day.

In “How Trump’s megabill transfers wealth in the US,” Tami Luhby and Zachary B. Wolf report at CNN Politics: “Here’s a look at how the “one big, beautiful bill” takes benefits from lower-income Americans in order to cut taxes, primarily for the wealthy…But CBO’s initial estimates found that the package’s tax measures would increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion over a decade, while other provisions would cut nearly $1 trillion in federal support for Medicaid and food stamps over that period…Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income Americans, would face the largest cuts in the package, with CBO projecting a nearly $700 billion reduction in federal spending. Meanwhile, food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, would face a $267 billion cut in federal support…The bill would also increase spending for defense, immigration enforcement and homeland security, while pulling back on federal spending in some other areas…Overall, the bill would add $3.1 trillion to the nation’s debt, including interest, over the next decade, according to an early independent analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget…Cuts to Medicaid and food stamps would decrease government support for low-income Americans, while tax reductions would benefit high-income households in the coming years, according to a Congressional Budget Office report…Currently, if Congress doesn’t act, most Americans would see their taxes increase because the individual income tax cuts from the 2017 bill are set to expire at the end of this year. The House package would make permanent essentially all of those provisions.” Read more here.

However, Democrats do have an opportunity to exploit divisions among Senate  Republicans, as Ed Pilkington reports at The Guardian: “Donald Trump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US Senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”…Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who rose to prominence as a fiscal hardliner with the Tea Party movement, issued the warning to the president on Sunday. Asked by CNN’s State of the Union whether his faction had the numbers to halt the bill, he replied: “I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”…Trump has invested a large portion of his political capital in the massive package. It extends the 2017 tax cuts from his first administration in return for about $1tn in benefits cuts including reductions in the health insurance scheme for low-income families, Medicaid, and to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) food stamps….The bill squeaked through US House by just one vote on Thursday. It now faces a perilous welcome in the upper legislative chamber…Sunday’s admonitions from prominent senators angered by the failure to address the budget deficit bodes ill for Trump’s agenda given the tightness of the Republicans’ congressional majorities. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, can afford to lose only three votes from among his party’s 53…Thune has indicated that changes to the bill might be needed to bring refuseniks on side. That in turn could present the House speaker, Mike Johnson, with a headache.”