Biden infrastructure/tax increase megathread

[jojoju1998]

Apparently Progressives are offering to cut the length of the programs from 10 years to 5.

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2021/10/04/Progressives-offer-to-scale-back-spending-to-advance-Biden-s-agenda/stories/202110040051

"House progressives looking for ways to rescue President Joe Biden’s stalled domestic agenda opened the door to scaling back some of the more ambitious social spending by having those programs expire rather than be permanent.

“One of the ideas out there is to fully fund what we can fully fund, but instead of funding it for 10 years, fund it for five years,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and leading progressive voice, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Democrats are looking for ways out of their deadlock three days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scuttled a planned vote on a $550 billion infrastructure package. She retreated as progressives balked at a stand-alone bill without the $3.5 trillion social safety-net spending and tax increases they want.

Progressives say they’re willing to compromise on that number — within limits. The chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus flatly rejected Sen. Joe Manchin’s offer of $1.5 trillion in social spending."

[jojoju1998]

it is a total waste of tax money to give the kids of rich families free community college, to give rich yuppies free daycare, and to give rich seniors free vision and dental.

  This really makes no sense. First off most rich families are not sending their kids to Community College and if they did, so what?

 Nobody would say it's a waste of tax payer money for rich people to call the firefighters when their house is on fire.

 If we appropriately taxed the rich with a progressive tax system, why shouldn't they enjoy the benefit of public education or socialized medicine, they've paid for it!

What Matty is getting at is the new benefits geared towards community college benefits would disproportionately benefit wealthier taxpayers given that community college is heavily subsidized and practically free for low income earners, while it is not for high income earners.

I’d be OK with a linear sliding scale like they use for SNAP or SSI.

I'm find with means testing, but it needs to be generous

Community College is already free for low income people. Pell Grants are an option for about the lower half of the population

But about 80% of the population can not pay out of pocket. That is about 40% of the country that still needs more college aid

I am a big fan of SNAP, but it leaves out a lot of people who need it. I'm glad Biden raised the barriers but we need to raise the limit higher and increase benefits. Same for Pell Grant

I would double the current Pell Grant and increase eligbigty. I would also imposed a tution cap on all colleges/universities that use college loans/grants. Granted that doesn't help with housing or food, but we should really encourage more kids to live at home. I knew kids who had full rides on tution but had to go tens of thousands in debt to pay for housign???
 That would basically make college free for most people without actaully making it free. And Biden did promise that in the campaign

Quite contrary to conservatives overall I believe that four year public colleges should be free for all permitting a student has 1). 1200 SAT or higher 2). practical degrees with decent ROI in engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. It would be nice if colleges required macroeconomics and statistics as well.
The pays for can be addressed by barring the bottom ~25 percent of middle schoolers from enrolling in high school and thereby free up those resources.

4 year public colleges are already mostly free if you have that high of grades; and if you're majoring in a STEM Field.

You get scholarships.

[jojoju1998]

it is a total waste of tax money to give the kids of rich families free community college, to give rich yuppies free daycare, and to give rich seniors free vision and dental.

  This really makes no sense. First off most rich families are not sending their kids to Community College and if they did, so what?

 Nobody would say it's a waste of tax payer money for rich people to call the firefighters when their house is on fire.

 If we appropriately taxed the rich with a progressive tax system, why shouldn't they enjoy the benefit of public education or socialized medicine, they've paid for it!

What Matty is getting at is the new benefits geared towards community college benefits would disproportionately benefit wealthier taxpayers given that community college is heavily subsidized and practically free for low income earners, while it is not for high income earners.

I’d be OK with a linear sliding scale like they use for SNAP or SSI.

I'm find with means testing, but it needs to be generous

Community College is already free for low income people. Pell Grants are an option for about the lower half of the population

But about 80% of the population can not pay out of pocket. That is about 40% of the country that still needs more college aid

I am a big fan of SNAP, but it leaves out a lot of people who need it. I'm glad Biden raised the barriers but we need to raise the limit higher and increase benefits. Same for Pell Grant

I would double the current Pell Grant and increase eligbigty. I would also imposed a tution cap on all colleges/universities that use college loans/grants. Granted that doesn't help with housing or food, but we should really encourage more kids to live at home. I knew kids who had full rides on tution but had to go tens of thousands in debt to pay for housign???
 That would basically make college free for most people without actaully making it free. And Biden did promise that in the campaign

Quite contrary to conservatives overall I believe that four year public colleges should be free for all permitting a student has 1). 1200 SAT or higher 2). practical degrees with decent ROI in engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. It would be nice if colleges required macroeconomics and statistics as well.
The pays for can be addressed by barring the bottom ~25 percent of middle schoolers from enrolling in high school and thereby free up those resources.

1200 puts you in the top quarter and a 1350 puts you in the top tenth.

Well that would exclude all the white party school rich kids who just go to party school to study " business ".

[jojoju1998]

it is a total waste of tax money to give the kids of rich families free community college, to give rich yuppies free daycare, and to give rich seniors free vision and dental.

  This really makes no sense. First off most rich families are not sending their kids to Community College and if they did, so what?

 Nobody would say it's a waste of tax payer money for rich people to call the firefighters when their house is on fire.

 If we appropriately taxed the rich with a progressive tax system, why shouldn't they enjoy the benefit of public education or socialized medicine, they've paid for it!

What Matty is getting at is the new benefits geared towards community college benefits would disproportionately benefit wealthier taxpayers given that community college is heavily subsidized and practically free for low income earners, while it is not for high income earners.

I’d be OK with a linear sliding scale like they use for SNAP or SSI.

I'm find with means testing, but it needs to be generous

Community College is already free for low income people. Pell Grants are an option for about the lower half of the population

But about 80% of the population can not pay out of pocket. That is about 40% of the country that still needs more college aid

I am a big fan of SNAP, but it leaves out a lot of people who need it. I'm glad Biden raised the barriers but we need to raise the limit higher and increase benefits. Same for Pell Grant

I would double the current Pell Grant and increase eligbigty. I would also imposed a tution cap on all colleges/universities that use college loans/grants. Granted that doesn't help with housing or food, but we should really encourage more kids to live at home. I knew kids who had full rides on tution but had to go tens of thousands in debt to pay for housign???
 That would basically make college free for most people without actaully making it free. And Biden did promise that in the campaign

Quite contrary to conservatives overall I believe that four year public colleges should be free for all permitting a student has 1). 1200 SAT or higher 2). practical degrees with decent ROI in engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. It would be nice if colleges required macroeconomics and statistics as well.
The pays for can be addressed by barring the bottom ~25 percent of middle schoolers from enrolling in high school and thereby free up those resources.

1200 puts you in the top quarter and a 1350 puts you in the top tenth.

Well that would exclude all the white party school rich kids who just go to party school to study " business ".

I got like 1010 in 7th grade so I’m guessing anyone can apply themselves but that could simply make the curve harder.

Also, wouldnt the smart kids just go to MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford because those colleges have the most prestige in terms of STEM Education ?

[jojoju1998]

it is a total waste of tax money to give the kids of rich families free community college, to give rich yuppies free daycare, and to give rich seniors free vision and dental.

  This really makes no sense. First off most rich families are not sending their kids to Community College and if they did, so what?

 Nobody would say it's a waste of tax payer money for rich people to call the firefighters when their house is on fire.

 If we appropriately taxed the rich with a progressive tax system, why shouldn't they enjoy the benefit of public education or socialized medicine, they've paid for it!

What Matty is getting at is the new benefits geared towards community college benefits would disproportionately benefit wealthier taxpayers given that community college is heavily subsidized and practically free for low income earners, while it is not for high income earners.

I’d be OK with a linear sliding scale like they use for SNAP or SSI.

I'm find with means testing, but it needs to be generous

Community College is already free for low income people. Pell Grants are an option for about the lower half of the population

But about 80% of the population can not pay out of pocket. That is about 40% of the country that still needs more college aid

I am a big fan of SNAP, but it leaves out a lot of people who need it. I'm glad Biden raised the barriers but we need to raise the limit higher and increase benefits. Same for Pell Grant

I would double the current Pell Grant and increase eligbigty. I would also imposed a tution cap on all colleges/universities that use college loans/grants. Granted that doesn't help with housing or food, but we should really encourage more kids to live at home. I knew kids who had full rides on tution but had to go tens of thousands in debt to pay for housign???
 That would basically make college free for most people without actaully making it free. And Biden did promise that in the campaign

Quite contrary to conservatives overall I believe that four year public colleges should be free for all permitting a student has 1). 1200 SAT or higher 2). practical degrees with decent ROI in engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. It would be nice if colleges required macroeconomics and statistics as well.
The pays for can be addressed by barring the bottom ~25 percent of middle schoolers from enrolling in high school and thereby free up those resources.

As we saw with school closures during the Covid pandemic, this is a great way to massively increase violent crime rates.

Truly low students that are not intended to go on to the trades, professions, or the tallest ivory towers can be sent into community based instruction to work in the simplest jobs whether they are typical D and F students that flunked out of 8th grade or have severe intellectual disabilities.

I almost dropped out of high school; and barely got by with a 2.5 gpa.
I went to Community College and transferred with a 3.7 gpa.

[jojoju1998]

Truly low students that are not intended to go on to the trades, professions, or the tallest ivory towers can be sent into community based instruction to work in the simplest jobs whether they are typical D and F students that flunked out of 8th grade or have severe intellectual disabilities.

Agreed with UniverseMan. Whether we like it or not the vast majority of those in the bottom 25 percent of the IQ distribution land up in simple repetitive labor jobs. From a cost benefit perspective why should taxpayers be footing the bill for such students to "further" their education when they get little to nothing out of it, and can instead be earning and investing money at an earlier age?

I agree with everything you said except the bolded part

Why do Americans need to invest? That is gambling. Most Americans retirments are in 401k, which could collpase tomorrow. Than what?

We should make sure employors offer good pension plans and raise benefits to social security. We also need to help people buy their first home eariler so its paid off when they retire.

Rent, healthcare, childcare, groceries are all super expensive. People do not have enough extra income to invest in the stock market

It's quite simple really.

Feudalism. 2.0.

The rich white party school kids can literally pass their classes with a C and still get a job because their parents have connections with other white collar people. Or you can join your parent's company.

Meanwhile the STEM world gets more and more compeitive; higher and higher grades, more and more stress.

Skilled Trades sound nice; but we lack stable Unions ( AND NO STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS IS WORTHLESS. Just ask my working class machinist dad. ).

And so people are who are left behind aka the Working Class without any skills are therefore supposed to make money and invest ?? And I thought these people with low IQ aren't smart enough to learn how to invest so now they're just out there by themselves ? Really ?

[jojoju1998]

Truly low students that are not intended to go on to the trades, professions, or the tallest ivory towers can be sent into community based instruction to work in the simplest jobs whether they are typical D and F students that flunked out of 8th grade or have severe intellectual disabilities.

Agreed with UniverseMan. Whether we like it or not the vast majority of those in the bottom 25 percent of the IQ distribution land up in simple repetitive labor jobs. From a cost benefit perspective why should taxpayers be footing the bill for such students to "further" their education when they get little to nothing out of it, and can instead be earning and investing money at an earlier age?

I agree with everything you said except the bolded part

Why do Americans need to invest? That is gambling. Most Americans retirments are in 401k, which could collpase tomorrow. Than what?

We should make sure employors offer good pension plans and raise benefits to social security. We also need to help people buy their first home eariler so its paid off when they retire.

Rent, healthcare, childcare, groceries are all super expensive. People do not have enough extra income to invest in the stock market

Americans should and need to invest their money because of the basic principle of inflation,  otherwise the relative value of your savings decreases over time (Thanks Biden for making this more obvious). You don't have to closely follow the market to invest and as long as you pool your savings in diversified mutual funds, and given their average return rate of 12% for the last 30 years you will be looking pretty well.

Obviously if you are more cautious of the market overall you can put a larger proportion of your money in bonds and vice versa for risk averse individuals. But, hey if people don't want to take the 12% average annual net gains from the markets and prefer the average 2.5 percent net losses in inflation be my guest. But do something with your money otherwise it will be decreasing in value!

Pension plans have been advertised as the better alternative to the market but this is simply not true! Just this year we had to spend EIGHTY SIX BILLION to bail out pension plans. They have been abused through mismanagement, corruption, and simply are volatile to long term retractions in certain industries. They had not only failed to achieve higher return rates but failed at the one thing they were supposed to the strongest in - income security.

And yes increasing social security wouldn't be a bad alternative but a lot of us good investors will not be pleased....

And with the cost of healthcare, rent, childcare, and all the other stuff, how do you think working class people can afford to put away extra money for savings ? To achieve at least a million dollars in a 401K or 403b plan, most experts say you need the maximum amount you can put in which is 20,000 a year.  So for a person with a low iq in a menial wage labor job, where are you going to put that money ?

Healthcare costs. Rent. Childcare.

[jojoju1998]

I think we veering wildly off-topic

Sorry.

[jojoju1998]

Medicare, Medicaid, Pre K, Childcare provide the most instant benefits for working class Americans so I am happy that it's staying.

[jojoju1998]

lmao, I would NOT count of the GOP to be bound to any sense of political caution not to slash social programs next time they have the trifecta. The only reason they didn't slash Obamacare was because of two "moderates" and one quixotic weirdo who had a grudge with the president. The quixotic weirdo is dead and the "moderates" are on their way out, and besides Republicans have a much easier path to winning 52+ Senate seats than Democrats. We've been saved from true conservative rule for the past 20 years or so by the fact that Democrats have consistently punched above their weight in Senate races, but eventually we're going to run out of luck, and when we do, we're in for a rude awakening. Republicans don't care that their socioeconomic agenda is unpopular, because their strategy is all about diverting attention away from socioeconomic grievances with culture war bullsh*t, and this strategy has almost always worked for them. The fact that they're seen as the "party of the working class" after 4 years of further oligarchic entrenchment says everything you need to know.

They won't cut the Medicare Expansion though. Along with Pre K/Childcare and Medicaid expansion.

Those items provide the most instant benefits to working class Americans and they are Universal programs. You don't cut Universal programs that all Americans benefit from ( including paid leave )

[jojoju1998]

Why did the Az democrats even endorse Sinema for her 2018 senate run. She's basically a crypto republican at this point

The weird thing is that this all feels very sudden. She didn't seem this way in 2018, and honestly not even through 2020. She was very supportive of Mark Kelly in 2020 and they seemed to be on the same page. It's like for whatever reason, as soon as she got some power with the Biden win that she veered right.

I assume talks are ongoing today and tomorrow since Biden needs something to be done before he leaves next week?

What's funny for me is that Mark Kelly ran as the moderate. Sinema ran as the progressive ( well progressive for arizona ).

And now Kelly is behind for most of Biden's agenda. And Sinema is the one doing all the antics.

[jojoju1998]

Pre K is staying at least.

[jojoju1998]

Somehow Pre K and Childcare made it through.

I actually thought that Manchin and Sinema would oppose Pre K and Childcare before Paid leave and Medicare expansion.

[jojoju1998]

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/578319-manchin-shutting-down-sanders-on-medicare-expansion

Manchin still not sold on Medicare expansion.

If Sanders can actually convince Manchin to get Medicare expansion into this bill, I will give him credit, it will easily be his biggest positive accomplishment across his entire career.

However, knowing Sanders, I would expect the odds of that to be vanishingly low.

It's a miracle that Pre K and Childcare survived.....

[jojoju1998]

Damn it, Cal Cunnigham, why did you have to cheat on your wife ??

[jojoju1998]

Why the hell did Cunnigham cheat on his wife ??

GAHH !!

[jojoju1998]

Dems have dropped paid family and medical leave from bill

Source?

Source is Politico.

I'll be honest, even I'm wondering what is still in the reconciliation bill at this point. All the big ticket items seem to be cut already. Is it just a pile of tax credits to encourage green energy and investment? To be fair, if the tax credit for electric vehicles is good enough I'll buy one myself.

Childcare and Pre K survive. Which is surprising.

[jojoju1998]

My Dad gets 2 or 3 weeks combined paid time off. Sick leave and vacation combined. Which is very very meager. So if he gets sick, he has to use up his PTO if it wasn't for California's Paid family leave program ( Thank god for that ).

[jojoju1998]

Someone tell me what’s really in this bill that the average American will feel and notice?

I hope it fails. I really really do.

Child care and paid leave are the only two things Americans would really notice.

I don’t give a sh**t about the climate BS. That’s only helpful if every country in the world takes similar action

Lol typical

Anyway wake me up when this is over

https://twitter.com/alexanderbolton/status/1453483656002035717

XD "workers would have to pay into it"

https://twitter.com/alexanderbolton/status/1453484060714709003?s=20

So like how most countries do it.

Germany, Canada, UK,

[jojoju1998]

Someone tell me what’s really in this bill that the average American will feel and notice?

I hope it fails. I really really do.

Child care and paid leave are the only two things Americans would really notice.

I don’t give a sh**t about the climate BS. That’s only helpful if every country in the world takes similar action

Lol typical

Anyway wake me up when this is over

https://twitter.com/alexanderbolton/status/1453483656002035717

XD "workers would have to pay into it"

https://twitter.com/alexanderbolton/status/1453484060714709003?s=20

So like how most countries do it.

Germany, Canada, UK,

We should not be making workers pay into possible emergency leave but i guess its better than nothing

That's how most countries do it though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave Literally all countries do it through a social insurnace system. I actually think it works better that way, because people feel onwership of their own benefits if they pay into the system, that they worked so hard for like with social security and Medicare.

[jojoju1998]

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1453490578767990790?s=20

Apparently he is unlikely to be swayed

Even with the Social insurance system idea which most countries already do and it wouldnt invovle more taxes on the wealthy ??

[jojoju1998]

https://twitter.com/Grace_Segers/status/1453483743822372864?s=20

Laughing at Manchin needing to do research on this.

Didnt Manchin reject Murphy who proposed the same idea ?

[jojoju1998]

If paid leave, medicare age lowering and dental, vision, hearing expansion, free community college, the signature environmental policy are out, literally what remains in the bill? No one has given a clear answer.

Childcare and Pre k.

That's it.

[jojoju1998]

If paid leave, medicare age lowering and dental, vision, hearing expansion, free community college, the signature environmental policy are out, literally what remains in the bill? No one has given a clear answer.

Can any red avatars tell me what the point of voting for Democrats is? This bill will not noticeably improve anybody's lives. Nobody is going to look at this bill and decide to reelect Democrats because of it. All this charade has accomplished is destroying Democratic enthusiasm going into the offyear gubernatorial elections and prove that the Democratic party is ridiculously incompetent, with several elected officials who are just straight up evil. I want Dems to win in 2022 and 2024, but I really can't blame laymen for looking at four years of nothing and deciding to vote red or not at all. The Democrats have done nothing to earn anybody's votes as far as I'm concerned.

The United States will fall to far-right Republican fascism and the fault lies squarely on Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. Progressives have the power to kill both of these bills and need to do asap. Punish Manchin/Sinema.

I'm expecting Manchin/Sinema to kill off Childcare and Pre K any time now.

[jojoju1998]

WV has already implemented this dumb universal preschool proposal.  Has it improved their economy in any meaningful way?

Do you understand how big of a deal this is for people with kids?

The overwhelming majority have already found their own solutions by age 3.  A couple months of paid leave during infancy would mean 10X more than this.  

Many companies already offer paid leave, though. Yes it would help, but universal pre-K would be a massive deal for many families since there is no starting point (as there is with paid leave in many situations)

Only 22% of American workers have access to paid leave, most of whom are high earners

California has a Paid Leave program. https://edd.ca.gov/disability/paid-family-leave/

Funny thing is, Government workers, teachers, firefighters don't qualify for it.

And it's only 8 weeks.