Biden infrastructure/tax increase megathread

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Schumer to submit bill on drug negotiation agreed by all 50 Dems to parliamentarian

Schumer will submit text today to the Senate parliamentarian reflecting an agreement among all Democrats – including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) – to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug costs. The parliamentarian will then begin the “Byrd Bath” review process to make sure the proposal conforms with the Senate’s arcane reconciliation rules.

At this point, the rest of the package – informally dubbed Build Back Manchin – is up in the air. This is the low hanging fruit. Manchin has always supported this policy, as do 49 other Senate Democrats. So Schumer is starting with the lowest common denominator.

Medicare would be able to begin negotiating on drug prices from 2023, there would be some kind of $2,000 cap on out of pocket costs, a premium stabilisation policy, free vaccines for seniors, and a provision to "end the 'rogue secretary loophole'". This would also help finance the rest of the package by saving the govt several hundred billion dollars annually.

At least something will get passed, and it shows they haven't just given up and gone home. These provisions alone poll very well so it should be at least a bit of a boost for Democrats.

It's a start. What of the previous inclusions in the omnibus bill have the best chance of getting Manchin's blessing other than this?

My guess is the tax stuff because Manchin never had a problem with raising taxes just with spending money, and there should be some way of doing that that Sinema agrees to. Extended Obamacare subsidies should be a no-brainer but Manchin is a drooling idiot with this kind of stuff. Manchin has claimed to want to do climate stuff but he could water it down so much that it's meaningless, or allow really helpful funding and incentives to go through. The last one is the main reason I want this bill, but it is all good stuff.

[Pericles]

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3557652-manchin-pumps-brakes-bill-needs-to-be-scrubbed-much-better/

Shoot, Manchin may only agree to the senior prescription drug price reduction part of the bill now.

He already asked for it to be a deficit reduction bill, it's not going to be inflationary.

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Joe Biden instantly goes from a failed to successful President in my book with this.

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I am just not going to read the reactions above. Can someone tell me whether the latest has reduced the Manchin hate to a dull roar, or are the wolves even more ravenous?

He still killed any filibuster reform and the Child Tax Credit but I dislike him a lot less now because climate change is such a huge issue and those other ones don't affect me personally lol. If this whole bill passes it's a pretty solid record of accomplishments.

[Pericles]

Not a perfect outcome, no doubt, though that would still be a pretty strong accomplishment. If this passes, Schumer probably deserves more credit than he often gets. Holding a 50 member caucus together with Manchin and Sinema is no easy thing to do. Just hope we don't enter another Manchin cycle or Sinema ends up sinking it again.

Mike Bloomberg thinks the climate stuff is still a huge step:

https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1552686781744779264

Plus it looks like Schumer did all the work for this while Biden just watched it unfold.

[Pericles]

She could just get that $14 billion private equity thing taken out to feel powerful and the rest of the bill would be intact.

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It's not changing the individual tax rates, I don't see how the average American could be paying more, at most they could be indirectly impacted if the cost of the corporate tax increase is passed on but that wouldn't count and the likely impact would be pretty small.

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It's a pretty easy price to pay if it has to be done, it's just $14 billion and it's unrelated to the main benefit of the deal which is the climate spending.

[Pericles]

https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/08-3-2022/sinemas-ask/

Sinema is making her vote conditional on nixing the carried interest loophole provision and asking for $5 billion for drought resistance projects in AZ.

Every day this woman remains in the Senate physically pains me.

She's way worse than Manchin, which is quite something you need to achive.

Imagine being a Democrat in 2022 and believing in nixing corporate tax loopholes. Creatures like this are exactly the reason DC is hated and fake moderates are so annoying.

Couldn't agree more. Manchin is incredibly valuable as much as I can't stand him sometimes. Sinema is literally worthless. She is literally a traitor to progressives/democrats. Hell, anyone who is not wealthy or a corporate board member she just gave them the middle finger. She is the reason the democratic base is so disillusioned and why they say that even when democrats win they don't deliver what they promise and it was all a lie just to get votes. I'm not sure there's an issue that polls higher in American than stopping corps from paying literally $0 in taxes, or worse, getting money back from the government even as they rake in record profits from their price gouging that they blame on inflation.

She did lie to the voters! She opposed the Trump tax cuts in her 2018 campaign and talked like a mainstream Democrat. It shouldn't be ok to run for office as a different person from who you actually are, no wonder voters think Congress is totally corrupt and has no integrity.

[Pericles]

Best-case scenario is that because this bill passes so late, it's fresher for voters and the reconciliation bump doesn't wear off completely compared to if a bigger bill had passed in December last year.

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It's so close, we can taste victory now.

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Is there no Medicare drug price negotiation at all now? Damn, if Manchin hadn't changed his mind there wouldn't have been any bill to pass.

[Pericles]

Is there no Medicare drug price negotiation at all now? Damn, if Manchin hadn't changed his mind there wouldn't have been any bill to pass.

There is.  It just doesn't apply to private plans. 

Oh great, actually killing the whole thing could have killed the bill since that was a lot of the deficit reduction so that makes more sense.

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It was already known, but it is even more on record now, that the Republican Party opposes action on climate change. Unforgivable.

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(pg 194 - Manchin kills it)

I never gave up hope, I always thought there was a majority in the Senate for this if they just made a deal and realized what's good for them.

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Organizations that take climate change seriously think the bill is good. But people who primarily see climate change as an excuse for grifting/self-promotion or as a Trojan horse to implement their deranged ideologies (communism, de-growth, etc.) think the bill is bad. Who can say which group is right?

I was unaware I was a communist, but anyway, that 40% reduction I don't think is actually going to be enforced.

How do you think this reduction works, mechanically speaking, and why do you think it won't be enforced--especially since "enforcement" has nothing to do with this?

Point to a country that actually achieves their climate goals, then I'll listen. No country in the West is on track to actually meet their climate targets, but hey, as long as we get the optics of something being done, right?

That 40% reduction you and Lief are cheering on in reality will more likely be between 10-20%. It's better than nothing, but in the grand scheme of things, is close to nothing. But again, as long you get the headlines and credit, that's all that matters, right?

The US was going to achieve more than 20% with the federal government doing nothing.

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If we retain both houses of Congress after this November (and increase our majority in the Senate) and we do another reconciliation bill, we should at the first opportunity undo whatever Faustian Bargain we made with Kyrsten Sinema on this bill -with the possible exception of the drought relief program.  

It might be a better idea to have Sinema write the next bill if we get 51 Senate seats so we can cut Manchin out and get even more climate spending and maybe slip in the rest of BBB. If it's 52 sets then those two can be sidelined.

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Party line with 4 Republican absentees.

Even Jared Golden?

Well done Nancy on sealing the deal.

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There could be some complications regarding the fossil fuels permitting deal we made with Manchin to get him to support this bill:

Democrat calls for stand-alone vote on permitting deal, saying he doesn’t feel ‘obligation’ to vote for it

Excellent. Time to give Manchin a taste of his own medicine.

Manchin has warned there would be 'serious consequences' for this and at the very least it entirely rules out him supporting a deal like this again if Schumer can't keep his word. If Democrats are going to take that risk, the bill has to do more than just very minor harm.

[Pericles]

There could be some complications regarding the fossil fuels permitting deal we made with Manchin to get him to support this bill:

Democrat calls for stand-alone vote on permitting deal, saying he doesn’t feel ‘obligation’ to vote for it

Excellent. Time to give Manchin a taste of his own medicine.

Manchin has warned there would be 'serious consequences' for this and at the very least it entirely rules out him supporting a deal like this again if Schumer can't keep his word. If Democrats are going to take that risk, the bill has to do more than just very minor harm.

What other deal is there for him to tank? I doubt Dems are planning to pass anything else with 50 votes this term, and it's doubtful they'll be able to pass anything on a partisan basis next term. It's obvious he has no leverage.

Now of course, if Manchin committed to supporting the rest of BBB, I think it'd be fair to give him this in exchange. But I don't see why he should get anything out of supporting a deal that's barely a quarter of the original compromise that was struck with him. This kind of disloyalty must not be rewarded.

Democrats could easily need his vote if they cling to the Senate while losing the House, for presidential nominations. Though it is getting harder for him to pull off a defection even if he wanted to, at the moment it is still sensible to try to keep him on board.