Biden infrastructure/tax increase megathread

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Tax the rich isn't just a good fiscal policy it's a winning political message. When are Democrats going to figure this out?

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SALT is coming back is my prediction.

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  There needs to be a whole series of tax reforms that invalidates trusts, tax dodging charitable organizations, global tax shelters, the parking of wealth in speculative assets, and other schemes the wealthy use to shield wealth from taxation.

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 Democrats need to stop kneecapping the progress the country actually needs to appease a handful of Republicans who are only interested in having the Democrats accomplish as little as possible.

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Democrats need to stop kneecapping the progress the country actually needs to appease a handful of Republicans who are only interested in having the Democrats accomplish as little as possible.

In new spending, this is almost 100 times larger than Trump's largest package.  There were other one off infrastructure projects Trump got, but when adding in the $250 billion or so 'compete with China' package, this is hardly as little as possible and is nearly 100 times what Trump got on infrastructure in total.  This is actually fairly massive.

 It's not. America needs to rebuild a country that had its most crucial infrastructure built post WWII. It also needs to dramatically shift it's energy usage to more renewable sources as soon as possible. This bill on its own is not a great achievement.

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HEALTH CARE BRIEFING: Medicare Age Change Pushed in Budget Bill

 Does anybody have more details about lowering the Medicare age? I thought it was in the Senate Budget reconciliation bill but other articles are saying it's not going to be in the final bill.

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Nice to see progressives flex their power. The Biden proposals are popular everywhere outside of Congress.

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 It's great to see progressives finally standing up for the bigger picture of what the American people need. Joe Manchin is a guy that never saw a defense spending bill he didn't vote for. His pearl clutching about deficits and debt spending is nonsense.


Joe Manchin whines about $3.5 trillion — but he spent $9.1 trillion on defense

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From earlier today but pretty funny:

Jake Sherman

@JakeSherman

“I have no idea,” @WhipClyburn said when he was asked if there would be an infrastructure vote today. He is the whip. Like, in charge of vote counting. And in the leadership.

He don't got the votes, read between the lines.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/mikedebonis/status/1444043154777251842

 Take that mushy moderates!

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 The Democrats get punished for being responsible and being the only functional governing party in Federal government. Infrastructure spending is something that has been sorely lacking for decades. The media falsely calls the infrastructure bill bipartisan because a few Republcians have given tacit support. If it can not pass without the progressive caucus it's obviously not a bipartisan bill in a nearly equally divided government.

 The Republicans have gotten away with not governing, then successfully blaming The Democrats for nothing getting done. Why do the Democrats have to waste their governing capital on something both parties should support? Our nation's infrastructure is not a partisan issue. Yet it's the Democrats who have to get it done. Democrats get penalized for "spending too much money", and the responsibility of both parties to fund the country's roads and bridges is now subtracted from the Democratic Party's ambitious priorities. It's not fair and it's not right. The voters and media have allowed the Republican party to retard this country's progress.

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Why do I feel like progressives have Joe Biden by the neck? It seems like they have full control over him

He could’ve gone in there and demanded the infrastructure bill receive a vote which would be a win for him and a huge bill for the country that has bipartisan support. He couldn’t even do that.

 If it has bipartisan support why do they need the progressive caucus? The Democratic Party's House edge is 9 seats. If this has bipartisan support why doesn't Kevin McCarthy get his members to replace the 95 Congressional Progressive Caucus members. He wouldn't even need 95 as it's been reported about half of the CPC would vote for a bill if put on the floor.

 Can you answer why this is, honestly.

 And Democrats don't have any stupid "Hastert Rule" either like the Republicans.

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Why do I feel like progressives have Joe Biden by the neck? It seems like they have full control over him

He could’ve gone in there and demanded the infrastructure bill receive a vote which would be a win for him and a huge bill for the country that has bipartisan support. He couldn’t even do that.

 If it has bipartisan support why do they need the progressive caucus? The Democratic Party's House edge is 9 seats. If this has bipartisan support why doesn't Kevin McCarthy get his members to replace the 95 Congressional Progressive Caucus members. He wouldn't even need 95 as it's been reported about half of the CPC would vote for a bill if put on the floor.

 Can you answer why this is, honestly.

 And Democrats don't have any stupid "Hastert Rule" either like the Republicans.

The Republican House leadership was whipping against the bill. If they didn't who knows. But as it is there's only a handful of Republican votes for it in the House.

So maybe we should stop saying it's a bipartisan bill and we definitely shouldn't stop pointing out that The GOP sucks.

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Is McCarthy just opposing the BIF so strongly because Trump is making him? Since the BIF passing is supposed to make it a lot more likely Manchin and Sinema then vote down reconciliation, why can't the Republicans give it enough votes to pass?

because Trump has already said that he will see any vote from Republicans for the bipartisan infrastructure bill as an act of disloyalty towards him and This is the main reason why most house Republicans have already said that they will not support the bill

What was their excuse under Obama?

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Don't forget that Nancy and Chuck also negotiated under the Trump Presidency for a bipartisan infrastructure bill and got a agreement in principle for $2 trillion, then Trump threw a hissy fit about investigations. Trump tried to leverage oversight over his misdeeds against the infrastructure deal and blew the whole thing up when he didn't get his way.

 So Trump deserves credit for nothing.

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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!

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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.

 He's wrong. There are associated costs with even Pell grants and it's a dumb inefficient system. The rich kid that goes to college doesn't have to deal with the Financial Aid office and the problems and snafus that can arise from this. Pell grants/student loans create an entire infrastructure that is actually wasteful. If colleges need a large Financial Aid office, those are resources and infrastructure that could be going to other things like professors or student learning resources. Go to any college Financial Aid office during enrollment and see for yourself. While technology has made some of this easier it's still a more wasteful system than college simply being publicly funded and actually free for everyone.

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The Manchin/Sinema tax just lop off 40% of spending for programs that could help the American people and modernize American society because...

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Translation: Mitch needs time to recalculate on how he can screw Democrats and America.

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I will never understand what the Senate is supposed to do. The entire institution just gives small states overpowered abilities. It pretends more people live in Idaho or Vermont than in Texas or Florida. It's stupid and archaic and needs either to reform drastically or just die.

This map is a bit outdated(i think it's fewer counties now) but 50% of The United States population lives in these counties.

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Why are Democrats so opposed to raising the debt ceiling through reconciliation? If I was them I would abolish it altogether

  From what I've read it would muck up the process and make it more procedural and therefore more chances for sabotage and things to go wrong.

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Why is it irrational for Bernie or Warren to demand certain positions but fine for Sinema and Manchin?

 Because this country has been bred to have contempt for progress and to see expenditures on things that help the many as wasteful, when things that help the few profiteer like dumb foreign wars are unquestionable.

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https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1448469468351508480

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https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1449385953563381767

Arby's has more employees than there are coal miners.

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https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1449238705126977538

The numbers have never added up for either the tax cuts and military spending we’ve been doing but surprisingly those don’t face any real issues from the fiscal conservative crowd  

How does the math work everywhere else in the industrialized world for healthcare. Only in The United States, where we actually spend more per person on healthcare and can't seem to figure this out.