Biden infrastructure/tax increase megathread

[Torie]

Well I guess we shall see whether the end result of holding infrastructure hostage causes the amount in reconciliation to go up, or go down, or stay the same.

I wonder if Biden would veto infrastructure if it suddenly popped on his desk due to unlikely circumstances now that are un-blessed by the progressives.

So many scenarios, so little [much] time.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/sarahnferris/status/1444046650914316288?s=19

What I admire about this, is just how well the Biden admin handled the taking points from the "other" side, and tried to convert them to numbers, so assuming we agree on the vision, how about the numbers? The numbers may be GIGO, but in the end, you cut a deal based on something, be it numbers or vision/priorities.

I find this in real life. Such impatience about the time and care it takes to discern, parse and try to  quantify, and before moving on to how to weight it all, to get to the vision thing with which both sides can be  comfortable.

Addendum: Everything is in play. As to the actual votes of the past, they are meaningless now. Whether that helps or hurts something being passed, is beyond my pay grade to parse.

[Torie]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sinema-confronted-by-immigration-activists-in-a-bathroom.amp

"Sinema confronted by immigration activists in a bathroom"

Sounds like a great way to get her to change her vote

Performance art is the thing. The rest is noise. The public square has finally managed to achieve the level of maturity it had during the Middle Ages, thanks, inter alia,  to the f'ing I-phone culture, and Facebook, and all the other toxic waste dumps out there. And Twitter and Trump both start with the same letter. Think about it. 

[Torie]

My assumption is that the only pension plans that offer a guaranteed payout based on an assumed 8% return (that is way, way excessive at the moment), are government ones. When their plans go insolvent they just raise taxes or something to bail them out. If private companies do that, they are cooking their books, and risking insolvency.

[Torie]

"It is wrong, it is really not playing fair, that one or two people think they should be able to stop what 48 members of the Democratic caucus wants, what the American people want, what the president of the United States wants," he said. "Two people do not have a right to sabotage what 48 want."

This is a Bernie blast. It doesn't make any sense of course. At least it does not to me. It seems like a party loyalty test. The Pubs once had a majority of the majority "rule" of some sort in the House back when I think.

Joe might ask Bernie if he would be happier if he left the Democratic caucus.

[Torie]

I know I've said this before, but the debt ceiling is the stupidest thing the government has. There is no reason for it to exsit. No one in the country is advocating for it. Yet there seems to be no one adovating to get rid of it.

Every year we risk the literal end of the world for what?

The American system has many mechanisms that are uniquely stupid and bizarre of which the debt ceiling political football is but one. I read somewhere yesterday that no other industrial democracy engages in such nonsense. The real debt limit mechanism is the inflation mechanism, the gears of which seem to be revving up at a rapid pace. The "free lunch" program of next to no inflation and very low interest rates while running huge deficits seems
to shutting down out of exhaustion. Sad! And man restaurant prices have gone through the roof. Gosh, I can spend 200 bucks for Dan and I to have dinner, and get a breakthrough covid case for desert.

[Torie]

"It is wrong, it is really not playing fair, that one or two people think they should be able to stop what 48 members of the Democratic caucus wants, what the American people want, what the president of the United States wants," he said. "Two people do not have a right to sabotage what 48 want."

This is a Bernie blast. It doesn't make any sense of course. At least it does not to me. It seems like a party loyalty test. The Pubs once had a majority of the majority "rule" of some sort in the House back when I think.

Joe might ask Bernie if he would be happier if he left the Democratic caucus.

Oh FFS,
1) Refusing to do something because the opposition opposes is just dumb
2) Yes, when you have overwhelming agreement in your caucus and 2 people decide to be sh**ts, that’s an issue of party loyalty

We get that you don’t want the reconciliation package. That doesn’t mean you need to act perplexed that everyone is mad at the 10% of Dem Senators deciding that they make the party policy now.

Oh I get why they are mad. I don't get their sense of entitlement, other than out of control hubris. I posted before that I have no idea what is best to put into reconciliation. It's complicated and I am not adequately informed to form an opinion on that that is worth a damn, and ditto the macro-economic situation. So it's about process. My instinct is that all this caterwauling from the progressives about not getting what they want with paper thin Dem majorities and less than a  majority ready to do it their way, as to what and when and how, is in the end going to net them less than otherwise. Insulting in public those whose votes you need, however few, seems the ultimate exercise in counterproductive hubris. We shall see - maybe.

[Torie]

In reading all this chat about how to read what Manchin and Sinema and maybe some House moderates are doing and why, I wonder if in this day and age many are putting too much weight on assuming the primary driver is a desire to get re-elected. That certainly would not be my primary driver if in office. I would find that suffocating and imprisoning.

For Manchin, it seems a particularly implausible surmise, but even with Sinema, it is not as if, if she "says" take this job and shove it, I'm doing it my way, that she, due to being tossed over the side by the Dems, when her term ends, would be mere chum for the sharks, i.e., rendered homeless. I would think she could find very well paying and satisfying work elsewhere.

[Torie]

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

Assuming it were for real rather than a bluff, it would only be rational if they preferred zero dollars for reconciliation over 1.5 trillion, and potentially zero dollars for infrastructure, if they can't get 3.5 trillion.

The whole affair is this weird contest, where the issue is whether Manchin/Sinema would rather have nothing as opposed to 1.2 trillion for infrastructure and more than 1.5 trillion for reconciliation, on the one hand, and Sanders/Warren would also rather have nothing rather than 1.2 trillion for infrastructure and only 1.5 trillion for reconciliation, on the other hand.

It's weird because one scenario is that the meeting of the minds on the least bad option is to zero everything out. And that outcome is so weird, that it seems less weird to just assume that somebody is bluffing, and patiently wait for the bluff to be called.

[Torie]

And in other news, there is no need to read the linked essay by Doug Schoen. Why? Because he basically has recycled the same article for about 15 years now: if the Dems don't moderate, they will lost the next election, and say it more than once to boot to pad out the epistle that is devoid of data points, or makes tendentious/inappropriate use of them. This one has the claim that "his" poll has the Dems down with independents by 5 points. Oh my, the horror, the horror, of that. The Dems might as well give up. I guess his picture is by the term "concern troll" in the dictionary.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/576104-democrats-combative-approach-to-politics-is-doing-more-harm-than-good

[Torie]

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

Assuming it were for real rather than a bluff, it would only be rational if they preferred zero dollars for reconciliation over 1.5 trillion, and potentially zero dollars for infrastructure, if they can't get 3.5 trillion.

The whole affair is this weird contest, where the issue is whether Manchin/Sinema would rather have nothing as opposed to 1.2 trillion for infrastructure and more than 1.5 trillion for reconciliation, on the one hand, and Sanders/Warren would also rather have nothing rather than 1.2 trillion for infrastructure and only 1.5 trillion for reconciliation, on the other hand.

It's weird because one scenario is that the meeting of the minds on the least bad option is to zero everything out. And that outcome is so weird, that it seems less weird to just assume that somebody is bluffing, and patiently wait for the bluff to be called.

Precisely. Anyone on the left prefers any amount of spending on the reconciliation bill, even $0.01, over passing nothing. They also prefer the infrastructure bill to not having the infrastructure bill. In short, half a loaf is better than none. So when presented with the option of passing something over passing nothing, if they behaved rationally they would vote for "something". This may not be true of Manchin, if the reconciliation bill is bad enough in his view, he may prefer throwing away the infrastructure bill to passing it.

So if everyone behaved rationally Manchin would have all the leverage and he would get his way on the reconciliation bill. However irrational factors, such as spite, pride, bruised egos, fear of humiliation, etc have gotten involved, and I think it's possible that nothing will pass.

If everyone was behaving rationally, we'd have passed a single ~$6 trillion infrastructure bill combining any good stuff in Sinemanchin's pet bipartisan piece of crap and full-funding for all of the Build Back Better agenda which was the original plan until Sinemanchin had a temper-tantrum and for no remotely sensible reason began demanding that it be split into two bills while agreeing to support a $3.5 trillion stimulus bill.  Sinemanchin are going back on their word b/c their donors in the Koch political network want them to kill the reconciliation bill.  Anyone suggesting that progressives are the ones behaving unreasonably is ignorant at best and deliberately engaging in revisionist history at worst.

I disagree, pretty sure that Manchin would prefer nothing to pass rather than the original $6 trillion bill. Remember this dude got elected shooting the cap and trade bill and promising to take on the Obama administration. I can't recall any statement by Manchin that he would support a $3.5 trillion bill, he merely voted to start debate on the bill, which as we saw with the debt ceiling vote, is not binding him to supporting it. I'll give you that only Manchin can credibly make this statement and that Sinema is behaving irrationally, but still, that's still the 50th vote you need.

You may claim that you would rather nothing to pass than your preferred reconciliation package, but that's your pride and spite talking, and those are irrational emotional factors that really shouldn't be interfering with the business of policy making.

And as part of the process of agreeing to reconciliation instructions to start the process with a 3.5 trillion cap to which you refer in the bolded bit above, he and Schumer signed a memo a couple of weeks earlier where it set forth that 1.5 trillion was Manchin's max as to the sum of money that would come out the other end (with a host of other conditions as well). So the bait and switch version of events is refuted by an actual signed document. I suspect Manchin insisted on that document because he was aware that down the road the bait and switch charge would be levied against him, and he wanted to shield himself from that. Manchin is a very methodical and quite meticulous man actually.

[Torie]

You two are both  Atlas at its best, the parry and thrusts of the swordplay most excellent to savor, but perhaps at this point it is time to await  further developments before the next attempt to decapitate the foe. Thank you both for you being you in the meantime.

Myself, more and more, I feel my tired old brain is just not able to parse what I discern is going out there. It all seems just so "foreign" to me.

[Torie]

The pinko posters among us need to stop pounding out "Manchinema" on their keyboard. Not only are they not Siamese twins, apparently the only thing they agree upon is using some of the reconciliation money to pay down the debt. That is going to be a crowd pleaser, not.

And I don't get why Sinema and a few House moderates are in love with US drug consumers subsidizing drug research for the planet, including the other first economy nations, but that is just me. Do they really think that drug companies will not raise prices on such "rich" foreign consumers, or that the rich nations will price fix at such a low point that drug research will end? That the covid vaccine will be the last new drug product to be invented? And why is Manchin against taxing opioids?  Are West Virginians all strung out or something?

I just don't understand how the planet works anymore, no matter how hard I try. Sad! 

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/10/13/scoop-manchin-sinema-split-vexes-the-white-house-494684

[Torie]

“I'm not going to share with you or with Schumer or with Pelosi,” she told one Democratic senator recently. “I have already told the White House what I am willing to do and what I’m not willing to do. I'm not mysterious. It's not that I can't make up my mind. I communicated it to them in detail. They just don’t like what they’re hearing.”

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/10/13/scoop-manchin-sinema-split-vexes-the-white-house-494684

Is there a more vile, entitled person in congress?

Assuming she actually said that, and assuming further that she did not disclose where she was at to the White House on a condition of confidentiality, so that whatever she tells the White House, the White House then in turn promptly passes it on to Schumer and Pelosi, that seems to suggest that she really cannot stand talking to her colleagues, and does so only to snap at them to let them know that they are infra dig to her.  It's all quite weird.  It is almost as though she has a screw loose somewhere.

[Torie]

My wild guess, very wild guess, is that the end result of all of this is that 1) infrastructure passes this year, and 2) reconciliation passes next year with some bipartisan support for a pared own package. Manchin and/or Sinema take the position that the go it with Dems alone approach just isn't working, they don't want to be rushed, and it is time for a new approach, and they are done tolerating infrastructure being held hostage and are shutting that down.

Yes, all these stupid leaks and speculations seem like desperation and/or amateur hour to me.

[Torie]

My wild guess, very wild guess, is that the end result of all of this is that 1) infrastructure passes this year, and 2) reconciliation passes next year with some bipartisan support for a pared own package. Manchin and/or Sinema take the position that the go it with Dems alone approach just isn't working, they don't want to be rushed, and it is time for a new approach, and they are done tolerating infrastructure being held hostage and are shutting that down.

Yes, all these stupid leaks and speculations seem like desperation and/or amateur hour to me.

Do the house votes exist for the 'bipartisan' infrastructure bill to pass? The conservatives have not yet proven their ability to find a large amount of House Republicans to replace potential (or likely) Democratic no votes.

If reconciliation is de-linked, I would think so, unless the center of gravity among Dems is to tank both bills rather than to de-link and pass just infrastructure for the moment. In the end, I just don't believe the Dems will go the tank both approach during this calendar year. The optics of that I don't think will fly well at all in the coming midterms. But my forecasting ability has proven to be worse than random error, so pay me no mind. I am just wasting bandwidth here.
 

[Torie]

My wild guess, very wild guess, is that the end result of all of this is that 1) infrastructure passes this year, and 2) reconciliation passes next year with some bipartisan support for a pared own package. Manchin and/or Sinema take the position that the go it with Dems alone approach just isn't working, they don't want to be rushed, and it is time for a new approach, and they are done tolerating infrastructure being held hostage and are shutting that down.

Yes, all these stupid leaks and speculations seem like desperation and/or amateur hour to me.

Do the house votes exist for the 'bipartisan' infrastructure bill to pass? The conservatives have not yet proven their ability to find a large amount of House Republicans to replace potential (or likely) Democratic no votes.

If reconciliation is de-linked, I would think so, unless the center of gravity among Dems is to tank both bills rather than to de-link and pass just infrastructure for the moment. In the end, I just don't believe the Dems will go the tank both approach during this calendar year. The optics of that I don't think will fly well at all in the coming midterms. But my forecasting ability has proven to be worse than random error, so pay me no mind. I am just wasting bandwidth here.
 

Why would they delink the bills?

As I said, to get Pub votes, if some progressives go South and would rather have nothing this year, rather than just infrastructure this year. Even the appearance of linkage, much less the fact of it,  costs Pub votes. It's a math thing.

This is in part, but only in part, in the context of Sinema allegedly saying she won't do any reconciliation unless and until infrastructure is passed, because she is in the business of leveraging others, rather than being leveraged, and was annoyed from the get go with the linkage. As a boss of my Dad once said during the Great Depression, Sinema is in the business of giving ulcers rather than getting them, and she does it very skillfully. She has a gift. Deal with it. 

[Torie]

If Manchin won't pass any climate provisions, then we need to kill both bills. And reinstitute the SALT deduction, so at least donor states can take care of themselves:



The WWC had their chance, now it's time to cut the dead weight. No more bailouts, every state for itself.

Are the two bolded bits really consistent? I assume you know where I am going with this.

Your "modest proposal" does just happen to comport with my personal financial interests, but even I admit that what is in my personal financial interest is not necessarily co-extensive with good public policy. Fancy that.

[Torie]

If Manchin won't pass any climate provisions, then we need to kill both bills. And reinstitute the SALT deduction, so at least donor states can take care of themselves:



The WWC had their chance, now it's time to cut the dead weight. No more bailouts, every state for itself.

Are the two bolded bits really consistent? I assume you know where I am going with this.

Your "modest proposal" does just happen to comport with my personal financial interests, but even I admit that what is in my personal financial interest is not necessarily co-extensive with good public policy. Fancy that.

Yes, they're consistent. Maybe in a universe in which states that benefited from the SALT deduction weren't funding a disproportionate share of the federal treasury, they wouldn't be. But in this universe, they are. NJ is capable of funding its own government, as is MN. KY and WV, not so much. And I would be perfectly willing to contribute to WV's wellbeing, if their elected representatives were willing to help the rest of us mitigate climate change. But they're not. So now I have no interest in bailing them out. The people of NJ and MN should keep their own tax revenue in order to address a problem, at least locally, that the people of KY and WV won't let us rectify at the federal level.

That is your best argument, yes. While federal dollars are subsidizing the high tax states, the high tax states with higher incomes in general are subsidizing the federal government, so it is something of a wash. That assumes that there are few if any low tax, high income states. Are there any?  Bring in the quants!

[Torie]

If Manchin won't pass any climate provisions, then we need to kill both bills. And reinstitute the SALT deduction, so at least donor states can take care of themselves:



The WWC had their chance, now it's time to cut the dead weight. No more bailouts, every state for itself.

Are the two bolded bits really consistent? I assume you know where I am going with this.

Your "modest proposal" does just happen to comport with my personal financial interests, but even I admit that what is in my personal financial interest is not necessarily co-extensive with good public policy. Fancy that.

Yes, they're consistent. Maybe in a universe in which states that benefited from the SALT deduction weren't funding a disproportionate share of the federal treasury, they wouldn't be. But in this universe, they are. NJ is capable of funding its own government, as is MN. KY and WV, not so much. And I would be perfectly willing to contribute to WV's wellbeing, if their elected representatives were willing to help the rest of us mitigate climate change. But they're not. So now I have no interest in bailing them out. The people of NJ and MN should keep their own tax revenue in order to address a problem, at least locally, that the people of KY and WV won't let us rectify at the federal level.

That is your best argument, yes. While federal dollars are subsidizing the high tax states, the high tax states with higher incomes in general are subsidizing the federal government, so it is something of a wash. That assumes that there are few if any low tax, high income states. Are there any?  Bring in the quants!

Huh? No, the high tax states are subsidizing the federal government. What I'm suggesting is reinstituting the SALT deduction, thereby reducing the disparity, and letting the respective states address climate change/infrastructure with their own funds. Which the donor states are perfectly capable of doing. This wouldn't be an issue, but it seems pretty clear that a number of the recipient states are determined to block any federal effort to mitigate climate change.  

Here's a map The Economist made prior to the elimination of the SALT deduction. As you can see, the same general pattern prevailed:

SALT deductions subsidize high tax states, because of the federal deductions, which costs the feds about a third of their revenue. So for each 3 dollars increase in state taxes, the feds will reimburse those who pay it 1 dollar. Absent SALT, no reimbursement back to the payors of the local tax.

No doubt you know all of this, and it is semantics.

[Torie]

Climate is a real issue but I struggle to think we can make a real difference if the rest of the world doesn’t follow suit so honestly I don’t care that much if Manchin forces climate provisions to be scrapped.

I have more of an issue with the things SINEMA wants scrapped

Just get the thing passed - if they can do that and get the number anywhere near $2.2T it should be a meaningful package

Sinema confided in you? Please share what she said! Thanks.

[Torie]

This is the soap opera that just keeps on giving. If I were a TV producer, and got this script, I would have tossed it in the trash as just too far beyond the looking glass to allow one to suspend their disbelief.

The same thing goes for the Jan 6 saga of course, including both as to what led up to it, and its aftermath, with the defeated POTUS running around Captain Queeg like still claiming it was all stolen as he works the marbles in his hand, with the bulk of the Pub party either cowering in the closet in the fetal position, enabling him, or actually egging him on for more. When I saw that script I laughed so hard that I almost got a hernia as I tossed that one into the midst of the crackling logs in the working fireplace.

[Torie]

I also don't get the emphasis on universal preschool?  What does it accomplish?  By the time the child is 3, the parents have already found a solution to the childcare issue by necessity!  

You would think paid leave would be the #1 focus, especially after COVID.

It’s not just about childcare. Every single study shows going to pre-k at age 3 and 4 gives a child a huge head start. Statistically, they are more likely to do better academically at every level even in college and earn more money. For kids with learning disabilities, it’s a huge help and can drastically catch them up. Pre-K typically costs more than just childcare that watches the kids.

Providing universal pre-k would help the economy massively, short term and long term. The money spent on child care for those two years can be spent on other things. Long term our workers are smarter and more capable

Not to cause trouble, but years ago I read that Finnish kids do best in school. When do they start the process? Yes, you guessed it: age 7.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/10-reasons-why-finlands-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world

You may now return to your regular programming.

Oh, because I'm old, it's time for yet another story, so put that on hold. I was spending six months with my grandparents in Iowa because my mother had just given birth to my younger brother and I was incorrigible and my mother just could not handle it. So I was shipped off to Davenport to give her time to recover and attend to brother Jon. Anyway, I was 4 years old, and placed in yes, a preschool! Apparently I found the place infra dig, silly and well juvenile, for a kid of my level of gravitas, so I announced one morning that I was not going.

Grandmother turned to me, and said, Torie, it's your job to go to school, just like it is your grandfather's job to go to the hospital and tend to his patients (he was a surgeon), and my job to take care of the house and prepare meals and take care of your both. A light flashed on in my brain. Yes, that makes sense! It's my job! We all have jobs! Just because the job sucks does not mean that one can malinger. That is not the way it works under the laws of Newtonian physics, at least prior to the cradle to grave welfare state. So without saying another word, I picked up my things and walked out the door to go to that silly school. Yes, this was before the era of pedophiles and paranoid parents, so grandmother let me walk to school at 4 years old. How many parents would do that now?

Grandmother told me about this incident some 30 years later (she lived to be 99). She was very impressed that after hearing "her case," I just left without saying another word (that last aspect of saying nothing further almost never happened again I might add). I told her it was one* of my very earliest memories that was still vivid in my mind (in particular that aha moment, and my ensuing silence which was done deliberately, as a way to emphasize to grandma just how persuasively dispositive I found the case she had made to be).

*The other vivid memory from this period, probably at age 3 with no baby Jon in play), was losing a 50 cent piece that I found in the sand at the beach, and then when walking over some rocks at high tide back to the parking lot at Zuma Beach in Malibu, it  dropped out of my chubby avaricious hand, and was lost in the rocks and sucked back out in a wave. I freaked out. My fortune was lost! My mother sharing with me the cliche that what the sea giveith, the sea can takeith away, did not appease me this time. That aspect of Newtonian physics sucked!

[Torie]

Following this story while fascinating, has been one of the biggest waste of times in my life. How many times has it been put out, that "they" are close to a deal? And now it is all going to be wrapped up today before Biden flies across the Atlantic, with the gnomes in the basement working out a few minor technical details. And I don't know why the Pubs in the House would want to make this all happen as to infrastructure before Nov 2, but whatever.

The popularity of Pre-K kind of confuses me, although it will probably be very popular with the highly paid upper middle class young people that dominate Hoboken who are generating a massive baby boom (welfare for the soon to be rich?). There are 2 private pre-K schools right next to the PATH station, and yesterday afternoon about 20 tykes were in carts, and they all loved looking and petting the adorable snoodle dog as I walked by. I asked if I were eligible to matriculate, because it looked like everyone was having a good time. They said no, because I was a bit too large to fit into the cart.

[Torie]

This spin city game gives me vertigo. Anyway, with the Nov 2 deadline blown, and of course the before Joe shows up as his Euro meeting, the new one might be before the Xmas break. At some point things might snap. Under the media spin, there are real and substantive disagreements as to priorities that cannot be easily finessed.

My basic reaction is the whole smoke and mirrors trick I find  to be rather condescending and sophomoric, assuming voters have as many dead brain cells as I do.