Biden infrastructure/tax increase megathread

[It’s so Joever]

This is a good bill.
We do need to improve our infrastructure and now is the right time especially coming out of Covid.

Afterwards, maybe we should be a bit more careful with our spending and see how this plus the stimulus plays out. We could focus on HR1 in the meantime.

[It’s so Joever]

On one hand, the SALT cap is good policy. On the other hand, I want to own the cons.

[It’s so Joever]

How about instead of a SALT cap, we have an added red precinct tax?

[It’s so Joever]

God, imagine we get this infrastructure bill wrapped up by the end of next month and make a push for a voting rights bill in the summer right as things start opening back up? Biden’s approvals will skyrocket.

No they won’t.

[It’s so Joever]

Thank you Mr. Bezos!
https://twitter.com/msnbc/status/1379555275049463816?s=21

Gee, I wonder why a *checks notes* delivery company would want improved infrastructure?

[It’s so Joever]

Are we finally leaving the Reagan slump?

[It’s so Joever]

Good.
Government provided healthcare should not be prioritized for the people who are most costly to cover and already have lived a long time. If we are going to cut people out, we should look into a reverse Medicare of sorts, where those under a certain age get covered but those above it don’t.

While we should cover everyone under a government subsidized option, if we have to cut a group off, it should be the people who have already lived the longest and are costliest to cover by default.

[It’s so Joever]

Manchin is now standing (or pretending to stand) in the way of DC statehood, HR1, the PRO act, and now medicare expansion in this bill? Why has he not been punished by having his committee assignments stripped??

D->R

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/jstein_wapo/status/1397256316574445574?s=21

Corporatists showing their true colors.

Imagine telling someone in 2019 that Biden would be the progressive one as opposed to the Democrat-controlled congress.

[It’s so Joever]

The media's lust for this project to fail is really blatant and disgusting.

We should defund the media.

Good thing the media is one publicly owned utility we can just get rid of and not a bunch of competing corporations with stakes in the game and their own sources of funding.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/kate_riga24/status/1443624670738141192?s=21

As they should.
We told progressive Bernie supporters to compromise and take one for the team and they did. Now it’s time for moderates to take one for the team.

[It’s so Joever]

Remember when we thought it was the progressive wing hurting Democratic unity? Ah good times.

[It’s so Joever]

I wish we spent our political will on voting rights and gerrymandering and not doing that is the biggest mistake of this administration (far worse than Afghanistan) but now that we have picked this fight, we can't back down to the Republicans, and I mean all 52 of them.

[It’s so Joever]

Since when did Biden suddenly become part off the based wing of the party?

[It’s so Joever]

3.5 trillion was already a compromise and I'm against going down further and further. Especially if said reductions are at the expense of real climate action.

If so called moderates believe this is too expensive, they should be reminded what doing nothing against climate change costs in the end. And if you think about fiscal issues only short and median terms, maybe we can talk about stuff like 1) the military budget that is higher than the next 10 nations combined 2) taxing the wealthy and 3) emphasizing the fact Amazon, Facebook and alike don't pay a nickel in federal income tax.

We don’t have a choice here.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1445561315653611527

Radical Liberal Joe Biden

Comrade JOE!

[It’s so Joever]

Sinema won’t vote for ending the filibuster. She is a sociopath, make no mistake. She would rather inflate her own image no matter the cost.

[It’s so Joever]

Via Axios:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is telling colleagues that progressives need to pick just one of President Biden’s three signature policies for helping working families and discard the other two, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Why it matters: By forcing progressives to choose among an expanded child tax credit, paid family medical leave or subsidies for child care, Manchin is complicating any potential deal— but also signaling his willingness to negotiate.

The amazing part is, the electorate of WV is so stupid that when Manchin retires (or is defeated), his Republican replacement won't even give them 1/3 of a loaf! LOL. The residents of NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, etc., are laughing all the way to the bank! Yeah, I think WV has failed so badly (losing population at an unprecedented rate), statehood probably ought to be revoked. Respecting WV as an equal partner is just guaranteed to make the world a worse place.

Are you seriously considering revoking statehood over political leanings?
Same here to be honest.

[It’s so Joever]

If you ignore Kanye, you are ignoring Atlas.

[It’s so Joever]

A certain Green avatar is practically on the verge of becoming the first poster on my ignore list because of the inane and asinine posts being made on this thread.

It's OK DEMs, PUBs, LBTs, IND's etc.... We can agree/disagree wrangle etc....

but really starting to look like one individual is excessively spamming the thread with nobody else responding to their comments.

Most people have put Mr. Kanye West on ignore. I did it the first day. He’s a troll bot. Why he isn’t banned is beyond me

Kanye is Atlas and Atlas is Talk Elections.
They are the SECULAR TRIFECTA.

[It’s so Joever]

Via Axios:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is telling colleagues that progressives need to pick just one of President Biden’s three signature policies for helping working families and discard the other two, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Why it matters: By forcing progressives to choose among an expanded child tax credit, paid family medical leave or subsidies for child care, Manchin is complicating any potential deal— but also signaling his willingness to negotiate.

The amazing part is, the electorate of WV is so stupid that when Manchin retires (or is defeated), his Republican replacement won't even give them 1/3 of a loaf! LOL. The residents of NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, etc., are laughing all the way to the bank! Yeah, I think WV has failed so badly (losing population at an unprecedented rate), statehood probably ought to be revoked. Respecting WV as an equal partner is just guaranteed to make the world a worse place.

Are you seriously considering revoking statehood over political leanings?
Same here to be honest.

If the alternative is living in a racist, authoritarian hellhole ravaged by climate change, then yes, I'd rather forcefully deprive WV, KY, AL, AR, etc., of representation before it's too late.

Based.

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1449164352246931460?s=20

If that's the case, then both bills simply need to die, and Joe Manchin's political career with them. As far as I'm concerned, climate is non-negotiable. I suspect many of the liberal senators feel likewise. If Biden's presidency amounts to nothing more than destroying the last vestiges of the backstabbing corporate/conservative wing of the Democratic Party, so be it.

Letting both bills die would be incredibly stupid for Democrats.  This is very likely the last piece of significant legislation that they will be able to pass for the next ten years.

Yes, exactly — the current status quo is incapable of safeguarding democracy, incapable of mitigating climate change. So it's absolutely worthless. Better to destroy SineManchin, and let them serve as examples to anyone who would attempt to sabotage the agenda of a future Democratic president.

I admit it is tempting to give into my darker instincts and let both bills fail in order to stick it to Manchin and Sinema for killing a lot of the Dems climate change agenda but despite those feelings I still believe that Dems can still make a positive impact on peoples' lives

now of course I'm not completely satisfied with that and yes, I agree that we could have done a lot more, but by the end of the day I do not think that Dems should just sit around doing nothing simply because they did not get everything they wanted in the reconciliation bill

If you can't accomplish anything significant on climate change, or the preservation of democracy, then your majority is entirely worthless. I've long maintained that the U.S. is two countries, doomed to partition. I stand by that perspective.

It’s far more likely we fall into a right wing dictatorship. That had been in the making for a while now anyways, and Democrats are too spineless to care.

[It’s so Joever]

Biden is on AOC's side. He agrees, and he believes the bills should be tied together. However, he is organizing with Manchin, because unlike you, Joe Biden is an adult who would rather get something done than win a factional skirmish.

The final package will be in the low-to-mid $2 trillion range, with climate provisions severely pared down, means testing, and other priorities gone. But I'm confident Manchin and progressives can meet in the middle, because at the end of the day, the "progressive" position is as mainstream as the Iron Dome, and it is more rational to pass the mainstream Democratic agenda than not.

What would have actually been irrational was, say, tanking COVID relief over raising the minimum wage. Not including it was awful, but the opposition opposed the Biden position in multiple facets. Some wanted a lower wage than $15, and others wanted to keep the tipped wage exemption. More glaringly, the Biden administration didn't want to overrule the parliamentarian. It would have taken months that we didn't have to resolve the issue, and even then would have been overruling the President's opinions on procedure.

Yeah, no thanks. If poor Appalachian whites can't help the rest of us address climate change, why should we bankroll their bailouts? Don't care, not interested in funding their scratch-off tickets. Rural broadband?! Insurrectionists can pay their own f**king cable bills, just like the rest of us. We've long presumed that blue state senators would just open up the piggy bank, but that needs to end. If we have to support odious trash, they need to give us something in return. No BIB without BBB. No more Northern subsidies without strings attached.

Darn straight!
They hate us true Americans? The unemployed rural elite can’t overpower the silent suburban majority!
Make America Great Again!
Republicans just want to give handouts and destroy the economy, Democrats care about the average joe. Republicans want to take your money and give it to some dying coal mine, Democrats want to keep your family housed and fed.
(Okay this is mostly s-posting)

[It’s so Joever]

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.

If the Republicans cut Obamacare, 2018 would have been an even bigger massacre.

[It’s so Joever]

This bill is an insult. The Democrats will reap what they sow come midterms.

It’s not perfect, but for the next year I will pretend it was the best piece of legislation on Earth for partisan reasons.