Biden infrastructure/tax increase megathread

[pppolitics]

He was using the wrong terminology.

There is an infrastructure bill and there is a reconciliation bill.

So you keep saying and I guess that's one way of looking at it, but they're both infrastructure so there's really 2  infrastructure bills, originally just 1, bigger,  infrastructure bill.

Correct terminology should be used to avoid confusion.

There is no reason why the infrastructure bill shouldn't be passed right now.

There is no reason why the Build Back Better bill shouldn't be passed right now.

They're aren't 218 and 50+1 enthusiastic Yes votes on both, but there should be on one or the other, so that's why they have to be combined.

If you vote for just 1 (either 1), you run the risk of the group that wants that bill to leave the other side hanging out to dry. By joining them, both sides agree to vote for the other to get what they want. Moreover, this was already agreed upon by both sides, so nobody should be "altering the agreement" at this point anyway. Stonewall Sinema and all the rest should keep their word and support the President's agenda that America put him in the White House and gave him a trifecta to pass.

There is no reason why the infrastructure bill should be held up.

It should be passed immediately.

I don't know what else to tell you. You said that, I gave you the reason why it can't be passed immediately, and then you just said "there is no reason" again.

Pass both bills immediately and both wings of the party win, and most importantly, America wins.

The infrastructure bill can't be passed because so-called "progressives" is holding it hostage.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Alright, you’ve just repeated the same things multiple times.

So just to end this:

1) Manchin will do what he wants.
OK, well I don’t remember when Joe Manchin became Speaker of the House. So unless I am mistaken, he doesn’t decide when or if house bills get passed

2) ‘Progressives’ [sic]  are holding the infrastructure (in GOP parlance) bill hostage
Yeah that was the agreement, the infrastructure bill was created by a panel lead by Sinema and Romney without input from the Whitehouse, the House, or the vast majority of Senate Dems. Both the President and other Senators said the product was unacceptable but it was allowed to advance to the house on the condition that work begin on a reconciliation package that would be passed with it. Manchin and Sinema have refused to hold up their end.
I don’t remember when Kyrsten Sinema became President and I distinctly remember Mitt Romney being explicitly not made President, so I’m going to say that they don’t get to decide what the Whitehouse’s infrastructure proposal is and isn’t.

3) The house should just pass it now
I’m not intimately familiar with the Progressive Caucus and other Reps holding the line, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that none of them campaigned on a pledge to be Kyrsten Sinema’s bitch. So I don’t see why they should betray their constituents, Senate colleagues, and President on her behalf.

4) The house can just pass the BIF now and the start working on reconciliation

Have you not been paying attention? Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are refusing to work in good faith toward reconciliation. I don’t see how rewarding them changes that


I’m just going to assume that future replies are just going to be re-iterations of your same points, so feel no need to @ me.

[R.P. McM]

Progressives can't cave. If the coporatists won't play ball, then kill their precious "bipartisan" bill. 2022 is going to be a blood bath, and if Democrats can't pass this popular, important reconciliation bill, then they deserve every bit of what's coming.

Thankfully, it'll be the centrist/corporatist wing of the party that gets annihilated.

Maybe it would be for the best. Purge the far-right from the party and rebuild it by and for working people.

One could hope

But serious question, as I've been reading your posts closely. What could Biden realistically do to get Manchin and Sinema in line? All this "be like LBJ" talk is really just vague nothingness. They have all the leverage, and if we threaten to take their committees and kick them out of the caucus, I'm not sure if that actually brings them in line, what stops them from just sinking our agenda anyway.

To accept the centrist/corporatist narrative, you'd have to swallow the BS that members of Congress don't care if their bills are passed, or if they retain their seats. Suuuuuuuure /s. But, additionally, the Democratic Party could adopt provisions making it nearly impossible for Sinema/Manchin/etc. to lobby any current members of the Democratic caucus. Which would make it very difficult for them to secure lucrative post-Congressional corporate gigs. I call it Dead To Us, and it would mean that, essentially, your lifetime working within the Democratic Party (in the case of Manchin, at least) is basically worthless.

1. The Democrats can't really threaten Manchin electorally. AOC/Pelosi/Biden attacking him is basically a campaign ad for him given his state. I think given Trump's margin and his own and least 33% of his voters voted for Trump. Sinema is of course another story.

2. I don't think your "Dead to us" is workable at all. Even if the Dems could pass a rule in there caucus (which I highly doubt) how would they ever enforce it? Tap the phones of their members? Ban Democrats from  even talking to them? And what happens to a Dem that breaks these rules? How do you prove a Democrat was lobbied?  The only Democrats who would ever follow that would never be the ones Manchin or Sinema could lobby. Do you think a lobbing firm hires Manchin expecting him to successfully lobby AOC?

They need staff, right? So you make it so that anyone who conceals a meeting/communication with Manchin/Sinema/etc. is permanently excommunicated. Likewise, you reward staff members loyal to the party for turning in elected officials circumventing the policy. Once it becomes clear that violating the policy is a political death sentence, few will dare to do so. Not unlike a Republican contemplating criticizing Donald Trump.

On the flip side, no industry group is going to bother hiring a persona non grata forced to lobby in secret. It's just not worth the effort/expense.

[R.P. McM]

Progressives can't cave. If the coporatists won't play ball, then kill their precious "bipartisan" bill. 2022 is going to be a blood bath, and if Democrats can't pass this popular, important reconciliation bill, then they deserve every bit of what's coming.

Thankfully, it'll be the centrist/corporatist wing of the party that gets annihilated.

Democrats lose the majority in both houses, then in 2024, Biden gets thrown out of office and replaced by Trump.

Great job destroying the party.

Republicans didn't even have to lift a finger.

LOL. It's the ~2% of corporatist trash in the caucus that's threatening to block Biden's agenda and destroy the entire party. If they succeed in committing electoral suicide, good riddance. Alternatively, if you don't want the Exxon/PhRMA slimebags to lose, you better persuade them to support the reconciliation package. Because Ilhan Omar and Betty McCollum have absolutely nothing to fear. Can't say the same for Sinema, Schrader, Murphy, Gottheimer, etc.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I also think we need to move away from the progressives vs moderates framing.
This progressives, the Biden administration, House leaders, Senate leaders, moderates, and anonymous backbenchers vs 9 congressmen and 2 Senators.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm sick of this sh*t.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I'm sick of this sh*t.

Lol calm down it's a Health care proposal based on Medicare expansion that won't happen til 2028, not a UBI Stimulus

The reason why we have a 29T Natl Debt is all the Federal Unemployment checks we paid out in the last 2 yrs and the people on Unemployment gotten UBI 1400 and 300 more bonus than everyone else🤔🤔🤔

That's why they didn't renew Federal Unemployment, but states can renew it to and now it's 180 days but it should still be 9 months, 180 days you can't find a job, it goes by too fast but 210 days you can

We borrowed that UBI payments money we have record deficits due to Trump tax cuts in 2017

[Morning in Atlas]

The infrastructure bill can't be passed because so-called "progressives" is holding it hostage.

Well, since the mods didn't take kindly to my sh*tpost, I guess I don't have a choice. This is the most heinous example of DARVO I've seen posted on this forum.

Democratic Party leadership is behind this bill. Joe Biden, who was the party's compromise pick, pushed this bill as his signature achievement. An overwhelming number of Democrats - including most moderates - support this. Progressives are defending the bill from ten bad actors in a 270-person caucus. If we're going by House numbers, more Democrats opposed Iron Dome funding than reconciliation.

Most of the delay is from two Senators - one of whom is doing so by taking the Republican position on taxes. Not moderate, not even conservative like Manchin's positions. "No new taxes" is a mainstream Republican position - full stop - and whose position in completely unsustainable. That bad actor also refuses to come to the table, in contrast to the nine other bad actors. Manchin's just an attention-seeking dealmaker. Sinema's a true believer.

But you already knew this. You can't deal with the fact that the enlightened moderates that you identify with are the ones holding the bill hostage. You can't reconcile Kyrsten Sinema's actions with your hatred of progressives. So you deny she's holding the bill hostage, attack the people accusing her of it, and paint poor Kyrsten as the victim and progressives look like the terrorists. All because you're still not over a primary that happened five years ago, and you'll do anything to get back at them. Even if it means four more years of Trump.

You have no standing to determine who's a progressive. You don't even get to call yourself a moderate. By defending the far-right fringe of the party, you're no better than a Republican.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Democrats are NOT in array!


To recap "requirements" from this/last week.

Manchin:

• Yes to Hyde.
• No to vision, dental etc.
• No to expansion of social programs?
• Defends coal?
• Only "partial" roll-out of Trump's tax cuts.
• Postpone RB?

Sinema, the Queen:

• No to tax hikes
• Own the libs
• Make libs mad.
• Drag the libs.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Manchin said that he won't spend trillions on a Reconciliation Bill that we can't pay for SSA and Medicare we already have but didn't close the door entirely, he said he is for tax reform

[StateBoiler]

So what time is the vote scheduled for?

[Person Man]

Democrats are NOT in array!


To recap "requirements" from this/last week.

Manchin:

• Yes to Hyde.
• No to vision, dental etc.
• No to expansion of social programs?
• Defends coal?
• Only "partial" roll-out of Trump's tax cuts.
• Postpone RB?

Sinema, the Queen:

• No to tax hikes
• Own the libs
• Make libs mad.
• Drag the libs.

But then again, who wants to be the next Millard Fillmore?

[StateBoiler]

Democrats are NOT in array!


To recap "requirements" from this/last week.

Manchin:

• Yes to Hyde.
• No to vision, dental etc.
• No to expansion of social programs?
• Defends coal?
• Only "partial" roll-out of Trump's tax cuts.
• Postpone RB?

Sinema, the Queen:

• No to tax hikes
• Own the libs
• Make libs mad.
• Drag the libs.

But then again, who wants to be the next Millard Fillmore?

A lot of people based on how many politicians run for president at least briefly every 4 years.

[emailking]

So what time is the vote scheduled for?

I don't think it is yet.

[Person Man]

Democrats are NOT in array!


To recap "requirements" from this/last week.

Manchin:

• Yes to Hyde.
• No to vision, dental etc.
• No to expansion of social programs?
• Defends coal?
• Only "partial" roll-out of Trump's tax cuts.
• Postpone RB?

Sinema, the Queen:

• No to tax hikes
• Own the libs
• Make libs mad.
• Drag the libs.

But then again, who wants to be the next Millard Fillmore?

A lot of people based on how many politicians run for president at least briefly every 4 years.

What I meant is someone who runs on cleaning up the last president’s massive sh**t show, barely wins, and goes on to not do anything and ends up clearing the way for the party he ran against to have uncontested rule by breaking his own party into smaller 3rd parties.

[Pres Mike]

I suspect the vote on BIF either will be delayed or defeated

I suspect that until Manchin/Sinema agree to passing 2 trillion by November 1st (when Biden heads to Climate Meeting in Scotland) BIF won't pass

If I was Schumer, I would start a seperate reconcillation bill NOW so we do not default on our debt.

[emailking]

MSNBC is saying that Manchin wanted the White House to start negotiations at 2.1 Trillion. The White House refused.

https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/sources-sen-manchin-agreed-to-start-reconciliation-negotiations-at-2-1t-white-house-refuses-122374213788

[Torie]

This thread has become just about as "decorous" as the "conversation" on this topic in the Congress itself.

And now the confession from the old man. I really don't feel adequately informed as to have an opinion that is worth much as to what is the appropriate size of the reconciliation package and how it should be paid for, if at all. Maybe zero is best (unlikely), or maybe 10 trillion is best (unlikely too).

And now for a personal opinion. My personal preference as to priorities in spending is that there should be a national medicaid program (cue in Clyburn), and expansion of coverage in Obamacare for dental work, etc. (cue in Schumer and Sanders). In other words, as to those two prongs of the "Leftist/Progressive" agenda, rather than having to pick one or the other, I want both. The cost can be reduced some as needed via means testing (cue in Manchin).

So everyone gets a wet kiss from me this morning. Thank you.

[Person Man]

This thread has become just about as "decorous" as the "conversation" on this topic in the Congress itself.

And now the confession from the old man. I really don't feel adequately informed as to have an opinion that is worth much as to what is the appropriate size of the reconciliation package and how it should be paid for, if at all. Maybe zero is best (unlikely), or maybe 10 trillion is best (unlikely too).

And now for a personal opinion. My personal preference as to priorities in spending is that there should be a national medicaid program (cue in Clyburn), and expansion of coverage in Obamacare for dental work, etc. (cue in Schumer and Sanders). In other words, as to those two prongs of the "Leftist/Progressive" agenda, rather than having to pick one or the other, I want both. The cost can be reduced some as needed via means testing (cue in Manchin).

So everyone gets a wet kiss from me this morning. Thank you.

That is pretty close to my sentiment on the issue.

[StateBoiler]

Democrats are NOT in array!


To recap "requirements" from this/last week.

Manchin:

• Yes to Hyde.
• No to vision, dental etc.
• No to expansion of social programs?
• Defends coal?
• Only "partial" roll-out of Trump's tax cuts.
• Postpone RB?

Sinema, the Queen:

• No to tax hikes
• Own the libs
• Make libs mad.
• Drag the libs.

But then again, who wants to be the next Millard Fillmore?

A lot of people based on how many politicians run for president at least briefly every 4 years.

What I meant is someone who runs on cleaning up the last president’s massive sh**t show, barely wins, and goes on to not do anything and ends up clearing the way for the party he ran against to have uncontested rule by breaking his own party into smaller 3rd parties.

Boy, that post is wrong on so many levels to show complete ignorance about history of Millard Fillmore.

1. Millard Fillmore did not run for president in 1848. He was a vice president for Zachary Taylor that took office as president in 1850 following Taylor's death, finishing his term.
2. He was not chosen by the Whigs to run in 1852.
3. Following leaving the presidency, he left U.S. political life entirely including a long tour of Europe. While in Europe, he was surprised to find out that he had been nominated by the American Party (Know-Nothings) in 1856 after not seeking the nomination at all. The Whigs by 1856 had already disintegrated, thus why there was a Republican Party and a Know Nothing Party to start with. Fillmore accepted the nomination, but running for president did not espouse the nativist views of the Know Nothings when campaigning.
4. The major political event of Fillmore's presidency was the Missouri Compromise of 1850. Fillmore genuinely believed he was helping pass something to safeguard the long-term sanctity of the Union. This of course failed as we all know and the Whigs disintegrated in the aftermath. We have the benefit of hindsight to aid us. All the antebellum politicians of the time that worked in Congress and were president did not. It's a problem of historical analysis of ignoring the pressures and events of the time as they were happening because we know how everything ends up.
5. He's a guy that tried to do well but things didn't end up well. I don't think it's his fault as far as competence (I'd rate him more competent than Taylor), more just a function of the era he was in. Some presidents like Clinton get lucky and have nothing in their terms existentially major to worry about. Others like Fillmore are put in the verge of the country being torn apart by Civil War. Who's to say Fillmore if transplanted into 1992 couldn't do just as good a job as Clinton or Clinton if transplanted into 1850 could do worse a job than Fillmore?

[StateBoiler]

I also think we need to move away from the progressives vs moderates framing.
This progressives, the Biden administration, House leaders, Senate leaders, moderates, and anonymous backbenchers vs 9 congressmen and 2 Senators.

I agree. Frankly, this is the Democrats versus less than a dozen individuals rejecting Biden's agenda.

Okay. But remove said dozen people and Democrats no longer command a majority in either house on this subject.

If the Democrats had a 51-47-2 Senate majority and a 228-203 House majority, these bills would've passed - the moderates would've voted against but it wouldn't have mattered.

I'm not sure why this isn't clear to some, but the votes don't exist currently to pass either package.

1. Sinema-Portman Bill: A significant number of House Democrats will not support if Sinema and Manchin break their deal and do not support the Democratic Party platform. House Republicans will not support because any major bill passing will strengthen Democrats in 2022 and 2024.

I don't believe there are 0 votes from the House Republicans. My gut is they'll make up the required difference of progressives that vote against. Chamber of Commerce-style folks and Portman are lobbying them hard. The House right now is 220-212. Assuming everyone votes and no one says "present", the number of Republicans voting for the bill for it to pass has to be no more than 4 less than the number of progressive Democrats voting against. I think you'll see a few progressives not vote/vote present to say they're not voting against the bill but not supporting it either, but that lowers the threshold of crossover Republicans voting.

This is the fundamental weakness of the progressives' position compared to the moderates is the progressives can't count on any Republican support for what they want to do, while I'm sure the moderates have talked around and know they have some, thus why they've reliably held their position. If the Progressive Caucus voted en masse against, that's one thing, but I don't believe anyone thinks they have that level of unity to kill their own president's agenda.

[StateBoiler]

I don't believe there are 0 votes from the House Republicans. My gut is they'll make up the required difference of progressives that vote against. Chamber of Commerce-style folks and Portman are lobbying them hard.

I don't doubt there will be some. I know Upton and four others had committed to it as of a week ago, but House Republicans are more ideological than Senate Republicans by a country mile. If a fourth of the progressives withhold their votes over a broken deal, that's ~24 votes to make up. Can Portman find 19+ Republicans willing to vote for government spending and helping Biden? There are only ~80 who didn't try to overturn the election and those who aren't ideologically opposed fear a primary.

Yeah, really it goes to the level of how many progressives say "nay", but I think most of them fold unless they want to become no different than the Freedom Caucus.

If you had say 10 Republicans voting for this, would not surprise me at all. That's 5% of the caucus. That requires 14 Democrats to vote against to kill the bill, presuming 100% yea/nay votes.

[KaiserDave]

https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/sources-sen-manchin-agreed-to-start-reconciliation-negotiations-at-2-1t-white-house-refuses-122374213788

Morning Joe Exclusive

Manchin and maybe Sinema? say they want something around 1.5 trillion, will negotiate from 2.1 trillion, more means testing and work requirements. President Biden says this is not an acceptable place to start. Biden says NO to Manchin and Sinema's conservative suggestion.

So much for the "Biden isn't doing anything, Biden doesn't care" narrative.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

 https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1443581056905465869?s=19

[KaiserDave]

Significant breach of trust? Who care. House DLC critters are a paper tiger.