Despite all the media misinformation and outright lies about the Biden / Pelosi / Schumer “two-track” holistic plan (infrastructure / reconciliation), here’s why it’s actually going to pass into law as the most historic progressive achievement for the American people since the New Deal and Great Society:
By supermajorities, the people overwhelmingly support reform of the social safety net which is the heart of this legislation. Think child care, education, expanded Medicare / Medicaid, climate change, housing, fair taxation; in addition to hard infrastructure roads, bridges, water, broadband , etc.
As for the cost? It’s really quite simple. They’re going to agree on the best deal THAT CAN PASS! If they can’t get $3.5T over 10 years they will scale it “back” to $1.5 over three years.
That’s it. Let’s get ‘er done!
Almost regardless of the actual amount, it’s still more than Trump ever did for the working class.
I sincerely hope that the progressives are not being as childish as the NYT makes them out to be.
This nihilistic my-way-or-the-highway approach is suicidal for Democrats and for America. This is more than politics and more than a horse-race. It’s also more than anti-Trumpism.
We are facing down an existential crisis for representative democracy and for America’s role in the free world. The seditionists who now control the GOP actively and explicitly seek to destroy the very foundations of America.
While I understand the objection to calling them the “American Taliban”, in practice they represent a very similar threat. Both seek to oppress and exploit women. Both reject science and civilization in favor of superstition and religious dogma.
If these thugs gain a majority in 2022, then everything we hold dear is at risk.
I haven’t read NYT coverage, but it does seem the progressives are holding the scaled back version hostage. I prefer the more ambitious plan too, but something is better than nothing. It seems as though with the Republicans acting as a cult of personality the Democrats have stepped in to play the role of two parties.
There was a deal agreed to that both bills would be passed in tandem. It is the centrists who are going back on the deal and holding everything hostage. There is nothing “childish” about insisting that the deal be honored.
The weaker these bills get the less likely it is that voters will have a reason to keep the Democrats in the majority, “more than Trump ever did.” is a great message for BMG, but it’s not good enough for the voters.
I trust Pelosi to pass what she thinks will pass. My understanding is the Progressive Caucus is holding not just conducting the vote, but it’s actual passage, as the standard. It makes no sense for the progressives to tell their colleagues and the American people either we get everything we want or nothing at all, and yes, that is behavior I expect from children. Procedurally it’s actually pretty easy. Vote on the ambitious one first and if that doesn’t pass try the smaller one. If neither passes where do you think THAT will leave the Dems?
It is choosing no deal over a tandem deal that I think is childish.
That may well be true in the deep blue districts that elect the leaders of the Progressive Caucus. It is not true in the swing districts that gave Democrats our razor-thin majority.
I suspect that we’re actually watching the old GOP vs Democratic Party landscape evolve into a new three-party landscape:
It looks to me as though these are three distinct communities with competing interests.
It also appears to me that both (1) and (3) are fringe parties that lack the ability to gain a majority public vote in a fair and honestly counted general election. They have strong influence over primaries — and it appears to me that that influence is to actually harm the chances that their values and priorities will ultimately prevail.
I suspect that, at the end of the day, it will be (2) that actually holds the reins of power.
I think the most important immediate question is whether (2) and (3) are able to find common ground long enough to stop (1) from destroying the foundations of fair and honestly-counted general elections.
If we collectively fail to do that, then representative democracy as we’ve known it is dead.
That’s why I think it’s childish for (3) to torpedo our best chances of limiting the influence of (1).
The$3.5 trillion bill is the Joe Biden bill. It’s not, as you seem to imply the Socialist Workers bill. The provisions are pretty much all popular, as are the various tax increases on the rich which pay for them.
Unless people in swing districts see the Democrats making their lives easier, they won’t vote Democrat.
So let’s end the childishness. Have a vote on the $3.5 trillion bill. Are there actually people in congress who are so childish that they would kill the entire Biden bill just because the number is a little bigger than they want?
I’ve said nothing about “socialist”, that’s your invention.
That hasn’t happened because it won’t pass the Senate and probably won’t pass the House. Nine Democratic members of the House said that they will vote against the reconciliation bill unless the bipartisan bill is first signed into law.
That isn’t supported by polling data from those districts.
Yes. Their names are Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Neither Senator will vote for the $3.5T bill, and they’ve said so repeatedly. Nine members of the House are on record as opposing the $3.5T bill unless the bipartisan bill is passed first. The Progressive Caucus says that it will not support the bipartisan bill unless and until the reconciliation bill is passed.
Mr. Manchin has already been clear that his starting point is $1.5T. It’s conceivable that he might stretch to $2T. I think it’s unlikely he’ll go beyond that.
The Progress Caucus started at $6.5T. They’re unhappy because the end result is likely to be significantly less than that.
Nancy Pelosi would have brought the $3.5T bill to a vote if she thought she had the votes. She did not.
The best way to avoid this circus is to elect more progressive Democrats. That didn’t happen in 2020.
As you say, the provisions of the $3.5T bill are broadly popular. They enjoy strong support among self-identified Republicans, independents, and Democrats of all persuasions.
The broad popularity of the provisions means that if a pared-down version is killed by the House Progressive Caucus, then progressive Democrats will be blamed for its failure.
That is NOT the way to elect more progressive Democrats to the House in 2022.
Over the weekend, Joe Biden stated the best path forward: pass a pared-down version of the reconciliation package and the bipartisan package by the end of this month.
The unspoken second act is to aggressively campaign to elect additional progressive Democrats in 2022 and 2024.
It is childish foolishness to believe that changes of this magnitude can be done in less than a year with razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate.
”
That is NOT the way to elect more progressive Democrats to the House in 2022.”
That’s clever. First label the progressives as childish and then say we need more of them.
You are correct to label the $3.5 trillion bill as a compromise. I wish you had been clearer in your earlier comments.
Of course the final amount will be negotiated. How are those negotiations going to go when one side threatens to walk away while the other side makes it clear that they will take absolutely anything?
I’m not nostalgic for the negotiating skills of the Obama administration, where it seemed like there was a cave in every week.
Before we start caving in this year, let’s have some congressional hearings featuring Senator Epipen’s daughter and her price gouging.etc.
You flatter me when in order to reply to my earlier comment you felt the need to abolish the two-party system. I’m down with that.
Should we just call party number two the “Number two party”, or should we call them “Rethug-o-crats”.
The breakdown of the two-party system predates your commentary and has nothing to do with it.
We do need more progressives, and presumably the childish behavior of the ones we have will abate as they confront the reality that we all face.
I hope that all parties agree that walking away is not an option.
The compromises that progressives are complaining about are a significant advance over where we’ve been in the past.
I already offered my suggested names — “Conservative Democrats” and “Progressive Democrats”. We could follow the lead of our European Counterparts and call the latter “Liberal Democrats”.
Joe Manchin has said he absolutely will not sign a bill that does not include the Hyde Amendment. Pramila Jayapal, Chair of the House Progressive Caucus, says that she will not support a bill that DOES include the Hyde Amendment.
Some of this is typical pre-vote grandstanding.
At the end of the day, one of those two — or both — will have to choose between more compromise and getting something passed.
The rebirth of the Hyde Amendment exemplifies the kind of nonsense that demands that we increase the number pro-choice Democrats in the House and Senate.
This is what comes of treating the 50 Senate republicans as some kind principled conservative statesmen who are unreachable. Fred’s take is better. These are 50 pukes, always for sale, and always vulnerable to pressure, or they wouldn’t put up with Trump for a minute.
Don’t you think the two Senators from South Dakota are feeling a little vulnerable this morning after the release of the Pandora papers? What if Biden made a big deal out it?
That’s just an example. The point is, if there is a way to peel off a couple republicans, then we don’t need Manchin or Sinema. Then they get nothing.
If that’s even a prospect, then Manchin and Sinema would either have to modify their demands or face their donors empty handed.
There have to be four of five choices for the last two votes. Then you can negotiate and compromise.
This is all pretty basic politics. The fact that it’s not happening makes me wonder.
I enthusiastically agree.
Nope, I don’t think the two Senators from South Dakota care even a little bit.
I think that ANY attempt to influence or change their vote is a complete waste of energy, consistent with our observation that they are pukes.
I view each and every one as a criminal co-conspirator with the seditionists who are trying to topple America as we know it.
Agreed again. What I wonder about, though, is what kompromat is keeping all those GOP Senators in line.
I think that an ongoing prosecution of Mr. Trump and his enablers in the GOP, so that his only public role is “defendant”, is a crucial first step in defeating the insurrection.
I wonder why that has still not happened.
I agree that “…more than Trump ever did for the working class” has limited appeal in a general election.
A great many Americans are loathe to self-identify as members of the “working class” — even if they are. The phrase itself has old and tired cold-war overtones.
In my view, the more immediate danger is to democracy itself. I like to believe that a majority of Americans and perhaps even American voters are appalled by the relentless attempts to overturn legitimate elections, to choke the courts with flagrantly fraudulent legal actions, and to defend rather than investigate and prosecute those who organized and led a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.
I like to think that most Americans want fair, honest, and legitimate elections.
Can you unpack this?
I think of working class as those who work with their hands or in service, and I thought people were proud of this honest work. I thought that’s why Trump’s anti-elitism (albeit phony) appealed to them. I’m also not sure what the Cold War has to do with it. What I’d love to know is how the Republican Party managed to pull off being the party of both the working stiff and the 1%. Those interests seem diametrically opposed.
I think the Democratic Party has done a miserable job in its effort to gain support with this demographic – if it has made any effort at all. Yes, these people are proud and honest and yes, we’ve just discovered that many of them are essential to our economy even though their skills are not ones that we recognize. There does seem to be some upwards pressure on wages for them and maybe President Biden can run to the front of that movement and becomes its leader.
When the Democrats became the party of the college educated, that left a vacuum.
College educated + working class makes a lot more sense as a coalition IMO. As for support from the demographic, why are unions still among the strongest Dem interest groups, but people they represent are less enthused? The Dems are so obviously the party that wants to make the lives of such people better through higher wages, greater access to health care, child care, etc.
Well, one would think so, but there is a strong belief in a meritocracy among the college educated and they seem to have little sympathy for the non-college educated.
So the 1% has more sympathy for them? There is nothing wrong with meritocracy per se. Even in working class contexts people can and do rise through the ranks to become supervisors and managers.
Perhaps not, but we don’t live in a per se world.
In the world we live in “meritocracy” is another euphemism for “whites only”. We have constructed a society where blacks are marginalized, sidelined, and cheated at every step of the way from pre-K through adulthood.
We then cite “meritocracy” and choose whites because — surprise surprise — whites outperform blacks on whatever measure is being put forward.
It also needs to be said that “meritocracy” generally applies only to those who aren’t well-connected. While admission to an Ivy League college is allegedly an objective process based on merit, somehow legacy admissions continue unabated.
If the parents of a high school senior are alumni of Harvard — and especially if they are significant donors to Harvard — then that senior has a MUCH higher likelihood of being admitted than other applicants — regardless of stated admissions criteria.
The same is true for pretty much all other aspects of upper-crust life. If your family is there, then you are there. It happens in partnerships, the executive ranks of corporations, and of course academia.
Money talks. Old money talks louder.
The oldest loudest money is white.
Meritocracy reminds me of what Ghandi said when asked about western civilization, that it would be a good idea.
When 50% of the students at Ivy League schools come from the top 1% richest families–that’s not meritocracy.
I wasn’t trying to turn this into a racial discussion nor was I claiming meritocracy always works as advertised. It sounded to me like JTM was implying that it was wrong to believe in meritocracy to begin with, and that is what I was pushing back on.
The point is that your belief in meritocracy is a bulwark of the systemic racism that causes so much suffering today.
I hope it goes without saying that when I defend meritocracy of course I believe it should apply to everyone without respect to race.
If one gave me a pile of fifty birth certificates from 1970 and asked me to rank them by their economic status today, poorest on the bottom and wealthiest on the top of the pile – and only allowed me to ask one general question about the entire pile, my question would not be IQ, or highest grade achieved, SAT scores or hours worked. No, if limited to just one general question it would be this: The economic status of their parents. There is no single best indictor of their economic status today.
The only thing wrong with a meritocracy is that it simply does not exist in the USA ….BUT those at the top of the pile tell those on the bottom that it does exist.
Your comment calls to mind one of the more egregious and devastating lies of the GOP — that America is the “Land of Opportunity”.
The false mythology is that America is the best place in the world for those with nothing to become wealthy.
According Credit Suisse (https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/news-and-expertise/global-wealth-report-the-pandemic-reshuffles-the-wealthiest-group-202012.html), there were 2.84 new millionaires per 100K population in Switzerland in 2020. That same figure was 0.68 per 100K population in the US. In China, the figure was 0.000091 per 100K.
A person living in Switzerland was almost FIVE TIMES as likely to become a millionaire in Switzerland than in the US in 2020.
Of all the things accomplished by forty years of right-wing dominance of the US economic system is that it has absolutely CRUSHED the ability of people with nothing to become wealthy.
We’ve heard a lot about walls from the GOP in the past few years. The biggest, highest, thickest, and most impermeable wall that the GOP has built is the wall that separates the ultra-wealthy from the rest of us.
A Right Wing Talk Radio host whose initials are “B.S.” appropriately enough has a standard line that to not be poor, all one has to so is:
This is what you will hear from a typical libertarian millennial or anyone who is well off and patting themselves on the back for their success while they place blame the poor for simply being immoral and lazy. The system works, you see? Look at me! All you have to do is what I did.
My standard comeback question to them is this: If a young man and young woman from very wealthy families do not graduate from high school, don’t get a job, and have a child without getting married, what do you think are the odds that they will fall into poverty?
In other words, the rules only apply to the poor.
Number 2 is much more easily said than done, and not just among the poor.
Well, let’s be clear. There are plenty of examples of upward mobility and we are certainly not a feudal system where you are legally stuck in the class you are born into.
Not nearly as many in America today as in America of 1900 or 1930.
Let’s be clear — the “Land of Opportunity” myth is a dangerous lie.
It’s a myth that requires certain policies to work. America certainly CAN BE a land of opportunity, but some seem to think that status is divinely ordained. The American Dream does not run on autopilot. It requires commitments like the New Deal and Great Society in order to take effect.
It requires commitments that neither Democrats nor Republicans have been willing to live up to for forty years.
It requires taxing the accumulation of wealth so that an actual middle class continues to exist.
The Arab oil embargos of the 1970 kicked off stagflation that killed off the idea that a single wage-earner could sustain a family.
It is no accident that you cite two programs that were done 90 and 50 years ago.
Yup, and there are plenty of examples of people getting rich after buying a lottery ticket or going to Foxwoods. But we must look at the overall results and those are clear, based on the years of data that we have.
This analysis completely ignores the flood of lies and propaganda from the GOP, and puts the blame on the Democrats.
The GOP has aligned itself as anti-intellectual, anti-science, pro-religious, and of course racist and sexist for at least fifty years.
It is no accident that those postures align well with significant portions of the American working class.
That was not my intent. I place the blame on propaganda from the Republicans and their Horatio Alger fantasy as well as the message from the neoliberals in the Democratic Party that a meritocracy exists and all one needs is college; free college at that.
I think the Democratic Party has seen enough of the likes of the Clintons and President Obama and needs to turn to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sherrod Brown who fight for ‘the dignity of work‘ – the belief that hard work should pay off for everyone, no matter who you are or what kind of work you do..
This is no more realistic than the Horatio Alger lies of the GOP.
Whale oil will never again be a valuable commodity. Railroad locomotives will never again be powered by steam.
The premise of using “hard work” — labor — as a mechanism for distributing wealth is obsolete. The American middle-class — if it is ever reborn at all — will not be sustained by hourly or weekly wages.
That’s why we should be focusing on a UBI. That’s why we should be taxing wealth rather than income in order to fund that UBI.
A consumer economy requires consumers who have enough wealth that they can use it to acquire the things they need and want. Labor is never again going to provide that wealth for most Americans.
Democrats should not lie.
Not as long as we continue to devalue it. That’s true.
The value of an hour of labor is set by supply and demand.
The government can use its economic tools to provide a UBI for every American. By providing sufficient household wealth so that every American has access to the essentials of life, the dynamics that drive the cost of labor can be changed.
For example, restaurant workers who aren’t held hostage by their children’s need for food and shelter are likely to be less willing to labor in hostile environments for subsistence-level wages. Restaurants will find or invent ways to pay higher wages to their staff and will find or invent ways to reduce their need for staff.
The only viable solution is to fundamentally restructure the wealth of our economy so that it is more fairly distributed among all of us.
Offering bromides about “the dignity of work” only distracts from the real work to be done.
It’s also set by the norms of society. It’s an often used comparison but the “fast food” workers in Denmark are valued at $20 per hour with full benefits.
Closer to home, here is a comment from the owner of a local restaurant on the Cape
I refuse to pay someone we value, less than what they can reasonably be expected to live on in this special town that we all love. Americans have under valued food for a very long time. And in my opinion, by so doing have undervalued themselves. …..Paying a fair price for the services of those who prepare your food not only makes for better eating but also for a better place to live and visit. How can we assign value to a certain dish or product without respecting the value of the person who has grown, cooked or washed said dish.
Tracy Shields, owner Hangar B LLC
I’m glad that Hanger B has chosen this route.
“Norms of society” is one of the ways that supply and demand works.
This anecdote doesn’t change the reality that the economy of the 1960s and 1970s is not going to return. It also needs to be said that those were not nearly as wonderful for non-white workers.
I think it’s clear that we need to fundamentally reshape our economy. The cornerstone of that restructuring is to replace “labor” — hours or days worked — with a different mechanism for distributing wealth.
If the economy of the 1960’s and 1970’s cannot return, why has the economy of the 1920’s been allowed to return?
The economy of the 1960s and 1970s cannot return because the hourly labor it was built on is obsolete. Robots and automation replace tens of thousands of jobs with machines that don’t need benefits, don’t need wages, and don’t vote.
From the 1930s through 1970s, even the very wealthy needed the hourly labor of factory worker to generate the wealth that they hoarded. America has been doing all in its power to make labor obsolete for forty years. That effort is succeeding.
Your link (an excellent read, by the way) offers an excellent summary of how to change this trajectory:
Here, for me, is the money quote:
I’ve been advocating dramatic increases in the gift and estate tax for some time here at BMG.
The solution to this issue is to tax wealth, so that it may be shared among all Americans rather than hoarded by the top 0.01% of the ultra-wealthy.
The premise that “hard work should pay off for everyone, no matter who you are or what kind of work you do” is, like most dogma, comforting in its simplicity and appealing in its apparent fairness.
Sadly, it has nothing to do with economic reality.
Tom’s reply notwithstanding I think Dems DO believe in the dignity of work, but keep in mind AOC doesn’t resonate in every district.
Believing in the “dignity of work” is a distraction, it’s just Democrat-colored lipstick on the pig of worker exploitation.
AOC most certainly does NOT resonate in every district, you’re absolutely correct about that.
There is widely-published research that suggests that people who statistically belong in the “working class” see themselves as eventually landing in the upper classes.
The GOP pitch, for generations, has been that the GOP and its dogma stands alongside various permutations of the “Prosperity Gospel” as a path to wealth and prosperity.
An enormous portion of today’s working-class Americans who self-align with the GOP embrace this belief system.
During the Cold War, phrases like “working class” were used by and attributed to “communist”, “socialist”, “leftist”, and similar ideological groups. The ideological divide between “left” and “right” during that era loaded terms like “working class” with connotations categorically rejected by many or most Americans who statistically fell into that demographic.
I always found it the height of irony that at least in Poland, communism was overthrown by Solidarity – a trade union. If working class people see themselves as eventually making it into the upper class, what exactly are Republicans doing to help that along? If anything that party seems to have the attitude of if you can’t make it, that’s somehow your fault – how does that resonate with the working class? I’m reminded of a quote from Harry Truman: “If you want to live like a Republican, you had better vote Democratic!”
The Republicans have been telling them a multitude of lies for generations. They have bought an entire television network that panders to their darkest aspects and fills their heads with dangerous disinformation.
“Who are you gonna believe – me or your lying eyes?”
If Fox is saying that all you have to do is work hard, that those who need public assistance are lazy, etc., at what point do they say, “Hey wait a second – I’ve worked my tail off my entire life and I’m not getting ahead – what gives?” Maybe these guys should be first in line to support Build Back Better and let their elected officials know.
That is the cue to invoke the scapegoat of the day. Their answer to “what gives” is some mix of —
BTW, Gail Huff Brown is running for congress in New Hampshire. One of her talking points is to remove “Government Handouts that Discourage Hard Work”….
Why isn’t it also the cue to fight for their own share of government support and vote for those who would get it to them? This doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. I’ve never understood why the default is to blame others or the government rather than demand better for everyone.
@”Why isn’t it also the cue…”
It is MUCH easier to blame someone else — especially someone less powerful — than to do anything else.
Then I guess we’ve come full circle. Much easier also may mean much lazier, but they don’t see themselves as lazy, right? That’s the other people.
IOKIYAR.
By construction, a Republican cannot be lazy.
Right?
Exactly. Can anyone imagine the outrage by the Republicans and Evangelicals if President Obama had five children from three marriages and bragged about hitting on porn stars?
Bill Maher has certainly imagined something similar.
New Rule: What If Obama Said It? | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) – YouTube