Timex
3463
I feel like anyone who turns their nose up at a 3.5T infrastructure plan because it isn’t big enough isn’t a serious person, and probably shouldn’t be in congress.
Seriously. 3.5 TRILLION would make it one of the biggest government efforts in the history of the country, wouldn’t it? Would it actually be the biggest?
It’s over 9 years. We spend 750+ billon on defense per year and that’s not counting Homeland security.
Still and all the details emerging are encouraging as it seems to hit all parts of the broad democratic coalition including pay fors, human infrastructure and climate mitigation. Manchin is still an obstacle for the climate change proposals but I don’t think he’ll stand in the way once all the legislation is written.
Is this because being elected in West Virginia means you have to pay constant homage to the awesomeness of coal, or something?
Getting rid of fossils will make climate change worse! (aka he’s in the pocket of the industry.)
Because if they’re eliminating fossils, and I’m finding out there’s a lot of language in places they’re eliminating fossils, which is very, very disturbing, because if you’re sticking your head in the sand, and saying that fossil (fuel) has to be eliminated in America, and they want to get rid of it, and thinking that’s going to clean up the global climate, it won’t clean it up all. If anything, it would be worse."
I hope that he develops severe depression and experiences the waking horror of being unable to muster the energy to even hate your own loathsome existence for the rest of his days.
Can people without a moral compass or a conscience suffer from depression?
I mean, it’s a biochemical process, not an overabundance of empathy.
This is why Biden was in hock for the banking industry as a Senator. They own Delaware.
NC Senators were notorious for defending tobacco until very recently.
Joe Manchin has a moral compass. And it points in a fairly true direction and always has.
Do you believe that the state of West Virginia was/is going to elect a senator either in the previous 100 years or the next 50 years who is not at least paying lip-service to the coal industry?
Matt_W
3472
AOC is still a relatively inexperienced second term Congresswoman with very little institutional power within Congress. Her influence is nearly entirely in news and social media. She has a list of priorities, number one of which is and always has been climate change mitigation. Of course she will push on this at every opportunity when being interviewed. That’s the job of a Congresswoman: to leverage political and cultural influence for legislative ends. And the end of the day though, she’s just a vote: she doesn’t even hold any kind of leadership position in the Progressive Caucus. (Quick: without looking it up, name the chair of the CPC.) But her job isn’t to meekly toe the line–it’s to push her priorities. She’ll vote for the package, but it’s perfectly fine to register her dissatisfaction with it (and her dissatisfaction might even provide political cover for someone like Manchin to vote for it.)
A great point.
AOC and Manchin may both vote against this in the long run. It’s possible! Weirder things have happened.
But it’s also at least reasonably likely that a whole lot of this is political kabuki theater, too.
Funny that the transparently most rational, sane, hard-headed, reality-based agenda prioritization belongs to the “wacky angry leftist” member of Congress.
Not saying there’s anything to be done about it. Just shouting into the void, as is my wont.
Matt_W
3475
Indeed.
AOC is essentially saying “Why don’t we not drink the Kool-aid?”
And the rest are like “Well it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point. You’re just a crazy person spitting in the wind. Maybe we can reach a compromise on grape Flavor Aid instead of strawberry Kool-aid.”
It’s almost always CBO estimates over a 10 year period.
Sounds like the bipartisan infrastructure bill is in the process of dying right now.
Always felt like a bit of a longshot, and whatever the Democrats really wanted in there they might find room for in their reconciliation, partisan bill.
It seems that Republican are objecting to giving more money to the IRS to collect taxes. I see the Donald Trump wing, taxes are only for stupid people,has become dominant.
Timex
3481
I feel like the Dems should have passed that before they started making noise about the reconcilliation bill.
So to be clear here: the mild GOP support for the bipartisan bill was a reflection of their belief that the Democrats couldn’t get their shit together enough to agree on a reconciliation bill that would keep Manchin and Sinema on board in the senate and AOC and the left faction together in the House.
With the reconciliation bill starting to come together, you can take the bipartisan bill being on life support as a sign that the GOP is worried that there’s a decent chance the partisan bill will pass.
There was great worry that if they passed the bipartisan bill first, that those Democratic factions who are shaky on this would completely have walked away and there’d be no reconciliation bill.
