4431

Oh absolutely. Most of the reason Congress can’t get anything decent done is that the corruption is off the charts. Why can’t the government negotiate prices for Medicare drugs like it does for almost everything else it buys? Bribes sorry “campaign contributions” from Pharma. Why can’t we move faster on climate change? Or have local loop unbundling for our internet? Same fucking thing, but different donors.

According to the Supremes, though, truckloads of money = truckloads of protected free speech, so here we are. This has led to terminal cynicism among voters, which is why so many of them just say fuck it and don’t vote. This is why the country is in decline. The one country that can stop China and its illiberal system from dominating the next century.

4432

The only way we can solve this corruption I feel is we have to radicalize the same way the Republicans did, and start purity testing. We’ve already seen what it’s done to the Republican party.

It’s grotesque, but they are now a lot closer to their constituents and less able to be cowed by big business. Dems have to fear the primary, and the institutional Dems have been very good at divide-and-conquer among the base, esp in the South.

4433

I feel (hope?) that you can horse trade some WV coal shit in exchange for the bigger picture to a greener economy. C’mon smoky backrooms, you can do it!

4434

Jen Psaki:

“This is how democracy works. I know it feels foreign, because [paraphrased from memory] we haven’t seen much of it the last couple of years.”

4435

I hates me some Joe Manchin, with a passion, but if Joe Manchin says “hey I’m for $160b per year in expanded child tax credits to lift millions out of poverty but only so long as rich people can’t get it, and in fact I’d tax those rich people more to pay for those tax credits,” I shake Joe Manchin’s hand and make that deal. And progressive leaders who can’t see that shouldn’t be leading anyone.

4436

I agree with the sentiment, but how do you do the means testing in a way that doesn’t throw up barriers in the way of the people who should get it? It also depends on whom you define as “rich”–set the income threshold too low and the credit won’t be nearly as popular among the bulk of the population. Now if the means testing is done as a clawback at tax time, that would be the most and efficient way to do it.

4437

The point is, the expanded child tax credit is already means tested. The benefit drops to $2000 per child for married households with income of 150k, stays there until married household income reaches $400k, and from there drops by $50 per $1000 of married household income above $400k, until it reaches $0.

4438

Sure, but if Manchin is saying that he’d “only support 1.5 Trillion dollars”, then that means when you combine it with the infrastructure plan, you’ve got $2.5 trillion dollars.

That’s a huge freaking win.

And if Dems are right, and that stuff will improve the lives for Americans… then that’s gonna make it way easier to grow your power in Congress… Which then means you can pass even bigger things in the future.

But if you don’t pass anything now, while you have the chance, then you are gonna lose power and then you’ll never be able to pass anything in the future.

4439

I’d like to take this at face value — that Sinema is negotiating in good faith privately, and has been all along — but it is very contrary to what the ‘inside’ DC narrative has been about her.

4440

Keep in mind, it’s over 10 years, so 350 billion a year. This sounds like a lot, but for the fiscal year 2021, but the Pentagon is asking for 715 Billion and the house passed a bill allocating 768 Billion.
And this is an organization that regularly fails the most basic accounting of its budget when audited.

So, 350 Billion a Year is still a decent chunk of change, but I don’t think we should oversell it.

Maybe we should break everything down into its cost relationship with the Defense Department.
The combined 2 Bills equals less then 1/2 of a Defense Department Budget.

4441

I agree entirely, but Manchin is asking for a lot more, much of which is unpalatable.,

4442

I don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry. Whatever else you think of him — and I hate him — he’s been basically consistent in his position in all respects for months. He wants substantially less than $3.5t / 10 years in new program spending, he wants higher taxes on the wealthy, he wants to extend the CTC, he wants to preserve the Hyde Amendment.

4443

The Hyde amendment stuff was the dealbreaker for me - he knew that was a high priority of Biden’s and Dems in general (it’s popular with a majority of Dems)

the 1.5billion he lists, that’s a starting point for negotiation, I’d be ok with a number in the 2-2.5 range.

4444

He has said that all along, for months. There’s nothing new about that demand from him.

4445

It’s crazy how shambolic the Pentagon’s accounting is, by all umm, accounts.

And @scottagibson if the bill that Manchin and Sinema would vote for makes the tax credit permanent and there’s no additional bureaucracy involved in the means testing, fantastic.

Problem is, there are lots of other things we need (vision, dental and hearing added to Medicare, sans bullshit “no price negotiation” provisions for one thing), but that’s a good start.

4446

The one thing I want kept is the thing that keeps ACA premiums capped to a percentage of income.

4447

No dude, it doesn’t just sound like a lot. It is a huge win.

Seriously, this narrative that the Democrats are creating that “oh, well this isn’t that big a deal” is crazy pants. It’s a huge freaking deal.

When was the last time anyone passed a $2.5 Trillion increase in all the spending you want?

Oh, what’s that? NEVER? It’s never happened, ever, in your entire life?

Seriously, this is such a huge freaking win… You guys need to stop talking yourselves down about it.

4448

I mean, I would swap the vision / dental / hearing stuff for early buy-in to Medicare, personally. I don’t ever recall a groundswell of public demand and support for those things.

4449

The problem is that some people hoped that we would be able to get every single thing we wanted right now. It was naive to begin with, but the expectation got set that the $3.5T number was the final bill, not the opening number for negotiations.

4450

It’s just making me nuts here, seeing the Democrats so close to achieving the biggest legislative win that any of us have ever seen, and it sure as hell looks like they are going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.