5280

When Sanders voted on it months ago, it was in the context of also having a large social spending bill that would travel with it.

Let’s not pretend that the primary beneficiaries of physical infrastructure spending aren’t going to be government contractors. And no matter how juicy those contracts are, none of them will be looking back next November and having warm feelings toward the Democrats.

I’m just saying, my expectations are low. But I won’t be surprised if the next two weeks are dominated by headlines like “Is Biden Asking Too Much?” and “Biden Got His Big Win. What Now?” Completely ignoring the fact that this wasn’t even Biden’s agenda.

5281

Let’s not pretend that the primary beneficiaries won’t be the American people who will finally have roads and bridges badly in need of safety repairs rebuilt, who will have lead pipes carrying water replaced, who will have better Internet access in areas were access was horrible, and who will have a more reliable, more modernized electric grid.

5282

Also, you know, the people who actually do all the work are… American workers.

I mean, as evil as the corporations are, they’re also the employers of… pretty much all of us.

5283

The center of the party isn’t in control of what passes. Manchin is. You know this. This is why all the stuff about “leverage” has always been a lie. It’s about being seen to fight, feeding their egos, and sabotaging the “moderates”, regardless of the consequences for party and country.

I think it’s important to remember that while the no votes were from very loud people, it’s a tiny proportion of the CPC. The CPC maybe need someone not from the fringe to be a high profile flagbearer, but other than that they are fine.

Maybe Jayapal just recognised there was nothign to gain by prolonging the fight?

Frankly you’re just spreading far left conspiracist bullshit now. The demsocs can see the 2022 catastrophe coming and are lining up their stab in the back narratives now. Socialism can never fail, it can only be failed.

No man, it’s a win. It’s just not a win for you, because your extremist saboteur champions weren’t able to keep stringing out their publicity stunt and sabotage of the party.

5284

I think they’re going to look much more like a traditional socdem party, BBB is a massive social democratic bill, although much less so once Manchin is through with it. But the entire dem house and almost all of their senators were happy to support it.

(Note this shows how much the vast majority of the “moderates” of the party are willing to compromise - because they can see which way the wind is blowing and they want big Dem wins, even if they aren’t exactly the wins they would have chosen)

5285

Huh? I’ve been in the “passing something is better than passing nothing” camp. I’m not saying the bipartisan bill is flat-out bad - I’m just saying that it was the compromise. It’s the kind of spending that you could get ten members of today’s GOP to vote for. It’s not going to move the needle for Democrats next year.

But I’m predicting the media is going to oversell it and frame it as though Biden got everything he wanted. The stuff the administration really wants is in the reconciliation bill, but now we’re going to get stories that frame that stuff as asking for too much, and at this point I won’t be surprised if it gets spiked altogether.

Also, you call it a publicity stunt and sabotage, but as I predicted, the majority of the progressive caucus fell in line when the bill hit the table. Now let’s see how much publicity Manchin and Sinema are going to wring out of the next few weeks in addition to what they’ve done over the last several months.

5286

Yes, government contractors will be the the biggest beneficiaries of the the bill. But you seemed have weird view of who these government contractors are.

One of the government contractors that will infrastructure bill will benefit is my friends road construction company Alakona. It is family business,that she owns and has 27 employees, of which maybe 6 people have a college degree, several didn’t even graduate high school. It mini UN, with lots of part Hawaiian.

When Biden said these are good paying union jobs, he wasn’t kidding. All Federal contracts and many state and local contracts, require Davis -Bacon wages. This means that contractors have to pay the prevailing wage for jobs. In practice this means, union wages. So if Alakona wins a contract or more like a sub-contract. she’ll pay the guy raking the asphalt, $30/hour and the guy operating the heavy machinery $60/hour. In addition, she’ll be paying fringe benefits (health insurance, sick and vacation pay, pension, union dues) this starts at $23/hour. As female owned or minority owned business there is a set aside 10-20% of the contract has to go these type of companies. Her company is unusual in that isn’t union. The #1 road construction company in Hawaii is Grace-Pacific, it employes 550 people and they are fully unionized as is the #2 company.

Generally, construction companies are large political donors, and give to mostly to incumbents, but some to the other sides cause you never know who is going to be in a position to hand out contracts. They are also heavily unionized, and as union folks rise through the ranks, they don’t stop being pro union. Union members are almost twice as likely to be Democrats as Republicans.

So these evil government contractors will consist of thousand of Grace Pacifics and tens of thousand of Alakonas, who employee millions of mostly union workers. They will earn excellent wages for the 60%+ of American without a bachelors degree and most will be Democrat. I truly don’t know what the fuck, the six progressive who voted against this bill were thinking. Nor why anybody who calls themself a Democrat is so luke warm.

5287

Right now there’s a death struggle for the soul of the Dems.

Basically, Dems have to convert to this, a real socdem party, and not the Obama/Clinton radical centrism BS. Biden gets this , and was pushing even back during the Obama years some. If they don’t , the Dems get slaughtered in 2024.

What the radical centrists here aren’t getting as I’m ok with the socdems, I’m not a demsoc, I just think demsoc tactics are necessary to get the socdem results. The Tea Party and Trump were wildly successful for the Republicans.

And Government contracts are great, as long as the contractor is honest. I had one who pocketed from me when I started my job , and weather balloon contracts are notorious for corruption.

5288

I strongly disagree. I think the Democrat have to prove they can get stuff done and that means being in the center. The infrastructure bill wouldn’t have pass with Republican in either house The fact that it got 13 Republican despite, asshole McCarthy whipping against it shows the strength.

The bill would be good for Democrat even if we were paying one guy to dig a hole and the other dude to fill it.
Strollen circa 2008, strong John McCain supporter, would supported this bill as would have Senator McCain. Despite the bill politically favoring the Democrats. Why because out infrastructure is crappy and needs to be fixed/upgraded, it is good for the country. So eventhough, I know there will corruption and waste, and over runs, we just have to do it. Strollen 2008 would have absolutely opposed to BBB, and I’m lukewarm about it today.

Here is the thing, the guy getting $12/hour now has chance of getting $30/hour raking asphalt and now has career path to making $120K/year without having to go to college. The raise from $24K to $60K is a way more valuable than $3k child tax credit, the subsidized child care, or the 12 weeks parental leave.
That’s the thing Biden understands and the progressive seem to be missing.

5289

Once again, Pelosi can count votes. Have we moved on yet from Democrats are stupid ideologues and will torpedo the infrastructure bill because they’d rather have nothing than something?

Based on yesterday’s reporting, I think there will be a BBB bill in the $1.7T range, and it will include some decent stuff, though of course not really as much as it should because Manchin won’t let it be what it ought to be. But in total that will be nearly $3T over 5-10 years in infrastructure and climate and social welfare spending, at least partially funded by tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.

5290

Here’s my belief as to what happened:

Pelosi and Jayapal negotiated. Pelosi (and likely Manchin) promised Jayapal BBB would pass without too much more in the way of cuts. She also knew some Republicans would vote yes.

Jayapal said she’d deliver the votes, but folks who would benefit from voting no (Squad districts) would do so- but if their votes were needed for the bill to pass, they’d vote yes. This is standard practice, Mitch let Murkowski and Collins vote no at times on things.

If BBB happens , this will be a win. If Manchin/Sinema butcher it too much more, it will be a lot harder to get Jayapal to play ball in the future, she likely put her neck with her caucus on the line for this. If Jayapal gets burned, this will be a loss for the Dems in the medium-term and perhaps beyond. The centrist Dems will be the biggest losers, as any interparty discipline on primaries would be gone.

5291

For that person (or more accurately those people) sure. For society as a whole, not so much.

That said I don’t necessarily disagree, I just get where people who might are coming from.

5292

The expanded Child Tax Credit reaches something like 40 million families. There aren’t 40 million jobs in that infrastructure bill, sorry.

5293

I am thankful that infrastructure has finally passed.

So what have the past three months gained the Democratic Party? This could have happened back in August and Dems could have been writing and debating BBB with a win already in their pockets. Perhaps elections would have swung differently, perhaps not, but the Democratic party hasn’t accomplished anything besides giving Manchin, Sinema, Jayapal, etc. inflated egos. They’re a disorganized mess.

5294

Pssh. Spoken like someone who isn’t a Master of the Universe.

5295

I’m just going to take a page out of @Sharpe ‘s book and give up on trying to understand any tactical value of the Democrats’ actions anymore.

The bipartisan bill is a Good Thing. I hope they will pass the Better Thing sitting on the table as well. I hope Democrat losses next year are minimal.

5296

This.

5297

I mean, you can’t run a counterfactual test. It’s true that they haven’t succeeded in forcing Manchin and Sinema to support a much more expansive reconciliation bill, but there isn’t any way anyone could have known that from the start. On the progressive side, it doesn’t have anything to do with egos. It was a tactic to pursue good, meaningful legislation. And if they hadn’t tried, the counterfactual argument would be on the other foot, and people would be griping about how leftists won’t even take their own side in a fight, and blaming progressives for missing a great opportunity.

5298

Yup. Pelosi has her speaker’s vote count and let a few protest votes happen. Pretty run of the mill really. There have been countless times when a few purple district dems have been let to vote no on bills to look all moderate and willing to buck the party line.

5299

OK, tha’ts pretty funny.