6065

I basically agree with you, so maybe there’s a better compromise source for those funds. But maybe also the Dems need to weigh the value of two things they want, in which case I would hope they are more interested in supporting children and poor families across the country than protecting their suburban donors in NY and CA.

6066

And there was great rejoicing.

6067

My hot-take is that the Romney plan lacks the revenue raising portions of the BBB plan. BBB (at least to my understanding) includes a ton of money for IRS enforcement, and the increased revenue from that is supposed to pay for most of the plan.

The only revenue raising in the Romney plan is getting rid of the SALT deduction, which is itself only 10% of the cost of the plan.

Despite that, it is potentially fine? I think the main issue is that it will be difficult to get republicans/centrist democrats on board with $100B in unfunded payments. Romney himself has a history of being for social programs before being against them once he starts taking flak from his own party.

6068

This, plus the problem is that you need Romney and at least one other Republican to pass his plan, assuming you don’t have Manchin or Sinema. I can’t name that Republican, and even Romney walk balk at helping the Dems pass such a bill in reconciliation.

6069

Gotta say, I’m a little disappointed that I’ve been reading that the BBB was 1.7B and turned out to be 3B+ with asterisks, my father actually knew that and I didn’t, so I’ve lost an argument with Fox News after the fact. I don’t know if that 3B+ was a good thing, but I don’t like seeing Dems get frisky with deceptive messaging.

6070

I think your father is probably wrong. Got a citation?

6071

Just a bit up the thread in Matt_W’s post, assuming he (and Yglesias) was being accurate.

6072

I still don’t get it. The Senate version of the bill that Manchin is rejecting is $3T in new spending offset by $1.3T in new revenues, with a net cost of $1.7T.

6073

That piece is not really accurate. Since everything in a reconciliation bill has to have an end date it is true that some programs were scheduled to end after, for example, five years. The projection being pushed by the GOP and others is basically a “what if all the spending programs ran 10 years” scenario. It’s not based on the actual bill and the timelines set out in it.

6074

Oh, they’re talking about the fake CBO scoring that the Republicans asked for? Fuck that.

6075

Thanks, and that’s the context I need, being lazy at the moment and not doing the digging for myself.

6076

Every bill in memory is deceptive, usually in its cost and in any revenue offset. I dislike passing social programs with funding only for one year at a time. If it is worth doing do it right.

6077

Wasn’t the original assumption that the programs DID run 10 years? I thought that cutbacks to 5 years or sooner onto some programs came around when Manchin started griping about costs.

EDIT: it’s very possible I’m not following the correct argument here.

6078

Yes, originally the desire was to run programs for 10 years. Since the overall cost was at first the main source of complaints the bill was rewritten to reduce the time frame of some programs.

IIRC 10 years is the limit of what a reconciliation bill can contain.

6079

So @Houngan’s post isn’t quite inaccurate about the cost with asterisks? We hear $1.7 over 10 years but some programs end after 5 (spoken in the low-pitched, fast -talking voice announcing conditions at the end of a car or Viagra commercial).

6080

It’s ~1.7t total spending (which is largely if not completely offset with additional revenue), with some programs running for different lengths of time. It is not 3t over 10 years, or any time frame.

The original plan for the bill would have been ~3.5t total, with all program running the allowed maximum of 10 years, also with revenue increases to match and hopefully exceed the cost (exceed based on optimistic projections of provisions like money for tax enforcement panning out well).

6081

Hey Bette, you may be right, but this probably isn’t a great way to win people over.

6082

I got some wires crossed reading that tweet and involuntarily found myself imagining a song called “Bette Midler Eyes”.

6083

After a Trump presidency, a failed coup and continuous denial of facts and reality that changed nothing in their stances, I think it’s safe to say they are not interested in being won over.

6084

Here’s a piece from yesterday’s NYT again mentioning the fuzzy math that was brought up in the last handful of posts.

Other Democrats may not realize it, but Mr. Manchin may well have given them a gift. They should’ve gone back to the drawing board months ago, when it first became clear that their budgetary gimmickry was turning the bill into a confusing mess. Now, they will have to — and if they revise the bill to cut the number of programs they propose while making the ones they do propose permanent and easier for Americans to navigate, it could deliver Democrats both lasting policy change and the political victory they so desperately need.

Democrats had been trimming the bill for months in an effort to meet Mr. Manchin’s demand that it cost less than $2 trillion over the next decade. But rather than focusing on a few top priorities, they wedged almost every major social program Mr. Biden had proposed into the bill and relied on arbitrary expiration dates to make it seem less expensive. As a result, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, these programs would cost more than $4.7 trillion if made permanent, as every supporter of the bill clearly intends them to be.

The author suggests focusing on a few items and making them permanent rather than have varying end-dates for everything in the BBB.

It would also leave Democrats with a bill that is more focused and easier to explain to voters than the current version, which Republicans are already portraying as a “progressive grab bag.”

In October, my organization, the Progressive Policy Institute, published a blueprint for such a focused package that prioritized expanding the Child Tax Credit, making preschool universally available, strengthening the Affordable Care Act and combating climate change. That approach now has renewed interest from key Democrats on Capitol Hill.