Bret Stephens: Manchin and Sinema should just say no
By: Bret Stephens (MSN)
Good read..........and advice
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Dear Sens. Manchin and Sinema,
© Provided by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Whether the occasion is social or political, the hero of the party is the person who'll grab the keys before the drunks can get behind their wheels.
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This week, it falls to the two of you to be that person. The progressives in your party suspect you're all that stands in the way of their expensive utopia, and they're willing to hold a popular infrastructure bill as hostage in order to get their wish. The progressives in your party expect you to go along, at least partway, with a $4.5 trillion spending bonanza — $1 trillion for infrastructure, an additional $3.5 trillion for new entitlements — because that's what some members of their caucus demand.
If you don't, much of the media will cast you as the villains who kneecapped an already faltering Biden presidency.
And they are doing this in the week when the only thing that ought to matter to Congress is raising the debt ceiling to avert default.
This is dumb. The likeliest way for the Biden presidency to fail — and for Democrats to lose their congressional majorities next year and for Donald Trump to return to the White House next term — is for the spending bills to pass mostly as they are.
A Democratic Party that abandons its center (where many congressional seats are vulnerable) for the sake of its left (where the seats are usually safe) is heading straight for the minority come November 2022.
Let them call you names now so they can thank you for your sobriety later.
The working class faces no greater thief than inflation. The rich can switch among asset classes, find different tax shelters, rely on financial experts, ride it out. The less fortunate — your constituency and much of the Democratic base — depend on regular paychecks to pay the rent. And rents are skyrocketing.
In June, the inflation forecast was 3.4% for the year. The forecast has since risen to 4.2% — more than double the Federal Reserve's target rate of 2%. The Fed hopes this will taper once the pandemic ends and supply disruptions, supposedly the cause of inflation, cease.
But what if it isn't just supply disruptions that are causing prices to rise, but rather a case of too much money chasing too few goods? And what if the pandemic continues to defy expectations and carries over until next year? Congress has already appropriated close to $6 trillion for COVID-19 relief. A continuing pandemic would most likely require further trillions in spending. How does that square, fiscally, with the $4.5 trillion extravaganza?
This is what ought to keep Democratic leaders awake at night, along with the record spike in homicides, an incoherent and chaotic policy on the southern border and the possibility that a ticking real estate debt bomb in China could be the world's next Lehman Brothers collapse.
Instead, they're pushing for the biggest expansion of the welfare state since the 1960s, to be financed with the biggest tax increase in decades and to be passed with a three-vote edge in the House and a tiebreaker vote in the Senate on a 100% partisan basis.
This is not what swing voters had in mind when they elected Joe Biden on his pledge to be a unifier, a compromiser and a moderate.
And it shows: Biden began with a 61% approval rating among independents, according to Gallup. Eight months later, it's at 37%. This is another stark portent of a midterm blowout.
Would it help the cause if Democrats came up with a lower top line? Nope: It would be a classic case of falling between two stools, placating neither friends nor critics. Is it honest to claim the bill adds nothing to the national debt? "Biden's own budget officials earlier this year estimated that his agenda would increase the national debt by nearly $1.4 trillion over the decade," The Associated Press reports. Does it help that Biden claims his spending plan "costs zero dollars"? Only if you enjoy having your intelligence insulted.
Which neither of you do.
There's a way out of this standoff. Trade a clean vote in the House on infrastructure for Senate Republican support for a debt-ceiling increase, gained by putting the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill on ice. Or simply hold a clean House vote on infrastructure and increase the debt ceiling unilaterally through reconciliation.
Then disaggregate the spending bill into separate items of legislation that could be voted on a la carte, according to their merits and political appeal. Let the American people know what's in this huge legislative burrito. Maybe they'll find some of it appetizing.
For Biden, it's a way of realigning himself with the center of the country with a policy win on infrastructure and strengthening moderates of the party with a political win over the left. For the two of you, it's a chance to be both statesmanlike and politically shrewd.
Sometimes, the heroes of the story are those who just say no. Here's your chance.
Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times.
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Be a hero, not a zero
Manchin & Sinema are being worked on. He and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema visited the White House Tuesday for some persuasion from President Biden.
Right now the question of the day is being resolved in the House:
Shall the moderate democrats who made Pelosi the Speaker again salute and sacrifice their political careers to the demands of Bernie Sanders and the Squad?
The far left crazies have Bumbling Biden by the bag and won't let go
The only thing wrong with this fantasy is that Biden campaigned on much of the things that are in these bills. And he is the one that proposed them. If the president didnt approve of the 3.5 billion reconciliation bill it would never have been created. Trump's tax cuts for the rich were not passed with a 60 vote majority, they were passed through reconciliation. The barest of majorities. I dont recall Bret Stephens complaining about reconciliation then, or when the Republicans forced three right wing justices onto the Supreme Court without traditional majorities.
The Republicans want to do NOTHING for the American people , they only want to carry on with conspiracy theories, attacks on our school teachers, protest LGBTQ rights, and try and stack the nations judiciary with far right judges. THAT is their agenda. If was up to Republicans, there wouldnt even be an infrastructure bill pending. They want to privatize all infrastructure spending.
That's not true. Republicans were part of the bipartisan bill. Democrats have it if they want it.
As for the radical green new deal, Biden never campained on it, nor did America vote for it.
Did Republicans introduce it? The only recent GOP interest in infrastructure I can recall was early in the Trump administration when he said he wanted to privatize a lot of it.
Who do you think is going to do the actual work? The private sector.
They were part of the PPACA also, submitting over 100 amendments for it. Yet none voted for it.
Nope, but they voted for it.
The only recent GOP interest in infrastructure I can recall was early in the Trump administration when he said he wanted to privatize a lot of it.
I guess "recent" was the key word, lest we forget what Eisenhower did.
Btw If I were in congress, I wouldn't vote for any domestic spending until the debt left by 3 presidents is cleaned up!
Do you know what's in that 3.5T bullshit bill?
The Democratic FY2022 Budget Resolution Agreement Framework memorandum is designed to enact President Biden's Build Back Better agenda. This proposal, often referred to as an investment in human infrastructure, is far-reaching and ambitious. It lists the following amounts and areas to be addressed: 9
$135 billion for the Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry. Funding to be used to address forest fires, reduce carbon emissions, and address drought concerns.
$332 billion for the Banking Committee. Including investments in public housing, the Housing Trust Fund, housing affordability, and equity and community land trusts.
$198 billion for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. This would develop clean energy.
$67 billion for the Environment and Public Works Committee. These monies would fund low-income solar and other climate-friendly technologies.
$1.8 trillion for the Finance Committee. This part of the bill is for investments in working families, the elderly, and the environment. It includes a tax cut for Americans making less than $400,000 a year, lowering the price of prescription drugs, and ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
$726 billion for the Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions Committee. This addresses universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, childcare for working families, tuition-free community college, funding for historically black colleges and universities , and an expansion of the Pell Grant for higher education.
$37 billion for the HSGAC Committee. This would electrify the federal vehicle fleet, electrify and rehab federal buildings, improve cybersecurity infrastructure, reinforce border management, invest in green-materials procurement, and invest in resilience.
$107 billion for the Judiciary Committee. These funds address establishing "lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants."
$20.5 billion for the Indian Affairs Committee. This addresses Native American health programs and facilities, education programs and facilities, housing programs, energy programs, resilience and climate programs, BIA programs and facilities, Native language programs, and the Native Civilian Climate Corps.
$25 billion for the Small Business Committee. This provides for small business access to credit, investment, and markets.
$18 billion for the Veterans Affairs Committee. This funds upgrades to veteran facilities.
$83 billion for the Commerce Committee. This goes to investments in technology, transportation, research, manufacturing, and economic development. It provides funding for coastal resiliency, healthy oceans investments, including the National Oceans and Coastal Security Fund and the National Science Foundation research and technology directorate.
Read between the lines on some of those "committees" and what the money will be used for.
The bipartisan 1.5T bill is the real infrastructure bill
$110 billion for roads and bridges. In addition to construction and repair, the funding also helps pay for transportation research at universities, funding for Puerto Rico’s highways, and “congestion relief” in American cities.
$66 billion for railroads. Funding includes upgrades and maintenance of America’s passenger rail system and freight rail safety, but nothing for high-speed rail.
$65 billion for the power grid. The bill would fund updates to power lines and cables, as well as provide money to prevent hacking of the power grid. Clean energy funding is also included.
$65 billion for broadband. Includes funding to expand broadband in rural areas and in low-income communities. Approximately $14 billion of the total would help reduce internet bills for low-income citizens.
$55 billion for water infrastructure. This funding includes $15 billion for lead pipe replacement, $10 billion for chemical clean-up, and money to provide clean drinking water in tribal communities.
$47 billion for cybersecurity and climate change. The Resilience fund will protect infrastructure from cybersecurity attacks and address flooding, wildfires, coastal erosion, and droughts along with other extreme weather events.
$39 billion for public transit. Funding here provides for upgrades to public transit systems nationwide. The allocation also includes money to create new bus routes and help make public transit more accessible to seniors and disabled Americans.
$25 billion for airports. This allocation provides funding for major upgrades and expansions at U.S. airports. Air traffic control towers and systems would receive $5 billion of the total for upgrades.
$21 billion for the environment. These monies would be used to clean up superfund and brownfield sites, abandoned mines, and old oil and gas wells.
$17 billion for ports. Half of the funds in this category would go to the Army Corps of Engineers for port infrastructure. Additional funds would go to the Coast Guard, ferry terminals, and reduction of truck emissions at ports.
$11 billion for safety. Appropriations here are to address highway, pedestrian, pipeline, and other safety areas with highway safety getting the bulk of the funding.
$8 billion for Western water infrastructure. Ongoing drought conditions in the western half of the country will be addressed through investments in water treatment, storage, and reuse facilities.
$7.5 bill for electric vehicle charging stations. The Biden administration asked for this funding to build significantly more charging stations for electric vehicles across the nation.
$7.5 billion for electric school buses. With an emphasis on bus fleet replacement in low-income, rural, and tribal communities, this funding is expected to allow those communities to convert to zero-emission buses.
Ever since the turn of the century Republicans have almost always had the ability to thwart social spending by Congress. There were only two years in the Obama era (out of the 20 years in the century so far), when Democrats could pass what they wanted, and in those days reconciliation wasnt really being used. Otherwise we had Republicans in control of either the House or the Senate or both. The Democrats have a window to do some good for the country , right now. The Republicans have zero interest in ANY of these projects. All they care about is fighting culture wars and following insane conspiracy theories and appointing right wing judges to try and hold back time.
They've already approved the 1.2T bill. The 3.5T bill needs to be picked apart and important items stay.
It's not GovCo's place to fund electric car charging stations. nor a hell of a lot of other things in that crap. It's giveaways at their finest. Screw that.
Doing good meaning what? Bankrupting America?
Thought that Democrats were against subsidizing big corporations and the rich?
I am sure their properly environmentally woke rich benefactors will be happy to take advantage of Democrat largesse in this bill. Which will have the same results as past investments in the environment and clean energy. The rich will get their money; and leave the US taxpayer on the hook for their failed businesses that won't be able to compete with cheaper subsidized Chinese and European products.
That's been quite obvious for at least the four years of whatshisnames' 'presidency' and now regarding today's gqp.
And WHENEVER A DEMOCRAT IS PRESIDENT.