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Post by Albert on Oct 3, 2021 14:16:41 GMT
Aside from disliking Josh Marshall, do you disagree with his comments re the New York Times?
Objectively, this past month has been a serious setback for Biden, and his falling approvals reflect that. From the reporting I've seen, Biden has mostly been MIA apart from the last week, punting this all to Pelosi and Schumer as his agenda has been potentially on life support. So much for the 'experienced hand that knows how to get it done.' It actually brings to mind reporting from the early-mid 2000s, where Biden's reputation on Washington, especially among staffers, was a lazy guy who didn't do his homework when it came to legislation.It was only like 4-5 months ago that the liberal commentariat were hailing Biden as a new FDR/LBJ type historic figure. I saw at least 30 different articles to that effect, filled with up hype, but substance free. Marshall himself indulged in such fantasies.
Even if both bills pass, it's becoming pretty clear that they will most likely be severely tapered down. I don't know how you present that as anything but a setback. But Josh is a habitual spinmeister for people like Biden, so when the otherwise lackluster NYT (with whom I have plenty of problems) accurately points out that Biden has suffered a setback, Josh does what Josh always does, which is reflexively attack them and tone police them.
Biden started this thing entertaining broadly defined infrastructure bills in the realm of 4-5T;he then got talked into 3.5T, and now we're probably headed towards something like 2T-2.5T. Assuming it even passes, this very well may be the last substantive bill that Democrats get to pass for several more years if the GOP wins anything in the midterms. They needed to go really big on this to address various crises, and aspects of America that are literally crumbling. Instead it seems, Biden and the Democratic Party, were basically asleep at the wheel, and let themselves be manipulated by certain bad faith actors in the party and their own laziness, to leave such a critical piece of legislation in this tight time frame.
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jackd
Assistant Professor
Posts: 813
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Post by jackd on Oct 3, 2021 15:11:26 GMT
Of course Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were always there.
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,819
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Post by AnBr on Oct 3, 2021 17:23:00 GMT
This smacks a little of how so many people seem to feel that all we need is to elect just the right person to be president and everything will magically be better. A president is limited to a few executive actions, the bully pulpit. nominations and the Veto. We would be far better off with a super majority in both houses of Congress with anyone else as president than what we have now. This is not to give Biden a pass, but laying it all at his feet without acknowledging the other realities is a bit naïve.
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Post by goldenvalley on Oct 3, 2021 17:58:57 GMT
Aside from disliking Josh Marshall, do you disagree with his comments re the New York Times?
Objectively, this past month has been a serious setback for Biden, and his falling approvals reflect that. From the reporting I've seen, Biden has mostly been MIA apart from the last week, punting this all to Pelosi and Schumer as his agenda has been potentially on life support. So much for the 'experienced hand that knows how to get it done.' It actually brings to mind reporting from the early-mid 2000s, where Biden's reputation on Washington, especially among staffers, was a lazy guy who didn't do his homework when it came to legislation.It was only like 4-5 months ago that the liberal commentariat were hailing Biden as a new FDR/LBJ type historic figure. I saw at least 30 different articles to that effect, filled with up hype, but substance free. Marshall himself indulged in such fantasies.
Even if both bills pass, it's becoming pretty clear that they will most likely be severely tapered down. I don't know how you present that as anything but a setback. But Josh is a habitual spinmeister for people like Biden, so when the otherwise lackluster NYT (with whom I have plenty of problems) accurately points out that Biden has suffered a setback, Josh does what Josh always does, which is reflexively attack them and tone police them.
Biden started this thing entertaining broadly defined infrastructure bills in the realm of 4-5T;he then got talked into 3.5T, and now we're probably headed towards something like 2T-2.5T. Assuming it even passes, this very well may be the last substantive bill that Democrats get to pass for several more years if the GOP wins anything in the midterms. They needed to go really big on this to address various crises, and aspects of America that are literally crumbling. Instead it seems, Biden and the Democratic Party, were basically asleep at the wheel, and let themselves be manipulated by certain bad faith actors in the party and their own laziness, to leave such a critical piece of legislation in this tight time frame.
Sausage making is messy, especially when members of one's own party can't or won't recognize that their brand of party ideology is going to have to bend in order to receive any sort of victory at all. Biden and/or his team apparently found a way to neutralize Sanders and Warren in the Senate, but not Manchin and Sinema. And the House...well Pelosi has had issues with the "progressive Democrats" since 2018. Given the narrow margin of Democrats in the House and the even split in the Senate, the only way for Biden to win is to somehow convince the factions that the only way forward is complete unity in voting and a willingness to take less than what each faction wants. Complicating this all is a hard truth in the US. We like the idea of supporting families with young children, paying home health care workers more, all the things in the soft infrastructure bill in the abstract. But when it comes to paying for it, few want to do it and they especially don't want to pay if they perceive the beneficiaries as not having "earned" it. Manchin is a reflection of that attitude. That's why he wants to trim the numbers and means test the programs. The "progressives" point to the polls that show how popular various parts of the bill are, but they don't recognize what Manchin sees. Would a more skilled back room negotiator than Biden be able to get this managed? I'm doubtful. The days of LBJ back slapping' and arranging for pork to bring people along with his plans are in the distant past. Compromise is no longer seen as a virtue and is seen as a sellout by some. |
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Post by Albert on Oct 3, 2021 22:43:13 GMT
Objectively, this past month has been a serious setback for Biden, and his falling approvals reflect that. From the reporting I've seen, Biden has mostly been MIA apart from the last week, punting this all to Pelosi and Schumer as his agenda has been potentially on life support. So much for the 'experienced hand that knows how to get it done.' It actually brings to mind reporting from the early-mid 2000s, where Biden's reputation on Washington, especially among staffers, was a lazy guy who didn't do his homework when it came to legislation.It was only like 4-5 months ago that the liberal commentariat were hailing Biden as a new FDR/LBJ type historic figure. I saw at least 30 different articles to that effect, filled with up hype, but substance free. Marshall himself indulged in such fantasies.
Even if both bills pass, it's becoming pretty clear that they will most likely be severely tapered down. I don't know how you present that as anything but a setback. But Josh is a habitual spinmeister for people like Biden, so when the otherwise lackluster NYT (with whom I have plenty of problems) accurately points out that Biden has suffered a setback, Josh does what Josh always does, which is reflexively attack them and tone police them.
Biden started this thing entertaining broadly defined infrastructure bills in the realm of 4-5T;he then got talked into 3.5T, and now we're probably headed towards something like 2T-2.5T. Assuming it even passes, this very well may be the last substantive bill that Democrats get to pass for several more years if the GOP wins anything in the midterms. They needed to go really big on this to address various crises, and aspects of America that are literally crumbling. Instead it seems, Biden and the Democratic Party, were basically asleep at the wheel, and let themselves be manipulated by certain bad faith actors in the party and their own laziness, to leave such a critical piece of legislation in this tight time frame.
Sausage making is messy, especially when members of one's own party can't or won't recognize that their brand of party ideology is going to have to bend in order to receive any sort of victory at all. Biden and/or his team apparently found a way to neutralize Sanders and Warren in the Senate, but not Manchin and Sinema. And the House...well Pelosi has had issues with the "progressive Democrats" since 2018. Given the narrow margin of Democrats in the House and the even split in the Senate, the only way for Biden to win is to somehow convince the factions that the only way forward is complete unity in voting and a willingness to take less than what each faction wants. Complicating this all is a hard truth in the US. We like the idea of supporting families with young children, paying home health care workers more, all the things in the soft infrastructure bill in the abstract. But when it comes to paying for it, few want to do it and they especially don't want to pay if they perceive the beneficiaries as not having "earned" it. Manchin is a reflection of that attitude. That's why he wants to trim the numbers and means test the programs. The "progressives" point to the polls that show how popular various parts of the bill are, but they don't recognize what Manchin sees. Would a more skilled back room negotiator than Biden be able to get this managed? I'm doubtful. The days of LBJ back slapping' and arranging for pork to bring people along with his plans are in the distant past. Compromise is no longer seen as a virtue and is seen as a sellout by some.
Sausage making is indeed complicated, which is why it is essential to *never* let down one's guard. The idea that the Democrats somehow convinced themselves that it was a wise idea to punt all of this to the second half of 2021, rather than the first half of 2021 is still utterly baffling political malpractice. It's a reminder of the political amateurishness of the Democratic Party, relative to the GOP and McConnell, who are absolutely ruthless in their pursuit of political objectives, and take the *long* view. The Federalist Society wasn't built in a day, but over multiple decades.
With respect to the 'taxation isn't popular', I find that tiresome, to be honest. There are certainly polls that show that Americans are perfectly okay with paying higher taxes, particularly if they are higher on the rich. I could literally produce you polls from the WV that show that Manchin's own voters support things to that effect. But it's a pointless exercise. Politics isn't conducted by polls - which is a thing political science majors never seem to grasp. If it were, we would be living in a completely different world. Polls are fleeting and ultimately meaningless. How much of McConnell's agenda 'polls well'? What did Obamacare poll at for the entirety of Obama's terms? (Hint, it was less than 50%). What does any of it mean now? Not much.
Biden's line of 'no more taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 is already an absurd promise, given what the median income and household income is in the country'. The number of people who make that much annually are a small number of Americans. It's a pure overcompensation.
Most of the BBB is sensible, affordable, relatively popular, and there is no Tea Party style revolt about taxes on the horizon (unlike in 2010 when Tea Party loons were literally showing up at townhalls and threatening politicians). There are no anti-tax protests anywhere, nor are any likely to emerge. Concerns about American aversion to taxes are a phantom. Sinema and Manchin know this perfectly well, which is why they refuse to engage in the specifics of it. They know that signalling their opposition to any specifics is likely to backfire on them, because most of the specifics are relatively popular.
BBB is in line with the sort of long-term investments that many governments around the world are making, in the current environment, including center-right governments.
Real politicians make their own polls, they do not defer to them as if they were Rosetta Stones. A point that the likes of Thatcher, Reagan, McConnell, well understood, but one which certain Democrats cynically feign not understanding when it's politically convenient.
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Post by LFC on Oct 4, 2021 0:07:50 GMT
So let me get this straight. If Biden and the Dems pass two infrastructure bills totaling $3.5T ($1T + $2.5T) then that's an abject failure. Would virtually every Dem like it to be more? Sure. Is this the biggest infrastructure package by far in many, many years? Yes. But Biden is a Democrat and grading is always done on a curve. Trump and W were expected to pee in the potty. Obama and Biden are expected to single-handedly change the nation and fix every problem that exists.
Just like the Afghanistan withdrawal was an abject failure because it didn't get out all 70,000 100,000 150,000 required. See how easy it is? If he hits your target then just up the target!
As for Moscow Mitch McConnell there's not doubt that Republican focus on judges has paid off and it's always easy to get a tax cut (see Jude Wanniski and the Two Santa Clause Theory) but hey, about about that Obamacare repeal and replacement with a conservative health plan! The Republicans have it easy because they've trained their base to expect nothing expect destruction and owning libs. As their lack of platform in 2020 showed us they literally have no intention of doing anything constructive for the nation. And for the people who love them that's enough.
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Post by Albert on Oct 4, 2021 0:31:40 GMT
So let me get this straight. If Biden and the Dems pass two infrastructure bills totaling $3.5T ($1T + $2.5T) then that's an abject failure. Would virtually every Dem like it to be more? Sure. Is this the biggest infrastructure package by far in many, many years? Yes. But Biden is a Democrat and grading is always done on a curve. Trump and W were expected to pee in the potty. Obama and Biden are expected to single-handedly change the nation and fix every problem that exists.
Just like the Afghanistan withdrawal was an abject failure because it didn't get out all 70,000 100,000 150,000 required. See how easy it is? If he hits your target then just up the target!
As for Moscow Mitch McConnell there's not doubt that Republican focus on judges has paid off and it's always easy to get a tax cut (see Jude Wanniski and the Two Santa Clause Theory) but hey, about about that Obamacare repeal and replacement with a conservative health plan! The Republicans have it easy because they've trained their base to expect nothing expect destruction and owning libs. As their lack of platform in 2020 showed us they literally have no intention of doing anything constructive for the nation. And for the people who love them that's enough.
250B per year is pretty pathetic for an economy the size of the US, particularly if it's the last major bill the Democrats are going to pass, assuming they lose in the midterms.
You may as well throw in the white towel to China right now, and cease with all the fantasies of a 'summit of Democracies to confront China', 'America is back', and so on that Biden has been pushing. If this is all America is capable of, in this late hour, then it's pretty much a spent force that should just be taken to the back of the shed. It's a complete joke in terms of the things the Chinese are doing on a routine basis.
What American 'centrists' never seem to mentally apprehend is that if you never fight, and always adopt an attitude of 'half a loaf of bread is better than no loaf at all' as your permanent stance, then given successive iterations, the cumulative effect of that is an absolute race to the bottom. It's death by a thousand cuts, and a complete lack of seriousness.
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jackd
Assistant Professor
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Post by jackd on Oct 4, 2021 0:49:37 GMT
And insisting on passing nothing is somehow better?
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Post by goldenvalley on Oct 4, 2021 0:49:46 GMT
Albert says
I just watched California defeat Prop 15 which would have changed the property tax structure for commercial property to assess property for tax purposes based on market value once every 3 years.. The end result would have been to raise revenue. It exempted agricultural property and commercial property valued under $3 million. Rank and file homeowners would not have been effected. It failed.
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Post by LFC on Oct 4, 2021 15:57:52 GMT
Biden says it out loud. "We could bring the moderates and progressives together very easily if we had two more votes. Two. Two people."
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jackd
Assistant Professor
Posts: 813
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Post by jackd on Oct 4, 2021 17:20:05 GMT
In other words, if we had a real majority.
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Post by LFC on Oct 4, 2021 17:35:54 GMT
Another article pointing out that Sinema is misreading the room, the room being Arizona.
This is what happens when your politics are almost entirely performance art.
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Post by LFC on Oct 4, 2021 18:35:25 GMT
I have to admit, I am somewhat puzzled by the fawning over Josh Marshall on this board. Not only was he himself an Iraq War booster in the early stages of it, but I have just always found him to be a mediocre, centrist hack, with an undeserved sense of arrogance. I have never found him offering anything remotely insightful, and on any given issue I can tell what bland offering he'll serve up without reading it. There are American centrists I can admire despite their blind spots, but I don't include Marshall in that company.
For all the disdain of a guy like Chuck Todd (which I fully share), in my mind, Marshall is hardly any better.
For a guy who is a "mediocre, centrist hack" he seems to be one of the few in touch with the reality of what's happening in the infrastructure talks. It sure ain't the NYT. Bold of massive blunder mine. A statement this epically false should never have been written much less slipped past a competent political editor. And as long as you bring up the Iraq War, I found this at a horribly formatted Slate archive. It's from March 10, 2003 which is 9 days before the first attack on Iraq. (The link to the original was bad.) So not exactly a real "booster" and somebody who certainly had it right before the war started, something we can't say for the NYT, plenty of other journos and pundits, and way too many congressional Democrats at the time. And as long as we're talking about Marshall's "mediocre" history let's recall the U.S. Attorneys scandal under W, something that virtually every large outlet completely missed and but netted Marshall The Polk Award for Legal Reporting.
But of course YMMV.
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Post by LFC on Oct 4, 2021 18:52:30 GMT
OK, I have little to no respect for Sinema but on this tactic to get her attention I have to give a flat out "NO." Or as Will Smith might say, "Oh HELL naw!" This is just way outa' bounds. |
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,819
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Post by AnBr on Oct 5, 2021 0:26:31 GMT
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,819
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Post by AnBr on Oct 5, 2021 0:29:29 GMT
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,819
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Post by AnBr on Oct 5, 2021 0:36:32 GMT
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jackd
Assistant Professor
Posts: 813
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Post by jackd on Oct 5, 2021 1:03:42 GMT
Not real likely to dissuade her.
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,819
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Post by AnBr on Oct 5, 2021 1:33:08 GMT
Of course not. It might not help much now, but it does suggest that she might not survive reelection. This as AZ shifts more and more blue.
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jackd
Assistant Professor
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Post by jackd on Oct 5, 2021 1:58:24 GMT
Agreed but we do seem to have this immediate problem.
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Post by LFC on Oct 5, 2021 21:26:05 GMT
BWAHAHA! TDB's pet conservative is trying to compare Krysten Sinema to Liz Cheney as one of the bravest politicians out there. Let's see, Cheney stood up in both Congress and in public to state, quite clearly, her position. Sinema is hiding at every turn and refuses to say anything out loud. Yep, that's "brave" in conservative-land as long as you like what the person is hiding from. This is as pathetic as when David Frum tried to defend Romney's positions.
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Post by LFC on Oct 7, 2021 15:11:03 GMT
Manchin's latest demand is that he must get ... the rest of the Democrats to choose what they're going to give up. Nice political cowardice ya' got there, Joe. |
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Post by LFC on Oct 8, 2021 17:00:19 GMT
The pathetic, child-like whining of the Republican Party really gets under my skin. Schumer basically told Republicans that they were being irresponsible trying to play games with the national debt. That brought out the crybabies.
They are making daily outrageous statements, Moscow Mitch is both a hypocrisy and a lie machine, but call them out on their shit even a little and from the most sensible position one can have and it's "WAAAAHHHHH!!! YOU'RE MEAN!"
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Post by LFC on Oct 8, 2021 17:03:29 GMT
Yes, it really is just a political game to Republicans. There's zero thought about the actual impact going into technical default might have on the country, only how it plays out politically for them. Here's Ted Cruz whining about their recklessness not working. |
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Post by Traveler on Oct 8, 2021 17:16:38 GMT
BB editors have a pretty dim view of the top line number. I really think the Dems have totally shot themselves in the foot if this is the case. For starters on the revenue side, they kept carried interest in place, current drug purchases in place, no step up in basis at death, and let the trust thingy continue. All of which benefit only a few. Scarcely democratic IMO. On the cost side, I am for means testing this stuff. I dont think anyone making at least $150k needs these programs. Phase them out on a sliding scale. And figure out that which you can live without, and fight another day. As it is, we are definitely circling the drain. 2022 sure looks like it is shaping up to be a blowout.
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