Investment in American Infrastructure

[goldenvalley]

"new revenue"? yeah right, the kind that the Reps will filibuster.

[LFC]

Sept 8, 2021 18:49:14 GMT goldenvalley said:

"new revenue"? yeah right, the kind that the Reps will filibuster.

They can't if it's in the reconciliation bill. He's just rejecting any other method of funding. It must be 100% new revenue which means 100% taxes and fees.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall with another view of the current Joe Manchinations(tm).

It’s a bit reminiscent of what we saw this Spring. Kate brought up that at the beginning Manchin said that his one priority was ensuring Biden had a successful presidency. Now he’s decided it would be a good idea to light Biden’s whole presidency on fire. Manchin was dead set against ending or reforming the filibuster. Then he started saying we’d made the filibuster too easy. And since it’s been abused for being too easy we needed to make it harder. Then he went back to saying the filibuster was awesome. And here we are.

So we have all these theories: Manchin is a crypto-Republican; he’s doing the work of his funders; he and Biden have a secret understanding and it’s all going to work out. My own theory is a bit different. It’s not even my theory. Someone mentioned it to me several months ago. But I can’t remember who. The theory is this: all of Manchin’s actions hold together and make sense if you imagine he got up on a particular day, absorbed the CW of the moment and said the first or second thing that came into his head.

This is admittedly a somewhat diminishing read. But Manchin clearly likes the limelight and he doesn’t pretend to be an ideologue. If you use this framework all the various shifts and turns start to make sense. Manchin is the quintessential Washington player, very much a creature of Washington insider culture with all its shibboleths and conventional wisdoms.

All of which brings me to this “exclusive” poll published this morning by Axios. The poll was commissioned by No Labels, the pro-‘centrist’ outfit which actually functions as the family PAC of Mark Penn, onetime Clinton pollsters and general TPM nemesis. No Labels was founded and run by Penn’s wife, Nancy Jacobson, and works to support Penn proteges like Josh Gottheimer. The poll is comically leading. It asked whether we “need large-scale social welfare spending now” or “favor a strategic pause to understand the implications of spending $3.5 trillion.”

I tried to capture some of the inanity here …

Josh Marshall
@joshtpm

Even for axios this is quite something. Look at the wording of this ‘exclusive’ poll released by the Mark Penn Family PAC, sometimes known as No Labels.

His summation.

This basically amounts to ‘do you favor spending a shitload of money’ or ‘taking a moment to figure out what you’re spending it on’. No pollster trying to gauge opinion words a poll that way. It generated 60% support for Manchin’s ‘strategic pause’. But that’s what pressure groups do: generate leading polls. Here though it ran on Axios as basically straight news. And there we get to the heart of the matter. Mark Penn to Axios to Mike Allen to Joe Manchin … with Josh Gottheimer in for a brief heel turn along the way.

Few casts of characters more typify the right-leaning DC establishment insider culture than this one. It’s no accident that they’re generating bogus polls about his latest feint or running them as hard news. It’s a big reason why DC and elite DC press remains wired for Republicans despite being run mostly by people who are not at least partisan Republicans themselves.

And here we are.

[goldenvalley]

So Manchin is like Trump...repeats whatever he last heard or read and enjoys everyone wanting to ask for his opinion.  That's plausible. 

[Traveler]

Fact is, Dems should have won more senate seats than they did. I am not going to blame Manchin for being the asshole he seems to be. That is his right. Face it, Dems not even having a majority, and ramming through this bill? We need a sense of proportion here.

Go win the midterms and come back for more then. Absent that, Dems should accept what the sausage making process gives them now. Like that will happen.

[Traveler]

Looks like Manchin's daughter is quite the piece of work.

Cutting a deal with Pfizer to divest from its competitor may be brazen enough, but to memorialize the agreement in an email produces a startling window into the ways in which corporate executives are able to manipulate markets.

The email, sent on behalf of Bresch by her assistant, includes the subject line “Our discussion.

” I’m sending you this email as a reminder that you were to send me confirmation relative to our discussion regarding EpiPen. In that discussion, you indicated that you would be divesting your Adrenaclick product once the Pfizer/King deal closes. I understand your tender offer is closing today, so I would appreciate receiving your response as soon as possible.

[LFC]

Manchin continues to dig in his heels.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said Sunday he will not support the $3.5 trillion price tag for the economic bill that would expand the nation's social safety net and that "there's no way" Congress can meet the timeline set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass it.

"(Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer) will not have my vote on $3.5 (trillion) and Chuck knows that, and we've talked about this," the West Virginia senator told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union."

He says words that sounds like he should understand the decades of neglect our infrastructure has suffered but doesn't seem to have any real idea of how bad it is.

The senator also suggested he wants to see the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed as soon as possible, saying it's urgent that lawmakers address the issue, which has been "left unattended for over 30 years."

"That's the one the President went out and campaigned on that, that's his bill -- we worked it in a bipartisan way, got 19 Republicans to vote for it, that's the bill that should go out immediately," he said.

Bernie Sanders just told him, in no uncertain terms, that he's not getting his way. If he burns down the $3.5T bill he burns it all down.

“Mr. Manchin, I know, worked very hard on the bipartisan bill. It would be a terrible thing for the American people if both of those bills fail. They are linked together. They’re going to go forward together.”

Sanders's view is that the progressive wing already compromised by close to 50% and they're not willing to go further.

Sen. Bernie Sanders says Sen. Joe Manchin preferring $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion for the reconciliation bill is "absolutely not acceptable."

"Many of us made a major compromise in going from the $6 trillion bill that we wanted" down to $3.5 trillion, Sanders says.

[jackd]

The circular firing squad is forming up.

[LFC]

Sept 13, 2021 14:14:00 GMT jackd said:

The circular firing squad is forming up.

Nothing circular about it. It's Manchin (and maybe Sinema who's keeping quiet). He is demanding ... something ... and wants to be the only one who gets to set the agenda. If he decides to kill this opportunity it's on him, not the multiple progressives who want a bigger package but were already willing to compromise. The outcome is the same but the blame is singular.

BTW Manchin is simultaneously demanding it be fully paid for by new revenue while rumbling about being careful to keep American businesses "competitive." This guy's a f***ing piece of work.

[jackd]

I'm not defending Manchin. There are others in the caucus who hide behind him and Sinema on the filibuster issue. Ask yourself, however, what the progressives will have gained if nothing passes. That's the circular firing squad. You think the progressives have no blame in that scenario?

[Traveler]

Frankly, the Dems' tax proposals suck. No step up on basis at death, still keeping the oil depletion allowances, still allowing carried interest exemption, and restoring SALT deuctions are all oligarchic. I sure expected more. Again, if you want to shoot for the moon, then make sure you have the votes needed to do so.

Still cannot figure out Manchin's apparent about face when the bipartisan bill was approved and he said he was good to go with reconciliation, but at lower than 3.5T.

[jackd]

I think he's still saying that. The issue seems to be how much lower?

[LFC]

Sept 13, 2021 16:42:27 GMT jackd said:

I'm not defending Manchin. There are others in the caucus who hide behind him and Sinema on the filibuster issue. Ask yourself, however, what the progressives will have gained if nothing passes. That's the circular firing squad. You think the progressives have no blame in that scenario?

Depends. If there are multiple progressives who folded on a higher bill then they don't really have much blame. They moved significantly already. Manchin appears to be a singularly far off outlier.

If only the bipartisan bill passes they will gain a little but not much. They'll get branded "do nothing" by their base and welcome to a 2022 slaughter.

[jackd]

It's been clear for a while that Manchin and the House "moderates" have been working together. I'm saying that the bi=partisan bill and even a severely cut back Reconciliation bill will at least give them something to run on. Nothing passed gives them nothing to run on. That choice should really be easy if unpleasant.

[AnBr]

Sept 13, 2021 20:50:45 GMT Traveler said:

Frankly, the Dems' tax proposals suck. No step up on basis at death, still keeping the oil depletion allowances, still allowing carried interest exemption, and restoring SALT deuctions are all oligarchic. I sure expected more.

I would not be in too much of a hurry to cast blame and criticize. I do not disagree with you on how bad those things are, but without more information it is like it is taken out of context. Some things may have been given a pass or ceded for maneuvering for more important things. Political capital is of finite quantity, especially in today's polarized politics with one side that deems compromise as evil.

[Traveler]

Andy, I disagree. These are Dem controlled committees proposing a budget with no POG votes. These egregious oversights are irresponsible. And Bloomberg agrees that stepup and carried interest are indeed egregious. That said, the plan as formulated would raise $2.7T, so let's hold Manchin's feet to that fire.  Better yet, get rid of those idiotic provisions, and get closer to 3.0T.  Then deal.   Typical Dems to leave stuff on the table when they have absolutely no need to do so.  

[LFC]

Sept 14, 2021 12:36:12 GMT Traveler said:

Andy, I disagree. These are Dem controlled committees proposing a budget with no POG votes. These egregious oversights are irresponsible. And Bloomberg agrees that stepup and carried interest are indeed egregious. That said, the plan as formulated would raise $2.7T, so let's hold Manchin's feet to that fire.  Better yet, get rid of those idiotic provisions, and get closer to 3.0T.  Then deal.   Typical Dems to leave stuff on the table when they have absolutely no need to do so.  

From that first link.

He called for an exclusion of $1 million per person, or $2 million per couple, so amounts under that wouldn't be subject to the tax. And he made accommodations for family-owned businesses.

I think $1M per person might be on the low side but the current nearly $12M per person exclusion brought to you by the Republican tax cut bill (TCJA or Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) is criminal. If I had to pick a number I'd probably drop close to $2-3M per person, well below the TCJA value which, BTW, sunsets in 2026 at which point it cuts in half. That will be over $6M by then, a number I think is still too high.

This on the taxation of capital gains.

In Monday's tax package, Democrats remained silent on the question of how to handle investment gains at death, arguably one of the biggest loopholes in the tax code. But they still proposed increasing the top capital gains rate to 25% from 20% for wealthy investors.

I'm more of a no special handling of capital gains kinda' guy. Tax all income the same. The current system provides massive incentive for C-suite execs and vulture capitalists to go for short-term gains rather than long-term corporate health.

One thing not mentioned, though possibly in there, is to repeal of the 20% Qualified Business Income deduction giveaway that's a major provision of the TCJA. The concept of getting 20% of your income tax free just because it's generated by business you own or partially own is criminal. Businesses already get a host of deductions that even half decent accountants can take advantage of to decrease taxable income.

[goldenvalley]

Here's why human infrastructure is important (as if the pandemic hasn't illustrated this enough).  

Hiring and retaining good workers has been tough in the child-care industry for years, but it is escalating into a crisis. Pandemic-fueled staffing challenges threaten to hold back the recovery, as the staffing problems at day cares have a ripple effect across the economy. Without enough employees, day cares are turning away children, leaving parents — especially mothers — unable to return to work.human infrastructure is important

The numbers are staggering: The child-care services industry is still down 126,700 workers — more than a 10 percent decline from pre-pandemic levels, Labor Department data shows. While many industries complain they can’t find enough workers, the hiring situation is more dire in child-care than in restaurants right now.Young women in their late teens and 20s who are typically drawn to work at day care centers are opting instead to take jobs as administrative assistants, retail clerks and bank tellers, according to interviews with former workers and day care owners. Veteran child-care workers are quitting.

One day care worker interviewed for this article quit in the past week. Several others indicated they are contemplating exiting soon. More than 10,000 workers have left the industry since June, Labor Department data shows.


“The pay is absolute crap for what’s required for the position,” said Tanzie Roberts, who quit in June. “I can’t afford to live on my own and work the child-care jobs that I am qualified for.”

Roberts now does administrative work for a tech company from her Florida home. She says she really misses working with kids but could not survive on the low wage at the day care. Her new job does not expose her to covid and pays more than $15 an hour with health insurance — a significant increase from the $11.45 she made working at a national chain day care center.

An almost $4 an hour increase in pay plus health care benefits makes a large difference in someone's life.  It appears that the Walmart and McDonald's low pay enabled low pay in the day care industry for many years but now that those companies raised their hourly rate potential employees can't find child care and so the companies have trouble hiring workers.   This reminds of me of how our tax dollars supported Walmart workers with SNAP and other support for low income people.  

[LFC]

I'm losing faith. As time goes on Manchin and Sinema seem to be less and less worried about burning everything to the ground if they don't get exactly what they demand. Instead they are taking a position akin to the progressives saying that if the reconciliation bill isn't at least $5T they'll kill it. The progressive viewpoint is that they already compromised by half. Unfortunately M&S (or perhaps S&M is more appropriate) are demanding that all movement be made towards what they want.

Presidents usually get their first year big legislative initiatives. Maybe not in total. Maybe not entirely as they’d wished. But certainly most of the time. But there’s no question the President Fiscal/Infrastructure/Climate agenda is facing some serious headwinds. The establishment DC outlets are practically giddy with each new threat from the Senate and House “moderates” to torch the whole agenda. Joe Manchin is back to his demand for a “strategic pause” to delay consideration into a reconciliation package – a gambit that is basically guaranteed to bring the whole program down in flames. Kyrsten Sinema meanwhile, allegedly, threatened in a conversation with the President that she’ll vote against reconciliation if her bipartisan mini-bill doesn’t get a successful vote this month. So she has to get her bird in hand and then she’ll decide if anyone else gets hers.

I saw another columnist wrote that he has shifted his view from thinking that Joe Manchin was trying to help Biden succeed with a less Bernie-ite agenda to simply thinking Manchin is trying to crater Biden’s whole agenda and perhaps his whole presidency. I’m both more and less pessimistic than this because I don’t think Manchin is terribly ideological or strategic (in the sense of having such a grand plan). The best explanation I can see of his actions is that he’s driven by the establishment conventional wisdom of the moment. And that CW has turned in a major way against the President over the last two months.

Josh Marshall's take.

Two things seem clear to me.

The first is that Biden, Pelosi and Schumer simply can’t accept a situation in which a handful of senators and reps veto most of the party’s agenda and still get the infrastructure mini-bill they mostly negotiated with Republicans. That’s what DC’s permanent political class seems to want right now. What option do they have? What lever can they pull? The option is to say no and take the big risk that nothing will happen at all. No mini-bill, no reconciliation package, nothing. That would be a disaster. But the mini-bill and nothing else would be almost as bad and would essentially blow up the Democratic party coalition.

The big risk here is that I think a lot of the self-styled “moderates” are ready to walk away from the whole thing. Or at least more ready than a lot of progressives and the actual center of the party. That’s the essence of their power right now. Absent a real willingness on the part of the White House and leadership to see the whole thing go down in flames they’ll keep getting lead around by the whims and fancies of these two senators.

Democrats only have 50 Senate votes. That means the desires and goals of a Manchin and Sinema are going to have outsized influence. That’s just reality. Imagining the President can just lower the boom on people is just fantasy and bad history. Lyndon Johnson had 68 votes in the Senate. That’s why he was so powerful — not because he invaded people’s personal space. But there’s a difference between outsized influence and basically running the party. Their wings are going to have to be clipped if the party’s agenda has any hope. Not dominated, forced to toe the party line. But the current situation is untenable.

The other point is that the reconciliation bill, if it passes, is going to be significantly smaller than Democrats were hoping. That’s not the end of the world. You don’t always get everything you want. Things get negotiated. But at least on its face that’s not what the moderates are pushing for right now. They appear to want a veto over the whole thing – decoupling the two bills and pushing reconciliation into next year. Those two things mean very clearly the bigger bill will never happen. If that’s a bargaining position and there’s a discussion to be had over say a $2.5 trillion or $3 trillion deal that’s what they should be negotiating. If not, it really seems like the only path forward is for the whole thing to blow up and nothing happen at all.

[jackd]

It's hard to see what the "moderates" would gain by torpedoing the Biden agenda. They would likely be turning control of the government over to the Republicans for years. Are they really Republicans acting as moles in the Democratic Party? Maybe so.

[LFC]

Sept 21, 2021 21:29:09 GMT jackd said:

It's hard to see what the "moderates" would gain by torpedoing the Biden agenda. They would likely be turning control of the government over to the Republicans for years. Are they really Republicans acting as moles in the Democratic Party? Maybe so.

Read the piece I posted about Sinema over here. She's basically "moderate" to show her independence as part of her own personal political strategy. It has nothing to do with the Democratic Party. I'm now convinced that the Dems have 49 votes in the Senate and the 49th is getting squidgier as time goes on. Getting anything big done is virtually off the table though I'd be ecstatic to be proven wrong.

[jackd]

She's taking a huge chance. If the Republicans regain control of the Senate, they aren't going to be paying attention to her.

[jackd]

Having just watched representative Jaypal interviewed on Rachel Maddow, I would say that she and the progressive caucus in the House are also taking a huge chance: if one takes them at their word (always an iffy proposition), they are willing to vote down the bipartisan bill if the Reconciliation bill is not passed first. Lemmings, headed for that cliff.

[goldenvalley]

The "progressives" in the House seem to be naive and/or ignorant of the political dynamics involved in getting legislation turned into law. They ignore the fact that 50 Republicans in the Senate will torpedo any plan the progressives get through the House. Even Sanders figured out he can't have all that he wants in a bill.

[AnBr]

Sept 22, 2021 15:19:00 GMT goldenvalley said:

The "progressives" in the House seem to be naive and/or ignorant of the political dynamics involved in getting legislation turned into law. They ignore the fact that 50 Republicans in the Senate will torpedo any plan the progressives get through the House. Even Sanders figured out he can't have all that he wants in a bill.

I have been trying to tell some lefties I know this for quite some time. They tell me that I am no real progressive or even dismissively call me a "neoliberal". I try to tell them that their all-or-nothing approach usually will get them exactly that. Nothing.