Pragmatic politics focused on the public interest for those uncomfortable with America's two-party system and its way of doing politics. Considering the interface of politics with psychology, cognitive science, social behavior, morality and history.
Etiquette
DP Etiquette
First rule: Don't be a jackass.
Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.
“The mind is divided into parts, like a rider [controlled processes or consciousness] on an elephant [automatic processes or unconsciousness]. The rider evolved to serve the elephant. . . . . intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Therefore, if you want to change someone’s mind about a moral or political issue, talk to the elephant first.
Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don’t. Republicans have long understood that the elephant is in charge of political behavior, not the rider, and they know how elephants work. Their slogans, political commercials and speeches go straight for the gut .... Republicans don’t just aim to cause fear, as some Democrats charge. They trigger the full range of intuitions described by Moral Foundations Theory.” -- psychologist Johnathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, 2012
An article, Rough Night for Democrats Exposes the Party’s Weakness, in the New York Times analyzes the situation the Democrats are in. The NYT writes:
Less than a year after taking power in Washington, the party faces a grim immediate future, struggling to energize voters without a presidential foil and losing messaging wars to Republicans.
“The Democrats need to take a serious look at how we chose to engage with the Trump narrative,” said Dan Sena, a Democratic strategist who helped the party win the House in 2018. “This was an election where the Democrats did not lean into their accomplishments either in Virginia or nationally. And as we look to 2022, we’re going to have to ask some hard questions about whether that’s the right strategy.”
Perhaps most strikingly, the crushing setbacks for Democrats in heavily suburban Virginia and New Jersey hinted at a conservative-stoked backlash to the changing mores around race and identity championed by the party, as Republicans relentlessly sought to turn schools into the next front in the country’s culture wars.
With their focus on “parental rights” — a catchall rallying cry capturing conservative outrage over mask mandates, vaccination requirements, transgender rights and how the history of racism is taught — Republicans found an issue that energized their voters, uniting the white grievance politics of the Trump base with broader anger over schooling during the pandemic.
By promising at nearly every campaign stop to ban critical race theory, an advanced academic concept not taught in Virginia schools, Mr. Youngkin resurrected Republican race-baiting tactics in a state that once served as the capital of the Confederacy.
Critical race theory is not taught in Virginia public schools, but that was irrelevant. Voters wanted to make sure it was stamped out even though it wasn’t there at all. Once again, dark free speech clearly shows its awesome power. Once again, Republican messaging went straight to the gut and dealt a damaging blow to Democrats.
Questions:
1. Do Democrats need to improve their messaging?
2. What else do they need to start doing or do better, e.g., start doing DINO hunts to get rid of . . . . who or what?
The Democratic Party deep split; a party on the verge of implosion?
One cannot speak of the American left as a monolith. In large part, the Atlantic article is about a schism within the left. The article's author, George Packer, calls it 'progressives vs. liberals'. What we see in Congress, the intraparty tension between the progressive caucus/Justice Democrats https://justicedemocrats.com/ and the rest of the democratic party, is mirrored in this debate about civics.
Justice Democrats screenshot
The original Dissident Politics discussion posited that Biden made a mistake by losing neutrality and taking the progressive side in some of his policy statements. However, he did not make a "mistake." Instead, he fulfilled a pledge to woke progressives to fight for a certain narrative about American history, justice and the nature of racism, as well as gender rights. Even though Biden is a culturally conservative centrist, he ran a campaign and staged a carefully choreographed "diversity"-themed Democratic Party Convention in the summer of 2020 that engaged in a lot of virtue-signaling. As
George Packer, author of Atlantic piece, notes this all but insures continued paralysis on the civics/history front. The 1619 Project mentioned by Packer, which has been blessed as the basis of K-12 social science and history curriculum by the Pulitzer center and many woke progressives. Unfortunately, The 1619 Project is historically inaccurate in several of its claims.[1] Packer is quite clear about the danger of today's self-described "leftists" of the Justice Democrat variety. He opens his essay in The Atlantic with this very serious warning about the danger the Democratic Party faces:
The early months of the Biden presidency have revealed a conflict between two approaches to policy. One is liberal and universalist, the other progressive and particularist. One pursues equality through programs that include as many Americans as possible; the other targets groups, sometimes narrowly defined ones, in the name of equity. One minimizes cultural flashpoints; the other heightens them. One tries to weaken the Republican opposition with broadly popular ideas; the other, pushed by activists, draws conservatives into battles that intensify polarization. One has a chance to build a governing majority; the other risks consigning the Democratic Party to the dismal fate of the British Labour Party.
That's no joke. He is arguing that the woke progressives, with their purity tests and orthodoxies about "particularist" claims pertaining to "narrowly defined groups," and the no-compromise, morally indignant politics of owning the "high-ground" in their minds, would keep "particularizing", i.e., breaking everything down into "narrow" identity groups, rather than building bridges across the political spectrum at this vital time in order to preserve the Democratic Party, which is the only legitimate major party today, and the process and peaceful transfer of power.
The progressives are an insurgent group, not a prudent one. They are ginning up rather than quelling the hyper-partisanship. The question is no longer, assuming it ever was, "who's worse, the blundering left or evil right?" It's useless casuistry (the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions; sophistry). The so-called "leftist" progs are not just "blundering" but programmatic ideologues. If Packer is right, and I agree with him, they may lead to the implosion of the Democratic Party, which might be, "consigned to the dismal fate of the British Labour Party," i.e. irrelevance.
I've thought so for a while, but it's time to speak up. In 2016 the leftist intellectual historian and political theorist, Mark Lilla, in The Once And Future Liberal (2016), issued the same warnings about going down the path of identity politics with little of the broader concerns about class and not just race and gender, etc.[2] He was not so much "cancelled" by progressives as condemned to the "silent treatment" after being bashed by woke progressives on Twitter. He was called "out of touch with the key issues" by "progressive" pundits, and rarely appears on TV interviews about politics nowadays. Yet he predicted much of what has happened since 2016.
So, no-compromise woke progressives want to install one vision of America, frankly somewhat mythical, ahistorical and self-flattering. For example, in history as taught by The 1619 Project, black slaves become the "real" original founders of American Democracy, though they were excluded from it. Meanwhile, those in the authoritarian right offer a dangerously distorted view in which Christian nationalism, elements of a Lost Cause mythology of the South, and vile nativism and scapegoating combine to frame ideological discourse, and curriculum/ text books. For example, look at the Texas schools today, with book-banning, and CN textbooks. Both must be eschewed.
Sane, informed history and civics requires the rejection of both, not the coddling of one side as "merely mistaken" and the condemnation of the other as "evil." Both are "evil" if that means dangerous to the future of democracy. Both are self-conscious movements. The woke left, and Biden in courting it, did not "make a mistake" but rather calculated how to get, as they see it, the votes of several minority groups including blacks, latinx, lgbtq+, etc. That's what Packer means by "particularism."
"Progressives" mean POC (people of color) + Lesbian + Gay + Transgender +Muslim+ Non-binary + Feminist + nominal socialism (ala the ill-defined DSA), but MINUS "heteronormative cis-gender white males" all of whom, presumably have "white privilege" and are part of the dreaded "Patriarchy." They may hold placards and such, but don't vote for one if *he* is on the ballot! Is there even ONE straight white man running for office on the Justice Democrat Website?? Of course not. Such are the rigid identitarian dogmas of this "joyless religion," as Nick Cave called it. Nor do they realize that *many* people lumped in these categories-- do not buy into all this divisive rhetoric or care much about it.
If you watch too many youtube vids and go on Twitter a lot, it looks like all leftists agree on these issues, on history, civics, how to interpret slavery vis a vis democracy, the need for "truth and reconciliation and reparations" right now, in the middle of a slow-motion authoritarian coup. These woke progressives just don't get that most people don't internalize or commit to all these PC talking points. But most people do care about good education, a safety-net, decent living wages, safer neighborhoods, fewer crimes and homicides, health-care, and a way to break out of the stagnant freeze on their paychecks as costs of living rise daily. The few social programs that are left can no longer keep struggling Americans (of all colors) safe, warm and fed. Poverty and hunger in this land are embarrassingly widespread across ALL race, gender, age and regional categories as discussed in this National Geographic article.
Educating For American Democracy, which Germaine praised, was prepared by academics from more ideologically restrained quarters of both the left AND the right. It's time to recognize identitarian progressivism and its mainstream media propaganda for what they really are. After all, MSNBC and many op-ed journalists at NYT are to the "left" what FOX news is to the right. Much of the content in woke TV-land and journalism promotes identity-based ideology, while maintaining the economic status quo. Woke journalism does not seriously challenge the elites or get into the broad picture of economic inequality among ALL "identity-groups", i.e. groups outside of the race/minority identitarian context. The culture wars and identity politics are themselves the root problem. The largely racist, authoritarian right USES woke nonsense (like 1619 and BS anti-racist manuals that teach "racism exists without racists" while simultaneously calling out individuals as smug racists with the scarlet W of "white privilege") to demonize the entire democratic party as "dangerous, socialist" and any other scary terms that unsettle many middle Americans.
Problem is, when authoritarian right propaganda quotes from some of the woke books, speeches, tweets, or cut to cancel culture video, etc. they do score points because much of that discourse IS embarrassingly stupid, as a growing number of reluctant but increasingly vocal critics are beginning to say. That makes sense because if we don't speak out now, democratic unity and pro-democracy momentum could be lost VERY SOON. It is time to prioritize pro-democracy over pet agendas. MSNBC, NYT opinion staff writers, Biden's virtue signaling-- it's all of one piece. Most people don't have much of a dog in the fight over the year of the founding of the USA, but few really think that year is 1619, regardless of the black indentured servants that arrived that year in a British Colony to join oppressed white servants here.
Stop coddling the progressive left-- starting with the college students that need "safe spaces" for each and every social identity they embrace while endangering the careers of professors who don't use the mandatory PC lingo. Professors like Brett Weinstein and many others end up with violent threats, intimidation and loss of employment. Does anyone think this is what most voters want to see in the name of "progress?" This clip from Vice News shows what woke progressivism looks like up close and it's well worth a look (I looked at it and PD is right - it's worth a look (and it's darned ugly)):
We can't clean up the right because we, here, are mostly not within it, and its rot is far too deep. Just last week, Adam Kinzinger, one of Trump's last Republican critics, announced his retirement. Nobody can save that party right now. It must be defeated, and hopefully later a different kind of GOP or new party that plays by the rules will emerge. But comparing the GOPs "sins" to the problems on the left is a distraction from the task of getting our own shit together and bringing this quasi-fascist/neo-fascist train to a screeching halt before the many blessings we now take too much for granted go up in smoke.
We CAN and should start calling out the no-compromise progs Packer's article describes. Those who think they have a monopoly on cultural and political truths, imposing purity tests, refusing to pass legislation unless it's got X or Y (in an ideal world, yes, we'd be able to pass X and Y, but in the real world the votes ain't there and we should get what we can get done now and continue struggling for the rest after that-- you can't wish assholes like Manchin and Sinema into oblivion-- you have to swallow the bitter pill of reality, and take the best deal on offer while that offer lasts).
Civics which I've been involved in and promoted for years is now hostage to authoritarians on the right and PC woke progressives on the left. So NO the left has some serious problems right now. It shoots itself in the feet in the name of "Justice." The Justice Democrats are an insurgent sub-party within the Dems more interested in primarying incumbent Dems then uniting around pro-democracy cause as I described in an earlier post here.
If we can form a pro-democracy UNITY coalition of all non-GOP groups and take what's left of that rotten party down to the ground, each member of the coalition may not get everything it wants, but chances are good that democracy in the US will survive another day. Then the differences in policy preferences, agendas, ideologies can be hashed out. After we've saved the basic form of gov't we currently stand to lose.
A personal observation: a lesson learned
PD goes on to make other points. One is his criticism of me for being too sucked in by my own casuistry, i.e., sophistry or maybe clever but definitely unsound reasoning. On consideration, he has made a convincing case. I goofed. I underestimated the threat from the internal progressive left to both the Democratic Party and democracy in view of considerations including (i) how alienating no-compromise the progressives are to out-groups, and (ii) how much actual truth and propaganda the woke left just hands over to the radical right. I was blinded by my focus on how threatening the radical right and its authoritarian goals are to good things including democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law, truth and honest governance.
Questions:
1. Is it reasonable to argue that the progressives or justice Democrats are counter productive or dangerous no-compromise ideologues on a par with the now morally rotted and irredeemable Republican Party?
2. We are flying by the seat of our pants[3] and something more effective arguably needs to be done. Is forming a pro-democracy unity coalition of all non-GOP groups something reasonable that should be tried in the short run to oppose the Republican Party and its anti-democratic agenda?
3. Is the woke left evil or a threat to democracy?
Footnotes:
1. The 1619 Project asserts that "Black Americans have...been, and continue to be, foundational to the idea of American freedom. More than any other group in this country’s history, we have served, generation after generation, in an overlooked but vital role: It is we who have been the perfecters of this democracy. Through centuries of black resistance and protest, we have helped the country live up to its founding ideals. And not only for ourselves — black rights struggles paved the way for every other rights struggle, including women’s and gay rights, immigrant and disability rights. Without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different — it might not be a democracy at all."
I am not sure how such a sweeping causal claim can be established, nor am I sure just what kind of empirical evidence might be marshaled to support it. As Hannah-Jones says, it is an interpretive claim about which reasonable people can disagree. .... What, then, are some of the alleged FACTS marshaled by the 1619 project to make the grand claims they advance appear plausible? There are a few, and some of them disturbed major historians of American History enough to cause them to write a letter to the Times requesting several corrections of what they regard as mistakes and untruths. .... Leaving aside the broad claim regarding blacks as the ultimate cause of modern US democracy, these scholars focused on more discrete and manageable issues amenable to empirical inquiry.
“American liberalism, has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing.”
In August, Lilla doubled down on his argument with The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (2017), a short book and his first for a popular audience. “We need no more marchers. We need more mayors,” he wrote. Only by articulating a political vision that speaks to all Americans, Lilla believes, can Democrats secure political power, turn the tide of Trumpism, and help minorities.
Lilla, a liberal, wants to save liberalism from itself.
Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, who was instrumental in arranging the state's sham election "audit," announced Monday evening that she won't seek reelection and will retire from the state legislature in January 2023.
A May 2021 article in the Atlantic, Can Civics Save America?, considers whether civics and history can be taught in public schools in a way that helps to restore some health to our seriously damaged American democracy. The alternative is that it will inflame partisan antagonisms if not done with extreme care and strict neutrality. The Atlantic writes:
Civic education sounds dull, dutiful, and antiquated, like paper drives or the Presidential Physical Fitness Test—but today it bears all the passion and distemper of our fraught politics. Last year, the Republican pollster Frank Luntz found that a majority of Americans of both parties rank civics as their top choice for how to “strengthen the American identity,” ahead of national service (preferred by Democrats) and religious activity (favored by Republicans). Civics, if left undefined, is the one solution for polarization that both sides support.
It’s also the most bitterly contested subject in education today. Civics is at the heart of the struggle to define the meaning of the American idea. Think of the battle lines as 1619 versus 1776—The New York Times Magazine’s project to reframe American history around slavery and its legacy, and the Trump administration’s counterstrike in the form of a thin report on patriotic education. Teaching civics could restore health to American democracy, or inflame our mutual antagonisms. Events are currently pushing in both directions.
Schools fail to give students not only a knowledge of basic facts and concepts, .... but also “the realization that free people will disagree about just about everything.” The art of self-government depends on a capacity for argument, persuasion, compromise, and tolerance of disagreement—civic virtues that need to be learned and practiced. .... If Americans of all stripes now hold righteously dogmatic views that we can neither ground in facts nor justify against counterarguments, one overlooked cause is the fading of civics from American education.
In 2019, a group of scholars and educators began an ambitious effort to lay out a vision for how American children in the 21st century should learn about their multi-everything, relentlessly divided democracy. .... Funding came from the U.S. Department of Education (then led by Betsy DeVos) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Around 300 people ultimately worked on the project, whose 33-page report, Educating for American Democracy, came out in March.
Rather than euphemizing hard truths and eliding divisive arguments, the report faces them in clear language. “In recent decades, we as a nation have failed to prepare young Americans for self-government, leaving the world’s oldest constitutional democracy in grave danger, afflicted by both cynicism and nostalgia, as it approaches its 250th anniversary,” the report announces at the top. Its solution is not a new nationwide curriculum (sure to self-immolate in partisan fights) but a “roadmap” of pedagogical guidelines, informed by broad themes such as “civic participation” and “institutional and social transformation,” and also by questions such as “How can we offer an account of U.S. constitutional democracy that is simultaneously honest about the past without falling into cynicism, and appreciative of the founding without tipping into adulation?”
The article goes on to point out that the Educating for American Democracy report intentionally does not choose sides in culture war. That would cause it to be rejected and attacked by one side or the other and then fade into irrelevance. To avoid that trap, the authors resort to reliance on evidence, inquiry and reason (like pragmatic rationalism). In particular, the report does not tell schools what to teach or students what to think. It just provides guidance on educating students about how to think, debate, disagree, and learn about the past in the context of the present. The goal is to balance American pluralism and diversity with a shared American narrative.
Phrases like “reflective patriotism” and “civic friendship” were invented and used to try to limit the inherent tension. As one can imagine, this puts a significant, complicated burden on teachers.
The author of the article understands that the Educating for American Democracy report could lay out good ideas but still die a quiet death, like many other reports and efforts that try to be helpful. One question asks what else can we try to do? The two sides are bitterly divided and that is not going to change.
We oppose it!
A proposed bill in Congress, the Civics Secures Democracy Act, appropriates $1 billion to support civics and U.S. history teaching. As of last May, there was some bipartisan support, but it is tenuous. The Educating for American Democracy report and the Civics Secures Democracy Act both came
under immediate attack from the right. A radical right pro-T**** source called American Greatness, referred to the report as “a Trojan horse for woke education.” The influential radical right National Review, Federalist Society, and Heritage Foundation all argued that the report and the proposed bill constituted a conspiracy to impose a national left-wing agenda and ideology on schoolchildren. A conservative group, the National Association of Scholars asked Republicans in congress to withdraw their sponsorship of the Civics Secures Democracy Act.
Biden screws the pooch - he took a side in the culture war
In what appears to be a serious, probably lethal mistake for a civics and history teaching renewal, on April 19 the Biden administration proposed Education Department funding for two small teaching grants related to teaching civics and history. The grant rationale and requirements blundered by clearly taking the liberal side in the culture war. Information that accompanied the grants included these mistakes (i) citing “the New York Times’ landmark ‘1619 Project,’” (ii) emphasis on teaching “both the consequences of slavery, and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society,” and (iii) stating that grant applicants must “take into account systemic marginalization, biases, inequities, and discriminatory policy and practice in American history,” “support the creation of learning environments that validate and reflect the diversity, identity, and experiences of all students,” and “contribute to inclusive, supportive, and identity-safe learning environments.”
Both the Educating for American Democracy report and the Civics Secures Democracy Act were designed to not inflame partisan differences or take a side. Despite that, both elicited immediate, intense criticism from the radical right. The ghastly mistakes in the grant applications has given the radical right the excuse to say, we told you so, and more vehemently reject the report and the bill pending in congress. Radical right demagogues are reveling in a festival of disinformation using Biden’s mistake as fresh ammunition.
The article ends with this correct observation:
Unlike Educating for American Democracy, the Biden administration’s [grant application] rule, like its conservative critics, imposes a fixed view of civics and U.S. history in place of inquiry, debate, and disagreement. By intent or blunder, the left and right are colluding to undermine the noble, elusive goal of giving American children the ability to think and argue and act together as citizens.
Questions:
1. Based on the information in this post, is it reasonable to think the right is mostly acting to sabotage by intent and the left mostly blundering, assuming that the left generally supports the Educating for American Democracy report and the Civics Secures Democracy Act, while the right attacks and opposes them?
2. Is it reasonable to see neutral but honest teaching of civics and history as inherently more at odds with the morals, ideology, beliefs and politics of the radical right than with those of the center or left, radical or not?
This bill is still being debated among Democrats, so the final terms could change or the bill might not ever reach a compromise. Two generally staunch conservative Democratic Senators, Manchin and Sinema, dislike spending on the American people. Both are corrupted by powerful special interests hell bent on protecting their power and profits regardless of negative impacts on the public interest, the environment and climate, or anything else.
Manchin has been bought by coal and oil interests and is generally anti-environment. Sinema is bought by the pharmaceutical industry and she fights to keep drug prices for Americans bankruptingly sky high. No Republican in congress is likely to vote for the reconciliation bill because Republicans hate government and nearly all domestic spending.
If Manchin and Sinema cannot be coaxed, bribed, bought off with earmarks or otherwise convinced to vote for this bill, it will fail and so will the first bipartisan infrastructure bill because House progressives will not vote for the first ~$1 trillion bill (discussed here yesterday) if Democrats cannot agree and pass the second bill, which focuses on "human infrastructure."
Investopedia summarizes key provisions of the reconciliation bill as of Oct. 28, currently negotiated at ~$1.85 trillion in spending, some of which is intended to occur over a period of 1-5 years.
On Oct. 28, Biden announced a scaled-down $1.85 trillion Build Back Better compromise, down from an original ~$3.5 trillion, hoping that would be enough to get progressives to vote for the bipartisan bill
$1.75 trillion of social infrastructure funding, and an additional $100 billion in immigration spending, contingent upon an affirmative ruling by the Senate parliamentarian
$400 billion for childcare and universal preschool, which is projected to save most families more than half of their childcare spending by providing two years of free preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old in America and additional funding for childcare
$150 billion for home care, which expands home care for seniors and the disabled
$200 billion for Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Credit, including extending expanded Child Tax Credit for one year and additional funds to extend the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit
$555 billion for clean energy and climate, including a proposal to cut greenhouse gas pollution by over a gigaton in 2030; other provisions include reducing consumer energy costs, helping to create more clean air and water, and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs
$130 billion in Obamacare credits to expand subsidized healthcare coverage, reduce premiums for more than 9 million Americans, and deliver healthcare to uninsured people in states that are not enrolled in expanded Medicaid coverage
$35 billion Medicare hearing coverage, but dental and vision coverage got removed by Manchin and Sinema,
$150 billion for housing affordable housing, including construction and rehabilitation of homes and payments for rental assistance and housing vouchers
$40 billion for higher education and workforce, including increasing Pell grants and post-high school education opportunities including through apprenticeship programs in underserved communities
$90 billion for equity and other investments, designed to achieve equity through investments in maternal health, community violence interventions, and nutrition
$100 billion for immigration if approved by the Senate parliamentarian; spending is to reform the immigration system, reduce backlogs, expand legal representation, and make border processing more efficient and humane.
Partial funding by imposing a corporate alternative minimum tax of at least 15% on companies whose financial statements show at least $1 billion in profit (Manchin and/or Sinema are likely going to reject this based on some past comments they have made about funding sources → they oppose taxing rich people and wealthy corporations, but are OK with taxing the rest of us fools)
What has been cut out of the current proposal:
Paid family leave. Democrats initially wanted 12 weeks of guaranteed paid family and medical leave, then scaled it back to four weeks. Ultimately no paid leave made it into the framework.
Medicare dental and vision benefits.
Medicare drug pricing. The ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies was also cut from the final framework.
Free community college. Expansion of Pell grants and apprenticeship training remains, but free community college was taken out.
Billionaires income tax. This funding plan, which would have taxed the unrealized gains of certain assets of around 700 of the richest taxpayers in the country and helped fund the legislation, was removed.
The purchasing power of pharmaceutical industry campaign contributions to Sinema is manifest in the Medicare drug pricing bullet point. She has been paid to protect that sector of the economy. Drug prices for Americans will continue to be generally unaffordable.
There is no mention of going after some of the ~$1.2 trillion in annual tax cheating that the FRP (fascist Republican Party) constantly defends in its ruthless quest to strangle and kill the federal government by depriving it of money. Honest taxpayers are, as usual, screwed because they won't or can't also join the perennial festival of tax cheating.
This reconciliation bill focuses on human infrastructure, but the FRP does not believe there is such a thing and it should not be funded. Other industrialized countries have been spending for decades on the things that are both still included in and cut from this bill. One major difference between the civilized industrialized countries and the US is that their governments generally put the public interest before special interests, while the US usually does the opposite.
Questions:
1. Should the public support this bill? Or, is the FRP and its alarmist, hair-on-fire rhetoric, e.g., (i) there is no such thing as human infrastructure, (ii) climate change is a hoax, and (iii) controlling drug prices would be a gigantic catastrophe, basically correct and therefore this bill should be opposed?
2. Comparing this reconciliation bill, including what is in and what is cut out, with the "bipartisan" bill discussed yesterday, is there meaningful bipartisanship left in the FRP, or does it now operate mostly in bad faith for special interests? Or, are the two parties mostly alike and their differences on infrastructure mostly or completely just posturing?
Some people heavily criticize the first, bipartisan infrastructure bill as a corporate giveaway and a nearly complete capitulation to the FRP (fascist Republican Party). That complaint, or close variants, has come from multiple sources, including some folks here. Democratic Party progressives in the house have complained bitterly about how crappy this bill is. The New York Times describes key provisions like this:
$1 trillion spending is agreed to; Biden's original proposal was for $2.3 trillion
about $550 billion in new federal money for public transit, roads, bridges, water and other physical projects over the next five years
money would come from a range of measures, including “repurposing” stimulus funds already approved by Congress, selling public electromagnetic spectrum and recouping federal unemployment funds from states that ended more generous pandemic benefits early
Biden claims that “neither side got everything they wanted,” but new union jobs would be created and the spending constitutes significant investments in public transit
$110 billion is new funding for roads, bridges and other major projects; the American Society of Civil Engineers says there is a a $786 billion backlog of needed repairs for roads and bridges
highway and pedestrian safety programs get $11 billion
$1 billion is “reconnecting communities” by removing freeways or other past infrastructure projects that ran through Black neighborhoods and other communities of color, down from Biden's original $20 billion proposal
public buses, subways and trains get $39 billion in new funding to repair aging infrastructure and modernize and expand transit service across the country, down from the original $49 billion proposal; the American Society of Civil Engineers says that there is a $176 billion backlog for transit investments
$66 billion spending rail to address Amtrak’s maintenance backlog, upgrades for the high-traffic Washington to Boston corridor, and some for expanding rail service outside the Northeast and mid-Atlantic
$55 billion in clean drinking water to replace all of the nation’s lead pipes, which were banned ~30 years ago
$7.5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations nationwide and get rid of areas with no chargers; $2.5 billion for electric school buses
Republicans successfully opposed Biden’s plan to raise taxes and empower the I.R.S. to help pay for the package by reducing the tax gap (the amount that tax cheats do pay, currently running at about $1.2 trillion/year)
funding will come from (i) pay-fors that repurpose already-approved funds, (ii) accounting changes to raise funds and, (iii) assume the projects will ultimately pay for themselves
the biggest funding source is $205 billion that will come from “repurposing of certain COVID relief dollars”
$53 billion in funding is assumed to come from states that ended more generous federal unemployment benefits early
$28 billion comes from requiring more robust reporting around cryptocurrencies
$56 billion is presumed to come from economic growth “resulting from a 33 percent return on investment in these long-term infrastructure projects”
It does look like the FRP really got most of what it wanted. The funding sources are questionable and the amounts too small to meet needs. Once again, the FRP protected tax cheats, allowing the annual ~$1.2 trillion Thieves' Festival of Cheating to continue unscathed.
After reading this, my support for this bill has gone from solidly positive to mildly negative, which is what the FRP wants to see from people. If the Dems cannot agree among themselves on the reconciliation bill, letting this bill fail would be just fine with me and the FRP, which loves tax cheats, but hates government generally and especially most government domestic spending.
I'll do a separate post on the reconciliation bill, which 100% of the FRP in congress opposes.
Question:
1. Should the public support this bill? Does the existence or size of the reconciliation bill (~$3.5 trillion proposed, now down to ~$1.5 trillion thanks to the corrupt bought and paid for Senators Manchin and Sinema) make any difference (that assumes Democrats can agree on a bill, which is still a highly dubious proposition)? In other words, should the fairly crappy bipartisan bill be supported as better than nothing if the reconciliation bill is too small?
