“Steps To An American Voting Rights Act” Unfortunately, Democrats have already skipped some critical steps in the process, but all is not lost. I’ve posted a couple of Updates and an Epilogue #1. https://tinyurl.com/5xd93kxu
BTW, I think Biden has set himself up for a big failure on the so-called “Infrastructure Deal”… I can’t imagine that Mitch McConnell is going to allow Biden to get a big win by taking what he can get with bipartisanship and then taking everything else with reconciliation. McConnell is already out there running with this and having a heyday…!!!! While progressives are out there crying “We want the whole thing.” Why do Democrats have such a hard time with basic political strategy and communications?
Why is Manchin and Sinema holding out? I look at what Biden is doing and see a trap for those two and McConnell. If Repubs balk at their own plan, its on them. If Manchin and Sinema balk after they have their compromise and McConnell says no to Reconciliation, it is on them. It is a out-in-the-open setup with Biden saying he is doing Reconciliation too. Will it matter if they do not include the things passed in a bipartisan compromise? Biden, “Come-on Man, we compromised with you on these things.”
The only thing I would have done differently is not to openly state I was going through with Reconciliation.
Exactly what has gone wrong in the approach to infrastructure? There is a bipartisan proposal that most Dems hate, but it is not even fully written yet. The Senate is at work on the reconciliation bill that most Dems love.
What’s wrong with that process? Nothing. What have Dems given up? Nothing
If you think Biden is going to go up against Pelosi you need to think again.
“But make sure you understand this: that when people say, ‘Well, I’m not going to vote for this unless I see that.’ There ain’t gonna be no bipartisan bill, unless we are going to have the reconciliation bill. “
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
“…Why do Democrats have such a hard time with basic political strategy and communications?”
[It is inherent in their position in our two party political system. The Democratic Party is constrained by evidence although still detached from reality. The Republican Party adheres to biases grounded in fear, emotion, and insecurity thereby reaching the political bottom line directly and without encumberment. The two party system developed from the constitutional rule of majority within the limitations of separation of powers. Divided government, which emanates from this conflict of control, benefits the political party for which the goal is to sustain the status quo. So, the Republican Party has the easier job and the easier access to the motivations of their own constituents and no need for flimsy objectively rational argument. There is little more intrinsically rational than immediate self-interest.
A liberal party for change cannot succeed with a first past the post voting system except in times of crisis, when a clear majority wants change however dubious and risky that prospect might be. Conservative goals are inherently met by our constitutional government’s framework. Change is difficult and not what our Founding Fathers ever intended. A status quo determined by the power of wealth was a natural outcome from our Revolutionary War, which really was not all that revolutionary. Most of Europe accomplished the same thing without any need for war. The republican form of government, when guided by property ownership rights above all other things, is just a very small adjustment to the concept of inherited aristocracy. The best republics, mostly small ones, lend some credibility the concepts of egalitarian rule of the people, but money still talks and most of the winners are born with such advantages that privilege is a birthright far more than something earned.]
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has announced a hard-earned bipartisan agreement on a pared-down infrastructure plan that would make a start on his top legislative priority and validate his efforts to reach across the political aisle.
But he openly acknowledged Thursday that Democrats will likely have to tackle much of the rest on their own.
The bill’s price tag at $973 billion over five years, or $1.2 trillion over eight years, is a scaled-back but still significant piece of Biden’s broader proposals.
It includes more than a half-trillion dollars in new spending and could open the door to the president’s more sweeping $4 trillion proposals for child care and what the White House calls human infrastructure later on.
“When we can find common ground, working across party lines, that is what I will seek to do,” said Biden, who deemed the agreement “a true bipartisan effort, breaking the ice that too often has kept us frozen in place.”
The president stressed that “neither side got everything they wanted in this deal; that’s what it means to compromise,” and said that other White House priorities would be taken on separately in a congressional budget process known as reconciliation, which allows for majority passage without the need for Republican votes.
He insisted that the two items would be done “in tandem” and that he would not sign the bipartisan deal without the other, bigger piece. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and progressive members of Congress declared they would hold to the same approach.
“There ain’t going to be a bipartisan bill without a reconciliation bill,” Pelosi said.
Claiming a major victory five months into his presidency, Biden said, “This reminds me of the days when we used to get an awful lot done up in the United States Congress.” Biden, a former Delaware senator, said that as he put his hand on the shoulder of a stoic-looking Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio as the president made a surprise appearance with a bipartisan group of senators to announce the deal outside the White House. …
… “We’re going to keep working together — we’re not finished,” Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said. “But America works, the Senate works.”
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said it will show the world “we’re not just, you know, a hot mess here.”
For Biden, the deal was a welcome result. Though for far less than he originally sought, Biden had bet his political capital that he could work with Republicans toward major legislation.
Moreover, Biden and his aides believed that they needed a bipartisan deal on infrastructure to create a permission structure for more moderate Democrats — including Sinema and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — to then be willing to go for a party-line vote for the rest of the president’s agenda.
The announcement leaves unclear the fate of Biden’s promises of massive investment to slow climate change, which Biden this spring called “the existential crisis of our times.”
Biden’s presidential campaign had helped win progressive backing with pledges of major spending on electric vehicles, charging stations, and research and funding for overhauling the U.S. economy to run on less oil, gas and coal. The administration is expected to push for some of that in future legislation.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, stressed that there are billions of dollars for resiliency against extreme weather and the impact of climate change and deemed Thursday’s deal a “beginning investment.”
Biden has sought $1.7 trillion in his American Jobs Plan and the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan for child care centers, family tax breaks and other investments that Republicans reject as far outside the scope of “infrastructure.”
The broad reconciliation bill would likely include tax increases on the wealthy, those earning more than $400,000 a year, and hike the corporate rate from 21% to 28%, so a tension still exists over funding for some Republicans and business groups.
It’s still a long haul to a bill signing at the White House. The Senate expects to consider the bipartisan package in July, but Biden’s bigger proposal is not expected to see final votes until fall.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
P.S., First past the post voting creates a political atmosphere where ideological purity is perpetually reinforced. This is also easier for conservatives. Needing no evidence leaves no room for doubt either. The stark duality of a two party political competition pushes each side towards its own relative extreme wherein acting convinced is seen a strength among natural constituents. This is very difficult to reconcile within liberalism as the rational evaluation of evidence must leave space for probability and uncertainty. However, polarization is easier to achieve than realism.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
If one considers the state of political affairs pathetic even with the best efforts of the conventional contemporary liberal elite then one might do well to imagine the state of political affairs without the conventional contemporary liberal elite. Well, it always works for me anyway :<)
Once again this week, the media got it wrong. After Republicans invoked the filibuster to block consideration of S.1, the “For The People Act,” most news outlets reported it as a major loss for Democrats and a huge setback for voting rights.
Now, I admit, they were not totally wrong. To protect every American’s right to vote, it would have been better had the bill passed. But that’s not the full story. What really happened was this: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set a trap – and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell walked right into it.
Let’s be honest. Schumer’s real goal in scheduling a vote on S.1 was not passage of the bill. Everybody knew it would never get the 60 votes necessary for cloture. His real goal was two-fold. First, to prove that voter suppression is at the heart of the Republican Party agenda. Mission Accomplished! Not only did Senate Republicans oppose any attempt to protect the vote, they wouldn’t even let it come up for debate, amendment, or vote.
Second goal: to prove that the Republican Party is, basically, against everything and for nothing. Again, Mission Accomplished! In the Senate so far this year, there was not one Republican vote for the COVID stimulus. Only six Republican votes for creation of the January 6 Truth Commission. And now, not one Republican vote for voting rights.
It’s clearer than ever that no matter how many times Joe Biden or Senate Democrats try to reach across the aisle, this gang of Republicans has zero interest in working together to get stuff done. They’d rather filibuster than legislate. Republicans have made the case themselves, stronger than any Democrat could. The only way forward, the only way for the Senate to get anything done, is to kill the filibuster.
The filibuster has an ugly past. First adopted as a Senate rule in 1806, it was rarely used until the ’50s when it became the weapon of choice for Southern Democratic senators to kill civil rights legislation. Strom Thurmond still holds the record for the longest individual filibuster, speaking against the 1957 Civil Rights Act for 24 hours and 18 minutes.
But that’s when a senator actually had to stand at the podium, talking nonstop, and other senators had to sit, or lie on cots rolled in for the occasion, and listen. Of course, that’s no longer the case. Today’s filibuster is a farce. Nobody has to speak, not even for five minutes. All opponents have to do is “declare” a filibuster and, unless supporters can round up 60 votes, the bill is dead.
Today it’s even worse than that. Now Republicans use the filibuster, almost exclusively, not to kill a bill, but to prevent its consideration. Supporters have to round up 60 votes just to bring legislation, even with some bipartisan support, to the floor for debate. Which is, of course, a self-fulfilling defeat. Because, with no debate there is no opportunity to amend or improve the bill to round up whatever additional votes might have been needed for passage.
In effect, McConnell and today’s Senate Republicans are saying: We don’t want to do our job. We don’t want to govern. We don’t want to legislate. We will simply use the filibuster to shut the Senate down, which they have succeeded in doing, and will continue to do so, as long as the filibuster survives.
Some Democrats want to keep the filibuster, because they think they’ll need it, next time they’re in the minority. But they’re simply perpetuating the tyranny of the minority. The filibuster is inherently undemocratic. It’s wrong, whether invoked by Republicans or Democrats.
The good news is that the more Republicans invoke the filibuster, the more public pressure will build to get rid of it altogether or reduce the operative vote from 60 to 55 and force senators to actually take the podium and talk as long as their bladder holds out. At least that would be a good start.
Like I said, Biden laid a trap. He did a McConnell on McConnell the triple chin piece of garbage. The Republicans do not want bi-partisanship, they want to run the clock out so nothing is accomplished.
i don’t know that i agree with bill maher about everything, but he seems to agree with something i have been trying to say about free college for all”
meanwhile, i think the dems are shooting themselves in the foot: we need green development (aka anti global warming). we don’t so much need free day care. i know that sounds like i am a terrible person. actually it just means i can understand the need to prioritize, and the need not to shut off the patient’s oxygen in order to fluff his pillow. i do favor a much higher min wage so women who want to work can afford day care.
i think most women who WANT to work can afford day care. it’s the women who HAVE to work who can’t, in either case God help the children.
to be honest, I wasn’t thinking about a Biden proposal, but just the Left’s enthusiasm for free college for all….something I would agree with if I thought colleges were going to deliver value for the country…or even for the students.
my own experience was that that was not necessarily so. not that you couldn’t get an education at a college, but that the colleges did very little to ensure that would be the outcome.
It will provide universal, high quality preschool to all three- and four- year-olds. It will provide Americans two years of free community college. It will invest in making college more affordable for low- and middle-income students, including students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and institutions such as Hispanic-serving institutions, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions, and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs).
thanks. i could go for all that still would like to see the college doing a better job than they did when i was an undergraduate. it’s possible they aredoing better now, but i still think Maher made some good points.
Day care is not really an infrastructure problem. Plenty of leaseable space out there, no shortage of key equipment and a still slack labor market. The problem – if you think it’s a problem – is pricing. Bite the bullet and just give parents bigger child tax credits. “Child under 5? Here is $7000. Use it any way that you think helps you and your family.”
I like to see creative solutions that avoid the “tax and spend” hammer. Nothing against tax and spend when needed and politically possible, but when not politically possible, and the problem still exists, people need to start looking for other ways.
I don’t know that your suggestion would work, or that any I might offer would work, but I’d like to see other people offering their thoughts and seeing what emerges.
Two thoughts from me: higher minimum wage….needs to be much higher in any case. neighborhood day care: small groups of women find neighbors willing and capable of doing good job with kids (“good job” very important) pay that person “living wage” out of their own living wage: someone watching five kids for 15 dollars per hour would cost each of five mothers about 2 dollars per hour. might be more cost effective and possibly better for the kids if larger “school” was staffed with more caretakers at about the ratio of one caretaker to five kids. again, paid for …and supervised by the mothers themselves.
one thing that welfare as we knew it got wrong was cutting people off welfare if there was a dad in the home. real incentive to destroy families… but part of that old “conservative” self-lie that people won’t work if you give them money for not working. need to ask them (conservatives) how many of them would quit their jobs to go on welfare. my guess is not many. might pay to look at their reason why not.
i personally think…maybe no one agrees with me any more… that kids need their moms (as well as dads), amd that most mothers would rather be home with their kids if they didn’t “have” to work, and that mothers who “want” to work, don’t want to care for their kids anyway, and usually have high enough incomes that they don’t need government support for day care. if I am right about this, there needs to be a much better solution than government day-prisons for kids so moms cancontribute to the reserve army of cheap labor.
we had “kindergarten” in Chicago school when i was not quite five…because the teacher saw that my mother…who “had to” work was exhausted.
that teacher ran a class of about thirty kids. after the first shock to me of being “abandoned” it worked out pretty well. experiences with day care when my own kids were small were not so pleasant. so my (two income) family became a one income family with stay-at-home mom. worked much better even though there was less money.
but this all depends on the quality of teachers as well as moms and dads. my own opinion is that many people need help achieving the needed quality. it’s a great danger that “help” often turns into “stupid interference” but no one ever said life would be easy.
how are those kibbutzes working out?
my guess is “okay” if ant-farm is your idea of the good life.
There appear to be a handful of GOP senators who are behind the new ‘lite’ infrastructure bill. Maybe they will bring their friends. Maybe an equal number of progressive Dems won’t turn against it. C’mon, centrists! Make something happen!!
The ‘Free College’ movement usually seems to involve public/state universities only. Totally ignoring their private colleagues it seems. That’s just as well. There’s no particular reason why states, especially with federal help, can’t do much more to provide decent free-ish public higher education, if it is demanded of them.
yeah. i agree-is. “decent” though, is a problem. when i went, mostly free, to state schools, most of them were run like the DMV. (the DMV has gotten better. maybe the schools have, too. and to be honest, the private school I went to first, was worse than the state schools.)
and, as Bill Maher mentions above, “certification” is a real problem: that is “you gotta get certified” to do the job you have been doing for years. even in the first graduate school i went to, the departments were exchanging “required courses” to help each other out with enrollments. evil seems to always find a way.
“agree-is” above should have been “agree-ish” . going back to school won’t help me with that problem. [although while i was typing this, spell check insisted that i meant agree-is after all.]
could happen, i suppose. but centrists in the past have always played the role of seeing that things don’t happen. would certainly be nice if all the evil of the past four years (and before) surprisingly resulted in a new breed of independent thinkers. real thinkers, not jsut free-booters[spell check wanted free-boosters, but i think i have beat it into submission. on the other hand it was fine with jsut.]
“Steps To An American Voting Rights Act” Unfortunately, Democrats have already skipped some critical steps in the process, but all is not lost. I’ve posted a couple of Updates and an Epilogue #1.
https://tinyurl.com/5xd93kxu
BTW, I think Biden has set himself up for a big failure on the so-called “Infrastructure Deal”… I can’t imagine that Mitch McConnell is going to allow Biden to get a big win by taking what he can get with bipartisanship and then taking everything else with reconciliation. McConnell is already out there running with this and having a heyday…!!!! While progressives are out there crying “We want the whole thing.” Why do Democrats have such a hard time with basic political strategy and communications?
J.P.
Why is Manchin and Sinema holding out? I look at what Biden is doing and see a trap for those two and McConnell. If Repubs balk at their own plan, its on them. If Manchin and Sinema balk after they have their compromise and McConnell says no to Reconciliation, it is on them. It is a out-in-the-open setup with Biden saying he is doing Reconciliation too. Will it matter if they do not include the things passed in a bipartisan compromise? Biden, “Come-on Man, we compromised with you on these things.”
The only thing I would have done differently is not to openly state I was going through with Reconciliation.
JP,
Exactly what has gone wrong in the approach to infrastructure? There is a bipartisan proposal that most Dems hate, but it is not even fully written yet. The Senate is at work on the reconciliation bill that most Dems love.
What’s wrong with that process? Nothing. What have Dems given up? Nothing
If you think Biden is going to go up against Pelosi you need to think again.
“But make sure you understand this: that when people say, ‘Well, I’m not going to vote for this unless I see that.’ There ain’t gonna be no bipartisan bill, unless we are going to have the reconciliation bill. “
@J.P. McJefferson,
“…Why do Democrats have such a hard time with basic political strategy and communications?”
[It is inherent in their position in our two party political system. The Democratic Party is constrained by evidence although still detached from reality. The Republican Party adheres to biases grounded in fear, emotion, and insecurity thereby reaching the political bottom line directly and without encumberment. The two party system developed from the constitutional rule of majority within the limitations of separation of powers. Divided government, which emanates from this conflict of control, benefits the political party for which the goal is to sustain the status quo. So, the Republican Party has the easier job and the easier access to the motivations of their own constituents and no need for flimsy objectively rational argument. There is little more intrinsically rational than immediate self-interest.
A liberal party for change cannot succeed with a first past the post voting system except in times of crisis, when a clear majority wants change however dubious and risky that prospect might be. Conservative goals are inherently met by our constitutional government’s framework. Change is difficult and not what our Founding Fathers ever intended. A status quo determined by the power of wealth was a natural outcome from our Revolutionary War, which really was not all that revolutionary. Most of Europe accomplished the same thing without any need for war. The republican form of government, when guided by property ownership rights above all other things, is just a very small adjustment to the concept of inherited aristocracy. The best republics, mostly small ones, lend some credibility the concepts of egalitarian rule of the people, but money still talks and most of the winners are born with such advantages that privilege is a birthright far more than something earned.]
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/25/business/biden-extols-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal-good-start/?event=event25
P.S., First past the post voting creates a political atmosphere where ideological purity is perpetually reinforced. This is also easier for conservatives. Needing no evidence leaves no room for doubt either. The stark duality of a two party political competition pushes each side towards its own relative extreme wherein acting convinced is seen a strength among natural constituents. This is very difficult to reconcile within liberalism as the rational evaluation of evidence must leave space for probability and uncertainty. However, polarization is easier to achieve than realism.
If one considers the state of political affairs pathetic even with the best efforts of the conventional contemporary liberal elite then one might do well to imagine the state of political affairs without the conventional contemporary liberal elite. Well, it always works for me anyway :<)
‘Blindsided’ GOP senators put infrastructure deal in doubt MSN
Like I said, Biden laid a trap. He did a McConnell on McConnell the triple chin piece of garbage. The Republicans do not want bi-partisanship, they want to run the clock out so nothing is accomplished.
i don’t know that i agree with bill maher about everything, but he seems to agree with something i have been trying to say about free college for all”
meanwhile, i think the dems are shooting themselves in the foot: we need green development (aka anti global warming). we don’t so much need free day care. i know that sounds like i am a terrible person. actually it just means i can understand the need to prioritize, and the need not to shut off the patient’s oxygen in order to fluff his pillow. i do favor a much higher min wage so women who want to work can afford day care.
i think most women who WANT to work can afford day care. it’s the women who HAVE to work who can’t, in either case God help the children.
Based on my quick research about what Biden actually proposed, Maher was arguing against a straw man.
Arne
what did Biden propose?
to be honest, I wasn’t thinking about a Biden proposal, but just the Left’s enthusiasm for free college for all….something I would agree with if I thought colleges were going to deliver value for the country…or even for the students.
my own experience was that that was not necessarily so. not that you couldn’t get an education at a college, but that the colleges did very little to ensure that would be the outcome.
Abigail Disney talks about dynastic wealth and a whole lot more (Lewis Powell, Milton Friedman, Goldwater, the Republican party, ….)
Arne
thanks. i could go for all that still would like to see the college doing a better job than they did when i was an undergraduate. it’s possible they aredoing better now, but i still think Maher made some good points.
Day care is not really an infrastructure problem. Plenty of leaseable space out there, no shortage of key equipment and a still slack labor market. The problem – if you think it’s a problem – is pricing. Bite the bullet and just give parents bigger child tax credits. “Child under 5? Here is $7000. Use it any way that you think helps you and your family.”
Eric
I like to see creative solutions that avoid the “tax and spend” hammer. Nothing against tax and spend when needed and politically possible, but when not politically possible, and the problem still exists, people need to start looking for other ways.
I don’t know that your suggestion would work, or that any I might offer would work, but I’d like to see other people offering their thoughts and seeing what emerges.
Two thoughts from me: higher minimum wage….needs to be much higher in any case. neighborhood day care: small groups of women find neighbors willing and capable of doing good job with kids (“good job” very important) pay that person “living wage” out of their own living wage: someone watching five kids for 15 dollars per hour would cost each of five mothers about 2 dollars per hour. might be more cost effective and possibly better for the kids if larger “school” was staffed with more caretakers at about the ratio of one caretaker to five kids. again, paid for …and supervised by the mothers themselves.
one thing that welfare as we knew it got wrong was cutting people off welfare if there was a dad in the home. real incentive to destroy families… but part of that old “conservative” self-lie that people won’t work if you give them money for not working. need to ask them (conservatives) how many of them would quit their jobs to go on welfare. my guess is not many. might pay to look at their reason why not.
i personally think…maybe no one agrees with me any more… that kids need their moms (as well as dads), amd that most mothers would rather be home with their kids if they didn’t “have” to work, and that mothers who “want” to work, don’t want to care for their kids anyway, and usually have high enough incomes that they don’t need government support for day care. if I am right about this, there needs to be a much better solution than government day-prisons for kids so moms cancontribute to the reserve army of cheap labor.
typo (brain-o) in above was left in (too late to change). gives people a chance to fix it with their own best guess as to the cost per mom.
we had “kindergarten” in Chicago school when i was not quite five…because the teacher saw that my mother…who “had to” work was exhausted.
that teacher ran a class of about thirty kids. after the first shock to me of being “abandoned” it worked out pretty well. experiences with day care when my own kids were small were not so pleasant. so my (two income) family became a one income family with stay-at-home mom. worked much better even though there was less money.
but this all depends on the quality of teachers as well as moms and dads. my own opinion is that many people need help achieving the needed quality. it’s a great danger that “help” often turns into “stupid interference” but no one ever said life would be easy.
how are those kibbutzes working out?
my guess is “okay” if ant-farm is your idea of the good life.
There appear to be a handful of GOP senators who are behind the new ‘lite’ infrastructure bill. Maybe they will bring their friends. Maybe an equal number of progressive Dems won’t turn against it. C’mon, centrists! Make something happen!!
The ‘Free College’ movement usually seems to involve public/state universities only. Totally ignoring their private colleagues it seems. That’s just as well. There’s no particular reason why states, especially with federal help, can’t do much more to provide decent free-ish public higher education, if it is demanded of them.
Dobbs
yeah. i agree-is. “decent” though, is a problem. when i went, mostly free, to state schools, most of them were run like the DMV. (the DMV has gotten better. maybe the schools have, too. and to be honest, the private school I went to first, was worse than the state schools.)
and, as Bill Maher mentions above, “certification” is a real problem: that is “you gotta get certified” to do the job you have been doing for years. even in the first graduate school i went to, the departments were exchanging “required courses” to help each other out with enrollments. evil seems to always find a way.
typo:
“agree-is” above should have been “agree-ish” . going back to school won’t help me with that problem. [although while i was typing this, spell check insisted that i meant agree-is after all.]
centrists:
could happen, i suppose. but centrists in the past have always played the role of seeing that things don’t happen. would certainly be nice if all the evil of the past four years (and before) surprisingly resulted in a new breed of independent thinkers. real thinkers, not jsut free-booters[spell check wanted free-boosters, but i think i have beat it into submission. on the other hand it was fine with jsut.]
Centrists do seem to hide, as if there were only a few. They are of course the many. Step forward, show yourselves and accomplish stuff.