Progressives started with a $6 Trillion bill over ten years against an economy that Paul Krugman estimates will produce a gdp of $300 Trillion over the coming decade. That would mean that the bill would only take two percent of the estimated gross domestic product, the sum of all goods produced and services provided by a nation, over the next decade. Joe Manchin made no compromise in the top line number and as the coal baron he is, would not allow the Clean Electricity Performance Plan which cost $150 Billion and would significantly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.
www.nytimes.com/…
“WASHINGTON — The most powerful part of President Biden’s climate agenda — a program to rapidly replace the nation’s coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy — will likely be dropped from the massive budget bill pending in Congress, according to congressional staffers and lobbyists familiar with the matter.
Senator Joe Manchin III, the Democrat from coal-rich West Virginia whose vote is crucial to passage of the bill, has told the White House that he strongly opposes the clean electricity program, according to three of those people. As a result, White House staffers are now rewriting the legislation without that climate provision, and are trying to cobble together a mix of other policies that could also cut emissions.
The $150 billion clean electricity program was the muscle behind Mr. Biden’s ambitious climate agenda. It would reward utilities that switched from burning fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, and penalize those that do not. Experts have said that the policy over the next decade would drastically reduce the greenhouse gases that “ are principally responsible for the warming of the planet. He wasn’t content with allowing the planet to warm. He also opposed the increase in the Child Tax Credit and strengthening the social safety net because of a supposed concern about runaway inflation. However, even though the reconciliation bill was only going to cost 2 percent of the gdp, progressives dropped the top line number to $3.5 Trillion. Again, the progressives compromise was not matched by a similar compromise on the part of the conservatives, Manchin and Sinema. So, progressives cut the cost almost in half. Then we had to accept the removal of the most powerful part of the reconciliation bill that addressed the climate emergency. However, Senator Sherrod Brown argued on behalf of the increase in the Child Tax Credit to Joe Manchin whose insistence on a work requirement would vitiate the benefits of the increase in the credit. m.dailykos.com/...
“On Wednesday,Washington Post columnist Greg Sargentreported that Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown had a long talk with Manchin on Tuesday about the expanded child tax credit. Brown, Manchin and Montana Sen. Jon Tester are the only Senate Democrats representing red states.
Brown said he had urged Manchin to appreciate how much expanding the child tax credit to send $300 pr month to most American families has done for low-income famillies in their two states. Manchin had called for lowering the threshold to received the expanded child tax credit from $150,000 to $60,000 and imposing a work requirement.
“It’s dropped the child poverty rate by 40 percent in West Virginia and Ohio — I made that case to Joe,” Brown told me. “Why change something that’s working so well?”
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Manchin claimed that he opposes the CEPP at a cost of only $150 Billion because it incentives and rewards companies for what they are already doing.
www.motherjones.com/...
According to the IMF , the fossil fuel industry is subsidized $5.9 Trillion in 2020 alone, a rate of $11 Million a minute.
Manchin opposes dental and hearing being added onto Medicare despite how little it costs compared to the gdp.
Sinema opposed undoing Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations something even Manchin wants to undo. Manchin set out a top line maximum of $1.75 Trillion over ten years. The bipartisan infrastructure legislation only has $600 Billion in new spending over ten years, $60 Billion a year. The reconciliation bill will end up being $175 to $200 Billion a year. So now, progressives are required to accept another reduction, another compromise by them but not by the conservatives, Manchin and Sinema. That puts the reconciliation bill at a third of what progressives started at . Progressives compromised and reduced their total by two thirds while the conservatives didn’t compromise at all and progressives were required to give up the Clean Electricity Performance Plan. Even including the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the cost over the next decade will be only 1 percent of the estimated gdp over the next decade . Furthermore, it will be paid for. The fear of these two bills causing runaway inflation is nonsense.
That’s how I as a progressive see this. Yet, I feel strongly that it is worth passing. They are finding a replacement for the CEPP, the Child Tax Credit will be in it, it will include universal Pre-kindergarten, and it is an investment of about $2.5 Trillion over the next decade, three times the investment into the economy to recover from the republican recession.
m.dailykos.com/...
Kerry Eleveld describes the outcome thusly:
“After weeks of watching what appeared to be a host of transformative policies withering on the vine, progressives have real reason for optimism.
The roughly $2 trillion bill that has taken shape this week isn't everything progressives hoped for, but it would still make historic investments in health care, child and elder care, early childhood education, and combating climate change.”
According to her the reporting from The Hill, progressives were even more “optimistic “.
As many know, once a new aspect of the social safety net is introduced, it is very difficult and unpopular to try to remove it. If progressives including Bernie and Pramila Jayapal are not only going to vote for it but are optimistic about it, then I feel it is worth passing. The alternative is to call Bernie and Jayapal sellouts which they are not. The bill still does make historic investments and it is worth supporting and passing. This bill along with the American Rescue Plan is another argument for keeping democrats in control of both chambers of Congress.
After this, it is imperative that we pass the Freedom to Vote Act which will mean either (1) eliminating the filibuster (preferable) or (2) create a carve out to the filibuster for voting rights legislation. From Kerry’s reporting, we have more reasons to be optimistic on that front than at any time since this Congress commenced.