There are a lot frustrating things about the ongoing struggle in Washington to get anything through Congress, not least of which is the media coverage. Here’s a few of the things frosting my pumpkin about the media.
- The constant referrals to Senator Joe Manchin as a ‘moderate’, or framing this as progressives versus centrists. The ‘center’ is the majority of Democrats who are being roadblocked by two people with agendas that have nothing to do with what a majority of Americans want — once they are actually told what it is.
- The absence of any acknowledgement that no Republican will vote for anything, and that the entire burden of governing the country is on the Democrats alone. The GOP is working to ensure Democrats fail if they have anything to say about it — while openly working to steal the next election and make future elections irrelevant.
- The failure by the media to acknowledge how much compromise Democrats have made with themselves over this — Republicans aren’t negotiating at all with Manchinema giving them cover.
- The failure by the media to actually talk about what’s in the bill and how badly we need it — unless they can report how it’s been cut out or cut way back. Democrats failing to deliver is always a default narrative the press prefers. (They’re still calling the end of the Afghanistan War a disaster — ignoring 20 years of failure finally brought to a close.)
- The failure by the media to note efforts to pay for all of this — that this isn’t just writing a blank check. The media is also ignoring the huge positive effects this spending will have on the whole economy as well as peoples lives.
- But, here’s the thing that is really a failure by the press: ignoring the context in which this is taking place, most critically the climate measures Biden is trying to get started on. While the media focuses on the cost — down to $1+ trillion from $6+ trillion originally — they are oblivious to how much more expensive ignoring climate is going to be.
The Build Back Better Bill should be seen for what it is: just the first payment on what is going to be a long-term challenge: turning climate change around and dealing with the consequences we can no longer avoid. Some things we are never going to get back. Our choice is now doing damage control and minimizing our losses. (And that covers a lot of territory, not just climate.)
A guest essay at The New York Times by Abrahm Lustgarten, an environmental reporter for ProPublica, lays it out. (Link should allow passage through the paywall.)
There will be no bargains with an overheating climate.
As President Biden takes an unfinished plan for U.S. emissions cuts to a global climate conference in Glasgow next week, Congress and the country remain hung up on what that agenda, wrapped in the Build Back Better Act, might cost.
The current price tag of nearly $1.9 trillion for climate and other social spending might seem enormous — though less so than the original $3.5 trillion plan. But over the long term, either would be a pittance.
By zeroing in on those numbers, the public debate seems to have skipped over the economic ramifications of climate change, which promise to be historically disruptive — and enormously expensive. What we don’t spend now will cost us much more later.
emphasis added
Here’s a few excerpts (Read the Whole Thing):
...The warming climate will worsen virtually every existing service, from water and sewage treatment to mass transit to food distribution to health care, and erode the wealth of millions. Dr. Hsiang, who presented his findings to Congress in 2019, estimates that over the next 80 years intensifying heat alone will reduce Americans’ incomes by $4 trillion to $10.4 trillion as farming becomes more difficult, food prices rise and labor productivity falls. Climate risks are already undercutting the value of real estate in the most vulnerable parts of the country, including the roughly $1.6 trillion worth of private property directly threatened by sea level rise and wildfires.
“We’re going to be burning money just to adapt,” he told me. “Just the status quo is going to start costing us more.”
These numbers tell only part of the story, because the costs will be spread unequally. High-risk areas of the Gulf Coast could see 20 percent of their economies erased. Crop yields in parts of Texas and Oklahoma are projected to drop by 70 to 90 percent. People of color and the poor will likely fare worst.
emphasis added
...Some economists and climate scientists have calculated that climate change could cost the United States the equivalent of nearly 4 percent of its gross domestic product a year by 2100. Four percent is likely a conservative estimate; it leaves out consequential costs like damages from drought and climate migration. It assumes the United States and other nations eventually move away from energy generated by oil, coal and natural gas, though not as immediately as many say is needed. In this scenario, the planet will still warm by around three degrees Celsius by the end of the century from preindustrial levels, a change that would be disastrous.
emphasis added
...The nation is venturing into an era where the siloed definitions of programs — infrastructure versus social welfare versus health care — no longer match the blended nature of the threat. Economic policy is no longer distinct from environmental policy, because, for example, creating high-paying jobs in Texas isn’t worth much if it’s too hot to work.
Just as economists have linked hotter temperatures to declining crop yields, they have also linked them to more disease, more crime, more suicides and other effects on people’s health and well-being. All of them result in losses — both social and economic — and threaten the country’s strength and stability.
emphasis added
If there is anything about Lustgarten’s analysis and projections of where we are headed that is problematic, it’s that modeling the world with money as the primary metric is incomplete and limiting.
As he points out, the effects of climate change seem to be accelerating and self-reinforcing. As stress increases on the web of life on this planet, there will be a cascading break down of critical links.
What happens as the loss of species causes ecological communities to break down? What happens when shifting climate patterns disrupt the flora and fauna that were adapted to them — and the human activities that depend on them?
What happens to communities when all the elements that are shaped by their connections to the land shift and fail, when the water isn’t there, when the fires and floods become constant, when the local economy can’t sustain itself? What happens when the very things that shape their culture are transforming before their very eyes? What happens when their political systems become increasingly overwhelmed by what is happening?
It’s not just a toll measured in dollars; it’s having an impact on life — including on all the living things forced to share the planet with us. Does it makes sense to worry about the impact on coal miners, to choose a not-random example, while ignoring that we could also lose giant redwoods? What kind of tradeoffs and triage are we going to be facing?
We don’t have to project to see this. It’s happening now in real time.
At this point the media shouldn’t be asking if we’re spending too much. The real focus should be on are we spending enough, and are we spending it on the right things?
But enough with our failing media for the moment.
What do we do with the smaller bill we will get — if we get it?
Charles P. Pierce had a good point the other day, the other side of this bill’s size. It may not be all that we wanted — but it’s still a huge shift in direction. (Paywall — sorry.)
The Build Back Better Bill Is Not a Consolation Prize to the People It Will Help
Put together with the hard infrastructure bill, we've entered Great Society territory here.
...Let’s not forget that $1.75 trillion is still a shitpot full of money. Put that together with the bipartisan brick-and-mortar infrastructure bill and we’re moving into Great Society territory. I never thought I’d see that again in my lifetime. (And this is with slim majorities in both houses and an opposition party that’s lost its mind.) If it passes, it will make the lives of millions of Americans easier than they would have been without it. From the Washington Post:
The architect of the original $3.5 trillion plan, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), similarly encouraged House Democrats to hold off on voting until “clear language” is finalized on the safety net bill with the support of 50 senators. He said he continues to work to advance issues including a more robust expansion of Medicare, but he also described the $1.75 trillion compromise as transformational, saying it is “the kind of legislation [that hasn’t] passed in Congress since the 1960s.”
This is an important point Bernie makes here. Passage of this bill, however much it’s been barbered, is a sea change in the way we’ve funded social programs since Ronald Reagan starved the beast to pay for aircraft carriers back in 1981. It is a radical rethinking of national priorities, and implicit in Sanders’ remarks is the undeniable truth that, if you want this package of proposals improved, and if you want to maintain the momentum for change that it signifies, elect more Democrats to the Senate and watch their smoke.
Of course, the question that begs to be asked is, does making millions of Americans lives better actually matter the way politics are going in the US at this time? The Republican Party is working hard on permanent minority rule where it doesn’t matter what happens to people — as long as the ‘right’ people remain in charge. MAGA!
Some takeaways:
- As Sanders and others are pointing out, we need to stand firm on even this trimmed-down bill until we get the language locked down. The linked two-track strategy must be maintained because neither Manchin nor Sinema can be trusted.
- It should go without saying that there will be no GOP help on this — they may not even vote for the bipartisan bill. They’d love to have a double failure that they, Manchinema, and the media can blame on the Democrats for overreach. (Plus the GOP is too busy plotting to steal the next election to care what happens to America and the planet.)
- This is a start, not an end in itself. We are not going to have an instant fix. We have decades of work ahead of us. If we can at least get people to start thinking government can be the answer again, that it can make a positive difference, that will be a good start on reversing decades of propaganda to the contrary.
- We need to frame this as a down-payment for repaying decades of the costs that fossil fuel interests have been running up — and making sure they don’t stick the rest of us with the tab.
Constant vigilance. Forward momentum.
And REALLY think about the children, who will be the ones living with this long after we are gone.
UPDATE: thanks to jamess for finding this timely video: