A day or so ago, there was an article by an online friend of mine about Biden and his new budget proposal. The total is 6 Trillion dollars and the friend commented that when he first heard it, he thought Biden had lost his mind. After all, 6 Trillion is an expectedly high figure. He went on to say, however, that this was a chance to return to how the government used to behave. You know, way back in 2007 when a President proposed a budget, congress debated and compromised and a budget was passed. Nobody was completely happy, but nobody was totally unhappy either. Everybody got something.
That was before 2008 when Mitch McConnell decided that Obstruction was the way to go, and anything our President proposed, he would lead the charge to defeat no matter what it was. Maybe it started before then in some ways but it really hit with that decision by the leadership of the Republican party. Obama was clever, however, and managed to do some good for the people, in bits and pieces, even without congressional support, but of course, the last administration was an unadulterated clusterf**k so the less said about that little nightmare the better.
Could it be that Biden is bringing back at least an attempt at the old civic way of making an opening offer and then let compromising and debate do the work? Yes, he is making the attempt. The other question is, will the Republicans negotiate in anything like a faithful way, or will they revert to the old “anything he wants, we vote against” attitude? Seeing how many of them reacted to the election of Biden, the insurrection attempt, and the continuing claims of fraud behind every lamp post, I then to think that the Republican Party, now in Trumpian captivity will be as unbending and perverse as they were under Obama.
My friend, being a moderate Republican didn’t say all of that. He didn’t mention McConnell and his trickery and power grabs. He didn’t mention Obama and the stonewalling he received. And in this latest post, he didn’t mention the Trumpian Captivity of the once GOP. All he said was that Biden was attempting to return to the day of yore when proposal and counter-proposal were how the business got done in Washington.
I saw very little to disagree in any of this. I realize that compromise is going to take place. However, I do disagree that Biden has lost his mind. In addition, I don’t think, right now (meaning at this point in time), that 6 Trillion is all that outlandish a number to start with.
In summary, I said in a comment that I wasn’t going to pretend to be non-partisan. I am a liberal/progressive Democrat and feel strongly about that position so I am sticking to that. Biden has plans, which have been revealed to make strides in infrastructure. By infra-structure, he includes both educational and physical. The plan is to move ahead in the process that manufacturing is already moving on by working toward electric vehicles with a gradual conversion, and a building up of the infrastructure of charging stations across the country to allow for long-haul transportation to work with cleaner energy. This is something that we have needed to be working toward for some time, but unfortunately through a combination of willful blindness, adherents to the Oil lobby’s efforts to control our elected offices, and just sluggish and slowness in accepting change, it has happened before and definitely needs to happen now.
So, in my mind, 6 Trillion is not that far out there, as a beginning point. Especially, that is true when you consider that we spent 4.89 Trillion in 2020 and basically achieved holding the death rate down to “only 500,000 people”. The word “only” is meant sarcastically. That waste of life should have been unacceptable since it was, in part caused, by the one-person rumor/lie mill that was then living in the White House.
What we are going to have to work on is what will end up happening to that budget. Unsurprisingly, the Republicans have already indicated that the frankly over-blown military budget is not big enough. I, on the other hand, would love to see a large percent of it go to educating oil workers to work on electrical power systems and/or solar power to speed up the progress away from Big Oil. I went today and bought gas, and it was 2.60 per gallon. That is up 30 or so cents from what it was right before the hacking that took place recently. (this is in southern Louisiana, prices vary by location). As always Big Oil gets an excuse to up the price and now the price is not going down. I got to pay 2.60 because I refused to go to the nearest gas station to where I live where it is still 2.65. I intend to “contribute” as little to the greedy oil companies as possible and get an electric car if possible, if and when I get a new one.
I want the infrastructure there for me to be able to do so and function, and it is certainly doable. There is just no technological or scientific reason not to. It would be a shame if we allowed a perhaps “challenging” budget to cause us not to follow through on what is right in front of us available, and risk the horrors of continued pollution and destruction of our environment and in many cases, our health.
In the Vox article, they refer to it as the return of Big Government. Well, it requires a big effort to achieve great things. Government “small enough to drown in a bathtub probably deserves to for all the good it accomplishes. An investment in the future is going to be expensive, but now is the time to work for great things. We are at a point in history where we could be at a very real crossroads in whether we are able to sustain ourselves in the long haul or whether we will go backward into poverty and narrowed possibilities.
Frankly, I don’t want to hear any Republican arguments about “those democrats always want to spend lots of money”. The only thing that is different between the two parties is that, while both know that money is needed, they differ on what types of things the money should be spent on. As a Democrat, I think it should be spent on infrastructure, both personal (education) and physical (bridges, roads). I can only classify Republican spending as being more likely to use as much as possible to make the rich people and corporations (also rich just not “people”) even richer, often while trying to take from the middle and working class to pay for it. We saw that with the 2017 so-called “tax reform”. It gave the top echelon of wealth big cuts, gave us the “little guy” small ones that were temporary.
Then, the ones that were so eager to pass that bill, got busy suggesting that maybe some of the safety nets, even social security and medicare should be “looked at”. The idea seemed to be that, in order to prevent an increase in the national debt, the average citizen should cut corners instead of just giving those that already had more, even more. Of course, once more the alleged “trickle-down” didn’t even splatter a drop at a time when automation and downsizing are still going full tilt.
Oh, and they do love their military expenditures. Eisenhower said that the biggest threat to our nation was the military-industrial complex, but most Republicans today treat it like it is the top priority rather than the quality of life in the United States itself. I personally am hoping that more go to the quality of life instead of the military which already gets a huge amount. We spend more than something like 20 other of the more military investing put together.
Yes, compromise will take place, things will change. But no, 6 trillion is not outrageous considering where we are, what we are coming back from and the future ahead.
www.vox.com/...