Biden Thread

[ReluctantSamurai]

President Joe Biden celebrated his tentative deal with a group of Democratic and Republican senators on a $579 billion infrastructure plan, saying it would create millions of jobs while fulfilling a major piece of his economic agenda.

Typical Democratic weak-sauce...start with a moderately high number, then cave to GOP pressure to then consider an figure 1/4 of Biden's original proposal.

Yes, something is better than nothing...but letting Republicans (and conservative Democrats) dictate the terms of a major bill when Democrats have the WH, the Senate, and the House...pathetic.

Here's the original proposal:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/polit...ner/index.html

Now compare that to the current proposal... Yes, you can't always get what you want, to quote from a famous Rolling Stones song, but will America get what it needs? That remains to be seen.

Financing even this watered-down version will be interesting:

The cost of the expenditures would be offset by a variety of revenue-raising provisions, including stronger enforcement of tax collections from the wealthy, sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, unspecified “public-private partnerships” and assumptions that the infrastructure investments would lead to greater economic growth.

That's pretty vague, IMHO, and counting on "greater economic growth" is especially risky when that future growth is pretty unpredictable. And what are these unspecified "public-private partnerships", and sales from the SPR means what?

I find this comment by Indiana GOP Senator Mike Braun interesting:

“The main question among the rest of us Republicans would be is how big is the secondary package going to be and how you’re going to pay for that,”

Funny how GOP Congressmen & women have no trouble voting for a tax cut that benefitted mostly the rich (and themselves), and might likely raise the national debt by almost 2 trillion dollars over an 11 year span:

https://publicintegrity.org/inequali...ofit-congress/

If the voting record in Congress plays out the way it has since Biden got elected, I don't see how even this meager attempt passes the Senate, especially since Dr. No has gone on record as opposing anything the Biden Administration tries to do...

[Hooahguy]

Typical Democratic weak-sauce...start with a moderately high number, then cave to GOP pressure to then consider an figure 1/4 of Biden's original proposal.

You did see the bit about a much larger part 2 to the bill passed by reconciliation that covers what the bipartisan bit doesn't, right?

[ReluctantSamurai]

I did. And what are the chances for that to pass?

[Hooahguy]

Well its by reconciliation, and with Sinema and Manchin seemingly on board, likely higher than the bipartisan part.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

What you label "weak sauce" is, as you are probably well aware, part of the normal give-and-take haggling and deal-making engaged in by legislatures throughout human history. Albeit with some exceptions, the more unilateral the action, politically, the more likely it is to engender a backlash from the minority over time.

[ReluctantSamurai]

with Sinema and Manchin seemingly on board

Neither has committed to the reconciliation package, only that they want to see details. Fair enough. The question is if the current bi-partisan package passes (which is still uncertain), and conservative Dems like Manchin and Sinema get their roads & bridges, will they go on to support the larger reconciliation package?

It will be interesting to see how the financing of both/either shakes out. Republicans are steadfastly against raising corporate taxes (of course).

you are probably well aware, part of the normal give-and-take haggling and deal-making engaged in by legislatures throughout human history

Of course I am. But the weak-sauce comes in because Democrats almost always cave to the GOP so easily without much of a fight, and legislation ends up being much closer to what the Republicans want than what the Democrats want, more often than not...

[Viking]

The context, or in other words your target, was not in question. The warning of jeopardy is in itself still trivial, unless you have something to put up. Anything is possible.

If you're going to sealion me, at least offer a more recent or a less well-trod controversy.

So you want something specific, until you get something specific. What should we call that - seaturtling?

It was an invalid analogy in terms of what you were trying to convey. The scope of what can be justified with an appeal to empathy is, pedantically, more restrictive than other sorts of appeals (e.g. liberty, security, happiness) just by its nature - or at least compared to the less-bounded denotations and allusions of many other concepts.

I suspect you are making things much more complicated than they need to be.

I do admit that an appeal to empathy isn't instructive if the audience doesn't know or understand what to do with it, but I'm not here to hold hands and I don't perceive that anyone is reaching out for mine. One place to start...

A text written by a self-righteous author, seemingly very pleased with her own ethical splendour. The text really is very illustrative of the US political climate and its polarized nature.

As for its content: if you don't extend the mantra of caring about others to people that live abroad (where there are far more people living in far worse conditions than most of the people alluded to in the text), then the manner in which she is limiting the scope of people she cares about is on an abstract level the same as that of the people she criticizes. The scope is seemingly larger, but still very limited.

The line of reasoning that she is using (caring about other people) could lead her to a vast range of different places, and she ends up at, amongst other things, minimum wage, without explaining why. As an intellectual endeavour, the article is feeble and of minor interest, about what one would expect from a self-righteously written text, I suppose.

On another note, if you don't volunteer in your spare time, do you care enough about other people?

OK. As it happens, only Republicans are suggesting and passing laws to this exact effect, right now. I really don't care what conservatives have to say on this topic, as they never make a credible offer of neutral principles and why they are worthwhile, they just present a naked assertion of their own entitlement to immunity from criticism, which is something they have always enjoyed in outsize proportion throughout history, and something they have never extended. This is a very polite summary.

Your continuous rambling, thread after thread, about "the conservative" bogeyman is getting really absurd. "Der ewige Konservativer" comes to mind. Just publish a book on the topic already.