If Mr. Biden’s party cannot find consensus on those issues and the bill dies, the president will have little immediate recourse to advance almost any of those priorities.... Republicans say the breadth of the bill shows that Democrats are trying to drastically shift national policy without full debate on individual proposals....
Ted Kaufman, a longtime aide to Mr. Biden who helped lead his presidential transition team, said the core of the bill went back much further: to a set of newsprint brochures that campaign volunteers delivered across Delaware in 1972, when Mr. Biden won an upset victory for a Senate seat....
Margie Omero, a principal at the Democratic polling firm GBAO, which has polled on the bill for progressive groups, said the ambition of the package was a selling point that Democrats should press as a contrast with Republicans in midterm elections. “People feel like the country is going through a lot of crises, and that we need to take action,” she said....
You know the old saying: Do something, everything. Including whatever was in those 1972 Delaware newsprint brochures. Come on, man! Biden's waited half a century to do whatever it was he claimed he wanted to do when he was 30. We've got to just do it in one fell swoop or none of it will ever get done. It's all or nothing. Take it or leave it. Don't you love it when your options are presented to you so clearly?
“This is our moment to prove to the American people that their government works for them, not just for the big corporations and those at the very top,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday. He added, “This is an opportunity to be the nation we know we can be.”
I'll accept his assurances if he'll explain what's in the bill and proves that he knows what he's talking about. And what is "the nation we know we can be"? Other than the one that is governed by people who support what they don't even begin to understand, because why not just combine everything into one inscrutable package? Actually, I do know we can be that, and it scares me.
By the way, it was only last April that I blogged a NYT article with this passage:
Invoking the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mr. Biden unveiled a $1.8 trillion social spending plan to accompany previous proposals to build roads and bridges, expand other social programs and combat climate change, representing a fundamental reorientation of the role of government not seen since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and Roosevelt’s New Deal.The Times used the same comparison to LBJ and FDR and it was only $1.8 trillion. It's $3.5 trillion now! Who knew you could equal the Great Society or the New Deal spending a mere half of what they're proposing now? This new thing is like the Great Society PLUS the New Deal.
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45 comments:
Well,
FDR had, like what? 13 years? (33-45?), to get things done
LBJ had, like what? 5 and half years? (63-68?), to get things done
Jo Biden will like what? 2 years (21-22), to get things done
Can't do Much without a House or Senate
Apparently, expansive government programs are always the solution. Case in point: just reflect on how well Johnson's Great Society program has worked out. Yeah, if Johnson had done everything in one fell swoop we'd be so much better off...
"The times used the same comparison to LBJ and FDR and it was only $1.8 trillion. It's $3.5 trillion now! Who knew you could equal the Great Society or the New Deal spending a mere half of what they're proposing now?"
Let me be the first to step in and say that after they break the dollar, it's a moot point. That's going to create an event that will require a narrative that will be hard to shape. I almost feel sympathy for the minions who will be handed the task.
Stay tuned. It's going to be unpredictable, but I bet most of us already knew that. Our corporal beings and our civilization seem to be headed down the same path. Which goes first?
I'll accept his assurances if he'll explain what's in the bill and proves that he knows what he's talking about.
@Althouse, I was going to write something incredibly snarky, but I will settle for remarking on the triumph of credulity over experience.
Actually, I do know we can be that, and it scares me.
And so it should.
The biggest sign of our broken press is that the bill is being reported as the "$3.5 trillion package" rather than what it's primary vision is....
It could be the $500 billion package, the $1.5 trillion package, or the $2.5 trillion package. It would sound exactly the same. By reporting it this way, there's no longer any sense of value to the money being proposed to be spent.
Based upon the reporting, I could legitimately make the argument that 2x the spending would be better for the country. Since there's OBVIOUSLY no downside to spending trillions through debt, why not?!?!
Yeah, no. The Bill is going to be a huge flop. The Munchkins are not going to save it.
“People feel like the country is going through a lot of crises, and that we need to take action,” she said....
Does Margie Omero not realize that most people know who caused the crises?
Well, Biden did engineer a transfer to the Taliban of military equipment equal to 85% of the US's cumulative aid to Israel since 1948, so that shows he can get SOME things done. He has that going for him.
Equity, diversity, and inclusion, as they say. Restorative justice. It is only fair. Next up: nukes for Iran.
I wasn't expecting this desperation from Dems. Last chance to do any good, with the clear implication that Dems have won elections, yet accomplished sweet fuck all, for many years. Bill Clinton is more and more blamed as a right-winger; they're determined to get rid of workfare, one of Clinton's signal accomplishments (not just appeasing the right). Obama himself said at John Lewis's funeral that the situation for African Americans had not improved since Lewis was young. So much for Lewis's long career, and so much for Obama's eight-year presidency. The woke don't seem to have learned much history, but they must have an uneasy feeling that neither FDR nor LBJ were particularly woke. The idea must be that a massive, somewhat incoherent increase in the welfare state is the only thing that can make up for your pathetic lack of wokeness. Hard to believe there's anyone they truly admire.
“ Biden's waited half a century to do whatever it was he claimed he wanted to do when he was 30.”
Don’t trust anyone over 78.
“People feel like the country is going through a lot of crises," says the Democrat pollster.
Yeah, all of them caused by Democrats in their constant lust for power and control of the people.
Just leave us the frap alone,
“The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred against the government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.”
---Brandeis, Olmstead v. US (1928)
Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and Joe Biden's 1972 Election Victory
What are the odds that a big, expansive program designed to address the problems of 1972 America are the exact same programs needed to address the problems of 2021 America? What are the odds that SloJoe's proposed solutions for 1972 America would have solved any of the problems back then?
This is simply the Democrats showing that they know they will lose power and lose it for years starting in 2022. They are holding up a Giant Middle Finger to the US populous and telling us that we all want what they are offering (we don't), that we have to afford it somehow (we cannot), that it's for the good of our country (it isn't), and that we'll thank them for it later (we will be cursing them for generations).
They role by the mantra: Never let a crisis go to waste. Even if we have to create the crisis.
Whatever they put in place will have to be reversed. What they are trying to lay on the American people comes out of the brains of individual such as AOC who should be mixing drinks in a Brooklyn bar, not 'splaining' her version of economics. This is like a scene out of "Idiocracy". We're moving deeper into the Idiocracy daily.
Biden and Pelosi and good old Chuck You Schumer will have to pass the bill to know what's in it. I seem to have heard that phrase before.
And Biden is talking about becoming the nation you know can be. The Army that used a recruiting slogan, "Be all you can be" coughed up a hairball named General Milley.
Our country is profoundly broken if this kind of unbelievable irresponsible thing is entirely dependent on one slightly stubborn Senator.
Of course, it's possible that the Democrats don't really want to pass this and this is just their way of arranging it. They do that a lot.
It’s fascinating that neither the New Deal nor the Great Society accomplished the purposes for which they were sold to The Public but did have the intended political effect of enhancing Democratic control of Congress for 50 years. I’m amazed at how well they play politics while being unable to actually govern worth shit. Joe’s plan(s?) are perfectly in keeping with this history although his inability to govern is so obvious so soon in his first term. Perhaps the ongoing crisis-disaster in which we find ourselves is derailing deranged Nancypants’ many attempts to shove her shitty bill through this time. It’s the Republic’s only ray of hope right now.
"And what is "the nation we know we can be"?"
A nation for government, by government, of government, with no liberty but plenty of other people's money for all.
Why is there never any explanation of the laws inside the bill? If the bill is so necessary and popular would the Dems hide its contents?
If true about Congressional D strategy :
Biden should hope for and do everything to failure for at least 4 years so he can enjoy residing in White House for a full term :
are his people smart enough to realize he would be disposable diaper if success?
What is Quorum
for House
for Senate
Answer and Explanation:
Based on Article I, Section 5, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution a simple majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate is the quorum for both chambers. As such, in the House, 218 members is quorum, and in the Senate, 51 members is quorum.
so if R take their vaccinated possibly enlarged marbles and go home - Pelosi and Schumer can still do PEOPLES business. but what would be the media narrative ? why don't R do it?
As others have said here, they Dems stole the Presidency and the Senate, and know that they have only 2 years to get all their wish list implemented. Everything. But they didn’t get a Senate majority, nor much of one in the House. And now they are demanding that energy state Senators Munchin and Tester give up coal mining to fight Climate Change, farm state Senator Tester give up passing family farms to families through Estate Tax changes, etc. They have, maybe 45 rabidly foaming leftist Senators, but need the maybe 5 who are more moderate. What they really need is the 60+ Senate seat majority that LBJ inherited. They don’t have the votes to do anything nearly as aggressive as they are trying, and know that they aren’t going to for at least a decade. Stealing the reapportionment apparatus, like they are trying to do with their voter fraud implementation legislation, isn’t going to buy them any Senate seats (and not that many House seats).
Their Senate problem is that a majority of the states are naturally Republican any more, with the urban gentry and minorities having dragged the Democrats too far left for rural and many suburban voters. Their shot at retaking TX and FL are disappearing as they alienate native Hispanics with their immigration policies. I expect NM to follow. The native Hispanic TX and NM populations are ethnically northern Mexican. The Hispanics streaming over the border are often from Central America, or if from Mexico, Indians from near there. They have far more in common with their conservative neighbors than these Hispanic illegals from farther south.
They need to face reality, that their omnibus Reconciliation bill is quickly sinking of its own weight. It no longer has much in real infrastructure, which was the fig leaf that Senators Munchin and Sinema were using to justify maybe supporting it. Instead, it contains huge amounts of leftist nonsense and looting of the treasury that their constituents are screaming Murder about already.
---"It's almost as if President Franklin D. Roosevelt stuffed his New Deal into one piece of legislation"
Still one of the most misunderstood episodes in U.S. history, the New Deal and FDR are generally viewed in a favorable light. But as Amity Shlaes in her book The Forgotten Man, and a growing number of academics have concluded:
"After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
" 'Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,' said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. 'We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.'
So, if true, we will still have to pay for a monster decade of Fed monetary and government fiscal stimulus.
FDR micromanaged like mad, and stuffed his pet theories into law -- preventing the Depression from curing itself, as cycles do, for seven years or more.
Just as today's government is trying to micromanage Americans' health and probably postponing our herd immunity date by several years further into the future.
Democrat = stupidity.
missing link re New Deal -- from years ago, not a new article:
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/55464
Althouse said...
This new thing is like the Great Society PLUS the New Deal.
"I'm afraid it could be 9/11 times 1,000."
Don’t forget the famous quote from Johnson about his Great Society scam: “Ni****s will vote Democrat for the next 50 years.” Managing to be both racist and eerily predictive at the same time.
While driving last week, I landed on "All Things Considered," and there was a discussion of the federal debt limit and using the reconciliation process to pass the spending bill.
I forget which WaPo reporter was being interviewed, but there was a very revealing moment when she hesitated over how to characterize Republican opposition to these Democrat plans, and she settled on "insane" or "crazy" (I forget the exact words and can't find a transcript).
Obviously, there could be no other explanation for opposing the spending bills or raising the debt limit without debate. As you might expect, the "All Things Considered" hosts laughed along with the WaPo reporter.
...and some people wonder why journalists are viewed with contempt.
Why I read Althouse and do not read NYT: NYT writers
..do not point out inconsistencies and rhetorical deceits in "authorities" they quote;
..often use inconsistencies and rhetorical deceits in their own statements.
"...the government limiting philosophy of President Ronald Reagan that has largely defined American politics since the 1980s." The vast expansion of Feral Gummit in medicine, education, and welfare handouts since the 1980s are exactly CONTRARY to the philosophy of Saint Ron.
"...hopes of...building a more vibrant middle class." History demonstrates the programs are far more likely to destroy the middle class.
"...bolster the nation's strategic competitiveness with China...." Past performance suggests collusion rather than competitiveness with China as an objective of Biden.
"...a large tax cut for the poor...." I suspect very few of the poor pay any income tax. Is reduction of some other (e.g. gasoline) tax intended here?
In closing the writer quietly slides by the fact that as the size of government and scope of federal control have increased, with consequent loss of individual liberty, Biden's political thinking has not evolved in five decades since 1972: more federal government is needed to solve every and any problem - real or imaginary.
Regardless of how it comes out, anything bad that happens will be the R's fault.
I saw this happen in '08 (or 10?)--the bad effects of the massive bill just passed were already being blamed on the crazy (always) Republicans -who voted against it-!
I had to ask my D friends if that's really what they meant? "Sure," they said, "all that bad stuff was put in just to get them to vote for it, and they still wouldn't!"
“This is our moment to prove to the American people that their government works for them..."
All it proves to me is that the government wants more of my money and it will go down some obscure sink hole.
Does anyone seriously believe that Biden was talking about climate change, environmental justice, expanding broadband coverage, and electric cars 50 years ago?
No, the pamphlets were most likely the obviously insincere BS generalizations about working Americans that he's been spouting all these years without doing much to improve the conditions of working Americans.
The rare Biden ads from that era have him wanting the country to be tougher on drugs and criminals, not exactly policies he espouses today. His slogan in '72 was "He Understands What's Happening Today," a dig at Caleb Boggs who was was a youthful, spry, and coherent 63 years old. Lately, I'm not sure Biden understands what was happening five minutes ago.
The infrastructure bill, the grandson of Porkulus, though, is what the Democrats have pinned their hopes on because they don't have the kind of supermajorities in Congress that FDR and LBJ had. Packaged as "budget reconciliation" the bill can get around the filibuster. It's a result of wanting to be a "transformational president" when most of the country doesn't want to be transformed.
LBJ's infamous quote was spoken to some Southern governors. He was using what he assumed was their own language (probably his own too at some point) to win them over. Yes, it's cynical and eerily prescient, but if everything politicians said behind closed doors were made public it would fit in pretty well with everything else that came out.
“This is an opportunity to be the nation we know we can be.”
You mean, a statist nation, Dementia Joe?
The New Deal extended the Depression by almost eight years &, among other negatives, the Great Society destroyed the Black family. Given those predicates, I see no reason for optimism.
“This is our moment to prove to the American people that their government works for them, not just for the big corporations and those at the very top ... ”
A dumb, totally dishonest smear.
There are ignorant people who actually believe that and (the scary part) they vote.
“This is our moment to prove to the American people that their government works for them, not just for the big corporations and those at the very top ... ”
There are people who actually believe that and -- the scary part -- they vote.
I always like seeing the phrase "one fell swoop" and its odd variant "foul swoop" in commentary - particularly its sometimes misuse or misunderstanding.
The best one I've seen is an Australian fashion label which has an explanation of their chosen name on their 'About' page as follows:
"In February 2005 they made their debut as One Fell Swoop, a moniker that was inspired by a critical scene from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which resonated strongly with the designers"
Macduff must be turning (resonating?) in his grave :)
We don’t have a queen, but we have got our gormless figurehead, and this song is more apt about America 2021 than the 70s era UK.
God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb
God save the queen
She ain't no human being
There is no future
In England's dreaming
Don't be told what you want to want to
And don't be told what you want to need
There's no future, no future
No future for you
"I'll accept his assurances if he'll explain what's in the bill and proves that he knows what he's talking about."
So, shall we pencil in "never" for that?
gilbar said...
Well,
FDR had, like what? 13 years? (33-45?), to get things done
LBJ had, like what? 5 and half years? (63-68?), to get things done
Jo Biden will like what? 2 years (21-22), to get things done
Can't do Much without a House or Senate
And if the Biden* Admin people thought they were doing something the American people actually want, they'd have no problem going into the midterm election with "this is what we want, vote for us if it's what you want."
The fact that they won't do that taels us that even they know their plan sucks
"This new thing is like the Great Society PLUS the New Deal."
He should call it "New Society" as the US will be a shadow of its former self when he's done.
Budget office scored it at 5 trillion. So the original 1.5 trillion is now just a rounding error.
John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten for literature Nobel or at least US poet laureate (he’s a naturalized American, or at least Californian). He probably won’t make the awards ceremony because he’s too busy being a devoted caretaker to his Alzheimer’s suffering wife, but it’s Johnny Rotten’s world, we’re just living in it.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
Don’t forget the famous quote from Johnson about his Great Society scam: “Ni****s will vote Democrat for the next 50 years.”
--------
I was told that comment was about putting Thurgood Marshall on USSC?!
I'd be willing to vote for any legislator who declared that they would not vote for any bill they hadn't read in full, and that they would not read any bill longer than X number of pages.
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