On Saturday, the House Budget Committee advanced the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion American Families Plan as party leaders set their sights on teeing up the package for a vote in the lower chamber this coming week. House panel advances $3.5T spending bill.
The Democratic-led committee passed the package in a 20-17 party-line vote on Saturday afternoon, piecing together the chunks of legislation approved by 13 House committees earlier this month that make up the spending plan, an essential cornerstone of President Biden’s economic agenda.
A lone Democrat, Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) joined Republicans in voting against advancing the legislation, citing concerns about the pace at which his colleagues are moving to advance the spending plan. [Did you get this from Joe Manchin and his U.S. Chamber of Commerce puppet masters?]
This is a crucial week for America and for Democrats. Will Democrats deliver on Joe Biden’s popular agenda and prevent a default on the U.S. debt, or will so-called “moderate” Democrats (call them what thy are, corporate Democrats bought and paid for by corporate campaign contributions) betray the American people and their party by appeasing the enemies of democracy, the Sedition Party?
This is the week that the senate filibuster should mercifully die in the Senate. Or will prima donna divas Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema insist on preserving this Jim Crow relic and domestic terrorist Mitch McConnell’s weapon of mass destruction? Whose side are they on?
The AP reports, Biden, Congress face big week for agenda, government funding:
An expected Monday vote on the related $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package is now postponed until Thursday, amid ongoing negotiations. More immediately, the Senate has a test vote set Monday to keep the government funded and avert a federal debt default before Thursday’s fiscal year-end deadline. That package stands to run into a filibuster by Republican senators — all but ensuring lawmakers will have to try again later in the week.
Why does the media instantly accept this as normal? As former Rep. Donna Edwards says, McConnell has given Democrats the justification they need to kill the filibuster:
News flash: The Grand Old Party, also known as the Deadbeat Republican Party, is unwilling to pay the bills and ready to turn off the lights in America. No principles here; this is all about politics — no matter the consequences of this deliberately inflicted economic crisis with a global pandemic and multiple natural disasters as a backdrop.
[Domestic terrorist] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pronounced that no Republican would cast a vote to increase the debt ceiling. That moved the goal post, because he’s effectively threatening a filibuster if 10 Senate Republicans do not join Democrats to advance the measure. With classic McConnell cynicism, he declared that the government must pay its bills while announcing that Republicans won’t sign the checks. That was the reveal. Not to be outdone, every single House Republican voted against both increasing the debt limit and keeping the government running when funding runs out on Oct. 1.
Just as Republicans have fallen in line with the “big lie” about the 2020 election, undermining confidence in our democracy and its constitutional norms, they are now prepared to set fire to the entire house by tanking our economy. But this despicable move can give Democrats exactly the ammunition they need — a genuine, defensible justification for eliminating the filibuster.
Democrats have it in their power to end this domestic terrorist’s ability to take the country hostage every time a Democrat is in the White House, and to prevent serious repercussions from defaulting on the debt to the U.S. and world economy, already struggling under the weight of a global pandemic. Ending the filibuster has the added benefit of restoring democracy from a tyranny of the minority, and allowing the Biden agenda to pass on a simple majority vote as it would in every state legislature.
The indefensible appeasement and empowerment of the “Grim Reaper of Democracy” by prima donna divas Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema must end now. He only holds the power that they willfully concede to him. Take away his weapon of mass destruction and render Mitch McConnell impotent.
Democrats should call McConnell’s bluff. Kill the filibuster, raise the debt ceiling to pay our bills, fund the U.S. government. And then be free to move on and pass the broader agenda that the majority of voters want.
Republicans falsely claim that the debt ceiling needs to be raised to pay for President Biden’s Build Back Better Act. But as McConnell and his fellow Deadbeats know, the bills to be paid include the bipartisan $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief spending package passed in March and the Trump-era spending spree that racked up a historic $7.8 trillion in debt, including a 2017 tax cut that is projected to add $1.9 trillion in debt. They’re taking a page from the Donald Trump playbook — borrow, run up the bills and walk away from your creditors.
Government shutdowns don’t come cheap—the last three shutdowns cost nearly $4 billion, and that doesn’t include all the downstream costs and damage to the lives of ordinary Americans. If civil servants aren’t on the job to process Social Security payments or veterans’ benefits, people will be hurt. Your neighbor with a job at a nearby military installation or federal agency is one of a couple million workers who will get furloughed. If you’re a law enforcement officer or other essential worker in the federal force, you’ll have to show up for work, but you won’t be paid. If you own a coffee shop or diner or florist frequented by those government workers, you lose your customers. The pandemic may have already curtailed your business, but the Deadbeat Republican Party’s shutdown will finish you off.
For at least the last decade, the Republican Party has manufactured fiscal crises [hostage takings] while Democrats have governed through them like responsible adults on a playground filled with unruly toddlers — no offense to toddlers. It was Democrats who delivered the votes to George W. Bush to keep the economy from crashing in 2008. In 2013, when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) engineered a 16-day government shutdown, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her Democrats came to the rescue to keep the government doors open. In 2019, Trump and congressional Republicans forced a shutdown over funding a border wall — it lasted a record 35 days at a price tag of $11 billion.
The word “hypocritical” is painfully inadequate for describing the Republican playbook. Under Trump and Bush, Republicans raised the debt ceiling. When Barack Obama held the White House, Republicans threatened to wreck our credit by refusing to increase the debt ceiling, resulting in a downgrade of our credit rating. Now that Biden is president . . . you guessed it: The Deadbeat Republican Party delivers once more.
Democrats, it’s time to flex your majority muscle, slim though it may be. Kill the filibuster and raise the debt ceiling to keep this country running. And then, having freed yourselves to govern the way most Americans want . . . start doing it. Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to save our democracy, and for good measure throw in police reform by passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. It’s one thing for the Deadbeat Republican Party to take itself down, but it should leave the rest of us alone so we can move forward.
Huffington Post reports that Democrats are still trying to humor the vanities (or is it the insanities?) of prima donna divas Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Democrats Discussing 2 Options To Change The Filibuster To Pass Voting Rights Laws:
Democrats are currently discussing two ways to change the Senate’s filibuster rules in order to pass voting rights legislation. The options under consideration include a special carve-out from filibuster rules for voting rights legislation or the implementation of a new kind of talking filibuster.
[A] Schumer-promised floor vote on Manchin’s compromise bill, the Freedom To Vote Act, may come as early as next week. Republicans are expected to filibuster Manchin’s bill then.
What comes next is unclear. The only way to pass the bill is for Democrats to change filibuster rules. With a bare 50-vote majority, every Democrat needs to agree to do that. And two senators, Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), oppose eliminating or reforming the filibuster.
That hasn’t stopped conversations from happening. According to sources inside and outside of Congress, the options Democrats are currently discussing include a potential carve-out for voting rights from the filibuster rules or the restoration of a talking filibuster.
[H]owever, while many Democratic senators support such a carve-out, Joe Manchin has rejected the idea, stating, “The filibuster is permanent” on Sept. 14.
I’ll just say it, Manchin is a traitor to his country. The barbarians are at the gate, they have already engaged in a violent seditious insurrection against the government, and are still engaged in an ongoing slow-motion insurrection. Now they are threatening to blow up the U.S. and world economy by defaulting on the U.S. debt in yet another act of domestic terrorism. Manchin’s “useful idiot” appeasement and empowerment of the Sedition Party, in the face of such tyranny of the minority is nothing short of traitorous. If he continues, he will be the Benedict Arnold of our era.
Max Burns writes, McConnell Talks About Taking Down Biden’s Agenda—Manchin and the Moderates Are Doing It.
The other option being discussed is to restore a talking filibuster.
This is a waste of time that we do not have in order to humor Manchin and Sinema.
The Senate ultimately ditched the talking filibuster because senators believed the endless talking took up too much time and inhibited the Senate’s ability to operate in a functional manner. Today, filibuster reformers levy the same complaints of dysfunction at today’s silent filibuster system.
Just end the damn filibuster and get on with doing the job that the American people elected Democrats to do – pass the Biden agenda. No more damn excuses! No more coddling prima donna divas like Manchin and Sinema.
The AP continues:
Biden, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are deep into negotiations over the president’s broader proposal, which is being chiseled back to win over key senators and a few House lawmakers who have so far refused the $3.5 trillion price tag and the tax increases on corporations and the wealthy to pay for it.
I’m sorry, but Democrats in the House and Senate voted unanimously for the $3.5 trillion compromise budget reconciliation resolution. This is the compromise plan that has been acted on by the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction. A handful of corporate Democrats who have sold their souls to corporations for campaign contributions do not get to make demands at the eleventh hour about reducing the size and scope of this compromise bill – the time for objection has already passed. They all voted in favor of it. Their bad faith complaints should not be heard now. They are just obstructionists.
James Downie of the Washington Post reports, Why are moderate Democrats okay with killing Biden’s legislative agenda? (excerpt):
[So-called] “moderates” [corporate Democrats] have spoken up about specific pieces they object to. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and a handful of House Democrats oppose letting Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices, which would save more than $500 billion over 10 years. (Incidentally, three of the Democrats opposing the idea have received $1.6 million in donations from the pharmaceutical industry.)
See, Big Pharma, medical firms donated $750K to Kyrsten Sinema — then she opposed drug bill.
By the way, the savings realized from negotiating drug prices is one of the ways in which Democrats pay for the social programs in this bill. By protecting Big Pharma, Kyrsten Sinema aka “Pharma Girl,” is screwing American families out of popular social programs that they have been demanding from Congress for years. This is the consequence of her unprincipled actions.
For the rational, reasonable position, see Colin Allred, Cindy Axne, Sharice Davids, Andy Kim and Abigail Spanberger, End the monopoly. Let Medicare negotiate drug prices.; and Dylan Scott, who explains why Why Democrats desperately need to cut prescription drug prices. Aaron Kesselheim and Jerry Avorn destroy Pharma Girl’s bogus talking point, Letting the government negotiate drug prices won’t hurt innovation.
The New York Times also reports that Sinema “has privately told colleagues she will not accept any corporate or income tax rate increases,” while Manchin remains opposed to the current plan’s proposed corporate tax rate. Gottheimer wants to repeal the cap on state and local tax deductions, which would help many of his wealthiest constituents.
So Sinema is a willing tool of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Plutocracy. U.S. Chamber rewards Senators Manchin, Sinema for opposing Biden initiatives.
James Downie continues:
But while it’s one thing to hold these views, it’s another to argue that these objections should derail the broader package that these lawmakers (and a majority of Americans) support. If Sinema swallows the tax increases she doesn’t like, she gets the climate measures that she prioritizes. If Manchin agrees to not means-test the expanded child tax credit, he gets billions in infrastructure spending.
That’s called compromise — just as progressives have already compromised by reducing their ask by trillions. The final number may well end up higher than these moderates would like. But, as President Biden noted during a Friday news conference, when skeptics of the bill “go through their priorities, it adds up to a number higher than they said they were for.”
No doubt moderates don’t like being pressured to vote for things they don’t completely support. No one ever does. [It should be noted that Progressives are committed to voting for the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package which includes things that they do not like; they are acting in good faith.] But opportunities such as this don’t happen often.
[B]ecause a [Sedition Party]-controlled House or Senate will almost certainly never give Biden a win, history suggests that this Congress is the Democrats’ last shot at passing major legislation until the next Democratic president. [If the Seditious Insurrectionists win, there will not be another Democratic president; this is the whole point of GQP authoritarianism.] If moderates want to kill these bills, then they need to explain not just what they object to, but why those objections justify derailing the last, best chance at big change for years.
The Post’s E.J. Dionne states the obvious – Democrats: Political suicide is not a strategy.
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If progressives continue to stand their ground, I guess we’ll find out how badly Sinema wants her “bipartisan” achievement to be legislated. What is more important to her, the deals she cut with Big Pharma and other corporate donors or her beloved bipartisan infrastructure bill? I have no predictions.
Pramila Jayapal
@PramilaJayapal
It’s not the infrastructure bill THEN maybe the Build Back Better package down the road. That wasn’t the deal.
Progressives won’t back down. We’re fighting the people’s fight and we’re going to deliver the entire Build Back Better agenda.
6:23 PM · Sep 28, 2021·Sprout Social
I wonder what happened to all of Sinema’s EXCEL spreadsheets.
Maybe they were just for tracking donations/bribes and had nothing to do with reconciliation.
Sinema is openly flaunting her contemptuous attitude toward Democrats and taking her corruption to a new level. I’m starting to wonder if she’s ready to switch her party affiliation. Sounds like she made it clear to the lobbyists that she wants a bigger payday for obstructing the Democratic agenda.
This is bad, really bad.
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
NEW: Double the Fun(ds) – Sinema Sets Up Joint Fundraising Committee To Ease Increased Contributions (SINEMA-TIC)
On the heels of the New York Times’ article about Kyrsten Sinema holding a fundraiser with business lobbying groups this afternoon, Arizona’s Politics has learned that Sinema set up a new joint fundraising committee last week. That “Sinema Leadership Fund” will make it easier for those lobbyists to double their contributions to the Arizona Senator.
The invite was from the Democrat’s principal campaign committee (“Sinema for Arizona”), and it appears to have been planned weeks ago (according to her committee). However, last Thursday, the committee filed an organizational statement for the JFC, indicating that Sinema for Arizona would fundraise together with Sinema’s leadership PAC (“Getting Stuff Done PAC”).
This would permit contributors to simply write one check to the JFC instead of separate checks to each of the two committees. For one of the lobbying group hosts, that would make it easier to give her one $15,000 check, and individual lobbyists could nearly double their impact to $10,800 ($5,800 to the 2024 primary and general election campaigns and $5,000 to the GSD PAC).
https://arizonaspolitics.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-double-funds-sinema-sets-up-joint.html
Every time the MSM refer to Sinema and Manchin as “centrist Democrats” when they’re both just a couple of con artists in it for the money and free lobbyist shrimp cocktails I yell F*** so loud my dogs leave the room.
This is the same lame hall pass BS they gave the former guy while he and his White House lied and incited racist riots and kissed dictators right down the middle of their @sses.
I spit three times every time I hear Sinema’s name and I’m not even Jewish.
Manu Raju
@mkraju
Sinema returns from the WH, declines to answer questions about her meeting with Biden. She did, however, compliment
@alizaslav
’s skirt
9:25 AM · Sep 28, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
“Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are headed back to the White House.”
They’re having separate meetings. That’s too bad. I’d like to imagine that Biden would bang their two heads together, slap them upside the head a few times, and tell them how they’re going to vote.
But apparently there will be more begging and pleading.
The always obnoxious Politico has coined the term “Sinemanch” for the Democratic obstructionists, as if they are Hollywood beat reporters reporting on the latest Hollywood romance. (I almost threw up a little). “Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are headed back to the White House.”, https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/09-28-2021/sinemanch-to-wh/
Both senators, under pressure to ink some sort of “framework” for reconciliation that will give House progressives enough assurances to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure deal on Thursday, are headed to the White House for separate meetings.
Sinema is headed to the White House this morning, according to a source familiar.
Manchin meets with Biden at 1 p.m., according to a spokesperson.
Both senators hold outsized influence over the fate of Biden’s agenda on healthcare, child care, climate change and much more.
They’ve both said they won’t support the price tag of a $3.5 trillion package pushed by Democratic leaders.
The real question: Will the senators — either individually or together — offer some sort of concrete statement about the reconciliation deal?
[Do they even have a counterproposal, or are they just working on their “branding” as Josh Marshall and Rep. Yarmouth say (pathetic).
After meeting with President Biden, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told reporters the pair had “straightforward” talks but added that he did not tell the president a price tag for the budget reconciliation bill that he would support. “There was no commitments made at all,” he said.
CNBC: “Biden meets with centrist Sens. Manchin and Sinema with Democrats’ sprawling economic agenda at stake”, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/28/joe-biden-will-meet-with-joe-manchin-kyrsten-sinema-with-dems-economic-plans-at-stake.html
In a statement Tuesday, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., reiterated that most of the 96-member group “will only vote for the infrastructure bill after the President’s visionary Build Back Better Act passes.” She said the provisions in the Democratic spending plan are not “some fringe wish list,” calling it “the President’s agenda, the Democratic agenda, and what we all promised voters when they delivered us the House, Senate, and White House.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and Budget Committee chairman who has played a major role in the reconciliation process, backed his progressive House colleagues Tuesday. In a statement, he said House passage of the infrastructure bill Thursday would violate an agreement Democrats made to pass both planks of Biden’s agenda and remove leverage the left flank of the party holds.
“I strongly urge my House colleagues to vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill until Congress passes a strong reconciliation bill,” he said.
Jonathan Weisman
@jonathanweisman
·
2h
As Democrats try to nail down the final details of their climate and social policy bill,
@SenatorSinema
will hold a 45-minute fundraiser on Tuesday afternoon with five business PACs, representing organizations fiercely opposing the bill.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/us/politics/sinema-fund-raiser-social-climate-bill.html
I wish I were more optimistic.
At this point Sinema is openly contemptuous of the Democrats and progressives, she’s challenging the Democratic president and defying the voters’ mandate and the will of the people. Her offices do not answer the phones, she doesn’t meet with constituents and she isn’t on the TV news shows defending her indefensible “positions”.
She’s behaving like someone who really doesn’t care. And this leads me to think that she isn’t planning on more than one term in the Senate, she’s most likely cooking up something more lucrative with her rightwing connections.
There’s no way to predict what she’ll do, but I feel that all of the begging, compromising, etc… is futile. She’s more than capable of tanking Biden’s agenda if it suits her.
Julie Erfle writes, “If Kyrsten Sinema wants to be a bridge-builder, she should start with her own party”, https://www.azmirror.com/2021/09/23/if-kyrsten-sinema-wants-to-be-a-bridge-builder-she-should-start-with-her-own-party/
(excerpt)
Should the infrastructure bill pass, Sinema will reap (deservedly so) huge kudos. But should it fail, her legacy (and her chances at reelection) will take a hit. That’s why I’m so mystified by her willingness to play hardball with her fellow Democrats on the reconciliation bill and potentially toss all of it — reconciliation AND infrastructure — in the trash.
This week, Sinema was reported as telling President Biden she will vote against the reconciliation bill if the infrastructure bill fails or does not receive its promised Sept. 27 vote in the House. [The vote has been delayed until Thursday.]
Sinema pointed out that an up or down vote was promised by that day, and leadership needs to hold firm to that commitment. But Sinema has unnecessarily complicated the passage of both bills because of her vague opposition to the price tag of the reconciliation bill and her sudden opposition to the prescription drug pricing plan, a major part of the bill.
For as long as I can remember, Democrats have been united in their insistence on lowering prescription drug costs for seniors. The plan is hugely popular with Americans, and for good reason. We pay significantly more for prescription drugs than many other countries because we refuse to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
Dems have a plan to change that and save billions of dollars in the process, but Sinema, for reasons she has refused to detail, is opposed. One can only assume her opposition has something to do with the fact that she is a favorite among pharmaceutical companies, raking in nearly $100,000 in campaign contributions during the last election cycle. Or, perhaps, that a recent ad campaign on her behalf may have swayed her.
If Dems cannot recoup the savings from a prescription drug pricing overhaul, they’ll lose their ability to pay for expanded Medicare coverage for vision, hearing and dental, another popular and far-reaching proposal.
Progressive Dems are adamant in their refusal to consider the infrastructure bill if they cannot receive assurances from Senators Sinema and Joe Manchin they will not torpedo the reconciliation bill, which leaves Congress, once again, at an impasse.
But they’re not solely at an impasse because of differences between the two parties. Rather, this is an intra-party stalemate.
Dems could pass both bills, but egos and bare-knuckle politics are standing in the way. And if Democrats cannot pass major legislation on issues they’ve long promised to tackle while they control both houses of Congress plus the presidency, why would voters continue to believe they should be in power?
This party dysfunction will reverberate in 2022, when Dems face an uphill battle to preserve their majorities in both the House and the Senate. But it also has the potential to harm Democrats in statewide and local races.
Polarization has made it increasingly difficult to separate D.C. politics from AZ politics — and even school board politics.
Sinema seems to be making a gamble she’s better off politically if both bills fail rather than succeed. I believe that’s a foolish bet, and I worry her wager will undercut the campaigns of other Arizona Democrats.
If she’s concerned about her legacy, she’ll put aside her ego and work not just across the aisle, but within it. Be a consensus builder for Dems, especially when momentous, life-changing policy is on the line.
Economist Paul Krugman writes at the New York Times, “Are Centrists in the Thrall of Right-Wing Propaganda?”, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/opinion/democrats-biden.html
(excerpt)
[A] Republican attempt to make President Biden fail, no matter how much it hurt the rest of the country, was predictable.
More surprising, at least to me, has been the self-destructive behavior of Democratic centrists — a term I prefer to “moderates,” because it’s hard to see what’s moderate about demanding that Biden abandon highly popular policies like taxing corporations and reducing drug prices. At this point it seems all too possible that a handful of recalcitrant Democrats will blow up the whole Biden agenda — and yes, it’s the centrists who are throwing a tantrum, while the party’s progressives are acting like adults.
So what’s motivating the sabotage squad? Part of the answer, I’d argue, is that they have internalized decades of right-wing economic propaganda, that their gut reaction to any proposal to improve Americans’ lives is that it must be unworkable and unaffordable.
Of course, this isn’t the whole story. We certainly shouldn’t underrate the influence of money: Both wealthy donors and Big Pharma have been nakedly throwing their weight around.
$3.5 trillion sounds like a lot of money, and you shouldn’t assume politicians understand (or think constituents understand) that this is proposed spending over the course of a decade, not a single year. It would amount to little more than 1 percent of gross domestic product over that period and would still leave overall government spending far below its level in other wealthy democracies. It also ignores the fact that the true cost, after net savings and new revenue, would be much less than $3.5 trillion.
And some politicians seem to suffer from the misguided notion that only spending on “hard” infrastructure, like roads and bridges, counts as investing in the nation’s future. That is, they haven’t caught up with the growing body of evidence for high economic returns to spending on people — especially spending that lifts children out of poverty.
Still, I often find myself surprised to hear politicians and pundits who don’t consider themselves part of movement conservatism peddling economic narratives that are nothing more than right-wing propaganda but have been repeated so many times that many people who should know better accept them as established fact.
[T]he point is that as far as I can tell, those troublesome Democratic centrists are blinded by an economic narrative that was deliberately created to block progress and justify vast inequality. So they imagine that the Biden agenda — which is a fairly modest effort to address our nation’s very real problems — is somehow irresponsible and a threat to the nation’s future.
I would urge them to reconsider their premises. Biden’s proposed spending isn’t irresponsible and wouldn’t hurt growth. On the contrary, it would be deeply irresponsible not to invest in people as well as concrete, and if you look at the evidence, rather than repeating right-wing dogma, you realize that Biden’s agenda is actually pro-growth.
A pair of millionaire advocates for higher taxes on the rich sent a letter Wednesday urging members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to keep up their fight against “Wall Street Democrats” who are attempting to water down—or even kill entirely—a centerpiece of their party’s domestic policy agenda. “Letter Urges Progressives to Fight ‘Wall Street Democrats’ Holding Biden’s Agenda Hostage”, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/22/letter-urges-progressives-fight-wall-street-democrats-holding-bidens-agenda-hostage
“As a matter of national policy, the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. It’s time for the Congressional Progressive Caucus to extend that principle to the legislative process,” Morris Pearl and Erica Payne of the Patriotic Millionaires wrote in their letter (pdf) to Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC.
The letter calls on CPC members to stick to their promise to vote against a bipartisan infrastructure bill favored by conservative Democrats unless a much broader budget reconciliation package advances simultaneously. On Tuesday, Jayapal said that “more than half” of the CPC’s 96 members are committed to opposing the bipartisan measure unless it’s coupled with the reconciliation bill, which is expected to include major investments in green energy, child care, housing, and other Democratic priorities.
“It’s time for real Democrats to get serious about exorcising the rot from the heart of their party,” Pearl and Payne wrote, referring to what they described as the “Wall Street Wing” of the party. “At this pivotal moment, the best and only way for honest Democrats to stand for their fellow citizens is for them to stand publicly against other members of their caucus.”
The letter points specifically to conservative Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-Ariz.) recent threat to tank the reconciliation package if the House doesn’t approve the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill next week.
As Politico recently reported, at least “five to 10” conservative Democrats have signaled to the party leadership that they would rather let the bipartisan infrastructure package fail than go along with progressives’ plan to approve both bills at the same time.
“The red line has been crossed,” Pearl and Payne declared in their letter. “Let the fight begin with progressives voting no on an inadequate package that doesn’t scratch the surface of the repairs this country needs, no to a package that fails to provide support for our families, no to selling off our strategic oil reserves rather than raising taxes on billionaires, and no to egocentric grandstanding at the expense of thoughtful debate and reasonable compromise.”
“Call their bluff and force your ‘centrist’ colleagues to choose between passing both bills, or neither,” they continued. “Force them to go big or go home—go home to their districts and explain why they did nothing to mitigate the damage wreaked on this country by a global pandemic and decades of government neglect. Let them go home to their voters and explain why maintaining preferential treatment for the rich in the tax code was more important to them than providing free pre-K to our children.”
[In] an appearance on CNN Wednesday morning, Jayapal said that despite the narrative being spun by right-wing Democrats and some corporate media outlets, members of the party’s conservative wing are the ones who are “willing to crash the entire Democratic agenda by refusing to come together.”
“We are the only people in the room right now that have said we want both bills done,” Jayapal said, referring to progressives. “There are other people in the Democratic Party who are saying, ‘We only want the infrastructure bill, and maybe or maybe not we’ll get to the other bill.’ We are saying, ‘Let’s stick to the deal that was made, both bills, so that we can deliver real results.'”
In their letter, Pearl and Payne argued that conservative Democrats “have not even articulated a single coherent criticism” of the reconciliation package, which is overwhelmingly popular among Democratic voters.
“Their performative objections to the bill’s size and timeline of its passage are nothing more than a smokescreen for the fact that they do not want to raise taxes on millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” the pair wrote. “By acting against the interests of the country, against the interests of their constituents, and against the president of the United States, these rogue politicians are virtually ensuring the defeat of their party at the ballot box.”
Read the Patriotic Millionaires’ full letter at the above link.
The “royal” family of West Virginia, the Rockefellers, have something to say to the incomprehensible Joe Manchin, “Manchin is choosing a problematic past over his state’s future”, https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/26/opinions/manchin-reconciliation-climate-change-rockefeller/index.html
We were raised in coal country, about two hours south of Sen. Joe Manchin’s hometown, with a commitment to public service. Like Sen. Manchin, our father, five-term Sen. Jay Rockefeller, served as secretary of state and governor before being elected to the US Senate. And like Sen. Manchin, our father, who is now retired, has deep respect for the state’s legacy of hard work and grit.
Manchin has served our state well. He is a caring and determined leader who we’ve been honored to know as our father’s colleague and friend. Unfortunately, when it comes to our state’s future (whether it’s the jobs West Virginians will hold or the energy they’ll consume), Manchin is sticking with a problematic past by opposing the Senate’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Only by supporting that bill can Manchin lead West Virginia boldly into the clean-energy future that will help the people he has been elected to serve.
Manchin could be the deciding vote on the reconciliation bill that would help fund infrastructure projects and a wide array of social programs. The senator expressed his concerns about the bill’s price tag in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, yet failed to acknowledge that delaying the reconciliation bill and jeopardizing the infrastructure bill is a dangerous move that could end up costing the entire country, as well as the people of West Virginia.
He also failed to acknowledge the bill can be financed in large part by reversing the 2017 corporate tax cuts the senator himself voted against —but now refuses to raise to the rate called for in the bill, opting instead for a middle ground. By holding up the reconciliation bill, the senator is jeopardizing funds necessary to uplift West Virginia’s economic outlook and resilience at a time when the state is grappling with the country’s lowest life expectancy and one of its highest poverty rates.
The challenges West Virginia faces will only be compounded by climate change and extreme weather events, which are already taking place with an alarming frequency. West Virginians will remember the flood in June 2016 that killed 23 people and damaged more than a thousand homes and businesses. As West Virginia becomes more mild and humid as a result of climate change, an increase in rainfall would be dangerous given the state’s susceptibility to flash foods.
We need more resilient infrastructure to withstand increasingly frequent downpours. In New Orleans, the levees that were upgraded after Hurricane Katrina stood up to Hurricane Ida. In other areas, Ida, which could become the costliest weather-related disaster in US history , underscored the need for more improvements. Since 1980, the US has sustained almost 300 weather and climate disasters, costing almost $2 trillion. These figures will rise unless there is a concerted effort to mitigate the climate crisis.
Yet Sen. Manchin suggests putting a pause on the reconciliation bill, which would threaten the infrastructure bill and jeopardize the Senator’s own goals outlined in his pending bill, the American Jobs in Energy Manufacturing Act of 2021.
[W]est Virginia needs the reconciliation bill. As US coal consumption continues to decline, West Virginia’s fossil fuel economy has taken a hit. Companies are already making adjustments. The state’s two biggest utilities, American Electric Power (AEP) and FirstEnergy Corp, have plans to dramatically reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Employers such as Walmart and Kroger have also set prudent emission reduction targets. Our elected leaders at the local, state, and national levels need to keep up with the private sector and support financing for infrastructure that complements this progress, rather than impedes it.
In order to ensure the economy and communities of West Virginia survive the energy transition, we need to pass both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill. Taking into account key provisions from Biden’s infrastructure plan, The Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at WVU Law School modeled a “Clean Innovation Pathway” that would allow West Virginia to rely largely on emission-free power.
By 2040, this pathway would reduce the cost of electricity by $855 million, increase full-time employment, and secure billions in investment in clean energy projects. By building resilient infrastructure and reducing carbon pollution, the two bills together would bolster national security against destabilizing disasters, while providing economic opportunities by expanding jobs and sustainable industries nationwide.
We need to move away from an economy dependent on fossil fuels that drives climate chaos and deepens systemic threats to the economic and physical security of Americans. In order to lead the state to a brighter future, Manchin should recognize the inevitable changes taking place around us and act accordingly.
In 2009, the late Sen. Robert Byrd said: “West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it.” In the later years of his life, Byrd underwent a remarkable evolution by publicly apologizing for his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan and reversing his stance on climate change. We hope Manchin will follow Byrd’s lead on climate by evolving with the times.
Likewise, our family, known to many for its legacy of oil wealth, has acknowledged and acted upon the undeniable science that documents the destructive impact fossil fuels have on our climate. We consider it our moral imperative to divest from fossil fuels and invest sustainably. Many Rockefeller-affiliated nonprofits are also putting their endowments, which originated from oil wealth, towards clean and inclusive economic development. West Virginians should share in the prosperity and promise that the renewable energy boom will bring. The federal support the reconciliation and infrastructure bills offer will be critical to making it possible.
Sen. Manchin should acknowledge this, too. By supporting the reconciliation bill, he can help unlock economic opportunities, more resilient infrastructure and a more sustainable future for our state and our country.