President Joe Biden met with the moderate and progressive factions of his party on Wednesday in an attempt to settle the tensions between the two camps. Demands by a handful of centrists in the House and Senate have threatened to torpedo the $3.5 trillion reconciliation plan that is core to the president’s agenda.
I don’t like these kinds of provocateur headlines…factions saying “do it MY way or else”.
O’Donnell’s show last night came off the same…and yet completely different in posturing
Both Jonathan Capehart and E.J. Dionne had completely different (and more encouraging) postures on these ongoing negotiations.
I think the deals get done, mainly because the Dems have to do it.
This ain’t a Dodge City Western
The next week is going to be legislating at its worst. Yes, we will end up with some sort of sausage that will provide us with the infrastructure bill and with a reconciliation bill that is considerably less than $3.5 trillion and uses a part of whatever amount is approved to raise the debt ceiling. We will probably then have some kind of stand-alone continuing resolution to allow the government to function. And I imagine that eventually Joe Manchin will decide that if the GOP blocks his voting rights bill the filibuster will be lifted for that one matter.
The process however will look not like a train wreck but rather the Hindenburg crashing into the sinking Titanic.
At this point I feel like it’s become an involuntary guttural Gollum noise my body just has to make on an intermittent basis…
As an Arizonan, I am letting Sinema know that mine is one vote she got in 2020 that she will never get again if she doesn’t quit posturing and start voting for the things I elected her to support. I hope everyone is letting their “centrist” (that word is starting to cause an involuntary gag reflex in me) reps and senators know that they are NOT supported by anyone who actually votes or cares about politics in the Democratic party. I don’t know ANYONE, D or R, who doesn’t want to see the pharma companies brought to heel on pricing.
"The Manchiners need to put a proposal on the table. "
Not happening. Not proposing anything, while you’re being paid to make sure nothing gets done, is their trump card (pun intended). Game. Set. Match.
Give me a number, and tell me what you can live with and what you can’t,’
To which Manchin replied, a number that is not too high and not too low, but just right for getting reelected.
When this breakthrough was announced @sniffit said
Not so much sausage as wurst making.
On the bright side, this is far enough away from the mid-terms that voters will hopefully see benefits from the bills and forget the messy process.
The text of the reconciliation bill is mostly written. Based on the tea leaves from yesterday’s meetings, this isn’t about the content but the amount of tax revenue that Mods want to raise. The compromise is the bill stays at 3.5T because no one wants to cut anything from the package (and they shouldn’t), but the Mods want to pander to their corporate friends who don’t want to pay taxes and only pay for a fraction of the 3T. My guess is the number is 1.5T in tax revenue. So all Dems really have to do, theoretically, is agree on the revenue number and change that field and the rest of the bill stays as is. If they get an agreement, getting the reconciliation bill ready for passage is an administrative task and won’t take very long.
THEY ARE NOT MODERATES, THEY ARE FUCKING CONSERVATIVES!!!
Please pardon my French, but I am so sick of this fucking “moderate” bullshit framing… 
OT American have long regarded cheap gas as an entitlement, how else are they going to commute 60 miles a day on their V8 truck with gas at 3 dollars per gallon? Well it also seems like some see cheap labor as a born right as well, only to have meanies poach ungrateful workers by paying them more.
“I know we lost half a dozen that were offered an extra $5,000 a year to go somewhere else,” he said.
“Or even just benefits - being a small, independent business, I can’t compete with wages on bigger companies, let alone offer them any kind of benefits,” he added. He didn’t name the bigger companies that he said poached his staff.
When asked what he paid staff, Horton said it was a “reasonable wage,” without elaborating
I loved the part where they asked him how much he paid and his response was that it was a “reasonable” amount. And then lamented that they were being given benefits. Benefits! to jump ship. That’s so unfair!
Freaking mercenaries, switching jackets for mere 5 grand a year.
I’ll go out on a limb and say they’re going to pass both bills through both chambers. It may not be the 3.5T but I think it will be close enough (given the over all amount).
The rest is just posturing and Media trying to drum up clicks, headlines and ratings.
When Nancy left the meeting with Biden yesterday she seemed calm and confident. I like to take my cues from strong women.
This may be a wild idea, but one way to even the playing field a bit between large and small businesses would be for the government to take over health care expenses! Health benefits are a huge part of payroll expenses. Take that expense away from the employers and it’s much easier for any employer to pay its staff more.
I know. Wild, pie-in-the-sky thinking. Who would want to trade the USA’s current health care industry, which fleeces businesses as much as it fleeces individuals, for an equitable system funded by the government? What am I thinking?
Yeah, that mere 5 grand a year is only $2.40 per hour above their current pay rate.
/s
I think it was Galileo who first posited that all things are relative to one’s frame of reference (Einstein, among others, would go on to elaborate).
When the extreme right began primarying Republican candidates with extremist alternatives, many aspiring moderate Republicans quietly ran as democrats and got elected in part because moderate Republican voters became independents.
You and I, from our frame of reference, see conservatives. Self-identifying Republicans see baby-eating Satanists. The Press (and their corporate overlords) see like-minded, sensible moderates. The Press (and their corporate over-lords) get to frame the narrative from their point of reference.
Anything short of the 3.5T number will have the media saying that Biden’s agenda has gone down in flames, but I think it will at least pass with some lower number.
And then Dems can start working on messaging, letting people know what’s actually been passed and how it will help everyone in the country, not just those who vote Blue.