US Politics: Manchin Shin Drinks the Blood and Cracks the Bone

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, DMC said:

I think you're being a little too hard on the leadership here/eliding how much Manchin straight up bullshitted them too, but I forgot to mention this in my response to TGU re: progressives.  The progressives are the only ones that come out of this looking good.  They were proven right, and I strongly suspect your average, even "moderate" Democrat today is thinking (if they've been paying attention of course) "seems like they should have listened to them."

I'm not so sure about this take. The progressive do come out looking good, but that's only because they caved. They were responsible. Had they refused to do so things would have still blown up and Manchin would have had more cover. Best to let him walk the plank alone, which is why I support the push to hold the vote anyways. Make him vote no.

12 minutes ago, Week said:

Fortunately, things are bound to improve with the upcoming omicron-winter, losing the house and Senate, and Breyer staying on the bench throughout. Really setting up for a barn burner.

Wait until we have a unified fascist government in a little over three years. That's going to be really fun. 

[horangi]

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Not in my opinion - I work in the CRE industry and trust me when I say that people are ridiculously excited over the BIF. That’s not a good thing because they’re all a bunch of real estate developers. The BIF is a corporate boondoggle that is mainly just a corporate giveaway and won’t end up doing half of what they claim it will. The reconciliation bill would have been far better for the country at large.

 

I get being upset with the BBB not passing, but I am curious why you have such a negative view of the BIF in isolation?  I would imagine that the real estate and construction industries would be pretty happy with it passing, but what is different about this than any other major public works spending?  Obviously if you are going to build new roads or runways or ports where they werent before, you have to buy up the property and hire corporations to actually do the construction.  If you read through the Act, its pretty specific on how it allocates the funding as opposed to just one big slush fund.  Just looking at my own state, there are pretty specific numbers about how its going to be spent on specific airports, metro/light rail, roads, bridges etc.   Moreover, since the money is Federal, it comes with the strings attached that you have to pay your employees the Federal Contractor minimum wage of $15/hour to begin with.   Are there folks who are going to get rich off of it? No doubt, its a decent amount of money being injected into the system.   But I have no doubt that this is the kind of spending that ends up paying for itself in terms of enhanced economic activity and wages. 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm not so sure about this take. The progressive do come out looking good, but that's only because they caved. They were responsible. Had they refused to do so things would have still blown up and Manchin would have had more cover.

I'm not sure where you disagree.  I agree they "caved" because it was the responsible thing to do after Biden gave them assurances he'd get Manchin, but that doesn't change the fact they were right to not trust Manchin for so long.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'm not sure where you disagree.  I agree they "caved" because it was the responsible thing to do after Biden gave them assurances he'd get Manchin, but that doesn't change the fact they were right to not trust Manchin for so long.

They were right to not trust him, I just thought you were implying that those on the left who wanted to play hardball might have actually succeed if others followed them. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

They were right to not trust him, I just thought you were implying that those on the left who wanted to play hardball might have actually succeed if others followed them. 

Lol this is the opposite of what you saying all summer.  You were saying to give him whatever he wants.  They either tried that or they didn't.  

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I just thought you were implying that those on the left who wanted to play hardball might have actually succeed if others followed them.

No.  I think it's possible - and the progressives were certainly right to at least try - but as I've said repeatedly I've been quite skeptical for awhile now that Manchin would ever have come to an agreement just to pass the infrastructure bill.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, 1066 Larry said:

Lol this is the opposite of what you saying all summer.  You were saying to give him whatever he wants.  They either tried that or they didn't.  

How is that the opposite? I always have maintained that they should have just cut a quick deal and moved on if there was one to be had. I've never said I thought progressives would win if they wanted a showdown and held the line.

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

No.  I think it's possible - and the progressives were certainly right to at least try - but as I've said repeatedly I've been quite skeptical for awhile now that Manchin would ever have come to an agreement just to pass the infrastructure bill.

Maybe so, but in hindsight they should have just capitulated from the jump. They're going to have to do that anyways if they want something to pass (and despite all this woe is me people are feeling, something still can pass, but of course it will be too little too late). 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Manchin privately admits why he torpedoed the child tax credit.

In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children, according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-manchin-build-back-better-child-tax-credit-drugs_n_61bf8f6be4b061afe394006d

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Maybe so, but in hindsight they should have just capitulated from the jump.

Uh, no.  They definitely should not have just said "well let's just let Joe Manchin write a bill that will include MAYBE one or two of our priorities at best."  Talk about a great way to totally disillusion most of the Democratic party - definitely not just progressives.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

10 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Manchin privately admits why he torpedoed the child tax credit.

In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children, according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-manchin-build-back-better-child-tax-credit-drugs_n_61bf8f6be4b061afe394006d

He's such a piece of shit. Just a miserable monster--I put him up there with Trump and McConnell. 

[Gorn]

10 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Manchin privately admits why he torpedoed the child tax credit.

In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children, according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-manchin-build-back-better-child-tax-credit-drugs_n_61bf8f6be4b061afe394006d

That shit just makes my blood boil. Fucking classist.

[Kalbear]

That said, they should have worked on taking this deal, and if they couldn't figure out how to do this that's on leadership again. 

I think the ctc is super important but climate is way bigger of a deal. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, DMC said:

Uh, no.  They definitely should not have just said "well let's just let Joe Manchin write a bill that will include MAYBE one or two of our priorities at best."  Talk about a great way to totally disillusion most of the Democratic party - definitely not just progressives.

And yet that's where we are now. If it was always going to be that (which was my speculation), why not just skip the last four plus months of bullshit? It didn't change anything in a positive way.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And yet that's where we are now. If it was always going to be that (which was my speculation), why not just skip the last four plus months of bullshit? It didn't change anything in a positive way.

First, it was never your speculation that that's all Manchin would agree to.  Second, yes, actually trying and failing is undoubtedly better than not trying at all.  Your voters will feel much more betrayed by not even pursuing the agenda the entire party ran on than the fact one Senator won't allow it to happen.  I obviously can't prove a counterfactual, but you aren't going to convince me otherwise.

[Larry of the Lawn]

27 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

That said, they should have worked on taking this deal, and if they couldn't figure out how to do this that's on leadership again. 

I think the ctc is super important but climate is way bigger of a deal. 

Yeah seems incredibly stupid to reject that if it was real.  Although I'd be interested to see what the climate provisions actually were.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

28 minutes ago, DMC said:

First, it was never your speculation that that's all Manchin would agree to.  Second, yes, actually trying and failing is undoubtedly better than not trying at all.  Your voters will feel much more betrayed by not even pursuing the agenda the entire party ran on than the fact one Senator won't allow it to happen.  I obviously can't prove a counterfactual, but you aren't going to convince me otherwise.

I laid out a few scenarios with that being one of them because you had to prepare for it. And yes I did think there was a good chance that was what's going to happen, I just didn't think he'd be this much of an ass about it. As to your voters feeling betrayed, how are they exactly feeling today? They were sold a bill of goods that was never going to be delivered upon, and it was done loudly and repeatedly. Yesterday would have stung a lot less if people had an honest understanding of where things actually stood. This is why some wins still feel like loses and it was avoidable.

[DMC]

I am very skeptical that Manchin would or will ever agree to much of anything on climate change - here's a good article that helps explain why - but I suppose if we're taking Manchin at his word (heh) one thing the climate change provisions have going for it is the tax credits do satisfy his "ten year" demand.  And the rest of the investments that make up the climate portion of the bill don't apply.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I laid out a few scenarios with that being one of them because you had to prepare for it. And yes I did think there was a good chance that was what's going to happen

Sure you did.

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

As to your voters feeling betrayed, how are they exactly feeling today? They were sold a bill of goods that was never going to be delivered upon, and it was done loudly and repeatedly. Yesterday would have stung a lot less if people had an honest understanding of where things actually stood. This is why some wins still feel like loses and it was avoidable.

Again, you're juxtaposing this with the entire party not even trying to pursue their agenda.  Of course I'm not arguing that failing isn't bad, but that would be worse.  This is true of any president/party taking power, btw.  Was McCain's thumbs down a body blow to Trump, McConnell, et al.?  Certainly, but that doesn't mean not even trying to repeal the ACA wouldn't have pissed off and deflated their voters even more.  

This whole "setting expectations too high" is standard boilerplate talking head bullshit that almost always isn't actually a real thing.  Speaking of Tester, here he is responding to this inane canard:

Quote

“The true problem is, we haven’t talked about what’s been accomplished near enough, and I think that’s a bigger problem than setting expectations,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). “They’re both dangerous, by the way. Setting expectations too high? I don’t know if that’s the problem, as much as just letting people know what we’ve done.”

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Reading that WaPo about Manchin's counter offer again it's hard to see it as a good faith offer.  He made it and then went on air saying there was no deal.  I'd bet anything it was intentionally leaked by his people. 

[DMC]

So, not to go too Kalfatalistic, but based on the aftermath/Manchin's response to the WH's attack yesterday, it's hard to see any optimism that Manchin will agree to anything at this point.  His new demand is that the Dems take everything through regular order:

Quote

Manchin advised Democrats to put legislation through committee to have any chance of success, saying party leaders spurned his requests to do so on the $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill. That bill passed on a party-line vote via budget reconciliation, but Manchin said that’s not going to happen again without the committee process.

“I won't continue to go down everything you want to do, major policy changes and reconciliation. It needs to go through a process,” Manchin added. The House held committee hearings for the legislation, the Senate has not.

This is almost exactly what McCain said when he killed the GOP's ACA repeal.