Yesterday’s meetings between President Joe Biden and various groups of Democrats at the White House yielded some specifics about which programs will likely be in or out of the final package. The climate piece seems amorphous still — no doubt due to the fossil fuel-loving proclivities of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
The package Biden outlined dropped in price to the high $1 trillions, a clear sign of Sens. Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-AZ) influence. Some cuts, like two years of free community college, will be bitterly disappointing to progressives. Some, like the child tax credit only being extended for a year or two are strategic — paring back on the cost while betting that even Republicans won’t be politically able to thrust millions of children back into poverty when it expires.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) emphasized Wednesday morning that these details from Biden’s meeting are not a “decision” — in other words, things are still in flux.
The White House and congressional leadership want a meaty framework with a topline and all the key programmatic elements agreed to by the end of the month. While this process has been replete with fits and starts, they’ve been making significant progress towards that goal this week and members think it can happen.
Follow our live coverage below:
In the package (as of now):
- The child tax credit, extended only a year or two
- Affordable Care Act subsidies
- Paid family leave (for four weeks, instead of 12)
- Homecare for elderly and disabled (less than $250 billion, down from the original $400 billion)
- Universal pre-K
Out of the package (as of now):
- Two years of tuition free community college
- Lifting cap on SALT
- Clean Electricity Performance Program
- Carbon tax
In flux:
- Climate
- Payfors
- Medicare expansion to cover hearing, vision and dental
Yesterday’s meetings between President Joe Biden and various groups of Democrats at the White House yielded some specifics about which programs will likely be in or out of the final package. The climate piece seems amorphous still — no doubt due to the fossil fuel-loving proclivities of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
The package Biden outlined dropped in price to the high $1 trillions, a clear sign of Sens. Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-AZ) influence. Some cuts, like two years of free community college, will be bitterly disappointing to progressives. Some, like the child tax credit only being extended for a year or two are strategic — paring back on the cost while betting that even Republicans won’t be politically able to thrust millions of children back into poverty when it expires.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) emphasized Wednesday morning that these details from Biden’s meeting are not a “decision” — in other words, things are still in flux.
The White House and congressional leadership want a meaty framework with a topline and all the key programmatic elements agreed to by the end of the month. While this process has been replete with fits and starts, they’ve been making significant progress towards that goal this week and members think it can happen.
Follow our live coverage below:
“The Reconciliation Package Finally Takes Shape”
Like Manchin and Sinema birthed a giant turd on a pottery wheel? We’ll see…
Let’s get this done. I’m bullish on the mid-terms and therefore on Congress’s being able to add the other things next term, as the popularity of these things sinks in.
Let’s do this.
Fine, I’ll take it. Just get the damn thing done!
It is at times like this I get the urge to temper my weak smile with the sense of practiced gloom because I am old enough to know the American electorate’s “battered wife syndrome” means they will likely fall for the “Democrats didn’t get everyone a thoroughbred pony with stable and feed included in 2 years or less, therefore put us back in power so we can LOVE you like never before, dear” strategy as they almost always do.
You keep telling them the same thing - elect more and better Democrats to actually get the most critical things done. And they keep telling you that no, they want to get back together with that husband, because they know he’ll really change this time, really and truly.
Two to four years later, you can’t enforce multiple restraining orders anymore, and you’ve been photographed by the cops multiple times in the ER to no avail, and you fear for your life, and wonder what you were thinking. Rinse and repeat.
My only hope is maybe by going so completely crazy they have decimated their own numbers and motivation to the point that the GQP can’t get it together no matter how they try to sweet talk us.
Use your anger, Dems…don’t let anger use you.