James Medlock happened to post this chart today, so I might as well post it too. It shows what happens when the increased Obamacare subsidies go away and we return to the original subsidy structure:
In its original form, Obamacare subsidies were available only for people with incomes under 400% of the poverty level. For a single person that's about $55,000. For a family of three it's around $90,000. Above that income your premiums suddenly spike from 10% of your income to about 30% of your income.
We could fix this by making the increased subsidies permanent, and President Biden wanted to do it. Unfortunately, Joe Manchin didn't. Once again, we've passed up a chance to help the middle class, an unfortunately common problem for Democrats.
Its a shame that there is not some type of potential deal.
Biden is recommending increases in defense and police spending: these are items that most, perhaps all, of the Republicans support. In return the Democrats would get some increases in social spending.
I KNOW this is not going to happen, but I can dream!
The problem with envisioning potential deals is that with the current Republican Party, there are NO potential deals. They have the avowed objective of forcing the failure of EVERY Democratic Party initiative, even if the Dems offered a trade that would benefit every Republican in the entire country.
And the Democrats will never campaign on it because that will seem divisive.
Sadly, you seem correct.
The problem with envisioning potential deals is that with the current Republican Party, there are NO potential deals
Right. But in a not utterly insane political universe, there ought at least to be deals that can be struck among DEMOCRATS.
They have another bite at the apple via reconciliation, which means no Republican votes are needed.
To me, this sort of thing is a real time illustration of how our Madisonian clusterfuck of a constitution is responsible for the lion's share of our clusterfuck public policies. If the USA were governed along the typical lines prevailing in other rich countries, the Senate wouldn't be as big a veto point (perhaps a delaying or amending role, rather than the more powerful of the two chambers) and the lack of gerrymandering would mean Dems have, say, a 20-vote majority in the House. Which means CRT and Obamacare improvements would be a slam dunk.*
*Or, more likely, we'd have had robust, universal healthcare coverage 30 or 40 years ago.
That's absolutely not true. Bipartisan infrastructure was a deal, brokered by the hated Sen. Sinema. There's a potential deal on the Electoral Count Act.
This is one area where the left just lies to its supporters, and the supporters eat up the lies just like right wing rubes eat up the lies fed to them by their politicians.
There's a segment of the Democratic Party that hates dealmaking- they don't like allowing Republicans to get political cover by voting for deals, they don't like the concessions necessary to make them, and they like "keeping the issues around" so they can run future election on them.
And part of that strategy involves never offering plausible deals that Republicans might sign on, loading everything up with poison pills that they know Republicans will never agree to, and then flat out lying to supporters about the impossibility of deal-making.
Now to be clear, it MAY be true that no deal is possible on Obamacare subsidies. Whether any particular deal is possible is a complex question, and there certainly are areas where Republican opposition is implacable. I am not denying this.
But a lot of Democratic politicians are very afraid of the anti-bipartisanship elements in the party, and as a result probably 50% or less of the possible dealmaking ever gets explored. Indeed, significant elements of the party tried to kill the bipartisan infrastructure deal and is right now killing any dealmaking on election law reform.
If a deal has not been tried, DO NOT believe the folks who tell you that no deal is possible.
But a lot of Democratic politicians are very afraid of the anibipartisanship elements in the party
Chuck Schumer chief among them.
It will be hard to top this chart for many a day for incomprehensibility. What are the axes?
Yeah took me a minute too. Y is the household's percentage of income spent on the premium and X is their income relative to poverty line.
I admire you. I didn't even try. Looked too messed up.
I finally figured out the axes - and it did little to help understanding this chart.
Yeah, good god, I thought it was just me. No idea what that is meant to show
It reminded me of the phase diagrams you often see for various minerals and other substances.
Once again, we've passed up a chance to help the middle class, an unfortunately common problem for Democrats.
It's really the common problem of conservatives, isn't it? Their certain purpose is to turn the US into oligarchic Russia, because that's obviously the aspirational future.
Plutocracy is the technical term.
It's always been plutocracy, but now their actual purpose is to impoverish the bulk of the population and make them as stupid, malleable and helpless as possible, Russia is quite literally their model.
"Unfortunately, Joe Manchin didn't. Once again, we've passed up a chance to help the middle class, an unfortunately common problem for Democrats."
A single Democratic Senator stands in the way of what the rest of the party wants, and your take is to blame Democrats instead of the entire party that would rather defend Nazis and Klansmen than move a finger for anyone not in the upper 0.1% of the income bracket?
I believe you’re preaching to the choir. Everyone on this blog including our host Kevin is well aware a single Democratic senator is thwarting the Democratic Party’s agenda and future. But Joe and Jane Lowinfovoter is simply going to think “the Dems can’t get their shit together on what they profess to want to do.”
Then why does Drum mostly blame the progressives Democrats and defend not only moderate Democrat politicians, but also the strategy of those same moderate Democrats to electoral victory?
Because the Overton window in Congress got this far right by inching it's way along and the easiest way to get it back is also by inching it.
I would add that Drum is generally on the side of "moderates" like Manchin and blames the "radical left" (not necessarily his term for the liberal wing of the party) Democrats for the electoral ills that afflict the party and spends most of his time chastising them and defending the likes of Manchin.
The progressive caucus is not to blame here. I guarantee you that the entirety of the progressive caucus is in favor of fully funding the ACA. The only complaints you'll hear from them is that we can still do, as a nation, better on healthcare.
The only reason a small number of progressive Democrats in the House voted against the BIL is because they knew Manchin was full of sh*t and would renege on the deal to pass BBB. Lo and behold those radical leftists were right.
If the Democrats lose big in 2022 blame the moderate/conservative wing of the Democratic party not "The Squad" or the PC.
And I sure wish I could clean up some typos, but WP sucks.
The Progressive Caucus had no leverage on Manchin. He was perfectly content to watch the infrastructure bill die too and watch the Caucus get all the blame for it. He was not invested in its success nor was there West Virginia specific projects he needed to have passed. Again, as I said, if he sees himself as Mr. Deficit-Reduction, there really is no leverage you can have on him because he doesn't really want anything.
> The progressive caucus is not to blame here. I guarantee you that the entirety of the progressive caucus is in favor of fully funding the ACA.
That is not the problem with the progressive caucus. The problem that they talk in a way that puts off voters in purple districts, so causes democrats to lose in these areas. Cori Bush insisting on "defund the police" after it is become absolutely clear it is a loser.
We? One scum and one fool.
Which looks darned good, in comparison to the other party. But it's sadly not enough.
We could make the increased subsidies permanent, and President Biden wanted to do it. Unfortunately, Joe Manchin didn't. Once again, we've passed up a chance to help the middle class, an unfortunately common problem for Democrats.
Well if it's true what they say that one of Manchin's flunkies has bring to him every day what the U.S debt count is don't be surprised that's exactly the kind of politician he is.
The sad thing is with the passing of Bobby Byrd, you had a New Deal Senator determined to do what he could to help the people of his state. Yeah he was pro-coal (no one in West Virginia could be elected without being so) but he saw Federal dollars as the way to lift his state beyond coal jobs which decline every year. And you get as his replacement a Scrooge-like, green eyeshade-like accountant to take his place whose only main interest is keeping power plants open that will take the coal from his business. He's preserving his bottom line, not jobs. His deficit fetish is just ridiculous.
This is a misreading of things. The WV electorate has grown far more Republican since Byrd's day (West Virginia went for Michael Fucking Dukakis!). Byrd himself couldn't get reelected in this environment as a strong New Dealer. I'm skeptical Manchin is all that much of an economic "conservative" (if that word means anything in 2022) except on, as you point out, coal. It is West Virginia, after all.
Rather, what's going on here is that Manchin believes (I suspect rightly) he has zero prospect of winning reelection unless he can brand himself as an ornery, mavericky, John McCain-style, flinty, independent-minded Democrat who gives it good and hard to the Dem establishment liberals and their Hollywood, Manhattan ways. The easiest way to achieve that branding is to generate headlines demonstrating that he's a thorn in the side of Washington Democrats.
I really doubt Manchin would lose sleep if Democrats enacted a lot more of their policy prerogatives. He just needs to vote "no" on this stuff from time to time for the aforementioned branding. Which means Democrats need a few more Senate seats so they don't depend on his. And no, that doesn't make Manchin useless to Democrats, especially compared to the Tom Cotton clone who will be in that seat if the GOP defeats Manchin (it's not going to be a Mitt Romney-style Republican). Manchin doesn't vote for 100% of the Democratic agenda. But he does vote for most of it, as well as nearly all executive and judicial branch nominations.
Anyway, that's my take.
"an unfortunately common problem for Democrats."
Yes, Joe Manchin is.
Yes, having only 50 Senators is.
But I think having 49 would be worse. Mitch McConnell would certainly see to that.
Kevin, do you think lead in the water is responsible for the increasing political stupidity of Americans?
There is a simple solution: Hold onto the House by any margin, and add one more Senate seat.
Ironically, because Senate elections can't be gerrymandered - outside the small state edge built into the Constitution - the Democratic Party has a reasonable chance of gaining a sear or two. Even if they lose the House.
That is what happened in 2018 for the Republicans, as you all might recall.
But that isn't enough to overcome the filibuster -- unless there are enough Dems to get rid of it.
I like the idea of adding states, particularly the Douglass Consortium (or whatever they're calling it) and the several territories dating from our Empire stage, notably Puerto Rico. Another four (very likely Democratic) senators would do a lot of good. But that would be even harder to pass Congress, with the current Senate...
Look, Republicans can break things then blame the Democrats for letting things get broken....and that's all the have....
Basically, yes. But it works EVERY TIME. The media take the Republican spin, and when Dems call them out, everybody says they're just whining.
I've been impressed by reports that a lot of young Russian recruits arriving in Chernobyl have no idea what the place is, have never heard of it and have no idea what happened there.
Now this is the kind of popular education American conservatives can only dream of! A world where everyone is even dumber than they are.
Subsidies took my premiums (me + spouse, late 1950s, NM, bronze with $7100 deductible each) from $990 to $517 a month.
It's not a great design - governments are still using taxes to subsidize health insurance and health care providers for their over-priced services. still have a $7100 individual deductible.
But the idea that I should be able to pay 8.5% of my income for the 2nd most expensive silver plan in my state is not too far off the baseline for the rest of the world.
Freaking ridiculous.
Late **50s'** not late 1950s, of course.
At the median income level, you end up paying 1/3 of your income to insurance, 1/3 to rent, and 1/4 to food and other living expenses, leaving you with 1/12 of your remaining income to savings.
Woo hoo, living the American Dream.
The main reason this state of affairs has been allowed to continue is that the vast majority of American at that age who earn too much for Obamacare subsidies are insured at work. That's small comfort indeed to the considerable numbers of folks who aren't insured at work. But we're still taking (guesstimate) no more than 5% or so of the electorate. And Joe Manchin doesn't give a fuck about such a small slice of the vote.
If home schooled hero Madison Cawthorn hadn't been in a car wreck he'd probably have a great career as 'second guy' in a series of porn videos and think he's a movie star.
Pass the brain bleach plz.
I have ten bucks for anybody in DC who will ask him what the capitol of Wisconsin is.