A couple of days ago I wrote about wonks and hacks, mainly to point out that in the late stages of passing complex legislation it's the hacks who should be running things. But it's worth pointing out something I mentioned a while back but had since forgotten: the wonks didn't do a great job either.
In particular, both the childcare and long-term care provisions of Joe Biden's BBB bill are put together in ghastly ways. Both of these are, potentially, great programs for the middle class that would help the Democratic brand for decades to come. However, that would require them to be constructed in ways that allow people to understand that Democrats have passed a specific program with a specific name that helps specific people.
Instead, both programs are built around wonky but invisible foundations. The childcare provision puts most of its money into raising the pay of childcare workers and providing tax credits to parents to ensure they pay no more than 7% of their income for childcare. In other words, it practically goes out of its way to make the whole thing completely hidden from ordinary people.
Likewise, making long-term care more affordable is extremely popular. But the Biden bill creates a state partnership that boosts pay for home health workers and reduces the waiting list for home care. In other words, it mostly benefits workers and the poor and tops up state Medicaid coffers. I don't know how well that will work, but I do know that it's essentially invisible, just like the childcare program.
I swear, it sometimes seems as if Democrats go out of their way to make sure that no one understands they've done anything good for them. Hell, at least the ACA had a name and explicit subsidies that showed up every time you signed up for health coverage. The BBB programs are just a mishmash of higher pay, tax credits, and "partnerships." Hardly a person alive will ever realize that Democrats have done anything to help them.
Framing issues? I've been a Democrat since Adlai Stevenson was my parents' hero, and the Dems have ALWAYS been inept at framing their issues, not to mention their proposed responses to those issues, not to mention the Republicans' opposition to those issues.
That's a LONG time to spend in the public relations doghouse. You'd think there must be a few Dems among the successful PR firms who could shore up our shaky PR structures.
That’s a good point, although I think the party’s difficulties worsened hugely after St Ronnie devastated them by saying “there you go again”. The Democratic political class has basically turned into a battered spouse.
The ACA is an excellent example. All the super health care and budget wonks created a stupid overly complicated structure that made sure no possible benefit would be received by anyone in time to do the Democrats any political good. It was based on a conservative proposal in order to attract Republican support (in part by demonstrating that Democrats would reap no political advantage) and that politically idiotic structure (and the concessions made to attract Republicans) was kept even though not a single Republican voted for Obamacare.
And framing issues is the republicans' strong point. It doesn't matter that their ideas...can't call them programs because their ideas are nothing but balls of fluff blowing in the wind...let's say their propaganda are framed to grab a person's attention, are short 'n sweet, meant to be easily repeated, and are directed toward the conservative base they've been building layer on layer since st. ronnie. I've often wondered why the Democrats have such lousy marketing people.
These days Republicans don't frame or discuss actual issues, they just arouse people's worst instincts. They can do this by make distorted, false and even nonsensical mostly personal claims about Democrats and liberals. They have basically given up promising to do specific things, other than to "get government off your back" (even that slogan is outmoded). This means (a) tax cuts and deregulation for the rich, but (b) reduced restrictions on racism and the power of religion for others. They always deliver on (a) but not really on (b).
Democrats are trying to do things for people, which is difficult and complicated, while Republicans can just enrage them. They are competing in different arenas.
I think part of it is the "Hacks" in charge of getting the bills through Congress at best not considering the framing when doing so, and at worst their sympathies are... mixed.
Look at the last round of Supply Side tax cuts that Trump passed, both the Dems and the Press mostly threw up their hands but didn't hammer the track record of the last attempts. Even now with that debt bomb hurling towards us as the middle class tax cuts are roll back there still isn't a cohesive argument as to how bad it's going to be when all but the richest tax cuts disappear and the middle class and below are left to pay for the next mess.
Or the ACA scheduling Americans annual plans during election season, I would really like to know who appended that bit of hell to the bill. At best I think some Hacks don't consider the future framing of the bills they write, and at worst that some of their paychecks rely on writing them that way.
Also the side issue that the Dems doesn't invest near enough into building and testing their messaging or the structure to get it out.
Let's go, Brandon!
The Republicans are good at framing because the mainstream media usually adopts their frames. For example for years the Republicans have framed themselves as the fiscally responsible adults, a claim the media bought and reinforced. Reagan nearly tripled our national debt with his tax cuts on the rich and his over the top military spending yet the media still treats him as an economic genius.
The media and Republicans obsessed over the debt in the early 90s (without mentioning who caused it). Then Clinton and the Democrats raised taxes on upper incomes. Republicans screamed it would going to destroy the economy. Instead we had strong growth and a budget surplus that was paying down the national debt. Suddenly the media lost interest in the topic of the debt rather than press Republicans on getting it so wrong.
Then Gore ran on continuing to use the surplus to pay down the debt; Bush ran explicitly on destroying the surplus with tax cuts. The media clearly favored Bush who went on to blow up the debt with tax cuts and military spending.
Next the media crowned Paul Ryan a fiscal genius despite the fact that he never even created a budget proposal that balanced. (Remember the magical asterisks?)
I never hear anyone in the mainstream “liberal”media reming people that it was Democrats who created a surplus. And while I often see Democrats point out that they have provisions in their new bills to pay for them, the media constantly focuses on the trillions of dollars they will cost — deliberately misleading the public. It’s hard to find messages to counter that kind of messaging from supposedly liberal media. Still Democrats need to figure out a way.
Sigh. America. Where you're free to choose between the Evil Incompetent Party and the Stupid Boring Party... at least until the EIP gains enough power to render future elections mute.
I’m sure the referees would never allow such a thing to happen.
A tax credit for childcare sounds like a very efficient way to do things, I would add a negative tax credit (payout) for those not earning enough. Maybe the way to promote this is to have a line in the tax form: Family Tax Exemption Act of 2021.
The only way that could happen would be if it were re-named the Democrats are Stealing Your Money Act.
Joe Biden Is a Catburglar Act.
The distribution of checks for pandemic relief seemed to work OK. Why use the indirect and delayed means of tax credits if you're going to give people money?
Cut the crap! When you have a polity as polarized as we did, neither side is getting credit for anything they do. Case in point: Trump's poll numbers never got above 50 percent even with the economy doing well in 2018-2019 and the GOP lost control of the House.
I remember watching an interview of Gennifer Flowers on Larry King's CNN show well into the Clinton Administration and she said something like "I think Bill gets way too much credit for the good economy. I think Alan Greenspan has done way more." This is the same Bill Clinton whose economic plans was supposed to leave grass growing in the streets if you listen to the Republicans. I mean if this is happening 25 years ago imagine where we are now. Wonks design bills that actually work and Hacks are going to have a hard time explaining them. But even if they were all on the same page (and what independents there are, rarely these days vote strictly on economic issues, it's all about their values) again, it still falls on deaf partisan ears.
Gennifer Flowers barely understands sexwork.
How did she understand the economy enough to know Ayn Rand's Fluffer was responsible for the 90s boom?
Kevin, there are only two political parties in the U.S. Why bash the one that isn't completely around the bend?
Is that why Manchin is thinking of leaving the party?
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/senator-joe-manchin-democratic-party-exit-plan-biden-infrastructure-deal-exclusive/
Republicans sometimes take more credit for Dems’ good works than the Dems do.
The best part of the BBB bill is that for most Americans, BBB stands for Better Business Bureau, not Build Back Better, whatever that's supposed to mean.
Almost as good as the PP-ACA bill (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) which was so unwieldly that Republicans were able to brand it Obamacare.
As to the BBB bill that Kevin references, there is no BBB bill. There is a Build Back Better plan/agenda that has three parts:
American Recovery Act ($1.9 trillion, passed)
American Jobs Plan (this is the $3.5 trillion one currently being negotiated)
American Families Plan ($1.5 trillion, child care, paid leave, community college, now looking vulnerable)
TOTAL $7 trillion
To add to the confusion, the (so far?) bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has provisions from the American Jobs Plan.
It's a mess. Which Plan contains the provisions that constituency X, or Y, or Z are interested in? I guess the idea is everybody subscribe to the New York Times and read a 9,000 word explainer. Each week.
Even Bernie Sanders screwed up with his recent op-ed that *in the first sentence* called out the price tag $3.5 trillion, instead of intriguing the reader with policies that whet the appetite.
Maybe the administration will improve it's outreach/messaging. There's still time.