So what's in the big $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that Senate Democrats will start working on after today's vote to pass the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill? Here are the basics:
- Makes the increased Obamacare subsidies from January's coronavirus bill permanent.
- Ditto for the child tax credit.
- Provides universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds.
- Provides two years of free community college.
- Adds dental, hearing, and vision benefits to Medicare.
- Provides funding for long-term care done at home.
- Funds various climate initiatives.
- Allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
- Makes DACA (the "Dreamer" act) permanent.
This is only where things are now, and various provisions will certainly be added and dropped from the final bill. DACA, for example, seems unlikely to survive a parliamentary challenge.
Democrats claim that the entire cost of the bill will be paid for, primarily through higher taxes on corporations and the rich. We'll see about that.
"Democrats claim that the entire cost of the bill will be paid for, primarily through higher taxes on corporations and the rich. We'll see about that."
It will be "paid for" under Senate budget rules--that is a requirement of reconciliation. This typically involves a lot of smoke and mirrors and peculiar cutoffs tailored to fit the 10-year budget window, and we can expect that a fair bit of the real cost will end up on the national credit card.
However, budgetary sleight of hand alone can't conjure up $3.5 trillion. There will have to be real revenue hikes, substantial ones, and Biden seems pretty firm about not hiking taxes on anyone making less than $400K.
It won't be 3.5 trillion.
Either way, it will be funded with proceeds from Kyrsten Sinema's OnlyFans.
"If we want some basis of comparison, we can look at CBO’s projection for GDP over this 10-year period. CBO projects that GDP will be a bit over $290 trillion, which means that the addition to the debt it projects will be equal to a bit less than 0.09 percent of GDP over this period.
That tells us that the increase to the deficit is equal to 0.42 percent of projected spending.
If we want a per person figure, the total boost to the debt is projected at a bit less than $800 a head. "
-Dean Baker
Over ten years
How are they going to squeeze DACA into a budget-only bill?
It's toast. The final bill will be smaller as this just has a bunch of one items on wish lists.
The reason why people abide by norms is that violations of the norm that’s done once by you can now be done by others. There’s nothing stopping Schumer from firing the senate parliamentarian and replacing that person with a loyal Democrat.
In fact, that’s exactly what he should do right now. It seems to me that a norm is like an uneasy peace. It’s usually created and kept in place to create peace and everyone hesitates to violate the norm because of fear of what will be unleashed. For the past sixty or so years, the Democrats policy of unilateral adherence to the norms being violated by the GOP has actually encouraged the erosion of political and even legal norms. After all, once the restraint created by fear of retaliation vanishes, there’s advantages to trashing norms and absolutely no downside.
On please Guthman. Nobody cares about Daca. Much less Hispanic American citizens who don't care either. It has nothing to do with budgets or spending priorities.
You sound like another loser.
"There’s nothing stopping Schumer from firing the senate parliamentarian and replacing that person with a loyal Democrat."
Yes there is. Two things actually: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. They have both made it clear that following the Senate's ridiculous rules is the most importantest thing in the world. As long as they don't budge on that, we're living in their world.
So: What is the mechanism that the bill's authors are concocting to make DACA fit in the "budgetary only" box?
I’m not so sure about how much power the dastardly duo actually has (assuming they’re not on kamikaze missions). It seems to me that their leverage is that they’re at least notational Democrats so Schumer can stay as majority leader until after the 2022 Midterms and they might or might not agree to vote for some Democratic initiatives as long as those initiatives also meet the political needs of their Republican allies. And, within their states, they claim to be the only Democrats who can win by attracting moderate Republicans.
The question is whether they’re such a handicap on the Democrats being able to run on achievements (as opposed to pure “bipartisanship”)that the party would be better off to ditch them now and enhance the Democrats prospect in 2022 and 2024. If the party leadership made the choice to abandon those two and essentially go all out against them in the next primary, I think both of them would fold rather be both out of politics and actively, fanatically ostracized by the leadership of the party.
I think such a move would not only greatly enhance the Democrats very slim chances in the next two elections, I also think there’s a very good chance that both of them would fold (especially Sinema who is absolutely dependent on the support of Democratic leadership not just to survive the general election but also a primary). At this point, I think the Democrats have everything to gain and little to lose by making it clear to Manchin and Sinema that their chances of surviving a primary challenge heavily financed by the party and featuring Joe Biden saying that no good Democrat should vote for either of them might be a very clarifying event.
As for the mechanism, as the Republicans have persuasively demonstrated, rulings of the parliamentarian conform to the needs of the party, not to the abstract senate "rules" (which are more like guidelines, anyway) Everything has a "budgetary" effect if you want it to,
I think with Sinema the party has leverage, but Manchin is the only dem who can win in WV and if he thought he might lose a primary challenge could just switch parties or run and an independent and win.
I don’t think that Manchin thinks he’s the only Democrat who can win in WV. Remember, he reacted very angrily to efforts by the party to expand its numbers in WV and very angrily when VP Harris wanted to visit the state and build a party from the ground up. If Manchin thought he could win as a Republican, he’d have switched parties already.
The other point is that the Democrats are pretty clearly behind the eight ball for 2022 and 2024. Leaving aside their evident distain for the politics of making sure that their base can vote, people may like bipartisanship as an abstract conceal but it’s accomplishments that they tend to reward. Now we have a beefed up bipartisan highway bill that doesn’t really advance the programs that Democrats ran on. If they don’t deliver on their promises they’re unlikely to hold either house of Congress. Lowering the boom on these two assholes might cost them a single senate seat in WV but that’s about it. But if they don’t, they’ll keep Manchin in the senate but at the price of losing power for generations to come.
And if they’re ever to retake Congress or the White House they’ll need to dump both of these preening assholes eventually so why not take the chance and do it now with the possibility of holding the federal government in 2022!
It wouldn't enhance the party at all. Keep on posting your nonsense.
This.
All the more so when the "norm" in question is plainly anti-democratic and adds legislative barriers to the already veto point-laden structure of the constitution.
It all depends on the parlimentarian. Previously they had ruled that immigration does have a budgetary impact so can be included. Note it's not DACA per se, it'll be a new law that applies to the same pool of applicants that can apply (and have) for DACA.
Why not just hire a parliamentarian who’s with the program? That’s what the Republican Party did and it worked out fine for them.
Why not just hire a parliamentarian who’s with the program?
Don't be ridiculous. Chuck Schumer doesn't want to Fred Hiatt and David Brooks to snub him at the Kennedy Center awards after party. Even worse, he might get disinvited by Meet the Press or Morning Joe.
It's ridiculous for democrats to follow the norm of accepting the parliamentarian's advice on DACA. And on voting rights for that matter. If the republicans have taught us anything it is that norms are for suckers. The law states that decisions on what goes into a reconciliation bill belong to the presiding officer, VP Harris. The law also states that it ultimately takes 60 votes to overrule VP Harris on what can go into the bill. Follow the law, not the norm.
Read above. You don't get it and refuse to get it. Why is it even there in the first place???
You seem salty today.
GEORGE WENDT DID NOTHING WRONG!
>> Adds dental, hearing, and vision benefits to Medicare.
Provides funding for long-term care done at home.<<
I expect these items will be extremely popular. Democrats should focus on touting them.
Medicare negotiation ability increase yes. Benefit expansion, no.
Nope. Medicare needs to cover all non-cosmetic medical procedures.
Think of it as a job creation program--one that creates skilled jobs that aren't easy to offshore or perform remotely. The added competition from increasing the number of providers would in itself, drive prices down.
And these people spend most of their money back into the economy (unlike the wealthiest).
Its good marketing to lead with the fun stuff (what folks get) and good politics to avoid discussing the hard stuff up front (how you will pay for all of this).
In Europe or in many Asian countries, the pay for broad based benefits would be via a broad-based tax (typically the VAT): in the US, it seems, that only taxes on the highest earners are politically saleable….
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with how relatively high taxes already on lower incomes.
Sales taxes - which is our form of VAT.
FICA: our taxes to support Medicare and Social Security, which is capped for the benefit of high of income earners.
Various and sundry usage fees which have a greater percentage impact on lower incomes.
Property taxes, which are disconnected from income .
And so on.
While the wealthy do pay for the bulk of government services and goods, that is simply because of the high disparity in incomes that is quite a bit greater in the US than almost any other advanced country.
And as a percentage of income - high income households tend to pay less than middle class.
The middle and working classes certainly do pay a higher share in taxes in europe than the usa. And no it is not true that the middle class pays a higher share of income in taxes than the wealthy in the usa. But the exact numbers depend a lot on how you define things.
For example, is social security a welfare program paid by the social security tax on all, a retirement insurance program of forced savings where it is not welfare as you paid in, or a bit of both? Realistically it is both. If you count all payroll taxes for social security as a " tax" then all social security benefits are welfare. If you adjust so that only the part which pays for other's benefits are a tax, then you will get a net tax somewhere around average income or so.
And how do you count things like child tax credits? Is that welfare spending paid for by taxes or do you only count as a tax the net amount paid after credits.
And, for the more wealthy, if they pay lower net taxes by taking advantage of tax credits to get them to do something they would otherwise not do (i.e. the cost to them of doing so is outweighed by the tax credit) what is their real tax? Arguably the net amount paid plus the cost of doing whatever got the tax credit.
Our tax system is way too complicated to try to get any exact comparison. And largely by political design.
I think you may have some misconstructions as to how Social Security and Medicare finances operate.
Social Security is an income transfer system, not at all a pension plan. Benefits come from the inflow from current workers. Just as present retirees paid their predecessors. (The Trust Funds are a stopgap measure - no decent fiduciary would consider them pensions)
Medicare is similar to SS; the basic difference being the transferred income is specifically targeted.
Yes, you can call income transfer systems a form of welfare pure and simple - save that in the case of these systems they would be a universal form of welfare, i.e. all eventually receive payments; which makes it a form of meta-welfare.
But in any case, objectively, taking money from one group to pay another is a form of taxation. (Extremists would call it theft, but that is why they are extreme and largely impotent).
[Mind, I strongly approve of SS and Medicare, and the reasoning behind their funding. Just pointing out that since FICA is a flat tax that is capped, perforce the burden falls heaviest on the middle classes]
There is the larger, not often addressed question of the net income differential.
Mary earns $50,000 and pays all together $10,000. Leaving her with $40,000.
John earns $500,000 and pays out say $150,000. Leaving him with $350,000.
The issue being, in real life, who can "afford" to pay even more in taxes...
All this being purely immaterial - taxes and the language around them are largely determined by who has the best lobbyists and accounts.
I am fairly sure I know more about how social security works than you do honestly. This is in my professional field.
Is social security a valid " pension plan" in some manner. To some extent yes and another no. By the way, when you say that no " fiduciary " would call them pensions, I think you meant to say no " actuary" would - that would not be a fiduciary type of determination.
Whether it is a decent pension plan would revolve around whether it is appropriately funded long term or not. And you are correct that it is not. It is better than it was back in the 70s - at least there is some attempt to fund it right. But clearly the current social security tax system is not sufficient to support promised benefits in the future unless you make unreasonable assumptions.
But by that strict standard, guess what also might not be a legit pension plan - many larger especially union defined benefit plans in the private sector. Because congress has passed some actuarially ridiculous laws that effectively allow the employers to not have to fund the promised benefits in an actuarially adequate manner. One reason for this is the usefulness of it as one of the reconciliation games. They extend this " temporary " break for ten years in the future counting the lower corp deductions as revenue raised. But all it does is kick the can down the road and likely eventually taxpayers are going to have to bail out the plans.
The seperate aspect of social security is the income transfer aspect. I.e. whether an individual's social security contributions ( i.e. taxes) are what pays for their own benefits ( on average as part of the pool). And it is politically designed to allow many to pretend that is totally true i.e. I paid for my benefits by paying all those social security taxes. When for lower income, that is not close to true .
But it is partially the case because it is true that the benefits you get are a function of the average wages through your career ( with adjustments for changes in average wage and some funky distorting rules).
Are you aware of the details of how the formula works? Basically there are three levels where the benefits are calculated from average wage ( and average wage is a decent proxy of the taxes you paid with reasonable interest). Therr is a 90% level, a 32% level and a 15% level. You would not be that far off to say that the 32% level is where you are close to getting what you paid in. So, for average wages up to 90% level, maybe getting out twice what you put in. For wages in 90% level, getting maybe around 1/3 what you paid in. So the 15% level pays for the 90% level. Note everybody has some at 90% level ( it is like tax rates) and very few do not get into 32% level.
I would think one way of looking at it is that the only net social security tax someone pays is the amount above what is being used to provide their own eventual social security benefits . Then all those at less than upper middle class pay zero social security taxes , or negative taxes.
What you are doing is taking a program that both takes out a tax and gives you a benefit based on that tax ( but skewed to favor lower income) and then complain that lower income pay the tax without recognizing that they get more out in benefits than they pay in tax..
Based on that reasoning, maybe Congress could pass a new program providing a subsidy only to homes worth over 10,000,000 and paid for by a tax on anyone with income over 1,000,000. Would you then think that makes the tax system fairer?
It is arguable that DACA can survive as it utilizes a set of fees (they could always adjust these fees for inflation, BTW), meaning, it affects the budget by increasing revenues and therefore is valid for reconciliation.
You can do that with just about anything. How about if a conservative Congress just added a small tax on gun sales and then repealed every gun control measure via reconciliation. If you do that, the rules have no meaning and you are just playing games. Which is dangerous to the rule of law.
The new Senate set the rules at the beginning of the session and did not repeal the filibuster. They had the right to do it then and did not because manchin and Sinema opposed it ( and likely a good number of other Democrats who were willing to let them be the front persons).
Is it not true that the parliamentarian ruling is subject to a floor vote? Would they not need to get manchin and Sinema for that , as well as the final bill? If they said they support the filibuster and then vote for this sort of gaming, they are revealed as hypocrites.
But at least it could be given a semblance of a legal arguement. If you remember back when Schumer first used the "nuclear option " to trash the filibuster for judges, the technical actual ruling and vote was that 51 of 100 senators was 60%!
First, they'd have to explain to 2A supporters why they were adding a federal excise tax on guns, which itself might be subject to a constitutional challenge, given the unique status the conservative SCOTUS has given to guns.
But a dubious Court would likely find a "small tax" to be nothing more than the pretense that you cynically suggested it would be, and therefore, contrary to the intent of the law, specifically 2 USC §644.
Second, they could only affect federal gun control laws, of which, there are very few restrictions. Most restrictions are at the state and local level. I also have a hard time believing Republicans believe en masse that eliminating the background check is a good idea.
It would be funny to see Democrats going to court trying to say a small tax on gun sales violates the 2nd amendment and Republicans defending the tax as not a violation. But I do not think that could win as i believe there has been enough court precedent allowing some reasonable restrictions and/or taxes. If a small tax on gun sales violates the 2nd amendment, then the gun control laws already would have anyway. I think it needs to be significant enough to actually seriously impede the right to bear arms.
Or the Republicans could go with an Obamacare idea and have some sort of mandate enforced through a penalty through the irs, which the supreme court declared was a tax for Obamacare ( most likely less due to legal reasons but as an excuse not to get in a mucky political issue). Given the Roberts precedent there, the court would have to agree.
I never really quite understood that Obamacare decision. Did think that the reasoning that it was a tax was contrived but why did the court have jurisdiction in the first place on an issue regarding senate rules?
And if democrats are going to go this silly route, I would rather they just honestly break precedent and get rid of the filibuster ( which then also breaks precedent for not changing rules at mid Congress).
The idea of just making up nonsensical ways around rules undermines respect for the idea of abiding by rules themselves.
And I feel the same way about all the scoring gimmicks that both sides use to contend that their laws still leave a balanced budget, when they never do. If everyone is just going to finagle around the rule, just be honest and get rid of the rule.
You just like being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. We'd have more fun discussing all this over beer or coffee, but not online. Sorry, I will not entertain.
Your being argumentative. Daca is dead. Deal with it.
Senate rules ≠ law
To the extent that the inane and substantially racist rules under which this already anti-democratic institution governs itself exacerbate its pernicious, anti-majoritarian influence on our polity, anything that weakens Senate rules is an objective win for democracy.
More climate stuff.
Wait, I though the bipartisan bill was $550 billion, not $1.2 trillion, with only $200 to $300 billion in actual new spending?
Are they rolling in the yearly regular spending into this package to make it sound bigger? Note, rolling in yearly spending into a big package not a bad idea if it secures the yearly funding for the 10 (or so) years so people can plan budgets.
It is 500 billion with 600 billion in extensions. Your a nube.
There should be no child tax credit for a third or further child born twelve or more months past the time the bill is passed. We should be doing things to drift our population back down, not increase it or hold it steady.
Child tax credits have never been shown to increase the population. They do increase the spending power of those who already have kids. Birth rates tend to decline the wealthier people are.
The decline in birth rates as income increases is not a linear function or close to it at least for whites.
Number of children is high at poverty or welfare level ( maybe when you get more welfare for more children so having them does not increase financial burden). Then it does decline with income through middle class. But that reverses when you get to well above median and wealthy have more children. So more of a U curve.
The current rate of US population growth is the lowest in its history. The price to be paid in terms of economic weakness and atrophying geopolitical power will grow in the coming years if something isn't done. America needs both more babies and more immigration. The nice thing is, the real problem you allude to is the planet's carrying capacity, and, given long term trends, what the US (already less than 4.5% of world population) does or doesn't do with respect to population growth will barely amount to a rounding error in the coming decades. Indeed, increasing immigration to the US will likely (again, at the margins, what we do just doesn't have that much impact either way on world population growth) decrease the planet's human population over the long term, in that women/girls (and especially their daughters) who move to the US in most cases will have fewer children than would be the case had they not emigrated. America, in short, can grow its population with a clean conscience.
To put it another way, a pick-up in US population growth, if we can achieve it, simply means the shrinkage in the country's share of global population in 2080 will be a bit more modest than would otherwise be the case.
Permanent as in for those it initially covered or as in expanding the pool?
These provisions are extremely welcome and needed. Won't hold my breath, but I do hope this bill passes, with the bulk of its content intact.
If I had to take a wild guess, the DACA provision was thrown in there to provide Manchinema with a "victory" for centrism, and the Medicare drug negotiation provision will be killed.
Not sure about the 2nd, but I think your first wild guess is a good one.