Time for progressives to make like an electric truck and #TankIt, I suppose.
If a counterparty in a negotiation refuses to even begin negotiating, there’s little choice left but to move along to the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. That’s not the BIF — which falls short of addressing the climate challenge and other needs. It’s nothing.
If Manchin’s best alternative to a negotiated agreement proves to be nothing as well, we may be stuck. At least we’ll have clarity about that situation, though.
This statement from Manchin illustrates the point. What separates the infrastructure investments in the BIF from the investments in human infrastructure — child care, pre-K, Medicaid expansion — that _directly_ relieve costs that burden the working class?
To drill down: why is it “vengefully tax[ing],” by Manchin’s lights, to revise the tax code so the wealthy no longer pay lower percentages than workers — but not vengeful to impose a work requirement on a *child tax credit* designed to aid the next generation?
The Manchin statement has no substance to engage with; it’s all affect, all show. If that’s all he can offer while expecting House Dems to pass the BIF tomorrow, progressives have no choice but to #TankIt.
To take up another Manchin line, that other Dems “ignore the reality that … families continue pay [sic] an unavoidable inflation tax”: Biden proposes to *remedy* inflation for core costs—child & health care, housing, education. Manchin mistakes the cure for the disease.
Meyer is right: the 49th and 50th votes seem at odds with _each other_, never mind the Dem caucus.
Another example: Manchin named prescription drug price negotiation as a policy, along with the child tax credit, he’s open to including. But Sinema seems categorically opposed:
(Source for the above tweet: see link below.)
If Manchin wants to raise some income taxes and negotiate prescription drug prices while Sinema says ix-nay to both, it’s difficult to see how a consensus might eventually develop _between them_. politico.com/news/2021/09/1…
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