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Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
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21 Dec, 9 tweets, 3 min read
Democrats should not take a victory lap on this bill. It provides less than a third of the aid economists say is necessary and McConnell is getting all the credit- after blocking aid for months. Instead we should explain why this bill is inadequate and how Dems will deliver more.
Dems got out-maneuvered. Failing to secure state/local aid means the bill comes in ~$300B below what was achievable, with harsh consequences. Politically, McConnell is getting all the credit. Embracing the bill undercuts Warnock and Ossoff by validating McConnell’s victory lap.
Vote yes, say it’s crap. This bill may be better than nothing, but it’s a slap in the face to working Americans who are getting hosed while corporations rake in record profits. Hang its inadequacy around Trump and McConnell and hammer home that Dems want to deliver more.
Trump wanted bigger checks for a reason: bigger checks are better politics. Small checks are bad politics. Republicans like this bill and are on record for smaller checks and less aid to working Americans. Dems should get on the other side: we are for bigger checks and more aid.
The worst of all worlds would be to embrace this crappy bill to sooth the egos of the leaders. This bill sucks. Vote for it if you have to, but be clear that it’s barely better than nothing. Working people are getting absolutely hosed while corporations are making a killing.
I say this as someone who has seen Dem leaders disown bad deals that they were forced to vote for because even though they were far worse than what Dems could have secured, they were better than nothing. It *is* possible to vote yes while still making clear that the bill is crap.
Yes! Don’t succumb to deal disease. You get a few days of good coverage for striking the deal, especially up against the holidays. But you have to live with the consequences of the deal forever. When the other party is in the WH, voting yes but saying it’s crap is a real option.
The 12/2 decision by Pelosi/Schumer to abandon the $1.8B Pelosi/Mnuchin baseline and reset it at 900B, trading away nearly 1T in aid for nothing, is hard to explain. An achievable endgame was ~1.2T with state aid. But Dems wanted to get Beltway credit for seeming reasonable.
Dems didn’t trade liability for state aid, they gave away $1T for free by abandoning the 1.8T Pelosi/Mnuchin baseline to embrace the bipartisan 900B - *then* traded state aid for liability. They weren’t going to get the full 1.8T but halving the baseline for free was malpractice.

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Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
18 Dec
So... agree or disagree, I say what I think on here. 🤷‍♂️ I took flack from the left for defending CARES. The current deal might end up as better than nothing and worth passing. But Dems left billions in aid on the table that would’ve helped many facing dire straits. For example.. Image
Let’s take the 12/2 decision by Dem leaders to endorse the 900B bipartisan frame. These kinds of negotiations are all about that baseline- you fight like hell to give an inch. Pelosi/Mnuchin had a $1.8B baseline. Securing no concessions, Dem leaders *halved* the baseline to 900B. Image
Some argue that Dem leaders refusing to cut a deal before the election helped Biden. Sure. Others note McConnell rejected the 1.8T deal. Yes! But: why cut the baseline in *half*, giving away ~$1T in aid, for no concessions? There’s miles of landing room between 1.8T and 900B.
Read 10 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
18 Dec
With Mnuchin endorsing a $1.8T proposal in Oct that included $1,200 checks, $400 UI & $300B in state/local, and with Trump still actively trying to increase direct checks, there is simply no way to argue that Dem leaders secured the best deal possible. McConnell ate their lunch.
Of course McConnell won’t bring the bill straight up, that’s not how it works. The leverage is the WH endorsing (enthusiastically!) policies Dems favor. Under Obama, McConnell used Obama’s endorsement of spending cuts to much greater effect than Dems with roles/policies reversed.
There’s a weird “McConnell is evil BUT we must also believe whatever he says” learned helplessness. Leaders declare specific bills DOA, then the negotiators run at each other with the pieces. Dems might not have been able to get $1.8 but they definitely could have gotten > 900B.
Read 9 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
16 Dec
Very much team @jomalleydillon
This will one day be cited by Republicans as a reason they refused to cooperate with Biden - which will be a bullshit manufactured excuse to cover for the fact that they never intended to in the first place, and only prove that Jen was right.
And there it is. This is bullshit and should be covered as such. It’s an insult to our intelligence to believe that Republicans were gearing up to work with Biden but their delicate sensibilities were offended so they balked. After the last four years let’s not play this game.
Read 4 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
16 Dec
McConnell is upbeat because he is getting what he wants: the least amount of aid injected into the economy while still passing a bill before the GA runoffs. Dems are upbeat because they love doing "deals," even when that deal is giving McConnell everything he wants.
The package Dems are gearing up to accept closely resembles the skinny framework McConnell released months ago. Dems came down by several trillion dollars while McConnell inched up. Unclear what the bipartisan negotiations achieved since this is basically just McConnell’a bill.
What more could Dems do? Dems did basically none of the things you'd normally want to do to pressure the other side. Instead of anything resembling a pressure campaign on popular policies like the checks,they spent months signaling their willingness to climb down off key demands.
Read 8 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
9 Nov
Ever since McConnell's hand-picked candidate, Trey Grayson, lost to Rand Paul in the 2010 GOP primary he has almost always done whatever the base wants. E.g., blocking Garland was a move to cover his right flank after seeing Boehner ousted by the Tea Party. It just paid off big.
When McConnell entered the Senate in the 1980s he carved a niche by doing what other Republicans would not, and blocking popular campaign finance reform bills. After leading one such filibuster, his colleagues “were finally beginning to know who I was,” he enthused in his memoir.
McConnell’s efforts to block campaign finance reform bill spanned the 1980s and 1990s and earned him the nickname Darth Vader. They also helped him climb the ranks of GOP leadership and rise to NRSC chair. Along the way he embraced the Darth Vader tag. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Read 7 tweets
Adam Jentleson 🎈 Profile picture
13 Oct
With respect to Bruce, the thing about Madison is that you have to follow his entire thought. A few lines up, he calls majority rule "the fundamental principle of republican Government." He would lay out both sides, then come down firmly for majority rule. loc.gov/resource/mjm.0…
At the Constitutional Convention, Madison argued for majority rule in the Senate and against giving states the same number of senators. Remember this next time someone throws Madison at you: he wanted the Senate to be majority rule *and* proportional by population like the House.
That quote ^^ is Madison at the Constitutional Convention arguing against the Great Compromise: a bicameral Congress with representation in the House proportional by population but equal in the Senate. Madison decried equal representation for states in the Senate as "injustice."
Read 6 tweets

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