Thread by @Noahpinion

1/OK, time for a thread about why the negotiations over the Build Back Better bill (Biden's reconciliation bill) are leaving me underwhelmed.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-the-buil…

2/I basically see Bidenomics as resting on three pillars:

1. Investment (both govt. and private sector)

2. Cash benefits

3. Middle-class jobs in the care industries (health, child care, education)

noahpinion.substack.com/p/bidenomics-e…

3/And in fact, the provisions of the Build Back Better bill mostly fall into these three categories (some of them into multiple categories).

4/But I feel like it's inevitable that both the "investment" and the "cash benefits" pieces of the Bidenomics agenda are going to get short shrift in the final version of the BBB bill.

5/Infrastructure already got moved to the bipartisan bill -- which is too small, and which progressives have tabled anyway.

Research spending got moved to the Endless Frontier Act, which got largely gutted.

As for climate investment...can it survive Manchin??

6/As for cash benefits, the big policy there is Biden's child tax allowance.

But although people have liked receiving it, they're not enthusiastic about making it permanent.

thehill.com/policy/finance…

7/Americans seem mired in a "scarcity mindset" -- terrified that the person next to them is getting a few dollars they don't deserve. This makes them unwilling to embrace the kind of simple, universal programs we need.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/americas-sca…

8/If you look at which issues Americans care about, health care is at the top, with climate, infrastructure, and education all taking a back seat.

Americans are just not in the mood to reimagine our national system right now, it seems.

9/And Biden is not doing a sufficient job of persuading Americans to be bold. He's not connecting like FDR.

The "old guy manages a team of young progressives from an Olympian remove" style of management is showing its limitations.

10/Meanwhile, much of the discourse around the bill on both the left and the right focuses on the SIZE of it -- $3.5 trillion vs. $1.5 trillion etc. -- instead of what's actually IN the damn thing.

11/And like little piranhas, lobbyists are darting in to bite off important chunks of the bill -- stuff few people notice because it doesn't change the headline number that everyone is arguing about.

12/And Manchin seems like he has a good chance of succeeding in gutting the climate provisions and cash benefits -- what I consider the most transformative and important parts of the bill -- in the final deal.

13/That will leave us with a bill that throws a bunch of money (but less than people think, since these "trillions" are 10-year totals) at the already overpriced industries of health care and child care.

14/Paying for more of people's health care and child care and education is fine and good, but it's going to make those industries somewhat more overpriced and overstaffed. That's the price we pay for mass middle-class care job provision.

15/So this is why I'm underwhelmed and a bit pessimistic about this bill. It's called the Build Back Better bill, but if climate and cash benefits are gutted, what will it actually be BUILDING?

(end)

noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-the-buil…