Manchin’s a dickhead. But he keeps Moscow Mitch from controlling the Senate. If he switches parties, ZERO Biden judges would have been appointed from here on out.
Yeah yeah people piss and moan about inflation. But precisely what did Biden do to spur inflation? Oh yeah, that fucking pipeline to make it easier for Canada to sell their filthy shale oil abroad. The one that economists have said would have little or no impact on oil prices. Coronavirus #2. OK, I agree with that. But blaming the guy who is taking it seriously and mobilizing resources while the former guy lied his ass off about it and suggested injecting bleach gets a pass. Yeppers, Republican Logic 101.
8% are concerned about immigration. While we have people that don’t want to work and the supply line is broken and people who want to work are sent back to death in their homelands.
Since we’re wildly inteperting really broad answers to polling questions about politics, I’d say that “government/poor leadership” and “coronavirus” basically just mean “I’m sick of this crap, I don’t want to have to worry about a mask or getting tested, the talking heads behind podiums on my tv screen tell me something different every day.”
Talking to people who are moderately invested in politics, people aren’t even talking about any of what’s been going on in congress. Inflation is something people worry about but I don’t think most voters even know there is a big spending bill being debated in congress, or even how the proposals changed in September to November.
Maybe it’s to the Dems detriment that they don’t have some big legislation that’s getting people to pay attention like Obamacare did, I don’t know. I think they’ve just become connected both to things they do and don’t control with all of the stuff people have to worry about with the pandemic that they’re absolutely sick of worrying about and that is taking the forefront over stuff like preK and paid leave. I think if people actually started to get paid leave and preK programs that were effective (and admittedly those programs were already so stripped and so short-term that it looked like they may not have been very effective) I think people would actually start to care.
Joe is unlikely to win again in West Virgina no matter what he does. When he won in 2018, WV had not quite gone full Trump-insanity and Joe squeaked through. In 2020, West Virginians voted almost purely on party, hatred for Dems had taken over. In 2024, WV will vote for whoever Trump tells them to. That’s unlikely to be Joe Manchin. Though this is Trump so…
Wasn’t fear of Manchin tanking BBB the main reason Progressives wanted to pair it with the infrastructure bill? They saw this coming & they were right.
If you (general “you”) want to stand around and hand-wringing about immigration fine. That does not mean the country should not invest in its infrastructure which, we know, is decaying and which, we know, is important to the overall health of the US economy (read: all of us).
If you want to argue about corruption stealing money well…that is a whole other can of worms. Corruption is certainly there, money will be lost to it, but does that mean nothing can be done until corruption is defeated?
Mostly this is typical republican obstructionism meant to stop anything that might benefit democrats regardless of any other consideration.
Implementing major plans is perceived (usually correctly IMHO) as good government and good leadership. Taking major decisive action as a country is unifying. And BBB is likely to reduce unemployment and stimulate the economy.
There is far more evidence for these propositions than your decades out-of-date, well discredited economic and social views. You are obsessed with debt and inflation, and “every man for himself” individualism and see everything through that lens.
Racking up debt when debt is already a major problem, creating competition for goods and labor that are already in short supply, and creating new entitlements with borrowed money when the current ones are dramatically underfunded is the opposite of good governance.
There’s been a lot of ‘decisive action’ lately. I’m not seeing a lot of unification. Decisive action that half the country strongly opposes is the opposite of unifying.
There aren’t enough workers for the jobs already available. Wage inflation is the result, and it feeds into overall price inflation. ‘Stimulus’ makes no sense in this environment. The sainted Keynes is rolling in his grave at the talk of Keynesian stimulus while there is a shortage of workers, a glut of capital, supply chain issues and monetary inflation, with debt at 100% of GDP.
Every job ‘created’ by government in that situation must be poached from the private sector through bidding. This damages the private sector by raising labor costs and creating critical staffing holes. and makes government programs more expensive.
It’s the exact opposite of ‘stimulus’. Remember the last time the Democrats argued for ‘stimulus’? The argument was that the cost of money was low so it was cheap, there was slack demand for labor and products, and ‘stimulus’ was needed to fill in the gaps and prevent companies from going out of business. That was the logic.
Fast forward to today, and every single one of those conditions have reversed. Instead of slack demand for goods there is too much demand for capacity, driving demand-pull inflation. Instead of a slack labor market there’s an overheating labor market with shortages of workers for the jobs we already need done. Instead of low inflation with a risk of deflation that stimulus was supposed to prevent, we have rising inflation. Instead of cheap money, we have rising interest rates.
And yet, Democrats still think ‘stimulus’ is the answer. This is incoherent even by Democrats’ own logic. It’s an anti-Keynesian move from the party of Keynes.
My key point though is that you perceive BBB not to address common worries, because you don’t think the particular steps being taken will alleviate those worries.
You are confusing what you think should be done (or not done) about a problem, with whether someone is addressing a problem. This is the sort of thing that happens when one is a dogmatist.
I tend to think of a dogmatist as someone who proposes the same solution for two situations that are completely opposite to each other. In other words, it’s always a good time to increase the size of government, even if you have to print money to do it.
As a Canadian I try and stay detached from American tempests.
Manchin seems to have negotiated in bad faith and to have timed this to appear life on Fox News. The effects on things like climate are significant and probably a main reason. It is on Biden to find alternative solutions and I hope he can do so. I can’t see this helping Manchin in the future much. Often needs to trade a few more horses and get her done somehow, easier to say than do.
Two people now have quoted me as saying “The smart Democrats …”, so I want to make clear that those were not my words and I was just quoting Time Magazine.
The level of cognitive dissonance displayed by Sam Stone can only originate from truly outstanding stupidity, cynical lying, or both. No one with two functioning brain cells could actually believe the shit he spews.
It’s the right-wing technique of throwing out an innocuous fact infused with fake outrage in an attempt to whip up a scandal.
Joe Biden has a home office in his basement!
Joe Biden has a wife with a doctorate in education!
Joe Biden said hello to one of his children’s friends!