Infrastructure -- "Time To Move On"

 

As anyone with a pulse in the last 12 years could have predicted, Republican bad faith disguised as "negotiating" has taken the American Jobs Plan (the "infrastructure bill") down a dead end.  It's clear they're not interested in getting this key part of the Biden agenda enacted and, of course, never were.  But this time (unlike the drawn out "negotiations" in 2009 over the Affordable Care Act that only served to give Republicans time to whip up frenzies about "death panels" and "socialized medicine"), Democrats aren't going to be held hostage forever:

Senate Republicans negotiating with the White House sounded dour notes on Monday evening and are mulling whether to even make a counteroffer to President Joe Biden’s proposal last week. Democrats are increasingly calling for Biden to consider going it alone rather than see the GOP water down his agenda.

An unofficial deadline for a bipartisan accord on infrastructure hits a week from now and negotiators are some $1.5 trillion apart, with severe differences in both size and scope, after more than a month of talks. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Republicans won’t come up “anywhere near the number the White House has proposed,” and Democrats are even more skeptical that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will green-light a deal they find palatable.

“We’re too far apart. Because I think Mitch’s ultimate purpose is not compromise but delay and mischief,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who sounded less urgent notes in an interview last week. Biden is “entitled to his judgment on this but if I were in a room with him, I’d say it’s time to move on.”

It is time to move on.  There's been plenty of the necessary performative "bipartisanship" for the media and for those Senate Democrats needing to show they went more than half way to accommodate a party that doesn't wish to be accommodated.

The party of the recurrent, failure- to- launch "infrastructure week" believes the purpose of government is to redistribute wealth, not broadly through good paying jobs and tax reform, but through "trickle down" tax giveaways to corporations and the wealthy.  Even when they had control of the House, Senate and White House, they couldn't find a way to overcome their aversion to spending money on public works, after passing a $1.9 trillion tax cut that only exacerbated our fiscal posture while not doing anything for economic growth.  Of course, they're even less likely now to lift a finger to help out when Democrats are in charge, especially if it involves rolling back their disastrous 2017 tax cut.

We should expect Republicans to head for the microphones and the Republican- wired media, as some are already laying the bad faith groundwork for blaming President Biden for not capitulating to their demands:

Republicans similarly had made clear to Biden that they couldn’t support tax increases to pay for the infrastructure package, [West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore] Capito added, only to have the White House reaffirm its plan to raise rates on corporations when it submitted its latest counteroffer. Days later, the senator said the move left her and her colleagues wondering, “Are you not hearing us?” [Ed.: they hear you, they just think you're full of shit.]

Asked about the GOP’s characterization of Biden’s position, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said the president would not “negotiate through the press.”

“But after making a good faith, compromise offer that moved over 10 times as much toward his Republican colleagues’ position as they did toward his, the president’s view is that the onus is on them to make a counter offer,” he added in a statement.  (our emphasis)

There won't be a counteroffer, at least not one that exists in the real world.  They're not geared to be a partner in government, only as a vehicle for generating lies and grievance.  No bridges there.

 

Monday Reading

 

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

James Downie offers more evidence that Senate Republicans are dealing in bad faith on a January 6 commission, and that Sens. Manchin and Sinema should smell the coffee.  Here's a lengthy excerpt:

On “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) was full of flimsy excuses. “Commissions often don’t work at all,” he said. “And when they do work, like the Simpson-Bowles Commission produced a good result, nothing happened as a — as part of that result.” By that standard, we might as well not have laws, because some don’t work. He also argued that “it’s too early to create a commission” because the widely lauded 9/11 Commission didn’t begin its work until late 2002. That’s true, but why couldn’t this new commission start its work earlier?  [snip]

[Maine Sen. Susan] Collins’s answer on ABC’s “This Week” got off to an encouraging start for Manchin and company. “I strongly support the creation of an independent commission,” she said. But then came the conditions: “One has to do with staffing, and I think that both sides should either jointly appoint the staff or there should be equal numbers of staff appointed by the chairman and the vice chairman,” she told host George Stephanopoulos. “The second issue is, I see no reason why the report cannot be completed by the end of this year.” Both of Collins’s conditions have also been suggested by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) — another senator who would be on any 10-vote list Manchin might draw up.

The staffing objection is silly: As Philip D. Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission’s executive director, told The Post, the staffing language in the bill is essentially identical to the language establishing the Jan. 6 commission. The only difference is that President George W. Bush selected the 9/11 Commission’s chair, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would select the Jan. 6 commission’s chair. Yet Collins, who was a senator when the 9/11 Commission was established, did not have a problem with that commission. What could possibly have changed?

More damning was Collins’s insistence, echoing McConnell, that the commission needs to keep its work out of an election year. At least Blunt’s main objection has historical precedent, and leaves open the possibility of a commission down the line if congressional and Justice Department investigations don’t succeed.  [snip]

Inquiries maintain influence and credibility in the public’s eyes only when they produce damning, incontrovertible findings — think Watergate. Senate Republicans know this, so the only explanation for their opposition to the commission is: 1) They know a full accounting of that terrible day will shame the GOP; and 2) They’d rather once again put their party over the country.

Sens. Manchin and Sinema, this isn’t McConnell telling you there aren’t 10 reasonable Republicans. This is Collins (and Romney) all but screaming it. Ideally, the two Democrats would accept where this road is obviously heading and back filibuster reform now, before the unnecessary theater of trying to sway the unswayable. But at the very least, they should get ready to support changes as soon as the negotiations break down — which they will.

These aren't people committed to a functioning democracy.  They're careerists who place a far higher value on their turkey necks than on the fate of the country.  We can only hope that the public reluctance of some Democrats to come to grips with this reality is only performative, and that they understand the danger and will act with fellow Democrats to do what's right and protect our democracy.

Speaking of negotiations that will likely break down, this re- bid on infrastructure might also be performative on the Administration's part, but it's making some of us nervous:

As the Biden administration’s infrastructure negotiations with Senate Republicans picked up with a $1.7 trillion counteroffer on Friday, some congressional Democrats are getting antsy.

“We move as quickly as we can on going big, we move as quickly as we can on negotiations,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told Vox on Wednesday. “At some point, if they won’t go where we believe the country needs to go and where the country seems to want to go, then we take off.”

President Biden issued his opening bid last month — the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan — and the GOP responded with a $568 billion infrastructure counteroffer a few weeks ago. (Separately, the White House also introduced a $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, focusing on child care and education.)

The new $1.7 trillion White House counteroffer settles for the $65 billion Republicans floated for broadband funding, and pares back the amount of funding for roads and bridges from Biden’s initial proposal of $159 billion to $120 billion in new investment. It also cuts research and development from a proposed package, vowing to put it in other congressional bills going forward. But the president’s counter keeps funding for clean energy, removing lead pipes from America’s drinking water systems, and boosting long-term care workers.

The Administration's infrastructure plan polls in the stratosphere.  We're with Sen. Brown (as usual):  we give them a shot, and when they come back in bad faith, we take off.

Looks like Belarus President Alexander "Mini Putin" Lukashenko's forcing a commercial airliner to land in order to arrest a critic is going to have consequences:

European leaders on Monday were considering a plan to sever Belarus from the rest of the continent's airspace, a day after Belarusian authorities forced a commercial airliner to land and arrested a dissident journalist who had been flying from Athens to Lithuania.

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that AirBaltic, a major airline in the region, would no longer fly through Belarusian airspace after a Ryanair flight was forced to land Sunday by a Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet. The plane was nearing Vilnius, Lithuania, on Sunday before Belarusian authorities turned it around, made it land in their capital, Minsk, and arrested journalist Roman Protasevich, the founder of an opposition media outlet. He faces at least 12 years in prison.

Rinkevics said he would push for a European ban on flights from Belavia, the Belarusian national airline, as well as a tough package of sanctions against Belarusian authorities. European Union leaders plan to meet Monday evening at a previously scheduled summit in Brussels, where the reaction to Belarus will now be the top priority. A ban on Belavia would be a blow to Belarus’s already shaky economy.

The EU needs to step up and show Mini Putin he crossed a big red line.

On the coronavirus front, this is the kind of babbling, venomous talk that gets people killed:

Pastor Greg Locke urged his followers not to get vaccinated, claiming that "political elites" pretend to get vaccinated by getting injected with "sugar water" instead.

Locke, head of the Baptist Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee, previously predicted on multiple occasions that former President Donald Trump would remain in office—even after it was clear that President Joe Biden had won the election. Earlier this month, Locke claimed that Biden is a "fake president" and that he "stole" the election. During a Sunday sermon this week, the pastor took aim at COVID-19 vaccines.

"I have not changed my stance. I haven't softened my stance. I have strengthened, strictly my stance against the [COVID-19] vaccine," Locke asserted. Right Wing Watch first reported the pastor's remarks.

"I don't care what Pfizer—I don't care what any of the four groups do out there. Look, if you think... for one minute that those political elites actually got that vaccination, you are smoking meth in your mama's basement," the pastor argued, drawing loud applause from those attending the religious service. "Bunch of fake liars is what they are. They didn't shoot nothing in their arm but a bunch of sugar water," Locke insisted.

We're admittedly torn here, given the people involved:  reason won't work, so do we let Darwin do his thing?

We close by again strongly recommending a visit to Infidel 753's link round-up to interesting posts from around the Internet.  Make his blog a regular stop on your web surfing adventures.

Poll: Biden's Agenda Overwhelmingly Popular

As Republican politicians rig voting laws to deny growing minorities their voting rights and to cling to power they see slipping away (see post below), the public backs President Biden's agenda by healthy margins. According to the latest Monmouth University poll:

"Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal is broadly popular, registering 68% support and just 29% opposition. Support for this spending plan – covering a gamut of projects from roads and trains to clean energy and internet access – comes from 94% of Democrats and 69% of independents, but just 32% of Republicans. [snip]

Biden is also set to unveil a large spending plan to expand access to healthcare and childcare as well as provide paid leave and college tuition support. Nearly 2 in 3 Americans (64%) support this idea while 34% are opposed. The poll also finds nearly 2 in 3 Americans support raising taxes on corporations (64%) and individuals earning more than $400,000 (65%) to pay for these plans."  (our emphasis)

You can expect President Biden to cover these two initiatives and more when he addresses the nation tomorrow before Congress. You can also expect the Republicans (and perhaps a ConservaDem or two) to oppose initiatives that would give Biden a "win" with the public, much like they did with President Obama. Patrick Murray, director of the University's polling operation, observes the contrast with the glaring incompetence of the "former guy":

"'It seemed like every week was Infrastructure Week during the Trump administration, but Biden is already getting more credit than his predecessor for tackling this problem,' said Murray."

Delivering on this agenda, no matter the cynical Republican opposition, is critical to improving Americans' lives and those of future generations. The public senses that, and the wind is at the President's back.

CEO Compensation Exploded While Americans Struggled

 

Exhibit A as to why top executives and their companies should be paying for the Biden jobs/ infrastructure plan with their taxes:

The coronavirus plunged the world into an economic crisis, sent the U.S. unemployment rate skyrocketing and left millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet. Yet at many of the companies hit hardest by the pandemic, the executives in charge were showered with riches.

The divergent fortunes of C.E.O.s and everyday workers illustrate the sharp divides in a nation on the precipice of an economic boom but still racked by steep income inequality. The stock markets are up and the wealthy are spending freely, but millions are still facing significant hardship. Executives are minting fortunes while laid-off workers line up at food banks.

“Many of these C.E.O.s have improved profitability by laying off workers,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has proposed new taxes on the ultrawealthy. “A tiny handful of people who have shimmied all the way to the top of the greasy pole get all of the rewards, while everyone else gets left behind.”

Robert Reich elaborates:

“To my mind, they’re the logical consequence of our total embrace of shareholder capitalism, starting with the corporate raiders of the 1980s, to the exclusion and sacrifice of all else, including American workers,” said Robert Reich, a labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. “The pay packages reflect soaring share prices, which in turn reflect, at least in part, the willingness if not eagerness of corporations to cut payrolls at the slightest provocation.”

Now, make sure you're sitting down for this:

AT&T, the media conglomerate, lost $5.4 billion and cut thousands of jobs throughout the year. John Stankey, the chief executive, received $21 million for his work in 2020, down from $22.5 million in 2019.

T-Mobile said it would create new jobs through its merger with Sprint, but has already begun layoffs. It made $3.1 billion in 2020. In addition to [former CEO] Mr. [John] Legere’s windfall, the company awarded its current chief executive, Mike Sievert, $54.9 million.

The article goes on with many, many more examples of personal and corporate greed and bad corporate citizenship.

In the meantime, the Biden American Jobs Plan is asking that people making over $400,000 a year and corporations pay their fair share in taxes to "build back better," something that will pay enormous dividends for decades to come to America and to many of their companies (think of the windfall from broadband expansion, for example, for AT&T and T-Mobile).  When there are 91 Fortune 500 companies paying zero federal taxes on U.S. income, and when they're cutting payrolls rather than executive salaries, there's no moral or economic justification for this continuing inequality, especially when there's a demonstrable need for their tax dollars to be applied to the re- building of America.  Closing loopholes and returning the tax rates to where they were before Trump's tax- cuts- for- the- rich is one way to begin to address questions of equity while simultaneously benefiting the common good.

Poll Shows Strong Support For Biden Infrastructure Plan

 

Surprised not surprised:  once people know what's in President Biden's American Jobs Plan, the support for it grows. From Navigator Research (click to enlarge):

 

To counter continual bad faith Republican lies, Democrats and allied groups need to engage in a mass, multi- million dollar advertising and education effort right now to inform voters in every State and Congressional district what's in the plan, who pays for it, and what's at stake.  (The fitful, few ads we've seen on MSNBC don't cut through the clutter.)  And KISS.  Most importantly, remind West Virginians and Arizonans what they stand to gain from the plan, to make sure certain Senators of theirs don't obstruct its passage! 

Ahead Of WH Meeting, Republicans Lie About Infrastructure Plan

 

 

Ahead of a meeting today at the White House with House and Senate Republicans to discuss the Biden Administration's infrastructure plan, a show of continuing, malicious Republican bad faith:

Senate Republicans have reportedly sent around a memo calling President Biden’s ambitious infrastructure package a “slush fund,” ahead of a bipartisan meeting with the president at the White House on Monday.

Politico reports that the memo sent by the Senate Republican Conference to all GOP communications staffs blasts the White House for referring to the infrastructure proposal as a “jobs plan” and instead called it a “partisan plan to kill jobs and create slush funds on the taxpayer dime.”

“Biden’s Partisan, Job-Crushing Slush Fund spends just 5% of the total $2.7 trillion on roads and bridges,” the lawmakers said in their memo, according to Politico.

“The rest is: a wish list of non-infrastructure spending on failed Obama policies; a dog’s breakfast of slush funds for Democrats’ pet projects without any accountability or transparency; expensive green energy mandates on Americans; a ban on the right to work; and a flurry of tax hikes that will to drive companies out of the U.S. and give China and Russia a say in the United States’ tax laws. As a result, the plan will eliminate at least 1 million jobs," they added.

(Spoiler alert) Bullshit!  Not (shockingly!) the wished- for Golden Muffin of bipartisanship! sought after by certain posturing Dems and cynical Republicans.

The phony narrative that only roads and bridges are "infrastructure," plus the absurd notion that a $2 trillion plan is a job- killer, plus addressing climate change for the first time in 4 years is an "expensive green energy mandate," plus the notion that raising the top corporate tax rate to less than where it was before the incompetent former guy came in and tanked the economy -- it's all just more of the same lying, gaslighting Republican talking points, endlessly recycled.  If it weren't for bad faith, Republicans would have no faith at all.

On the last point, for some perspective, here's what happened when President Clinton pegged the top corporate rate to 35%  -- not the 28% Biden's proposing (our emphasis):

On Aug. 10, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which created four new corporate tax brackets with increased rates for businesses with incomes over $335,000. [28] Vice President Al Gore, in a statement hailing the bill’s passage, said “[This bill] means jobs, growth, tax fairness… It’s a message of hope to the small business owner and 96% of all small businesses who will get a tax cut under this plan.” [39] The bill was attacked by United States Chamber of Commerce President Richard Lesher, who said that the corporate tax increases would “slow economic growth and fuel inflation…” and that “foreign competitors would gain an economic advantage over American goods here and abroad.” [40] A group of 300 major corporations and trade associations known as the Tax Reform Action Coalition said it “strongly opposed Mr. Clinton’s move to increase the top rates for… corporate taxes.” [40] From the passage of the bill until the end of Clinton’s term, the US economy gained more than 21.4 million jobs, the unemployment rate fell from 6.8% to 3.9%, industrial production rose by 5.6% per year, and the Dow Jones Industrial average rose 26.7% per year.

So, raising the top corporate tax rate to a much higher level in 1993 led to... eight years of job growth, rising industrial production and a booming Dow Jones.  Sounds awful!

(Image: Jeff Stahler, gocomics.com)

 

What's In Biden's Infrastructure Plan, Summarized

 

The folks at the Washington Post summarize spending in the American Jobs Plan, President Biden's infrastructure initiative. 

(click on image to enlarge)

 

"A Once In A Lifetime Investment In America"

 

 

ICYMI, from President Biden's speech yesterday in Pittsburgh, announcing the American Jobs Plan:

"...[T]oday, I’m proposing a plan for the nation that rewards work, not just rewards wealth.  It builds a fair economy that gives everybody a chance to succeed, and it’s going to create the strongest, most resilient, innovative economy in the world. It’s not a plan that tinkers around the edges.  It’s a once-in-a generation investment in America, unlike anything we’ve seen or done since we built the Interstate Highway System and the Space Race decades ago.
 
"In fact, it’s the largest American jobs investment since World War Two.  It will create millions of jobs, good-paying jobs.  It will grow the economy, make us more competitive around the world, promote our national security interests, and put us in a position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years. 
 
"Is it big?  Yes.  Is it bold?  Yes.  And we can get it done."

We have an opportunity to make up for decades of neglect and nickel- and- diming our infrastructure problems.  Plus, we need to show progressive government can do big things once again, and this is the vehicle for how we'll do it.  The plan isn't perfect, but it's transformational reach and promise are something to be proud of.

Biden Infrastructure Plan Unveiled Today

 

It's a big f*cking deal:

President Biden on Wednesday will unveil a sprawling, ambitious infrastructure proposal that, if enacted, would overhaul how Americans get from point A to point B, how their electricity is generated, the speed of their Internet connections, the quality of their water and the physical makeup of the schools their children are educated in.

The measure, called the American Jobs Plan, includes big infrastructure fixes that both major parties — as well as a majority of Americans — consistently say they want to see, including upgrades to bridges, broadband and buildings.

The $2 trillion proposal includes:

• $115 billion to repair and rebuild bridges, highways and roads;
• $100 billion to expand high-speed broadband across the entire country;
• $100 billion to upgrade and build new schools;
• and $100 billion to expand and improve power lines, and spur a shift to clean energy.

And embedded within the plan are efforts to build out U.S. clean energy infrastructure that, by itself, would rank as one of the most ambitious initiatives ever by the federal government to lower the country's greenhouse gas emissions; along with efforts to address racial inequalities and advance the U.S. economy to compete with China.

The plan would be paid for by increasing taxes for corporations and people earning over $400,000 a year. 

As we noted yesterday, the plan is expected to reap huge benefits to the economy over the next 4 years and beyond. (An additional $1 trillion will be proposed for universal prekindergarten and free community college tuition, expanding spending on child care, and extending for several years the expansion of the child tax credit recently signed into law for just one year as part of the stimulus plan.)

There are already some on the left saying the plan isn't big enough;  on the right, the bad faith Republican Party squeals that it's too big.  (To those on the left, we'll simply trot out the truism that perfect should not be the enemy of good.  To those on the bad faith right, we'll simply say get out of the way.)

It's likelier than not that this "American Jobs Plan" will have to pass under budget reconciliation, as did the recent American Rescue Plan Act.  If that's the route needed, it means passage would be delayed until fall, when a new fiscal year begins.