The Big News last night was that Kyrsten Sinema agreed to the Schumer-Manchin reconciliation bill, with some changes.
To win Ms. Sinema’s support, Democratic leaders agreed to drop a $14 billion tax increase on some wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives that she had opposed, change the structure of a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations, and include drought money to benefit Arizona.
This is what Ed Kilgore predicted a few days ago. “While Sinema may not want to personally kill this heaven-sent deal herself, it would be surprising if she doesn’t take at least a pound of flesh in concessions to show her corporate friends she is still a major player,” Ed Kilgore writes. Looks like he was spot on.
Sinema (and, for that matter, Schumer) seems to have calculated that liberal revulsion over the price she demanded for her support would be more than offset by joy that she didn’t kill the whole thing. So Senate Democrats went along with her demand (they also added some additional drought money, while offsetting the cost of concessions to Sinema via an excise tax on stock buybacks). That means on paper, at least, the Inflation Reduction Act has the 50 votes it will need (along with Kamala Harris’s tie-breaker) to finally emerge from the upper chamber.
There are still some hurdles. The parliamentarian has to sign off on the bill before it can be voted on as a budget reconciliation bill, without having to deal with the filibuster/cloture rule. Then it has to be subjected to the “vote a rama” process in which many senators will offer amendments. And then it has to pass the House, where the usual assholes, a.k.a. “moderate” Democrats, will probably try to bleep it up by adding other things that will require it to go back to the Senate.
But if it does pass, it would be a great thing both for the nation and for the Democrats’ chances in the midterms. The bill contains $369 billion to combat climate change, and a lot of that investment will go to creating “green energy” manufacturing jobs. Greg Sargent writes,
At its core, the bill constitutes industrial policy that would invest in the creation of clean-energy manufacturing jobs, including in former coal communities. As I’ve argued, this would allow Democrats to shift the debate: Rebuilding jobs in the industrial and Appalachian heartlands requires accepting realities of global warming and technological change — and harnessing them to our advantage — rather than remaining mired in backward-looking nostalgic fantasies.
In other words, when Republicans oppose the bill, Dems can honestly say they’re trying to stifle job creation.
The bill also extends the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies through 2025. Otherwise they would have expired right before the midterms, I understand.
It also includes some provision for Medicare to negotiate drug prices, but only some drugs, and it doesn’t kick into effect until 2026.
Still, this is a big deal, and it could be voted on very soon. Fingers crossed.
The other thing that changes is the "momentum of the game." As we go into midterms, the GOP needs the momentum, the feeling that they are winning, to motivate their voters and silence Democrats. If this passes, the narrative that the Dems have done nothing will die.
I wrote a ling-ass comment yesterday that I won't repeat but if there are convictions of some of the troops of January 6 (going on trial) and indictments of some of Trump's lawyers, that also shifts the perception of who has control in the game.
Last but not least is the irresistible urge that some of the Neanderthal fundamentalists have. They will go after same-sex marriage and (speculation) charge at least one woman with murder who they think got an abortion. It will be kerosine on the fire in terms of turnout.
Here in the Mississippi of the Midwest (aka Indiana), the governor had a victory signing party after midnight to sign into law what is now the most draconian forced-birth law in the country. Legal personhood now starts at conception. The rare exceptions will require the victims of rape or incest to sign legal documents that the state can use to prosecute them if some jealous prosecutor wants to make his name and fame by contesting the victim's veracity. There is also an exception if the woman is dying but doctors had best be waiting for death because they can go to jail if they save a woman from death too soon. The Christofascists who passed this law are under attack; not by sane people but by the ultra-Christofascists who are totally pissed that there are any exceptions.
I guess this will teach the Christofascists in Ohio not to send their raped and impregnated 10 year olds to Indiana.
I am not convinced that the Christofascists in this state are anywhere near the majority but this is what happens when the rePuknicans control the gerrymandering process so thoroughly that they have had supermajorities in the state House and Senate guaranteed since forever.
I'm kinda pleased by what's in this bill.
Not overwhelmingly. But pleased. Not a full night's sleep pleased. But a decent and needed rest pleased.
This bill ain't no "BBB."
This, this is "The Reader's Digest" version of "BBB."
I tell myself it only looks small when it's in comparison to "the artists's original rendition of the vision."
Oh well.
Oy, this current week has been crazy, btw…
But maybe it's crazy only for me.
If you didn't notice, I didn't poop out a single a word-turd in comments. this week.
You see, I was tabletless for 4 days while I was "hospitalized."
I'm ok! I'm ok.
During a visit, my GP wanted to check some more things on me, so he asked me to go check-in to a hospital and get some quick tests done.
Nothing "quick" about out health care system.
So I went.
And he checked..
And I'm ok.
Like any of us, I could be around for years and years!
And like any of us, I could die right now.
God! I hope I don't go out in a crazy way! Please Do… UH… OMG!!! GOD, PLEASE!!!! NO CRAZY DEATH!
Crazy, like choking to death crazy because a small snack-sized pretzel almost assassinated POTUS George"W" Bush."
Now THAT would have been crazy!
Mighta helped, too…
But like I was sayin', I could last years.
Or I could just drop dead right n…
I hope you stick around for a few more years,Gulag, but if you suddenly depart please give us some notice so we can prepare a fitting eulogy. I'll have nothing but kind words for you. It's been a good trip so far and I have enjoyed reading your comments and sharing your company over the years. You're provided a lot of laughs and a lot of thought provoking commentary. So it's good to see you back and see you're up and running.
Not to judge…But real men don't fiddle around with measley little tablets. You aught to get yourself a solid manly 4G- 24 inch diagonal high definition monitor and a wireless keyboard to boot. Arrrg! Then you'll know you're really alive.