“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

Nobody hates the poor quite as much as a liberal Seattle homeowner with an IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE sign out front

I don't think the left is failing to acknowledge of the reality of the political situation. Everyone recognizes that the relief bill is the only realistic chance to pass the $15 minimum wage. The left knows Manchin and Sinema have been ceded all power in the Senate.

An $11 minimum wage - which is only marginally more likely because Manchin has said those words, but given that it requires getting around the filibuster that Manchin and Sinema won't abolish and Biden-Harris-Schumer won't pressure them on - would be an abject failure on the part of Democrats, a half measure impeding necessary progress. $11 in 2025, when Democrats have the ability right now to do the $15 (in 2024) they've put in their last two platforms.

Political realism is that failure to act will lead them to a midterm slaughter. I believe there were millions of words printed between December and February about how Biden and Co. had learned the lesson of 2010.

I indulged myself in a tiny shred of optimism that the filibuster might be abolished and good federal legislation might be passed back in January, hopes dashed against rocks etc, time to immanentize the eschaton

The left knows Manchin and Sinema have been ceded all power in the Senate.

the way our system is set up means that these two chuckleheads are the veto points for the entire federal government. nothing was “ceded,” and it’s this kind of swipey spin zone that makes people not take you seriously even when they agree with what you have to say

nothing was “ceded,”

Have Biden, Harris or Schumer exerted public pressure on Manchin or Sinema re: filibuster or $15 minimum wage?

To say that President Joe Manchin has all the power is to just pretend that the actual President has no power or influence.

I mean, there's also the chance that Manchin in particular is a convenient fall guy.

re: political realism, "we just can't do anything about Joe Lieberman" and a shrug in 2009 worked out super well for Democrats (and the country!)

Manchin and Sinema have been ceded all power in the Senate.

If one thing is true about the legislative process in the Congress, it's that nobody holds sufficient power to pass legislation into law, but plenty of people have the power to prevent a bill from becoming law. Manchin and Sinema are just wielding the most common and widely distributed power in the Congress: the shiv.

If Manchin or Sinema had any kind of positive agenda they actually want to see enacted, they'd be open to vote trading and less inclined to stick a knife into the heart of the agenda Biden and most of their colleagues want. They'd know that their own agenda would be dead if they don't play along. The problem is that, like the entire Senate Republican caucus, they have nothing positive they care to accomplish. This gives them a free hand to destroy, because there's no counter-balancing sacrifice involved.

the dem leadership have made the political calculation that it’s important to pass the covid relief bill (a whole ten days later than the half-size 2009 Bill omg), and they’re concerned if they force the issue on minimum wage then the relief bill might fail.

i don’t necessarily agree with them, i don’t think manchinema would ever vote against the covid bill, but i understand why biden and co. wouldn’t want to play with fire.

in the prez’s mind, part of the reason why he was elected was that he’s not a boat-rocker. i think he’s wrong about that, and he’s gonna need to learn that lesson quickly, but i don’t have my hopes up.

(a whole ten days later than the half-size 2009 Bill omg)

You've done this multiple times, but the date of the 2009 relief act being signed was in response to "you don't understand how slow the federal government works apparently."

Even with Obama and Co. having not learned the lessons of the next couple of12 years, a bill that didn't enjoy the overwhelming support the COVID Relief Act enjoys and having to deal with Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, the federal government managed to act quicker than it is now. All in the context of Democrats this year hyping how quickly they'd move to cut checks and make the world a better place once Georgia's Senators were seated.

i see you’re doing the thing where you latch onto one sentence and ignore the rest of the post

Never, ever, give an inch on anything

let me give you three reasons that the bill might be taking longer than the last bill

1. the 2009 bill was half the size and woefully inadequate
2. the continuing debate over minimum wage (have you heard about this?)
3. many of the aspects from the most recent stimulus bill (incl. unemployment) are still in effect

So are we doing this again tomorrow or does someone have a different idea

― Canon in Deez (silby), Friday, February 26, 2021 10:08 PM bookmarkflaglink

xps - it's the sentence he can use to create an argument with you. and if he can score a debating point that counts toward his merit badge.

if we say that we're wrong about something, it would be the end. never do it. don't even hint at giving in on anything, ever.

apologies are for weak pieces of shit

my apologies for my outburst, please resume the neverending convo

It occurs to me that I don't think I've ever seen milo post about anything other than US politics.

there are lots of threads

I 'latched on to the sentence' that has been repeated, yes? I was explaining why I initially brought up the date of the 2009 bill - not because "OMG SO SLOW" as you've said but to illustrate that faster is actually possible. If you'd prefer, the PATRIOT Act only took eight weeks and entrenched a federal bureaucracy and security state that can never be replaced. Big bill, didn't take too long.

This bill isn't taking longer because 'the federal government works slow, duh,' but because it's being held up to prevent the necessary progressive policy that's now been part of the Democratic platform for five years.

Does anyone have numbers for how many workers in the US earn less than $11 and $15/hour?

to illustrate that faster is actually possible.

although it is only possible to be faster when it is possible to be faster.

https://policy-practice.oxfamamerica.org/work/poverty-in-the-us/low-wage-map/

Overall, 58.3 million workers (43.7 percent) earn under $15 an hour; 41.7 million (31.3 percent) earn under $12 an hour

Ty

the 2009 Economic Recovery Act was a standard floor bill. this is a reconciliation bill.

the last reconciliation bill (aka the tax code reform by the Republicans) took almost two full months when the Republicans had both the House and Senate.

The record of experience with reconciliation legislation over the period since 1980 indicates considerable variation in the time needed to process such measures from the date the reconciliation instructions take effect (upon final adoption of the budget resolution) until the resultant reconciliation legislation is approved or vetoed by the President. The interval for the 24 reconciliation measures ranged from a low of 27 days (for the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990) to a high of 384 days (for the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005). On average, completing the process took about five months (155 days), well beyond the two months contemplated by the timetable in the 1974 Congressional Budget Act.

(crickets)

Because of negotiations, yeah, not the actual legislative process - negotiations over means testing and the minimum wage have been the problem here, no?

Going to guess there’s not an equivalent stat for passing non-reconciliation bills since 95% of bills never actually pass.

(And it’s only in reconciliation because of a lack of political will to do away with the filibuster.)

good thing negotiations aren't a part of reconciliation

Between House Democrats and Senate Democrats on a bill with overwhelming support where the negotiations have been over making the bill less popular by adding more means testing and stripping out the minimum wage increase?

Yes, I don't really see why I should be sanguine about the negotiation process there.

bill with overwhelming support among voters. how much support it has among Republican voters, other than the wild cards Collins/Murk etc, remains to be seen, but they seem pretty ready to torpedo it and basically relegate it to a party line vote, which is difficult when pieces of shit like Manchin decide to make it all about them.

I do think someone needs to take WV Joe in the back of a shed and punch him in the stomach for a few hours.

So it's a party line vote, Republicans can't stop it - I don't know why they even get brought up in this moment. There will be plenty of time to be mad at them when one of the 85-year old Democrats kicks off and gets replaced with a Republican in six months.

if 5-10 Republicans support the bill, then assholes like Manchin and Sinema suddenly don't matter

the topic here isn't "will the bill eventually pass", which is of course "yes", but "how fast" and "will it have everything we want", which when you have a 50-50 split and a party that reflexively tries to torpedo all of your bills along party lines, you have no room for pseudo-mavericks to show their asses.

5-10 are never going to cross over to give Democrats a victory, though, so why even think about them? The days of McConnell's obstruction being a reliable excuse are over (temporarily). Now the obstructionists are Democrats. The failures are the party's.

If you don't even attempt to bring the pseudo-mavericks into line, how angry are you at them for torpedoing the 'things we want'?

The days of McConnell's obstruction being a reliable excuse are over (temporarily)

Nope

idk i think he’s actually kinda right about that one, at least in the minds of the voters, who don’t wanna hear that arcane procedure (filibuster, budget reconciliation, parliamentarian) stopped a broadly popular policy

there are obvious reasons for why the procedure is stopping the relevant actors from acting, but it’s a weak excuse, and everyone knows that these procedures would never stop republicans from doing whatever they wanted

Until the Vermont governor's heel turn when Bernie dies, there isn't a mechanism for McConnell to actually obstruct. He doesn't have 60 votes to overrule Harris if she overruled the parliamentarian, he doesn't have a way to protect the filibuster to keep them from 50+1ing their platform going forward - its maintenance is the choice of the Democrats.

McConnell can make a lot of noise, but that's it. (And yes, this requires party discipline for 2-4 Democrats - but that's what you have to try at some point if you actually want to enact the most progressive platform in the country's history.)

if the trump tax bill and all the major major major changes it made to existing law could be done through reconciliation, then i think it's super cowardly and dumb (considering voodoo's post re voters perceptions) for them to just shrug and say "sorry, we couldn't do this basic thing."

honestly, i tend to avoid politics and these threads because our government is so much of this, it feels pointless.

Tweets that have aged like raw milk

Y’all almost had Cynthia Nixon. This is why experience matters.

— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) March 17, 2020

tester open to filibuster reform?

ICYMI, Sen. @JonTester laid out a path to filibuster reform on @RealTimers last night:

“It’s being abused to the max & it’s no longer about getting bipartisan groups of senators together to pass a piece of legislation together. Now it’s used to stonewall, it’s used to stop.” 1/

— Stephen Spaulding (@SteveESpaulding) February 27, 2021

Everyone recognizes that the relief bill is the only realistic chance to pass the $15 minimum wage.

Realistic chance, yes, but never a likely one. It was a long shot to start with, and the parliamentarian made it harder. It's a testament to the remarkable success of the $15-an-hour movement that that has even become a major party talking point. That took a ton of work and organization, maybe the most effective labor organizing in a generation. But having the first minimum wage increase in more than a decade also double it is a huge political leap.

It would be great! I'm 100 percent for it. I just didn't expect it to actually happen, even though I'll be happily surprised if it does. The most likely scenario to me seemed to be some back and forth negotiation that would land somewhere north of $10. AND peg to inflation, that's more important than the exact number that gets set, I think. That negotiation can either be with Republicans, if enough of them see political risk in opposing a wage increase. Or, per Tester above, maybe with Democrats willing to do some kind of filibuster reform to get it passed. (Or the latter being used as a threat to get the former to come to terms.)

But, you know, this is how all this stuff works, and also kind of the only way it can. All big bills have complicated maneuvering and negotiations going on around them. Nothing just gets rammed through, especially not now.

A $10 minimum wage in 2025 would be an embarrassment and complete failure, when Democrats - with a small amount of political will given the popularity of the relief bill, Joe Biden, and minimum wage increase itself - could make it $15.

Voters love it when, without any actual opposition defeating you, you fail to deliver on a platform plank from the last two elections.