Are either of these.going to pass? Right now I give a 50% chance on the bipartisan $1.2 trillion bill and a 20% chance on the $3.5 trillion Democrats bill. I think that 20% is that anything gets passed, I think there is a near 0% chance it passes at $3.5 trillion.
A friend posted this yesterday on FB. I got a chuckle.
Sen. Joe Manchin has this year, supported spending initiatives of $1.9 trillion and $1.2 trillion. He has angered progressives today by announcing he supports $1.5 trillion in more spending. That’s $4.6 trillion. And he is defined as a fiscal moderate today.
Vaguely, tangentially related. David Brooks has a column in the NYT today
The comments section is stunned and amazed. David Brooks is the NYT in house “conservative”. He is an anti-Trump conservative, but conservative. Lots of NYT readers reflexively object to his columns.
I assumed the title was some sort of sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek thing. But, no, he straight up thinks the US is at a place where we need to spend really big money.
And, he’s the conservative.
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Is there a TLDR version of what is in the $3.5T bill? And how much each provision costs.
I’m curious if I could “easily” cut it down to $1.5T.
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Found it
MEMORANDUM for Democratic Senators - FY2022 Budget Resolution.pdf (senate.gov)
Cut these out and reduce it by $1.1 Trillion and see if Manchin votes for it (obviously more ways, but I just took the biggest cost items). Note that this still leaves lowering the Medicare age to 60 along with including Dental, Hearing, and Vision benefit expansion for Medicare. For me personally, those are the biggest items.
The HELP Committee receives an instruction of $726 billion.
ď‚· Universal Pre-K for 3 and 4-year olds
ď‚· Child care for working families
ď‚· Tuition-free community college
ď‚· Investments in HBCUs, MSIs, HSIs, TCUs, and ANNHIs
ď‚· Increase the maximum Pell grant award
ď‚· School infrastructure, student success grants, and educator investments
ď‚· Investments in primary care, including Community Health Centers, the National Health
Service Corps, the Nurse Corps, and Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical
Education
ď‚· Health equity (maternal, behavioral, and racial equity health investments)
ď‚· Pandemic preparedness
ď‚· Workforce development and job trainingAugust 9, 2021 4
ď‚· Labor enforcement and penalties
ď‚· Civilian Climate Corps funding
ď‚· Research infrastructure, including for HBCUs, MSIs, HSIs, TCUs, and ANNHIs
The Banking Committee receives an instruction of $332 billion.
ď‚· Creation and preservation of affordable housing by making historic investments in
programs like the Housing Trust Fund, HOME, the Capital Magnet Fund, and rural
housing
ď‚· Improve housing affordability and equity by providing down payment assistance, rental
assistance, and other homeownership initiatives
ď‚· Community investment, development and revitalization through initiatives like
Community Land Trusts, investments in CDBG, zoning, land use, and transit
improvements and creating healthy and sustainable housing
ď‚· Public Housing Capital Investments and Sustainability
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This is one of the main things I think would be beneficial for the whole country. It makes working easy. The more that we work the better we all do.
Passing neither would be a good thing too.
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This quality post is worth repeating.
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I’d like safe bridges and safer interstates. Our competitors are killing us on mass transit. We could really use some investment. Go outside north America and realize how crumbling we have it here.
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Rewrite the bills to spend $4.7 trillion only on bridges and roads and then we can talk.
You just stated above you don’t even want to spend $1.2 trillion on that. Which is it?
Is that what the $1.2 trillion is being spent on? Funny, when I check it out, it looks like less than half is supposed to go to that kind of stuff. But “our nation’s crumbling bridges and highways” are what they always say these huge bills are for. This one, the last one, and the next one too. Because who can argue against fixing “our nation’s crumbling bridges and highways”, right?
Money for water and energy? Things that are less visible but just add important to keep running.
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Broadband is in there, sounds a bit iffy, but hasn’t access to it become a priority if we want our country to be universally competitive?
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“Water and energy”. That sounds like things that could go a lot of ways which would get less universal agreement. What are the plans for $600+ billion in “water and energy” spending?
I’m sure you can find a summary of what is in the bill from your favorite source.
Safer bridges and interstates don’t seem to be much of a priority in any of the “infrastructure” spending bills. (Hint: there’s about $110B of the $1.2T infrastructure bill for bridges & interstates)
I bet they could easily find that $110B by just cutting back on the current levels of spending from some other program. As a PSA reminder; The federal debt is $28T. The federal deficit is $1.7T.
I am finding most of the articles on this a bit confusing and what dollars mean.
This implies the bill is 550B above existing spending levels, which over 10 years sounds like something we can find a way to pay for. Is the 110B above existing levels?
The other items in the bill sound like things that will mostly benefit America long term. I agree with this spending but would like to see it fully paid for. If 256B over 10 years is what is left, surely we can figure that out.
The 3.5T bill is too much based on our current debt levels.
Even if it ends up being fully paid for?
Mass transit?I dont even know what that is.
- Canada, probably.