Quote (EndlessSky @ Dec 21 2021 01:03am)

They are playing the long game for the agenda of their political Mafia group. The real plan is to make the population addicted to government spending. Demoralization by inverting the moral hierarchy of God.

They can always rebrand this as "Republicans are evil and want to ki** grandma"

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 20 2021 10:50pm)

Okay so I've been going over this build back better fiasco and there's one thing that sticks out to me

why, in god's name, did the Biden administration stake their branding on it?

Why is it called the 'Build back better plan'? Why did they brand it with Joe Biden's name, make it his signature policy, staple it to his forehead like martin luther nailing theses to a church door?
This seems to me to be clear unforced error and pure incompetence.
Think back to this summer, these dual track "infrastructure bill" and "social policy bill" didn't really have names or branding on them. Every pundit and politico was predicting the exact outcomes that came to pass, that one had enough bipartisan support to make it and the other didn't have backing from moderate democrats and would fail. Our only real question at that point is how much damage the progressives would inflict on their own party and drag down Biden, would they bend the knee or would they scuttle the infrastructure bill? Well, they bent the knee. They didn't even extract a single meaningful concession, let alone force a real showdown. But there was never any scenario where democrats passed this social bill, and we knew that back last summer. And yet, despite all clearly foreseeable demise of this agenda, Biden slapped his name all over it.

What was actually gained from staking any reputation on a bill that was clearly going to fail? In normal course of politics, administrations try to minimize their losses and pass the buck and hedge their bets. They don't board the already sinking ship, raise their flag on it, and then go down with the ship.
I really don't understand this move.

Quote (Rushkovski @ Dec 21 2021 02:06am)

I think the Democrats love losing and the game is rigged when both teams are on the take

Quote (thundercock @ Dec 21 2021 01:15am)

You're asking why Biden's branding is on Biden's bill? If it passes, he gets credit. If it fails, his administration is legislatively fucked anyway so there's only upside I think.

I don't think it's really dead, do you? There's still plenty of time before the midterms really start (we still don't know what the districts look like in many states). I still think that there's more likely to be SOMETHING rather than NOTHING coming out of budget reconciliation over the next year. I see two scenarios for the "something." Pass a fully funded CTC extension over 10 years or get a handful of things like universal pre-K, climate provisions, etc. It all depends on how the public reacts to the CTC going away.

Quote (thundercock @ Dec 21 2021 01:15am)

You're asking why Biden's branding is on Biden's bill? If it passes, he gets credit. If it fails, his administration is legislatively fucked anyway so there's only upside I think.

I don't think it's really dead, do you? There's still plenty of time before the midterms really start (we still don't know what the districts look like in many states). I still think that there's more likely to be SOMETHING rather than NOTHING coming out of budget reconciliation over the next year. I see two scenarios for the "something." Pass a fully funded CTC extension over 10 years or get a handful of things like universal pre-K, climate provisions, etc. It all depends on how the public reacts to the CTC going away.

Quote (Goomshill @ 21 Dec 2021 09:18)

He's in office (or under it) until 2025, so why stick the BBB so hard in the year its guaranteed to fail? He had an easily embraced policy victory with the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Call it boring, but at least he'd have a notch on his belt if they took a victory lap on that and wrote off the social bill, it wouldn't look like he's legislatively fucked. Yes, he's still got the same supposed opportunity for a party-line reconciliation next year, but that's the same opportunity they had this year and with the same congress. I don't see why it would turn out any different. Now his accomplishments are being overshadowed by his failures, because he staked his name onto the latter.

There are people trying to credit this to some kind of weird intentional strategy where Biden is taking the lumps for the team or whatever. Like how I speculated Trump was really just a sideshow candidate to draw fire away from Marco Rubio. About as accurate, I think. Democrats are going into the midterms looking like they cannot govern, and Republicans are going to give them a shellacking on that. As if they aren't already weak enough on enough fronts. Digging Biden deeper is going to hurt everyone downticket even when he's not on the ticket.

Quote (chopstickz777 @ Dec 20 2021 10:07pm)

This is what I get for trying to engage in a good faith discussion with you. You misdirect & deflect while attacking the source.

"Your sources don't count because I don't like them! Wahhh!"

Of course.

Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ Dec 21 2021 12:05am)

In its current state BBB will do very little to revive mid term chances for Democrats.

Too many popular provisions have been cut and they've seen how Democrats can be stonewalled pretty easily from both sides. The ones who want Dems to win don't see a reason to turn out when that's the case.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 21 2021 12:18am)

He's in office (or under it) until 2025, so why stick the BBB so hard in the year its guaranteed to fail? He had an easily embraced policy victory with the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Call it boring, but at least he'd have a notch on his belt if they took a victory lap on that and wrote off the social bill, it wouldn't look like he's legislatively fucked. Yes, he's still got the same supposed opportunity for a party-line reconciliation next year, but that's the same opportunity they had this year and with the same congress. I don't see why it would turn out any different. Now his accomplishments are being overshadowed by his failures, because he staked his name onto the latter.

There are people trying to credit this to some kind of weird intentional strategy where Biden is taking the lumps for the team or whatever. Like how I speculated Trump was really just a sideshow candidate to draw fire away from Marco Rubio. About as accurate, I think. Democrats are going into the midterms looking like they cannot govern, and Republicans are going to give them a shellacking on that. As if they aren't already weak enough on enough fronts. Digging Biden deeper is going to hurt everyone downticket even when he's not on the ticket.