Joe Biden was handed a “victory” of sorts, when 13 Republicans overcame the “no” vote of six progressive members of the House of Representatives to pass the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill. Let’s remember that this bill only added a token amount of new money to already existing programs, as well as adding over $250 billion in new debt. Bernie Sanders has called foul on Joe Manchin in regard to this, since Manchin has repeatedly made ill-informed claims about the alleged increase in debt from the Build Back Better plan—which would only do so because of Manchin’s and Kyrsten Sinema’s opposition to even nominal bites into Donald Trump’s tax giveaway to corporations and the rich (and of course to Trump himself).
Rep. Matt Gaetz, who seems to be very talkative of late, slammed the House Republicans who voted for the “socialist” infrastructure bill. That sleazeball might not be very talkative much longer; as an article in Vanity Fair noted last month, Gaetz’s “wingman” in paying for sex and having sex with underage girls has been talking—a lot—and he’s apparently hoping the more he talks to prosecutors, the less jail time he’ll get. The potential for a “Gaetzgate” and a decade in prison could be in Gaetz’s “future.”
Of course, passing the infrastructure bill only puts the “Better” plan in increased jeopardy, since as progressives have warned, it provides less incentive for so-called “moderate” Democrats to vote on any new or improved social, healthcare or clean energy programs. We are told that “independent” voters claim that Biden has “lost” them because he “promised” to be a “centrist” and not be “divisive,” which apparently means doing nothing to overturn the “status quo” left behind by an insane ex-president. But isn’t doing something to improve the lives of working people and the environment in which they live supposed to differentiate Democrats from Republicans, who only do the bidding of corporations and billionaires, and all they do for everyone else is throw the red meat of cultural bigotry and racism, to be hungrily consumed by those seeking solace in scapegoating?
It is frustrating to say the least that people who have chosen to be Democrats are so because they actually believe in something of a higher moral and ethical plane than the one Republicans exist on, and are prevented from acting on their convictions because of a few lawmakers—who like Republicans—only see the future in terms of the next election or this idea that tomorrow will be the same as today, and next year, and 50 years from now. Too many people in this country are content to react to disaster, rather than anticipate it; we saw that during the Texas power grid disaster this past winter—and even then, the governor and Republican lawmakers refused to do anything substantial to prevent it from happening again, on the “assumption” that a cold snap on that magnitude was a “one time thing.”
Of course, we don’t really know what Manchin or Sinema believe in; they just tell us what they “might” accept if their arms’ are twisted tight enough. The “goodwill” that Manchin had from at least telling people what those things “might” be has evaporated, since he has become more bold in his attacks on progressives and threats to kill the “Better” bill altogether. Manchin, of course, is a hypocrite, talking out of both sides of his mouth, with whatever comes out repelling each other like the opposite sides of a magnet. He claims that he wants “means testing” yet demonizes as “undeserving” the very people who are trying to survive on minimum wage jobs and no benefits. He attacks clean and renewable energy not because it isn’t “good” or vital to the future, but because of its impact on his pocketbook filled with stock in the coal industry.
It is absolutely appalling how the right-wing and corporate America moves the goal posts and obfuscates reality. Every Republican administration beginning with Reagan has cut taxes for billionaires and corporations. At first this was “justified” by the claim of “trickle-down” or “supply-side” economics, which even by the “theory” that underpinned it—the “Laffer Curve”—indicated would not work as intended the way the tax cuts were implemented. When “trickle-down” was revealed to mean what it was actually intended to mean—“trickle-up”—and the gap between the rich and everyone else only became wider, and wider, and wider, the right simply changed their terms. Instead of telling the truth, that their tax-cutting was only filling the pockets of the rich they—what did Paul Ryan say?—it was now about “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
But as many a study has found, tax cuts for corporations and billionaires didn’t create more jobs. Before, they at least found constructive ways to avoid taxes, like tax breaks for investing in infrastructure to improve productivity, and research and development. But with a massive 40 percent cut in corporate taxes (60 percent since Reagan), there is no real motivation to improve U.S. competitiveness (Intel is an exception, as it is building two new chip factories in Arizona). Furthermore, corporate taxes as a percentage of federal revenue has gone down from 9 percent in 2017 to 6 percent. Corporate taxes (including state taxes) have decreased as a percentage of GDP from 6 percent in recent years to a shocking 1 percent today. Where has all that extra cash gone? Do we really need to ask?
And yet here we
have Arizona corporate interests launching a six-figure ad blitz reminding
Sinema who has been paying her off, and to say “fuck off” to the people who
voted for her who thought she actually gave a damn about them. No, the 55 highly profitable companies that paid zero taxes in 2020, according to a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, need lawmakers like her and Manchin to be their "lead blockers" and support their claims of "poverty."
And yet the real “bogey men” in all of this are “progressives.” Let me remind people that the concept of “progress” is central to the “ideology” of progressives, and I think they should highlight that notion better than they are, instead allowing the fearful and the ignorant to label them as “socialists.” Being a “moderate” means leaving everything the way it is no matter what the danger is in doing so, and for what passes for “conservatism” these days, it means dreaming about going back to the labor and environmental abuses of the “Gilded Age”—and for “aristocratic” Southern lawmakers, maybe even back to the antebellum period.
You don’t need to be a “progressive” to know that every Republican administration since Reagan has been supporting policies that have only widened income inequality in this country, and gutted environmental laws at every opportunity where no one seems to “notice.” You only have to have a modicum of intelligence and—what did Aaron Rodgers call it?—“critical thinking,” and realize that you have been told lie after lie after lie about what lies in the future for a country where all but a few have been willfully blinded to the consequences of blindness. A USA Today poll tells us that only one-quarter of Americans surveyed thought there was any “benefit” for them in the “Better” energy provisions, which is absolutely insane and shows how uninformed the public is, and how unmindful of the future for their children they are.
John Oliver in his most recent show discussed the looming disaster that is the nation’s power grid, which is built on infrastructure 60-70 years old that is in no way capable of handling the requirements of future electricity loads. Brick-headed lawmakers like Republican Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohio have refused to even consider approving funding for the construction of new, upgraded power lines because he didn’t see a “return” on the “investment.” Not surprisingly there are also those “NIMBYs” who don’t “get” how new power lines sending electricity across the state can possibly be any “good” for themselves. Attacking “socialism” or progressives does not disguise the fact that “thinking” like this is absolutely insane and dangerous for the future progress of this country.
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