Biden/Harris Presidency Discussion Thread

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118113333#Comment_118113333

I work with some people from New Jersey. Was asking about that race and what was causing the unexpectedly large swing toward the Republicans there. The answer apparently is "Taxes". Specifically, Murphy made an ill advised comment:

"if you’re a one-issue voter and tax rate is your issue, we’re probably not your state.”

and it's just being played on loop across the New Jersey media market in Republican attack ads.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118112914#Comment_118112914

A big difference in posting frequency on this thread alright, compared to the previous Presidency. Some of that is probably due to the huge delays in accessing/posting here since the changeover, and some due to the lack of daily tweetstorms we had for 4 years. I'll add apathy also- the initial relief from the promise of restoring sanity to US Politics has worn off and many (including me) are seeing a maddening lack of progress from the Biden Presidency and nominally Democratic Congress that is downright depressing. There is a stasis in Washington that is infuriating and soul-destroying, with a Democratic Party that is intent on eating itself alive and a Republican Party that is being steered ever deeper into wild wingnut territory.

Meanwhile, the States appear to be polarising themselves more by the day, with Red States rolling the clock as far back towards Jim Crow as they can get away with, and Blue States growing their own Democratic populations without seeing that, for Presidential and Senate purposes its a wasted effort, as even the most populous States still only get a finite number of Electoral College votes and 2 Senate seats.

Manchinema are Dinos who are in the pockets of Big Coal and Big Pharma respectively, and will do little to deal with the big issue of a tied (and therefore largely impotent) Senate. GOPpers are able to preach out BS non-issues (such as CRT) to further enrage their followers and use 'Communism' of the Left BS to push moderate Reds firmly into GOP hands. The sheer hypocricy of Politicians around Jan 6 is sickening, and the sway of media on the fringes is working like radio-active fallout eating away at facts and allowing opinions and beliefs to hold sway over facts and truth. A public health crisis has been hijacked for dystopian wingnuttery and basic social norms of protecting self and others have been destroyed by a cultish, brain-washed self-destruction based on 'owning' the other side in Politics.

While the VA Gubernarorial election followed a decades old formula of switching to the other Party in the year following a Presidential election (Mc Auliffe winning after Obama 2 being the exception), there must surely be huge concerns around the current Democrats' very loose hold on power to achieve much between this and the 2022 mid-Terms. For sure, there's a steep uphill climb ahead of them.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118113292#Comment_118113292

Not at all. It's a mark of cowardice that they haven't. They were elected with a majority to rule, and they are incapable of seizing that. The Filibuster has no place in a proper democracy. It's a legacy from the Jim Crow era and should be banished to dustpin.

If the Democrats are worried about what might happen if the Republicans have an opportunity to wield power, maybe they ought to get off their asses and deliver on what their constituents want. Electoral reform, healthcare, education, environmental policies.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118113713#Comment_118113713

"A mark of cowardice". By who exactly?

"The Democrats" isn't helpful here. It's like saying "The American People" were responsible for storming the Capitol. It's technically correct but also misleading and not very accurate.

What's the magic incantation that someone can chant to make Joe Manchin vote to kill the filibuster that they're too cowardly to chant?

Manic Moran

and Blue States growing their own Democratic populations without seeing that, for Presidential and Senate purposes its a wasted effort, as even the most populous States still only get a finite number of Electoral College votes and 2 Senate seats.

They may be growing, but they're growing slower than the Republican states, judging by the last census and reallocation of votes. California, NY and IL all lost an EC vote because their populations are simply not growing as fast as Texas, North Carolina or Florida which all gained them.

SupplyandDemandZone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118113376#Comment_118113376

Very ill advised comment that has the hallmarks of Clinton's deplorables moment.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118114100#Comment_118114100

The flip side to that is that those states are often growing as a result of people moving there from blue states. Texas and NC have always been red states as long as I've been watching American politics but they're no longer the deep red states that they once were. George W. Bush won NC by 13% twice but Trump only won it by 1.4% last year. Bush won Texas twice by >20% twice. Trump won it by 5.5% last year.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117967624#Comment_117967624

Well the trend has been for the party that wins the presidency has a bad midterms after the Presidential election and give the democrats majority is fairly small at single digits, the GOP don’t have an uphill climb to take back the house. There doesn’t need to be a massive swing for it to happen.

Of course there a chance but the infrastructure bills are stalling and so the voters aren’t seeing any benefit from it. I did hear comments from Virginia(before the election) that voters there had voted in Biden and nearly ten months into his term they hadn’t seen much movement on what he said he’d do. Now, that may be unfair but perception is important.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118113911#Comment_118113911

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118113911#Comment_118113911

By Schumer and Biden, to endorse a progressive platform that had widespread support across the country. To refuse to play hardball with Manchin and Sinema, and instead let nakedly corporate interests undermine their legislative agenda.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118269#Comment_118118269

You neglected to answer the second question. What exactly can Biden and Schumer do to persuade Joe Manchin to dispense with the filibuster?

Playing "hardball" is all good and well when you actually have leverage over someone. When the subject whose vote you need somehow got elected from a state that Biden lost by 39% then it's a different story.

Rjd2

The numbers are not their to get rid of the fillibuster nor is it certain the public want it gone, Dems need to focus on stuff they can actually pass.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119118#Comment_118119118

Kick him out of the party. At the end of the day, if he refuses to support removing the filibuster, and thus allowing for the passage of the Voting Rights bills, he's effective handing the Republicans the elections. Without legislation to counter their gerrymandering and disenfranchisement, they will continue to entrench their hold over seats against the demographic realities. At that point, they're losing nothing from casting him adrift. They're going to lose their majority in the Senate, and possibly the House as well.

In short, **** him and Sinema too.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119305#Comment_118119305

The numbers are there, and the public absolutely supports getting rid of it, especially as it means passing legislation that has majority support across the country.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

Do that and Mitch McConnell gets the gavel back and absolutely nothing will get done.

Without question it is an utterly bizarre situation where one or two Senators can basically control the entire Government agenda , but the sad reality is unless the Democrats can win another few seats in 2022 to "de-power" Manchin and Sinema there's effectively nothing they can do.

Totally unacceptable in what professes to be "The greatest Democracy in the world (TM)" but then everything about their entire political system is beyond ridiculous.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

OK. Follow that thinking through in the real world.

Why would Schumer kick Manchin & Sinema out under any circumstances and reduce the official Dem Senate seats to 46? What do you think Manchin & Sinema would do immediately after? They would either caucus with GOP and hand Mitch a 52-48 working majority, or actually join the GOP and give them 52 actual Senate seats. Either way, they would become heroes to the GOP and would WALK their next elections. In the meantime, the Harris casting vote in the Senate would become a thing of the past, and Mitch would once again control the Senate.

That's Real World Politics right there!

AbusesToilets

This might come as a shock, but there's a pretty strong likelihood mcConnell gets the gavel back, precisely because of Manchin and Sinema's actions.

And if Mitch gets a working majority, you can be damn sure he wouldn't have qualms about killing the filibuster to get stuff done if he needs to. He'll have learnt from the previous failures when the Republicans controlled both houses.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119929#Comment_118119929

Unlikely. Mitch refused to kill the filibuster when Trump wanted it dead and that was when McConnell had a lapdog president, House and Senate majority.

Rjd2

This site still has bugs, meant to quote all the above post from AT where he suggested that Mitch would kill the fillibuster.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

Kick them out? That’s ridiculous, it would do absolutely nothing but make the Democrats look bad.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120045#Comment_118120045

Mitch will do what Mitch will do whenever he next holds the gavel. So, if he does take back control of the Senate after the 2022 mid-terms, it will be because voters elect more GOP Senators to give him the majority. Putting that another way, voters will have decided in their 'infinite wisdom' to NOT give Dems the Senate majority that Dems claim they want, in order to get Biden's agenda enacted.

Those voters ought to be aware of the Manchinema dynamic, and will need to deal with that by making it irrelevant. The answer is easy: Elect.More.Dem.Senators.

In the meantime, Biden/Schumer have to keep within the guardrails that Reality has placed on the legislative course. Kicking Manchinema out would be an appalling failure of their own political skills and would bring Mitch doom right down on their current, albeit tortuous, efforts.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120072#Comment_118120072

It would do the opposite. It would signal an end to letting Democratic priorities being held hostage by naked corporate interests. The public want electoral reform, they want Medicare to have the ability to negotiate prescription prices. They want universal pre-K and paid leave for childbirth. The Democrats look like a shambles precisely because the party is in effect functioning at the behest of 2 Senators.

The Democrats are determined to repeatedly ignore the wishes of their voters, and are shocked when they get crushed in subsequent elections.

SupplyandDemandZone

The Democrats are imploding and handing the next election to the Republicans at the moment. It requires strong leadership from Biden to remedy the situation but 2021 Joe Biden isn't capable of that, they've made a huge mistake and it doesn't look like Harris is the answer either. FUBAR as the yanks say.

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121511#Comment_118121511

He’s president for another 3 years, get over it.

SupplyandDemandZone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121531#Comment_118121531

I hope so.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121511#Comment_118121511

How should Biden play it differently though? The senate is literally held hostage by a pair of DINOs, intentionally holding up critical Bills because of the politics within their own states. Had the Democrats won a couple more seats back in the Nov. 2020 races, this entire conversation wouldn't apply but here we are; it was easy to see coming with the Senate balanced this precariously. All the leadership in the world isn't going to bypass the kind of intransigence someone like Joe Manchin brings to the table.

Manic Moran

There is intransigence on both sides. If people weren't so insistent on larger spending packages, the smaller one that Manchin's more comfortable with likely would have passed by now. Presumably both sides are working on the basis of their constituencies. However....

But, no one offered a more cutting -- and honest -- assessment of exactly what happened than Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger in an interview with The New York Times.

"Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos," said Spanberger, who represents a district that Biden won by a single point in 2020.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/politics/abigail-spanberger-joe-biden-2021/index.html

Realistically, she's not wrong. The 2020 election showed a sizeable gap between people who wanted Trump gone, and people who wanted Republicans gone. Perhaps Biden should take the win that he can get as opposed to holding out for the big one he cannot.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

And how would that help them overturn the filibuster or even get any legislation passed?

You are severely restricted with what you can pass with a bare majority of senators (nothing apart from Reconciliation bills roughly once per year, which have strict rules about what kind of laws can be included in them - e.g. no electoral reform).

With 48 Senators. You can't even get those bills passed. You'd basically be restricted to any bills that the Republicans would allow you to pass - which is going to be severely limited given the current environment.

The filibuster is a massive impediment in such a divided political environment. Unless the Democrats can find some extra Senators it's not going anywhere anytime soon though. Based on the results from the other night they're going to be losing Senators if anything in 12 months time.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123079#Comment_118123079

There's an awful lot of truth in that... Biden was elected as a White House fumigator, to get rid of a bad smell there, not as some great leader for the ages. In his current guise, there's an over-promising and under-delivering label sticking to a Democrat Congress that is barely hanging on, and they're satisfying no-one, especially folks who held their noses while voting him into the WH, but didn't give him enough elected Senators to achieve a whole lot.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123079#Comment_118123079

This both sides are wrong is utter guff. The office that Manchin likes to quote for their estimate of Bidens plan, rated his counter proposal as worse. He has no issues with massive spending, as long as it's on the military or bailing out Wall St. Republicans running their classic Two Christmas' strategy, I've no time for it.

Fact is he's acting purely out of selfish financial interests, just like Sinema. There's not an ounce of public interest between the lot of them.

TomOnBoard

Infrastructure $1.2 Trillion passed in the House. It now goes to Biden to sign.

Now that it has been de-linked from the $1.9 Trillion Care package, it will be interesting to see what Manchinema will do with that package.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126196#Comment_118126196

it passed with six democrats voting against it. It’ll be interesting to see if their GOP challengers next November get any purchase on using that against them, albeit some of the members who voted against it would need a stunning upset to lose so it likely won’t make much difference in most but I’m sure the GOP candidate will use it.

well it also has to get past the senate parliamentarian due to the way it’s done so stuff may be removed before it gets to those two senators.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126940#Comment_118126940

It (Infrastructure) has already passed in the Senate.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118127982#Comment_118127982

The reconciliation one has to go back to the Senate after it’s passed(presumably) by the house the week of the 15th of November. The bipartisan one has to be signed by Biden but it’s done.

sorry if it wasn’t clear but my two paragraphs were meant to mirror yours.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123079#Comment_118123079

Arguably both main parties have dropped the ball somewhat over last few years. The GOP when Trump won in 2016 thinking initially that his movement was much more popular than it was when in fact his success was largely due to running against a very weak candidate in Clinton.

And yep I think its a fair point regarding Biden winning v Trump.

On 2024, while its been discussed quite a bit why Trump is a terrible choice for the GOP, the bigwigs at the DNC will be getting very nervous about Harris whose poll numbers are horrific at the moment.

I genuinely believe that Biden when he won would have been content to let Harris run in 2024, but we have seen nothing from her that proves she has a chance in an election especially if the GOP crush the midterms.

Lets not forget the abysmal president run which blew up so quickly despite so much media and financial support.

Do the Dems have a plan c?

https://www.sfgate.com/national-politics/article/Kamala-Harris-approval-rating-poll-history-Biden-16602512.php

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118137760#Comment_118137760

Harris is the favourite of the liberal rich in the US - the types that get all wound up about cultural and identity issues, and who, like their republican counterparts, despise the less well off. These are the types who are on college campuses driving their completely intolerant agenda, and not fighting on the real issue - inequality - because it doesn't affect them.

The Democratic establishment thought that they were being very clever installing Harris as VP, thinking that she could ride Joe's coat tails for a victory in 24. Or maybe she'd take up the job earlier, should Joe's health decline - and then campaign as incumbent.

Democrat voters have shown before what they will do when faced with a candidate who won't work for them - stay at home.

Anybody from the GOP would beat Harris - if they want to lose the next presidential election, then Harris is who the Democrats will stick with.

AbusesToilets

Harris's performance in California should have been enough to show her as the empty shirt she is. Democrats will get hammered if she is their candidate in 2024.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118138291#Comment_118138291

Yeah its pretty bleak that she had to drop out when she did as she knew she was going to lose her home state by a biggish margin.

The issue for Harris is she doesn't really know who her base is

She should have ran as a law and order centrist candidate and Obamaism as Biden showed their was clearly votes their, but she was chasing unicorns trying to focus on the progressive base who were never going to warm to her.

Some have lazily said racism is a key reason for her unpopularity, but look at the primary, was it just racists voting? And if so why did Obama come through his primary relatively easily and still has a huge hold over the party?

She just isn't a good politician at all.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126940#Comment_118126940

There is absolutely zero chance any of those 6 lose to Republicans next year. They all represent deeply blue districts. Pressley, in fact, has run opposed by the Republicans in the General both times. In 2020 the vote % totals in the General for all 6 were: 86.6, 78.1, 71.6, 78.7, 84.2 and 64.3 (and the 64.3 was partly due a 3rd party pro-marijuana candidate getting 9.5%. Omar beat the Republican by 39.5%).

Like any Representative of a partisan district the only real challenge to them would be from a primary challenger. Typically in these kinds of districts those challenges come from the outside (as opposed to the centre). For that reason this vote actually shores them up from being primaried from the left since they can say that they did it in order to hold out for the maximum possible sized second bill.

Rjd2

Some good news for the Dems regarding 2022 at least.

New Hampshire will still be competitive , but Sununu would have won it relatively comfortably for the GOP.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/09/politics/chris-sununu-new-hampshire-senate/index.html

AbusesToilets

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/us/politics/republicans-2022-redistricting-maps.html

In a shock to absolutely no-one, the Republicans are set to mop the floor with the Democrats and enshrine their majorities.

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118170123#Comment_118170123

Applies to both parties as best they can control it. As the article is behind a paywall, I can't determine if the NYT article focuses purely on Republican territories or has a more encompassing view. For example, the recent announcement by Suozzi to run for governor instead of re-election has put a bit of a kink in the plans of NY Democrats, his is a seat in a more purple part of the State neighboring two constituencies which narrowly went Republican.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/politics/suozzi-retirement-2022-house/index.html

Worth noting: Democrats control the redistricting process in New York. And the line-drawers had designs on pinching Republicans -- most notably in Lee Zeldin's 1st District and Andrew Garbarino's 2nd -- on Long Island. An open seat in Suozzi's 3rd District could well complicate that plan.

or

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2021/11/30/tom-suozzi-governor-ny-run-2022-midterm-no-impact-decision-he-says

But with redistricting, the district map could end up looking different.

Without an incumbent in the race, Hofstra University Prof. Lawrence Levy said the Democrats who control redistricting in New York might attempt to make the seat more securely blue than they would if Suozzi were up for reelection.

“Now that it's an open seat, they're likely to pack it with more Democrats,” he said.

However, doing so could have a domino effect: placing more Democratic voters in Suozzi’s district might make it more difficult for Democrats to gerrymander a Republican-leaning district on Long Island to take it away from the GOP.

As long as any party controls the redistricting in their state, they'll do their damnedest to give their own side an advantage. There's a reason why California Democrats fought the independent redistricting process tooth and nail (and lost anyway). They should all go independent, both R and D States.

AbusesToilets

You're not going to find any arguments from me there, I despise gerrymandering. It's nakedly undemocratic. It's part of why I'm so sick of Manchin and Sinema's carryon, not to mention the Republicans themselves. It's actively damaging American democracy, and people's faith in the government. The Soviets would have given their left arm to have executed such a successful IO campaign.

You can't ignore however, that the Republicans have been far more aggressive than the Democrats in their efforts towards disenfranchisement. On a level playing field, the Democrats have the advantage, so they don't need such efforts to win. The Republicans decided over a decade ago to stop competing with ideas, and focused on cheating the system to win.

Brussels Sprout

Gerrymandering is so toxic and plain undemocratic. Pretty much every state uses First Past the post which lends itself to a 2-party system and uncompetitive races. This is amplified by gerrymandering with the net result that 90% of congressional districts are not competitive. That has a number of negative effects:

• Makes it almost impossible to remove incompetent politicians - who can easily serve for decades
• Pushes candidates to a more polar position (since the primary is likely to be their only threat of losing their seat)
• Undermines faith in democracy ("What's the point - that candidate is going to win anyway")

Arnold Schwarzenegger recognised this, fought against it and ultimately changed the way that California drew it's state legislative maps. With the best of intentions several states have moved to independent commissions but really the only way to rid the country of the scourge of gerrymandering is to legislate for it at the federal level. No political parties should have any power over drawing the maps that their politicians compete in. That is not going to happen anytime soon as one of the two parties seems intent on opposing any legislation that would remove the ability to gerrymander. That stance, along with the Senate filibuster and the supreme court's unwillingness to weigh in mean that gerrymandering is going to be around for a long time to come.

Manic Moran

• Makes it almost impossible to remove incompetent politicians - who can easily serve for decades
• Pushes candidates to a more polar position (since the primary is likely to be their only threat of losing their seat)

There are a few systems, such as California's recent "Open Primary" which have actually started to address this. The party which controls the seat may still be rigged, but that doesn't mean that the incumbent is necessarily going to stay. The system tends to aid moderates more than the polar position, as the 'polar' can only expect the votes from the wing of his/her party, the 'moderate' will get some of his/her party, and most of the independent and the other party's votes.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118267318#Comment_118267318

Is there actually any evidence of that being the outcome though? I know that that was the thinking and why they brought it in but I think I recall that in many cases it just ended up with 2 democrats winning the spots for the general election and then the Republicans didn't bother voting in that.

I'd have more hope in ranked choice voting being a moderating force. It has been brought in by Maine and Alaska for their federal elections (and notable New York city for it's municipal elections). The only thing is that for people to really see the benefits of it they need real alternative, centrist parties (or independents) to take part in those elections. That alone won't solve gerrymandering but it will make it much harder to execute effective gerrymanders if the population isn't binary (as it currently is).

salmocab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118272896#Comment_118272896

There’s no room for a centrist party, the two party’s are too close for there to be a party between and if, as I assume you mean centrist between left and right, there was a real centrist party they’d be written off as commies by a bunch of morons that wouldn’t know communism if it snuck up and took their cows off them.

America has dug itself into a disastrous position in politics and it’s hard to see a way out that doesn’t involve things going to ****.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118273778#Comment_118273778

I disagree that there is no room for a centrist party. Currently there are 2 parties for a country the size of a continent. That necessitates each party becoming a broad coalition. Each of them has their own spectrum of members. A centrist party could basically cleave off more moderate members of each party - the likes of Joe Manchin, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Jon Tester in the Senate for example. In General elections then, under ranked choice voting, they could attract transfers from both parties whereas Democratic voters would be unlikely to transfer to Republicans, and vice-versa. Lisa Murkowski herself is a great example of this. It is very likely that she will be elected again next year from Alaska, even though the Alaskan Republican Party is itself trying to unseat her due to the fact that she voted to impeach Trump.

There's also an argument that you could have more extreme parties (e.g. an America First party or a Green New Deal Party). Those probably would not work though as they would fail to attract the necessary transfers that would be needed to get elected in a ranked-choice voting system.

pixelburp

The problem with a third party coming to be (and I 100% support a proper multi party democracy in that country), is that those founding it would have to be aware and ok with its creation potentially giving more power to one of the existing two parties, for a very long time. Nobody wants to rock the boat such that (say) an exodus of DINOs ensures Republican control for 10+ years. And if not that, then this new centrist party would simply become kingmakers again, courted by the largest party to get a majority - so hello Joe Manchin again.

It's the same problem with things like the filibuster or term limits in many ways: there might be a broad recognition it causes a problem, but remains under the "better to have it and not need it... " principle.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118284664#Comment_118284664

That will certainly be the place if First Past The Post is used in most states. I would go far as to say there is no point in even trying to set up a new party while that is still the voting mechanism used - A classic example of that is The Green Party in the UK. Like most western European countries there is a ready-made demographic there for them but they have been unable to get off the ground. A huge part of that is the voting system. If you live in a close constituency between Tories/Labour and you prefer the Green manifesto but your number 1 priority is to keep the Tories out you'll likely vote for Labour rather than the Greens in order to have the best chance of your vote actually counting toward your objective. FPTP is an adversarial system that absolutely crushes smaller parties - unless they are regional, in which case it can be help them (e.g. the SNP)

eire4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123481#Comment_118123481

I was just thinking that about the spending. Its ok as long as it is on things like the military budget which for next year will be about 250 times the size annualized that the 3.5t original build back better plan would have been which would make it about 500 times annualized more spending if the scaled back build back better plan is passed which is not likely. My guess is it will end up even smaller if it ever gets passed.

This too much spending mantra is disingenuous given what they are willing to spend on their war machine. How about maybe they spend some money on their own people and their well being for a change.