Tangle - Tick-tock: Biden's agenda on the clock.

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

This week is crunch time for President Joe Biden and Democrats, who are hoping to push through Biden's $1.7 trillion social spending and climate change package before Christmas. Democrats are using a Senate process called reconciliation to pass this bill, so they don't need a single Republican vote to push it through. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), a longtime holdout, would not commit to voting for the bill earlier this month, but Congressional insiders say she is privately on board (and is supportive of keeping paid family leave in the bill, a major win for Democrats).You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Twas the season of chaos and all through the house not one person was stressing.

Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum,

some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the latest on President Biden's agenda, and specifically the Build Back Better plan that Biden has been trying to push through Congress and get passed in the Senate before Christmas break. We have some news about that and also just a little update on what people are saying around the bill. As always, before we jump in, we'll start with some quick hits. First up, as many as 50 people have died in Kentucky after a series of tornadoes and storms tore through the state. Number two, the House panel investigation of the January 6th riots is set to recommend contempt charges against former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Number three, New York Attorney General Letitia James is suspending her campaign for governor and eyeing an early January deposition of former President Donald Trump. Number four, Fox News host Chris Wallace is leaving the network to start a streaming show at CNN. Number five, actor Jussie Smollett was found guilty of staging a hate crime against himself in an Illinois courtroom last week. Today, President Biden's months-long quest to pass his massive social spending and climate plan enters a new phase. I will sign it, period. On Friday, the CBO estimated the true cost of President Biden's social spending bill is not $1.75 trillion as advertised, but a staggering $4.9 trillion. So today's very hot reading, 6.8% jump in prices from last year for the month of November, does undermine the administration's forecast that inflation and prices would return to normal

sometime next year. Are you standing by that? So this week is crunch time for President Joe Biden and Democrats who are hoping to push through the $1.7 trillion social spending plan, depending on who you ask, how much it costs, and climate change package before Christmas. Okay, so what's the current state of play right now? We covered the latest Build Back Better framework in early November. That bill included free preschool for three and four-year-olds for six years, expanded home care for elderly and disabled, a cap on child care costs, extending the child tax credit, $550 billion of clean energy tax credits and climate resilience infrastructure, $100 billion to reduce immigration backlogs, and $150 billion for affordable housing, among other plans.

In mid-November, the House passed a new version of the bill that also included four weeks of mandatory paid family leave, an expansion of Medicare to cover hearing benefits, and a reduction of premiums for the Affordable Care Act. And there are all sorts of other smaller programs, from 12 months of Medicaid coverage for new moms to public housing repairs and salmon conservation tucked into the bill. Democrats plan to pay for the bill with a 15% tax on large corporations making over $1 billion in profit, as well as a 1% surcharge on companies that buy back their own stocks. There's also a new 5% tax rate on income above $10 million and an additional 3% surtax on income

above $25 million. The nonpartisan CBO scored the bill and said it would increase the federal budget deficit by about $160 billion over 10 years. So, does the bill as it stands have the votes to pass? Well, Biden is getting close. Remember, Democrats are using a Senate process called reconciliation to pass this bill, so they actually don't need a single Republican to vote to push it through. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat from Arizona, has been a longtime holdout on the bill and would not commit to voting for it earlier this month, but congressional insiders say she is privately on board and is supportive of keeping paid family leave in the bill, which is a major win for Democrats. But, stop me if you've heard this before, Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, is still holding out. Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, is still holding out.

Manchin is opposed to including paid family leave in the bill, and Democrats say they're willing to drop the proposal from the bill if it earns his vote. Last week, the CBO released a new estimate on the bill's cost if all the programs were extended for a full 10 years, which is the Democrats' intent. The top-line number came in at $3 trillion over a decade. Democrats criticized the report, saying it didn't include some of the offset proposals in the bill, but Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, are using the new score to urge Manchin to vote no. Meanwhile, the latest inflation numbers last week showed prices are

still rising across the country, which Manchin has repeatedly expressed concern about. President Biden maintains the bill would reduce inflation and cost of living for millions of Americans, but Manchin continues to express concern about more federal spending at a time of rising costs. So, now what? Tick-tock, really. Democrats want the bill on the Senate floor before Christmas. It's been delayed several times already and has also been cut in half from its original $3.5 trillion top line. It's possible they'd even bring the bill up for a vote merely to ramp up the pressure on Manchin. If the bill isn't passed before Christmas, though, Democrats fear it will continue to lose momentum and be chipped away at even further during negotiations. Now, we'll take a look at some commentary on where

things are from the left and the right, and then my take. So, what is the left saying? The left says that the bill would be a boon for middle-class America with an untold number of benefits. They argue that Democrats are simply using the same budget tricks in every kind of spending bill that all politicians use. Meanwhile, some Democrats are actually critical of the bill for having been pared down so much from what it could have been. In a Fox News column, Leslie Marshall, one of the website's resident liberals, made the case for how the Build Back Better plan would help Americans. An Oxford economics analysis shows an expected increase in GDP growth. It also projects that 750,000 jobs will be added to the economy by the end of 2023, Marshall said.

in this act to address climate change and to protect our environment, such as a $900 tax credit for e-bikes, reducing hazardous fuels to assist national parks, and forest conservation. Build Back Better would invest $1 billion for salmon conservation projects for both Pacific salmon and steelhead populations and their habitats. These projects will stimulate local economies in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. An estimated 3.4 million Americans would gain health insurance as a result of this legislation. The bill provides coverage for hearing aids for every five years, a $35 monthly cap on insulin

and lower prescription drug prices. It also provides support for in-home and community-based care. The act will provide an entire year of health care coverage through Medicaid for new moms. The child tax credits will be extended. That is $300 per child under six and $250 for older minor children. Universal pre-K for all three and four-year-olds is included in the bill, as is access to free school meals for 9 million more students, and 29 million children will receive $65 a month to help their families pay for food over the summer. In the Washington Post, James Downey asked if Manchin will see

through Senator Lindsey Graham's fear-mongering about the latest CBO report. For one, the senator repeatedly pretended his version of the BBB and the actual bill were the same. President Biden said the bill was fully, fully paid for. Vice President Harris said it was paid for, Graham told Chris Wallace. The CBO said it's not paid for, it's $3 trillion of deficit spending. Later, Graham claimed the bill spends more money than we did in World War II, which again is only true of the alternative CBO score he had. In the past, Republicans themselves have time-limited parts of their bill to lower their top-line costs down, he said. In 2017, for example, Republicans made part of

Trump's tax cuts end early to keep costs down. Tellingly, Republicans chose to sunset most of the tax cuts for individuals in 2025 while making the corporate tax cuts permanent. And unlike Republicans then, Democrats have been open about the sunset. President Biden recently reiterated his pledge to pay for any extended BBB program, whether that's for a day or a decade. When Wallace asked about the GOP hypocrisy, Graham first spluttered, what's that got to do with anything? Then he claimed that Republicans had to end the individual cuts early because you can't go beyond 10 years in terms of the budget window when the cuts were ended after eight years. And finally, he simply pivoted back to lying about the BBB's cost. In Jacobin Magazine,

Ryan Moore said America's ruling class is once again stopping us from truly building back better. During the coronavirus pandemic, the country paid homage to the extraordinary sacrifices of its nurses, teachers, and factory workers, but it has proceeded to rebuild in the interests of big business and wealthy elites, Moore wrote. The fate of the Build Back Better Act currently hangs in the balance, but even if it does pass, the bill will be a shadow of its former self, having already been stripped of paid family leave, expanded Medicare eligibility and benefits, tuition-free community college, attacks on billionaires, and more. The nation's pitiful response to the devastation of COVID-19 calls to mind the recovery from the financial crisis and recession of 2008 to 2009, which imposed austerity and debt on working people while bailing out the

financial institutions. All right, that brings us to what the right is saying. The right argues that the bill's real cost is being obscured by budget gimmicks. Republicans worry it will drive up inflation and many of the programs will remain permanent. They implore Senator Manchin to hold strong on his no vote. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about the real cost of Biden's spending plan. We've been telling you for months that the plan's advertised cost of $1.75 trillion over 10 years includes multiple budget gimmicks that disguise the real cost, the board wrote. Enter Senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn, who asked CBO Director Philip Swagel to add up the cost of the bill that recently passed the House if all of its programs

were made permanent. This is a more honest accounting because Democrats admit both that they want to make the spending bill permanent and that they've adjusted programs to make them fit under the Senate budget rules so they can pass with a mere 51 votes. Mr. Swigel's response, sent on Friday, is a torpedo speeding toward the hull of Build Back Better. Take the child allowance, which Democrats say will cost only $185 billion because it ends after one year. No one believes they won't extend it next year and the year after that at infinitum. CBO says the real cost over 10 years is $1.597 trillion. Democrats also pegged their earned income tax credit expansion at a cost of $13 billion because it, too, ends after one year.

CBO says the real cost is $135 billion over 10 years. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. In the New York Post, Stephen Moore said Biden's Build Back Better agenda got a double whammy last week. First, the Labor Department reported inflation is now running at just under 7% over the last year. Prices were rising at a 2% annual

pace when Donald Trump left office in January, and then 5% this summer, and now this, Moore said. But then a few hours later came the second body blow to the Biden agenda. The Congressional Budget Office released a report that examined the true cost of the Biden BBB plan minus the accounting gimmicks. The results were devastating, twice as high as previously reported and closer to $5 trillion in spending over the next decade. West Virginia's Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is now admitting the obvious. He's worried that another multi-trillion dollar spending bill steamrolling through this Democratic Congress will make the inflation contagion worse, Moore wrote. As even Obama economist Jason Furman has pointed

out, inflation is not a global phenomenon right now, as evidenced by the much lower price increases in Europe. The inflation contagion is a made-in-Washington crisis. If the Washington spending spree doesn't end soon, the inflation will continue to climb and put America at risk of a financial crisis and a gut-wrenching recession. In Fox News, Howard Houssack said the bill is repeating the same mistakes progressives have made for decades. This package would push more and more families toward full-time daycare for their children, Houssack wrote. It would promote wind and solar power for our electric grid with no assurance they will keep the lights on. It would mandate a shift toward costly e-vehicles and bring back welfare

without work through its child tax credit. Sadly, Americans have seen this movie before in similar political movements when progressive confidence was such that they adopted legislation that proved to have tragic collateral damage. The side effects of the Great Society of the 1960s are well known, he wrote. Here are just two examples. A costly Medicaid system that fails to provide access to many of its recipients, who are plagued by poor health, and a so-called war on poverty that pitted federally funded community groups against local elected officials, but failed to defeat poverty. All right, that's it for what the left and the right are saying. This is my take.

So there is a lot going on here. I've opined quite a bit about the Build Back Better plan, and my perspective hasn't really changed much. Build Back Better plan, and my perspective hasn't really changed much. The things I've always wanted to see were paid family leave, changes that allow the government to better negotiate our absurd prescription drug prices, and some climate change provisions that didn't amount to more corporate welfare. Kudos to House Democrats who managed to pass a version of this bill that included four weeks of paid family leave. We'll see if it survives a Senate vote. I'd say the odds of that are kind of slim. Senator Sinema may not be committing to vote for the bill, but she's not vocally opposing it either, which is a good sign she's on board. That means we're really just down

to Joe Mangia. I've long said that Democrats' best strategy to flip his vote would be to isolate him with a 49-1 break in the Senate, and it's possible they do that this week even if they don't know where he stands. I've also said that I'd be pretty floored if Biden managed to pass this bill after detaching it from the smaller infrastructure legislation, and it would amount to one of the most significant legislative achievements for progressives and Democrats in decades. All of that is still true, and I think his odds are actually better now than they were a week ago. As for some of the arguments above, I feel fairly confident about assessing the fibs coming from both sides. First, the obvious intent from Democrats is to make these

provisions permanent. Let's not kid ourselves. Any suggestion otherwise is, in fact, a fib. Whenever Congress passes legislation like this, the idea is that it will be so popular it becomes politically unpopular for the other party to kill the legislation when it expires down the road. So, I think it's reasonable to say the real quote-unquote cost of something like the Child Tax Credit, which Democrats are only extending for a year in the bill but will obviously try to extend permanently beyond that, is closer to that Republican-requested CBO estimate than what the White House is saying. That being said, it's also true that the Child Tax Credit would only become permanent if it is really popular, which puts Republicans in a tough spot.

Given that the literal language of the bill does not extend the credit more than a year, Republicans must concede it will only last for, say, 10 years if Americans love it and if they let it. Read differently, one could make the case that they're arguing about not passing a piece of legislation they worry will be so popular it'll be impossible to kill. Of course, when is the government giving money to people ever really unpopular? Still, though, this should not be a winning message with voters. of people ever really unpopular. Still, though, this should not be a winning message with voters. Second, the idea that this bill would worsen inflation, as Republicans are saying, is at the very least a hotly contested notion. The Biden administration's talking point here is actually pretty admissible for the record. They have 17 recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in

Economic Sciences saying it will ease long-term inflationary pressures. Another 56 pretty well-respected economists penned and signed a similar opinion, saying the Build Back Better would create jobs, would not add to inflationary pressures, and would increase labor productivity. I'm not a Nobel Prize-winning economist, but I think it's a fair point that stating this bill would raise inflation as a fact is a stretch. There's also the obvious fact that the Biden administration knows his poll numbers are cratering because of inflation. If he really thought a bill like this was going to make things worse, he'd almost certainly never support it. That's not to say it won't worsen inflation, because inflation very well may continue to get worse for the next year with or without this bill, but at the very least, I think it's believable that the Biden administration really does truly think it will

help ease inflation instead. There are plenty of other good criticisms about this bill to explore. Casey Mulligan, for instance, made a compelling case that the child care plan would actually increase costs for many middle-income families. Aditi Ramaswamy wrote about how the bill will give a huge gift to the gas industry despite being touted as a climate change bill. And Democrats have spent an inordinate amount of time fighting over a huge tax break for wealthy Americans, despite promising to increase taxes on America's top earners to help pay for the bill. As in the past, we're still waiting for what the final bill is, and the Senate produces it pretty soon, I hope, so we'll get a clearer idea. But there's no doubt it feels closer to becoming a reality now than it ever has before.

Alright, that's it for my take, which brings us to our reader question today. This one's from Dave in Wheeling, Illinois. brings us to our reader question today. This one's from Dave in Wheeling, Illinois. Dave asks, how are you able to keep your personal feelings about a politician apart from whether you like their policies or not? Honestly, I don't try to. I think allowing myself to feel personal feelings about a politician apart from their policies is an important part of being a political observer. I say that because whether a politician is likable is often a bigger part of what determines their success than the policy they're actually running on. Like it or not, politics is often a popularity contest in the high school prom queen sense, which is why charismatic lawmakers who do very little can often survive in Congress,

while the wonky geeks who draft important legislation but are not as personable can often fall out of favor. I also think given my job here with Tangle, it's important to allow myself positive feelings about people whose politics I disagree with and negative feelings about people whose politics I like. Take Senator Lindsey Graham, who's referenced today in our newsletter, which, you know, he's just top of mind for me right now. He's a politician who regularly works across the aisle on legislation. He professes respect for many other institutions. He's proposed some immigration stuff that I tend to support. He's voted in favor of several important bills

that I supported throughout his career. But he's also smarmy and self-interested and lies to the public and flip-flops regularly in order to advance his own career prospects more than basically any of his colleagues. So I don't like him, but I've respected some of his votes, and I think it's okay to hold those two things together. All right, that brings us to our story that matters today. This one is from California, where Governor Gavin Newsom said he wants to create a pathway for private citizens to sue gun manufacturers, sellers, and distributors in the state. And he's planning to model the proposal after the recently passed abortion ban in Texas. Newsom made the announcement on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling on Friday that allowed the Texas ban on abortions at six weeks to remain in place for now, but also opened the door for abortion providers to sue over the

law. Newsom's bill would allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, sells, or distributes assault weapons or ghost gun kits or parts in the state for at least $10,000 per violation. That's according to the Wall Street Journal. The proposal is the first of its kind and is the sort of democratic response to the Texas abortion bill that many liberal activists had threatened if the abortion bill was upheld. The Wall Street Journal has a story about this and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. Alright, that brings us to our numbers section. 44% is the percentage of adults 65 and older who had a booster shot by Thanksgiving, according to the latest CDC data. 41% is Biden's approval rating, according to a new CNBC poll. 44% is the percentage of Americans who say they want Republicans to control Congress. And 34% is the percentage of Americans who say they want Democrats to control Congress. Number one is inflation's new ranking as the most important issue to voters,

according to that CNBC poll, overtaking coronavirus. Finally, six in ten is the number of Republicans who believe vaccines pose a bigger threat to their kids than COVID-19. who believe vaccines pose a bigger threat to their kids than COVID-19. All right, last but not least, we have our Have a Nice Day section. On Saturday morning, Katie Poston walked outside her home in New Albany, Indiana, when she saw something that looked like a note stuck to her windshield. When she picked it up, though, she saw that it was a black and white photo of a person she did not recognize with a name and date written on the back. Poston, unsure of what to think, posted the image online and asked for help

finding its owner. Her post got traction on Facebook until someone came across it who had a friend that shared the last name written on the back of the photo. Poston soon found out that the photo had traveled 130 miles in the air from the monstrous tornado winds in Kentucky, landing cleanly on her car windshield. She eventually connected with Cole Swatzel, who said the photo belonged to his family. AP News has the remarkable story, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. remarkable story, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our podcast, there are some links to do that in our episode description. Please go give them a look and, you know, spread the word. Share it with your friends. Press that five-star rating. All

that stuff is really helpful. Thank you guys so much, and we helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. We'll see you next time. book. Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.