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Eric73's avatar

Your last paragraph is one that is worth emphasizing. Look, I'm admittedly a moderate-leaning progressive. I don't doubt that there are a lot of worthy causes being advanced in the reconciliation package. But right now, progressives are picking the wrong fight at the wrong time. When the house is on fire, it's not time to start installing a fancy new sprinkler system. Especially when you've got a hose connected to a hydrant that you're not willing to use because it won't solve your long-term problems of living in a fire-hazard of a house.

There are good reasons to be wary of such a huge spending package - not the least of which is the potential for massive inflation. It deserves time to debate and negotiate, and I do not think anyone with a D next to their name has any intention of outright killing it. Meanwhile, time to save our democracy is running out. If we can't get an anti-gerrimandering bill in place before the end of the year, we'll be locked in to another decade of Republican-tilted house races. We are not prioritizing.

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Liberal Cynic's avatar

I'd like to hone in on your bit about the risk of inflation from passing the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Over the same period we will spend $7.6 trillion on defense. Where were the howls about inflation when that spending bill was sailing its way through congress?

The $3.5 trillion bill is mostly paid for unless the conservative democrats get their way and most of the revenue portion gets stripped out. So it's not $3.5 trillion of new money getting dumped into the economy. It's $3.5 trillion getting added over 10 years and let's guess about $2 trillion getting removed through taxation for a net effect of about $1.5 trillion new money over 10 years.

The entire US economy will generate over $214 trillion over the same period. That means new cash injected into the system will be about 0.7% of the economy. I'm sorry, but I doubt even Milton Friedman would argue that adding 0.7% of government spending into the economy over 10 years would generate an appreciable amount of inflation, never mind enough inflation to actually worry about.

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Eric73's avatar

I truly hope you are right about this. I'm no economist, and it's certainly possible that I've been listening too much to the inflation hawks on this lately. And true, since it's a reconciliation package it's supposed to be budget neutral, in theory.

Still, it feels like they're rushing something that most of us haven't really had time to digest. Inflation can be industry-specific (such as what generous college loans did to the cost of higher education), which is why spending so much on defense doesn't affect the economy as a whole. It would be nice to have time to look at the package to make sure the money is being spent wisely and not just dumped onto the demand side of things so that we don't end up contributing to certain rising costs (like healthcare, for example).

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Fake American's avatar

"I do not think anyone with a D next to their name has any intention of outright killing it."

I honestly don't have enough trust left to believe this but if one does have trust I can see decoupling the bills not being a big deal.

"Meanwhile, time to save our democracy is running out. If we can't get an anti-gerrimandering bill in place before the end of the year, we'll be locked in to another decade of Republican-tilted house races. We are not prioritizing."

That goes right to that trust issue. I agree we aren't prioritizing well. Our democracy is the bedrock upon which everything else including the infra bill rests, so why didn't we do that first. Oh right, conservative Dems scuttled that idea too.

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Eric73's avatar

I would probably feel different about this if it didn't seem that they are overplaying their hand. It isn't like they're bargaining with something only the other side wants. They will be hurt by the scuttling of the bipartisan bill, and coming away with nothing feels like it would hurt worse for the people who want the most. Of course, these are people who come from safe districts, so maybe I'm undervaluing their bargaining position.

Still, this couldn't come at a worse time for the Biden administration, and that's what irritates me the most. Because right now, as we seem to agree, the Biden administration really needs some good press, and this is making the Democrats seem as dysfunctional as the Republicans when they controlled Congress. Granted, it's better to do this now than a year from now. Maybe in the end we'll get good legislation out of this that the Democrats can run on, but so far they don't seem to be getting credit for what they already did with the American Rescue bill, so I'm skeptical about that. And when politically, we so clearly need the support of moderate conservatives to stave off the threat of Trump, making it seem as though the Democrats are captive to the whims of their left wing seems to imperil our political future.

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