Tag Archives: Budget Reconcilliation Bill

It May Be That He Is Reading The Tea Leaves

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As of November 1 (according to Real Clear Politics), President Biden’s approval rating is 43 percent approval and 57.1 disapproval. Real Clear Politics also notes that 63.3 percent of Americans believe that America is headed in the wrong direction while 28.8 percent of Americans believe that America is headed in the right direction. It is quite possible that Senator Joe Manchin is well aware of these numbers.

Yesterday The Epoch Times reported the following:

At a press conference Monday afternoon, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) called on the House to stop playing “political games” and to move ahead with a floor vote on the Senate-passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.

Since August, progressives in the House have held the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) hostage in an attempt to compel votes for the reconciliation bill. These progressives have warned that they will not vote for the moderate-preferred infrastructure bill without passage of a budget that progressives find acceptable.

Specifically, these progressives have sought to use the threat to compel Manchin and his colleague Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who were key elements in bipartisan negotiations over the BIF.

But Manchin warned progressives that they would not achieve that result by continuing to hold the bill hostage. Manchin said that he will need more time to go over the new budget deal before agreeing to vote for it, pushing Democrats even further off schedule in passing both bills.

“In all my years of public service, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Manchin fumed. He noted that even after two visits to the U.S. Capitol by President Joe Biden asking House Democrats to support the BIF, there is “still no action.”

The article concludes:

“To be clear, I will not support the reconciliation bill without knowing how the bill will impact our debt and our economy and our country. We won’t know that until we work through the text.”

Until that time comes, Manchin urged the House to move ahead with the infrastructure bill, noting the bill’s rarely-seen bipartisan passage through the Senate. He emphasized again: “Holding that bill hostage is not going to work to get my support [for] what you want.”

Manchin said that he is open to supporting a bill that “helps our country move forward” but is equally open to voting against a bill that “hurts our country.”

“Let’s work together … on getting a sensible reconciliation package that really strengthens our nation, makes us better, and leads the world,” concluded Manchin.

Keep in mind that in the past Senator Manchin has caved to the whims of the Democrats in the Senate. He is not a reliable vote to block the progressives, but the current polls may keep him on the right side of things in this instance.

When Common Core Math Comes To Congress

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Yesterday Trending Politics posted an article about a recent Tweet by Senator Bernie Sanders.

The article reports:

Sanders tweeted: “2 senators cannot be allowed to defeat what 48 senators and 210 House members want. We must stand with the working families of our country. We must combat climate change. We must delay passing the Infrastructure Bill until we pass a strong Reconciliation Bill.”

But that’s the way our system is set up. The Senate is supposed to be the deliberative body and the House of Representatives is supposed to be more easily swayed by the trends of the moment. The Senate is there to protect America from any rash action taken by the House of Representatives. That system was somewhat diluted by the Seventeen Amendment, but traces of it remain in place.

The article notes a few Tweets in response to Senator Sanders’ Tweet:

“This is a pretty hilarious way of trying to say “48 senators should win a vote over 52 senators when it’s a bill I like.” That’s some pretty creative math,” said one Twitter user.

“It’s 52 senators defeating what 48 senators want,” said Nick Pappas. “You need Manchin & Sinema because all 50 senators on the GOP side reject your proposal outright. Get a majority in the chamber if your plan is so popular.”

“48 senators and 210 House members are, last I checked, a minority of both chambers,” said Dan McLaughlin.

“In other words, 52 senators are defeating what 48 senators want and 225 House members are defeating what 210 want,” tweeted Greg Price.

“I know math isn’t a big thing with socialists, but it’s at least 52 Senators rejecting your radical agenda. And 52 is a bigger number than 48.”

“Bernie’s policies are based on the idea that 25 states do not matter,” said Tim Pool.

Please follow the link above to read the article for more Twitter entertainment.

I’m Not Sure I Believe This

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Red State posted an article yesterday about a recent statement by Senator Joe Manchin. The Senator wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal  stating that he will not support the $3.5 trillion reconciliation budget proposed by the Democrats. The article notes that he is requesting a pause to decrease the amount of spending in the proposal. Some are celebrating that this is the end of the $3.5 trillion budget, but you need to look at the wording of the statement and the history of Senator Manchin more carefully. Senator Manchin always claims to be a fiscal conservative. He even votes that way WHEN HIS VOTE DOESN’T COUNT. When his vote counts, he votes with the Democrats. He is in an awkward position right now because he represents West Virginia, a mostly conservative state. If he wants to get re-elected in 2022, he has to at least make some conservative noises. I am skeptical as to whether this will be anything other than noise. Chances are that the budget will be cosmetically scaled down and he will vote for it.

The article at Red State includes part of the opinion piece:

The nation faces an unprecedented array of challenges and will inevitably encounter additional crises in the future. Yet some in Congress have a strange belief there is an infinite supply of money to deal with any current or future crisis, and that spending trillions upon trillions will have no negative consequence for the future. I disagree.

An overheating economy has imposed a costly “inflation tax” on every middle- and working-class American. At $28.7 trillion and growing, the nation’s debt has reached record levels. Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent more than $5 trillion responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Now Democratic congressional leaders propose to pass the largest single spending bill in history with no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt or the inevitability of future crises. Ignoring the fiscal consequences of our policy choices will create a disastrous future for the next generation of Americans.

It will be interesting to see how he actually votes. When you think about it, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema hold the keys to Joe Biden’s presidency. As long as the Democrats have 50 votes for the budget reconciliation package, they need Kamala Harris to be the 51st vote to pass the budget. If the Democrats do not have 50 votes, then Kamala Harris is not needed as the 51st vote. Therefore she can be promoted to President if Joe Biden seems to be failing. Stay tuned.

 

Our Current United States Senate Is Not Protecting Americans

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Just the News is reporting today that Senate Democrats voted down an amendment to prevent “…illegal aliens with criminal records from receiving conditional or lawful permanent resident status.”

The article reports:

The amendment was shot down 50-49 early Wednesday morning around 3am.

If adopted, the amendment would have established a “deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to prohibiting illegal aliens with criminal records from receiving conditional or lawful permanent resident status in the United States.”

It was proposed by Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. All 50 Senate Democrats voted against it. Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota missed the votes on all amendments.

Democrats are seeking to offer green cards to millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. through their budget reconciliation plan.

It’s time to look past the obvious about granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and talk about some of the subtle consequences. First of all, our current path to citizenship has been broken for years. It needs to be fixed. However, granting citizenship to people who have entered the country illegally will not fix it. We need an orderly – not overly expensive – method of immigration that allows for assimilation. Secondly, granting green cards to millions of illegal aliens puts downward pressure on the wages of lower-income Americans.  That is not a good idea. Thirdly, bringing in millions of people into a country all at once is not conducive to the assimilation of those people into the culture of that country. The only reason to bring that many people into the country at once is to change the culture and demographics of the country. Most Americans would not support that.

 

 

How Much Does It Cost?

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Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about the budget reconciliation plan that is currently working its way through Congress.

The article reports:

A group of analysts predicts that Congressional Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation plan could actually cost up to $5.5 trillion.

As The Daily Wire recently reported, lawmakers are attempting to ram spending proposals through Congress without Republican approval. Their budget incorporates portions of President Biden’s American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan.

The Committee for a Responsible Budget has stated the following:

While the actual cost of this new legislation will ultimately depend heavily on details that have yet to be revealed, we estimate the policies under consideration could cost between $5 trillion and $5.5 trillion over a decade, assuming they are made permanent. In order to fit these proposals within a $3.5 trillion budget target, lawmakers apparently intend to have some policies expire before the end of the ten-year budget window, using this oft-criticized budget gimmick to hide their true cost.

…Based on these sources, we estimate policies in the fact sheet would cost about $5 trillion over a ten-year period. Including additional policies not explicitly mentioned but rumored to be part of the package, and incorporating possible estimating differences between the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the cost could rise to $5.5 trillion.

The article concludes:

Economists from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School explain that deficit spending discourages investment in private ventures, thereby cutting innovation and business growth:

The government collects real resources via voluntary transactions with economic agents who are willing to trade real resources today for the promise of real resources in the future. Debt buyers, including U.S. households saving for retirement, view this debt as savings, which reduces their savings in private investment. This substitution is called the ‘capital crowding-out effect’ from government debt issuance.

With $1 trillion in deficit spending, capital stock would fall 0.78% by 2050; with $10 trillion in spending, capital stock would fall by 8.59%.

If you add tax increases to that picture, the future of the American economy looks even worse.

This Isn’t Bipartisanship!

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On Friday, Just the News posted an article about the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill the Democrats are planning to force through Congress.

The article reports:

Expected to be included in the Congressional Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill is language that will advance the party’s goals for immigration reform. Working with the White House, a group of top Capitol Hill Democrats are workshopping placing a handful of immigration measures into the spending bill that will likely be passed via budget reconciliation, that is with no Republican support.

For years, efforts to reform the American immigration system have stalled as Democrats and Republicans fail to make any sort of meaningful bipartisan progress on the issue. Now, Democrats are opting to strategically move forward potentially without the need for bipartisan agreement.

As Democrats in Washington scramble to complete the full version of the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill ahead of an initial procedural vote next Wednesday, details of the massive spending plan meant to accompany the infrastructure legislation are nowhere near fleshed-out, including how they plan to insert immigration policy into a spending bill. Right now, Democrats are, according to Politico, employing a “trial-and-error” approach to the legislation.

Democrats are reportedly attempting to include pathways to citizenship for a number of illegal immigrant groups in the bill, including “dreamers,” who came or were brought to the United States as minors, and farmworkers already living and working in the country. The Hispanic Caucus is also lobbying to include giving out green cards to “essential workers,” including those who work on the frontlines of health professions during the pandemic, as part of the legislation.

It is not clear that the Democrats will be able to include all, or any, of these measures in the final framework of the bill, if they wish to pass it without Republican support. There will likely be a lively back-and-forth with the Senate parliamentarian (who happens to be a former immigration lawyer) regarding what immigration policy can, under the complex and sometimes obscure rules of the Senate, be included in the budget.

To qualify for Senate passage with a simple majority vote, which the $3.5 trillion package theoretically will, any given part of it must directly relate to federal revenue. It remains to be seen how Democrats will retrofit their immigration goals to meet the standards of the Senate rules in that regard.

The bottom line here is simply–the Democrats have never intended to try to work with the Republicans–any time the Democrats have been in power in recent years, they  have ignored any Republican input and simply passed bills unilaterally. We all remember ObamaCare.

Carroll Quigley was an American who lived from 1910 to 1977. He stated:

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies… is a foolish idea. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”

Folks, that’s where we are.