Should Progressives Allow the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to Pass Before Democrats' Spending Plan?

Yes quit using one bill to influence another.

It is increasingly apparent that Dems are going to be limited in funding their human infrastructure pork bill. There are several elements that give me pause: using IRS to monitor banking accounts with $10,000 a year activity. This is intrusive beyond belief and should be squelched. The "Billionaire Wealth Tax on unrealized Capital Gains" will most likely be tossed in Supreme Court because most basically an unrealized gain is not income for purposes of the 19th Amendment. Because of Severability Language which will be inserted in the bill the Expense will continue without a tax support adding to Deficit. Any measure that is passed should have a Sunset Provision reoccurring every year. For these reasons move the bipartisan infrastructure bill and then call it a day.

Please resist burdening businesses and taxpayers with new taxes. Taxing businesses does not help they just pass the tax on to their consumers.

Let’s play by the Republican rule book, fuck everyone until we get what we want. Hold out and stay strong.

Save America! KILL THE BILL!

Any Democrat and RINO spending plan is not bipartisan

Democracy means not holding one hostage for another. Progressives are becoming bullies.

Less than half of the bill has anything to do with infrastructure.

No do not allow them to have their infrastructure bill passed read into it and take out all the crap that Nancy Pelosi is put in. Like her park getting money I don’t give a shit about her part. They are going to put our country in debt that our children and grandchildren will never be able to get out of. Look at the fat that’s in that bill. Do the American people know what’s in it. Hell no there’s so many pages you wouldn’t understand. This is called the Nancy Pelosi plan to bankrupt our country. Very little is going for inner structure. A lot of it is going to illegal immigrants they came across our southern border. People in America you need to wake up you need to see what’s really going on in our country and our freedom’s that are being taken away from us. You’re not even allowed to speak about what’s happening in the schools to your own children. The teachers union has a great deal of power over the administration we have now. People need to get out and vote but know who you’re voting for and what you are voting for. What is best for your children in the future. What is best for you now. How will you be able to retire. They even want to watch what you have in the bank. You’re not even gonna be allowed to spend $600 out of your own bank account they want the banks to manager that too. Do you not see or hear what is happening to America?

Get it done!

Joe Manchin: Please write a letter to your grandchildren and great grandchildren to be opened in 2031, explaining in some detail why you are forcing the provisions for combating Climate Change out of the Build Back Better program. Maybe, if more responsible legislators prevail, you won’t have to fear just how much your grandchildren will hate you for the suffering that they will be facing. … … … Let me put this into a somewhat different perspective: let’s say a 4,000 ton cargo vessel loaded with explosives lost all of it’s propulsion while strong winds are accelerating it toward a city dock. A catastrophic collision will surely happen in five days time and the only way to prevent it is to send a fleet of the largest most powerful tug boats now. Or, let’s say we have one of those super-sized cruse ship in similar distress being blown toward the rock of Gibraltar that needed similar help. It would be irresponsible for the ‘Budget Manager’ to deny sending tug boats because they cost too much. … … … Now consider the Climate Crisis which is only just now starting to be blown toward a Climate Catastrophe oblivion. It will be a much, much bigger disaster than those above, which will take much longer to ‘crash’. It is and will become more difficult to control without immediately preparing the fleet of climate ‘tugboats’ needed to mitigate the damage. Just because the full impact will take a couple of decades to be felt, the longer we put it off to protect short term profitability of green house gas industries, the worse it will be. In fact, there is a threshold that once crossed, will make it impossible for any known or conceived manmade solution that can be safely applied in the necessary scale prevent a global life extinction catastrophe with drastic changes to human life as we know it, for those able to survive it - and that will include your progeny and everyone else’s as well. … … … The threshold for a self-sustaining global chemical feedback loop driven unstoppable Climate Catastrophic is only a 1 degree Celsius increase in the global average temperature away. This threshold was about 2.2 degrees Celsius a few years ago. It is irresponsible to not begin the processes, the ‘tugboats’, which are needed to mitigate the damage that will come- as the world is already too late to prevent it. We need to take a ‘war-like’ urgency and posture to mitigate the economic and humanitarian carnage that the evolving Climate Crisis will bring. … … … Let’s also look at our involvement in World War 2 which globally was less impactful to life on this planet than the Climate Crisis will become. I am grateful that there were not too many Senators worried about protecting our Country’s growing and very profitable enterprise of building weapons for the Nazi’s, or in claiming that engaging with ally’s to commit to World War 2 was too much of an expensive entitlement to fund. Just think, we would all be speaking German today. … … … Thought you might like to know! We do. Your constituents do. The electorate does.

Bicycler: I hope that Manchin still has a conscience, that public pressure can make a difference and a reduced but impactful bill can be put together. It is a shame that the voting rights bills cannot be included in the reconciliation package. Enough of the original Build Back Better program must be passed for the Democrats to do well in the midterm elections. If they do not, most of this legislation will no longer matter because the Republican Faction will just pick it apart piece by piece. If we get enough of the original Build Back Better initiative to truly make a difference and impacting enough people soon enough, the fact that some parts had to be left out for budgetary reasons can be an effective rallying cry for Democratic nominees - and a few more Democratic Senators would be a huge help. … … … I just do not want anyone, including those influenced by big oil to forget the Climate Crisis and not act begin to address it with meaningful actions. I plan to Twitter the comment to Manchin when I can remember how to do it. I do think that some of the silent slurpers who are the first hogs to the big money trough need to be called out occasionally. Many do not care but I have high hopes that a few, including Manchin can be influenced by public opinion. … … … There seems to be some face to face negotiations finally and it was reported that Manchin had long meetings with the Democratic Caucus leader (I won’t attempt to spell her last name and am too lazy to look it up) as well as with Bernie Saunders. I consider these meetings to be positive events.

This claimed infrastructure bill is clearly a bailout for bad government in financial trouble as a result and noting to stop it from occurring again and pork barrel type political payoffs to those in support of bad government.

Both should go straight to the hottest depths of Dante's Inferno where they belong. It is all nothing but congressional pork, power grabbing, campaign financing, and vote buying, AGAIN.

I don’t know the answer to this question. I don’t know enough about it. But I do not like the inner structure so called climate control, fixing roads and bridges. If that’s all that was in it but Nancy Pelosi wants millions of dollars for her park.? Why are we having to pay for that. There is so much fat on what they want overspending raising our deficit, putting America in bankruptcy which is their goal, right now is not the time for what the Democrats want. Mainly Nancy Pelosi. I don’t believe there are too many people in America that trust her anymore. I think what the American people would like to know is who is really running our country? Not everybody is stupid in America. Only half the country is stupid. Was it really Joe Biden who wanted to mandate the vaccine. It is Bodies. And we have the right to choose. Why is it people that are coming across our border are not mandated to take The covert vaccine? We need for the Republicans to stick together and do not vote this in. Do not become a party to destroy our country, why are we sending millions of dollars to other countries for climate control. Do you really believe that these other countries are going to use that money for climate control? If you believe that then I’d like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. How many times if we America the American people giving money to other countries to fix it up and to help their people. And none of the money was ever spent on anything like that the politicians pocketed our money.Money was never used to help the people. And what do you think is gonna happen when the people that you were letting come in to our country think that it’s going to be better for them when it’s going to be another socialist communist country. That’s the future of America. It’s on its way. With the first mandate to take away our freedom.

Tashyra: Thanks. I think that Dave C really captures the essence of what is driving Sinema’s antics. There is way too much money in our political system and our politicians have learned that they can market their Congressional positions to protect the highest bidder. Big Pharma is said to have 1400 paid lobbyists in DC working on buying political favor to keep the government from negotiating prescription drug prices (for which Americans pay orders of magnitude more than any other Country). They are also running extensive TV ads with people who required expensive drug regimens with them passionately stating ‘don’t let the government negotiate drug prices’ without even bothering to try to connect what that has to do with the people needing prescription drugs. … … … Just think of the how much money big pharma is spending on all of this and ask why any industry can would spend so much to buy political favor? Well, there is more return on their investment to buy political favor then there is in developing better better products and services. Basically, our free market Capitalism has devolved into a type of crony-capitalism where there is better financial return on investments to buy political favor then there is in investments to actually develop better products and services. There are many Congress people willing to sell their souls to capture some of the funding that big pharma and big oil interests are willing to pay. Manchin and Sinema are each trying to leverage the need for their votes as a way to further tap into these funds. … … … Manchin covers his tracks with some smooth ‘carpet-bagger’ rhetoric and generates rationalizations to support his personally self-serving positions. Sinema just doesn’t even bother. Like the trump, her ineptness is doing the country a great favor by shining a bright spotlight on one of the factors that are corrupting our governance. … … … We will have to get Big Money out of politics. Money corrupts and big money corrupts ‘bigly’.

The spending bill and the infrastructure bill are detrimental to the citizens of the United States of America. Neither bill should be passed.

Great answer jimK about Manchin needing to write a letter to his grand kids to be opened and read by them in 2031. You paint such a realistic and grim picture of what our world will be like and yet this already rich, bloated fat cat is still more concerned about his personal wealth and position rather than the country that will suffer because of his, and others like him, agendas.

Stop tap dancing and pass it.

I learned a rather strange lesson many years ago. I have had cause to revisit that lesson many times since. It started when a Buddhist teacher I was interested in addressed the audience in how to listen to his lectures. He said that the best way to listen to his lectures was to give them one's full attention without filtering or critical thought. One can do this to a greater or lesser extent depending on one’s ability to concentrate. Over the years, I learned that listening in this way comes at a price. Recollection is vastly improved, but the material “slips in between the cracks," meaning that one unconsciously repeats the material and even acts on the material. Don't get me wrong; this process can be valuable. Further, one eventually recognizes that this "attention without filtering or critical thought" can and often does happen automatically. I find myself doing it while listening, reading, watching movies, TV Shows and even the news. Consider the truth & implications of this.