For those still playing along at home, still chasing the details of this long and ugly slog toward passage of a standard infrastructure bill and a second bill called the Build Back Better Act, this latest update brings grim tidings.
Due almost entirely to their own self-interest and devoted service to those who fund their campaigns, Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have managed to either kill or mortally wound multiple elements of the social infrastructure bill that would have dramatically improved the lives of millions. Many of those items had already been removed from the standard infrastructure bill, on the promise they would be included in the second bill. This was a lie.
Gone, or almost gone from the bill are vital new climate provisions that would force utilities to move to clean energy; a Medicare expansion that includes dental, vision and hearing coverage; prescription drug pricing reform that is vital to funding the bill itself; free community college; new taxes on the ultra-wealthy; and 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
Manchin and Sinema did this, with some backstopping from a few House Democrats deep in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. The Republicans barely had to get out of bed. “We’re still ‘no’ on everything,” they’ve occasionally reminded us as they sit back and watch the shit show unfold.
After days of relative silence as these provisions were stripped from the bill, Bernie Sanders and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) — by far and away the most constructive and fair-handed players in this process — sounded a warning alarm: If the Medicare expansion and climate provisions are removed from the bill, despite numerous promises they would be included, there is no promise the 96-strong Caucus will vote to approve it.
Without their votes, the bill is almost certainly doomed in the House, as less than 10 Republican House members have indicated they will support it. The Congressional Progressive Caucus votes are the margin, and at present, that margin is in peril.
“Bottom line is that any reconciliation bill must include serious negotiations on the part of Medicare with the pharmaceutical industry, lower the cost of prescription drugs. That’s what the American people want,” Sanders said forcefully on Tuesday, adding that a “serious reconciliation bill must include expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing aids and eyeglasses.”
“Progressives are fighting to tackle the climate crisis, expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing, and guarantee family leave in America,” tweeted progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar. “These are the investments major countries make in their communities and we can too.”
“Medicare treats your eyes, teeth, and ears like they’re not part of your body,” tweeted progressive Rep. Cori Bush. “It makes no sense. The Build Back Better Act currently expands Medicare to cover vision, dental, and hearing. We need to make sure that happens.”
The Democratic senator from West Virginia coal was unmoved.
“Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday shut down one of Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders’s biggest priorities, expanding Medicare, which Manchin warned would undermine the solvency of the broader program,” reports The Hill. “Sanders insisted in a tweet Saturday that his proposal to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision must be included in a budget reconciliation package that is likely to come in well below the $3.5 trillion price tag Democratic leaders initially envisioned. But Manchin on Monday threw cold water on Sanders’s push to expand Medicare, warning the program faces insolvency in 2026.”
Manchin is also insisting the price tag for the social infrastructure bill be no higher than $1.5 trillion, a full $2 trillion less than the amount Sanders and the Congressional Progressive Caucus settled on after much compromise.
Because these are Democrats we are talking about, we are now required to cross the ever-treacherous span between the nauseating and the utterly surreal. On the far side of that chasm stand House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who have spent this entire endeavor watching Pelosi’s precious “moderate” Democrats gnaw through these bills like beavers.
At a historic crossroads that is nothing less than a genuine existential crisis, the speaker and the majority leader have watched as life-and-death provisions of these bills are chopped away by fellow Democrats chasing dollar signs around the building. Their advice to every Democrat in the face of this? Don’t worry, be happy!
“If we don’t act like we are winning, the American people won’t believe it either,” Hoyer reportedly told Democrats during a recent private meeting. Pelosi, for her part, has been telling her caucus that the contest is over, and the corporations have won again. “Embrace this,” she reportedly told the room during that same private meeting, “and have a narrative of success.”
Yes, of course, pretend to lead and have a “narrative of success” so people “believe we’re winning.” This is the politics of fiction, of cowardly lions with gavels and titles, all roar and no bite. That should have been the Democratic Party slogan since right about when Pelosi and Hoyer got involved in big-time politics. “Democrats: Pretending to Lead Since 1981, Because Reagan Was Scary and Republicans Say Mean Things.”
This is not entirely true, of course. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has from top to bottom fought the good fight since the beginning. If they could be criticized for anything, it is that they were credulous enough to believe the promise that those vital provisions stripped from the infrastructure bill would be revived in the Build Back Better Act.
Perhaps they should have chosen the infrastructure bill as their hill to die on, an immediate signal that compromising on such life-or-death provisions was unacceptable. That’s all hindsight, and besides, how much can the CPC do when the party’s leadership folds like a hotel laundromat?
Another twinkle of a bright spot: Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s wildly popular “two cents” campaign platform to tax the ultra-wealthy may become part of the Build Back Better Act, a replacement for the other taxation vehicles that were gutted from the bill. The idea being proposed is not exactly the same as hers, but it is a close cousin, and would do much to claw back some of the money Donald Trump gave away to his rich pals in December of 2017. Whether it survives the denuding process remains to be seen.
Soon, soon, Pelosi and company keep telling us. The bills will be ready for passage soon… but the Congressional Progressive Caucus may have something to say about that before the deal goes down. It’s a dirty business, and it’s not finished yet.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy