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If Biden's "Build Back Better" bill dies, it will be because 'moderate' Democrats killed it
Paul Krugman @paulkrugmanJust wanted to flag this terrific Jamelle Bouie column. Democratic "moderates" are being deeply irresponsible, endangering everything for petty reasons, while the supposedly wild-eyed progressives are being adults https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/opinion/biden-democrats.html
If President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill dies in Congress, it will be because moderate Democrats killed it.
Moderate Democrats want Biden to sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill. But it seems clear that they’ll take nothing if it means they can trim progressive sails in the process, despite the fact that many of the items in the “Build Back Better” bill are the most popular parts of the Democratic agenda.
Given this picture of the ideological divide within parties, a casual observer might assume that in the struggle to move President Biden’s agenda through Congress, the chief obstacle (beyond Republican opposition) is the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and its demands for bigger, more ambitious programs. Biden was, after all, not their first choice for president. Or their second. He won the Democratic presidential nomination over progressive opposition, and there was a sense on the left, throughout the campaign, that Biden was not (and would not be) ready to deal with the scale of challenges ahead of him or the country.
But that casual observer would be wrong. Progressives have been critical of Biden, especially on immigration and foreign affairs. On domestic policy, however, they’ve been strong team players, partners in pushing the president’s priorities through Congress. The reconciliation bill, for instance, is as much the work of Bernie Sanders as it is of the White House. As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders guided the initial budget resolution through the chamber, compromising on his priorities in order to build consensus with other Democrats in the Senate.
Progressive Democrats want the bill to pass, even if it isn’t as large as they would like. They believe, correctly, that a win for Biden is a win for them. Moderate Democrats, however, seem to think that their success depends on their distance from the president and his progressive allies. Their obstruction might hurt Biden, but, they seem to believe, it won’t hurt them.
This is nonsense. Democrats will either rise together in next year’s elections or they’ll fall together. The best approach, given the strong relationship between presidential popularity and a party’s midterm performance, is to put as much of Biden’s agenda into law as possible by whatever means possible.
read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/opinion/biden-democrats.html
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The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)This is one instance where without question it is the extremists of the 'center' are the problem.
Mad_Machine76
(24,957 posts)As I recall, "Blue Dogs" whom gave Obama lots of problems in 2009-2010 were largely wiped out in the 2010 midterms. What are they even doing?! If they want to negotiate a smaller deal, fine. whatever. But don't tank the whole thing. We just got rid of Trump and they want things to just fall back to Republican control so soon? And as far as the distancing, Biden still has an average 50% approval rating. Not even all of the smearing over Afghanistan has brought Biden down to Trumpian levels of approval, approval figures which Republicans BTW DID NOT CARE ABOUT. Approving popular policies will make Biden and every other Dem MORE popular.
gab13by13
(32,321 posts)he cost us the public option. I still have hope that today's moderate Democrats will come around.
Mad_Machine76
(24,957 posts)but with a different "Joe"
PatSeg
(53,214 posts)As I recall, they both had ties to insurance companies. Their positions probably cost them their senate careers. Gone but not forgotten and certainly not missed.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(135,718 posts)Last edited Wed Sep 22, 2021, 05:23 PM - Edit history (1)
PatSeg
(53,214 posts)How different the Affordable Care Act would have looked if not for these Democrats.
dsc
(53,397 posts)Rice and Stevens, only the guy from Oregon was in a competitive one. The moderates in competitive districts have tended to vote for the reconciliation stuff.
Dave says
(5,425 posts)538, recall, is a weighted average of many individual polls.
Mad_Machine76
(24,957 posts)Well, still, stupid reason not to support Biden. But most polling I've seen has him +/-50%
WhiskeyGrinder
(26,955 posts)gab13by13
(32,321 posts)between moderates and progressives. With that said I must remind people why Joe Biden became president, yeah, he wasn't Trump, but he ran on Build Back Better and that is contained in the 3.5 trillion dollar bill. I don't for a minute believe that moderate Democrats are holding up this bill just to spite progressives, that's nonsense. Let's talk turkey, Joe Manchin gets more money from the fossil fuel industry than any other Senator. Nuff said?
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(135,718 posts)
aocommunalpunch
(4,581 posts)Both can be true.
Autumn
(48,962 posts)Demsrule86
(71,542 posts)in the midterms, they deserve to be called out. We need to get something and come back and get more. Perhaps we can still reach compromise on the Reconciliation bill...compromise is the art of politics and the only way anything is ever accomplished. There is no reason to hold up the bipartisan bill while we work on the reconciliation bill. I think moderates will vote for it if we can get a deal they just want the sure thing done. And it is a good bill with some really good stuff in it. Holding it hostage to a bill that may simply not have the votes in the Senate to pass is really foolish.
dsc
(53,397 posts)on their current position? I would be willing to completely forgo reconciliation if, and only if, we get those two to both pass a voting rights/ anti gerrymandering bill by busting the filibuster and suspending the debt ceiling the same way. I would also want the child care credits to be permanent. That is the least we can have.
Demsrule86
(71,542 posts)but we get what is possible and come back for more. I think the voting bill is going to happen...I am very optimistic. The reconciliation bill is not going to happen as written...it is possible that it be tweaked and then Manchin and Sinema will be on board or not...no matter what we have a good bill that has passed so let's not blow it up. The debt ceiling can't be suspended in my view. I favor the coin myself. And if we get enough votes, get rid of it permanently...but we must do something...prove that we can govern.
dsc
(53,397 posts)Autumn
(48,962 posts)someone that's not not pure enough for the moderates. It's not Progressives that are holding back Presidents Biden's agenda. It's not their fault that there is no such thing as a bipartisan bill. We know that republicans will pare that bill down to the bare bones and then not fucking vote for it. Those moderates seeking that bipartisan unicorn know damn good and well what will happen. This movie is nothing more than a remake of Groundhog Day using politicians. If anyone thinks a pared down bill doing very little will get us through the mid terns I have a bridge for sale.
Hassin Bin Sober
(27,461 posts)Lol
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)
Autumn
(48,962 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)leaving all "the shit" for progressives only?
Funny how that worked.
Autumn
(48,962 posts) Very little from Moderates though. After all, he's just representing his constituents... or providing cover for other moderates. Or any other excuse.
Now Progressives like AOC? That's a different story.
That's funny how that works.
KPN
(17,377 posts)Last edited Wed Sep 22, 2021, 12:37 PM - Edit history (1)
fundamental goals of the Democratic Party. Why? Self interest over Party and public interest?!
Budi
(15,325 posts)So labelling all 'Moderates' under the same demonizing headline as a few is intentional broadbrushing.
KPN
(17,377 posts)Demsrule86
(71,542 posts)Sinema...that is not 'all moderates'. The House moderates don't want the bipartisan bill held hostage to the reconciliation bill which may not pass. That is just a fact. It never was a sure thing.
The progressives in the house want to use the bipartisan bill as leverage to force Senators Manchin and Sinema to vote for the Reconciliation in order to get the bipartisan bill voted on. But it won't work. The progressives are playing hardball but don't have the numbers nor the power to make it happen. Manchin and Sinema don't care if either bill passes...but the American people do. We need a win for the midterms. I still hope the reconciliation bill can pass in some sort of compromise bill but no matter what the bipartisan bill needs to be voted on.
KPN
(17,377 posts)Budi
(15,325 posts)Like Iron Dome, or funding the Afghan Refugees, for instance.
Seems they all may agree or disagree as policy is legislated, individually, or any number at a given time as policy is negotiated or debated.
Elessar Zappa
(16,385 posts)I don’t hat moderates at all but I do get upset when they derail Dem priorities.
Budi
(15,325 posts)Many pols who consider themselves Moderates are in full agreement & support of Biden.
Response to Elessar Zappa (Reply #9)
Budi This message was self-deleted by its author.
Demsrule86
(71,542 posts)Senate anyway.
KPN
(17,377 posts)actively engage and advocate?
Budi
(15,325 posts)Most House/Senate Dems are & have always been of a progressive policy thought.
It is found in the basic tenats of the Party
I don't recall many or of any, Dems who disagreed or legislated against Sen Paul Wellstone's Progressive ideology.
His was most generally welcome & embraced.
I do recall a time when he stepped up as a voice advocating for a poor Latino area of west Tx, and against the dumping of out-of-State toxic Radioactive waste in that poor Latino community.
He stood for their well being against a Corporate profiteer in Tx as well as an out-of-State battle in the US Senate.
Sen Wellstone succeed in saving the particular Tx community, but the Corporate Tx profiteer & the State he battled against in the Senate also succeeded by simply moving the toxic dump location from Sierra Blanca, Texas to another site in West Tx.
Thank you Progressive Sen Wellstone & the Democratic Party he belonged to.
RIP...
KPN
(17,377 posts)DemRule68's post.
Budi
(15,325 posts)Legislative policy placed before them for debate & vote.
Dividing by label is a broadbrush attempt to factioning out a Party that is actually 'all of the above', for the sake of splintering the base.
This is media driven in a time when redefining the Dem Party into good, bad, & evil has it's political advantages.
Notice how this rarely is seen within the Right.
Just pointing out the obvious as a serious note of caution.
It's not intended as a productive move, either.
👎
What are you trying to accomplish here? Are you jonesing for an argument? Strikes me that you are being a bit aggressive in making up and assigning an adversarial view. Beyond this, I’m not going to play along or waste my time.
Budi
(15,325 posts)None are exclusively nor consistantly one nor the other.
No matter what exclusive label is addressed to themselves or others in the Dem House & Senate.
A simple check of the members' voting record will reveal that point.
PTWB
(4,131 posts)That’s the only way we will make progress.
Demsrule86
(71,542 posts)dragging? The House will vote for the Reconciliation bill and pass it. You have two Senators who don't give a shit about either bill and will not vote for the reconciliation bill as written...there is no leverage that will work.
The House needs to vote and pass the infrastructure bill and send it to Joe Biden's desk. And let me just add, if progressives wish to drag moderates anywhere perhaps we should work on being competitive in districts and states that are not deep blue. Power is obtained at the ballot box not because you demand it.
Bettie
(19,704 posts)we will not get a second bill. At. All.
That is what the so called "moderates" want.
If they could, they would stop the current one as well.
So, once again, crumbs that "moderates" try to spin as a feast.
BradAllison
(1,879 posts)It supports our President like all the rah rah cheerleaders here would/should want, right?
But here it's "Another progressive up to no good making trouble!"
This place sometimes......
KPN
(17,377 posts)This isn’t about dragging moderates left, it’s about returning to Democratic Party roots.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)But as this thread is wonderfully and accurately exemplifying... we often tell ourselves what we need to and pretend all else simply doesn't exist.
iemanja
(57,757 posts)Are there more?
There are the 11 or so self described House moderates who wrote that open letter to Pelosi several weeks back saying that they could not support advancing the reconciliation bill if a vote wasn't held first on the bipartisan infrastructure bill which they asserted was ready to go and needed to be voted on essentially immediately. That is how we got into the box Dems are now in, with a vote supposed to be scheduled in the House on Monday for the infrastructure bill. Those moderates would not allow the reconciliation bill to advance to the drafting stage until they extracted a promise from Pelosi on a date certain for the infrastructure bill. That date comes due on Monday. Those House moderates played hardball with House Leadership, leading to the current crisis. The Dem Co-Chair of the "Problem Solvers Caucus was one of them.
iemanja
(57,757 posts)How ironic.
Fullduplexxx
(8,626 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Budi
(15,325 posts)US President Joe Biden
Jamelle Bouie © 2021 The New York Times Company
Sep 05, 2021,
****
Biden’s ratings are dipping. Here is why
US president also faces a huge backlash from media over US withdrawal from Afghanistan
Published: September 18, 2021 16:57
Jamelle Bouie
****
The history of who he's written for is in alignment with Bouie's political bias.
Which "Moderates"? All?
Broadbrushing an entire group is lazy as well as intentional.
MoonlitKnight
(1,585 posts)Yes, we do have conservative Democrats. They are a welcomed group in our party. But to call them moderate is wrong. Just because the Republicans are so far to the right doesn’t change the political spectrum.
Heck, if we compare to other mature democracies around the world even most of our liberals would be considered conservatives.
We have a deal. Everyone agreed to it. The only ones backing out on the deal they agreed to are the conservative Democrats. They need to keep their word.
Demsrule86
(71,542 posts)And there is no f'ing way to force them in a 50 50 Senate. I actually think Manchin would vote for a less expensive version. But Sinema was a Green...so it is not likely. And She doesn't care...Most Greens hate the Democratic Party...not saying she does. But who knows?
MoonlitKnight
(1,585 posts)Including the Senators. It wasn’t until the Senate passed the “bipartisan” infrastructure bill that some House Democrats started pushing to pass it right away. Then they pushed the Speaker to agree to a vote by the 27th. Then Manchin and Sinema started to complain about the size of the $3.5 trillion over 10 years bill.
BradAllison
(1,879 posts)But nice try implying it's somehow on her wanting a more liberal/progressive bill and being a "Green". She's only whining about the cost like a good little righty scared for her seat from AZ would.
KPN
(17,377 posts)that I know that many, but the few I do are all people who have basically given up on the Democratic Party becoming more progressive. Just saying … I’m not defending them.
BradAllison
(1,879 posts)She's also a totally cynical "boss babe".
In her blue district she could appear progressive mostly when it came to social issues, though not fiscal per se. Now she has to win in a purple leaning red state so she's gonna play it that way. She's already basically said because she's not a man like Mark Kelly so she can't vote with her conscience. She won't even run in 4 years and probably become a lobbyist for a bunch of crypto-bros.
Even the libertarians in Arizona admit she's in the Rethug's pocket and they vote for her because of that and she's "hot". They never feared her being Barbara Boxer.
BumRushDaShow
(169,758 posts)By Jonathan Martin
Sept. 24, 2018
PHOENIX — When Kyrsten Sinema began her rise in Arizona politics in the early 2000s, she was a Ralph Nader supporter and local spokeswoman for the Green Party who worked to repeal the death penalty and organized antiwar protests after the Sept. 11 attacks. But today, as the Democratic nominee for Senate from Arizona in one of the most pivotal races in the country, Ms. Sinema is campaigning as an altogether different person.
While she is now a three-term member of Congress, Ms. Sinema is running as much on her biography — her three years spent homeless as a child — as on any issue. She is using that personal hardship to project grit and distinguish herself from “most people in politics,” as she says.This emphasis on her life story has had a dual effect: It has highlighted her lack of a strong political identity and it has drawn scrutiny to her story of homelessness and some contradictory elements in it.
Ms. Sinema’s evolution reflects a calculation about what it takes to prevail statewide in Arizona, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. And it is a strategy that has put her in a competitive position against Representative Martha McSally, her Republican opponent, as they seek to replace Senator Jeff Flake and Democrats try to upend the current one-seat G.O.P. majority in the Senate.
To the frustration of many Arizona progressives, Ms. Sinema has shifted from a firebrand — she told The Arizona Republic in 2003 “that the real Saddam and Osama lovers were Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush” — to membership in the congressional Blue Dog Coalition, the most conservative group of House Democrats. Last year, she joined a small group of Democrats to back a bill that was promoted by President Trump and named for a woman killed by an undocumented immigrant, which would significantly stiffen penalties on migrants who illegally re-enter the country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/us/politics/kyrsten-sinema-arizona.html
= "opportunist".
KPN
(17,377 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)and believe in it. Don't be suckered. The Republicans know their opponents are liberals and are fighting their "holy" war against liberalism.
The house, for instance, has 3 ideological caucuses (as opposed to other alignments such as race).
The two very large ideological caucuses are both liberal and progressive. They differ mainly in how big and fast they should try to advance their goals and, very notably, in how willing they are to compromise to advance their goals continuously versus how unwilling to compromise, believing it's better to fail and keep trying.
* New Democrats Caucus, 95 members, more moderate-liberal and pragmatic compared to the other.
https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/
* Progressive Caucus, also 95 members, farther left but still almost all liberal, with a handful from
the illiberal left.
https://progressives.house.gov/
Almost all Democrats belong to one or both of these. Many members from low-income districts, including minority representatives, belong to the New Democrats because they must protect the few businesses that employ locals and bring in money. These people are not conservatives.
* The small conservative Blue Dog caucus. These are our conservative Dems, 20-something of them. Most of these are moderate conservatives. A few are as strongly conservative as any of McCarthy's people.
Where are the squad-type Progressives, not to be mistaken for the Progressive Caucus? They have only a handful of members inside congress, too small to be a caucus. Some outside are Democrats, others are not. Those in congress all belong, I believe, to the overall somewhat more moderate (compared to them) Progressive Caucus.
andym
(6,066 posts)The movement of the GOP to narrowly focus on perceived extreme social grievances and tax cuts has left economic policy debates to the Democratic Party. What we are seeing play out are debates on government-sponsored economic policies that used to be between Democrats and Republicans but are now just between Democrats, as Republicans consider almost all government-based economic interventions as something to be avoided. The Democratic Party now includes voters who used to be "moderate" Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, as the GOP moves toward a neo-fascist party backed by faux outrage. The breadth of the Democratic coalition makes enacting substantial legislation difficult, but not impossible.
Vinca
(53,994 posts)supermajority of Democrats over Republicans or progressive Democrats over moderates, etc.), you have to reach some kind of deal or face the idea of getting squat for your work. No one gets everything they want unless you have the numbers. Neither side has the numbers. Both factions of the party will come out looking like losers if they can't come to some agreement. Something is better than nothing.