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Infrastructure Judgment Day has come and (almost) gone, and in spite of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s most powerful positive-thinking rituals, both tracks of President Biden’s agenda remain at a standstill. The good news is, that means there are still two tracks.
- A plume of black coal dust emanated from the Capitol on Thursday, indicating that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) had a new offer. Or, an old one: According to a Politico report, Manchin told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer back in July that he wanted to limit the reconciliation package to a comparatively dinky $1.5 trillion. Manchin confirmed that’s the topline number he has in mind, lest American society succumb to “an entitlement mentality,” and said that he wants as many social programs in the package as possible to be means-tested. Some very cool ideas from the neighborhood yacht resident!
- Manchin’s proposal calls for more modest tax increases on corporations and wealthy households, suggesting that the biggest roadblock in negotiations will be Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who has indicated she’s a twee-thumbs-down on corporate tax hikes big enough to fund a major bill. (Sinema, for her part, claims to have made clear demands which happen to be secret.) Manchin hoped to begin those negotiations after the bipartisan bill had passed the House, but Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) exited a Thursday meeting saying that House progressives would still vote down the BIF if it came to a vote first.
- Between progressives sticking to their guns and GOP leadership instructing members to vote against the bipartisan bill, it looks doomed to fail if Pelosi brings it to a vote on Thursday night. Pelosi remained aggressively optimistic about sticking to her timeline even without an agreement on the Build Back Better act, telling reporters, “I'm only envisioning taking it up and winning it.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, meanwhile, was asked if Democrats were confident that they had enough votes and replied, “nope.” And scene.
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Thankfully, Congress was able to take time out of its busy paralysis schedule to resolve an emergency.
- The House and Senate both passed a stopgap bill to keep the government funded through December 3 on Thursday, sending it to Biden’s desk hours before the midnight deadline and preventing a government shutdown. The bill includes $6.3 billion for Afghan refugee resettlement, and $28.6 billion to help communities rebuild from recent natural disasters. One looming crisis averted!
- The bill does not include a debt-limit increase, leaving a bigger looming crisis very much unaverted. On Thursday, an increasingly anxious Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen joined calls to abolish the debt limit altogether, which would prevent Republicans from holding the economy hostage every few years. Schumer said he’ll look to hold another Senate vote on the debt ceiling as soon as next week, which could be the vote that forces Democrats to finally rip the filibuster out of Mitch McConnell’s cold, purple hands, if we all do a few Nancy Pelosi-style visualization exercises.
It’s frustrating enough that a few moderates would hold up desperately needed climate and social initiatives over the price tag when much bigger defense budgets sail through Congress with little debate. It’s on the rest of the party to continue limiting their leverage, and it’s on all of us to take Joe Manchin’s advice and make him irrelevant: votesaveamerica.com/nooffyears.
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Tell the Biden Administration to Cancel Student Debt
The cost of higher education has grown exponentially in our country, placing it out of reach for most students and families unless they agree to take on huge amounts of debt. Over 44 million Americans carry more than $1.7 trillion of student debt. This crushing burden is preventing millions from buying homes, starting businesses, saving for retirement, or even starting families: And that reality falls heaviest on communities of color – particularly Black people and especially Black women – as a direct result of systemic racism.
That's why we’re urging the Biden Administration to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt per borrower by the end of 2021 – and we need as many people with us as possible. Add your name to our petition to join us in action today.
Canceling student debt can help close the racial wealth gap by over 20 percent – securing financial stability and economic mobility for Black, Latinx, and other people of color who are disproportionately burdened by loans, while addressing the debt crisis for millions.
It’s a common-sense solution and there is no reason to wait: Sign our petition telling the Biden administration to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt per eligible borrower now.
Thanks for taking action,
The ACLU Team
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Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) plans to use $400 million in coronavirus aid to build new prisons, in one particularly shitty instance of GOP leaders repurposing American Rescue Plan funding for harmful unrelated projects. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler has asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to block that plan, writing, “Directing funding meant to protect our citizens from a pandemic to fuel mass incarceration is in direct contravention of the intended purposes of the ARP legislation.” Elsewhere, Republican county commissioners in Galveston, TX, have approved a plan to spend $27 million in relief funding on sending more law enforcement to the U.S.-Mexico border, and Texas Democrats have asked Yellen to ensure that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) can’t put ARP money towards finishing Donald Trump’s border wall. In Wyoming, GOP lawmakers have even proposed using relief funds to pay the federal fines of businesses that violate Biden’s vaccine mandate. On the one hand, those funds intentionally have few strings attached; on the other hand, stealing it for projects that actively hurt hard-hit communities or prolong the pandemic should be plainly out-of-bounds.
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- The Justice Department has filed a court statement saying that Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) ban on school mask mandates violates the rights of students with disabilities, signaling support for the Texas families who have sued to overturn the ban.
- The House January 6 committee has issued subpoenas to 11 Trump allies who were involved in organizing the Stop The Steal rally.
- Facebook’s global head of safety testified in a Senate hearing on Instagram’s effects on young users’ mental health, and in accordance with the Embarrassing Big Tech Hearing bylaws, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asked if she would “commit to ending Finsta.”
- Anyway, here are some truly horrendous internal Facebook documents on the harms they’re fully aware of.
- Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Barbara Lee (D-CA) shared their personal abortion stories in a Thursday hearing.
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has introduced a bill that would establish a commission to document the atrocities at federally-backed boarding schools for Native American children.
- The government is set to let up to 80,000 unused green cards expire on Friday, after immigration authorities were unable to process the backlog.
- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) paid all of $2,105 in state income taxes in 2017, despite earning at least $450,000 that year.
- German officials have arrested a 96-year-old former Nazi secretary who went on the run (or, you know, urgent shuffle) ahead of her trial for aiding and abetting war crimes.
- A drunk man in Turkey inadvertently joined his own search party and spent hours looking for himself before realizing he was the missing person.
- "Whose wharfs?" "Our wharfs!"
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The U.S. is paying pharmaceutical companies more for the 20 top-selling drugs worldwide than the rest of the world combined, according to a new analysis by Public Citizen. Those 20 drugs generated $158 billion of total revenue in 2020, and $101.1 billion came from U.S. sales alone. For 17 of the top 20 drugs, pharma companies made more money from U.S. sales than from sales in every other country put together. That’s not because Americans are consuming more prescription drugs—it’s because we’re paying a ridiculous amount for them. The analysis underscores why drug companies are fighting tooth and nail to get Democrats to drop their drug pricing provision from the Build Back Better act; the U.S. is a cash cow for Big Pharma precisely because Medicare can’t negotiate lower drug prices. It also underscores why Democrats would be out of their minds to let them succeed.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has signed a law establishing a police decertification process for officers who have engaged in misconduct.
The Squamish First Nation plans to build an incredible green housing development on its land in Vancouver.
More U.S. parents now say they’re willing to vaccinate their children.
The Senate has confirmed Rohit Chopra, who has a reputation for working to protect student borrowers, to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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