As the midterms approach, the Biden administration is looking to pass some part of its Build Back Better plan. Biden managed to fund $550 billion in new traditional infrastructure spending. But the American Society of Civil Engineers argues that we have an infrastructure funding gap of $2.59 trillion. The bipartisan infrastructure bill barely makes a dent in that. The rest of the administration’s proposals have continually run aground. Various senators threaten to withdraw their support all too quickly, and this has caused the administration to water down its proposals over and over again. Now there is a new version of the human infrastructure bill, called the Inflation Reduction Act. This bill claims to raise over $700 billion in new revenue in an effort to fight inflation, reduce the deficit, and fund new investments in energy. It sounds like a significant achievement, but it’s not. Here’s why.
Continue reading “The Inflation Reduction Act is Not Designed to Reduce Inflation”Tag: Taxes
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Agreement is Embarrassing
Remember the Biden administration’s proposal to spend $2 trillion on infrastructure? Traditional infrastructure spending accounted for roughly half of that proposal. It was less than half of what the American Society of Civil Engineers believes we need. According to them, the US faces a $2.59 trillion infrastructure shortfall over the next 10 years. Now a bipartisan deal has been announced which limits new spending to just $579 billion. That’s less than a quarter of what our civil engineers believe we need. To make matters worse, the administration has agreed to fund much of the spending with public/private partnerships. Many essential infrastructure projects can’t generate a profit–they require huge up-front investments and continuous maintenance. The more an infrastructure package depends on private funding, the more limited that package is in the kinds of projects it can fund. How did it come to this? Let’s run through some of the reasons why the infrastructure plan was so completely butchered.
Continue reading “The Bipartisan Infrastructure Agreement is Embarrassing”Impeachment is a Mistake
Remember 2017? President Trump tried to repeal and replace Obamacare. Over the summer, the Senate debated various permutations of healthcare legislation, and Trump’s approval rating sagged. When the House leadership introduced their first plan, on March 6th, Trump’s approval rating was 44%. When the Senate defeated even the “skinny repeal” bill on July 28th, Trump’s approval rating had been reduced to 38%. From there, the president turned to cutting taxes for rich people. When the tax legislation was first introduced, on November 2nd, Trump’s approval rating remained 38%. When the Senate passed the legislation under budget reconciliation a month later, Trump’s approval figure sagged as low as 36%. Over the course of that year, Trump had lost about 18% of his approval, and he’d lost that approval betraying his core supporters on issues that mattered to them. He had tried to take their healthcare away, and he had taken their money and handed it to rich people. Many Americans who voted for Trump could see that this stuff was not cool. The opposition was making real progress.
Then, everything changed. By February of 2018, Trump’s approval rating was back over 40%. A year later, it was 42%, and as I write this Trump’s approval rating is over 43%. Virtually all of the progress the opposition made in the first year of the Trump presidency has been rolled back. What happened? We stopped talking about issues and started talking about the culture war and character issues. Let me show you the steps.
Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-For-All “Plan” is Pretend
After a great deal of prodding from both centrist and lefty critics, Elizabeth Warren finally put out her Medicare-For-All plan. The problem is that the plan is both unrealistic on its own terms and openly pretend. Let me show you how.
Continue reading “Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-For-All “Plan” is Pretend”
What Would Happen if We Returned to the 70% Top Tax Rate?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been shopping the idea of a 70% top rate of tax on earnings above $10 million. It’s popular proposal, with initial polling showing a solid majority of Americans in favour. While this policy can’t pass this congress, it’s indicative of the kinds of reforms we might see if we organise to elect more politicians like AOC in 2020 and beyond. So what would happen if we elected more AOCs and they enacted this policy?
Continue reading “What Would Happen if We Returned to the 70% Top Tax Rate?”
Benjamin Studebaker 