In an opinion piece on Tuesday at The Guardian, Robert Reich poses a familiar, and some may say inevitable, Democratic Party policy outcome: Is Biden’s entire agenda about to shrink into nothingness?
While Dr. Reich details how this does not have to happen, we pretty much know that it will happen. Because that’s what Democrats do.
For example, Democrats’ once in a lifetime plan to shore up and expand Medicare and Medicaid benefits are today being (1) scaled back to appease right-wing Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and (2) corporate Democrats are caving to industry groups like pharmaceutical lobbyists and private insurers over drug-pricing reforms.
Earlier this month, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told Democrats to get ready to appease Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – decide which cuts to make to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, get the plan down to whatever it takes to make Manchin Sinema happy.
But, again, we know those two right-wing Democrats will never be happy, no matter what you throw at them. Progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was absolutely spot on when she tweeted “We can’t negotiate the reconciliation bill down to nothing”.
In July of this year, President Biden would not commit to strong reform of the filibuster to protect voting rights – to fight back against Republicans’ assault on voting rights across the nation; thereby almost assuring failure of passing the For The People Act and The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War”.
Candidate Biden said many times he would: enact a public option to create a government-run alternative to private insurance plans; reduce the sky-high and life-threatening prices of prescription drugs; cancel up to $10,000 of student loan debt per federal borrower; and raise the estate tax, which affects only the wealthiest 0.2% of U.S. households.
But in late May, when President Biden was to unveil his official budget proposal, none of those initiatives – which were already considered inadequate by progressives demanding Medicare for All, at least $50,000 of student debt relief, and substantially higher taxes on the super-rich – would be included. Again, folding under pressure from special interest groups and right-wing Democrats.
In March, Biden caved to right-wing Democrats like Manchin and agreed to tighten eligibility for Covid relief checks. Sample of the responses:
Robert Cruickshank, campaign director at Demand Progress, said “Some people who got checks when Trump was president won’t get them now that Biden is president. There is no upside to this, only the massive downside of handing Congress to the Republicans next year.”
And Matt Bruenig, founder of the People’s Policy Project, said “This is not targeting. It is the illusion of targeting, an illusion that will end up hurting tens of millions of people who are currently in need but weren’t in 2019”.
Jeff Stein @Jstein WaPo: Biden-Senate compromise on curtailing stimulus payments results in ~ 12 million fewer adults & ~ 5 million fewer children receiving benefit, per @iteptweets analysis ~ 280 million overall still eligible for payments, ITEP says.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC: Conservative Dems have fought so the Biden admin sends fewer & less generous relief checks than the Trump admin did. It’s a move that makes little-to-no political or economic sense, and targets an element of relief that is most tangibly felt by everyday people. An own-goal.
In January 2021, after a long campaign with catchy headlines like ‘this is a battle for the soul of America’, Biden-led Establishment Democrats returned to their not so new favourite expression when it comes to how they felt about the criminal and treasonous actions by Republicans in the House and Senate: ‘I feel so sad’.
On Sunday morning television talk/news shows, on scheduled interviews day and night on cable talk/news, and during spot interviews on nightly news shows, old guard Dems to a man and woman said they felt sad that Republicans such as Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Devin Nunes, et al… , were not playing by the rules, were not negotiating in good faith, were not standing up for the Constitution, were not standing up against liars, against insurrectionists, against traitors.
What can Democrats do? Well, for one, instead of feeling so sad about the un-American activities of the Republican Party, they could get mad, I mean mad enough to do something about it. Damn, they have the White House, the House, and, yes, the Senate, so they could do something. Fight back. Loud and hard. Stop being sad. Stop whining. Stop being the Wuss Party that Republicans believe and show you to be.
Stop The Shrink!