A few years is better than none, yes. But the state of American politics shows they’ll have Tom Cotton reinstating slavery while Dems are fighting amongst themselves to extend the child tax credit.
as long as they don’t suck,
They’ll be means tested to shit. They will be blocked and delayed by the GOP whenever possible. They are probably being designed so they can’t help everyone, creating a useful schism for the centrists / party to come back and exploit later. Even if they don’t completely suck, the effort to fight and save some half-ass concession would absolutely suck.
More programs over fewer years also gives a higher chance of at least a few surviving. You never know which will be popular enough to not repeal, so having a variety of different ones gives a larger chance of a few making it.
It's the correct call for Biden, somehow I don't think that's the path he will take, not because he's a dumbass, but because any talk of being worried about government spending is always actually a conversation about wanting the common folk to have as little government assistance as possible to benefit employers. I think moderates have been particularly stringent about passing what's an obvious electoral slamdunk and an urgent relief package for an unprecedented financial crisis because they are associating welfare and covid assistance with massive quit outs. They haven't quite processed yet that there's a lack of "essential workers" because essential workers are vastly overrepresented in covid deaths, nor have they understood that this is the reason supply chains are failing everywhere.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but budget is never an issue when the US buys three useless aircraft carriers.
edit: I also mantain that the 3.5T number is understood amongst legislators that it's the budget to be spent over a period of 10 years, so likely they're worried about the fraction of the budget that will be dedicated to social spending per year, that's what it's at stake here. The New York Times confused themselves by talking exclusively about big number and horserace bullshit.
Covid welfare is absolutely responsible for mass quits, no one is "acting" otherwise, and essential workers are underrepresented in Covid deaths for the simple fact that most people who died of Covid were over 60 (not working).
The bigger issue is that work is miserable as hell for people, for reasons unrelated to wages, and they don't want to put up with the bullshit when they don't have to. The Democrats will never do anything to make work better, so since you all won't behave and man the Burger grill, you don't get any treats like childcare or paid medical leave.
If you normalize for people over 60, then you get a shitton of Black, Latinos in primarily service work fields.
All of this politcking and damage control in the media is preparing people for Biden not to pass anything. It is copium.
If people seriously support democrats after all this fuckery you are a fucking moron.
moderate
i.e part of the kayfabe spectacle of the "shallow state" (opposed to the deep state)
I'm going to give a serious reply to the article: For the approaches they're saying, isn't fewer years the optimal choice? The Republicans might be able to pick off a few of the less popular programs, but many will have to be renewed because the electorate will like them. I mean they mobilized a large movement around repealing obamacare and couldn't do it in the end. Also, it's a way of (mildly) disciplining the media and democratic senators who chose to focus solely on the net price rather than the annual price by halving the former while keeping the latter constant.
lib media has to spin it like they have options, even though one is obviously the worst option. they'll do anything they can do avoid being useful.
They want to do the bare minimum because that's what's in their donors' (etc.) material interests. The strategizing and actually caring about people things are just for show.
Are radlibs and socdems still supporting the Democrats? Do we still have users saying "Democrats are better than the Republicans sweaty."?
Do everything but for 2 years.
People will get MAD when shit is taken away if it’s not renewed.
Dems could literally make their platform “keep electing me or shit will suck” maybe even drag Republicans leftish when they see the programs are not bad.
Unironically this, a la Obamacare being politically toxic until people tried to get rid of it. It could actually be good/smart for them to do to this, which is why they won't.
That sounds like a workable strategy, so they'll definitely go with cuts and means testing bs instead. Gotta steer clear of the risk of not losing the midterms.
Will they get mad. People seem to have just kinda sucked up the drying up of all that covid aid.
A lot of people were mad, but also because it was done by both Trump and Biden and phrased as a "ONE TIME COVID THING!". Instead of it being "what if life didn't FUCKING SUCK!?"
What do the people do when they’re mad though? Nothing except gripe — most likely, the rulers would notice this anger and use it to present supply-side economics as the answer.
Nah giving people a good taste of what they want and then ripping it away is a good catalyst for revolution
The problem with the temporary programs is that they're going to be too pathetic for anyone to want to prolong them. The latest iteration of the child care funding has the most economically and politically inept means-testing known to humankind:
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/10/democrats-biden-childcare-plan-cost-prices-wages
But in the first three years of the program, families with incomes that are just $1 over 100 percent of the median income (year one), 115 percent of the median income (year two), or 130 percent of the median income (year three) will be eligible for zero subsidies, meaning that they will be on the hook for the entire unsubsidized price, which as discussed above will now be at least $13,000 per year higher than before.
Under this scenario, there will be many dual-earning couples who cannot afford childcare if both of them continue to work but could afford childcare if one of them quit their job and thereby brought their family income below the eligibility cutoff. Normally, people who quit jobs to take care of their kids do so in order to save the money they’d have to spend on childcare. Under this plan, they would have to quit their job in order to afford childcare!
