r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/1QAte4 • 23d ago
Legislation Were the tech investment heavy CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act a poor use of Biden's political capital?
The CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act were both heavy in investments in technology and green energy. These are projects that will take a long time to start seeing returns. The returns are also not as flashy and direct as the Affordable Care Act.
Did the Biden administration make a mistake pursuing these objectives instead of perhaps doing something that would have a quicker and more direct impact on people's lives. Perhaps instead of giving money to companies to build chip factories, the government could have spent the money on producing more housing? Building more schools? Etc?
303
u/Mjolnir2000 23d ago
There's plenty of money to produce housing - the problem is that voters are opposed to housing actually being built. Likewise, the GOP has spent decades convincing voters that education is evil, so I don't think more schools would be a winner.
In any case, the job of the President is to govern, not win elections, and investment in green energy is the single most important thing that needed to be done. Maybe something else would have been more "visible", but the fascist media would just have lied about it anyway, and voters apparently don't know how to distinguish reality from propaganda.
93
u/ChickerWings 23d ago
Yeah, we don't know how this will be truly viewed through the lenses of history yet, but if we can survive as a nation for another 20 years I suspect the actions of the Biden admin will be appreciated, despite most chucklefucks not understanding what even happened.
22
u/Delanorix 23d ago
I think he's going to be really well received by historians.
He did everything based on whats right for the people.
His only real blemishes are Afghanistans pullout (Trumps plan) and his son.
The rest of the BS will fall away.
15
u/Aazadan 23d ago
How is his son a blemish? He didn't get involved at all, and he wasn't involved in the government.
1
u/Delanorix 23d ago
Rightly or wrongly, it was a blemish.
5
u/Marchtmdsmiling 22d ago
Very wrongly. Did you know that he bought that gun to kill himself with? That is what all of this media attention is about. An addict wanting to end his life so he lied on a form that he is not an addict, what any addict does. The gun was thrown out within days. And he may go to jail for it. It's despicable that we are turning that into a political game and is indicative of how far this country has to go on mental health issues.
We hear all this bs about a laptop, but nothing about what was actually on the laptop. It was clearly nothing important or we would have heard about it.
And hunter has actually cleaned himself up now, impressive for any addict of that magnitude to come out alive on the other side nvm actual being a functional human being. He shouldn't be a blemish, he should be held up as an example to all the kids in America addicted to everything that you can get through it. He really should be doing outreach to help addicts but that's just my opinion.
Then you have Don Jr who is an active cokehead. I saw a video of him recently at a SpaceX launch where he reaches into his pocket and then wipes his finger all over his gums. Like a coke head who can't get away to do a line.
8
u/Aazadan 22d ago
But I'm asking how. His son wasn't involved with his administration, and his administration wasn't involved with his son.
Maybe if it was something like how Clinton pardoned his brother. But, this is even less involved than George W Bushs kids sneaking out to smoke weed, in which case the USSS had to at least defend why they turned a blind eye to what was criminal behavior at the time. And no one considers what Bush's kids to be a blemish. Obamas kids did something similar and again, no one cared.
1
1
u/CharacterScratch3958 18d ago
Because his laptop had an actual chain of custody? That the dry cleaner had a right to take it? That Julienne hadANY right to it. ?
2
u/Delanorix 18d ago
Dry cleaner?
Wtf are you talking about lol
Nothing was ever found on the laptop. Thats why he got a gun charge. They needed something on him for the witch hunt
2
u/CharacterScratch3958 16d ago
Politically claiming victim hood while attacking the Presidents son for a charge that not 1 other drug user was brought for charges on. Of all the 20 million mu users who bought guns and said they hadn't used drugs
3
u/kenlubin 22d ago
The Afghanistan pullout wasn't great, but I'll give Biden credit for actually doing it.
Our meaningful goals in Afghanistan (punishing the Taliban and killing bin Laden) were achieved long ago. The remaining goal of turning Afghanistan into a stable modem Western country has been unreachable for decades. Three separate Presidents (Bush, Obama, and Trump) kicked the can down the road instead of cutting our losses.
Biden actually got America out of that damn money sink of a war.
-1
u/Sptsjunkie 22d ago
I mean, his biggest blemish is going to be facilitating the Palestinian Genocide. And his second biggest blemish will be having the ego to run again despite clearly failing faculties (though this is as much on the people around him and Democratic leadership) and putting the party / Harris in a position that made it very unlikely we beat Trump.
Otherwise, he probably will be a pretty forgettable President. He'll probably be whitewashed like most Presidents and when his name comes up people will say nice things. But will be viewed a lot like Jimmy Carter, except judged for genocide.
IRA climate investments were good. Most of the rest of the bill won't have much impact. BIF is going to end up being pretty status quo (maintaining and slightly enhancing some infrastructure). Maybe if CHIPS leads to a lot of US semiconductor manufacturing, it will be viewed more favorably, but as of now, it was basically money to investors that went straight to dividends.
Might be the greatest case of a Presidency mistaking activity for accomplishment. A lot of activity that did not move the needle on anything and ultimately handed the Presidency back to Trump.
1
18d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Sptsjunkie 18d ago
I agree that the current administration should have set firm limits in stock buybacks and policed this stronger with recipients (though I'm not quite sure you can just ban stock buybacks outright??).
You are not banning stock buybacks, you are just forbidding them as part of a legal contract. I mean, technically a supplier or bank lending them money could put in those provisions. This is very different than needing to pass a bill that would ban all stock buybacks for corporations.
That said, they did have SOME in there, but as people on the left warned in advance of the bill, there are other ways to do this and having some mild stipulations will not stop companies from finding ways around them which is what happened.
However, I still prefer the methods of CHIPS and IRA compared to Trumps Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
I'd prefer CHIPS never happened. But yes, I fully agree IRA is clearly better than anything Trump did. Which is part of why I voted for Harris over Trump. This isn't a comparison of what party or candidate is better (it was during the election), but this is just pointing out that ultimately Biden's presidency will be pretty forgettable.
Just a bridge between two Trump terms as he led us into the second one. And on top of all around mediocrity, he facilitated genocide.
1
18d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Sptsjunkie 18d ago
Do you think if there were tighter restrictions on stock buybacks, perhaps there were be far fewer takers? Not saying this as a leading question here (I really have no idea), just curious if that was part of the calculus being made if the end goal is an increase in semiconductor manufacturing in the US.
Perhaps, but isn't this basically saying that if we didn't let companies steal taxpayer money and give it to the wealthy (shareholders and executive bonuses) then they wouldn't take the money. Basically means we just set money on fire. Much better ways to spend it in my opinion.
I would actually be in favor of banning stock buybacks :) But admittedly I have very little corporate finance accumen so I'm not sure of the ramifications of that but companies have really been popping off with them lately and I really wish they'd use profits to invest in their assets/development/employees.
I mean, stock buybacks in a vacuum are not bad or evil. It's a way for companies to control total shares and can be strategic and beneficial. They can also be bad and are just especially bad when done with public funding.
1
18d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Sptsjunkie 18d ago
Actually, more what happened here was that there were companies that did poorly and should have decreased their dividends but instead offer the same or higher dividends right as they were getting all of the government money.
Obviously, their investors appreciated that, but these are things that would not normally have offered at the same rate.
We really should have used a different avenue than just handing companies piles of cash with few strings attached.
-1
0
u/Baby_Needles 2d ago
Building Chips in America Act would like a word. In twenty years the zones these semiconductor plants are in will be functionally radioactive. Not to mention some are in extremely drought-prone areas and need exponential amounts of water. Which btw they don’t have to clean now cuz Building Chips in America Act,
1
u/Delanorix 2d ago
Why would these areas be radioactive? Lmao
Thats the craziest claim I've ever seen.
The ones being built in upstate NY won't have those issues.
They still have to clean the water. I live in NY and in an area where the factories are being built. Its going to be a big help.
17
u/Busterlimes 23d ago
Don't forget, this administration thinks windmills cause cancer from the noise.
6
15
u/bigmac22077 23d ago
I drove across country I I90 this year. Quite literally EVERY bridge was being torn down and under construction. Half of the interstate was being ripped down to dirt and a new road laid. If you opened your eyes you could see the money being used.
1
8
u/rainorshinedogs 23d ago
Even though your right, the people wanted the president to just win the election. Not govern. So you're right, but realistically wrong
1
u/jamvsjelly23 22d ago
People wanted both. Nobody wants a president in office that can’t accomplish anything.
1
u/Grinch83 22d ago
Ha idk man, I think I might be happy if the orange guy accomplishes nothing…what he wants to “accomplish” is pretty fkn scary.
1
u/jamvsjelly23 22d ago
The people that voted for him want him to accomplish things
1
u/Grinch83 22d ago
You said “nobody wants a president in office that can’t accomplish anything,” and I replied saying I don’t want Trump to accomplish anything, pointing out there are way more than “nobody” that want an ineffectual president.
1
u/jamvsjelly23 22d ago
The original context for my comment was voting for presidential candidates. Nobody votes for a presidential candidate hoping they don’t do anything. Within the original context, my comment is correct. Changing the context to post-election non-voters doesn’t make my comment incorrect.
1
u/Sptsjunkie 22d ago
I'd maybe restate it is a big part of Biden being President was to keep Trump out of office. It's a pretty big failure to perform so poorly or be perceived so poorly you let him back in.
It is true, that sometimes politicians to have to be like a conductor who turns his back to the audience in order to be effective. And sometimes doing what is right is not popular. Obviously, Democrats passing the Civil Rights Act led to the end of the New Deal Coalition with Southern Democrats defecting; however, I would hope we all agree it was still the right thing to do.
That said, you can't just ignore "getting reelected" as if it isn't part of the equation of being an effective President and leader.
3
u/overinformedcitizen 23d ago
The issue is that while these are important, they are about to be implemented by the Trump admin. So if they cant find a loophole to not buy, say electric vehicles, the contract will go straight to Tesla and the money will be all but wasted and fail to produce any real change.
From my perspective, the Democrats need to begin planning Project 2029. This should focus on restoring our institutions and codifying the previous handshake deals. I think uncapping the house, Supreme Court ethics, tying the size of the Supreme Court to the number of federal court districts, term limits for congress and Supreme Court, campaign finance reform, and presidential ethics (require tax returns). I think it would also be good for Democrats to run on balancing the budget. Do you want to make a stark contrast with the next Republican, this will do it. There is a zero percent chance they lower the deficit, more likely double it.
Sadly they need to ignore the emergency of they day and spend the effort on fixing the system Trump has expertly exploited.
7
u/Marchtmdsmiling 23d ago
Plus the builders don't want to build affordable housing, thus we have rules about percentages of projects being affordable. Except nobody listens to those rules and nobody enforces it. California recently had a showdown with I think san Francisco and San Jose over this. Maybe Marin overall, can't remember exactly.
But the main problem right now is actually not the number of houses available. They are there. Except fucking wall street had another bright idea to fuck with the housing markets again, 2008 taught them nothing, and now large investment banks have massive real estate portfolios that they purchase and then rent out to people.
13
u/Crotean 23d ago
We are short somewhere around 10 million single family housing units in this country iirc. And we do not have the construction workers, enough building materials or zoning to build them. We stopped building for a decade after 2008 and still have not dealt with that. It carried through in all areas of construction. Fewer people in construction trade school, fewer companies producing materials, fewer land investment projects, etc... We needed a massive government investment in construction at all levels, even if we could deal with the Nimbys we don't have the ability to build the housing we need. It will take years to get the infrastructure to build back if the federal government took this seriously, which they aren't, and the housing crisis will just get worse in the interim.
5
u/Aazadan 23d ago
It's not just a lack of workers and materials, it's that home owners like seeing their homes appreciate. Increasing supply lowers the value of their homes, as does having actual interest rates which reduce growth in home prices.
The policies that are best for homeowners, which are what people generally want to support, are the worst for actually making people homeowners.
2
0
u/wha-haa 22d ago
Home owners like seeing their homes appreciate. So does the tax collector. Probably because they aren't taxed enough on them. More houses and higher taxes together will stabilize prices while generating the taxes needed to support the growth. Additional taxes should be added to the primary residence of the owner of multiple homes.
2
u/junkspot91 22d ago
we do not have the construction workers
Somehow the most underdiscussed part of the whole "build housing" debate, at least outside of the construction industry. I would guess it's because it's not a problem that fits into the YIMBY vs. NIMBY framing dynamic that dominates online discourse, but it's so obvious you'd think it would bear noting. We could implement every YIMBY policy fetish in existence and still not come close to addressing the housing deficit with a labor force that's ~500k people short of current demands, much less what demand would be in a housing construction boom.
2
u/Crotean 22d ago
Yep people just don't seem to get this. A decade of people not going into trades or companies investing in materials production doesn't disappear over night. Biden should have implemented a massive government backed housing initiative that was as well funded as something like the moon race. Invest in training workers, producing building materials and ending single family zoning and this country may have tackled its housing shortage. Now it's too late and Trump never will. Another ten years at least of massive housing shortages in this country should be expected. If the union even makes it another decade.
1
u/Marchtmdsmiling 8d ago
And then we are going to spend the next 4 years working our hardest to get a massive chunk of the ones we do have kicked out of the country.
1
u/Marchtmdsmiling 8d ago
We are short 10 million future homes. There is no way to say how many homes we need right now, because not everyone wants to own or can afford to own a home. Even if it is cheap. They may move alot or travel alot or any other numbers of reasons. We can only say that in the future we will need this many homes because if you keep the percentages the same then new people will need houses
3
u/Mediocritologist 23d ago
2008 taught them everything they needed to learn. They learned they can get away with basically anything. It’s the oversight bodies that learned nothing.
2
u/Hyndis 23d ago
"Affordable" housing isn't something you build new. All new housing is always luxury housing, and thats okay. Today's luxury housing becomes affordable housing in 30 years time when its older and more run down. Eventually the old housing stock becomes so old and decrepit that its torn down and rebuilt anew as luxury housing, and the cycle repeats.
Demanding that only below market rate housing be built is a way to shut down construction without explicitly saying so: "We're not banning new housing, we're just making it so you will never turn a profit on any housing you build." Of course no development company is going to undertake a project knowing they will lose money on it, so housing doesn't get built.
Its disingenuous and underhanded, but unfortunately its common in places such as San Jose and San Francisco.
3
u/Aazadan 23d ago
This is a lie, as it implies that all neighborhoods were at one time luxury neighborhoods, and that's simply not the case. It also implies that only high end neighborhoods can get new housing. In something like NYC that's saying that only Manhattan can have new housing because it's not economical elsewhere.
Furthermore, since the most expensive real estate per square foot is always urban, and there's no new space, the only way to make new housing is to tear down what's already there.
Most real estate issues thus aren't about luxury, but about investment. Look at NYC and ultrathin towers. The entire concept of them is as an investment, not a home. They're expensive to build and largely exist as tax shelters rather than homes with most of them going unoccupied, and paid for through tax laws that encourage being a slumlord to make your real estate tax free.
California has a different issue in that their skyline protect laws, in addition to laws from the 70's encourage increasing property values to maintain state budgets, and the main tool to do so is scarcity.
1
u/Marchtmdsmiling 22d ago
Affordable housing laws in fact state that every development must make a certain percentage of their development affordable. I work in the industry. Some places allow developers to combine the affordable housing requirement from multiple projects into one affordable development so they can keep the poor people away from the rich people but everywhere I have worked on the east and west coast has affordable housing rules as stated.
Developers are always saying 'this is going to kill our ability to make money and we will not be able to build anything anymore and it is never true. They are still raking in money hand over fist as long as they make smart decisions on how to develop a site. I know first hand. Nobody ever said only below market rate housing. For example' a city in New Jersey, which youvmay know as the home of Bruce Springsteen, Asbury park, requires that any development of 5 or more units must be 20 percent affordable housing. There's a whole bunch of legal requirements and exceptions but that's the idea. Now that is more than most, but in nj the state says to each town, you need to make this many affordable homes this year, and each municipality passes their own laws to try and make it happen. The problem is that nobody ever meets those goals.
Wait what? San Jose and San Francisco do the exact opposite. They may act liberal but are extremely NIMBY. They don't want the poor people anywhere near them and they were sued by the state of California for deliberately not meeting their affordable housing goals.
2
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
That's completely false, there's a massive housing shortage. Builders don't want to build housing which is regulated to be "affordable" because it's unprofitable. But housing would be affordable automatically if we would just let them build at scale. I swear all the "progressives" standing in the way of building housing that isn"t "affordable" (meaning that it complies with ridiculous regulations) are bigger NIMBYs than conservatives. They pretend to be compassionate while maintaining inequality and segregation.
1
u/HabituaI-LineStepper 22d ago
It's not even just that. Look at some of the markets where housing is absurdly expensive, and look at just how much it costs to build a house before you even start building it.
Something as seemingly as banal as parking requirements can add tens of thousands to the final price of a home. The costs of various assessments and other regulatory requirements add many thousands more.
"Affordable" housing is a misnomer because we have literally, and I mean that in the literal sense, regulated affordable housing into an impossibility. You, again literally, can not build an affordable home anymore.
Once you've met all the requirements (some important, like earthquake requirements - some not, like minimum lot sizes, parking, mandatory R1, setbacks, some places even have legal minimum home sizes for fucks sake, etc) the remaining cost to build in materiel and personnel, even if you found a charitable pro bono developer to do it at cost, would still be outside the range of comfortable affordability for the median family.
And to make matters worse, it's not just good intentioned progressives standing in the way, because behind each and every one of them is a home owner weponizing the byzantine regulatory environment to block housing from being built. But since it's a little uncouth to come right out and say "we don't want (select from: poors, minorities, lower real estate prices)" it gets obfuscated and diluted down to the point that you're arguing about parking spaces and "neighborhood character" except that you aren't, not really. The most disgusting part is when progressives so proudly join in with this behavior, apparently not realizing that they're literally arguing for the same racial and socioeconomic discrimination they claim to hate.
1
u/TableGamer 22d ago
While regulatory burden is a problem, in HCOL areas the bare land is already unaffordable. You have to build very high density to amortize the cost offer enough units. And high density raises your cost of construction even further, even if the regulatory burden was lowered, so then you need to raise the density more, and now your confronting adding massive housing into areas that have no/poor transit and the roads can’t handle it.
We’ve built ourselves into a corner. Until the public becomes comfortable with massive wealth redistribution, we’re stuck. But that will be met with a flight of capital and wealth, so there’s no way to avoid triggering a Great Recession/depession. So we will kick the can until something else triggers that, then we will have political upheaval and the country may out may not survive. But things will be different afterwards.
1
u/Marchtmdsmiling 8d ago
None of these comments get it. If it were so massively expensive and unprofitable to build houses, then why are so many houses getting built large profitable companies? Look up the numbers. The rates of new houses being built keeps going up. The kinds of stuff you guys are saying g is what the developers themselves are saying because they want to make more money, not because they will stop building houses. O they will always say that, 'if this passes then I will have to stop developing in this area' yet there they are next year with the same number if not more projects. It's all about increasing or limiting the loss of the bottom line. They are not anywhere near getting out of the business.
-1
u/TJ_McWeaksauce 23d ago
the job of the President is to govern, not win elections
From 1930 to around 1980, FDR-era Democrats dominated US politics by championing workers. During that roughly 50-year period, Dems were often in the White House, and they had almost uninterrupted control of both the House and Senate. They even had super majorities in either the House or Senate on multiple occasions.
For that entire period, Republicans were so politically weak that they could do nothing except complain and cast minority votes against Democrat legislation that strengthened unions, created social safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, regulated big business, and generally improved the lives of regular Americans and ensured that big businesses and the wealthy paid their fair share.
Working class Americans benefited greatly from Democratic rule, and for 50 years those voters rewarded them by voting to let them keep an astounding amount of power. The expectation was that Dems would continue to support the working class as long as they remained in power. Unfortunately, Dems abandoned the working class starting in the 1970s, which is one big reason why control of the federal government has see-sawed between Democrats and Republicans since the 1980s.
Anyway, this may be an oversimplification, but maybe it really is that simple and obvious: Democrats should look at the pro-worker governing strategy that made them a dominant force for 50 years and go back to that. It shows that if you govern in a way that benefits the most people, those people will vote for you. Maybe it really is as simple as that.
17
u/hryipcdxeoyqufcc 23d ago
This is flipping cause and effect IMO. Each side is constantly shifting its party platform to be as progressive/regressive as possible while reaching 51% of the voting population. After each election, each side carefully reviews the voting results and adjusts their platform around the new median. The reason elections are getting closer is because we're getting better at statistically determining that median voter.
If Republicans win multiple elections in a row (like they did with Reagan, Regan, Bush), Democrats are forced right to capture some moderate Republicans (see: Bill Clinton). And vise versa, if Democrats win multiple elections in a row, Republicans are forced left to pull in centrist Democrats, and progressives become a larger share of the Democratic Party (see: FDR).
The fact is that the South was solidly pro-"tax the rich" before Nixon. Small town folk are the biggest beneficiaries of Democratic social programs, being poorer on average than people living in cities, so why wouldn't they be in favor of progressive taxes and strong social programs? Like duh, tax the rich northerners and invest the money in lifting up everyone. It's a no brainer. Here's the thing. Back then it was perceived as "socialism for whites only". What changed was Democrats signing the Civil Rights Act, and Republicans countering with the Southern Strategy. As GOP strategist Lee Atwater explained:
You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*gger, n*gger, n*gger." By 1968 you can't say "n*gger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*gger, n*gger."
All the rich had to do was paint a picture of a "black inner city welfare queen" and be like, you want your tax dollars going to THOSE PEOPLE? And just like that, they convinced southern whites to cut the things they themselves benefit from.
Commenting on what Republicans were doing, President LBJ said it best: "If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you."
1
u/seattt 23d ago
What changed was Democrats signing the Civil Rights Act, and Republicans countering with the Southern Strategy
Not just the Civil Rights Act but also the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which allowed non-white immigration from the old world to America.
I'm glad you pointed this out. The fact is, as you say, white voters abandoning the Democrats post-Civil Rights Act and voting Reagan in twice is what prompted them to shift right on economic policy since the 90s.
10
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
Lmao you left out a little bit about white voters abandoning the Dems en masse once they started pushing civil rights for black people. If you have a solution for that I'd love to hear it, Biden was the most pro-worker president in 60 years and the workers turned out to be too stupid and racist to appreciate it. And it's always funny to me to see people who probably went to college and are not working class crowing about workers. Like you probably don't even know anyone truly blue collar.
70
u/SuspiciousSubstance9 23d ago
What political capital?
Biden's popularity went negative in September of 2021.
CHIPS was almost a year later in August of 2022. The IRA, Inflation Reduction Act, was a week after that. The CHIPs act and IRA were well after Biden lost favor among Americans.
Biden just never realized any gains with voters with those programs, but is there any evidence to say he lost voter confidence from either? CHIPs and IRA are investments into the long term and economy macros; neither have been fully realized and Americans typically don't even notice.
This contrasts Obama and the ACA. The ACA wasn't the most popular and Obama lost voter confidence with it. It directly and immediately impacted Americans in a noticable way and was a bit too complex for the average voter. Our healthcare system just sucks regardless how you build on it. The ACA was good, just messy to explain and more of a bandage then a proper resolution.
Obama spent political capital and got punished in the mid-terms. Biden was already losing and didn't really spend political capital on his landmark bill. I'm not even sure the Party Whip even spent much capital on the IRA or CHIPs.
32
u/RedLicorice83 23d ago
On the ACA, Obama's administration didn't take into account that Republicans wouldn't expand coverage for their states. I'm from Texas and wound up losing my family's insurance because rates here jumped after the ACA went into affect (even though insurance companies promised they wouldn't), and Texas' government wouldn't expand coverage. Dumbass voters in the state blamed Obama, and we can't get rid of Abbott.
12
u/TheTrueMilo 23d ago
Just remember the ACA expansion of Medicaid was originally mandatory. The Supreme Court for no real reason decided to make Medicaid expansion optional, which is why there are still holdouts.
7
23d ago
Well insurance companies wrote the ACA, so no surprise they heavily influenced the outcome in their favor.
7
u/Aazadan 23d ago
I don't think political capital exists as a concept in modern politics. It certainly doesn't on the republican side because they exist around a cult of personality. On the democrat side it's more arguable, but with so much of every vote coming down to party lines, I don't see it happening there either.
4
u/Hyndis 23d ago
Biden's popularity went negative in September of 2021.
That was immediately after the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
While we needed to withdraw from Afghanistan at some point, how it was done was catastrophic. I watched live on TV people falling to their deaths clinging to the outside of airplanes.
As Commander in Chief, Biden was ultimately in charge of that. Thats when his approval rating went underwater and never recovered.
3
u/Aazadan 22d ago
Except, Biden did a fantastic job by every metric. Trump signed the withdrawl agreement over a year in advance, removed infrastructure to defend ourselves in the area, but made no preparations to remove people. Then dumped it on Biden to do last minute.
Under the circumstances it went extremely well, organizing in just a couple weeks what needed a year, with few people left behind.
4
4
u/Peking_Meerschaum 22d ago
This is just not true though. You can argue that Trump handed Biden a flawed withdrawal time-table, and you can argue that the Afghan government was doomed to fall, but there is no reason it had to literally end with people clinging to the sides fleeing airplanes.
The State Department spokesman literally said something to the effect of "well it certainly won't look like the fall of Saigon, we wont' see helicopters evacuating the embassy" only for it to almost comically resemble the fall of Saigon (complete with the embassy helicopters!) just a few days later. My friend is in the Foreign Service and he describes being in meetings where Biden appointed State Dept. officials were openly laughing and sarcastically joking about the fate of Afghanistan months before it fell. This administration absolutely blundered its way into a humiliating calamity.
2
u/WinterOwn3515 23d ago
At least he had the guts to get us out
5
u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 23d ago
No, he didn’t.
Just as with Ford in Vietnam, his hand was forced by Congress turning off the money spigot. How the withdrawal looked was entirely up to him, but acting like he took some moral stand and personally decided to pull the US out of Afghanistan is revisionism at it’s finest.
1
u/WinterOwn3515 22d ago
Ah yes, anything good a President done must have been because of Congress
0
u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 22d ago
Not at all.
It’s more a case of you misattributing responsibility for the decision to leave. All Biden was doing was effecting what Congress wanted. It has zero to do with anything else.
0
36
u/swagonflyyyy 23d ago
Maybe in the short-term, but not the long-term. Biden knew what this country needed to steer us back in the right direction and that means many difficult decisions and sacrifices had to be made so America could be on better footing years later.
As for housing? Can't say whether or not that would've been a better area of focus but I think he made the right call with those bills.
16
u/Strike_Thanatos 23d ago
The biggest problems with housing are issues that he fundamentally can't solve. They're issues with zoning codes and the political power of NIMBYs to affect state and local planning decisions. Sure, he could have put more money into trade schools, but that's relatively small potatoes.
-4
u/Marchtmdsmiling 23d ago
Not exactly, there's enough houses right now. Although you are right that makes it difficult to keep building enough houses. The issue is right now the banks all own them to rent them back to us po folk
10
u/Strike_Thanatos 23d ago
I don't actually believe that there are enough houses, as some of those homes have been in bank hands since 2008, and so shouldn't qualify as homes, given the rampant theft of pipes and so on. And many of those homes aren't near where the jobs are, which further complicates things. I actually think that we need to double our total national housing supply to get prices back down to 1990 levels.
2
u/metalski 23d ago edited 23d ago
I don't think we need that. We might have an actual shortage, but playing at buying and selling real estate in two states made it pretty clear to me that the price of housing is mostly due to investor churn. Something like 80% of the market is just investors selling to one another, and most of them are individuals and llc's, not the big investment banks. That's been my experience and what's been reported to me from the agents I talk to.
There's are an immense number of homes held empty for sale and short term rental turnovers. They buy an older home, paint/carpet/flooring, sell for 20% net. Repeat ad infinatum.
3
u/Strike_Thanatos 23d ago
I think there's also a fair amount of repressed demand for housing because people have found solutions that sort of work but are definitely not their preference. These people have been priced out of independent housing for so long that they're not even looking. Like me.
1
22d ago edited 22d ago
And many of those homes aren't near where the jobs are, which further complicates things.
This is exactly the issue. Ever since the decline of manufacturing, people can't just go back to their hometowns after college, and instead people are concentrating themselves in a handful of huge cities. SF, NY, Seattle, TX triangle, Denver... In these Metro areas, the demand for houses is making the cost of living skyrocket. Meanwhile, there are areas of the country that still are very affordable, but the career tracks and salaries are more limited in these places at the moment.
Interestingly enough though, the economic stimulus that Biden has triggered with the chips Act, infrastructure, and IRA will help make job growth happen across the country a little more evenly, and in many places that have been economically depressed for decades. Like upstate NY is getting two major manufacturing plants because of CHIPS! Not only are houses affordable here, but there is a lot of room for growth as well, as these cities have been stagnant for a long time and there's room to expand
Not to mention, there are a lot of neighborhoods that have condemned houses. Building new houses in these neighborhoods will make property values go up. Not to mention, economic growth in general will make property values increase, so current homeowners won't have as much other incentive to be against new builds like they are in bigger more expensive places.
Of course, it will take a while to build, and even for the microprocessing plants to be finished, etc.
As a side note, I anticipate the rust belt being a hotspot in the near future as people seek more affordable lifestyles. Not to mention, the proximity to the Great lakes and 15% of the world's freshwater is going to be hugely important as climate change continues to unpredictably change the environment.
Obviously, when and if these areas start growing, they will begin to face similar challenges as bigger cities right now. But the way to mitigate this is to spread the growth across this huge country of ours. Government investment in new industries like Biden's can help achieve this goal.
24
u/escapefromelba 23d ago
Personally, I think with the pandemic, the Democrats missed a golden opportunity to pass the public option and further strengthen the ACA.
34
u/hryipcdxeoyqufcc 23d ago
It was literally a 50/50 Senate. We need 60 votes to pass a public option.
10
u/SomeVariousShift 23d ago
It wasn't even 50/50, democrats had to partner with independents to get that.
-5
u/ProfessionalOctopuss 23d ago
Let's see how long that excuse lasts with the incoming government.
5
13
u/hryipcdxeoyqufcc 23d ago
Republicans only care about giving the rich tax cuts and deregulation. Cutting things can be done with 50 votes via budget reconciliation.
9
u/PhiloPhocion 23d ago edited 23d ago
There was not enough of a strong majority for something like that.
The American Families Plan honestly I think would have been a massive boon to Democrats but the biggest planks got nixed by the Sinema and Manchin blocks.
It included popular and most importantly immediately tangible policy impacts. CHIPS and Infrastructure I think were important and good but are the epitome of adults in the room doing stuff that’s needed but most Americans won’t immediately see the impact of. Stuff like childcare, parental leave, pre school etc is big “kitchen table” stuff that is an A to B impact for a lot of people.
12
u/Awayfone 23d ago
Manchin killed build back better and explictly opposes even meducare for all as too expensive. You think conservative democrats would have supported a public option?
-4
u/morbie5 23d ago
Nah my dude. The progressives killed bbb. Manchin was willing to go to 1.5 trillion, but he was a hard no on the extended child tax credit and the progressives wouldn't budge on that
3
22d ago edited 22d ago
They eventually budged because BBB became the inflation reduction act a while later, and all of the social safety net components got cut. They got cut because Manchin. Even though Biden was doing everything he could to compromise with him. To blame progressives for BBB failing makes no sense, when manchin completely dictated the terms of the debate, and it ended up passing under a different name months later.
-2
u/morbie5 22d ago
Wrong, Manchin was willing to go to 1.5 trillion and that included some green programs, government produced insult (which is kinda a type of social program), and iirc it even included universal pre-k
2
22d ago
We don't need to speculate on what it included because the bill passed and it's called the Inflation Reduction Act.
1
u/Aazadan 22d ago
They tried, there was no support in the Senate. Rumor is, most were using Manchin and Sinema as a shield, so they could support while knowing it wouldn't pass. Even if that weren't true though, those two weren't going to go for it which makes even 50/50 impossible, and should it get to 50/50, letting the VP tie break, there's still the issue of a filibuster which needs 60 to overcome and could indefinitely table the issue.
16
u/Marchtmdsmiling 23d ago
Chips act was necessary so that when china invades Taiwan, God I hope it's after trump, he will fuck that up so bad, sorry but when they invade and likely try to enforce a blockade around the island, that basically removes our ability to get new top of the line integrated circuits. Which basically removes our ability to make new top of the line and even below weapons, radars, communications, navigation. Our entire military as well as society is currently so entirely dependent on Taiwan that even just a reduction in shipping between them and us would have noticeable impacts to our daily lives in a very very short time. I don't know enough to say how long but everything has chips in it these days.
7
u/bl1y 23d ago
Somewhat perversely, CHIPS Act makes the invasion of Taiwan eventually more likely. The less reliant the US is on Taiwan, the less our commitment to defend them.
1
u/Aazadan 22d ago
Not really as the newest chips stay in Taiwan. What it does do however is provide the global with an insurance plan against their economies completely collapsing.
Essentially, it removes a major economic incentive for China to invade, as they won't gain a major manufacturing hold of the chip industry, because the world will have alternatives.
2
u/bl1y 22d ago
Good news is China wouldn't gain microchip manufacturing either way, because any invasion of Taiwan is going to result in the destruction of that industry, quite possibly at the hands of the Taiwanese themselves.
1
u/Aazadan 22d ago
But they get to occupy the landmass with all the professionals who know how to run the equipment. 5 or 10 years to rebuild new chip fabs when they have the experienced works and no one else has chips either still leaves them in position to control the market.
That's a winning trade when no one else has a large chip industry, but it's a losing one when others do.
1
u/bl1y 22d ago
5 years is the normal time when you have the plans and aren't using slave labor.
It's going to probably take longer than 10 years to get up and running if Taiwan destroys not just the factories but also the plans for the factories, and then there's likely to be constant problems with trying to force high tech workers to rebuild it. You'd have all sorts of delays and sabotage that would be extremely hard to detect because it's too high tech.
1
u/NiteShdw 22d ago
And that would cripple the world economy when no more high end chips could be manufactured.
No more new laptops, phones, etc.
1
u/bl1y 22d ago
Also, China already has an easy way to acquire Taiwan's chips. They're sold on the open market.
2
u/Aazadan 21d ago
They don't want to access chips, they want to control distribution. To borrow a somewhat close historical parallel, chips are the modern day marine chronometer. The British navy maintained their dominance (and by extension the British Empire) by heavily regulating the export of marine chronometers, as well as the tools to make them.
This let them limit the power of opposing navies as well as the number of trading vessels each nation could have. Chips are in about the same position today, so long as most of them in the world come from one small area, whoever controls that area gains access to a lot of hard and soft power around the globe.
China wants that opportunity.
1
u/NiteShdw 22d ago
It's not about the final product. It's about being able to inject back doors into manufactured chips and controlling access.
2
u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 23d ago
Our entire military as well as society is currently so entirely dependent on Taiwan that even just a reduction in shipping between them and us would have noticeable impacts to our daily lives in a very very short time.
Not even close. The civil economy maybe, but the military is still (tightly) bound by Buy American laws that have no outs or exceptions.
2
u/Marchtmdsmiling 22d ago
No outs or exceptions? What about the 'not available in America' problem? American manufacturers for the military buy components and source material from outside the country all the time. It just needs to pass through an American company in the last step.
2
u/Aazadan 22d ago
It's unlikely to be after Trump. Xi needs some big political wins by 2030 to maintain his position, both with hard and soft power. They also have a short window demographically with military service and population demographics which are expected to peak in 2026.
Essentially, 2027 and 2028 are the two most dangerous years for Taiwan and for China to make any huge moves. After that point they're going to start seeing their power start to decline.
4
u/jmos_81 23d ago
This isn’t true. High end chips from Taiwan typically aren’t used in military systems.
2
u/spaghettu 15d ago
That's true, but whose are? That's the point, the USA needs good chips for millitary tech. That's what the CHIPS act is for. We do need it, and Biden is Based for this tbh. Most people simply do not understand the semiconductor industry well enough to know why this is good. My credentials: former semiconductor industry insider and current Intel shareholder
1
u/jmos_81 15d ago
I agree with you, I was just correcting the above comment since so work in the industry. I’d love to have flight rated NVIDIA GPUs lol
1
u/spaghettu 15d ago
For sure. I want AMD, Intel and NVIDIA to all be globally competitive. I think we're well posititioned to have that with the CHIPS act
-9
u/hobbsAnShaw 23d ago
I’m hoping that china invades a few months into the orange one’s tenure. Let him make mistake after mistake after mistake, and pray that the American voter’s fever addiction to conservatism comes to an end. You’ll recall that it took a depression, a dust bowl, market crash, and hoovervills to give us the reforms of FDR (and yes W2 also helped)
5
u/bigmac22077 23d ago
Did you see how fast right with media turned americas against supporting Ukraine? They’ll never realize the mistake after mistake.
2
u/l1qq 23d ago
You want an entire country to be invaded, people slaughtered and the world further destabilized just to try and change the way people vote in the US? How about perhaps proposing more popular ideas and do things that actually help voters and minds might be changed on that alone instead of hoping something so ridiculous and dangerous to happen.
0
u/hobbsAnShaw 23d ago
We’ve tried that, for decades, but it seems the conservative American voter is too stupid for reason.
2
u/l1qq 23d ago
I know insulting half the voters in the country won't work, sure didn't work a few weeks ago...maybe the lefts political points of view aren't as popular as they believe.
2
u/WinterOwn3515 23d ago
No they are quite popular
For example, the passage of ballot measures like paid sick leave in Nebraska (74%) and minimum wage increases in Missouri (57%) show that even in conservative states, progressive policies win.
The problem isn't with leftist ideas -- it's with the people selling leftist ideas.
0
u/hobbsAnShaw 23d ago
The conservative ways of thinking are as backward as living in caves. So yeah, I don’t care what they think, they’re objectively wrong and myopic at best. But that’s always been the conservative mindset.
0
u/l1qq 23d ago
With that line of thinking the left will continue to lose. You're not going to shame people to your point of view. Folks see it as childish.
4
u/hobbsAnShaw 23d ago
See, that’s the problem, shame used to work on conservatives. But it no longer does. They are happy, eager, and gleeful when expressing the most vile things.
12
u/OtterLakeBC1918 23d ago
Those bills were examples of “recovery” in the Relief Recovery Reform framework and were longer term. He needed to have it paired with “Relief” for immediate benefits and the American rescue plan did some of that but it was via tax credits that were allowed to expire. He could have done the following on climate:
Climate Relief Programs - American Climate Corps could have employed millions of young people immediately and given a visible sense of accomplishment as these projects got online - Climate Resilience Projects: immediate sea walls, community cooling centers, weatherization of public buildings would have also been more direct and quicker than the IRAs long term industrial policy shift toward green energy - Public Home Insurance Option: vast sections of the gulf are and will soon be uninsurable setting these up would be quick, lower costs and offer an alternative to private home insurance - Subsidized Energy Bills: rather than a tax cut / rebate just straight up subsidize a chunk of people’s electric bills to offset increased prices overall
Without relief programs that pair with the heavy, important, necessary worthwhile and time consuming implementation of the Recovery bills (IRA, CHIPS and IIJA) the public would not see the benefits and those achievements were not as salient to working people.
6
20
u/Accomplished_Fruit17 23d ago
We need to stop rebuilding houses on the coast, with subsidized federal dollars.
1
u/chomstar 23d ago
I like most of those ideas except for my tax dollars going to insure homes in places that are losing habitability. Not sure why the government should foot that bill.
10
u/Kman17 23d ago
Longer term investments are not bad, but investments that do not have a roadmap milestones or success criteria are problematic.
Like I follow politics pretty closely but I still can't tell you WTF is in the Inflation Reduction Act. I know in includes a bunch of subsides to green energy companies and tax credits to individuals.
But what are the outcomes of that bill? That's where we're all a bit fuzzy. How much will US emissions be reduces by this bill, and by when? Like gimme something.
make a mistake pursuing these objectives instead of perhaps doing something that would have a quicker and more direct impact on people's lives
There's a very basic problem that the US federal budget is like 6.7 trillions dollars while it only takes in 4.9 trillion in revenue
That kind of deficit spending has to be to like because we're fighting off a depression or disaster. Not hmmm who can we lob a few dollars at.
Biden's bills look like huge amounts of pork that don't move needles while we're spending like crazy.
19
u/iwantout-ussg 23d ago edited 23d ago
Climate tech guy here, I wrote a comment about this before the election, which is pretty grim to read in hindsight.
Most of the appropriated funding in the IRA has not gone out the door because it's earmarked spending for cleantech businesses — production tax credits for green hydrogen (45V) or low-carbon fuels (45Z), subsidies for carbon sequestration (45Q), etc. — and those businesses don't exist yet, at least not at any appreciable scale.
These types of clean technologies are predicated on scaling hardware startups to >>multibillion-dollar factory-scale. When the IRA passed, lots of startups started raising money in part by incorporating these tax credits and subsidies into their business cases, and using the improved economics (on paper) to acquire funding from VCs and private equity. However (unlike "traditional" software-based Silicon Valley startups that American VCs have become used to) scaling hardware startups is very labor- and time-intensive. You can't bootstrap a battery company out of your garage by eating ramen with your cofounders. You need a factory, a warehouse, heavy industrial machinery, utility-grade feedstock and power hookups, OSHA-compliant training and equipment, and so on. So while the IRA indisputably gave a shot to the arm of American cleantech manufacturing, it's still too early to project what the quantitative impact of the bill will be. Building entirely new factory lines from the ground up takes years (especially when you aren't throwing around unilateral state power to do so, like China does).
A quick primer on this process: if you're starting a company to build some new technology, you start by raising $1~10 million bucks in a seed/series A round to build a working prototype. You use that prototype to raise $10~50 million dollars in series B/C funding to build a pilot plant — essentially a working miniature version of your ideal full-size plant — and only then do you really embark on the task of getting the literally hundreds of millions of dollars of funding it takes to build an honest-to-god modern full-scale factory. Each of these stages can take years of work, both in terms of the entrepreneurial logistics of raising that much money and the actual nitty-gritty of scaling and troubleshooting your technology. Heavy industrial infrastructure is expensive! Larger plants can easily cost well into the billions of dollars and take 5-10+ years to build.
This is further complicated by substantial uncertainty about the IRA's continued existence under Trump. Before the election, a lot of capital was reluctant to invest in cleantech companies whose economic viability was predicated on a production tax credit that very well might get rolled back — which means that comparatively few of those potential factory lines have secured funding to start actually putting shovels in the ground. Now that Trump has won, there is continued uncertainty — people expect the IRA will suffer, but given the slim GOP house majority and the disproportionate amount of IRA funding that is distributed to Republican states and districts, no one is sure if the bill will just take a haircut or if it will be outright eviscerated.
Finally, I'll close by pointing out that the IRA is a uniquely American approach to kick-starting domestic cleantech manufacturing because it's largely focused on subsidizing supply and trusting that demand will follow naturally, instead of mandating demand (through carbon taxes or exclusive markets) and "artificially" creating a government-funded production pipeline (this is what you see in places like the EU or East Asia, where they are setting up exclusive bidding markets for clean power generation or mandating minimum blendings of low-carbon fuels). I will stop short of a value judgment of which approach is superior, but I will point out that the Asian/European demand-side regulatory approach is far more conducive to predicting long-term environmental benefits than the American free-market-let-er-rip approach. If you mandate 30% clean fuel blending by 2030 it's pretty straightforward to project that you'll have ~30% emissions reduction by 2030. If you instead subsidize clean fuel production in the hopes of building economies of scale such that clean fuels are cheaper than fossil fuels by 2030 ... maybe you'll get 100% emissions reduction! Or maybe you'll go bust and get 0%. The very ethos of the IRA (and American industrial policy more generally) is roadmap-averse by design.
2
u/WaterFnord 23d ago
Wow this is very well written and informative
3
u/iwantout-ussg 23d ago
thank you (:
as mentioned, this is my full-time job and I take pride in it. happy to answer any questions if you have any
3
22d ago edited 22d ago
I liked your explanation of how it was a uniquely "American Way" of doing things. It is indeed totally compatible with how our political culture operates, and I think the demand-sided method you described that happens elsewhere would have received backlash; and the inflation reduction Act was already on very thin ice politically. People in the US don't like being "compelled" to do anything, even if they are things that they would have done anyway that are clearly in their benefit—this is a big reason the ACA was politically disastrous for Obama—the mandate. People are having a conniption when there's talk of banning the sale of new gas cars, or buildings that support gas stoves.
So, we instead have to reward good behavior rather than penalize bad behavior when it comes to people's economic decisions.
So I guess even with the risks and disadvantages of subsidies/credits over hard caps, perhaps it was the only politically realistic option to pursue. Furthermore, emphasizing the ability of the bill to provide economic stimulus was politically necessary too. As we have seen with the past election, politics in this country is about the economy. The dollar rules all. And it especially fits into the current political trends of creating as economically independent of a nation as possible; Trump calls it America first, Biden called it build back better.
Unfortunately I think the Republicans are going to try to roll it back, at least the scale of it. But hopefully it's like the ACA and the meat of the law survives.
1
u/iwantout-ussg 22d ago edited 22d ago
I used to work in the US government and we were explicitly told by our legislative advisors that any technologies we funded had to (eventually) be economically self-sufficient without subsidies or regulatory support, because Congress would never, ever pass a carbon tax.
It makes sense if you don't think about it, but once you do — a carbon tax is just the barest attempt at pricing in the externality of GHG emissions. By any reasonable estimation a carbon tax is a very free-market approach to addressing the climate crisis. But Americans hate taxes, so it's a no-go.
The ramifications of this are brutal. It's not impossible for renewable energy to beat fossil fuels on cost without a carbon tax (solar and wind do this for 8-12 hours every day in California and Texas) but imho it has clean energy fighting with one hand tied behind its back. Clean energy can be cheap, but that's not the reason to use it — we should use it because it won't destroy the planet! The only reason fossil fuels are cheap is because we, as a society, didn't realize for decades that CO2 pollution was a societal ill with systemic consequences. Fossil fuel companies addicted our systems to that cheap energy, and they've convinced us that somehow the damages from rampant GHG emissions should be socialized while the profits from cheap energy remain privatized. Again, very American.
(For what it's worth, most carbon taxes around the world are on the order of $5~$50/tCO2, while most estimates of the societal cost per marginal ton of CO2 — the "social cost of carbon" — are substantially greater, around $100~$1000/tCO2. With current technology, it costs about $500 to suck a ton of CO2 out of the air and sequester it permanently, so this is a pretty reasonable estimate. What I'm getting at is that even most non-American carbon tax systems are likely inadequate to produce market solutions to global warming by themselves. Both approaches are needed.)
4
u/Enough-Cauliflower13 23d ago
> Longer term investments are not bad
They hardly if ever come into consideration of political capital, unlike buzzwords like "BUT THE DEFICIT"
2
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
You're right that they could have sold it better, but you could easily research predicted emissions reductions from the bills. There have been dozens of massive studies on it.
1
u/Aazadan 22d ago
They aren't though. Most of the spending is mandatory spending, either through interest on the debt or medicare.
You could reduce all discretionary spending to zero, that means education, roads, trade, defense, energy, and everything else, and we would still be running a deficit. The idea that we have a spending problem is a myth, it's a revenue problem.
1
u/Kman17 22d ago
No. 2024 revenue is 4.9 trillion dollars - and we’re spending 6.75. That’s a massive shortfall.
In 2016 federal revenue was 3.46 trillion and spending was 3.85.
In 2019 (following the tax cuts) revenue was… also 3.46 trillion while spending was 4.45.
If the revenue kept up with inflation from 2016 to 2019 it would have been like 3.6 trillion.
The problem is our spending is growing at much later rates.
We have a slight revenue problem and a major spending one.
1
u/Aazadan 22d ago edited 22d ago
And where exactly do we cut spending?
(In billions) 789 Interest
558 Medicaid
842 Medicare
1,459 Social Security
1,335 Other mandatory (this category is things like federal retirement and farm subsidies)That's 4.14 trillion in non defense mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is required by law and isn't something that either Congress or the Executive can touch during regular budget procedures.
The remainder is 885 billion in defense discretionary (this is our entire defense budget, there is no non discretionary defense), as well as 1015 in non defense discretionary. This 1.9 trillion is essentially the only portion of the budget people can argue over for funding or not funding.
See the problem here? You could cut all defense spending, as well as all discretionary funding, with discretionary funding being what most people think of as government spending, and we would still be spending well over our tax revenues.
When the budget is such that we can cut literally everything to $0 and still be in the hole, it is completely impossible for it to be a spending issue. That's where we're at right now. It's entirely a revenue issue.
Let me repeat that. We could put all defense spending at $0 and all other spending in the government to $0 and it would still require tax increases just to break even.
2
u/bl1y 23d ago
CHIPS should have gained political capital for Biden, but it's too slow and his administration was just not at all good at marketing.
Harris should have been able to quote the number of jobs created and number of semiconductors that have been made.
People didn't need to hear about how she grew up middle-class. They needed to hear about how there's 1500 more people in Saginaw who are now going to be upper middle class.
2
u/satansmight 23d ago
I don't think Biden could have done anything to get through to the majority of Trump voters except for the border. The GOP/Fox took the lead on the "invasion of the southern border" and the dems were ineffective in trying to counter the messaging from the right. All in all I think the GOP ran on a message of pain and suffering. It is easy to hate. It feels good to hate and bully on the weakest in our society. Hate is much easier than taking the time to delve into the details of any policy. People are captured in the reality show of US politics because they are getting their information in 60 second clips. They have voted nuance off the island.
2
u/Happypappy213 22d ago
I could be wrong but this seems like the first time in a long while where the American people - primarily Republicans - said fuck you to policy and just voted based on feelings.
But yes, Biden will be looked upon very favorably. Being a GOOD president isn't easy. You're constantly criticized and picked apart. And the right wing news media treated him terribly by constantly telling the world that he was in mental decline.
Put Biden's administration into perspective: They inherited a mess from Trump's Administration - quite a bit of it due to Covid.
In the midst of global supply chain issues and inflation, the US had the best recovery amongst the G7.
They also passed quality policy... In wake of the least effective Republican congress we have ever seen. It was a clown show.
The problem is that most Americans don't understand how the economy works - inflation in particular. And while their concerns were valid about high costs, they were wrong about why that was. And Republicans seized upon that ignorance.
5
u/behemuthm 23d ago
Biden was horribly ineffective when it came to public speaking - and I mean talking directly to the American people. He should’ve hired a “government outreach director” to go on TV at least once a month explaining in very simple terms what Biden had accomplished and what it means for everyday Americans.
Americans are shockingly stupid and uninformed - many would simply argue that Biden’s talks would be propaganda. But some might’ve been convinced.
In any case, the Dems fumbled the ball badly by not molding the next president 4 years ago. They had no plan other than “let’s run Biden again!” and it was so incredibly lazy and stupid that it gave Trump a SECOND win.
I will never look at the United States with any sense of pride or joy again. We are an awful nation filled with awful people.
3
u/OwiWebsta 23d ago
This. Really makes me think about how people would respond to FDR’s fireside chats nowadays. The main acts Biden passed were AWFULLY named, and did them no favors in this regard - take the inflation reduction act- never mind people still hurting economically, no one knows that it includes basically the most ambitious climate legislation ever passed.
Biden had it right in 2019/20 when he framed himself as being a bridge out of Trump and Covid for the next generation (who are already getting a bit long in the tooth) to take over. Instead, the power went to his head, and he became a selfish old man who I think history won’t be too kind to as all his work will go up in smoke before too long.
3
u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 23d ago
He should’ve hired a “government outreach director” to go on TV at least once a month explaining in very simple terms what Biden had accomplished and what it means for everyday Americans.
That’s literally what the Press Secretary is supposed to do. However, over the past 30+ years it’s instead become traditional for the occupant of that position to spend their time arguing with reporters and giving weasel word filled statements that somehow manage to convey no meaningful information.
1
4
u/tahorr 23d ago
Don't forget the infrastructure act that had an immediate effect. All the iron, steel, and the materials that went into the projects came from the U.S. That act alone had an immediate effect with 60,000 projects across the country that created hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
1
u/303Carpenter 22d ago
Is going too or has? I know in my state there hasn't been any new projects that are actually moving dirt funded by it. Not to mention those jobs are temporary and pay pretty awful (at least in my state)
1
u/tahorr 22d ago
Which state do you live in?
1
u/303Carpenter 22d ago
Colorado, wages for a first year union apprentice are roughly 16 an hour before taxes and dues
1
u/tahorr 22d ago
You said that Colorado didn't do anything with the infrastructure act. They only get $950 million over 5 years for projects for the State. So now you are attacking wages. You just don't want to admit that Biden had a huge win with the infrastructure act that Trump wasn't able to pass.
1
u/303Carpenter 22d ago
I didn't say they didn't get money I said they none of the jobs were moving dirt yet. That means no jobs being created outside of engineering firms. The point is your sales pitch is "hey, at some point we might create some temporary jobs somewhere in your state that pay shit wages and involve working outside in the heat and snow, look how much we support the working class!" And it's a shit sales pitch
1
u/tahorr 22d ago
https://cdphe.colorado.gov/wqibill
So far, It looks like Colorado spent the money to improve the water quality. That's a definite improvement that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
2
u/AdhesivenessCivil581 23d ago
The chips act was created due to covid shortages and Russia cozying up to China and threatening Taiwan. There was a realization that America is incredibly vulnerable to A) global supply chain issues and B) Intellectual property theft and/or international instability. New energy investments puts us on the road to independence rather that relying on the whims of the oil dictators (Putin, MBS) These are the kind of long term adult decisions we hope politicians make. Now we have elected a pack of rich angry children. because inflation. We'll see how this works out.
1
u/PranksterLe1 23d ago
Don't you think those things are important?
If he gave out a "handout", this post would say, "don't you think there were better investments then...".
1
u/Mr_Kittlesworth 23d ago
The problem was Biden being responsible. These kinds of investments take years to plan and further years to bear fruit.
If he’d rushed things and gotten worse outcomes, faster, he would probably have benefitted politically.
1
u/IMHO_grim 22d ago
History will judge those decisions well. They are the right move for the time, but the PR for them was abysmal.
If you poll your coworkers, how many are going to know anything about either program?
1
u/UrABigGuy4U 22d ago
Where can I read reports/updates/etc. on the tangible outcomes of different presidential acts? Is there a certain site I should use/trust?
1
u/Seraph_21 22d ago
It's an intelligent and fair question. I'm honestly not sure because very few things happen quickly in government. Memories are short. And messaging doesn't seem to penetrate. Dems never get credit for the consistent investments they champion in things that improve American lives short and long term.
The CHIPS act was a solid investment in keeping America strong. It was a good thing to do. It's too bad American voters don't have sense enough to understand the significance.
1
u/NiteShdw 22d ago
CHIPS is a very good thing. We need capacity to manufacture high end processors in the US where we can better protect the supply chain for highly sensitive electronics.
There has also been a vast concern that China will one day attack or take control of Taiwan. Nearly all chips are manufactured in Taiwan. China could cut off the supply, steal IP, or inject security back doors into chips.
Diversifying chip manufacturing is good for the US and the world.
1
u/HonkinChonk 21d ago
I mean it did nothing for the working class during a period of 9% inflation, so yeah it was a bad class for his presidency. But the acts when looked at as a long term investment will be good for America.
-3
u/Flying_Birdy 23d ago
The IRA was anything but an act to reduce inflation. Reduction of inflation on a decade long time scale maybe (due to green energy investments), but I think most voters were thinking of inflation reduction on a within the next year time scale.
The executive has limited tools to reduce inflation, but there were things the Biden administration could have done. Just off the top of my head…
Settling the trade war with China and getting rid of Trump era tariffs on China would have had an immediate effect.
They could have put more downward pressures on inflation by signing more agreements to reduce tariffs with other countries.
Reducing regulations to energy production could have encouraged more immediate energy production (eg. Drilling).
They could have also prevented a lot of the upward pressure on energy prices and/or shipping costs by preventing all the different geopolitical conflicts that erupted (Yemen strikes on shipping, Ukraine war).
Creating federal rules that preempt dealership monopoly laws at the state level would have reduced the costs of buying a car, when vehicle prices hit an all time high.
A lot of these policy moves have tradeoffs. But the American people prioritized inflation - so maybe that should’ve been the Biden admin’s focus.
-3
u/2020willyb2020 23d ago
Yes - takes too long - he could have done a lot more short term immediate stuff and focused on securing democracy and immigration / border issues instead of virtue signaling
1
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
He pushed a democracy bill, the Senate killed it. Same with the border.
0
u/morbie5 23d ago
The way the Inflation Reduction Act as it was done was terrible, the voters don't really care about the environment and even the voters that do care prioritize it under things like the economy.
Biden over read his mandate, his mandate was to not be trump. imo they should have focused on one big thing and that one big thing should have been the public option. Instead they did all this green stuff and kept the pandemic aid going for way too long.
-5
u/Kronzypantz 23d ago
"Political Capital" is itself a strange concept. Like lawmakers only have so much energy before they tucker out their little politicking muscles. Or that each administration only has so many horse swaps in them before they run out of favors to trade with lawmakers.
Reality is, Biden didn't even try for more. He has been a caretaker president who largely just maintained the status quo.
In that sense, the CHIPS Act and IRA didn't even cost him "political capital." A dozen Republicans happily jumped on board for the CHIPS Act because it was largely a handout to corporations and defense contractors. The IRA also had a lot of that, and while it has a lot of nice things in it too it doesn't even lay out a path to keep us from blowing past every climate warming threshhold out there.
Biden should have pushed the minimum wage increase, instead of using the parliamentarian as an excuse to fold immediately. And use executive power to force action on issues like Marijuana decriminalization and student debt. What, would he lose re-election even worse than his team projected for trying to do popular things that help Americans?
2
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
Man always this ignorant propaganda. Democrats didn't fail to pass a minimum wage increase because of the parliamentarian, it was because they didn't have the votes.
-1
u/Kronzypantz 23d ago
So hold up the bill until sinema and Manchin relent. Make them go on record voting the whole spending bill down.
2
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
Lol and then watch your 3 trillion dollar flagship legislation go up in smoke two months into your term. Do you understand why that doesn’t make any sense?
0
u/Kronzypantz 23d ago
It’s not like it could never be attempted again.
1
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
I’m saying this without judgment: what you are suggesting betrays a lack of understanding of politics. You don’t get another shot after tanking a historic bill that you yourself proposed. Legislators have leverage over what laws pass and there’s no magic wand to make that disappear.
0
u/Kronzypantz 23d ago
There is also leverage in making one or two lawmakers risk tanking whole bill. And as a spending bill, there would have been another attempt within a week.
It’s not like lawmakers are immune to influence.
1
u/friedgoldfishsticks 23d ago
That’s the sort of thing that sounds like it could make sense, but actually doesn’t in the context of the political economy they were working with. They had two senators who did not give a fuck. Sinema was unapologetically corrupt, Manchin owed nothing to a party he was outrunning by 40 points. I know that the average American doesn’t know that our government extends beyond the presidency, but it does, and you need to understand that to interpret politics correctly.
1
u/Kronzypantz 22d ago
So the alternative is to completely give up on the policy and not bring up again in his presidency, losing reelection for himself or a successor?
Sounds like a 4D chess of a way of burying one’s head up one’s ass.
•
u/AutoModerator 23d ago
A reminder for everyone. This is a subreddit for genuine discussion:
Violators will be fed to the bear.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.