Naija Girl asked a good question yesterday:
If Dems have a trifecta in 2028, how long would it take to undo this bill? Can we start writing the replacement now? Is there a left leaning org that would fund that the way Heritage funded Project 2025 and what’s happening now?
The technically correct answer is EVERYTHING. Live by a reconciliation bill, die by a reconciliation bill.
More pragmatically, some things are going to be easier and some things harder to change. I think the work requirements are going to stick because the US has a massive deservingness ideological system where work determines worth. I think a Democratic trifecta would readily change requirements (once per year or de minimas allowable misses plus ex parte automatic determinations etc) but getting rid of work requirements would be tough when the marginal Democratic vote is highly likely to come from a state that likely voted for Trump multiple times since 2016.
I think a lot of the ACA verification and paper work requirements will be modifiable but the marginal Dem vote is likely to want something to protect themselves against chants of “Waste-Fraud-Abuse enablers.”
I think the SNAP cuts are pretty close to fully reversable.
These changes will require revenue. I know that my family should pay more in taxes now and should pay more in taxes in 2030 as well. I’m good with that. But taxes will need to go up.
But the big bear in the room that will take all attention in 2029-2030 is Social Security. The Trust Fund is likely to be near exhaustion and there will be a huge demand to DO SOMETHING. The array of SOMETHING is huge from cutting benefits, to raising upper income taxes and lots of things in between. The amount of attention that a hypothetical Democratic trifecta has in 2029 is limited and Social Security likely eats up a lot of it.
In 2019, I wrote the following and I still think it is true:
Prioritization will be a key differentiator of Democratic Presidential and Senate primary candidates. I believe that most Democrats will share significant elements of what is on their top-10 list of areas that need federal government attention in a government that could theoretically have a narrow Democratic trifecta. But the key will be prioritization….
A very productive Senate might have slots for two big bills, three or four medium actions (such as SCOTUS nominees) and a lot of housekeeping. A productive Senate is most likely positively correlated with the size of the effective majority.
Right now, there are numerous agenda items that could qualify as a “big” thing from the Democratic/liberal perspective…
The question will be prioritization.
Candidates are likely to share the same items on a top-10 list but the rank ordering and asset allocation will matter a lot. One candidate might want to spend six months on healthcare again at the cost of doing not much if anything on immigration and naturalization. Another candidate could want to spend a little time on a minimal “fix-it” healthcare bill while spending more time on global warming policy. Those are all defensible choices. But the prioritization is very valuable information.
Facts are being established on the ground with this bill and with the Administration and Courts running wild. There is only so much capacity in a future Administration to change some of those facts as well as to create their own desired facts, so prioritization will be topic of intense debate.
On The Road – Deputinize America – Melbourne II – 2024
Princess
My hunch is, there are three ways this could go. First of all, either the broader economy is fine (by which I mean ordinary voters feel comfortable enough) or it isn’t and people are angry. In the first case, the Republicans win again, if not a trifecta at least enough control to stop things from changing much, OR we get a very cautious moderate-leaning Delocratic government which will nibble around the edges but keep the country on the trajectory it’s on.
OR things are really bad. Hospitals have closed and colleges are gone from many small towns, destroying local economies across the country. People who have savings and investments see them vanish. The dollar is weak. Inflation is high and so are interest rates. You get the picture. In that case we get a “revolutionary” government that doesn’t care about your stinking norms. It may not be a Democratic government. It may not be an improvement. But it could be! At best, we get FDR. At worst, I dunno, Peron? Salazar?
What I’m saying is, I don’t think we get Obama, Biden again.
My hunch is worth what you paid to read it, of course.
Baud
@Princess:
The possibilities are endless.
satby
I see three major priorities from which others would naturally follow, or be DOA if these first three aren’t enacted:
Other important legislation could follow, but without these three we end up in the same place at the next election turnover.
sab
Currently the requirement to contribute to Social Security is capped at about $176,000. Anything earned income above that isn’t subject to Social Security tax. Let’s raise raise that cut-off by a lot.
Jimbales
I’d love to see the”Wyoming Rule” put into place. if you’re not familiar with it, Wikipedia defines it as follows:
Given the current disparity between the number of people served by a representative from California and from Wyoming, I think it is easy for the marginal Democrat in a red district to sell to their constituents, simply on fairness grounds.
One can also point out that it will likely lead to Republican representatives states like Massachusetts— again, a fairness argument that can play well to the marginally engaged voter
Given the current distribution of the parties, it will give a net gain to Democrats in the House of Representatives. This will make it much harder for the Republicans to get a trifecta.
Is this enough to change things for the better on its own? No. Does it put in additional protections? Yes. Does it make it easier to implement substantial change in the future? Yes. Is it low risk and high pay off? Yes.
And, is it something Democrats can rally around that can be sold to marginally connected voters? I believe so. Would doing so and succeeding enhance the Democratic “brand” and more deeply engage people with the party? I believe so!
So, other people’s thoughts? Is this worth pushing? If so, how can we push it? Now is the time to start laying the groundwork so that, it can be a topic of discussion in the mid-terms and in 2028.
Best
Jim
comrade scotts agenda of rage
How about we simply revive FDR’s Four Freedoms?
Then we can hammer out policy details.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Hammering out the policy details is where we schism.
Also, one of the freedoms is freedom of worship. I’m not even sure where we stand on that, given the current Supreme Court approved theocracy.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
I think $176,000,000 sounds good.
ETA: Really, why have a cap at all.
p.a.
Any Dem who isn’t for matching Supreme Court seats to the 12 federal circuit court districts gets primaried.
Add 1 or 3 more seats as at-large for an odd number, for the Chief Judge and the next two senior probably.
All exec & legis accomplishments are written in sand without this.
lowtechcyclist
Happy Mid-Year’s Day, all.
Noon today is the chronological midpoint of the year, with 182.5 days either side of that moment.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I think it’s because contribution amounts determine payments. If they raised the caps, they’d probably have to make other changes to make sure rich people can’t manipulate the system.
No One of Consequence
My druthers:
Court Reform
Voting Rights
Health Care Solution (not just reinstating most of Obamacare)
…
Social Security can be fixed with a pen-stroke: remove the cap entirely all income is taxable for this purpose henceforth, when the rich lose their minds, tell them its either that, or back to the top marginal tax rate when Eisenhower was in office: 90%.
We have problems. Many of them can be fixed. They cannot be fixed without resources. The wealthy have subsumed most of the resources that will be needed. If they refuse to pay, we eat them.
-NOoC
Baud
14 million deaths can’t be undone by legislation.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Contribution amounts do determine payments, but IIRC it’s hardly linear. Someone who paid in only 1/10 of what I did is, thank goodness, getting a good deal more than 1/10 of what I’m getting each month, otherwise they’d be either still working, or starving.
So it wouldn’t be hard to set the marginal gain in payouts for people with higher incomes to approach zero as income approaches infinity.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Agreed. Let them have their income tax cuts but then hit them with the 6.2% ( 12.4% really, since the employer has to match) all year for everybody. They can afford it.
Instead of this bait and switch where you pay the tax your whole working life and then get told we changed the rules and you can’t retire until after you have already died.
14% of my husband’s high school class died before their 70th birthday. And these were mostly white collar workers, not dangerous factory or manual labor.
artem1s
there is reality and then there is strategic planning. the last thing they should do is get into the sausage making discussion when talking to constituents. I think there is a way to engage with big picture that doesn’t exactly mean lying the way that the GQP has been doing.
If there is a shadow cabinet or some think tank that is willing to fight back against the Fed Society, then it’s time to plan big and forget half measures. I been thinking about the Revolution. The Declaration came about not because of taxes, but because the economy of the colonies demanded good governance. The Declaration only mentions taxes once. Every other grievance listed is all about the lack of being able to run a ‘country’ because the King isn’t. The First Continental Congress met because there was no other way to get things done within the current structure governance.
We need a Third Continental Congress. If after another 4 years of destroying self-governing the electorate can’t see how the lack of governing is hurting them then we may not be able to ever fix this. But this is a once in a 250 year chance to try to address the gaps that the founders couldn’t imagine they needed to address.. The agenda of a Second Declaration shouldn’t just include sausage making. It should include statements about rebuilding and restructuring the government, legal systems and the Constitution to ensure that no one person can remove anyone’s civil rights, citizenship without due process and everyone’s access to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that the job of government is to protect and benefit the many, not the few.
satby
@Baud: no, they can’t. Now we have to concentrate on the work to prevent more.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
The “pro-life” party at work.
Jeffro
“TRUMP UNDONE ON DAY ONE” is a pretty damn good campaign slogan/bumper sticke
(ps: just, for Pete’s sake, DON’T call it ‘Project 2029’)
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist:
That’s where I’m at. And since this country is full of temporarily embarrassed billionaires, the lifting of the corresponding cap on benefits should appeal to them. Of course, instituting another bend point in the benefits calculation that flattens the curve will be needed, but we won’t tell them that.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Agreed. That would work and it wouldn’t be so obvious to them.
They mostly don’t know it, but they are already getting reamed with medicare premiums. High income people (that’s total income not just earned income) pay three times more for medicare than the rest of us.
JiveTurkin
@Princess: I agree with the general premise. If the overall economy is good Trumpism wins. If its bad, I don’t agree we would get a Peron type. I don’t think it could get that bad. I think an Obama/Biden type could win, but the Democratic primary would be interesting. The Democrats are done if the economy is in good shape.
Another Scott
@Baud: Also, if the trust fund has excess accumulated, then it adds to the national debt. How? Because the money doesn’t sit in a vault – it gets spent now, and has to be paid back in the future. It’s a debt.
A debt we owe ourselves, but a debt nonetheless.
Lots of details in all these problems; details that the monsters will use to prevent progress by riling up people who can’t or won’t understand that real systems are complicated for good reasons…
If this stuff were easy it would have been done already.
First things first – we have to stop the damage and vote the monsters our. After that, we can work on the solutions. Self government means that we can do (almost) anything the majority votes for – for good or ill.
[/Lt. Obvious]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jeffro
btw this is the way to go: trump’s just the same-old, same-old after all
it’ll certainly resonate with majorities of Americans – vote R, get screwed
and I have to agree with JB here: we’re probably pretty good to run against the Supreme Court, too – it’s certainly not looking out for Americans’ best interests, or remotely protecting the rule of law in this country
and he ends on a warning that serves as yet another anti-GOP campaign slogan: “how many more Republican disasters can this country take?”
lowtechcyclist
@artem1s:
The problem is, the MAGAts would be equally represented in such a Congress. I really don’t see any avenue to major structural reform other than secession.
I keep hearing that the red states would fight a war to keep the blue states from leaving. I’ve never really been that sure of that, but given how horrible they think we are, maybe we can get them to invite us to leave so that they don’t have to put up with our evil ways anymore, and they won’t have to subsidize us anymore (not that they do now, but they think they do, and might as well make use of that).
If we can get them to say, “there’s the door” and we say “okay, bye,” then where’s the civil war come from?
sab
Shortly after I entered the workforce in my youth, Congress doubled the Social Security taxes in order to save Social Security for is baby boomers. We were mostly okay with that because we knew we would need it. It was a big hit to employers because their rates doubled too. They have been complaining ever since.
But I am not okay with raising the starting age for full benefits above 65. Right now it’s 67 and they are considering raising it to 70. That’s making the promised benefit increasingly a fiction for a lot of people.
chemiclord
The limitations to all these things are simply the patience and memory of the American people, both of which are historically and depressingly short. Any Democratic trifecta, presuming there even is one, has to figure they have two years to fix what they can before the American Idiot decides it’s either not good enough, or not the right fix, or whatever, and their lack of object permanence tells them that the GOP couldn’t be that bad and gives the reactionary right power again.
TONYG
@Princess: The big problem in the United States is the same one that’s been a problem for 250 years: race. A large percentage of “white” people are willing to suffer if it means that non-“white” people will suffer even more. I don’t know how to change that.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
I agree. Social Security needs to be funded not just sufficiently to preserve it as is, but to restore the age for full benefits back to 65. Plenty of people out there like my FIL who were barely able to make it to 62 before their bodies gave out.
artem1s
@lowtechcyclist: The members of the Continental Congress self selected. they weren’t elected. There was no balanced representation. It wasn’t a legal body. Anyone can use the term liberally without unilaterally giving control to the opposition. The Federalist Society isn’t bound by any ‘both sides must be represented’ rule. They weren’t elected. Project 2025 wasn’t written after consulting with the voters. It’s hardline conservative wish list written by hard line conservatives who hate that the federal government works for everyone and not just them.
You’re focusing on the branding and not the mission statement.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Yesterday Dave Wiegel attended the first Virginia GOP rally with the entire ticket:
One of Youngkin’s strengths– such as they are– is his ability to say shit like this with a straight face.
daveNYC
A single reconciliation bill could undo all the changes done by this reconciliation bill, but undoing the damage will be much harder. Increasing Medicaid availability isn’t going to help much if hospitals have closed and doctors have left the area due to abortion restrictions or just general shitty cultural attitudes. Not to mention the long term cost of all the skipped vaccines and mandatory bleach injections or whatever.
That’s not even getting into the difficulty of taking the Senate and just how dubious that 50th vote might be to get.
Fixing things is going to be a hell of a slog.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
rikyrah
Thanks for the post
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Uh huh
Uh huh 🧐 🧐
Hunter Gathers
Trying to keep work requirements in the middle of a recession doesn’t seem like it’s going to fly. If the marginal vote is from a red state, that Senator or Rep is going to be elected because the healthcare system in that state was devastated. People in that state are going to suggest that you take your work requirements and stuff ’em.
Baud
You don’t say.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Yeah, because middle of the road, straight arrow Virginian Spanberger, has so much in common with a New York City politician 😒😒😒
rikyrah
@Baud:
They better not come here😒
rikyrah
@TONYG:
No lie told
rikyrah
@sab:
$2,000,000 is reasonable
Another Scott
@daveNYC: Sure.
But (not picking on you), I’d much prefer that we talk about the good things that are possible and on the way than the difficulties.
More Happy Warrior and less Unhappy Worrier.
Sputnik gave rise to the Space Race. In a little over a decade, we went from not knowing how to make multi-stage rockets nor whether life could survive at all above the atmosphere to having people walking around on the moon and coming safely home.
We don’t need to invent new physics or technologies to fix our political problems. We know what needs to be done. We need to figure out messaging and education and listen and get buy-in of enough people to fix structural impediments to progress. It’s depressingly hard, but we can make progress on it.
(I may argue differently in an hour or so. ;-)
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Doug R
@satby:
I liked Al Franken ‘s idea to raise the SS cap to inflation, then after a donut hole charging a wealth tax at incomes over about $1,000,000.
H.E.Wolf
I know I’m a repetitive mynah bird about this, but to get through bad times and raise the odds of getting something better… find one small, concrete task, and do it. And then repeat.
I surprised myself today when I looked at the total number of GOTV postcards I’ve written 2021-present, on the 5-at-a-time plan, with a chronic hand injury.
2,000. Plus 5 more that I’m starting today.
If only 1% of those 2,000 postcard recipients voted, that was 20 people – who, in turn, may now be doing their own small, concrete tasks that influence other folks.
Look at your own efforts, whatever they may be, and consider the multiplier effect.
People, get ready: there’s a train a’comin’.
catclub
@lowtechcyclist:
?
Because, in principle, you get back at retirement proportionally to what you paid in, as income replacement. Do you want the SS admin sending out $1M/year benefits to gazillionaires?
Baud
@Doug R:
The cap is already adjusted for inflation.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Ask AI for advice?
Chief Oshkosh
I just had a shocking and somewhat sad conversation with our newest hire just now. This person is super-sharp and engaged at work. We felt lucky to hire her because even though she’s right out of college (where she aced everything), her summer jobs and work-study programs prepared her for this position. She had a great May and June. Anyway, the break room chat (yes, we start work very early here) was about recent vacations and she was shocked to hear that some people curtailed overseas travel due to the bombing of Iran and the potential for more trumpian mayhem.
She was completely unaware of the bombing. At all. No idea it had happened. Additionally worrisome to me, she had no concept of why it might affect someone’s considerations of travel if that travel wasn’t specific to the Middle East.
It is sobering how different people’s news intake can be. Or maybe I am just old.
lowtechcyclist
@artem1s:
I’m focusing on whether this hypothetical 3rd Continental Congress would mean anything. If it’s just some self-selected body, it can come up with whatever it wants, and it doesn’t mean a damned thing.
We here at BJ could declare ourselves to be that Congress, and we could probably come up with something that was just as good as any other self-selected Congress could, and it would mean exactly as much.
Chief Oshkosh
@catclub: If the numbers work out for achieving the intended goal, sure, why not?
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
Most people are like that. Including many smart people who focus their time on their work.
And to be fair, I’d imagine the number of people who changed travel plans because of Iran is pretty small.
Jeffro
@Geminid: Spanberger in response, probably: “Did y’all notice that the MAGA party just can’t resist trying to demonize a popular Democrat? Someone who’s looking out for working families instead of the rich?”
eff Smilin’ Glenn
Bupalos
The only thing I’d want to predict about 2029 is the climate crisis and technological destabilization will be significantly worse.
Really hard to see how the processes of democratic decline get slowed or interrupted, but I think the most useful stance right now is simply focusing on the reality than unexpected things happen all the time.
I do think the odds for a kind of backlash to this defunding of the social safety net is unlikely. More people sick and starving and social security up in the air will prove to be good for post-truth politicians and Republicans. Less education, more stress, more fear, people leaving the country…. There are going to be a lot of feedback loops that somehow have to be short circuited.
Jeffro
@Geminid: btw here’s the Virginian-Pilot’s take on the VA MAGA ‘unity’ ticket:
truth hurts! LOL
catclub
@lowtechcyclist: Actuarially, retiring and taking benefits at 62 is identical with taking them at 70.
[For the entire population, your case may not match that.] [If you have an accurate sense of your likely lifetime you could beat the average. That is a hard problem.]
So changing the ‘official’ retirement age changes very little.
Geminid
Regarding the question:
There is a left-leaning organization that can write replacement legislation, and it is already funded by taxpayers. That would be the Democratic members and staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. There are other committees with a say in healthcare legislation, but my understanding is that committee plays the biggest role.
I expect that group is already working on new legislation that they can preview in this Congress even if they can’t get to to the House floor. If Democrats win the House next year, that legislation *will* make it to a floor vote in the next Congress, and will likely be part of the debate in 2028.
I thought one of the good things about Rep. Ocasio-Cortez gaining a spot on the Energy and Commerce Committee was that Democrats might start taking that committee’s work more seriously.
Ocasio-Cortez might end up concentrating on climate issues, which is another area covered by the E&C Committee. But she’ll still have a say on healthcare issues including in public hearings, and that will get some people’s attention.
TXG1112
While we’re all snorting fat rails of Hopium, I want show trials and public executions of Trump Administration officials and SC Judges with Dem trifecta.
Princess
@TONYG: I agree. The economy would have to be completely broken before enough white people are angry enough at Republicans to allow for the massive changes that are necessary. Broken enough for outcomes to be very unpredictable.
prostratedragon
@Baud:
A bad sign:
Chief Oshkosh
@catclub: So why not set the retirement age to 62?
Layer8Problem
@Baud: A few clever strokes with a Sharpie™and the jobs numbers will be all better again.
chemiclord
@Hunter Gathers: Unfortunately, that’s now how the red state voter has ever thought, and they aren’t going to start thinking that way now.
They will always blame “the other” for their woes, and the GOP has learned they can cater to that.
Bupalos
@Princess: I think though that what it actually means for the economy to be “broken” is up for debate. And that generally folks who are literate and comfortable enough to engage in these conversations tend to badly underestimate the underlying dysfunctions of the economy and society for those who aren’t.
Ohio Mom
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a new voting rights act, expanding the Supreme Court, etc.
But Mr and Ms Normie aren’t going to be impressed, they will not see those things helping them. Say what you will about Trump, at least he sates their desire to see vengeance. It’s a perversion of the urge to see justice done, but how do you unkink that?
I digress. Biden, as we know, did lots of things that would help everyday people but the implementation lag lost people’s attention.
I think it’s going to take a huge economic crisis, which I am not looking forward to.
Baud
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: It’s a common trait. The Republicans successfully managed to convince a lot of voters that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were murderous Communist revolutionaries along the lines of the Khmer Rouge.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
People believe what they want to believe.
Layer8Problem
@TXG1112: And I want lasagna, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and martinis provided gratis at every meal.
Elizabelle
I am just kind of done with this country and its ignorant, apathetic, adolescent voters (even the ones now wearing Depends) who fall for rightwing smears and cannot see beyond their own nose. And do not get me started on all the fake ass “Christians.”
Done. If I were younger, I would definitely emigrate.
The billionaires have bought the Supreme Court and the government, and the rest of us are just along for the ride.
TXG1112
@Layer8Problem: That’s the spirit! I think the idea that we will be able to return to “regular politics” after Trump is pure fantasy.
Booger
@TXG1112: Yeah, you might want to heed David Anderson’s suggestion from yesterday and police that kinda comment.
Ohio Mom
@Chief Oshkosh: The Middle East has been at war her entire life. It’s like background noise, your brain starts filtering it out after a while.
Give her a couple of decades. After all the various components of adulting become second nature to her, she may have attention for world politics.
lowtechcyclist
@catclub:
Actually, no, it’s not strictly proportional. I looked it up, and here’s the deal:
They use your inflation-adjusted top 35 years’ earnings to create the “Average indexed monthly earnings” or AIME (what you wanna do). Then the proportion of your AIME that you get in payout is reduces as follows as your AIME gets bigger:
For calculating a worker’s benefits in 2025, the benefit is the sum of the following elements:
Needless to say, they could put more brackets in on top, reducing further the fraction of benefits resulting from higher incomes.
Layer8Problem
@Ohio Mom: Biden was the sort who didn’t spend time blatting to everyone how the good things he did or helped shepherd through were HIS HIS HIS. Old school modesty and decency and all that.
Doug R
@Baud:
At the time Al Franken proposed it, it had fallen behind. I’m sure it’s still behind and we could start by raising the cap to match it at its highest adjusted for inflation.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Repuplicans will certsinly push this line of attack, but I don’t think that dog will hunt, not even in New Jersey.
Doug R
@Jeffro:
“Read the room, buddy”
catclub
@lowtechcyclist:
I fully agree. I was making ‘proportionally’ do a lot of work. Payouts go up as pay-ins go up but not linearly. Still, if you were paying in on $176M you would get out a lot more than if you were paying in on $76k.
lowtechcyclist
@catclub:
Over the entire population, you say – but then why did they raise it from 65 to 67? To save money, so obviously something’s wrong with what you’re saying.
And in the case of people who don’t even see their 70th birthday, hell yes it makes a difference.
Anything else you want to be wrong about this morning? :D
ETA: Beaten to it by Chief Oshkosh @62, appropriately enough.
frosty
It will be in your neighborhood and mine when the people flying Trump flags come to your door to evict you and take your house.
It will be the people east of the Sierras seceding from California after California secedes from the Union. It will be the people in the cities on the east side seceding from the “red” part of California to join the Pacific Coast.
It will be a bloodbath. Look up Partition in 1947.
catclub
They could do that for tax brackets, too. Why does someone earning $700k a year have the same marginal tax rate as someone earning $7M/ yr?
Math is too hard for politicians.
Or more likely, we could each get a pony.
Belafon
@satby: All only working if people’s lives are sufficiently disrupted that they finally understand how our government is supposed to work. Otherwise we lose the midterms because (idiots think):
lowtechcyclist
@catclub:
It’s not the math, it’s getting the votes.
UncleEbeneezer
@Layer8Problem: We had every opportunity to signal-boost all the great things Biden/Harris accomplished. There were several Twitter accounts and even some journalists who did just that. But they were completely drowned out by the Media, Republicans, Russian Bots, Centrist Dems and angry Leftists who made sure the focus was always on how much Biden/Harris/Dems sucked. Even people here couldn’t be bothered to really champion the accomplishments of Biden/Harris. People like to joke and deride Dems for failing to cheer their own accomplishments, but are we any better? Shitting on Dems is a neurosis and it’s destroying everything good we painstakingly fought for over decades. MAGA-ssholes constantly puff up their Leader/Party (while we shit on ours). They understand the assignment and their role in it. We don’t
Redshift
@Jimbales:
I’m in favor of any expansion of the House, and this one has the advantage that it’s really easy to explain.
An additional advantage of expansion is that it reduces the pernicious effect of the Electoral College without requiring a constitutional amendment. The bigger the House is, the less the +2 votes for small states matter, bringing the EC closer to matching the popular view.
catclub
You are referring to two different things. I meant that
_under the present system_ either age is actuarially the same. I would agree that under the previous system you would have gotten more and that was the reason for the change.
It may also be that setting the ‘full’ retirement age also modifies how long people pay into the system.
Elizabelle
@Redshift: Agreed. It would strengthen our democracy and make our votes actually count.
Our European allies would also love not having US policy come down to swing voters in red states.
catclub
@lowtechcyclist: That math they usually understand.
prostratedragon
Stumbling and flailing today:
Don’t know where he gets that from. I know I always hold off on purchases until prices go up, especially if I’m worried about finding a job when I need to.
RevRick
@satby: I think Anderson is cautioning us to be wary of the notion that we can do everything, everywhere, at once should we gain this quite hypothetical trifecta. He notes that the greatest constraint Democrats face is the bandwidth of the Senate, which has to do confirmations of Cabinet nominees and ambassadors, on top of all the usual budgetary issues. I hear him saying that when it comes to matters of taxing and spending, squishing as much into Reconciliation as possible is the way to go. But prioritizing is going to be a complicated process.
Geminid
@Booger: Ghouls gotta ghoul.
Doug R
@Elizabelle:
White privilege is a hell of a drug.
Doug R
@Redshift:
The UK has over 600 MPs with a population of about 1/5 the USA.
Canada just increased their number of MPs from 338 to 345 and has a population of just over 40,000,000.
catclub
CNN:
Yeah, right. The payout IS the apology. In the language Trump understands.
All in order to benefit the Redstone clan.
Shakti
We should push as hard as possible with the trifecta. It should make FDR/Johnson think you’re doing the most. No incremental kludges because they’ve done so much damage and regressed so much a big push will be needed to get back to status quo (ante) — which even then kind of sucked. [Otherwise the whole thing with United Healthcare and Mangione would’ve never happened.] And it all needs to be backstopped for when seats are lost because we obviously don’t have the courts and won’t for decades.
Don’t ask me what the big ambitious platform even looks like.
I just know:
The government, such that it is, should enable you to be free. Not hem you in with debt and fear and shame in the name of keeping you safe. Not feeding your fears, making them real and enormous with your tax dollars. Americans have grander dreams than jobs as jailers.
Or maybe I’m very wrong and everyone aspires to be Crystal Minton. Which is sad.
ETA: Even FDR had concentration camps. So it goes.
Ohio Mom
@lowtechcyclist: One thing I’ve learned in these comments threads, don’t argue with lowtechcyclist’s math. I may have been an art major but I recognize master-level calculations when I see them.
Jeffro
@Jimbales:
@Redshift:
@Doug R:
expanding the House is a GREAT idea – the ‘Wyoming Rule’ is fine, so is a flat-out doubling of the size of the House
per the other discussion, additional and higher tax brackets at the top end to restore progressivity to our tax code is also GREAT
BellyCat
@Jimbales: The Wyoming Rule has the power to rebalance levers of power which clearly need rebalancing in the eyes of a significant number of voters, regardless of party.
I like that it’s not “my-pet-policy” but “improved process” with improved representation. Obviously, House business would need to be conducted in a NEW STADIUM! 🏟️
BellyCat
@p.a.: Co-signed.
Elizabelle
@Doug R: Fuck off, asswipe. Everyone gets demoralized from time to time. Again. Fuck you for making it about race.
ETA: but do appreciate your providing numbers for federal representatives in other countries. We are badly behind there. Too.
Elizabelle
@Doug R: Just realized that you might be talking about them, the voters I was complaining about, although I have had someone sneer “white privilege” at me on another occasion. If you are due an apology, you certainly get one from me.
If I understood you properly the first time, please see comment 102.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: It is about race though. I don’t think Doug R was talking about you, but about the people you were talking about. Though maybe I’m wrong.
It’s about gender too. Maybe even MORE about gender. A lot of the freakout we’re going through is guys (and some self-loathing women) who bought into a completely stupid model of masculinity reacting to it not working well in the modern world, even in its current predatory hypercapitalist state, and reacting by… trying to destroy the modern world.
Matt McIrvin
gah, comments crossed in the cloud
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks. Was checking back to see if DougR reappeared, because I will apologize if I flew off the handle when no insult was intended.
Jimbales
@BellyCat: definitely a new stadium – perhaps we can call it “Thunderdome”?
Kirk
@Belafon:
In fairness, I want this. I do not want Nazis, regardless of the name they’re using, to hold office.
DAstronomer
As someone who is actively applying for jobs overseas, I think we’re fucked. Even with the Wyoming Rule (which is sorely needed! Or at least doubling the size of the House for a start!), the problem is the fucking Senate.
As long as land is represented in the upper house, there will be gigantic roadblocks to any but the most modest of progressive changes. Republicans and their ilk have no shame, no decency, and no compunction about losing votes (and voters due to hostile policy choices THEY MAKE), and that sort of asymmetry is only compounded by the purposely undemocratic nature of the Senate.
There’s also the issue of how we fund (or bribe) elections in this country. Fucking Citizens United. Ugh. Imagine having only a 6 week federal election season. Hell, I’d take 6 months over the constant fundraising (/bribe solicitation) that we suffer now. Federal and state funding for candidates who qualify via petitions signed would be one way to curtail it. Democratizing the airwaves by giving candidates all equal (and free!), reasonably short airtime quotas would help, too. After all, the FCC licenses use of the PUBLIC airwaves (which belong to all of us!) to each broadcaster – it could be rolled into their licensing. Sigh.
Promoting Puerto Rico, DC, and the US overseas (imperial) territories to statehood would help combat the undemocratic nature of the Senate (and is morally better than the status quo), but I don’t see it helping enough. Even with young folks flocking to southern states, the changing demographics aren’t enough to stop the accelerating slide into fascism.
A ‘civil divorce’ isn’t really feasible (great comment @frosty #82; it would make the Partition of India look like a warm-up), and while I would prefer to stay and live in a USA that lives up to its promise of freedom for all, I just don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime.
DAstronomer
@Kirk: Agreed. Fuck the Nazis, neo- or otherwise. I don’t accept them as having valid political opinions, even if I will tolerate their existence (see Idaho, eastern Washington and Oregon, etc.).
Elizabelle
@DAstronomer: I know. I hope to be wrong, but fear we have passed the tipping point, and our future is just “clean up on Aisle 8” in those presidential terms where a Republican is just outright unelectable. Otherwise, it’s always “let’s go with Drunk Daddy!”
Shakti
@Chief Oshkosh:
People who don’t fly internationally would not consider things like flight patterns.
I certainly fucking didn’t until this year, thanks so much America, Israel (look Iran didn’t start this latest war, but yeah that doesn’t make me feel safe either).
I also didn’t consider things like oh am I going to die on the plane, until last year? Let’s make sure the type of plane isn’t the bad one either! Wait, planes are crashing or blowing up every week. Amazing! My parents rescheduled a trip to see family at the last minute because of all of this.
I’ve been flying since my babyhood and we have never been this afraid to fly, even after 9/11. [They were afraid of other things but flying?]
On one level I don’t blame people for not realizing things like that. I don’t know if that’s because she doesn’t follow news or she’s not adjacent to people who travel. Even people who read or follow news might not make that connection.
On the other hand, I have little to no slack for the excuse of ignorance or youth or “I was duped” anymore.
Matt
Three simple things that a trifecta would need to do:
As for what they’d actually do, you can already see the outlines of their surrender in the original post: “oh, the work requirements can’t be changed even though they cost more to enforce than they save, because Johnny Neckred disagrees”. My prediction is that they’d do as little as possible, in a way that’s as ineffective as possible and offends billionaires as little as possible.
DAstronomer
One of the fundamental failings of the US government was to end Reconstruction and let those traitorous, racist fucks participate in civil society again. Failing to hold the US (to be fair, both North and South) to account for its original sin of slavery is one of two massive failings of our shared history; the other failing is our genocide against the Native Americans from whom we stole, well, everything.
@Matt: Oof, yes. I feel righteous anger reading what pragmatists think we should limit our vision to. I understand the desire to be ‘reasonable’, but man, if the Dark Side is going to swing for the fences, why shouldn’t we?? The asymmetry is galling in the extreme.
Nettoyeur
@Baud: Say hello to stagflation.
Elizabelle
@DAstronomer: Meanwhile, post WW2 the Allies let a lot of Nazis and their funders/supporters off very, very lightly — and recruited some of the worst of the worst who had worked in intelligence — in the interest of fighting the Cold War and restoring the German economy.
It was another generation before Germans actually faced the truth of how Hitler came to power. And the complicity of too many German citizens.
In the US, we have never, ever dealt honestly or accurately with slavery on our own shores, and how badly we screwed up Reconstruction.
Abraham Lincoln’s assassination still haunts today; I think he would have done a better job post Civil War.
DAstronomer
@Elizabelle: Yeah, the decision to greenlight Operation Paperclip was a huge mistake. We should have thrown those detestable fucks in prison, not made them head of our rocketry program. It would have kept them away from the USSR just as well as giving them all houses in Houston.
NaijaGal
Thank you for this post, Richard Mayhew!
Elizabelle
@DAstronomer: I was thinking more of the Klaus Barbie types. The Ratline to escape Europe, which the Vatican and Allied Powers used to help some of the worst of the worst escape. And West Germany apparently knew of several notorious Nazis in South America, but did nothing to retrieve them.
You know the US wanted Wernher von Braun and his team badly, and to win the space (and military arms!) race. Operation Paperclip seemed baked in.
ETA: And I wish you well getting a job overseas. Splendid.
WTFGhost
I think that depends in large part on whether people are feeling real pain after four years of Republican incompetence and perfidy. If they are, “we’re fixing things!” will be the battle cry.
Well, I’d argue the big bear in the room will be the total indebtedness of the US, the low tax rates, and the absolutely bug-eff insanity of Republicans with respect to raising taxes. The US could find themselves in a debt crisis, especially if Trump keeps trying to be a big swinging dick, to make up for his wobbly toadstool. Lots of our allies are holding lots of US debt, and if they become estranged enough, they might start dumping bonds.
(I’ve heard a rumor they did this during “Freedom Day” tariffs – this is why the short term interest rates were spiking, because they were *slowly* selling bonds, just adding a few too many to the market, as a warning shot of sorts.)
Right now, our credit is downgraded from all three major ratings agencies – we’re no longer the gold standard of impeccable trustworthiness, not because of too much debt, but because it’s becoming apparent that one political party is bound and determined to make the debt unserviceable.
I think that will be a big, big deal in 2029, and possibly could be a bigger barrier than mere tax increases, though you know the Republican Party will squeal like piglets at the very thought of asking billionaires to pay an extra dime here or there.
lowtechcyclist
@frosty:
The thing is, we already have a de facto partition. Blue states and red states already have very different governments, very different laws, and very different levels of state services and support to localities and individuals. If Republicans in Maryland were chafing under blue state rule, they could move to Virginia, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia. Or even the southern two counties of Delaware. But they don’t. But somehow they’ll go apeshit if Trump says, “you guys are horrible, please GTFO of my country” and Maryland says, “OK, bye.” Now Garrett County, out at the western end of the state, might opt to join West Virginia. If they’re smart, they’ll notice what they’ll lose in the way of government services if they do, and stay. But if they’re dumb and leave, well OK then. Not sure why Trumpists should attack anyone though, given that Trump was the one who gave Maryland the invite to go.
lowtechcyclist
@lowtechcyclist:
Dead thread, but I’ll add these wise words from one of our founding documents:
Another Scott
@Redshift: I still like the idea that each State should have at least as many Representatives as they do Senators.
Wyoming has 586,485 according to Google, so each district would be around 293,000 people. 330M/0.293M = 1126 House districts.
No time to find the link where I’ve advocated for this before, but there’s room in the House chamber for that many seats. It’s doable.
Yeah, there are details (like what happens if 1/3 of the population of Wyoming leaves for Florida), but they’re details.
It wouldn’t automatically mean Democratic Utopia for All Time, but it would be more democratic and would lessen the power of Land over People.
My $0.02.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
BellyCat
Was curious about the number. Thanks for doing the maths. The idea still needs NEW STADIUM excitement to goose public support. So what if it’s a SMALL stadium. ;-)