Hello there, Hereâs the latest state of play on the Joe Manchin front. Politico broke the news Monday afternoon that Manchin and Joe Biden spoke Sunday night, and it was a decent conversation. Weâve also learned from various sources the details of what was in Manchinâs $1.8 trillion offer that he put on the table last week, and itâs not bad at all, really: rescind the Trump tax cuts; fully fund universal pre-K for 10 years; expand Obamacare; and, most pleasantly surprising of all, invest hundreds of millions in antiâclimate change policies. On the downside, no paid family leave and no child tax credit (or Oxy Bonus, as Manchin seems to think of it). So it backs away from some key priorities that other Democrats desperately want in there, but it fully funds what is in there instead of letting things expire in two years. Jonathan Chait of New York magazine wrote, not unpersuasively, that Biden should take that deal right now. (Some others were more skeptical.) But itâs all a little more complicated than that. Manchin wants the legislation to go through the normal committee process, which really slows things down. Also, Kyrsten Sinema says sheâs against rescinding the 2017 tax cuts, which raises the prospect that, come next year, Manchin might be back on board the, er, yacht, and itâll be Sinema whoâll be the pain in the ass co-president. But heyâitâs progress, of a sort. Number one, we see that Manchin is indeed a Democrat, after a fashion anyway. The things in his $1.8 trillion offer are things that no Republican in Washington would support. And number two, it makes the weekend blowup seem like a married coupleâs fight where they say things they donât really mean and then come back and patch things up. Maybe. Related: Read up on Mitt Romneyâs family tax credit plan. It would give joint filers with incomes up to $400,000 (which is all but about 1.5 percent of households) $350 a month per child up to age 5 and $250 a month per child age 6 to 17. Itâs a good idea! And because itâs from Mittens, it might attract a smattering of Republican support. Now, the way Manchin talks, heâd probably want to means-test it more strictly, but these are things that can be negotiated. This may be part of the mix next year. On the virus front, Biden will speak this afternoon, laying out some new steps with respect to testing and more federal aid to hospitals. The plan includes deploying 1,000 doctors and nurses to hot spots around the country and moving masks, ventilators, and other equipment out of stockpile and onto the front lines. Heâs doing what he can in a country where a former vice presidential candidate said sheâd get vaccinated âover my dead bodyâ and where even Donald Trump gets booed for saying he got his booster. Trumpâs remarks are worth a paragraph. He also said that âweâ (he and his audience, his tribe) had saved âtens of millionsâ of lives. Well ⦠yes, the Trump administration paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Moderna and Pfizer to develop a vaccine fast, and that was great, and that is his one actual and unambiguous accomplishment as president. But at the beginning, he panicked and dithered and lied and cost tens of thousands of lives. And no, the vaccine hasnât saved âtens of millionsâ of lives. There were around 385,000 deaths in the United States from the coronavirus in 2020. So there have actually been more deaths in 2021, when we had the vaccine. Any scenario where âtens of millionsâ would have died this year without the vaccine is completely impossible. I know itâs not news that Trump lied, but heâs going to run for president again, and heâs going to say this and say it and say it, and it has to be called out. Today at NewRepublic.com, weâve launched our year-end series, âWhat Now?â looking at where the country goes from here. Liza Featherstone ruminates on the generational divide on climate activism, as we zero in on all those potentially fraught family Christmas dinners. Felipe De La Hoz analyzes how immigration reform collapsed. Alex Shephard argues that itâs, um, high time for Biden to legalize pot nationally. And there is my own advice to Potus to take up the fight against monopoly power and go down in history as a trustbuster. Thanks for reading, âMichael Tomasky, editor |
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