President Biden's Infrastructure Plans

[TV and credit cards]

Let's see if the Republicans will go along with that one.

Which one? The bills or the way the women dressed?

Why is what the women are wearing even newsworthy? Am I missing something?

Not in the least. It is however a bit odd that the shorties were stuck in the back for the photo op. Is it not common courtesy to have the shorter womenfolk in front and the guys in back? Fucking politicians. It speaks to their mindset.

 

[thebeave]

Why is what the women are wearing even newsworthy? Am I missing something?

Not in the least. It is however a bit odd that the shorties were stuck in the back for the photo op. Is it not common courtesy to have the shorter womenfolk in front and the guys in back? Fucking politicians. It speaks to their mindset.

I sense a woke movement forthcoming for the shorties out there.

 

[ZiprHead]

Let's see if the Republicans will go along with that one.

Which one? The bills or the way the women dressed?

Why is what the women are wearing even newsworthy? Am I missing something?

Yeah, that was kinda' my point in asking.

 

[fromderinside]

Didn't you see their jazz hands? You weren't supposed to notice dresses and law sausage aren't the same thing.

 

[Derec]

Biden wants 6 trillion more or did you misspell Bernie?

No, it's Biden. But you have a point, even though Biden campaigned as a moderate and had been a moderate throughout his career, he has been governing more like Bernie.

 

[Derec]

No it doesn't. He is compromising (a lot, by the way) for now but he is sending a signal he wants to continue his plan in the future.

It's not a compromise when he says that he will only sign the alleged compromise bill if the full 6 terabuck Dem-only bill is passed also.

White House scrambles to manage fallout of Biden’s ‘tandem’ remarks

Joe Biden said the quiet part out loud and paid a price for it.
Reveling in his bipartisan win on infrastructure Thursday, the president declared that he would not sign the deal he’d just endorsed unless a separate bill including his other domestic priorities arrived on his desk, too. Whether deliberate or not, the comment set off a cascade of events in and out of the Oval Office that had aides putting out fires the next day and raised questions about the future of their prized $1 trillion bipartisan deal.

If the $6T is to spent immediately, you'd have a point. If it is to be spread out over 4 or more years, you really don't.

I know it's not for a single year. But over 4 years it is still $1.5E12/a. That would be almost as much as the entire discretionary spending in 2020.


That is highly irresponsible level of spending, especially with increasing inflation

 

[Derec]

I sense a woke movement forthcoming for the shorties out there.

#ShortLivesMatter

 

[ZiprHead]

That is highly irresponsible level of spending, especially with increasing inflation

What metric are you using to declare that?

 

[lpetrich]

Let's see if the Republicans will go along with that one.

Which one? The bills or the way the women dressed?

The bills.

I noted the way the women were dressed because of Kyrsten Sinema. I looked at the other three female Senators as a comparison. They were dressed in rather typical businesswoman clothing.

 

[Rhea]

I know it's not for a single year. But over 4 years it is still $1.5E12/a. That would be almost as much as the entire discretionary spending in 2020.
View attachment 34216

That is highly irresponsible level of spending, especially with increasing inflation

This graph would be much more realistic and useful if they separated the payroll tax revenue and the mandatory spending by payroll tax funding away from the rest of the budget.

It would give a much clearer picture of the items up for DEBATE.

 

[funinspace]

I know it's not for a single year. But over 4 years it is still $1.5E12/a. That would be almost as much as the entire discretionary spending in 2020.
View attachment 34216

That is highly irresponsible level of spending, especially with increasing inflation

This graph would be much more realistic and useful if they separated the payroll tax revenue and the mandatory spending by payroll tax funding away from the rest of the budget.

It would give a much clearer picture of the items up for DEBATE.

Yep! I also have never understood how expenditures for veterans is not part of the Defense cost, never mind the nuclear weapons spending shoved into the DOE budget. And then there is the thru the roof cost of world wide spying (probably $100 billion a year now) and higher than during the cold war (even on an COLA basis).

 

[Swammerdami]

I know it's not for a single year. But over 4 years it is still $1.5E12/a. That would be almost as much as the entire discretionary spending in 2020.
[ ATTACH=CONFIG]34216[ /ATTACH] [snipped attach to ease browsing]

That is highly irresponsible level of spending, especially with increasing inflation

This graph would be much more realistic and useful if they separated the payroll tax revenue and the mandatory spending by payroll tax funding away from the rest of the budget.

It would give a much clearer picture of the items up for DEBATE.

Outlays ($6.6T) are nearly double Revenues! ($3.4T) Wild!
Much of the shortfall is due to big cuts in the taxes that multi-millionaires and corporations pay, first under Bush-43 in response(!) to 9-11, then and in spades during the McConnell-Kavanaugh-Hannity circus.

A trillion for billionaires here; a trillion for corporations there; after a while we're talking real money!

And by the way, the chart shows only $0.9T for non-defense discretionary outlay ... and that includes some VA benefits!

Amateur cynics often ignore that the quality of spending is important. Spending to save that Miami condo would have been worthwhile, or fixing Flint's water, or Georgian's voting rights. Funds diverted to overseas wars, grants to parochial schools at the expense of public schools, Hard-boot policing, and other grifts and grafts — spending the GOP likes, in other words — will return less than would be returned by smart investments.

Childcare, healthcare, improved education, repaired infrastructure, more efficient transportation options: Such programs benefit the public and enhance prosperity and productivity. To call them inflationary, compared with billionaire-driven spending, is to ignore the whole purpose of economic society in a democracy.

The government has four dials it can manipulate:
* stimulus spending
* money supply
* short- to mid-term interest rates
* tax hikes on rich and corporations
IF Joe Manchin keeps tax hikes off the table, THEN Jerome Powell must watch inflation expectations very closely. Each $1 trillion in additional spending will probably necessitate another 1+% hike in interest rates. If Powell acts to defeat inflation then a recession may result but stagflation can probably be avoided, at least for the next 3 to 5 years. Jones, Hannity and other right-wing liars may stoke up inflation fears to sell more sex creams or whatever, but the adverse effect is more likely to be recession than inflation.

I've attached another chart from the same source as the two pie-charts. This one graphs the historical split among budget categories. Note that Interest (as a % of GDP) fell under Clinton and under Obama, but is now projected soon to exceed what it was during the Carter-Reagan inflation. Note also how discretionary has shrunk and shrunk (till regulators operate with skeleton crews and are unable to keep up with responsibilities).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Expenditures_of_US_Federal_Budget.png

 

[Derec]

Outlays ($6.6T) are nearly double Revenues! ($3.4T) Wild!
Much of the shortfall is due to big cuts in the taxes that multi-millionaires and corporations pay,

In aggregate, it has a lot more to do with the 47% of people who pay either no federal income tax or have an effectively negative tax rate (due to EITC, child tax credit etc.) which means that the federal government is paying them instead. This has become a lot worse with Biden administration expanding the child tax credit to $3k-3.6k per child.

A trillion for billionaires here; a trillion for corporations there; after a while we're talking real money!

[Citation needed]

Amateur cynics often ignore that the quality of spending is important.

Of course. But people disagree which spending is quality and which is not.

Childcare, healthcare, improved education, repaired infrastructure, more efficient transportation options: Such programs benefit the public and enhance prosperity and productivity. To call them inflationary, compared with billionaire-driven spending, is to ignore the whole purpose of economic society in a democracy.

People already get more than enough subsidies for breeding in the US. We do not need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more.
Healthcare likewise is pretty well funded. The goal should be to reduce the increase in rising cost, rather than just throwing money at it willy nilly.
Same goes for education. US is already on the high end of K-12 spending per student, but that spending is highly inefficient. We need to reform the K-12 education (and depoliticize it), not just throw more money at it.

Actual infrastructure spending is woefully underfunded in the US, that is true. And that's why an infrastructure bill should be about infrastructure, and not a $6T progressive wish list.

Note also how discretionary has shrunk and shrunk

I have noticed that. It is because the mandatory/entitlement spending is increasing. And the $6T non-infrastructure bill would add more entitlements such as "free" child care.

 

[Derec]

Yep! I also have never understood how expenditures for veterans is not part of the Defense cost,

Because VA benefits are part of the mandatory spending, while the Pentagon budget is discretionary. That way, even if Cory Bush got her way and defunded the Pentagon, VA benefits would not be affected.

never mind the nuclear weapons spending shoved into the DOE budget. And then there is the thru the roof cost of world wide spying (probably $100 billion a year now) and higher than during the cold war (even on an COLA basis).

DOE probably has historical reasons. Kind of like how ICBMs belong to the Air Force even though they are not launched from aircraft.
Where do you get the figure for spying from?

 

[Derec]

This graph would be much more realistic and useful if they separated the payroll tax revenue and the mandatory spending by payroll tax funding away from the rest of the budget.

It would give a much clearer picture of the items up for DEBATE.

Take it up with the Congressional Budget Office. My reason for posting it was not so much to argue about categories but to show that the Dem $6T non-infrastructure bill would be a significant portion of total spending, and thus would fuel the already higher inflation further.

 

[Derec]

What metric are you using to declare that?

It being a significant portion of total federal spending.
What metric are you using to think that it is not?

 

[ZiprHead]

What metric are you using to declare that?

It being a significant portion of total federal spending.
What metric are you using to think that it is not?

I didn't say it's not.

 

[funinspace]

Yep! I also have never understood how expenditures for veterans is not part of the Defense cost,

Because VA benefits are part of the mandatory spending, while the Pentagon budget is discretionary. That way, even if Cory Bush got her way and defunded the Pentagon, VA benefits would not be affected.

The majority of the VA cost is a direct result of US international adventures. Personally, I think providing clarity on where the expenses lay is important in order to have a rational discussion. When right wingers whine about all the welfare queens eating up the non-defense 'discretionary' spending, it is tiring to see them ignore the massive growth of the VA spending. Yes, it is absolutely necessary, but lets not pretend that the VA money has anything to do with SNAP or welfare queens.

never mind the nuclear weapons spending shoved into the DOE budget. And then there is the thru the roof cost of world wide spying (probably $100 billion a year now) and higher than during the cold war (even on an COLA basis).

DOE probably has historical reasons. Kind of like how ICBMs belong to the Air Force even though they are not launched from aircraft.
Where do you get the figure for spying from?

Yes, the DOE roughly $25 billion in military nuclear weapons spending is probably largely due to historical reasons. However, it again obscures the real cost of the US military posture.

The 2020 acknowledged total is $85.8 billion per the government:
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/ic-budget

The U.S. intelligence budget has two major components: the National Intelligence Program and the Military Intelligence Program. The National Intelligence Program includes all programs, projects and activities of the intelligence community as well as any other intelligence community programs designated jointly by the DNI and the head of department or agency, or the DNI and the President.

The MIP is devoted to intelligence activity conducted by the military departments and agencies in the Department of Defense that support tactical U.S. military operations. In addition, other departments and agencies may engage in certain activities related to intelligence for their own mission needs that are not captured here.

And moving about $325 billion from that chart's "non-defense discretionary" $914B over to the Defense's $714B; changes it to $589B for non-defense discretionary, and $1,049B for Defense. That is a pretty damn big shift in visuals...

 

[TV and credit cards]

Dumbo is really pushing his luck opposing the infrastructure bill and challenging the Republican side of the House to stand against it.
Good paying blue collar jobs. Good luck.

 

[Swammerdami]

Because VA benefits are part of the mandatory spending, while the Pentagon budget is discretionary.

Wrong again. Almost all the VA spending is considered (rightly or wrongly) as "Discretionary."

https://lmgtfy.app/?q=federal+discretonary+spending