Our October estimate of the amount of money illegal immigrants would receive from the Child Tax Credit in the budget reconciliation bill currently being considered in Congress was too low. The current version of the bill eliminates the requirement that eligible children have a Social Security number, raising the estimated cost by more than $2 billion.
"The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot." --- Excelsior, the national newspaper of Mexico
“The radicals seek nothing less than secession from the United States whether to form their own sovereign state or to reunify with Mexico. Those who desire reunification with Mexico are irredentists who seek to reclaim Mexico's "lost" territories in the American Southwest.” Maria Hsia Chang Professor of Political Science, University of Nevada Reno
"This is country belongs to Mexico" is said by the Mexican Militant. This is a common teaching that the U.S. is really AZTLAN, belonging to Mexicans, which is taught to Mexican kids in Arizona and California through a LA Raza educational program funded by American Tax Payers via President Obama, when he gave LA RAZA $800,000.00 in March of 2009!
Biden Seeks To Prove That Crime Pays
Compensating illegal aliens supposedly separated at the border.
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In Joe Biden’s America U.S. citizens face increasing scrutiny while illegal aliens are encouraged, aided, abetted and induced to enter the United States why whatever means possible. Furthermore, once in the United States, illegal aliens have nothing to fear. Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of DHS the Department of Homeland Security, (Department of Homeland Surrender?) has ordered that agents of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will no longer arrest aliens who are working illegally or punish employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens. This was the focus of my recent article, Biden Admin Powers Up Magnet to Attract Even More Illegal Aliens.
This is all in direct contradiction to the provisions of a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S. Code § 1324.
Even though immigration fraud was identified by the 9/11 Commission as being the key method of entry and embedding of international terrorists, DHS Secretary Mayorkas Plans to Shield Immigration Fraudsters – After DHS Officer Arrested for Naturalization Fraud.
While we consider terrorists, Biden and his Attorney General Garner are now Targeting American Parents who may question the curriculum that their own children are being indoctrinated with in American schools while blatantly ignoring how Biden’s Afghanistan Catastrophe Increases Terror Threat in US especially as our borders are now wide open and immigration law enforcement from within the interior of the United States has been all but terminated.
My dad sagely told me that nothing is so good it could not be made better or be so bad that it could not get worse.
How much worse could things get under Mr. Biden and his wrecking crew?
Consider that while Biden has proposed hiring an army of thousands of IRS agents to scrutinize the tax returns filed by Americans and drilling down into bank accounts with balances as low as $600 to make certain that the federal government captures every cent Americans taxpayers owe on November 6, 2021 the Washington Times reported, Biden: Migrant families separated at border deserve compensation.
President Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions came up with the “Zero Tolerance” policy to attempt to discourage the human tsunami of illegal aliens who were pouring through the highly porous and dangerous U.S./Mexican border. The clear goal was to deter what could only be described as an invasion of the United States.
Under a the provisions of the Flores Decision, minor aliens cannot be held for more than 20 days. Human trafficking organizations quickly realized that they could use young aliens to compel immigration authorities to release aliens who were accompanied by what they claimed were their children even when they weren’t actually related.
I wrote about this in my article, Alien Smugglers Exploit Infants. My article included the link to an ICE press release issued on May 16, 2019 that addressed the discovery that a previously deported illegal alien was found wading across the Rio Grande with a 6 month old infant in his arms. Although he initially claimed it was his child, it was subsequently determined that he was not related to the infant.
The press release, Fraudulent family case involving 6-month-old represents 'new level of child endangerment' according to ICE officials began with this excerpt:
WASHINGTON – A Honduran man attempting to cross the border with an unrelated 6-month-old infant last week underscores what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents have described as an increasing trend of fraudulent families presenting at the border in order to take advantage of loopholes in immigration laws and avoid being detained by immigration authorities.
“Cases like this demonstrate the real danger that exists to children in this disturbing new trend,” said HSI Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa Erichs. “And while we have seen egregious cases of smugglers renting and recycling children, this case involving a six-month-old infant is a new low – and an unprecedented level of child endangerment.”
Amilcar Guiza-Reyes, a 51-year old citizen and national of Honduras, who was previously deported in 2013, made an initial appearance in federal court in the Southern District of Texas May 10, charged with 8 USC 1324 alien smuggling for allegedly smuggling a 6-month-old infant across the U.S.-Mexico border.
It is beyond outrageous for Mr. Biden to support the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars to illegal aliens who intentionally violated our borders and our immigration laws that are essential to national security, public safety, public health and the jobs and wages of Americans is more than outrageous. The message will be clear- for illegal aliens, the streets are indeed, paved with gold, the gold taken from the U.S. taxpayers to reward illegal aliens for violations of our laws.
Contrary to Mr. Biden’s claims- many children were separated from their parents long before they came to the U.S. / Mexican border. They were separated from their families back in their countries of origin- either because their parents were willing to “rent them out” or because they were kidnapped. Trump’s efforts to use DNA testing to determine if those claiming to be the parents of these children was rebuffed by the courts.
To this point, on July 10, 2018 Politico reported, Judge demands Trump administration meet deadline to reunify dozens of migrant children.
There are other factors to consider beginning with the Profiteers of Biden Administration’s Open Borders Policy.
First of all, do not forget that lawyers from the ACLU are seeking this settlement. They would undoubtedly get a significant share from this abominable “settlement.” This simply adds yet another dimension to the immigration delivery system that provides an unlimited supply of foreign workers to compete with and displace American workers. An unlimited supply of foreign tourists, foreign students and, for the immigration lawyers- an unlimited supply of clients!
The ACLU is apparently looking for a huge payday!
Here are other factors to consider.
When people are arrested they are invariably separated from their children. As an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) Special Agent I participated in many arrests. Often I worked in close coordination with law enforcement officers of other agencies. I spent roughy half of my 30 year career working with the DEA, FBI, ATF and local and state police departments. (I was assigned to the Unified Intelligence Division of the DEA in New York City for four years and then promoted to the position of INS Senior Special Agent and assigned to the Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force.)
When we knew in advance that children were likely to be found at the location where we were making going to make arrests, if both parents were named in arrest warrants, we arranged to have appropriate authorities from Child Welfare accompany us to take care of the children. We always felt terrible about the situations these children were placed as a consequence of their parents’ criminal activities.
Actions have consequences.
Mr. Biden claims to be concerned that children were separated from their parents because of President Trump’s policies. Today how many children’s lives are being endangered by his open-borders and other immigration policies driving unprecedented numbers of people including children to use pernicious sociopathic alien smugglers and human traffickers to head for the United States through incredibly dangerous terrain and conditions?
Additionally- if Mr Biden’s is truly concerned that children were supposedly separated from their parents because of policies of the government, that those who were made to suffer should be paid, then I have an additional proposal.
The separation of children from their families is indeed terrible. But there is another situation that has also results in the separation of children from their parents. But in this case their parents did nothing wrong but to be in the proverbial “wrong place at the wrong time.”
Their parents were killed by aliens who should not have been permitted to enter the United States nor to remain in the United States. In many instances these criminal aliens had been deported and illegally reentered the United States. Policies of Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States resulted in detainers that were lodged by ICE to be ignored. These aliens who were in custody were turned loose and subsequently went on to kill and/or seriously injure innocent victims-thereby separating these victims - all too often permanently from their children.
Biden’s policies that have facilitated the entry of criminal aliens has also resulted in more innocent victims being permanently separated from their families and their children.
Record quantities of narcotics have also flooded into the United States. How many lives have been ruined or even lost to drug overdoses or to deaths that are directly or indirectly linked to drug use and the drug trade- causing more children to be permanently separated from their parents and other family members?
The question to which all American must demand an answer is simple- how much money should be paid by the jurisdictions that are responsible for their permanent separations of children from their parents because of Biden open borders/immigration anarchy policies that are exacerbated by the policies of “sanctuary jurisdictions’?
How much money should be paid to families who suffered the loss of their loved ones because of insane “no cash bail” policies that result in the release of sociopathic violent criminals who subsequently killed still more innocent victims?
JOE BIDEN’S OPEN BORDERS: HOUSTON NATION’S BIGGEST MEX SEX TRAFFICKING CAPITAL
What's causing the supply chain crisis? | Fox News Rundown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SqV0DkxGsA
Jim Banks Reveals the ‘Mind-Blowingly Corrupt’ Carveouts in $3.5 Trillion Infrastructure Bill
Rep. Jim Banks (R-SC), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), detailed many of the most radical aspects of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill.
Biden has gambled his legislative majority on passing two infrastructure bills, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation infrastructure bill, otherwise known as the Build Back Better Act.
Democrats hope to pass their mammoth, $3.5 trillion legislation through reconciliation, which allows the Senate to pass legislation with only a simple majority.
Although Democrats have not agreed to the final tenets of the legislation, Americans can see the tentative details of the Democrats’ marquee legislation.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), released an exhaustive list of some of the most radical aspects of the Democrats’ “socialist takeover bill.”
Banks’ press release hopes to serve as messaging House Republicans can use to rally against Biden’s marquee bill.
The RSC contended in a press release Tuesday that Democrats plans to hide the bill text to prevent Americans from knowing how radical the bill is.
“They’ve played ‘hide the ball’ with the bill text so as not to tip off the public as to what they’re putting in their bills. Then, they bring it to the floor and tout some poll numbers and scare their members into voting for it,” the RSC wrote.
The RSC noted the bill would:
1. Perpetuates labor shortage: Continues welfare benefits without work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents at a time where there are 10.1 million job openings—more openings than there are people looking for work.
2. Commissions a climate police: Democrats stuffed $8 billion into the bill to commission a cabal of federally funded climate police called the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) who will conduct progressive activism on taxpayers’ dime (pages 8, 21, and 926).
3. Pushes Green New Deal in our public schools: Requires funding for school construction be used largely on enrollment diversity and Green New Deal agenda items (page 55).
4. Pushes Green New Deal in our universities: Democrats include a $10 billion “environmental justice” higher education slush fund to indoctrinate college students and advance Green New Deal policies (page 1,935).
5. Forces faith-based child care providers out: The bill blocks the ability of many faith-based providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures (page 280).
6. Hurts small and in-home daycares: Requires pre-K staff to have a college degree. (page 303)
7. Includes new incentives for illegal immigration: Illegal immigrants will be eligible to take advantage of Democrats’ new ‘free’ college entitlement (page 92) as well be eligible for additional student aid (page 147) and the enhanced child tax credit (page 1,946).
8. Includes legislative hull for Biden’s vaccine mandate: Increases OSHA penalties on businesses that fail to implement the mandate up to $700,000 per violation and includes $2.6 billion in funding for the Department of Labor to increase enforcement of these penalties (page 168).
9. Gives unions near-total control: The bill includes insane prohibitions that would bind employers’ hands in union disputes and dangerously tilt the balance of power, subjecting employers to penalties that exempt union bosses and officials… among other things this bill would prevent employers from permanently replacing striking workers (page 175). It coerces businesses to meet union boss demands by increasing Fair Labor Standards Act penalties by an astronomical 900% (page 168).
10. Makes unions bigger and more powerful: The bill would subsidize union dues that would only serve to strengthen the influence of union bosses and not American workers (page 2323).
11. Pushes Democrats’ wasteful and confusing school lunch agenda: $643 million for, among other things, “procuring…culturally appropriate foods” (page 333).
12. Furthers radical abortion agenda: Does not include the Hyde amendment and would mandate taxpayers pay for abortions (page 198) & (page 336).
13. Drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills: Issues a punitive methane tax (page 367) and includes a tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and cost 90,000 Americans their jobs (page 368).
14. Includes dangerous & deadly green energy mandate: Effectively forces Americans to get 40% of their energy from wind, solar and other unreliable forms of energy within 8 years (page 392). Reliance on these energy sources has proven deadly.
15. Includes kickbacks for the Left’s green energy special interest network: $5 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” (page 377) and another $100 billion in green energy special interest subsidies, loans and other carve outs.
16. Gives wealthy Americans tax credits: $222 billion in “green energy” tax credits will be given to those who can afford expensive electric vehicles and other “green” innovative products (page 1832).
17. Furthers Democrats’ social justice agenda: Includes “equity” initiatives throughout the bill and, in one instance, Democrats inserted “equity” language into a title which should have been focusing on the maintenance of the United States’ cyber security efforts (page 897).
18. Grants amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants: House Democrats have included in their reconciliation bill a plan to grant amnesty to around 8 million illegal immigrants at a cost of around $100 billion over ten years that would largely be spent on welfare and other entitlements (page 901). Trillions more would be spent long term on their Social Security and Medicare.
19. Opens border even wider: The bill would waive many grounds for immigration inadmissibility, including infection or lack of vaccination status during a Pandemic, failure to attend removal proceedings in previous immigration cases, and the previous renouncement of American citizenship. DHS may also waive previous convictions for human trafficking, narcotics violations, and illegal voting (page 903).
20. Increases visa limit: At least 226,000 family-preference visas would be administered each year (page 905).
21. Grants fast-tracked green cards for those seeking middle-class careers in America: Language included in the bill exempts certain aliens from the annual green card statutory limits and has been described as a “hidden pipeline for U.S. employers to flood more cheap foreign graduates into millions of middle-class careers needed by American graduates” (page 910).
22. Includes pork for Nancy Pelosi: $200 million is earmarked for the Presidio Trust in Speaker Pelosi’s congressional district (page 933).
23. Increases energy dependence on OPEC, Russia and China: The bill prohibits several mineral and energy withdrawals (page 979). It overturns provisions included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that authorized energy production in the Arctic that will result in 130,000 Americans losing their jobs and $440 billion in lost federal revenue (page 983) and the mineral withdrawals it prohibits would, ironically, include minerals necessary for renewable energy sources (pages 934, 940, 943).
24. Exacerbates the chip shortage: The bill would mandate the conversion of the entire federal vehicle fleet from internal combustion engines to electric engines at a time when there is a global microchip shortage and crippled supply chains (page 1,043).
25. Democrats’ feckless China bill is included: Concepts from the insanely weak Endless Frontier Act included, including $11 billion in research funding that will likely result in American intellectual property going to China (page 1079 – 1081).
26. Chases green energy pipe dreams: $264 million to the EPA to conduct research with left-wing environmental justice groups on how to transition away from fossil fuels (page 1063).
27. Fixes “racist” roads and bridges: Adds a nearly $4 billion slush fund that would help left-wing grassroots organizations that, among other things, want to tear down and rebuild or otherwise alter infrastructure deemed “racist” (page 1183).
28. Punishes red states for failing to adopt Green New Deal provisions: Mandates “consequences” for conservative states that don’t meet the radical Left’s “green” climate standards while at the same time adding nearly $4 billion for “Community Climate Incentive Grants” for cooperating states (page 1179).
29. Includes new massive, bankrupting entitlement: The new paid leave entitlement would mandate workers get 12 weeks of paid leave and would cost $500 billion over ten years according to the CBO (page 1245). It would apply to those making up to half a million dollars a year (page 1254).
30. Advances a totalitarian and paternalistic view of the federal government: Includes grants for organizations to treat individuals suffering from “loneliness” and “social isolation.”
31. Further detaches individuals from employment and more reliant on government handouts: The bill spends $835 billion on welfare through manipulating the tax code [not including the expansions of Obamacare subsidies] (page 1943).
32. Tax benefits for the top 1%: The bill will possibly lift the SALT deduction cap meaning many of the top 1% wealthiest Americans would pay less in taxes.
33. Tax credit for wealthy donors who give to woke universities: The bill creates a new tax credit program that gives tax credits worth 40% of cash contribution that are made to university research programs (page 2094).
34. Expands worst parts of Obamacare: Obamacare’s job-killing employer mandate will become more severe by adjusting the definition of “affordable coverage” to mean coverage that costs no more than 8.5 percent of income rather than current law’s 9.5 percent of income (page 2041).
35. Increases taxes on Americans at every income level: $2 trillion in tax hikes will fall on those making under $400,000 per year, contrary to what the White House says. Individuals at all income levels will be affected (Ways and Means GOP).
36. Lowers wages for working families: The corporate tax rate will increase by 5.5%, meaning American companies will face one of the highest tax burdens in the world. According to analysis, two-thirds of this tax hike will fall on lower- and middle-income taxpayers (page 2110).
37. Penalizes marriage: The bill would permanently double the EITC’s marriage penalty on childless worker benefits (page 2036).
38. Imposes crushing taxes on small business: Guts the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act small business deductions that reduced pass-through entity taxes to keep them comparable to taxes imposed on corporations (page 2235) as well as hammer small businesses that file as individual tax earners with the 39.6% rate (page 2221) and Obamacare’s 3.8% tax on net investment income.
39. Crushes family businesses and farms: The bill would impose a 25% capital gains rate (page 2226) and makes alterations to the Death Tax including cutting the Death Tax exemption in half (page 2240).
40. Violates Americans’ financial privacy: $80 billion slush fund to hire an 87,000-IRS-agent army to carry out the Biden administration’s plan to review every account above a $600 balance or with more than $600 of transactions in a year. (page 2283).
41. Increases out of pocket costs for those who rely on prescription drugs: The bill repeals the Trump-era Rebate Rule which passes through rebates directly to consumers at the point of sale (page 2465).
42. Imports policies from countries with socialized medicine: The bill includes healthcare policies imported from systems in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom—all countries that have government-run healthcare systems (page 2349).
The bill also has other lesser-known provisions, including:
· $5 million per year for the Small Business Administration for an entrepreneurial program for formerly incarcerated individuals.
· $2.5 billion for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to award competitive grants or contracts to local governments, community-based organizations, and other groups to support “intervention strategies” to reduce community violence.
“Each of these 42 bullets is enough to vote against the bill. Taken together—it’s mind-blowingly corrupt. We need to loudly oppose it,” Banks charged in the release.
He added, “Democrats are scattered. The Biden agenda is in question. It’s the perfect opportunity to build public sentiment against this bill. The American people need us to be the vanguard against the Left’s radical plans.”
“It’s not an understatement to say this bill, if passed, will fundamentally change our country forever—Americans will wake up in a few years and wonder what happened to their freedom. We can’t let that happen,“ Banks concluded.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!
THEY WILL NOT GO QUIETLY!
The legislation has been shaped entirely by the class interests of the capitalist ruling elite, which demands both a continued supply of cash from the Treasury and a stepped-up supply of low-wage labor in the midst of the pandemic. In the course of these “negotiations,” measures that provide subsidies to businesses or promote the entry of more workers into the labor force have advanced, while measures that cost business money, sustain working people while they are not actively employed, or simply improve their lives, have been killed.
Biden opened the border, flooding our nation with millions of unemployed, unvetted, often terribly sick people who have no knowledge of or respect for our institutions. Most plan to get the welfare and health care Biden promised. Nothing stops terrorists and serious criminals, including killers; rapists; pedophiles; and traffickers of women, children, and drugs. America receives no benefit from opening our border to impoverished, illiterate people from over 120 countries. To add insult to injury, while Americans are being destroyed over the vaccine mandate, illegal aliens need not be vaccinated.
Biden’s incredible shrinking social “reform” bill
The “framework” for the “Build Back Better” legislation announced by President Biden Thursday morning and presented to the House Democratic caucus signals the collapse of the reformist pretenses of the Democratic administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress. For all the grandiose rhetoric about sweeping social legislation and “the most consequential piece of legislation for working people” since the New Deal (in the words of Bernie Sanders), the Democratic Party leadership has embraced a watered-down plan whose yearly cost ($175 billion) is less than one-quarter of the military budget.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., listens to a question from a reporter during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The legislation incorporating the “framework,” a draft budget reconciliation bill, was submitted to the House Rules Committee Thursday and runs to nearly 2,200 pages. Its provisions are complex, and the procedures for its approval are both convoluted and highly precarious. It is entirely possible that the legislative process will lead to a complete political debacle for both the Biden White House and the Democratic Party as a whole, with no significant legislation passed.
But there is a unifying thread to the process of legislative horse-trading with two right-wing Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and a half-dozen right-wing House Democrats, which shrank the initial social spending bill from $6 trillion at the beginning, to the $3.5 trillion bill put forward by the White House, and now to the $1.75 trillion embraced by Biden Thursday—half his original plan, and barely a quarter of the opening bid by Sanders.
All these figures represent expenditures spread out over 10 years. By comparison, the military budget over the same period would be at least $8 trillion, and projected interest payments on the federal debt could be even higher. Every year, the Federal Reserve is pumping close to $1.5 trillion into the markets—nearly as much as the proposed legislation allocates in ten years.
The legislation has been shaped entirely by the class interests of the capitalist ruling elite, which demands both a continued supply of cash from the Treasury and a stepped-up supply of low-wage labor in the midst of the pandemic. In the course of these “negotiations,” measures that provide subsidies to businesses or promote the entry of more workers into the labor force have advanced, while measures that cost business money, sustain working people while they are not actively employed, or simply improve their lives, have been killed.
This rule of thumb explains both what provisions have survived and those which have gone by the wayside. To outline these briefly, based on the descriptions supplied by the White House, the surviving measures include:
· Climate-related spending, for a total of $555 billion. This is the largest single allocation in the much-reduced reconciliation bill, and the lion’s share, $320 billion, is in the form of tax credits to utilities, electric vehicle manufacturers, and companies that build battery-charging stations. Another $110 billion is for direct incentives (subsidies) to producers of “solar, batteries and advanced materials” (of great concern to the Pentagon), as well as “boosting the competitiveness of existing industries, like steel, cement, and aluminum.”
· Universal pre-kindergarten programs for children aged three and four, as well as federally subsidized child care. Despite the glowing rhetoric about expanding the social safety net, the main purpose of this program is to free the mothers of small children to take low-wage jobs.
· Expansion of Medicaid into a dozen states, mainly in the South, all ruled by Republican state governments which refused federal subsidies for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Since most low-wage employers do not offer health care coverage, workers in those states, including Texas and Florida, have a strong disincentive to take jobs that would raise their incomes only marginally, yet make them ineligible for Medicaid.
· Extension of the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for around 17 million low-wage workers. This is essentially a wage subsidy for low-wage employers, since it allows workers to survive on extremely low wages with a top-off from the federal government, only available if they stay in their jobs for a minimum number of hours per week. It is not payable to workers who quit their jobs, are laid off or are long-term unemployed.
· Creation of a federally funded home health care program for the elderly and disabled. The class purpose is to return to the work force those who might otherwise have to drop out to take care of elderly parents or disabled relatives. This is of particular importance in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has frightened people away from nursing homes that have become death traps.
Those programs that have been largely or entirely eliminated include:
· Two years of free community college. This would obviously have removed large numbers of workers from the labor force, particularly those working and going to school only part-time, who would be encouraged to enroll in full-time education.
· Paid family and medical leave. This was initially set at 12 weeks, then whittled down to four weeks and then eliminated entirely.
· The child tax credit of $250 a month and $300 a month for children aged six or less. The bill extends the credit for only one year, to avoid its expiration in the midst of the campaign for the 2022 congressional elections. Once promised as a new, permanent benefit that would “cut child poverty in half,” the child credit is now set to terminate December 31, 2022.
· Authorization for Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices using its enormous buying power to bargain with the pharmaceutical companies.
· Expansion of Medicare to provide dental, vision and hearing coverage. One of the “red lines” of Sanders, the proposal has been shrunk to include only hearing coverage, the cheapest of the three. Besides being costly, this coverage was viewed as undesirable competition for insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage plans (a semi-private version of Medicare).
Alongside the tailoring of social spending proposals to meet the class interests of big business, the latest Biden version of the reconciliation package excludes any significant tax rate increases for either corporations or the wealthy, and it does not include even the “billionaires’ tax” proposed by some Senate Democrats this week, after the provision was challenged by several of the billionaires and threatened with protracted litigation on constitutional grounds.
There are a handful of tax provisions thrown in to sustain the pretense of “fairness” and “equity,” such as a minimum corporate income tax, but these will be easily evaded by giant corporations and their well-funded tax and legal departments. Likewise, the surtax on the incomes of millionaires and billionaires is likely to be eliminated because of the adamant opposition of Senator Sinema to any increase in income tax rates.
These spending and tax measures are combined in the “reconciliation” bill, which requires 50 votes in the Senate for passage. The separate “infrastructure” bill has already passed the Senate with bipartisan support, because it is essentially a $1.2 trillion boondoggle for big construction companies and other corporations, such as trucking, shipping, electric utilities and the like.
In the wake of Biden’s meeting with the House Democrats, the “progressives” have embraced the substance of his much-reduced reconciliation bill. While still insisting on the passage of both bills together, they are not arguing for any significant improvements in the reconciliation bill. Medicare expansion, paid family leave, free community college and other measures are off the table.
The whole rotten process exposes not only the nature of the Democratic Party itself. As Biden declared in his remarks Thursday from the White House, after his meeting with the House, “I am a capitalist.” Or to be more precise, he is a paid servant of the capitalists, like every Democratic and Republican politician.
The Democratic Party is a party of Wall Street, the intelligence agencies and the military, resting on privileged sections of the middle class. The role of Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, et al. is to provide this reactionary political organization with the barest fig leaf of social reform.
Moreover, far from “creating space” for social reform, as the pseudo-left promoters of the Democratic Party claimed, the right-wing politics of the Democrats, to the extent that they are not opposed through the independent political mobilization of the working class on a socialist program, only fuel the growth of the far right.
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