Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

I am shocked, shocked to find racial discrimination in the Republican Party.

[Winstonm]

I see in some headlines that the national media is having withdrawl symptoms so is back writing about what Donald Trump says. Personally, the only article I care to see about Donald Trump is his obituary.

[pilowsky]

I see in some headlines that the national media is having withdrawl symptoms so is back writing about what Donald Trump says. Personally, the only article I care to see about Donald Trump is his obituary.

 

That's harsh. The only sentence I want to read about Trump is his sentence: I'm hoping it's a really long one.

You can include all his friends and children in that sentiment.

 

[Winstonm]

He could die in prison and we’d have a win-win.

[pilowsky]

He could die in prison and we'd have a win-win.

 

Now you're cooking with gas (or wind power).

[y66]

Democrats in Congress and White House officials are confident that they can pass a more than $3tn economic recovery package funded by tax increases on businesses and the wealthy, even in the absence of Republican support.

 

Joe Biden, the US president, this week said that his next “major initiative” after enacting this month’s $1.9tn fiscal stimulus bill would be a multibillion-dollar plan to fund long-term infrastructure, education and childcare spending — partially funded by tax increases.

 

He is expected to lay out more details of the package in a visit to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, ahead of negotiations with Capitol Hill that are expected to dominate the political agenda in the next few months.

 

While the talks on Capitol Hill are expected to take longer than they did in the case of the stimulus bill, Biden administration officials and congressional Democrats believe that sufficient support is emerging within their party to pass the recovery plan without the need for Republican votes, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

“I feel 90 per cent certainty that come the fall, we will have passed a major infrastructure bill or bills,” said Don Beyer, the chair of the Joint Economic Committee and a Democratic congressman from Virginia.

 

“Everybody would love for it to be bipartisan — and that’s sincere. But we’re not going to say in the efforts of bipartisanship we’re going to do nothing, or do way too little.”

Meanwhile, hopes of circumventing Republican opposition with unanimous support among Democrats on Capitol Hill have been growing. Joe Manchin, the centrist West Virginia Democratic senator, this week told NBC he would support an “enormous” infrastructure package funded partially with tax increases.

[y66]

President Biden’s American Rescue Plan is incredibly popular, even among Republican voters. We don’t have details yet on the next big Democratic initiative, but we can expect it to poll well, because we know that it will combine major infrastructure spending with tax hikes on corporations and the rich — which are all popular things.

 

But like the rescue plan, the next plan probably won’t get a single Republican vote in Congress. Why are elected Republicans still so committed to right-wing economic policies that help the rich while shortchanging the working class?

 

Fair warning: I’m not going to offer a good answer to this question. The point of today’s article is, instead, to argue for the question’s importance.

 

I ask why Republicans are “still” committed to right-wing economics because in the past there wasn’t any puzzle about their position.

 

Like many observers, I used to have a “What’s the matter with Kansas?” model of the G.O.P. That is, like Thomas Frank, the author of the 2004 book with that title, I saw the Republican Party essentially as an enterprise run by and for plutocrats that managed to win elections by playing to the cultural grievances and racial hostility of working-class whites. Bigotry, however, was mainly a show put on for the rubes; the party would go back to its pro-rich priorities as soon as each election was over.

 

The classic example came when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then followed his victory by announcing that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security. (He didn’t.)

 

But that feels like a long time ago.

 

Billionaires may have started the Republican Party on its march toward extremism, but they’ve clearly lost control of the forces they conjured up. The G.O.P. can no longer put intolerance back in the closet after each election so as to focus on the real business of tax cuts and deregulation. Instead, the extremists are in charge. Despite a lost election and a violent insurrection, what’s left of the old Republican establishment has abased itself on the altar of Trumpism.

 

But while power in the Republican Party has shifted almost completely away from the conservative establishment, the party is still committed to an economic ideology of tax and spending cuts. And it’s not obvious why.

 

When Donald Trump rolled over establishment candidates in 2016, it seemed possible that he would lead his party toward what some political scientists call “Herrenvolk democracy,” policies that are genuinely populist and even egalitarian — but only for members of the right racial and ethnic groups.

 

South Africa under apartheid worked that way. There were limited gestures toward whites-only populism in the Jim Crow U.S. South. In Europe, France’s National Front combines hostility to immigrants with calls for an expansion of the nation’s already generous welfare state.

 

As a candidate, Trump often sounded as if he wanted to move in that direction, promising not to cut social benefits and to begin a large infrastructure program. If he had honored those promises, if he had shown any hint of genuine populism, he might still be president. In practice, however, his tax cut and his failed attempt to repeal Obamacare were right out of the standard conservative playbook.

 

The exception that proves the rule was Trump’s farm policy, which involved huge subsidies to farmers hurt by his trade war, but managed to give almost all of those subsidies to whites. The point is that there was nothing like this on a broader level.

 

Was Trump’s continuation of unpopular economic policies simply a reflection of his personal ignorance and lack of interest in substance? Events since the election suggest not.

 

I’ve already mentioned lock-step Republican opposition to Biden’s relief package. Rejection of economic populism is also apparent at the state level. Consider Missouri. One of its senators, Josh Hawley, has declared that Republicans must be “a working-class party, not a Wall Street party.” Yet Republicans in the state’s legislature just blocked funding for an expansion in Medicaid that would cost the state very little and has already been approved by a majority of voters.

 

Or consider West Virginia, where another unfulfilled Trump promise, to revive the coal industry, resonated with voters. Coal isn’t coming back; so the state’s Republican governor is proposing to boost the economy by … eliminating income taxes. This echoes the failed Kansas tax cut experiment a few years ago. Why imagine it would work any better in Appalachia?

 

So what’s going on? I suspect that the absence of true populism on the right has a lot to do with the closing of the right-wing mind: the conservative establishment may have lost power, but its apparatchiks are still the only people in the G.O.P. who know anything about policy. And big money may still buy influence even in a party whose energy comes mainly from intolerance and hate.

 

In any case, for now Republican politicians are doing Democrats a big favor, clinging to discredited economic ideas that even their own supporters dislike.

[kenberg]

My thoughts on Krugman are not new but then the Krugman thoughts above are not also not new.

 

I start with "President Biden’s American Rescue Plan is incredibly popular, even among Republican voters. ".

I suggest a new poll. Ask random adults

"Are you amazed that people approve of the government sending them $2400 ?"

And then we could do a poll to see if people who are receiving the $2400 are more often in favor of the plan than are people whose income precludes them from receiving $2400.

And then we could see if farmers are more in favor of farm subsidies than city folks are.

Could we all agree that

A: Giving away money is apt to be popular with those receiving it

B. There might well be good reasons to give money to people but the fact that the recipients like it is not one of those good reasons.

My current view is that Republicans have totally lost their brains and Democrats are still holding on to a small portion of their brains.

[pilowsky]

One of the biggest problems we face in the world is that actions are poll-driven.

This method of governance reached its Zenith (and nadir, I suppose) in the Trump era.

If popularity were a sensible decision-making approach, all the experts on this forum would be playing SAYC with no minor transfer system, and 4♣ would always mean Gerber.

This method's epitome came while watching Kayleigh MacEnany explain that any policy was a good one if "the American People" - according to the polls thought it was the best.

Trump forced experts out because they didn't always do things that garnered him more "likes".

Trump could be the first "Like" driven President of the USA.

[kenberg]

I will try to make a point. I'll start by fully acknowledging Krugman is a smart guy, both generally and specifically in economics. but I think there other people, also smart, who think differently than he does. So it is possible to contest his views and not be a total idiot.

 

I will start with the stimulus checks to make my point.

 

I have argued that there was no reason to send me a stimulus check. This was for two reasons. First, I didn't need it. Second, it would not bolster the economy because I wouldn't spend it. But also, the people that would spend it are not the same as the people who need it. And "need it" is a matter of degree. So: Are we sending money because we think the recipients need it? If so, that's a nice thing to do and it would be a nice thing to do even if it did not boost the economy. If we are sending money because we think people will spend it and boost the economy, then that might be a good idea even if "need it" only weakly applies. So, and this is my first point, we need greater clarity on intentions. Are we trying to be nice to people in need or are we trying to boost the economy? There is an overlap, sure there is an overlap, but they are not the same thing.

 

Next, and this is also a repeat of what I have said, I would not be happy if the response was "Ok, fine, we won't send anything to Ken we will just use it to reduce the balance on someone's loan". Whose loan, and why? And I am still waiting to hear the designers of this loan program explain why no one realized that if you lend someone $20,000 every year for four years then that person will be $80,000 in debt. "Who would have thunk?" seems to be the attitude.

 

A further point regards having to choose. An (imperfect) illustration: When I was 14 I had hopes of buying a convertible when I was 15. When I was 15 I bought a coupe. I still liked convertibles, but I bought a coupe.

I ask: Has Krugman (or someone who thinks as he does) ever listed maybe three, or maybe five or ten, programs that he believed would all be very much worth doing but then said "But obviously we cannot afford to fully fund all of these programs and here are the compromises that I believe we should make"?

I assume (just because I find it hard to believe otherwise) that he does not think that any program that has merit should be fully funded. Surely he thinks that sometimes, even though all programs on a list of programs are very desirable, some choices must be made.

He often sounds as if he just thinks that if a program sounds good then we should fund it for whatever it costs, no reason to have any funding priorities as long as the programs have merit. Yes I know national spending is not the same as personal spending but still, I bought a coupe and that, to me, seems relevant.

 

This applies to many things beyond stimulus checks. Our objective is what? And how do we prioritize?

 

PS After poting this I saw

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/31/takeaways-biden-infrastructure-plan/

Indeed this seems to speak of how to pay for what. The right idea, I think.

[y66]

I will try to make a point. I'll start by fully acknowledging Krugman is a smart guy, both generally and specifically in economics. but I think there other people, also smart, who think differently than he does. So it is possible to contest his views and not be a total idiot.

 

I will start with the stimulus checks to make my point.

 

I have argued that there was no reason to send me a stimulus check. This was for two reasons. First, I didn't need it. Second, it would not bolster the economy because I wouldn't spend it. But also, the people that would spend it are not the same as the people who need it. And "need it" is a matter of degree. So: Are we sending money because we think the recipients need it? If so, that's a nice thing to do and it would be a nice thing to do even if it did not boost the economy. If we are sending money because we think people will spend it and boost the economy, then that might be a good idea even if "need it" only weakly applies. So, and this is my first point, we need greater clarity on intentions. Are we trying to be nice to people in need or are we trying to boost the economy? There is an overlap, sure there is an overlap, but they are not the same thing.

 

Next, and this is also a repeat of what I have said, I would not be happy if the response was "Ok, fine, we won't send anything to Ken we will just use it to reduce the balance on someone's loan". Whose loan, and why? And I am still waiting to hear the designers of this loan program explain why no one realized that if you lend someone $20,000 every year for four years then that person will be $80,000 in debt. "Who would have thunk?" seems to be the attitude.

 

A further point regards having to choose. An (imperfect) illustration: When I was 14 I had hopes of buying a convertible when I was 15. When I was 15 I bought a coupe. I still liked convertibles, but I bought a coupe.

I ask: Has Krugman (or someone who thinks as he does) ever listed maybe three, or maybe five or ten, programs that he believed would all be very much worth doing but then said "But obviously we cannot afford to fully fund all of these programs and here are the compromises that I believe we should make"?

I assume (just because I find it hard to believe otherwise) that he does not think that any program that has merit should be fully funded. Surely he thinks that sometimes, even though all programs on a list of programs are very desirable, some choices must be made.

He often sounds as if he just thinks that if a program sounds good then we should fund it for whatever it costs, no reason to have any funding priorities as long as the programs have merit. Yes I know national spending is not the same as personal spending but still, I bought a coupe and that, to me, seems relevant.

 

This applies to many things beyond stimulus checks. Our objective is what? And how do we prioritize?

 

PS After poting this I saw

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/31/takeaways-biden-infrastructure-plan/

Indeed this seems to speak of how to pay for what. The right idea, I think.

Krugman's position on the stimulus checks is:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/opinion/stimulus-pandemic-rescue.html (January 27, 2021)

 

President Biden is proposing a large relief package to deal with the continuing fallout from the coronavirus. The package is expansive, as it should be. But it is, predictably, facing demands that it be scaled back. Which, if any, of these demands have some validity?

 

We can discount opposition from Republican leaders who have suddenly decided, after years of enabling deficits under Trump, that federal debt is a terrible thing. We’ve seen this movie before, during the Obama years: Republicans oppose economic aid not because they believe it will fail but because they fear it might succeed, both helping Democrats’ political prospects and legitimizing an expanded role for government.

 

But there are also some good-faith objections to parts of the Biden proposal, coming from Democrats like Joe Manchin and progressive economic commentators like Larry Summers. What these commentators object to, mainly, are plans for broadly distributed “stimulus checks” (they aren’t checks and they aren’t stimulus, but never mind): payments of $1400 to many families.

 

I’m posting this note to explain why I believe that these objections are wrong. To be more precise, I’d argue that these critics are giving the right answer to the wrong question.

 

Let’s start from common ground: The main purpose of the proposed plan isn’t stimulus, it’s disaster relief. The U.S. economy will remain depressed as long as the pandemic is rampant, so the goal is to help those parts of our society hit hard by the constrained economy to make it through with minimum damage. This includes families with unemployed workers, state and local governments that can’t run deficits and are taking a financial hit, and businesses hurt by lockdown.

 

The core of the package, then, is aid to these afflicted groups — enhanced unemployment benefits, aid to state and local governments, and business financial relief. And these things, along with specific pandemic and vaccine funding, account for most of the proposed outlays.

 

The controversial part is those broad-based grants to families, many of which would go to Americans who are doing OK. And the critics are right to say that many of those who would receive payment wouldn’t need the money.

 

Where they go wrong is in assuming that the stimulus checks (I’ll call them that, since everyone else does) are in competition with the other parts of the package.

 

The fact is that the U.S. government is not financially constrained. It has no trouble borrowing, and borrowing is very cheap, with the 10-year interest rate barely above one percent.

 

This interest rate is far below the economy’s expected growth rate. The Congressional Budget Office expects the dollar value of potential GDP — output at full employment — to grow at an annual rate of 3.7 percent over the next decade. What this means is that borrowing now will not store up big burdens for the future: Any debt we incur will tend to melt away as a share of GDP over time.

 

So there isn’t a relevant dollar limit on the amount we can spend on economic rescue. The constraints are, instead, political: The crucial thing is to build enough support for aid to those who do need it.

 

And stimulus checks would help build that support, for two reasons.

 

One is that the checks would play a useful role. Unemployment benefits won’t reach everyone hurt by the pandemic, so some of the outlays on broad payments would reach people who need help. They wouldn’t be as well targeted as other aid, but again, money is not the constraint here.

 

The other is that stimulus checks are both very popular and something Democrats have promised. So why not honor that promise and do something that builds support for all the measures in the rescue package?

 

Put it this way: Given the economic and political situation we’re in, stimulus checks are an “and,” not an “or.” They’re complementary to other emergency relief, not in competition with it.

 

What about concerns that we’ll end up providing too much aid, and that it will be inflationary?

 

I’m actually an optimist about near-term economic prospects. There’s a quite good chance that the economy will come roaring back late this year, once vaccinations have produced herd immunity and Americans can resume normal life. If and when that happens, the economy won’t need whatever stimulus the rescue package is still providing.

 

But so what? We’ll be coming out of the pandemic with inflation still below the Fed’s target, and it would do little harm to overshoot that target and run the economy hot, leading to a bit of excess inflation — and a bit is all that would happen, because inflation responds slowly to economic conditions. If the boom gets big enough and goes on long enough that inflation actually starts to look like a concern, the Fed can always rein it in by modestly raising interest rates.

 

We need to remember the lesson of the 2009 stimulus: The risks of doing too little are much bigger than the risks of doing too much. Do too little and you probably won’t get a second chance; do too much and the Fed can easily contain any pickup in inflation.

 

So please, don’t nitpick this plan. Not every dollar has to be spent in the best possible way. Speed, simplicity and broad support, not purity, are of the essence.

So to the extent that stimulus checks are not as well targeted as everyone might like, they are politically popular which is a big part of getting the votes in Congress to make policy.

 

And he did say please. I suppose he could have said pretty please with sugar on top.

[hrothgar]

Part of the reason that Krugman (and others) advocate being fairly ecumenical in distributing stimulus check is expediency.

 

They want to get $$$ into people's hands quickly when it can do good and while the economy is hurting.

Delaying sending out money until the economy has already recovered is highly problematic.

[y66]

U.S. President Joe Biden just rolled out his own version of FDR’s New Deal: a $2.25 trillion infrastructure package. Unveiled on Wednesday, the “American Job Plan” is being billed as the most sweeping economic investment since the original U.S. space program. In part, it’s aimed at propping up the country’s historically underfunded and largely disintegrating infrastructure. The White House plans to fund the bill by taking back some of the tax cuts Republicans gave corporations and the rich four years ago. Much like his Covid-19 rescue bill, the plan faces a narrow path through Congress. Garnering Republican support in either the House or Senate, both of which Democrats control by tiny margins, will be difficult. Even corralling moderate and progressive Democrats will be a challenge. From electric vehicle support to clean water, here’swhat else is in the massive proposal.

[kenberg]

 

 

So to the extent that stimulus checks are not as well targeted as everyone might like, they are politically popular which is a big part of getting the votes in Congress to make policy.

 

 

I am not sure if you are serious here but yes, that's exactly how it looks. In the old west, or in the old west movies, the Sherriff bought drinks in the local saloon for everyone on voting day. I suppose it works, but it does not have my support.

[y66]

I was being serious. I think this was a case of buying drinks for members of Congress who were not interested in targeting stimulus payments more narrowly than buying drinks for voters. According to economists at Opportunity Insights, targeting the stimulus payments toward lower-income households would have saved approximately $185 billion that could have been used to support other programs, with minimal impact on economic activity.

[kenberg]

As I understand it, there was a cut back in the stimulus payments for the well-off.

As we go forward, trust will be important.

I am no expert on the stimulus bill and I am even less familiar with any details of the new infrastructure plan. And I really do not expect that three weeks from now I will be prepared to participate in a nationally televised debate. When I say trust, I don't mean that I think Biden is a crook. Not at all. The question will be: Do I think he knows what he is doing? Am I happy enough that he will be setting out the plans?

I was 17 when Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. The word "Defense" was in the title as part of a sales pitch but all in all I think it was right. They might have thought a bit more about the effect of running interstates through the middle of cities but Eisenhower mostly got it right. Returning to a pet peeve, I think the people that designed the Student Loan Program mostly got it wrong. I was a beneficiary of the After-Sputnik push to support science education. I started grad school in 1960 as a teaching assistant teaching ten hours a week. Later, thanks to government money, I was on grants. So at least for me, and I think for the country, this was a good use of money! (No, I am not claiming that supporting me was a particularly good use of government money, but I think that, in general, the support worked well.)

 

Do I have confidence that Biden knows what he is doing? I'll hedge a bit. I hope he does, and I think the hope is reasonable. I do believe that his focus is on the good of the country rather than on his own ego. A very welcome change.

[Winstonm]

As I understand it, there was a cut back in the stimulus payments for the well-off.

As we go forward, trust will be important.

I am no expert on the stimulus bill and I am even less familiar with any details of the new infrastructure plan. And I really do not expect that three weeks from now I will be prepared to participate in a nationally televised debate. When I say trust, I don't mean that I think Biden is a crook. Not at all. The question will be: Do I think he knows what he is doing? Am I happy enough that he will be setting out the plans?

I was 17 when Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. The word "Defense" was in the title as part of a sales pitch but all in all I think it was right. They might have thought a bit more about the effect of running interstates through the middle of cities but Eisenhower mostly got it right. Returning to a pet peeve, I think the people that designed the Student Loan Program mostly got it wrong. I was a beneficiary of the After-Sputnik push to support science education. I started grad school in 1960 as a teaching assistant teaching ten hours a week. Later, thanks to government money, I was on grants. So at least for me, and I think for the country, this was a good use of money! (No, I am not claiming that supporting me was a particularly good use of government money, but I think that, in general, the support worked well.)

 

Do I have confidence that Biden knows what he is doing? I'll hedge a bit. I hope he does, and I think the hope is reasonable. I do believe that his focus is on the good of the country rather than on his own ego. A very welcome change.

 

For those of us who have been fortunate enough - one way or another - to be O.K. financially during this pandemic, I think it is difficult to understand the impact on those who are not so fortunate.

 

For that matter, it is difficult enough to put ourselves in another's shoes during the best of times.

 

All I'm certain of is that when large problems arise that affect the entire country, government (even if wasteful to a degree) is a better choice for solutions than private enterprise. Government is not concerned about ROI or profits. Only governments can afford massive deficit spending.

 

It's not perfect and never will be - it is democracy, which is messy by nature.

 

 

[y66]

From NPR interview with Mayor Pete:

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/01/983314962/biden-administration-says-infrastructure-plan-is-costly-but-worth-it

 

The Biden administration proposes paying for this by raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. That money would be spent over the next eight years, but it would take 15 years for the tax hikes to generate the revenue you need. How is that not a problem?

 

Well, this is common sense investment when you think about how to fund things that are going to improve America for a generation. Over the course of that eight-year vision, we are going to be enhancing the roads and bridges of this country. We're going to be improving our ports and our airports. We're going to be delivering better transit and better rail. Those are investments whose benefits will last a lifetime and then some, and that eight years of investment is fully paid for across the 15 years of the tax adjustment, which means by year 16, it's actually going to reduce the deficit.

 

The Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce say that raising corporate taxes will make it harder for U.S. companies to compete and thus make the U.S. less competitive in a global economy. That's a familiar argument from their camp. What's your response?

 

Well, I think that argument flies in the face of U.S. history. Remember, we're proposing a corporate tax rate that is lower than it was under Clinton, Obama, Bush, much lower than it was in the early Reagan years and many other times when America was very competitive. But part of what made America so competitive was that we had some of the best infrastructure in the world. Today, we are still coasting off infrastructure investments that were made more than a lifetime ago and are beginning to fall apart. The biggest threat to American competitiveness is continuing to believe that we can have a world-leading economy with third-rate infrastructure. And I think that's something most Americans get.

 

This proposal addresses things like roads, bridges, the electrical grid, broadband Internet. It would also expand home medical care. There's money for community-based violence prevention programs. There's money to create jobs to prevent future pandemics. How do you respond to the criticism that these things are just not infrastructure?

 

These things are good policy, and they are part of the broad infrastructure that is needed in order to make America not just competitive, but a good place to live. We know that we've got to do more for our care workers, our care economy. That's another common sense move. And one of the things I really admire about this plan and the president's vision is understanding how a lot of different things are closely connected. You know, some people are saying, "well, you know, these aren't roads and bridges" and I'm the transportation guy, so I'm all about roads and bridges. But something like broadband infrastructure is absolutely part of the future of American infrastructure. I guess trains probably weren't considered infrastructure until we really started building railroads. Now they're an indispensable part of it. And we have to keep up with, not always be playing catch-up to, that kind of expansion about what infrastructure needs really look like.

 

More

[y66]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/georgia-voting-law-annotated.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Politics

 

Go page by page through Georgia’s new voting law, and one takeaway stands above all others: The Republican legislature and governor have made a breathtaking assertion of partisan power in elections, making absentee voting harder and creating restrictions and complications in the wake of narrow losses to Democrats.

 

The New York Times has examined and annotated the law, identifying 16 provisions that hamper the right to vote for some Georgians or strip power from state and local elections officials and give it to legislators.

 

Republicans passed and signed the 98-page voting law last week following the first Democratic victories in presidential and Senate elections in Georgia in a generation. President Biden won the state by just 11,779 votes out of nearly five million cast. The new law will, in particular, curtail ballot access for voters in booming urban and suburban counties, home to many Democrats. Another provision makes it a crime to offer water to voters waiting in lines, which tend to be longer in densely populated communities.

 

Below is The Times’s analysis of the law, including the specific provisions and some struck-through language from the state’s previous voting legislation.

 

Here are the most significant changes to voting in the state, as written into the new law:

• Voters will now have less time to request absentee ballots.
  
• There are strict new ID requirements for absentee ballots.
  
• It’s now illegal for election officials to mail out absentee ballot applications to all voters.
  
• Drop boxes still exist … but barely.
  
• Mobile voting centers (think an R.V. where you can vote) are essentially banned.
  
• Early voting is expanded in a lot of small counties, but probably not in more populous ones.
  
• Offering food or water to voters waiting in line now risks misdemeanor charges.
  
• If you go to the wrong polling place, it will be (even) harder to vote.
  
• If election problems arise, a common occurrence, it is now more difficult to extend voting hours.
  
• With a mix of changes to vote-counting, high-turnout elections will probably mean a long wait for results.
  
• Election officials can no longer accept third-party funding (a measure that nods to right-wing conspiracy theories).
  
• With an eye toward voter fraud, the state attorney general will manage an election hotline.
  
• The Republican-controlled legislature has more control over the State Election Board.
  
• The secretary of state is removed as a voting member of the State Election Board.
  
• The G.O.P.-led legislature is empowered to suspend county election officials.
  
• Runoff elections will happen faster — and could become harder to manage.

Georgia Republicans didn’t come out of the 2020 elections with a goal of finding new messages or policies to appeal to Georgia’s growing population of people of color. They instead opted to imply that these voters participated in the Georgia elections in improper ways that should be prevented in the future. The Washington Post suggests in its motto that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” But based on the actions of much of today’s Republican Party, it might be more accurate to say it’s dying right out in the open daylight.

The crazed mountain men in "Deliverance" have nothing on Georgia Republicans.

[kenberg]

I was just looking at

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/

 

It's long. Of course, it's long and has to be long, considering the extent of what Biden has in mind. But still, my first thought was It's long.

 

 

It's also very optimistic. It will be transformative if we can bring it about. Sometimes ambitious plans work out pretty well. I hope that this is one of those times.

[y66]

Matt Yglesias is pessimistic about prospects for passing the "jobs" bill which he describes as having hundreds of billions of genuinely really good ideas, but also hundreds of billions of kind of meh stuff.

 

The good:

• There’s a proposal to create a competitive grant program to incentivize states to adopt anti-NIMBY land-use reforms.
  
• It includes the CHIP Act plan for a $50 billion investment in semiconductor production capacity, plus a new $50 billion program to try to get ahead of future production bottlenecks in other aspects of the supply chain.
  
• There’s money for electric school buses, which has surprisingly high cost-benefit.
  
• I’ve been convinced by the pandemic that throwing a lot of money at broadband expansion makes sense, and there’s $100 billion for that.
  
• There’s also $100 billion for clean water stuff which is great, including replacing 100% of lead water pipes which is amazing.
  
• The housing section also includes money for lead paint cleanup.
  
• There’s $100 billion for the grid, which is important for decarbonizing — see my uncle Paul’s article about this.
  
• There’s climate-focused R&D money, which in my opinion we can’t possibly spend too much on.
  

Obstacles to passage include: no sense of urgency; no margin for error in Congress where infrastructure theoretically has some bipartisan appeal but tax increases ensure no R's will support it; and infighting among Dems over rescinding SALT ($10,000 cap on state and local tax deduction that R's used to finance their tax cut) and progressives for whom $2 trillion is not enough.

[y66]

[y66]

The coolest parts of Biden's expansive infrastructure plan by David Roberts

[pilowsky]

Every citizen is required to vote in Australia at every election, or you get fined (~$20).

It is also a legal requirement that you register.

This includes every State, Council and Federal election.

Nobody in Australia can complain that the outcome was not their fault because they didn't vote.

We also have a preferential voting system so that there is no need for "run-off" elections.

Fraud is unheard of.

An independent Federal election Commission arranges elections.

If there is a dispute about a Federal election, it goes to the Court of disputed returns - If it is a Federal Election, it goes to the High Court.

The Australian system is completely intolerant of the shenanigans that we have just been witnessing in the USA.

In America, this would be called "Socialist politics" along with our "Socialist Medicine" and "Socialist Education", where everyone is entitled to free health care and free education.

I don't know how we cope. The suffering is immense.

[Winstonm]

Worthwhile read from excerpt of John Boehner's book:

 

Under the new rules of Crazytown, I may have been Speaker, but I didn’t hold all the power. By 2013 the chaos caucus in the House had built up their own power base thanks to fawning right-wing media and outrage-driven fundraising cash. And now they had a new head lunatic leading the way, who wasn’t even a House member. There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz. He enlisted the crazy caucus of the GOP in what was a truly dumbass idea. Not that anybody asked me.