Infrastructure, COVID and blame: where the delusions of Republicans have turned to reality

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It creates a universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, cuts taxes for families with children, makes community college tuition free for two years, and invests in public universities.

It invests in housing, invests in vocational training, strengthens supply chains, provides green cards to immigrant workers and protects borders with new technologies. It expands the Affordable Care Act, invests in home and community health care, and reduces the cost of prescription drugs.

It also invests significantly in measures to combat climate change. By focusing on clean electricity, it cuts emissions through tax incentives, polluter charges and home electrification projects, and replaces federal vehicles with electric vehicles.

The bill provides for funding these measures through increased corporate taxes.

The measure will become a budget resolution simply stating how much money the government expects to need next year, and from 2023 to 2031. Once passed, the various committees will determine exactly how much money is due. go where, and Congress then hammer it into some form of agreement.

Once a measure is finalized, the Senate will attempt to pass the bill through the budget reconciliation process, which cannot be obstructed, meaning it can be passed by majority. simple.

If, indeed, President Joe Biden manages to pass both a bipartisan bill that some Republicans like and the reconciliation bill that appeals to progressive Democrats, that will be a stunning accomplishment.

One thing that is not in the larger bill is an increase in the debt limit, which will be imperative before October. The increase in the debt limit is necessary because Congress has already earmarked money the Treasury does not have, so it will need to borrow to meet its existing obligations.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened that neither he nor any other Republican would lift the debt ceiling and that Democrats should do it alone. But Democrats are unwilling to increase it themselves, while it was Republicans who racked up debt during Trump’s tenure, adding $ 7 trillion to debt while cutting corporate taxes. .

The vast majority of debt subject to the debt limit was accumulated before the administration took office, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress on August 9. This is a shared responsibility, and I urge Congress to come together on a bipartisan basis as it has done in the past to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.

The vast infrastructure package will reshape American society to invest in ordinary Americans and put the nation on track to face a future that is not centered on fossil fuels. That such an investment is on the table right now seems like a good time. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the most comprehensive climate report ever compiled, and the findings are a code red for humanity, says United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The report is based on over 14,000 studies and is endorsed by 195 governments.

He warns that we have waited too long to reduce our use of fossil fuels, ensuring that the planet will continue to warm for at least the next 30 years, even as we immediately tackle climate change. That will mean more extreme weather conditions: fires like the Dixie fire currently raging in northern California, which is the largest in state history, with flooding, disease, extinctions and social conflicts. If we tackle the problem, however, there is still a window where we could mitigate even more serious changes.

Republicans oppose the larger infrastructure bill because it uses the government to invest in the economy, which will cost taxpayers money. For 40 years, Republicans have called for turning the economy over to private interests and tax cuts to free up capital for investment, which they say would grow the economy. But these policies created discontent by concentrating wealth upwards and creating huge deficits and debts.

Now, while Democrats want to go back to the type of system that created our booming economy after WWII by stopping the concentration of upward wealth and investing in infrastructure, Republicans are complaining that the cost will hamper the economy. nation. They are threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, although, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pointed out, Congress has assumed the vast majority of the debt that requires a higher limit before the government takes office. President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, Republican policies don’t look very good right now, as Republican governors have strongly opposed the fight against COVID-19 with masks or vaccines. The virus is now reappearing in the United States, which currently accounts for 17% of new infections worldwide despite the better vaccine supply. The peak is particularly evident in children, who account for 20% of the country’s new cases, apparently infected in homes where adults are not vaccinated.

Dr Mark Kline, chief medical officer at New Orleans Children’s Hospital, said: We are hospitalizing a record number of children. Half of the children in our hospital today are under two years old and most of the rest are between 5 and 10 years old.

Cases continue to rise in Florida and Texas, where Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott have banned mask warrants. In Florida, reporter Katherine G. Hobbs reported: Volusia County and Advent Health Orlando finalize purchase of refrigerated mobile mortuary fleets amid COVID wave in Florida.

In Texas, Abbott called on Texas hospitals to postpone elective procedures to free up more beds for COVID patients. The state health department is trying to find more health care workers to come to the state to help.

Nonetheless, DeSantis and Abbott refuse to change their ban on mask mandates, clearly seeing a tough stance on the issue as a political statement they believe will win them Republican voters. But as infections and deaths, especially among children, increase, the wisdom of this decision is unclear.

Private companies, courts and schools all challenge the governor’s edict. A federal judge overturned Florida’s ban on private companies asking questions about the status of vaccines, a rule challenged by cruise lines, which reportedly faced millions of dollars in fines, though the demands vaccines are the norm in the other ports they visit. DeSantis says he will appeal.

In Arkansas, where only 37% of the state’s population is vaccinated, two challenges to the state’s ban on mask warrants led a judge on Aug.6 to temporarily block the ban. One of the challenges was brought by a school where more than 900 students and staff are in quarantine due to a coronavirus outbreak. In Texas, the independent school districts of Austin, Houston and Dallas are instituting mask warrants in defiance of Abbotts’ executive order.

In Florida, the Miami-Dade school system is the fourth largest school district in the country. When Superintendent Alberto Carvalho made it clear he would follow the advice of public health experts and doctors, DeSantis threatened to withhold salaries from any superintendent or school board member who defied his decree banning mask warrants.

Carvalho issued a statement saying that at no time will I allow my decision to be influenced by a threat to my paycheck; a small price to pay given the seriousness of this problem and the potential impact on the health and well-being of our dedicated students and employees.

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