The Sanders/Pelosi/Biden $3,500,000,000,000 (read $3.5 TRILLION) socialist budget comes up for a vote in the House this week. It likely will pass. If it (or anything close it it) emerges from the Senate, Joe Biden’s puppet masters are stupid/evil enough to make him sign it.

It is poison for America:

Quote:"In the face of mounting inflation and economic instability, a rational Congress would enact pro-growth tax and spending reforms that pave the way to a smoother recovery," Andrew Moylan advises. The National Taxpayers Union’s executive director adds, "Instead, current leaders are marching full speed ahead with the most sweeping expansion in the size and scope of government in decades. It’s like throwing a drowning child an anvil instead of a life preserver."

Link to full article: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/bernie-s...sm-america

America’s future is thus dangling on the good sense and political courage of two Democrats - - Joe Manchin and Krystan Sinema.

So where are the Republicans? So far as I can tell, those in the House are chortling over the tough spot that the small handful of swing-district Democrats find themselves in. Those in the Senate are sitting on their hands while hiding behind the two brave Democrats.

Oh, but at least we can look to the gallant, truth-speaking, fighter Donald Trump - - the presumptive Republican 2024 presidential candidate - - to speak up strongly on this issue, can’t we? So where is he? Why, he’s down in Georgia endorsing the gap-toothed water buffalo Stacy Abrams as the preferred option for Georgia governor, because the current Republican Gov. Kemp has not shown himself to be a reliable Trump toady.

We, as a freedom-loving nation, are toast.

Will this horrible bill emerge from the Senate? Will Manchin and Synema cave?

If this doesn’t convince many around here that the Republicans are in the same leagues as Dems and therefore the blue vs red divide in D.C. is a scam then nothing will. It’s all a Uniparty. Yes, there are a few dozen or so in the House and a handful in Senate that are decent; that will actually fight but the rest stay quiet by intent or actively support measures

The only thing we’re haggling over is at the the speed the train is expected to go off the cliff

(09-26-2021 09:33 AM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  If this doesn’t convince many around here that the Republicans are in the same leagues as Dems and therefore the blue vs red divide in D.C. is a scam then nothing will. It’s all a Uniparty. Yes, there are a few dozen or so in the House and a handful in Senate that are decent; that will actually fight but the rest stay quiet by intent or actively support measures

The only thing we’re haggling over is at the the speed the train is expected to go off the cliff

Good analogy. I was going to say the size of the truck that is about to run us over, but yours is better.

Our Government is running this place straight into the ground. I’m getting letters from Vendors stating anywhere from 100% to 700% increases. It’s becoming ludicrous. A customer last week had to pay over $4000.00 for an item that was around $2000 before the shutdown and it’s getting worse by the day.

Last thing we need is more welfare that we can’t pay back. Politicians will pad their pockets with this pork barrel bill and toss the indigents some crumbs. They will sleep well in their gated communities as everything else goes to garbage. We must have homeless tent cities everywhere before we feel good about ourselves

(09-26-2021 10:06 AM)BlueDragon Wrote:  Our Government is running this place straight into the ground. I’m getting letters from Vendors stating anywhere from 100% to 700% increases. It’s becoming ludicrous. A customer last week had to pay over $4000.00 for an item that was around $2000 before the shutdown and it’s getting worse by the day.

Last thing we need is more welfare that we can’t pay back. Politicians will pad their pockets with this pork barrel bill and toss the indigents some crumbs. They will sleep well in their gated communities as everything else goes to garbage. We must have homeless tent cities everywhere before we feel good about ourselves

This is not an accident..

How much more taxes do you pay on a 2k item that is now selling for 4k... double the taxes.

"we will only raise taxes on the rich"

it is an easy way to get around that promise.

(09-26-2021 09:25 AM)No Bull Wrote:  Will Manchin and Sinema cave?

That really is the ultimate question. I won’t pretend to know the answer, but just for right now this minute, I think they probably have some sort of compromise # in mind, but it’s probably about 1/2 of the amount that is desired by Jayapal, etc.

Yes, this outrageous spending bill will ultimately pass. It only takes two Repubs to cave and that will happen.

As long as the average U.S. voter points fingers at "other Congressional reps and Senators" as "the problem: yet keeps voting for THEIR reps and Senators, this BS will continue.

Vote all of them out and replace them.

Period.

Biden and Dems Now Pushing Incredible Claim to Gain Support for Spending Spree Plans

Quote:There’s a new tactic that the Democrats are pushing to help Joe Biden’s sputtering agenda get approved by Congress.

One of the huge problems with his plans is how expensive it is. Just the conservative numbers on the infrastructure bill and the budget reconciliation bill are $1.7 trillion plus $3.5 trillion (which equals $5.2 trillion). It’s probably the largest spending spree for some of the most ridiculous and offensive items ever proposed.

So, it took a real departure from reality for Joe Biden to tweet this from his account.

“My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars,” Biden tweeted. “Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America. And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.”

Keep in mind, this is not some random intern, writing something off-message here. These are the Democrats’ new talking points. To claim the cost is really nothing, or not something to even think about, because of the ‘importance’ of what they’re doing for ‘the people.’

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) was pushing the same thing on NBC’s “Meet The Press” with Chuck Todd today. He claimed, “This one is a zero bill. We’re paying for the whole thing. But yet, we’re ca– we’re using different math to make it sound bigger and more ornery.”

Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wouldn’t go quite that far. Such a bald-faced lie was apparently too much, even for her, which is saying something. She doesn’t even want us to talk about “numbers” and “dollars” — because if we did, we’d probably run screaming for the door on this bill, if we had a lick of sense.

On “This Week,” she said she just wants you to remember it’s about “values.”

Uh huh. It’s about Democrats getting more control. That “value.”

But, do they actually expect to sell this to us? They really have no respect for people, if they think they can sell it to us like this.

Only with magical thinking does the most expensive agenda ever end up costing nothing. First, “adds zero dollars to the debt” is not the same thing as “costs zero dollars.” This just beggars the facts. Plus, there is no way that this adds zero dollars to the debt. Five-point-two trillion does not zero make.

As even ABC News notes, Biden’s claim doesn’t have support.

It’s not entirely clear whether Biden’s claim of “zero” cost is feasible under the 10-year outlook used by the CBO to assess the economic impacts of legislation. Biden’s own budget officials earlier this year estimated that his agenda would increase the national debt by nearly $1.4 trillion over the decade.

People let Biden have it on his magical math.

But the problem for us is that, as bad as the cost is, the greater ‘cost’ is those “values” included in the bill. That’s really what’s going to kill us, even more than the cost, because it includes all the Democratic agenda items, not to mention having the IRS look in everyone’s bank accounts.

There's an Aesop's Fable About What the Dems Are Set to Do to Themselves

Quote:Somewhere on a virtual bookshelf on the Library of Congress’ website sits a beautifully illustrated book, crafted with the purpose of raising up virtuous young men and women. Its title is “The Aesop For Children.”

Many RedState readers will be familiar with Aesop and his short (sometimes funny) morality stories, written in Greece sometime circa 620 BCE and 564 BCE. (Well, that’s a guesstimate from the source: take a gander yourself, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.)

Earlier on Sunday evening, my colleague Nick Arama wrote a piece(CP: the one above this^) about Joe Biden and the Democrats’ attempts to pull a fast one on the American people, whether on the Sunday shows or through slyly worded social media posts. They are claiming that not only does their boondoggle of an infrastructure plan contain spending items that the majority of Americans of every stripe and creed say they agree with, but that it will end up costing zero dollars.

After reading Nick’s piece and mulling over what the Dems are about to do to themselves in the coming hours and days, I remembered a tale my parents taught my sister and I to read many years ago, while we were growing up in former House Speaker John Boehner’s district. In the book pictured above, the story is called “The Dog And His Reflection.” And it goes like this:

A Dog, to whom the butcher had thrown a bone, was hurrying home with his prize as fast as he could go. As he crossed a narrow footbridge, he happened to look down and saw himself reflected in the quiet water as if in a mirror. But the greedy Dog thought he saw a real Dog carrying a bone much bigger than his own.

If he had stopped to think he would have known better. But instead of thinking, he dropped his bone and sprang at the Dog in the river, only to find himself swimming for dear life to reach the shore. At last he managed to scramble out, and as he stood sadly thinking about the good bone he had lost, he realized what a stupid Dog he had been.

As Aesop points out, the morale of the tale is, “It is very foolish to be greedy.”

Now, as Monday morning draws near, in the spirit of Christian goodwill, we have to hope that Mr. Biden and the Democrats in the lower House might do some self-reflection of their own, at this point. Maybe they can gain some instruction in morality and a way forward toward reason from the fable above written for kids. Because, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves when they come up empty.

Pelosi Backs off Monday Vote on Infrastructure, Which May Be the Death Knell of Biden's Agenda

Quote:Chalk this up as what may just be the death knell for Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Friday that she would bring up the bipartisan infrastructure bill for a vote on Monday. Moderates had been pushing that they wanted the vote on the infrastructure bill prior to any voting on the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. Meanwhile, the progressives had wanted to link the two and/or have the reconciliation bill voted on first.

But now, she’s backing off her pledge to do it on Monday, saying she wouldn’t do it if the votes aren’t there. She’s still trying to say they will have the votes for it this week, as well as for the budget reconciliation bill.

From NY Post:

“I’m never bringing to the floor a bill that doesn’t have the votes,” Pelosi said on ABC News’ “This Week.”

“You cannot choose the date. You have to go when you have the votes in a reasonable time, and we will,” she said.

It’s pretty clear that she knows she doesn’t have the votes on it for Monday. Sounds like now, the progressives are flexing. The NY Post continued:

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, confirmed during an appearance on CNN that the votes aren’t there for the bipartisan​ deal. “I don’t believe there will be a vote,” Jayapal said​ on “State of the Union.”

“The ​s​peaker is an incredibly good vote counter, and she knows exactly where her caucus stands, and we’ve been really clear on that.”

“Everybody in the Senate, everybody in the House, has to agree to it,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal revealed about the spending bill.

“This is a pre-conference bill, which means everybody, everybody in the Senate, everybody in the House, has to agree to it,” Jayapal ​added.​

But, this is an important problem, not just a delay. As I previously reported, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) has already said that if the bipartisan infrastructure bill isn’t voted on by Monday or if the vote failed, she wouldn’t be backing the reconciliation bill. And as we noted, she’s not alone in that effort — at least 10 other senators were also on board with that move.

Sinema’s office said it wouldn’t disclose details of her private conversations, but added: “She does look forward to House leadership making good on their commitment to an up-or-down vote on the historic and bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act next Monday — to create jobs and expand economic opportunities across the country.”

At least 10 moderate House Democrats are reportedly on the same page as Sinema, including Rep. Kurt Schrader.

“If they delay the vote — or it goes down — then I think you can kiss reconciliation goodbye,” the Oregon Democrat told Politico’s Playbook. “Reconciliation would be dead.”

So, we shall have to see if anyone gives in here. But if the moderate senators hold to this, it’s all dead in the water when it hits the Senate, if this doesn’t come off.

All if this spending will lead to the failure of the US Dollar. We are already seeing the cracks through higher cost of living, etc...

(09-26-2021 07:12 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  The Sanders/Pelosi/Biden $3,500,000,000,000 (read $3.5 TRILLION) socialist budget comes up for a vote in the House this week. It likely will pass. If it (or anything close it it) emerges from the Senate, Joe Biden’s puppet masters are stupid/evil enough to make him sign it.

It is poison for America:

Quote:"In the face of mounting inflation and economic instability, a rational Congress would enact pro-growth tax and spending reforms that pave the way to a smoother recovery," Andrew Moylan advises. The National Taxpayers Union’s executive director adds, "Instead, current leaders are marching full speed ahead with the most sweeping expansion in the size and scope of government in decades. It’s like throwing a drowning child an anvil instead of a life preserver."

Link to full article: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/bernie-s...sm-america

America’s future is thus dangling on the good sense and political courage of two Democrats - - Joe Manchin and Krystan Sinema.

So where are the Republicans? So far as I can tell, those in the House are chortling over the tough spot that the small handful of swing-district Democrats find themselves in. Those in the Senate are sitting on their hands while hiding behind the two brave Democrats.

Oh, but at least we can look to the gallant, truth-speaking, fighter Donald Trump - - the presumptive Republican 2024 presidential candidate - - to speak up strongly on this issue, can’t we? So where is he? Why, he’s down in Georgia endorsing the gap-toothed water buffalo Stacy Abrams as the preferred option for Georgia governor, because the current Republican Gov. Kemp has not shown himself to be a reliable Trump toady.

We, as a freedom-loving nation, are toast.

Regardless of what Trump is doing, you're right -- the pertinent question is "where are the Republicans."

And this is exactly what I meant in my other post. The republicans are MIA.

Democrats tell me what they plan to do. Republicans lie to me saying they will oppose and then they go along with the Democrats be it through active support or passive acquiescence.

This woman is raising kids who will one day understand that their mom is a liar, a flat out lying, sniveling apparatchik. Or they'll become democrats and be proud of her for it.

Here is a message that I posted to one of my senators regarding the reconciliation bill:

Quote:Dear Sen. Warner:

America is on the threshold of socialism, yet I sadly have no expectation whatsoever that you will do anything whatsoever to oppose the $3.5 TRILLION in wasted taxpayer dollars. You instead will hide behind the far greater courage of your colleagues, Sens. Manchin and Sinema, while you ring your hands and pretend to care.

I was a supporter and admirer of you as governor, and also during your first term as senator. I considered you to be a smart and independent voice in an institution that desperately needed grown-up behavior. You unfortunately, over time, have proven be a puppet for the DNC. Just by way of recent examples, your participation in the filibuster of Justice Gorsuch was reckless, and went a long way to poisoning the reputation of the judiciary as a political branch of the government. Your standing by silent while your colleagues smeared Justice Kavanaugh - - a good and decent man - - was inexcusable.

I would like to think that you have at least some vestige of integrity left in you, and that you will speak in opposition to the $3,500,000,000,000 “reconciliation bill”. But I am not expecting it. Our nation is in trouble. You have a share of responsibility for that.

I will send something similar to my Congressman (Bobby Scott, poster boy for term limits), but don't expect much to come of it. Virginia, sadly, has become a drag on America. My apologies to all.

(09-28-2021 08:39 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  This woman is raising kids who will one day understand that their mom is a liar, a flat out lying, sniveling apparatchik. Or they'll become democrats and be proud of her for it.

I don’t know how old her kids are, but try to imagine what magazines/books the family keeps in the house. Try to imagine what movies and tv shows they watch. Who their friends are, and what those friends hear from their own parents. And what school they go to, and who their teachers are, and what those teachers tell them (or don’t tell them!) in class. What college/ university they will eventually go to, and the people they will meet there. And then what sort of job they will get when they’re done, and who they will work with.

Now, let’s go back to your hypothetical. I don’t think either outcome is guaranteed, but one is much more likely than the other.

(09-29-2021 06:27 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  Here is a message that I posted to one of my senators regarding the reconciliation bill:

Quote:Dear Sen. Warner:

America is on the threshold of socialism, yet I sadly have no expectation whatsoever that you will do anything whatsoever to oppose the $3.5 TRILLION in wasted taxpayer dollars. You instead will hide behind the far greater courage of your colleagues, Sens. Manchin and Sinema, while you ring your hands and pretend to care.

I was a supporter and admirer of you as governor, and also during your first term as senator. I considered you to be a smart and independent voice in an institution that desperately needed grown-up behavior. You unfortunately, over time, have proven be a puppet for the DNC. Just by way of recent examples, your participation in the filibuster of Justice Gorsuch was reckless, and went a long way to poisoning the reputation of the judiciary as a political branch of the government. Your standing by silent while your colleagues smeared Justice Kavanaugh - - a good and decent man - - was inexcusable.

I would like to think that you have at least some vestige of integrity left in you, and that you will speak in opposition to the $3,500,000,000,000 “reconciliation bill”. But I am not expecting it. Our nation is in trouble. You have a share of responsibility for that.

I will send something similar to my Congressman (Bobby Scott, poster boy for term limits), but don't expect much to come of it. Virginia, sadly, has become a drag on America. My apologies to all.

That is a great letter!

$3.5 Trillion Democrat Fantasies

Quote:No normal human can comprehend one trillion dollars, never mind three trillion dollars. It’s difficult enough to comprehend a billion dollars. According to Joe Biden, 3.5 trillion dollars is no big whup. It will cost nothing. Zero.

The tax increases in the bill? That won’t make companies increase costs to consumers, no sirree. Just ask Jen Psaki:

Jen Psaki: It’s “unfair and absurd” that companies would increase costs for consumers in response to us taxing them more. ? pic.twitter.com/rHilrYdj4j

— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) September 28, 2021

I almost cannot believe the insanity of what she’s saying. Then again, I can believe it. From Biden on down, Biden administration officials are academics and communists (but I repeat myself) and do not understand how human nature or business works. It’s beyond their ken.

Obviously, businesses who must turn a profit will increase prices to compensate for increased costs. They have to in order to pay their employees and other costs of doing business. Why be in business if they don’t make money? America is in the grip of inflation already. The global supply chain is choking various places (but mostly China) and so the costs of goods are increasing. What will happen when these businesses are taxed more? Their prices will go up. What will that produce? More inflation.

When another huge influx of fiat money floods the economic system, further devaluing the dollar, there will be even more inflation.

What will happen? Poor people will be priced out of things like cars to drive to work and also gas to fill their tanks if they can afford a car. Heating homes will be unbelievably expensive if Americans can even afford a home. Renters are at the mercy of landlords who are kicking out people who won’t get vaccinated. Renters must come up with months of rent so that landlords have a cushion if their renters decide not to pay because the government says they don’t have to. The government incentives that punished landlords and allowed people to live rent-free are now turning. Poor people will be homeless in the crossfire.

This cycle of insane financing is akin to putting piles of money in front of a fan and turning it on high. It will cause chaos in the marketplace and hysteria and wrong incentives everywhere. When people end up getting trampled and bloodied, Democrats will be mystified as to why that’s happening.

Communists, redistributionists, are always stupid.

Here’s the nasty little secret: The rich will get richer. Repealing the SALT tax is an exquisite example of this. From Reason:

Richard V. Reeves and Christopher Pulliam, a senior fellow and research analyst, respectively, at the Brookings Institution, calculated last year that 96 percent of the benefits of a SALT cap repeal would go to the top 20 percent of earners, with the top 1 percent getting 57 percent of the benefits. “In isolation, this change would be more skewed to the rich than” the 2017 tax reform bill that Democrats have spent years decrying as an unfair giveaway to the wealthiest Americans, the pair wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times.

Meanwhile, the top 5 percent of households would reap 80 percent of the benefits, and the bottom 80 percent will get just 4 percent of the overall tax breaks, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank.

The SALT provision in the 2017 tax reform bill targeted Sandy Ocasio-Cortez’s favorite ironic target, those baddies, the rich. Basically, it made rich people in Blue states pay their “fair share” of property taxes and didn’t let them deduct all of their property taxes. But uber-rich Democrats don’t like paying taxes. They like buying huge houses and receiving a deduction for their property taxes. They can still do that, by the way, with the current law. They just can’t deduct all of their property taxes and pass the burden onto states with more reasonable tax structures. Blue state rich people, supposed commies, and allies down for the struggle, want to redistribute your money via punitive taxes and $69 billion to the IRS agents who will hound-dog your finances. Taxes, as Leona Helmsley said, are for the little people.

Right now, the busy bees in Congress are trying to find a way to push through tax cuts for the rich and implement taxes on America’s middle class to pass this tax bill. This kind of profligacy is one last financial raping of the middle class to give to the wealthy. The poor? They’ll be left further behind.

How any of this can be discussed at a time when the American economy is already precarious and awash in cheap money would be a mystery if the answer weren’t simple: It’s the way of Democrats.

In our summer print issue, Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, called this bill the Democrats’ last gasp at total power (I’m paraphrasing, please read the whole article.) He’s absolutely right. The Democrats hold a tenuous majority in Congress and are governing like power-mad communists. Why the hysteria? Well, this might be the only time in a long time to pay off all their buddies, fundamentally transform America, and scoop up the last of America’s wealth into the hands of the government and friends of the oligarchy who run the country. If it seems like the Democrats are on a fear-fueled end-of-the-world bender, it’s because they are.

And that leads to the final question: What are Democrats afraid of? Losing power, certainly. Biden has been a perfect example of blithering incompetence. No Democrat politician wants to be seen with Kamala, so reviled by voters is she. The so-called experts are revealed as the naked emperors they are. Their corruption is being seen in wretch-inducing detail. Our gluttonous government is shamefully corpulent and while seeing a fat guy naked once is a curiosity, being forced to look at him constantly is disgusting. That’s what Americans feel like looking at our political class, especially Democrats, these days. Politicians are keen about little, but they do get a sense of existential unease when their mere presence inspires loathing. And that’s where we are.

Should this bill fail, something I doubt because Democrats always find a way, expect more tyranny. It’s all a frightened political class has left. They know they’re stealing from taxpayers and they know they deserve fury for their abject evilness. The anger of the voters will cause them to become more punitive and authoritarian. They’ll employ more fascistic techniques to punish anyone who disagrees with them, with slobbering tech giants helping the oligarchy along.

Whether this behemoth budget bill passes or fails, the ruling class will have its vengeance and it will be swift and severe. If it passes, Americans will have their money tracked ($600 transactions). If it passes, the rich get tax breaks while tax dollars go for San Fran Nan’s boondoggle and every fantasy Green New Deal dream. The government will decide winners and losers after two years of counting small businesses as losers. If it fails, the fury will be swift. The Biden administration will enact rules and laws that punish political enemies to shore up support of their own voters.

America is in a lose-lose proposition. That was true, though, when Biden was elected. Voters voted for safety and security with the Democrats and they’re going to find themselves securely in the embrace of a strangulating government one way or another.

Senate Parliamentarian Dunks on the Democrat Agenda Again

Quote:The Senate Parliamentarian just won’t stop, and it’s driving the left crazy. We are a little over a week removed from the parliamentarian’s last ruling which struck down a Democrat attempt to include a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens in the reconciliation bill.

Now, a reworked attempt has also been shut down. How many times are we going to have to do this?

On Tuesday, they presented to her office a plan to change an existing law known as the Registry, which allows immigrants present in the U.S. before a certain date to apply for a green card no matter how they entered, according to people familiar with the matter. That date is currently set at Jan. 1, 1972. Democrats proposed moving it to 2010.

In a meeting Wednesday, Ms. McDonough indicated she was inclined to rule against the proposal, and the formal ruling came soon after.

In the ruling sent to Senate leadership and seen by The Wall Street Journal, the parliamentarian wrote, “The number of beneficiaries and score of this amendment…are largely the same as those of the earlier proposal which does not dramatically shift the balance of policy vs. score.”

The ruling added: “The change in status to [lawful permanent resident] remains a life-long change in circumstances, the value of which vastly outweighs its budgetary impact.”

Reconciliation is a confusing process, but what essentially has to happen is that any policy change included must have a large enough impact on the current federal budget compared to the actual policy change being made (I’m confused just typing that). Obviously, when you legalize tens of millions of illegal immigrants, that change as a policy matter going forward far outweighs whatever cost it may be denoted under as part of the current budget or reconciliation budget.

It’s simpler than that, though. Changes to the immigration system do not belong in a budget bill. If Democrats were allowed to get away with this, they could literally shove anything in reconciliation and avoid the filibuster. Clearly, the Senate Parliamentarian understands how ludicrous that would be, and she deserves credit for standing firm in the face of a massive amount of pressure. Odds are, given the dynamics in Washington and who controls the Senate, that she’s left-leaning herself, but she’s doing what’s right here regardless.

Still, you can expect Democrats to keep pushing. As detestable as their politics are, you can never claim they don’t go full bore and fight with every tool within their grasp. Republicans would never even try a gambit like this. Democrats will probably submit another proposal. Even still, the reconciliation bill is already full of enough garbage that doesn’t qualify under the rules to be a disaster as it sits.

Amazing. Our nation is being saved by a crusty redneck from West Virginia, a bisexual from Arizona and a nerdy parliamentarian.

We really are the greatest nation the world has ever seen!