So, Kyle Kulinski has brought it to my attention via his youtube channel of course that Bernie Sanders has tried to add the child tax credit back into inflation reduction act, but it failed by a margin of 97-1.
I have to be honest, this kind of inflames me, because the one thing that has really come out of the Biden administration IS this tax credit. As the video pointed out, it reduced poverty by 40%. And why am I so ride and die on it? Well, because it's basically a small taste of UBI. This is a small UBI done in an NIT fashion aimed at kids. And it solved child poverty by 40%. Imagine what a full UBI would do. We would have virtually no poverty in this country. You would literally have to be an illegal immigrant to be poor here.
But, as we can tell, the democrats rallied against it. They mostly said they supported it and "every democrat" supports it, but they were afraid it would be shot down somehow. But, let's unpack what's really going on here. The democrats control the senate 50-50. If every democrat supports it, it will pass 51-50 because Kamala Harris will act as a tie breaker and rubber stamp it. But they're afraid it will be shot down if they make it an amendment. And they're so afraid to even vote for it that they refused to back it outside of sanders.
So what's really going on here?
Well, we all know Joe Manchin has railed against it before claiming it would create an "entitlement society", and Kirsten Sinema has gone full moderate and isn't really on board either. But...the democrats have this weird culture of "unity" behind their agenda, where they end up watering down proposals to the lowest common denominator and showing an effort of being united. The dems could vote for it and watch it fail 48-52, with Manchin and Sinema being against it. But because Manchin and Sinema would be singled out and are a bit snowflakey when it comes to the rest of the party piling the pressure on (keep in mind spats between Sanders and Manchin aren't new and Manchin has lashed out over this before), they might decide to tank the whole bill if Sanders brings up old wounds.
But, let's be honest, in my eyes, the rest of the party shooting them down makes them all look complicit. Here's the problem with democrats for me. If you stand together, you go down together. And this is why, to make another jab at forward, why I can't support that movement either. I want actual SOLUTIONS to problems. I don't want some worthless circlejerk of moderation and not doing anything. This is my problem with the democrats, and it's now my problem with Yang's forward movement too.
I like UBI. UBI is my #1 concern. I want actual progress on policies that I care about. CTC isn't exactly a full on UBI, but it is a small taste of one. And given its successes, I bet it would make the argument for more similar programs to be more commonplace in the future. The data is in, cash grants work. And while we don't have enough support for a full on UBI yet, small victories like this could pave the way for bigger programs over time.
So the democrats backing down on this is a betrayal. I know the problem comes down to two democratic senators, but the rest of the party is providing cover for them in order to appease them rather than just calling them out.
Honestly, I wish progressives would just go to war with the rest of the party already. I don't always agree with progressives on everything these days either, but the democrats need to be pressured to actually support things. And this weird circlejerk of unity crap is just causing progress to get stifled and watered down to appease the most finnicky and moderate members of congress.
I mean, as far as I'm concerned, Manchin and Sinema are DINOs. And I believe they should be primaried and thrown out of office. Rather than Bernie being stifled and told to shut up for actually doing the right thing, Manchin and Sinema are the bad guys here, and I'm tired of pretending they're not.
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