Definitive debunking today by Biden himself of the false claims by some here that the $3.5 trillion

[Celerity]

Build Back Better Act's (the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill's initial top-line number put out by Biden) initial proposal was some sort of wild-eyed Bernie/Squad progressive 'pie-in-the-sky' wish list and that Biden did not write it. That claim is simply not true. The progressives already came down from $6 trillion for it months ago, and are simply fighting to keep as much as Biden's agenda for the reconciliation final bill intact, as opposed to Manchin and Sinema (who Biden called out ('2 senators') in his presser today multiple times, feel free to watch the whole video).

The video:

Start at 13:43


https://www.c-span.org/video/?515154-1/president-biden-guarantee-congress-raise-debt-limit-avoid-default#


President Biden: (sorry for the caps, it is from the auto transcript)

I LAID OUT WHAT I THOUGHT IT SHOULD BE. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE THAT, IT'S GOING TO BE LESS. LOOK, THE LEGISLATION, BOTH THE BUILD BACK BETTER PIECE, AS WELL AS THE INFRASTRUCTURE PIECE, ARE THINGS I WROTE. THESE DIDN'T COME FROM, GOD LOVE THEM, BERNIE SANDERS, AOC, OR ANYBODY ELSE. I WROTE THEM.

Build Back Better Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Act





Here is an attempt on here to false frame the $3.5 trillion as not Biden's and to claim it is the progressives' 'bottom line number' (made even more false (the claim it is a bottom-line prog number) as Sanders already has said that he admits the final number will come down from Biden's $3.5 trillion figure, which Biden himself also just said in the video above).

There are also attempts by some on here to pettifog and bog down debate by trying to play sematic games over the terms 'bill', 'framework', 'proposal', 'plan', etc etc, when the truth is that al those terms are used (rightly or wrongly) interchangeably by hundreds (thousands?) of posts, articles, telly shows, hell, even the White House itself, when talking about or referring to the Build Back Better Act aka the reconciliation bill.

I have remove the poster's name as I am not going to personally call them out.

The claims they make are demonstrably false, as I have shown.

Also, that poster made a false claim that there is not a framework. Sorry, wrong again, here is the initial broad spending framework for the $3.5 trillion Biden proposal:

Here is the broad spending framework

https://www.investopedia.com/here-s-what-s-in-the-usd1-trillion-infrastructure-bill-passed-by-the-senate-5196817

$135 billion for the Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry. Funding to be used to address forest fires, reduce carbon emissions, and address drought concerns.

$332 billion for the Banking Committee. Including investments in public housing, the Housing Trust Fund, housing affordability, and equity and community land trusts.

$198 billion for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. This would develop clean energy. (and remember, almost all environmental spend and tax credits were already gutted from the bi-partisan bill, as I have already shown)

$67 billion for the Environment and Public Works Committee. These monies would fund low-income solar and other climate-friendly technologies.

$1.8 trillion for the Finance Committee. This part of the bill is for investments in working families, the elderly, and the environment. It includes a tax cut for Americans making less than $400,000 a year, lowering the price of prescription drugs, and ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes. (this is prime funding here, and Manchinema want mass cuts here, which blows it up)

$726 billion for the Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions Committee. This addresses universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, childcare for working families, tuition-free community college, funding for historically black colleges and universities, and an expansion of the Pell Grant for higher education.

$37 billion for the HSGAC Committee. This would electrify the federal vehicle fleet, electrify and rehab federal buildings, improve cybersecurity infrastructure, reinforce border management, invest in green-materials procurement, and invest in resilience. (agin most all was guttend from the other bill already)

$107 billion for the Judiciary Committee. These funds address establishing "lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants."

$20.5 billion for the Indian Affairs Committee. This addresses Native American health programs and facilities, education programs and facilities, housing programs, energy programs, resilience and climate programs, BIA programs and facilities, Native language programs, and the Native Civilian Climate Corps.

$25 billion for the Small Business Committee. This provides for small business access to credit, investment, and markets.

$18 billion for the Veterans Affairs Committee. This funds upgrades to veteran facilities.

$83 billion for the Commerce Committee. This goes to investments in technology, transportation, research, manufacturing, and economic development. It provides funding for coastal resiliency, healthy oceans investments, including the National Oceans and Coastal Security Fund and the National Science Foundation research and technology directorate.

More detail of the $3.5 trillion framework:

Update on The Build Back Better Act

https://www.ifpte.org/bbb-act

This September, Congressional Representatives and Senators working to advance a fiscal year 2022 budget reconciliation package that invests up to $3.5 trillion over 10 years in physical, social, and innovation infrastructure. This legislation, called the Build Back Better Act, is being crafted to include significant parts of President Biden’s American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan and supports domestic manufacturing and R&D, resilient supply chains, affordable housing, advanced energy infrastructure and policies, education, healthcare, childcare, paid leave, labor law enforcement, and more. Through the budget reconciliation process, both the House and Senate can advance the legislation through a simple majority.

Typically, legislation in the Senate requires a procedural vote that needs a 60-vote supermajority to close debate before a bill can advance to a floor vote. If passed by the House, the legislation is expected to move through the Senate committees and finally to the Senate floor. After 20-hour Senate floor debate that cannot be obstructed by the 60-vote filibuster rule, the bill would move to a “vote-a-rama” amendment process where proposed amendments that are germane to the bill will be voted on without debate.

The budget reconciliation process moved forward on August 11 when the Senate passed a budget resolution — titled “S.Con.Res. 14, A Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2022.” The House of Representatives passed Senate Continuing Resolution 14 on August 24. Twelve committees in the House of Representatives have worked with corresponding committees in the Senate as well as the White House to craft legislative text for the Build Back Better Act. Currently, House and Senate leadership, committee chairs, and the White House are conferring and continuing to work on a Build Back Better bill that will have a majority of votes to pass the House and at least 50 votes (plus the vote of the Senate President/Vice President Kamala Harris) to pass in the Senate.

(you can right click and open image in new tab to see the text enlarged)











More from the White House talking about the $3.5 trillion including Biden calling it his plan, and also his mentioning the initial $6 trillion.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/09/24/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-covid-19-response-and-the-vaccination-program-8/





https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/10/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-senate-passage-of-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-investment-and-jobs-act/




https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/07/30/press-briefing-by-principal-deputy-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-july-30-2021/

[Champp]

1. Go Joe Go

#GoJoeGo - go go go

[BeckyDem]

2. THESE DIDN'T COME FROM, GOD LOVE THEM, BERNIE SANDERS, AOC, OR ANYBODY ELSE. I WROTE THEM.

+1

[bluewater]

10. Thank you President Biden for making it crystal clear it was YOUR agenda and funding level.

[stillcool]

3. i can't see the forest for the trees...

so much minutiae. Thank you for putting this together. I learn so much here, not because of the articles I read, but because of those who explain why what I just read is wrong.

[gratuitous]

4. I could be mistaken

But I don't recall the media flyspecking anything out of the former guy's White House, asking him if he'd actually written the drivel that fire-hosed out of the Oval Office on a daily basis.

[Celerity]

7. My OP is more about ownership and origin of the $3.5 trillion figure, as some are trying to spin

it as a crazy 'progressives gone wild' agenda, in order to be able to falsely claim it (the original $3.5 trillion proposal) cannot be legimately called Biden's agenda. Then the false-framers can have a go at the progs for being 'purists' and even more so, then false-frame them as the the actual obstructionists, barriers for Biden. It is a disingenuous attempt at inventing a cleavage that does not exist. Falsely separate the progs from Biden's agenda and then take hatchets to them.

When Biden says 'I wrote it' Biden is using figurative speech to claim ownership, not claiming that he crossed every single 'i' and dotted every 't' physically in the massive proposal.

[bluewater]

8. +1000

[gratuitous]

12. Oh, absolutely

Biden's a stand-up guy, and takes responsibility for what his administration does, which is a sea change from the "leadership" the country was treated to during the previous four years. Back then, everything that went right (or at least not disastrously and lethally wrong) prompted endless carping from the former guy about how he wasn't getting the credit he deserved. Anything that went wrong - and that was a daily if not hourly occurrence - was someone else's fault, or the incompetent work of an incompetent underling, or any of a dozen other dodges. The media couldn't be bothered.

But wildly popular and useful legislation being unnecessarily held up because one party (can't say/won't say which one) is playing political games with people's lives? There's gotta be a controversy there somewhere, because a straight reporting of the facts would make the Republicans look bad. So we get diverted with the "did you really write this" nontroversy.

[Celerity]

14. This (see below) is not the point at all for any of my OP:

"did you really write this" nontroversy.

No one is getting entangled in 'did Biden physically 'write' the voluminous proposal' sematic game, at least that I have seen anywhere, be it on DU or in the MSM, or on internet/social media.

When Biden said 'I wrote it' he is using figurative speech to claim ownership overall (that the $3.5 trillion initial BBB proposal is HIS agenda, his original top-line figure). He is not literally claiming that he crossed every single 'i' and dotted every 't' physically in the massive text.

My OP is more about ownership and origin of the $3.5 trillion figure, as some are trying to spin it as a crazy 'progressives gone wild' agenda, in order to be able to falsely claim it (the original $3.5 trillion proposal) cannot be legimately called Biden's agenda. Then the false-framers can have a go at the progs for being 'purists' and even more so, then false-frame them as the the actual obstructionists, barriers for Biden. It is a disingenuous attempt at inventing a cleavage that does not exist. Falsely separate the progs from Biden's agenda and then take hatchets to them.

[The Magistrate]

5. The Press, Ma'am, Has Been Absurdly Amusing On This

The idea that 'moderates' are the practical mainstream and 'progressives' are wild-eyed dreamers is so deeply etched into the mindset of the commentariat that they literally cannot see what is squarely before their eyes, namely the the Progressive caucus is providing the muscle for President Biden in bringing to heel a miniscule obstructionist rump of 'moderates' seeking to balk the Party's agenda.

[Celerity]

13. +1 Sir

namely the the Progressive caucus is providing the muscle for President Biden in bringing to heel a miniscule obstructionist rump of 'moderates' seeking to balk the Party's agenda.

naming names of the principal obstructionists

Senate (obvioulsy)

Manchin
Sinema

House

The original 9 who sent the letter to Pelosi that helped to create that artificial deadline on the bi-partisan bill (and thus got the media's jacobs in a twist and shrieking 'Dems in disarray!)

Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey
Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia
Filemon Vela of Texas
Jared Golden of Maine
Henry Cuellar of Texas
Vicente Gonzalez of Texas
Ed Case of Hawaii
Jim Costa of California
Kurt Schrader of Oregon

then a few weeks later, at the end of August

Stephanie Murphy of Florida

joined them

and finally

Scott Peters of California

who was the only House Budget Committee Democrat to vote against $3.5T budget reconciliation bill in the Sept 25th mark-up


All are either Problem Solvers (Gottheimer is the co-chair along with Rethug Brian Fitzpatrick) or Blue Dog caucus members or both.

Stephanie Murphy is one of the most moderately conservative Dems in the House Caucus (one of only 6 current Dems who had both substantial amounts of votes and who voted with Trump over 50% of the time in the 115th House, along with Henry Cuellar, Conor Lamb, (both of whom were close to 70% in terms of voting with Trump), Tom O'Halleran, and Josh Gottheimer, plus the 'now in the Senate' Sinema ).

Murphy is the chair of the Blue Dogs as well.

She is one of only 10 'trifecta' members, meaning she belongs to all 3 moderate/centrist/conservative Dem Caucuses:

Blue Dog Coalition
New Democrat Coalition
Problem Solvers Caucus

along with Carolyn Bourdeaux, Tom O'Halleran, Lou Correa, Jim Costa, Brad Schneider, Josh Gottheimer, Kurt Schrader, Vicente Gonzalez, and Abigail Spanberger.

[bluewater]

15. "the Progressive caucus is providing the muscle for President Biden"

"the Progressive caucus is providing the muscle for President Biden in bringing to heel a miniscule obstructionist rump of 'moderates' seeking to balk the Party's agenda."

Well said.

Those self-declared "moderates" are blackening the good name of the vast majority of actual moderate Democrats that are supporting the President and his Build Back Better agenda.

[halfulglas]

6. That's why they are emphasizing a shorter time frame.

The original long term was going to be 10 years, because if it's longer it will be not only for Biden's term, but longer and the voters can realize what the Democrats are doing for the country and give it a time to work and be part of the fabric of American life rather than have to renew a law after 4 or 6 years. We don't want to have the same kind of trouble we run into with the voting rights bill, where it's renewed with no trouble time after time and suddenly we get a Republican party that isn't interested in everyone having a right to vote.

However, even a shorter term spending should get the public realizing their life is easier and if suddenly the funding is going to be cut, the public realizes it and realizes that it's the dems who provide the necessities, not as Manchin says, more entitlement. Or maybe the people of West Virginia may realize they are "entitled" to more than they have now.

Anyway, a shorter term for some of the items in the bill will reduce the overall cost and at least get the initial funding rolling.

[Celerity]

11. Yes, a shorter timeframe with the same per annum spend and most programmes intact is the

best way to go IMHO.

[mopinko]

16. some of these projects have long time lines.

you cant rebuild the grid a couple years at a time.
and you cant grow renewable capacity a couple years at a time.

one of the reasons solar is still struggling in this country is the way the incentives come and go.

[bluewater]

9. Thank you for calling out those who are trying to re-write history

and manufacture outrage over a non-existent divide between 96% of the Democrats in both Houses of Congress.