Current Events > Democrats Consider Making Their Own Agenda Impossible to Pass

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http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/pelosi-mulls-super-majority-rule-for-tax-hikes-on-bottom-80.html

This week, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi unveiled a list of new procedural rules that her caucus intends to implement when the next Congress is seated. Most of these measures are unobjectionable good government reforms. But one of them would create a new and all-but-insurmountable obstacle to the passage of many of the policies that the Democratic Party claims to support.

The rule, proposed by Pelosi and Massachusetts representative Richard Neal, would require a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers.

This proposal is, in effect, a progressive revision of an existing House rule: Under Paul Ryans leadership, the current Republican majority established a supermajority requirement to raise income taxes on anyone. Thus, Pelosis decision to retain the supermajority threshold on tax hikes but restrict it to the bottom 80 percent might look commendable on first glance. After all, in recent decades, Americas richest citizens have seen their tax rates plummet, even as their share of income gains soared so why not take measures to restrict future tax increases to the top 20 percent of earners? A spokesman for the minority leaders office, Henry Connelly, describes the proposal as a populist measure, aimed at repealing a Republican rule rigged to permanently lock in the massive tax giveaways[to] wealthiest 1 percent and big corporations, while affirming Democrats commitment to protect hard-working Americans.

Alas, there are several problems with this argument. For one thing, while progressives are committed to increasing the discretionary income of the bottom 80 percent, that does not necessarily mean keeping their tax rates frozen at historically low levels. Currently, for much of the American middle class, health-insurance premiums function as a steadily rising tax. A bill that required those households to pay a new, smaller monthly sum to the government so as to fund a single-payer system that would actually reduce their cost of living by delivering radically cheaper health-care services could hardly be called regressive. And the same can be said for legislation establishing universal child care, paid family leave, or any other program aimed at easing the middle classs financial burdens by dramatically expanding the public sectors ambitions. Equating support for middle-class families with opposition to increasing their tax rates is a conservative project, which Democrats have no business advancing. If the party wishes to establish structural barriers to policies that would hurt the middle class, why not require a three-fifths majority to cut Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security?
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Once procedural rules are established, however, they can be difficult to eliminate. There are plenty of Democrats in the House who dont want to be forced to chose (publicly) between voting for higher taxes on the middle class and against a priority of the progressive base. Such lawmakers are sure to value (and thus, insist on the preservation of) a procedural obstacle that allows them to forgo voting on legislation that forces them to make such hard choices by rendering such bills impossible to pass without GOP buy-in (which is to say, impossible to pass).

All this would be a bit less problematic if the Democratic Party had overcome its allergy to deficit spending (and/or accepted Modern Monetary Theory as its personal truth). But it hasnt: In addition to forbidding tax increases on the bottom 80 percent, Pelosi has vowed to honor the pay as you go rule, which requires the House to fully finance any and all new government spending.

Taken together, these two requirements could make Medicare for All impossible to pass out of the House.

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So pretty much GOP circa 2010 where the only thing on the agenda was repeal Obamacare over and over and over?
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See what I thought they'd wanna do is craft popular legislation that they know the GOP will never vote for so they can use that against them and Trump in 2020

This seems... dumb
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Stupid fuckin idea. I wish these people would grow up. Granted they tried the partisanship route and were also attacked for that while hurting themselves but turning into the GOP isnt the next step.
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Seems like shooting themselves in their own foot. Which only works for Republicans because their base couldn't care about actual policy.
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Basically they will try to get things like free college and universal health care with literally the 1% paying for it

ok
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VipaGTS posted...

Granted they tried the partisanship route and were also attacked for that while hurting themselves

When?
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Damn_Underscore posted...

free college and universal health care with literally the 1% paying for it

As it should be tbh
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Tmaster148 posted...

Seems like shooting themselves in their own foot. Which only works for Republicans because their base couldn't care about actual policy.

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Doom_Art posted...

Damn_Underscore posted...

free college and universal health care with literally the 1% paying for it

As it should be tbh

Why?
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Damn_Underscore posted...

Basically they will try to get things like free college and universal health care with literally the 1% paying for it

ok

Why is that a problem
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Forlorn_Ass posted...

Why?

Well you're certainly not gonna get the money for that from the poor

Can't get blood from a turnip
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its not like the GOP congress actually followed their own rule

the dec 2017 tax bill shifted the inflation model for taxation to a slower one that functions as a substantial tax hike on the bottom 80% in 2025
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Antifar posted...

The rule, proposed by Pelosi and Massachusetts representative Richard Neal, would require a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers.

I dunno, sounds good to me.
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Is this really the best the Dems can do? If so what's the point making a living in America anymore.
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If they want to be more obstructionist they really should be more blunt. Nobody wants neo nazi bullshit in American politics yet here we are. This is just to justify a paycheck.
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