Home » “Build Back Better” is dead (for now), but HR1 may be undead

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“Build Back Better” is dead (for now), but HR1 may be undead — 31 Comments

  1. But the foundation of those plans involved jettisoning the filibuster, which was necessary for almost all the rest, due to their exceedingly slim majority. The plan was: get rid of the filibuster,

    The filibuster rule can be and is set aside at any time for one vote only. It happened just this month with bipartisan support. Sometimes this is described in the media as “jettisoning the filibuster” or “nuking the filibuster” and sometimes it is not (the Vox article in my link does not). But the filibuster offers no protection whatever to any minority, since a 50+1 majority can set it aside at any time for any vote.

    It’s simply a device to shield individual Senators from the consequences of a vote. We shouldn’t let them and the media gaslight us this way. At least not twice trhis month,

    “Republicans opted to go this circuitous route because they’ve long wanted to claim that they didn’t vote in favor of a debt ceiling increase. However, failing to increase the debt limit was not seen as an option by leadership, due to the negative economic consequences that would have.

    This put Republicans in a bind, particularly because certain members could have filibustered a debt ceiling increase again, as they did in October. That would have forced members of the conference to vote in favor of overcoming the blockade, much as some had to do previously. In this case, they are technically voting to approve another bill that allows Democrats to pass the debt ceiling increase unilaterally, and can now say that they did not vote in favor of the increase.

    “We want a simple majority without a convoluted, risky, lengthy process and it looks like Republicans will help facilitate that,” Schumer said in a press conference Tuesday.

    Schumer and McConnell both announced their support for the proposal on Tuesday. To make it through the Senate, it will need the support of 10 Republicans to overcome any potential attempts to filibuster it, votes which GOP leaders said they’re confident they’ll have.

    Once it’s approved by both chambers, Democrats will effectively be able to advance the suspension of the debt ceiling without needing to worry about the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.”

  2. Among the disasters in the House-passed “Build Back Better” [ptui!] bill (HR 5376) is something that doesn’t get much attention: A coup-de-grace-America amnesty for an estimated 8 million illegal aliens, without even a pretense of enforcement against future illegal immigration.

    Such an amnesty would be bigger than all seven previous mass amnesties **combined**. (See https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/illegal-immigration/seven-amnesties-passed-congress.html )

    This would really be capitulation on the concept that our borders mean anything, setting off a vast new round of illegal immigration from all points of the globe. (The Border Patrol already encounters people from something like 100 countries in the current Biden-spurred wave.)

    Anyone here who has a connection to Manchin might try to inject this scenario into his thick head. This capitulation is waaaay more important than further child tax credits in perpetuity, even as fiscally irresponsible as those would be.

  3. Frederick:

    It is well known that the filibuster can be set aside. But so far such occasions have been rare, because both sides used to know that the filibuster protected them when they were in the minority. So till now, for the most part it’s held

    I think you may have missed the point of this post. Allowing HR1 to pass by simple majority would utterly change the picture, especially if followed by statehood for DC and PR. That’s a game changer of major proportions.

  4. @neo:But so far such occasions have been rare

    Not as rare as you think. Like in my link, it happened literally two weeks ago, to raise the debt ceiling to pay for all this spending, with Mitch McConnell’s full cooperation. No articles decrying the impending doom of minority protections appeared, because the fix was in. They do this whenever they want to. I think we all need to wake up.

    Allowing HR1 to pass by simple majority would utterly change the picture,

    Change the picture for whom? The Republicans who just “nuked the filibuster” two weeks ago to let the Democrats have their spending, provided that all the Rs got to get their no votes on record?

    Maybe we shouldn’t just accept this narrative.

    A minority opposed the debt-ceiling increase and they got steam-rolled. The filibuster rule was set aside by the majority to deprive them of that protection. There is no protection here and has not been for a very long time.

  5. IIRC, the filibuster can only be set aside with the reconciliation rule, which only applies to spending bills, thus HR1 can’t be passed through reconciliation.

    I’ll happily accept correction if I have that wrong.

  6. Waiving the filibuster for the debt ceiling was done with 60-vote majority. There will be no such majority for HR 1, so a tactical nuclear weapon–a 51-vote elimination of the filibuster for legislation about voting, or something–would be required. There’s no good evidence that such a 51-vote majority exists at present.

    Personally, I don’t think it matters. Despite what neo thinks, there’s no real evidence of significant voter fraud in 2020, and there’s lots of reason to think that looser rules for absentee votes encourages voting by (i) people with multiple residences, (ii) people who travel a lot, and (iii) old people. Three very Republican constituencies.

  7. y81:

    I don’t think you understand the effect of loosening the rules. Once it’s done, and mail-in votes are allowed in enormous numbers without ways to link the applications and documentation to the later votes themselves, then fraud is enabled and can NEVER be proved. My position is that we cannot know what happened in 2020, and I am agnostic on whether enough fraud occurred to have mattered. But the fact that we can’t detect it is meaningless. The system was set up to make such proof impossible.

    I’ve written at length on this. No country in the world has a voting system such as ours was in 2020, which is obviously susceptible to unprovable fraud.

  8. “That means there would be little room for other Democratic priorities in the legislation, such as long-term home health care, generous child care subsidies, expanded Medicare benefits, universal prekindergarten and raising the cap on state and local tax deductions…”

    Long-term home health care, generous child care subsidies and expanded Medicare benefits increase dependence upon the government. Universal pre-kindergarten starts the left’s indoctrination close to the dawn of comprehension. Child care subsidies and universal pre-kindergarten allows the State to have, at the least an equal effect in the raising of chidren.

    Raising the cap on state and local tax deductions would lessen federal tax revenues… so either that provision won’t pass or it hassens forward the day when sovereign bankruptcy finally arrives.

  9. Despite what neo thinks, there’s no real evidence of significant voter fraud in 2020,

    Buy my bridge.

  10. y81,

    “there’s no real evidence of significant voter fraud in 2020”

    When a firestorm is raging on the other side of a mountain, you know there’s a fire, when you see the smoke.

    The evidence is overwhelming for all but the willfully blind to see. How pray tell did Trump get more votes in 2020 than in 2016 but still ‘lose’ so ‘convincingly’?

  11. Re: Vote fraud

    And it was so convincing that the courts refused to consider the evidence and any debate of the issue was shouted down in the public square and hammer-down censored by social media. Likewise, further efforts by some states to conduct their own investigations.

    Because that’s what Democrats and their supporters consider good faith.

  12. Neo et al.: I get my news and views from the WSJ and the Claremont Review. If you know something they don’t, write it up and publish it in a respectable forum.

  13. @neo,gummay:I think budget bills are already an exception

    The “exception” has no meaning. It’s an “exception” only up to the point where they do it.

    The mechanism is through overruling the Senate parliamentarian and it only ever takes a majority vote to do that.

    The media would have you believe, sometimes, that when this happens it creates a “precedent” and some things are an “exception”. (For the debt ceiling the media did not take this route, because it was critical for people to get paid and they did not want to create the impression that any “norms” are getting “destroyed”, but when it’s something Republicans oppose like HR 1 that language is right back.)

    But that’s all through the Senate parliamentarian, who says what’s precedent and what the exceptions are. Who they can overrule at any time with a bare majority.

    “Precedent” and “exception” are whatever any 50+1 majority wants it to be for any vote. None of it is formal rule changes and none of it binds future votes.

    The filibuster has been fake for a very long time. The Senate and their media enablers have an interest in gaslighting us that it isn’t fake and when they start talking about “nuking the filibuster” they are trying to set a narrative that I think we should resist.

  14. For reference the rule that is invoked is Rule XX, text at bottom.

    When they invoke Rule XX, they are setting aside Senate rules. They can do this at any time, for any reason, and by majority vote without debate. If the Senate parliamentarian wanted to say they couldn’t, whether citing “precedent” or “exception” or whatever, they just invoke Rule XX for that, again by majority vote. It is a get-out-of-jail free card. The parliamentarian has no power over the Senate (as it should be because no one elects them). A majority can and does disregard them whenever it wishes to and can go back to pretending that the rules bind them… as recently as two weeks ago!

    The Senate is given the authority to set its own rules by the Constitution. There is no power in the law than can make them obey their own rules or not change them for a single vote if they wish and then go right on pretending their rules don’t let them do something.

    The question is really not are they changing their rules (which they can suspend at any time for any reason), the real question is, as the people who vote them into office, how dumb we wish to be?

    “1. A question of order may be raised at any stage of the proceedings, except when the Senate is voting or ascertaining the
    presence of a quorum, and, unless submitted to the Senate, shall
    be decided by the Presiding Officer without debate, subject to an
    appeal to the Senate. When an appeal is taken, any subsequent
    question of order which may arise before the decision of such appeal shall be decided by the Presiding Officer without debate; and
    every appeal therefrom shall be decided at once, and without debate; and any appeal may be laid on the table without prejudice
    to the pending proposition, and thereupon shall be held as affirming the decision of the Presiding Officer.
    2. The Presiding Officer may submit any question of order for the
    decision of the Senate.”

  15. Frederick:

    I already said that of course the Senate can change the rules by a majority vote.

    However, we are talking about changing them to pass an especially momentous law, which has not been done to this point. So far it’s been limited to money bills and appointments (mostly judicial).

    There is no question in my mind that the Democrats would do away with the whole thing if they could and they thought it would be to their benefit. There is some question in my mind whether the GOP would do away with the whole thing if they could. The GOP isn’t into passing transformational laws; the Democrats are.

    Twenty or thirty years ago, the filibuster really did protect minority rights. That’s been eroded over the years, but it still offers some protection although I doubt for long.

  16. y81, there’s this: “DATA: Trump Won 95% Of Bellwether Counties, Making Biden Win Statistically Improbable”

    https://nationalfile.com/data-trump-won-95-of-bellwether-counties-making-biden-win-statistically-improbable/

    Not definite proof that fraud occurred, but statistical proof that it was a strange outcome. Certainly, a reason to look at certain counties in swing states. Some investigations have been attempted but have met with fierce resistance from Democrats. If all was all on the up and up, I would think the Democrats would want to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yet, they resist. Hmmm?

  17. y81:

    I had to chuckle at the phrase “respectable forum.” Is that some sort of Argument From Authority, with the WSJ posited as the authority?

    Arguments are either sound or not sound, and it has zero to do with where they’re published. As I said – and as I’ve written in many many posts here – voter fraud was made unprovable, and that’s the problem. No other country has had elections with as few checks on fraud as our 2020 election, so the idea that there has been no proof of fraud demonstrated is meaningless.

  18. Well, you have to admire the Democrats’ ability to shoot themselves in the foot.

    Supreme Court justices used to be appointed with bipartisan support. The “clever” Democrats changed that — which in the end allowed Trump to load it with far more conservative justices than would have been possible under the previous system. They’re going to pay for that “clever” play for decades.

    I predict that, likewise, if the filibuster is broken that it won’t end happily for them. Some short term advantage will be gained for long term pain.

    They think their recent short-term success in winning both houses will last forever. But in recent decades the Republicans have generally controlled at least one. The moderate term trend is actually towards the Republicans, except in for the Presidency.

    If they break it, then they can hardly complain if their opponents take advantage.

  19. West Virginians voted 70% for Trump in the 2020 election.

    Joe Manchin is well aware of that.

    One of the reasons that the Dems are having such trouble getting their wonderful and wildly popular bills passed is that they really aren’t that wildly popular with the voters who understand that, despite what Brandon says, trillion-dollar spending is neither “free” nor “paid for.”

  20. y81–you missed some important constituencies: iv) dead people; v) people who have moved out of the jurisdiction; vi) non-existent people. Those are the folks whose ballots carried the day for Joe Biden in November 2020. There seem to be a lot more of them in Democratic strongholds.

  21. @neo:There is some question in my mind whether the GOP would do away with the whole thing if they could.

    Well, Mitch McConnell arranged to remove the filibuster for the debt ceiling so that Chuck Schumer could spend the money while all the Republicans could vote “no”. If he had not done that, the debt ceiling would not have been raised and the spending could not happen.

    He did not allow his party to get in the way of the spending, even though some of them wanted to, but he did get them cover to tell the voters back home they voted “no” but those darn Democrats, send the GOp money to elect more Senators… he just wanted the GOP to look like they tried to stop the spending, not actually stop it.

    tl; dr version: Two weeks ago Mitch McConnell steamrolled his own (minority) party by promising Chuck Schumer he’d “nuke the filibuster” on the debt ceiling–and the media didn’t say “boo” or use the word “nuke”.

    What does that tell you?

    What that tells me is that the GOP keeps the filibuster around to avoid being accountable to GOP voters. The Dems probably do it for the same reason. I think the gap between GOP senators and their voters is probably larger than that between the Dem senators and THEIR voters in most years, and so it stays around, but it’s completely fake. Senators have more in common with each other than with their voters.

    It’s just a question of how long voters will continue to be fooled by it.

  22. There’s a good review by Andrew Busch in the issue of the Claremont Review, which pretty much destroys all Trump’s outlandish claims of fraud. Anyone who is smart enough is welcome to write a well-reasoned rebuttal and submit it. I’ll read it. Now maybe neo will say, “You shouldn’t rely on a book review, you should read all the books under review. In fact, even that isn’t enough, you should review all the author’s notes and cited sources. Really, you should recreate the author’s research ab initio. Otherwise you making the dreaded argument from authority.” I can only say, life is short, I have to make decisions about many issues that I don’t have time (or possibly ability) to research thoroughly, and trusting reliable publications or other sources is the only way to navigate most of life.

  23. @y81:

    Ah… so the Jaffa-ites at Claremont have held convocation at midnight under a New Moon, consulted the holy texts and marginalia, and have determined that the story of electoral fraud does not fit in with the Eight-Dimensional Stratagems of their Cabalistic (sic) Mystery Cult?

    Well there you are, Peasants! No Fraud! M’kay?

    There will always be Arguments from Authority. Can’t run a world without ’em, you know. The question as always is WHICH authorities?

  24. y81 sees nothing and you should too. He’s found the only truth (one dude from CRB, buttressed by his beloved WSJ, and of course OMB). Life is simple for him.

    Funny that y81 ignores other well respected and much more credible (Mollie Hemmingway for example) analyses of the 2020 election or even the tell all from the progressives on how they “fortified” the election process to foil OMB.

    Does y81 buy into The Atlantic’s warning about the coming 2024 Trump coup too? “Where is Task Force “y81″? The world wonders.”

  25. Busch is reviewing Hemingway’s book. She can write a rebuttal if she thinks his analysis and critique is unfair or inaccurate. So can anyone here. I’ll wait.

  26. y81:

    I have no problem with you believing there was no significant fraud. But you don’t seem to understand my own position, which is that the way the election was set up in 2020 in many states (quite a few of them important swing states), the amount of fraud cannot be determined although the door was open to fraud.

    I realized that problem prior to the election, based on a fairly in-depth study of how voting is handled in other countries, particularly mail-in voting, which is known everywhere to be especially susceptible to fraud unless some very very stringent measures are in place (measures that were not in place in this country).

    Here is one post I wrote on the issue.

  27. The first 63 years of my life have convinced me that right-of-center figures with fancy credentials (e.g., the people who write for the WSJ, the Claremont Review, etc.) are far and away the best guide to the beautiful and the good. I don’t expect to be disappointed in the final third. Of course, it is human nature to trust those who resemble us, so maybe I am deceived.

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