By Craig Fahle

Democrats have an opportunity to put their money where their mouths are, finally.  The $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill is a crucial opportunity for Joe Biden to implement many of the ideas he campaigned on in 2020. Increased support for childcare, universal pre-K, expanded Medicaid, funding to combat climate change, investments in clean energy development, tuition free community college, immigration reform, and a fairer tax system are all crucial planks in the party platform. There will surely be some adjustments made to the reconciliation bill before it receives final votes, but even then, this will be the most significant progressive legislation passed since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Democrats would be wise not to screw this up. Alas, there is always an opportunity for the Dems to do just that.   

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a bit of a fine line to walk … keeping a handful of skittish moderates from balking at the overall price tag (and their own reelection fears) thus scuttling passage of the bill. Meanwhile, progressives in the caucus have made it clear that they will not support the infrastructure bill if the reconciliation package isn’t done first. It’s a power struggle, but Pelosi must find a way to keep everyone in line. Sure, some moderate Democrats may fear being labeled as “tax and spend liberals” or even “socialists” in advance of the midterms. They may worry they will be hammered over a price tag with the word “trillion” attached to it. So be it. The Republicans were going to label them as such no matter what happens with the reconciliation bill.   So … If you have a D next to your name, think about WHY you are a Democrat, and have the courage to vote for what you believe in. It may cost some seats next year, but what’s more important? Your job, or your principles?  

Opportunities like this don’t come around for Democrats too often. If they pull this off, they will have a massive achievement under their belts – namely a spending plan that helps people instead of corporations -- a spending plan that taxes the truly wealthy and corporations to pay for a big chunk of it. If the Democrats can’t sell that in 2022, that’s on them.

Feeling Left out of our civil political discourse? Tune in to The Hustings Week in Review Friday, August 13, on the new audio social media site Clubhouse. Enter our room beginning 5 p.m. Eastern time, to listen in or voice your opinion in our new discussion of the week’s news. Download the Clubhouse app at clubhouse.com or from your favorite app store, for free.

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Also on the Left

>"Tales from Our Side of the Turnpike," Michelle Naranjo's left-column response to "Mask Mandates Redux: More Headwinds Approaching."

>>"Enforce the Tax Laws We Have by Giving the IRS the Tools to Do it," Craig Fahle's response to the question of whether more IRS funding is needed to improve tax collection enforcement.

>>>"Worthwhile Symbolism to Fight GOP Voter Suppression."

>>>>Opinion from "affirmatives" on the recent Braver Angels debate resolution: "America is a Racist Nation."

As always, you are invited and encouraged to comment on these home page debates and on items from our daily News & Notes. Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news or click on the "comments" tab.

•Read us and subscribe at https://thehustings.substack.com

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2021

•Scroll down for details on the Senate’s $3.5-trillion budget reconciliation framework, debated here in the left and right columns.

•The Taliban have now captured Kandahar and Herat in its surprisingly quick takeover of Afghanistan, leaving only four major cities under government control, with just four major cities left, including the capital of Kabul, The New York Times reports. The U.S. is responding by sending 3,000 troops, in addition to remaining troops that are scheduled to leave by the end of the month, to help evacuate the embassy and interpreters.

•Tune in to Clubhouse at 5 p.m. Eastern time today for the first installment of The Hustings Week in Review. Download the Clubhouse app at clubhouse.com.

Moderate Democrats Reject Coupling Budget Resolution with Infrastructure – Nine moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives have called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, to de-couple the Senate’s bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill from its $3.5 trillion budget resolution, Punchbowl News reports. Pelosi has called House members back to the Capitol Aug. 23, ahead of its scheduled return from August recess after Labor Day.

“We will not consider voting for a budget resolution until the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passes the House and is signed into law,” the Democratic representatives said in a letter to Pelosi. 

Democrats currently have an eight-vote majority in the House, at 220-212, with three vacancies.

The speaker said earlier this summer that the House would not consider the so-called hard infrastructure bill unless it was accompanied by the much larger “social” infrastructure package, which Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have rejected outright. The White House had split a proposal that would have packaged together “hard” and “social” infrastructure to avoid a filibuster on the former, the “roads & bridges” bill (the Biden administration has marketed these together, along with his COVID-19 relief package, as the Build Back Better Act). 

The Senate passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Tuesday by 69-30 vote, with 19 Republican senators joining all 50 Democratic senators (including independents Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, and Angus King, of Maine). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promptly introduced the framework for the Build Back Better Act, which passed Tuesday afternoon by 50-49 vote with no cloture required because it’s under budget reconciliation.

Mutiny on Pelosi: The nine moderate Democratic representatives who signed the letter to Pelosi are Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Carolyn Bordeaux of Georgia, Jared Golden of Maine, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, and Filemon Vela, Henry Cuellar, and Vincente Gonzalez, all of Texas.

Note: This latest Democratic Party mess calls into question Pelosi’s much-vaunted political leadership skills, for its awful timing and public lack of unity. Pelosi should paraphrase Will Rogers: “I’m not the House speaker from any organized party, I’m a Democrat.”

Why did it take this long for nine Democratic moderates to push back against sophomore and junior progressives, who have said for weeks that the two spending bills must be considered together? Why wasn’t this settled well before the Senate took up the hard infrastructure bill? To be fair, President Biden also wanted both the infrastructure bill and the budget resolution to reach his desk for his signature at the same time, but Sens. Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, and Joe Manchin III, D-WV, already have indicated they will not vote for a $3.5-trillion spending bill. Republicans, especially those worried about being “primaried” by pro-Trump candidates next year, now have the opportunity to kill both bills and take away Biden’s bipartisan victory.

•••

Census Results Show We’re Less White, More Urban – First results from the U.S. Census – four months late because of coronavirus shutdowns and Trump administration delays – show a declining non-Hispanic white population, a declining birth rate and a higher concentration of population around major urban areas, The Washington Post reports. These early results could point to a coming clash between the growing non-white urban population and states like Georgia and Texas that are trying to constrict voting laws after urban areas delivered large margins for Joseph R. Biden for president last November. 

Some key results…

•Non-Hispanic whites made up 57.8% of the population in last year’s census, down from 63.7% in 2010. 

•The 5.1 million drop in non-Hispanic whites marks the first time this segment of the population fell since 1790.

•People of color now make up a majority of the population under 18 years old, at 52.7%.

•The birth rate is at its lowest since the 1930s, during the Great Depression.

•The Hispanic population has tripled in the last three decades, to 62.1 million people, or 18.7%.

•The Asian population has more than doubled since 1990, from 3% to 6.1%.

•The non-Hispanic Black population remains steady, at 12.1% of the population.

•••

Trump Sets Up Iowa Team for 2024 (Re-) Run – Donald J. Trump’s Save America PAC has hired Eric Branstad and Alex Latcham as senior advisers to “help on many political matters,” according to a spokesman. The ex-president has all but confirmed his plans to run again for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

Bloomberg first reported that Trump’s PAC had hired the two advisers in Iowa. Branstad was Trump’s state director in Iowa in 2016, and a senior adviser again in 2020. In between, he was a senior adviser for the Trump administration in the Commerce department. He is the son of Trump’s ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, who had previously served as a once-moderate Republican Iowa governor.

•••

SCOTUS Strikes Down Part of New York Eviction Moratorium – The U.S. Supreme Court, has granted – 6-3 with liberal justices dissenting – a request to lift certain parts of a New York residential eviction moratorium that have been in place since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic early last year, SCOTUSblog reports. In Chrysafis v. Marks, landlords argued in a New York federal court that tenants’ ability to declare financial hardship to avoid eviction violated their right to due process by allowing tenants to put the brakes on eviction proceedings without proving financial hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic, and without allowing landlords’ rebuttal. 

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 2021

•The U.S. Census Bureau releases 2020 population data today expected to set off a redistricting fight that will affect state legislature majorities via gerrymandering. 

•The Taliban have captured their 10^th provincial capital in Afghanistan in the past week, NPR reports, as U.S. and NATO military forces continue their withdrawal. The latest is in Ghazni, just 80 miles southwest of Kabul.

•Doing the math: The Senate left town Wednesday after passing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. It returns in September to a Republican vs. Democratic struggle over the debt limit. The House of Representatives returns from its August recess early, on the 23^rd, to consider the two packages, totaling $4.7 trillion in spending. 

•Read details of the $3.5-trillion budget reconciliation framework making its way through the Senate in the August 11 News & Notes file below, and check out the debate on the budget, with Craig Fahle in the left column and David Iwinski in the right column.

Weekly Unemployment Claims Fall to 375,000 – The rate of weekly unemployment claims fell by 12,000 to 375,000 for the week ended August 7, the Labor Department reported Thursday morning, a near-low for the pandemic. The previous week’s claims were adjusted upward by 2,000 to 387,000. The insured unemployment rate for the week ended July 31 was 2.1%, off 0.1% from the previous week’s rate.

•••

Trump Considered Replacing Rosen in Order to Push ‘Big Lie’ – President Trump’s last acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, told the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Office of Inspector General in a two-hour phone call last Friday that he had to persuade the president not to replace him with a colleague who was willing to push the narrative that continuing election fraud investigations placed doubt on Joseph Biden’s victory last November, according to The New York Times. Sources told the Timesthat Rosen testified Trump threatened to fire Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official apparently willing to support the “Big Lie” narrative.

Trump did not fire Rosen, the Times notes, but “the plot highlights” the president’s ongoing efforts to use the Justice Department for his own political purposes. Rosen’s Justice Department colleague, Jeffrey Clark, gave the newspaper no comment, but said back in January that his communications with Trump were “consistent with the law.”

Note: Keep in mind that Rosen served as acting AG for less than a month, after William Barr resigned just before Christmas, when he declared there was no widespread fraud in Biden’s election victory over Trump.

•••

Trump to Meet with Cheney Challenger – Ex-President Trump is scheduled to meet today with Harriet Hageman, a potential 2022 mid-term primary challenger to Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Politico reports. Cheney is one of 10 House Republicans who voted in favor of Trump’s second impeachment earlier this year, and currently serves on the House select committee investigating the January 6 pro-Trump attacks on the Capitol. Hageman is a Republican trial attorney who unsuccessfully ran for Wyoming governor in 2018, but she also served on Cheney’s short-lived 2014 U.S. Senate campaign, according to Politico.

Note: This is yet another early indicator of Trump’s Republican support going into the 2022 midterm elections. By most appearances, Trump retains his popularity on the state and regional level in such red states as Wyoming, even while his command of Capitol Hill Republicans – consider the Senate bipartisan infrastructure bill – appears to be wavering.

•••

Federal Judge Agrees to Release Trump Hotel Records – U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Amit Mehta ruled Wednesday that the House Oversight Reform Committee should be able to obtain some records related to Donald Trump’s hotel lease on his company’s development of the Old Post Office Building in Washington into a luxury hotel, Roll Call reports. The investigation relates to the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and whether foreign governments paid millions of dollars through the hotel by booking rooms there, as the Trump administration conducted policy affecting the governments. Trump’s attorneys are sure to appeal Mehta’s ruling.

•••

California Requires Teacher Vaccinations – Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, announced Wednesday that California will require all teachers and school employees to be vaccinated, or submit to weekly COVID-19 tests, Politico reports. Newsom faces a recall election September 14.

•••

Cuomo Replacement Will Run in ’22 – Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who takes over the New York governorship when a disgraced Andrew Cuomo steps down August 24, says she will run for the Democratic nomination for the November 2022 gubernatorial election, The Wall Street Journal reports. Hochul also is reportedly considering a mask mandate in New York schools to fight COVID-19.

Trump attorney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani, is considering a bid for the Republican nomination, while two more Republicans, state Rep. Lee Zeldin and former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, already have announced for next year.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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Debating Budget Reconciliation

Build Back Better Plan -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, says the House of Representatives will not vote on the just-passed $1.2-trillion Senate infrastructure bill unless it is accompanied by President Biden's $3.5-trillion budget reconciliation bill. Unlike the infrastructure bill, the Bring Back Better Plan, as it's called, does not need any Republican senators to support it, though it will need the support of Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, as well as support of most progressive Democrats in the House. Fresh off his infrastructure bill's bi-partisan support, however, Biden says he expects both bills to land on his Oval Office desk on-time, which most optimistically is mid-September. Pundits Craig Fahle and David Iwinski take their first look at the reconciliation bill, and debate them from the left column, and right column, respectively.

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News & Notes -- WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2021

•The Senate passed the $3.5-trillion budget blueprint via reconciliation just before 4 a.m. Wednesday, 50-49. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, followed up the vote by setting up Senate consideration in September for voting rights bills. The House of Representatives will return early from recess, on August 23, to take up the blueprint along with the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill, says Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, according to Punchbowl News. Details below.

Consumer Prices Rise 0.5% in July – The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis for July, following an 0.9% increase in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday morning. The annual inflation rate remains high at 5.4% thanks in part to shortages in many sectors due to effects of the pandemic and its shutdowns. 

Still affected by computer chip shortages, new vehicle prices rose 1.7% in July, though used vehicles were up only 0.2%, after a 10.5% rise in June. Food prices were up 0.7% in July, and food-away-from-home was up 0.8%, reflecting increases in fast food workers’ wages. Energy was up 1.6% and the gasoline sector was up 2.4%. 

Note: Assessing the data, Josh Bidens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute, noted, “the mid-year inflation spike is real, but largely contained. It continues to be far, far too early to think the data merit serious [Federal Reserve] tightening right now. The recovery is going quite well—we should keep fostering it, not trying to weigh it down.”

•••

Infrastructure, Budget Reconciliation Pass Senate – After 19 Republican senators voted with 50 Democrats to pass the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill the two parties returned to their separate corners because of the $3.5-trillion in proposed additional spending. That leaves Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-NY, to navigate her party’s ship between its thin majority in the House of Representatives and its own progressives, who seem to consider the majority in both chambers to be absolute. 

On NPR’s All Things Considered Tuesday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-MA, reiterated the progressive wing’s demands for budgeting “social infrastructure,” including the “care” economy, climate change, housing and a pathway for immigrants to citizenship. When Alisa Chang, of NPR, pressed Pressley on the question of whether progressives are willing to “torpedo” the “entire infrastructure bill if that entire $3.5-trillion package does not end up passing in the Senate,” Pressley ducked a direct yes-no answer.

“I expect we will honor the original terms of the deal,” Pressley responded, referring to Pelosi’s promise to only vote on the infrastructure bill in tandem with the budget reconciliation bill.

Under Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, the budget reconciliation framework debate immediately commenced, with a 50-49 vote (Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD, was absent) including Sens. Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, and Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and obviously no support from any of the 50 Republicans, in the affirmative. 

Vote-a-Rama: The Senate considered a record 47 amendments in a 15-hour ‘vote-a-rama,’ Punchbowl News reports, including the issues of critical race theory, fracking, inflation, the Green New Deal, police funding, sanctions on Hamas, taxpayer funding of abortion and opposition to tax increases on anyone earning less than $400,000 per year. The House can accept these “non-binding” amendments or send them back to the Senate.

An amendment by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, went viral on Twitter. He introduced an amendment that would eliminate federal funding for any locality that votes to “defund the police.” 

Sen. Corey Booker, D-NJ, immediately “embraced” the amendment and called for a voice vote for its passage, urging every senator to make it clear they want “to fund the police, believe in God, country and apple pie.” 

The amendment passed with all 50 Democrats joining the Republicans. 

“This is a gift,” Booker continued. “I’m sure we’ll see no political ads attacking anybody here over ‘defund the police.’” 

Booker was calling out Republicans who were introducing amendments to become fodder in midterm election campaign ads. On Twitter, the response from liberals was split between those who understood Booker’s “satire” and those who didn’t.

Note on Bipartisanship: President Biden praised open talks with Republicans and Democrats on the bi-partisan infrastructure bill from the White House Tuesday afternoon. “We went through years of infrastructure week, and now we have infrastructure decade,” he said, “…that I truly believe will transform America.”

Biden laughed at a reporter’s question about whether he feared the House will not pass the Senate bill if Democrats are not satisfied with the accompanying budget resolution. “It will happen,” he replied, evidently confident of the bill’s passage – hinting, perhaps, that Pelosi has a strategy for quick approval in order to place two bills covering a massive portion of the White House’s agenda within the coming month.

Note on Bipartisanship II: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, appears to be moving the GOP away from Trumpism, as he dismissed the former president’s ongoing criticism of the infrastructure bill, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“Infrastructure is popular with Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “The American people, divided, sent us a 50-50 Senate and a narrowly divided House. I don’t think the message from that was ‘do absolutely nothing.’ And if you’re going to find an area of potential agreement, I can’t think of a better one than infrastructure, which is desperately needed.”

•••

Republican “Yays” on Infrastructure – Republican senators who voted with 50 Democrats to pass the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill Tuesday are: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Roy Blunt (Missouri), Richard Burr (North Carolina), Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Susan Collins (Maine), Kevin Cramer (North Dakota), Michael D. Crapo (Idaho), Deb Fischer (Nebraska), Lindsay Graham (South Carolina), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Joe Hoeven (North Dakota), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio), James Risch (Idaho), Mitt Romney (Utah), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Thom Tillis (North Carolina) and Roger Wicker (Mississippi). (Per The New York Times). 

•••

All About the Timing – Clearly seeing no path to running for an unprecedented fourth term next year as New York governor, Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation, effective in two weeks. Facing a New York attorney general’s report that accuses him of sexual harassment, Cuomo said he was “caught up in generational and cultural shifts.” 

Cuomo also is facing allegations he covered up roughly half of COVID-19 deaths in the state’s nursing homes during the peak of the pandemic last year.

Replacement for the rest of his term is Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochuk, a Democrat from Buffalo not closely aligned with Cuomo, who becomes New York’s first female governor.

Note: Pundits on the left wasted no time comparing Cuomo’s resignation to the lack of response outside of denial by Republican politicians accused of sexual impropriety, including former President Trump and current Rep. Matt Gaetz, of Florida. 

The conspiracy theorists also came out on this one. Snopes put out a post saying that governor-to-be Kathy Hochuk is notNancy Pelosi’s stepsister.

•••

Country Is Predictably Divided — A Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted August 7-9 shows that the Democrats and the Republicans are pretty much divided on the categories that each has long been associated with, with the Dems stronger in social issues and the Republicans on economic and security ones. One number that ought to give some solace to the White House is that 51% approve of the job President Biden is doing and 46% disapprove.

Going down into the issues, here are some of the responses when asked which party in Congress was trusted to handle the specific issues:

Health care

• Democrats:            47%
• Republicans:          36%

Immigration

• Democrats:            38%
• Republicans:          45%

Climate change

• Democrats:            48%
• Republicans:          29%

Environment

• Democrats:            48%
• Republicans:          29%

Energy

• Democrats:            42%
• Republicans:          38%

Education

• Democrats:            44%
• Republicans:          36%

National security

• Democrats:            36%
• Republicans:          47%

Gun policy

• Democrats:            39%
• Republicans:          44%

Medicare/Social Security

• Democrats:            44%
• Republicans:          37%

Coronavirus

• Democrats:            45%
• Republicans:          33%

Voting rights

• Democrats:            45%
• Republicans:          40%

Of those 11 categories, the Republicans come out on top in just three.

The margin of error of the poll is ±2%.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2021

SENATE PASSES $1.2-TRILLION BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL, VOTES TO BEGIN DEBATE ON $3.5-TRILLION 'SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE' BUDGET RECONCILIATION – The Senate Tuesday morning passed the $1.2-trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill by a vote of 69-30, nine more than needed to avoid a filibuster. Republican senators voting with the 50 Democrats include Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, immediately took up a vote to debate the White House's $3.5-trillion "social infrastructure" budget reconciliation package.

•••

CUOMO RESIGNS -- Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned Tuesday afternoon over the state attorney general's report investigating sexual harassment claims against him. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, becomes the first woman to serve as governor of New York. It is unclear whether Cuomo may be impeached after he has left office.

•••

New Millennium Deal – Democrats unveiled their $3.5 trillion “blueprint” for budget reconciliation, a sweeping “social” infrastructure plan that requires 12 Senate and 13 House committees to submit a filibuster-proof fiscal package by September 15, Roll Call reports. The proposal highlights spending for health care, social policy, and climate policy. Democrats have proposed just $1.75 trillion, half the package, in tax increases for upper income and in corporate taxes and by reining in prescription drug costs and other savings to pay for it. The draft package includes room to grow the budget deficit in the coming decade, which Democrats say could be partially mitigated by closing the “tax gap” between what is owed and what is paid.

Once adapted, the package “will allow the Senate to move forward on a reconciliation bill that will be the most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor since FDR and the New Deal of the 1930s,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, says on his website. “It will also put the U.S. in a global leadership position to combat climate change and to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations.”

Top expenditures in the Senate Democrats’ blueprint include $726.4 billion to health, education, labor, and pensions, $332 billion to banking and the Department of Housing and Urban Development and $198 billion for energy and natural resources.

Note: A substantial infrastructure package seemed like a bipartisan dream just a month or two ago, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, remains determined to tie that package with this $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation “social” infrastructure package, which can only pass so long as moderate Democratic senators such as Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema are on board. One more reminder that Democrats do not have a decisive majority in the House and Senate, even if Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, have to treat it as such to appease their party’s progressives. Considering Pelosi’s two-bill mandate, President Biden’s first big non-pandemic victory is still not the slam-dunk it should be.

•••

New Senate Voting Rights Bill Expected -- Senate Democrats are planning to propose a stripped-down voter rights bill this week that will include requirements for a voter registration card in order to potentially garner some Republican support. House of Representatives Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-SC, who told NPR Tuesday morning that voter rights is the third leg of a three-legged Democratic agenda stool, along with infrastructure and the budget reconciliation bill, says he would support inclusion of a voter registration card requirement[VJ1] . 

•••

U.S. Attempts Diplomacy Appeal with Taliban in Afghanistan – U.S. Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad warned the Taliban that a government that comes to lead Afghanistan by force will become an international pariah and will not be recognized, the Associated Press reports, as the Biden administration’s attempts at a peace deal founder. Zalmay traveled to the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar, to deliver the message, following Taliban insurgents’ capture of five of 34 provincial Afghani capitals within a week, the AP says. 

Note: Order in Afghanistan has proven to be untenable since ancient times – just ask Soviets of the 1980s. The U.S. withdrawal, finally, comes as The Washington Post publishes excerpts from its reporter, Craig Whitlock’s new book, The Afghanistan Papers, including a story this morning that the Bush administration hid from the public attempts to attack Vice President Dick Cheney. So, here’s just a bit of solace: A Taliban military chief warned his fighters in an audio message not to harm Afghani forces and government officials in the captured territories, the AP says.

•••

District Judge Questions Restitution Amounts in 1/6 Riots – Why are Capitol riot defendants being asked to pay only $1.5 million in restitution, leaving American taxpayers to foot most of the costs to fix the building and grounds of more than $500 million? Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, asked prosecutors Monday. Howell challenged the toughness of the Justice Department’s position in plea hearings for a Colorado Springs man who admitted to one of four non-violent counts of picketing the U.S. Capitol, The Washington Post reports. 

Howell criticized the prosecutors for seeking only $2,000 per defendant charged with a felony, and $500 per defendant charged with a misdemeanor.

“I’m accustomed to the government being fairly aggressive in terms of fraud when there have been damages that accrue from a criminal act for the restitution amount,” she said.

Note: While not explicitly stated, Howell’s comments recall criticism from the left earlier this year that the mostly white, male, Capitol rioters were not being treated by law enforcement with the sort of force that protesters of color often face. This is compounded by fears some authorities have that ex-President Trump could trigger the most rabid of his MAGA-followers to commit further, more intense violence in the name of the November election “Big Lie.”

•••

Abbott Asks to Suspend Surgeries — Texas governor Greg Abbott, R, has asked hospitals in the state to voluntarily postpone elective procedures and said that the Department of State Health Services is seeking medical workers from outside the Lone Star State to help with the unprecedented surge in COVID cases there, Politico reports.

Note: Abbott issued an executive order May 18 prohibiting government entities — as in counties, cities, school districts, public health authorities, and government officials — from requiring masks. What’s more, any local government or official that would not follow the executive order could be fined up to $1,000. Abbott’s rationale? According to a press release from his office, Abbott said, “Texans, not government, should decide their best health practices, which is why masks will not be mandated by public school districts or government entities. We can continue to mitigate COVID-19 while defending Texans' liberty to choose whether or not they mask up." This is not a “Remember the Alamo” moment. Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, et. al would probably have had everyone in the chapel of the Mission San Antonio de Valero wearing masks lest the virus take them down.

What’s more, “elective surgeries” may sound benign, but all this means is that they are surgeries that are scheduled, which can mean anything from hip replacement to kidney stone removal to heart bypass grafting. Abbott’s mandate isn’t making it easier on those Texans.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods

---

•Read Stephen Macaulay's commentary on the former acting attorney general’s reported testimony to the Justice Department on how Donald J. Trump tried to subvert last November’s presidential election, today at https://thehustings.substack.com

•The Senate is expected to take a full vote on its $1-trillion bi-partisan infrastructure plan by Tuesday morning, following a procedural vote on cloture today. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin will call on Congress today to raise the debt limit by “regular order,” as Senate Democrats release their $3.5-trillion reconciliation budget this morning. Yellin will repeat to Congress that “increasing or decreasing the debt limit does not increase government spending, nor does it authorize spending for future budget proposals. It simply allows Treasury [department] to pay for enacted expenditures.”

•The Taliban have overrun the provincial capital of Sar-e-Pul, Afghanistan Monday, the AP reports, after capturing three other cities Sunday. U.S. military forces are to complete withdrawal from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of fighting, by the end of August. 

Climate Change Report a ‘Code Red for Humanity’ – Humans have altered the environment at an “unprecedented pace,” and it’s almost too late to change course, a damning report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. UN Secretary Gen. Antonio Guterres calls the report “a code red for humanity.”

Greenhouse gas release is growing, and countries have failed to meet targets set under the 2015 Paris Accords, according to The Washington Post account of the report. “There is no time for delay, and no room for excuses,” Guterres says.

The report is from 234 authors relying on more than 14,000 studies from around the globe. It says the Earth has warmed more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8F) with little sign of slowing, and could reach 1.5 degrees Celsius by the early 2030s, as heat waves, hurricanes and rain storms become more intense.

Note: As the U.S. returns to the strictures of the Paris Climate Accords under the Biden administration, China and India, late to the Industrial Revolution Party continue to increase greenhouse gas emissions with little curb in sight. The UN report seems to indicate it’s “almost” too late to mitigate emissions, a message that climate change scientists have been making for decades now.

According to the EPA’s no-longer updated A Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change, “Higher temperatures mean that heat waves are likely to happen more often and last longer, too. Heat waves can be dangerous, causing illnesses such as heat cramps and heat stroke, or even death.

“Warmer temperatures can also lead to a chain reaction of other changes around the world. That's because increasing air temperature also affects the oceans, weather patterns, snow and ice, and plants and animals. The warmer it gets, the more severe the impacts on people and the environment will be.”

And you wonder why Greta Thunberg is concerned.

•••

This Won’t Help – The price of oil and other “key industrial commodities” slid Monday over fears the Chinese government failed to halt the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant, The Wall Street Journal reports. Brent Crude Oil fell 4% to $67.87 barrel, and West Texas Intermediate futures fell 4.3%, to $65.38 per barrel.

Note: However, the price of oil in the first half of 2021 was up more than 45% and Wall Street traders have speculated that there could be a run up to $80 per barrel as the economy recovers.

•••

Cuomo’s Top Aide Resigns – Melissa DeRosa, top aide to three-term New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D, resigned after last week’s attorney general report released evidence of the governor’s alleged sexual harassment of other government workers. The AG report says DeRosa helped Cuomo retaliate against one of the women who accused him of the harassment, The New York Times says.

Note: Cuomo thus remains the only New Yorker who believes he will remain in office to the end of his term, next year.

•••

Vax Passport Needed to Ship Out -- U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams held with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, granting the cruise line’s request for a preliminary injunction against a Florida state law that bars businesses — such as Norwegian Cruise Line — from requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination, noting in her ruling that the state “fails to provide a valid evidentiary, factual, or legal predicate” for the ban, Politico reports. Florida’s anti-vax passport law stemmed from an executive order that Gov. Ron DeSantis, R, signed in April, which was then codified into law by the state legislature.

Note: According to the Florida Department of Health, during the week of May 28 there were 11,437 cases and 10 weeks later the number was 134,506. Possibly DeSantis was thinking about Trump’s statement in February 2020 “You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go way in April.” In Florida the average temperature in April is 69.3 degrees. In July it is 81.6 degrees. Evidently that’s not working out as “a lot of people” think.

What is bizarre about this (well, there are actually plenty of odd things about Florida’s approach to the pandemic) is that here is a business that wants to require proof of vaccination for people to enter its establishment. It isn’t being done because the company wants to reduce the number of potential customers but because it makes financial sense for the company: Were there to be a breakout of the virus on board the ship it is conceivable that this would mean that the ship would not be permitted into port, which would therefore mean that the company’s asset — as in the ship — would not be making money for it. This is purely a business decision on behalf of Norwegian Cruise Line. (The argument for masks in schools—something DeSantis has also banned, and which is the object of lawsuits—is entirely different.)

And to think that DeSantis positions himself as being pro-business. As WUSF reported on February 7, 2021, in a story about the coronavirus impact on passenger cruise operations, “The Florida Ports Council, which continues to push for seaports to be included in federal pandemic relief efforts, has estimated that the economic impact of COVID-19 on the 15 ports in Florida has reached $22 billion, cutting $775 million in tax revenue and affecting 170,000 jobs.” Clearly an important business that DeSantis seems to be thumbing his nose at.

•••

Bi-Partisanship is Real – The Senate passed by voice vote the Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers for Veterans Therapy Act (PAWS) last Thursday, Roll Call reports. Once signed by President Biden, the pilot program will provide service dogs to military veterans with mental illness, not just those with mobility issues as is currently the program. The bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Steve Stivers, R-OH, and co-sponsored by 317 of his colleagues from both parties.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2021

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By David Iwinski

Does anyone really believe that the massive, $1.2-trillion infrastructure spending program that just passed with the help of 19 Republican senators will actually go into the construction of infrastructure projects that benefit all of America? This spending will be siphoned off into pork barrel projects that will accomplish absolutely nothing, and so the $3.5-trillion budget reconciliation “social infrastructure” bill that does not need any of those 19 Republican senators to pass will only add to the nation’s budget deficit pain. 

The only hope for Congressional Republicans may be the push-pull of progressive House Democrats who want even more from the proposal opposite Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, and Krysten Sinema of Arizona, who may still be swayed to vote against the fiscally profligate social infrastructure package.

Despite the possibility of swaying Manchin and Sinema, one practical reality of the balance between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate is that there is simply not much leverage on the Republican side, and many Republicans are fairly soft on the budget resolution, as made evident by the infrastructure bill vote. After a show of resistance, Republicans will be only too happy to cave in under the expectation that they can claim to their constituents that they brought home money for their district. Progressive Democrats most definitely want to add more “social infrastructure” spending to this bill, but these are the areas where they can expect the strongest resistance from Republicans throughout the conservative range. 

These social programs include such giveaways as a proposed $726 billion for health education labor and pensions, which will not necessarily improve a single line item, but will fund professionals who execute the programs. Another $332 billion of the budget framework would go to banking and to the Department of Housing & Urban Development, the latter of which has had a poor track record of developing viable and vibrant neighborhoods with affordable housing. 

The $198 billion for energy and natural resources – again, this is the initial blueprint, which will be amended, most likely upwards by the Democratic Party’s progressives -- will most certainly be wasted on various make-work projects, pie-in-the-sky theoretical save the earth projects and plain old-fashioned boondoggles. But as much as this proposed big spending is a hot-button for Republicans, they have an equal and opposite effect on progressives and far-left liberals, and given the strength of their convictions and current sway with the Democratic centrist establishment, they are not likely to relent or back off.

Searching for the Right answers to the big questions up for discussion in our civil political discourse? Tune in to The Hustings Week in Review Friday, August 13, on the new audio social media site Clubhouse. Enter our room beginning 5 p.m. Eastern time, to listen in or voice your opinion in our new discussion of the week’s news. Download the Clubhouse app at clubhouse.com or from your favorite app store, for free.

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Also in the Right Column

>Scroll down to read "Wary of Inconsistent Mask Rules," David Iwinski's right-column response to "Mask Mandate Redux: More Headwinds Approaching."

>>"The Broken System," Stephen Macaulay's response to the question of whether more IRS funding is needed to improve tax collection enforcement.

>>>"Texas Democrats Should Vote Against Bills they Oppose," Bryan Williams' commentary about lawmakers who fled the state to avoid a quorum for voting legislation.

>>>>Opinion from "negatives" on the recent Braver Angels debate resolution: "America is a Racist Nation."

As always, you are invited and encouraged to comment on these home page debates and on items from our daily News & Notes. Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news or click on the "comment" tab.

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By Michelle Naranjo 

When I bought my first home in Pennsylvania in late November 2019, I was still relatively new to the state. My domestic partner and I were still trying to find the lids to pots and pans when news of a deadly virus abroad crossed the radio waves. By the time we had finally established which direction the sofa should face in late January 2020, the possibility of hosting a housewarming party had grown dim, but I didn't mind because I didn't have any friends locally, and my partner was exhausted from traveling back and forth to New York City for his job. 

By June of 2020, the pandammit boredom had set into our domestication. His work in the City had gone away, and with little else to do we had started working on the house. An orange breadbox on Facebook Marketplace would look perfect on the slate-gray kitchen countertops I had craftily hand-painted to match the matte black sink and faucet procured in one of many online shopping excursions from before the shutdowns. 

That is how I met "Beth." She was selling things from her mother-in-law's estate, and, like me, her mother-in-law loved anything that came in orange. 

Beth is just a couple of years younger than me and lives just north of us in Carbon County. She is bright, funny, and as we discovered when we met masked in the parking lot of a discount store to exchange a hand sanitizer-wiped $20 bill for a bread box, we have a lot (mostly thrift store shopping) in common. That meeting came in a lull of the COVID-19 epidemic and was just a brief glimpse of blue sky before the infected and dying hockey stick graph began to surge. Our friendship grew the following year over text messages. While I didn't get to see her, I ventured to Carbon County twice to get both of my vaccinations. In early Spring 2021, while vaccine supplies ran low in my county, hospitals in the conservative coal counties were in surplus because no one wanted them. 

Almost 20 months since we moved in and with vaccinations widely distributed, my partner and I have planned a housewarming/joint-birthday party for mid-August. It seemed everyone we know is vaccinated, so we see more of my partner's friends. Beth and I even got to meet up at an estate sale in Carbon County. I was masked; she, like most people in Carbon County, was not, and joked that she could tell when people lived on the other side of the turnpike because we still wear masks in public. 

After confirming that she and her husband would be coming to the party, Beth dropped the information on me that, despite working as a bartender part-time in the evenings and cleaning at several AirBnB vacation homes in the touristy town of Jim Thorpe, she has yet to be vaccinated. Her mother had some side effects from her jabs, and she just isn't sure she wants to risk "it." 

I have childhood friends traveling into town for the event and expect every guest bed to be full. Everyone else invited over the age of 12 has been vaccinated. 

And that, dear reader, is the tale of why now I won't have any local friends from Pennsylvania at this party. 

While I know that any breakthrough COVID cases would not be severe on our vaccinated friends, I won't require everyone else to "mask up" in my home to protect one person who fears vaccination side-effects more than the coronavirus. This event is supposed to be casual and welcoming Beth is unreasonable for friends who are still wearing masks when out with the general public. 

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By Charles Dervarics

For a weary citizenry, renewed calls for indoor masking — even among vaccinated individuals — are already shaping up as a political battle among all-too-familiar fault lines, with most liberals supporting the idea and many conservatives opposed.

Calls for a mask mandate 2.0 have come from health experts and government leaders in response to the delta variant of COVID-19, which experts describe as a more potent and transmittable virus. While the greatest concern is for the unvaccinated, some communities are finding that even those with vaccine protection can get “breakthrough” infections and transmit the virus. That has raised the level of concern among health care experts, who see rising hospitalizations in some communities.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending indoor masking in areas with high infection rates and urging face coverings in K-12 schools this fall. The agency notes that vaccinated individuals can easily transmit the Delta strain, putting the unvaccinated, including children, at risk.

“This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.

While critics cite shifting and confusing guidance from the CDC, Walensky said the situation has changed since May when the agency stopped recommending masks in most settings for fully vaccinated individuals. “Delta is just a different kind of beast. It’s much more contagious.” she said in a CBS interview. 

But conservative critics including former President Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, strongly oppose the move, with Cruz labeling the mandate “absurd” given all the limits of the past 17 months. The partisan splits were evident on Capitol Hill, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi instituted a face covering policy strongly opposed by many House Republicans. 

The delta outbreak also is scrambling state and local politics. Cities such as Washington, D.C., Kansas City, Missouri, and New Orleans have instituted new masking policies, while the governors of Florida and Texas signed executive orders banning such requirements. In his order last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott prohibited mask mandates as well as COVID-19 vaccine requirements among government agencies and municipalities statewide. 

“No governmental entity, including a county, city, school district and public health authority, and no governmental official may require any person to wear a face-covering or to mandate that other person wear a covering," the executive order read.

Masking 2.0 also may meet limited enthusiasm among average Americans, including the vaccinated. Movie theaters are reporting increased business, Broadway theaters are preparing to re-open and concerts are ramping up as evidenced by the 100,000 who turned out in Chicago for Lollapalooza last weekend. Concert attendees had to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative test for COVID, but pictures from the event showed massive crowds and little masking.

However, one potential difference maker this time is how many employers have quickly joined in to re-evaluate mask requirements. Large companies such as Walmart, Kroger and Target are requiring masks for employees in hard-hit areas, and indoor mask requirements are back for visitors at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

Yet one issue for local leaders — and all Americans — is how to determine if your area is experiencing what the CDC considers a high rate of infection. 

The agency calls a community at high risk if it reports more than 50 new cases a week per 100,000 residents. This rate is still far below what many areas of the country experienced during the height of the pandemic. But with schools scheduled to reopen soon and health experts predicting further spikes due to the delta variant, a rapid and prolonged return to “normal” may still be months away.

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By David Iwinski

We hear constant, ominous rumblings from the Biden administration that we are about to be forced by the federal government into mandatory mask-wearing and possible lockdowns, because of the threat of COVID-19 and its delta variant. There are a great many factors that argue against this course of action by the federal government, let’s take a look at a few.

The scientific evidence for mask efficacy in preventing the spread of COVID is widely varied and even within the CDC and other senior officials, for the entirety of the last 18 months, we have heard wildly contradictory reports on whether masks actually do anything at all. What they do, however, is create a pervasive sense of fear, social isolation and a perception that day-to-day life is simply not safe.

We hear all the time this senseless blather about “two weeks to eradicate the risk” when we dang well know that it won’t happen because the last time, we heard that it had been well over a year and counting, with no end in sight. What evidence of any concrete validity should cause us to believe that another period of mass isolation will somehow eradicate the risk?

Numerous experts have said the size of the virus and the nature of the masks means that they will not stop the exhalation or inhalation of the coronavirus. Further, there is contradictory evidence that continual breathing of droplets normally aspirated might lead to respiratory disease, particularly in children. We should add to that the simple reality that many, many Americans are not going to wear the masks, no matter what.

I have seen the angry denunciations by hysterical people demanding utter compliance and that they will take matters into their own hands if they see people not wearing a mask. Of course, this is not going to work and only heightens the distance between those consumed with fear and those who simply want a little evidence that masks have even a minimal positive effect before they put them on their children and their own faces, indoor and outdoor, every single day.

Add to that the inevitable downturn in the economy and what that will mean to people’s ability to keep their homes, keep their savings and keep their livelihoods. There is emerging some clinical data that depression, social isolation and suicide are on the rise. Do we really need to push these trends even harder?

Some may say that these negatives can be offset by adding so-called “stimulus payments” but are we really so naïve to think that the trillions of dollars poured into the country -- often earmarked for expensive programs in a particular legislator’s district -- are never going to have to be repaid and that that debt will not be a burden on the country for decades, if not centuries? Have we really come to believe that we can get something for nothing?

No one is denying that COVID has dangers. Many things in life do. The problem with government enforced mask mandates is that they require acceptance of an enormous range of guaranteed negative effects including social isolation, depression, suicide, bankruptcy, loss of income and loss of homes as well as potentially other respiratory diseases, not to mention the massive disruption in the education process. We are all supposed to absorb these negative effects without question based on a premise that poorly designed, ill-fitting and ineffective masks will somehow prevent infection even after a significant percentage of the population are too fed up to ever wear them again. 

This is nonsense masquerading as government care. This is the erosion of civil liberties based on a dubious and unproven premise that government officials themselves have reversed dozens of times. It is the function of what government does best: Some highly visible and nonfunctioning action they take simply to convince people that they “care” and that they are “doing something” as a way to preserve high-paying jobs controlling our lives. Note how many officials demanding we mask-up rarely wear masks themselves when on camera. Former President Obama just cancelled his big 60^th birthday party on Martha’s Vineyard, but only after public outcry. 

If we continue to give in to this erosion of our civil liberties and our ability to exercise our own judgment, we will soon have no personal liberties left, and every action or thought will require government approval.  

Americans are not going to let that happen.

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By Craig Fahle

Americans spend a lot of time thinking about the concept of the rule of law. Our discussions about protests, violence, drugs, immigration and just about every other contentious issue typically center on the notion that people in the U.S. must abide by the law. Yet there is one area in which that dedication to the rule of law has a lot of wiggle room: our tax system. The late Senator Russell Long of Louisiana summed up the debate on taxes rather cleverly when he said “A tax loophole is something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.''  

Arguments about how much people should be taxed, what kinds of income should be taxed, and whether tax cuts “trickle down” to the average person have dominated our political debate since before the American Revolution. Nobody likes paying taxes. Yet everyone likely realizes that taxes are the backbone of a civil society.   

The question is, what to do when you don’t have enough tax revenue coming in to fund the things that make that civil society? 

In their annual report for 2021, The American Society of Civil Engineers found that the 10-year infrastructure investment gap between what we spend, and what we actually need to maintain our systems now stands at $2.6 trillion. That’s a lot of money. With the concept of raising tax rates pretty much dead, where does the money come from?  Here’s a concept … allow the Internal Revenue Service to do its job and collect the money that the U.S. Government is owed. This will take people and resources to accomplish.  

Naturally, the idea of investing more money into IRS enforcement and personnel doesn’t sit well with the anti-tax/small government conservatives. It also doesn’t thrill the wealthy or the corporations, who have found ways in recent years to pay virtually nothing in taxes, especially when compared to the revenue and profits they are generating. Finding ways to minimize taxes, or in some cases evade them, is seen almost as a game by many. They know the IRS is understaffed, and a typical 1040 doesn’t get the scrutiny and full analysis that it likely deserves. The current head of the IRS estimates that the country is losing about $1trillion per year due to lax enforcement. This financial bleed must stop. 

On the issue of gun violence, conservatives often make the argument that the U.S. doesn’t need any new gun laws, it simply needs to enforce the laws that are on the books. If they are intellectually honest, they would apply the same logic to our tax laws and fund the IRS to the level that makes them effective.  

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By Charles Dervarics

It’s hard to think of a policy idea with less public enthusiasm than giving the Internal Revenue Service more money to beef up tax enforcement. Like telling your kids to eat their vegetables or take out the trash, it’s a plea more likely to produce the dreaded stink eye than a hearty endorsement.

But maybe such conventional wisdom is wrong.

The issue of IRS tax enforcement was a flashpoint in President Biden’s plan for more federal spending. Advocates say it could help pay for a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan and other new spending by cracking down on wealthy Americans who don’t pay what they consider to be a fair share of their income in taxes, although bi-partisan negotiators ultimately cut a proposal to use better tax enforcement from the infrastructure bill making its way through the Senate before the August recess.

The idea behind better enforcement is not to conduct more audits but to help close the “tax gap,” or the amount of federal taxes owed but not paid. For most Americans, it’s easy for the government to track their income because they receive W-2 forms every year. But many of the nation’s wealthiest earn their incomes through other means not routinely collected by the IRS.

In a recent investigation, ProPublica found that the 25 wealthiest Americans paid only 3.4% of their income in taxes over a five-year period. By comparison, the average American paid a much higher rate—14%--of their income in taxes. The current IRS Commissioner, Chuck Rettig, says the government is not collecting about $1 trillion of federal taxes owed each year.

To address the problem, the administration would fund technology upgrades and give the IRS access to more income information. Biden also would increase staffing to reverse recent declines that occurred despite greater complexity in the U.S. tax code. The White House has said the provisions could yield at least $700 billion in new revenue over the next decade, enough to pay for several new government initiatives.

But the plan has met strong opposition from congressional Republicans who favor smaller government and have a deep distrust of the collection agency. For critics such as Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform president, the IRS is often a political agency that undermines conservative groups. During the Obama administration, the agency acknowledged it targeted groups for extra scrutiny if they used words such as “tea party” and “patriot,” and an acting IRS chief resigned as a result. 

“It’s wrong at every level,” Norquist said of the new IRS plan.

Although Republicans have beaten back attempts to add IRS provisions to the infrastructure bill, many Democrats are still looking to insert the plan into one of its new spending initiatives. Democrats also got a boost recently when three former IRS senior leaders–all serving Republican presidents—spoke out in favor of Biden’s plan.

In a Politico column, Charles Rossotti (Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations), Fred Forman (G.W. Bush administration) and Fred Goldberg (G.H.W. Bush administration) all endorsed the idea of more scrutiny for the richest taxpayers.

“The IRS expansion was based on a smart idea, which could also be good politics and serve the interests of both parties: Not more audits, but better technology and income tracking to catch wealthy cheaters,” the former leaders wrote.

They said one critical element of Biden’s plan is that banks and other financial institutions would have to report total inflows and total outflows from certain accounts, giving the IRS more information via 1099 forms on the earnings of wealthy Americans. This move, they noted, “will help taxpayers file more accurate returns and will enable the IRS to better determine where to look for scofflaws.” More IRS funding also may improve services for ordinary taxpayers, the three argued. 

For now on this topic, however, the ball remains on Congress’ court with no signs of bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill anytime soon.

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By Stephen Macaulay

I recently had the misfortune of calling an airline about a ticket. I had the “elite” number, meaning, so I supposed, that I would get quicker service. The digital system told me that I had the opportunity to leave my number and get a call back without “losing my place in line.”

When was the call projected to hit my phone? Three hours later. Fortunately, I was able to figure out how to get my question answered online.

Apparently, the Internal Revenue Service, which has lost staff (which makes it like almost every organization, be it a restaurant or an appliance manufacturing firm), has long phone wait times.

It is one thing to have to wait to find out about a trip to a pleasant place. It is entirely something else to have to call the IRS, which is best thought of in the context of calling an endodontist. Yes, you may have to do it, but you don’t like it.

So if the IRS is going to get more funding, shouldn’t it go toward adding phone service?  Certainly, billionaires and corporations are not going to be calling an 800 number to get tax questions answered. But regular folks will.

The Biden plan called for the hiring of 87,000 new IRS workers.

But it seemed that the objective was to hire, as they are colloquially called, “’Revenuers.’”

When they show up, it isn’t good for you. And odds are, you are not a billionaire.

One of the arguments that is raised vis-à-vis de facto legitimacy when it comes to the wealthy not paying in a manner that the 99% does is that the wealthy are the ones who actually invest their monies in ways that creates jobs. Warren Buffett may pay a lower rate than his secretary, but Warren Buffett creates more jobs than his secretary.

What doesn’t get the sort of attention that it should is that the tax code is so convoluted that those who can afford to hire Theseus-like tax experts to allow them to escape paying what they “should.”

Why not reform the tax code so that it is so transparent that regular folks won’t have to make phone calls and the wealthy won’t have the out of hiring the smart people who will allow them to dodge tax responsibility?

To be sure, that would be a heavy lift. And it would not happen quickly.

But let’s think about this for a moment. Hiring more people to chase down people and corporations that are making sophisticated swerves is to simply continue the existing system which is clearly deficient if it allows the underpayment of taxes to the extent that it does.

The Biden administration had projected that there could be as much as $700-billion captured over a decade.

An analogy: Almost every kitchen has two implements: a colander and a sieve.

When you have boiled pasta and need to drain the water, you pour it through a colander. The holes are large enough to let the water go through and the pasta to stay put. When you are sifting sugar, you use a sieve. The fine grains of the sugar go through while the lumps stay put.

Apparently, the existing system is like using a colander to sift sugar. How does that work out? … $70-billion a year?

So why not fix the tools? Why not make it easier for the regular taxpayer as well as for the one who would otherwise dodge: If the procedures are sufficiently transparent, then accountability will be fairly straightforward.

Let’s not be naïve. No one likes to pay taxes. The funny thing is that while no one, not even the rich, likes driving on a road rife with potholes the only way to fix the roads is through funds that are acquired only through taxes.

Does the IRS need more funding? Probably. When cryptocurrency takes hold of a bigger part of private wealth, things are going to get even trickier. In effect, the IRS is going to need a quantum computer, but they’ve got an old Dell running Windows 95.

Funding or not, the system needs to be simplified. The system needs to be fixed.

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By Craig Fahle

Last week, 56 Democrats serving in the Texas legislature bolted Austin for Washington, denying a quorum necessary to pass a package of bills aimed at changing voting rules in the state. It is at best a way to stall the bills and refocus public attention onto voter suppression efforts around the country, and to prod Democrats in the US Senate to eliminate the filibuster and pass meaningful updates to the voting rights act. It is likely doomed to fail, but the fight is just, and necessary.  

Targeted changes that potentially affect a specific group of voters used to be subject to federal judicial review but has pretty much been wiped out by the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder and its 2021 decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. Both decisions negated major parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Republican controlled legislatures around the country have been nibbling at the edges of these bills for years … now, it is a feeding frenzy.  

Why now? Because Trump’s “big lie” about the election somehow being stolen gave these legislatures the excuse they needed to pass bills they didn’t have the guts to try before. Despite any evidence of widespread fraud, and a jaw-droppingly poor performance in trying to adjudicate the “big lie”, legislators can now with a straight face claim that people’s faith in our electoral system is at risk. 

“Election integrity” is the cover Republicans have been looking for to go back to the days of voter repression. It is not a coincidence that dozens of states have passed or are considering bills that place new restrictions on voting, including reducing access to mail in and absentee ballots, reduction in the number of polling places, reducing drop box locations, reducing early voting hours and locations, and tougher ID requirements. In many states, they have the votes to do it, and the courts have decided that they have no role in ensuring that voting is fair and equitable.   

What is the proper response from Democrats? How does one fight for something as fundamental as the right to vote without impediments that are rooted in a bad faith argument? Leaving the state to prevent a quorum seems extreme, but this is exactly what their voters want them to do: Fight the good fight as hard as they can, and as long as they can. Denying a quorum is the state legislative equivalent of a hail Mary pass: there is a slim chance of success, but it shows that you won’t back down. Unlike the minority in the U.S. Senate, who can gum up the works behind the allegedly sacred cloak of the filibuster, state legislators are limited in the tools they possess. 

Republicans and Democrats alike have used this tactic recently. It rarely works. Symbolically, though, it matters. Democratic voters have argued for years that their party needs to fight as hard, and as dirty as they believe the Republicans do for the things they want. If Democrats give up now, they run the risk of alienating their own, which will do more to crush them in the midterms than anything the Republicans and their sudden feigned interest in “voter integrity” ever could.  

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By Todd Lassa

Democratic state lawmakers must return to Texas from Washington, D.C., sooner or later and face Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s threat to have them arrested. Abbott promises to extend special sessions of the Texas legislature in order to force a vote. 

The Democrats’ swift departure to avoid a quorum for a special session of the bi-cameral state legislature drew added attention to the U.S. Congress’ For the People Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which will require Democrats in the US Senate to end the legislative filibuster too late to help pass them. 

Like Georgia’s new voting laws, the Texas proposals – SB 1 in the Senate and HB 3 in the House of Representatives – are high-profile for acceding to former President Trump’s untrue claim that Electoral College votes in these states were “stolen” from him in last November’s election. But the states also have encouragement from the eight-year-old Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which essentially removed Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and this year’s decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, which guts its Section 2.

According to The Texas Tribune, Republican state lawmakers see SB1 and HB3 as “starting points” for a new electoral bill to which the 67 (of 200) Democratic state representatives could contribute, if only they would come home. 

The two bills’ key provisions:

•Require a monthly review of the state’s massive voter rolls (Texas’ total population is 29 million) to identify possible non-citizens and prevent them from voting.

•Ban drive-through voting (which Harris County offered in 2020).

•Impose new regulations for early voting hours.

•Ban 24-hour voting (another Harris County initiative). 

•HB 3 requires a maximum election day window of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., while SB1 proposes 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

•Both bills add an extra hour of required early voting hours for local elections, for a nine-hour window.

•Lowers the population threshold for counties required to provide at least 12 hours early voting. Currently, counties with population of at least 100,000 are required to provide early voting; SB1 would require the early voting standard for counties of at least 30,000 population, while HR3 would require the standard for counties of at least 55,000.

•Both bills would add one weekend hour of voting, to require six hours of weekend voting. The state Senate and House have retreated from proposed restrictions on Sunday voting, known as “souls to the polls,” at Black-majority churches.

•A ban on unsolicited distribution of mail-in ballots – the House version would make it a state felony subject to a jail term, and both HB3 and S1 would prohibit state funds to “facilitate” unsolicited distribution of applications by third parties. These proposals are a direct response to Harris County’s attempt to “proactively” send mail-in apps to all of its 2.4 million registered voters last year, the Tribune reports.

•New ID rules that would require voters to provide their driver’s license numbers, or if they don’t have one, social security numbers, on ballot applications, with matching information on the return envelopes for their ballots. 

•New correction process for ballots normally rejected because of a missing signature or an endorsement a local review board determines does not belong to the voter who returned the ballot (this appears to be a concession to Democrats, the Tribunenotes).

•Monthly citizenship checks of the state’s voter rolls to identify non-citizens, requiring the Texas secretary of state’s office to compare the statewide voter registration list with data from the Department of Public Safety to pinpoint individuals who told the department they were not citizens when they obtained or renewed their driver’s license or ID card.

•The “Crystal Mason provision” in HB 3 would require judges to inform potential voters if a conviction prohibits an individual from voting and would require proof beyond a provisional ballot for an attempt to cast an illegal vote to count as a crime. Crystal Mason was on supervised release for a federal conviction when she cast a provisional ballot in 2016 and said she did not know her conviction made her ineligible to vote. This is another apparent concession to Democrats.

•Language to strengthen the autonomy of partisan poll watchers by granting “free movement” within a polling place, except for being present at a voting station when a voter is filling out his or her ballot. Both HB3 and S1 would make it a criminal offense to obstruct their view or distance the observer “in manner that would make observation not reasonably effective.”

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By Bryan Williams

Legislators walking out of their duty is no new thing. It has happened before in Oregon (where it was the GOP who walked out in order to stymy legislative work), and Republicans in the California legislature have pulled similar stunts earlier in this century. Is it effective? No. It’s a stunt that doesn’t make any positive point. As the old saying goes, “90% of completing anything is just showing up.”

When I worked in the California Assembly earlier in this century, the GOP still had sway within state government. Republicans in the California Senate blocked passage of a budget for nearly three months. During that time, already underpaid legislative staff (me included) didn’t get paid, along with millions of others across the state, all to make a point about not raising taxes. But in California, taxes will be raised one way or another, “whether you like it or not,” as our current governor, Gavin Newsom, has said about another issue (gay marriage) that a minority in California opposed.

Republican proponents of the Texas legislation note that the net effect of the state law that Democrats are trying to kill would extend voting hours, not constrict them. As the center column outlines, an extra hour of early voting would expand the poll window to nine hours, an extra hour of voting would be added to weekends, and the early voting minimum of 12 hours would be required for counties with fewer than 100,000 population; to either 55,000 (state House bill) or to counties with just 30,000 population (state Senate bill). 

Even as Democrats walk out on this, they retain their salaries and perks. What’s so hard about voting yes or no on something? There is more to be said about going on record and voting up or down on a bill than by walking out.

Since their exodus nearly two decades ago, California Republicans have become a much smaller, less effective presence in the state legislature than Democrats in Texas, with only 19 seats out of 80 in the Assembly (they had 32 in 2010) and a pathetic nine of 40 seats in the state Senate. Texas Democrats are in much-better shape, with 13 of its 31state senators and 67 – the members who flew off to Washington – of 150 in the bi-cameral legislature’s House of Representatives. 

If I were a Texas Democrat, I would vote “yes” for legislation that would expand voting hours and clarify when and where the polls are open. Just as with the much-maligned Georgia law, the Texas proposals seem common sense to me. We should also expect state and local governments to cull their ballot rolls regularly. In 2021, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out if someone has tried to vote more than once, or for that matter hasn’t voted since 1994 – who may be dead voters, or maybe just recalcitrant Texas Democrats.

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Comments by affirmative debaters in the July 15 Braver Angels national debate:

“It does a disservice to the depth of experiences [by the nation’s numerous groups and tribes] that racism is not one one of the things that has to be overcome.”

--Luke Nathan Phillips

“One of the things I’d have to agree with is America is changing.” …

[Question: Who is America’s first black president?]

“Technically, Barack Obama’s mother was not black. (Thus) he was white. … But one drop of blood in the South [before the Civil Rights Act] protected [white] property rights.”

--Russell Ballew

“I absolutely believe you can love your country and love your heritage and believe America is racist, just as you can love your family if they’re racist. There can be no reasonable argument that America was not a racist nation to at least the late 1960s. … The burden of proof is on everybody who believes things are different now.”

--Silas Kulkarni

“Is America a racist nation? My answer is ‘yes,’ and our story is not finished. … But unfortunately, race continues to be part of legislation [restrictive voting bills in Georgia, Texas, etc.] … The legacy of racism, while it is less overt than in the past, continues to be real … Indifference to the plight of others contributes to racial indifference [rather than] racial justice. …”

--Bruce MacKenzie

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By Todd Lassa

If there is a more provocative debate topic than “Resolved: America is a racist nation,” it has yet to be written down. When liberal and conservative members of Braver Angels tackled the resolution in a national debate Thursday evening, they generally dug to the core of the issue, citing both American and personal history, with far less concentration than usual on current events. There was much more nuance than one might expect from this resolution.

Braver Angels debates are not held to declare a “winner” or to convince liberals or conservatives to switch sides. In fact, while the “affirmative” side of the resolution, that America is a racist nation, is generally associated with a left-side point of view, the first debater to speak on this side was Luke Nathan Phillips, a self-described conservative and Braver Angels staffer. As the first affirmative debater, he “urged fellow conservatives to take [the issue] more seriously.”

“Over the course of our history, it has [become] an even bigger deal than people make of it,” Phillips said.

Conversely, the debate’s third speaker in the negative, arguing that America is not a racist nation, was another Braver Angel staff member, Monica Guzman, who usually identifies as a liberal. 

“To me this is not just about a story, this is about a headline,” Guzman said. When I look at the resolution, (asking) ‘Is America a racist nation?’ I’m looking at a headline.”

While Guzman has “deep concerns about how seriously people are taking the racism that has (permeated) American society,” she believes the goal in raising the issue is progress against such racism.

In the end, affirmative and negative Braver Angels debaters almost rendered the resolution moot. Both sides seem to agree that the people of the United States have by a plurality always strived to reach for the ideals that our Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution, even if most of those Founding Fathers owned enslaved men and women. They agree that the American experiment is a work-in-progress, and affirmatives and negatives alike believe we have come a long way since the Civil War, since Reconstruction and resulting Jim Crow, and since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

If you are at all interested in this debate topic – and why wouldn’t you be? – please watch the debate on Braver Angels’ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtlZ4t6aS4rAJoPyYD9DGLA

Meanwhile, read the left column for a few select comments by affirmative debaters, and the right column for select comments by negative debaters on the subject of racism in America.

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Comments by negative debaters in the July 15 Braver Angels national debate:

“A lot of this discussion is a semantic one … [Citing a Pew Charitable Foundation study that 8% of Americans of all races and ethnicities are ‘bigots’:] “Lots of people are bigots because a lot of people are jerks and jackasses. But that doesn’t mean America is a racist nation.”

--Prof. Wilfred Reilly, Kentucky State University, and author, Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War

“The country has changed greatly. My kids have changed the country … [Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, who made many incendiary speeches about American racism] “spoke as if America is static. Racism is still present in this country, and every country in the world. I am a proud conservative, but I agree with Presidents Obama and Clinton when they say there is nothing wrong about America that cannot be cured by what’s right with America.”

--Steve Saltwick

“If we define ourselves by the worst thing we have done, we reduce our ability to rise above them. … America as a racist nation can be part of our story of redemption. … If America is a racist nation is argued as a headline, I’m afraid it will do us in.”

--Monica Guzman

“America is much more than can be contained in a single word. … Just because we are pluralistic does not mean we cannot be united. … America, my friend, cannot be a racist nation, because the natural condition of human equality can never be racist.”

--Christian Watson, Spokesman, Color Us United

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