Tag Archives: infrastructure

national news

Compromise fuels good government

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The older I get the more I believe in compromise and the less weight I place on the value of long-standing ideology.

Which is my way of suggesting that the haggling that’s occurring over (a) voting rights legislation and (b) infrastructure legislation is a sign of good government trying to find its way into law.

Congress is wrestling with itself over both of those notions. Republicans seem wedded to the “just say ‘no'” theory of government. Anything that comes from the Democratic president, Joseph R. Biden, is deemed DOA the moment it leaves his mouth.

Biden has long prided himself on being able to work with the GOP. He did so with great effect while serving for 36 years as a U.S. senator and then as eight years as vice president. Now, though, he is deemed the enemy of the GOP, even among his once-good friends … such as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Mitch McConnell. Oh well.

He threw a $2.25 trillion infrastructure package at the GOP. He apparently is willing to settle for a lot less than that. Still, most of the Rs ain’t budging. At least not yet.

As for voting rights, the GOP now has taken up the “states’ rights” mantra, contending that the feds shouldn’t interfere with states’ ability to write their own voting rules. Except that the Republican-led states, such as Texas, are seeking to disenfranchise millions of Americans who, as luck would have it, happen to vote mostly Democrat when they get the chance.

The GOP’s other mantra? Voter security, as if there was a huge breach in that security in the 2020 presidential election. Spoiler alert: There wasn’t any such breach!

But the two sides are slogging through an effort to find some level of compromise.

I am a good-government progressive. I am not wedded so much these days to ideology as I am to seeing government work. I want my federal government to work, to serve me and my family; we are paying the freight, along with you.

Stay busy, ladies and gentlemen who serve in government. We demand you find a way to compromise. Or else!

national news

Go it alone, Mr. President

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If you put a gun to my noggin and forced me to make a prediction, I am likely to say that President Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress are on their own if they want to enact an infrastructure improvement package.

Biden is trying like the dickens to get Republicans to sign on. He is coming up empty.

The president has pitched a $2.25 trillion package. Republicans want to spend a lot less. Biden wants it to include job creation, climate change remedies and assistance to families. The GOP wants more emphasis on roads, bridges, airports, seaports.

They remain far apart.

Biden has been meeting with GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. They remain deadlocked.

Oh, what to do. I guess it well might fall on President Biden and Democrats in both congressional chambers to go it alone. Hey, they did it already with the COVID stimulus/relief package that Republicans resisted, only to then take credit for some of the programs it helped salvage.

Ayeee. It’s frustrating for those of us who want to see government work. We watch the president and congressional Democrats seeking to put government to work for us instead of against us. Then we watch Republicans dig in, resisting this and that, claiming that Democrats are playing “politics” with things such as, oh, the Jan. 6 commission that would find answers and solutions to the horrifying insurrection.

It occurs to me that Biden well might have offered a high-end proposal infrastructure knowing that Republicans would low-ball a counter-offer. Could it be that President Biden is aiming toward something in the middle, which is where he intended for this discussion to go?

That’s how you negotiate. If not, then I hope he and Democrats are ready to take off without their GOP friends.

business news

Bipartisan solution still MIA

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden had the congressional Republican caucus in his hands … then he lost them.

Or has he?

Biden has this massive infrastructure package on the table. He is seeking some Republican buy-in.

The president talks a good game. He wants his GOP pals to join him and his fellow Democrats to join in the effort to fix roads, bridges and ports while also protecting families.

I had high hopes he could persuade what’s left of the GOP moderate mini-caucus to sign on. Those hopes are fading with the likes of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine suggesting that Republicans aren’t likely to spend so much money.

President Biden has a lot of experience working across the aisle with Republicans. He contends he has many friends on the other side; they speak kindly of him, too. Those Republicans, though, face pressure of another kind. They do not want to offend the still-significant number of their constituents who remain wedded to the Big Lie promoted by Donald J. Trump … you know the one about the “theft” of the 2020 election by voters who cast illegal ballots. Well, they didn’t steal anything. The only theft I can see is the pilfering of politicians’ honor and integrity.

It is carrying over into President Biden’s desire to achieve something close to a bipartisan solution to this infrastructure package.

I won’t give up hope that the president can deploy his vast knowledge of the political system to benefit millions of Americans who desire to see government work for them.

national news

Why not help families?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone will have to explain to me in simple terms just why the Republican caucus in Congress is so adamant in opposing the family portion of President Biden’s infrastructure relief package.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has declared that the acceptable price tag for an infrastructure bill has increased to $800 billion, which is up from the $568 billion price tag proposed initially by the GOP.  But he wants any legislation to focus on roads, bridges, rail lines … you know, the “traditional” infrastructure items.

McConnell ups acceptable price tag for infrastructure package (msn.com)

Biden wants to expand the definition of infrastructure to include benefits for families. Providing health care. Waiving the cost of attending community college. Raising the minimum wage.

Why is that such a terrible thing in the eyes of Republicans?

Surely they cannot believe that the government has no role to play here. Or can they?

Biden is set to meet with congressional leaders on Wednesday. It’ll be a bipartisan affair. The president will get to employ his formidable negotiating skills and perhaps parlay his relationships with the likes of McConnell into some form of compromise.

He needs to start with putting the GOP leadership on the record about whether they want to help families. Or do they want to kick them aside in favor of fixing potholes?

I happen to believe we need to go bigger rather than smaller.

national news

Entering a dark era

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It pains me to think this, let alone say it out loud.

We have entered a dark, foreboding era where demagoguery and cultism are replacing serious policy discussion.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has replaced the most corrupt, inept, unfit, unqualified individual ever to hold the office of U.S. president. And yet the men and women who would follow Donald J. Trump to the gates of hell have, seemingly, done that very thing.

They are standing as obstructionists to a constructive agenda that President Biden seeks to craft for the nation. What’s even more frightening is that many of the Trumpsters are hiding behind the Big Lie that says the November 2020 election was pilfered from their guy. Thus, they demagogue themselves breathless, implying that Joe Biden isn’t a legitimate president.

Biden says he is willing to compromise with Republicans on the grand infrastructure package he has laid out there. It’s big, man. The GOP leadership in Congress has countered with a significantly smaller package. To be fair, it also represent a significant investment. Biden’s plan starts at $2.2 trillion; the GOP plan starts at $568 billion. President Biden says he is willing and ready to talk to Republicans about finding common ground.

Is the Republican congressional leadership listening to him? Not outwardly. They contend that Biden’s plan is a non-starter. They won’t raise taxes on rich people who saw their tax burden lightened in the 2017 GOP-led tax bill that Trump signed into law.

You want demagoguery? How about the nonsense the GOP keeps spouting about Biden’s “open border policy”? The border isn’t open. We are rounding up undocumented immigrants every hour of every day. Our immigration cops are holding them, trying to process them through a broken immigration system … that Joe Biden inherited.

From my perch out here the loyal opposition doesn’t look all that loyal in that it seems reluctant to negotiate in good faith with a president who seeks to employ those legendary legislative skills built over a professional lifetime in public service.

This is a dark time, folks. So help me I thought I saw flashes of light the day the nation turned Donald Trump out of office.

It must have been an oncoming freight train.

Am I giving up on the new president? Nope. Won’t happen. I intend to keep pushing, pitching and promoting a constructive agenda whenever the moment suits me.

At this moment, it suits me just fine.

economic news

POTUS: Someone has to pay for what we need

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden’s many decades in government taught him a hard lesson, which is that everything the government does comes with a cost.

Taxpayers have to foot the bill.

He pushed a COVID relief package through Congress. He now wants to enact an infrastructure overhaul through the legislative body. Both of them together are projected at around $4 trillion.

Ouch … yes? Yes, but here’s the deal: In order to pay for all this, the president seeks to levy taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Now he is talking about an increase in capital gains taxes.

Donald Trump talked about infrastructure deals, too. Nothing happened. Congress didn’t move anything through. The president never articulated a way to pay for whatever it was he wanted done. He seemed to suggest that the tax cuts he rammed through Congress would jumpstart the economy sufficiently so that any major government project would pay for itself.

It didn’t happen. Then the pandemic brought the economy to its knees.

Trump lost his re-election bid and now a new president is trying to craft a workable plan to pay for a massive effort to rebuild our economy.

The tax plan already pushed out there will not increase taxes to a level prior to the cut enacted during the Trump years. It still gives congressional Republicans fits, so they’ll fit it along with everything else that the Democratic president proposes.

Reasonableness be damned!

national news

Arguing over ‘infrastructure’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So, now President Biden and his Republican “friends” in Congress are arguing over how to define “infrastructure.”

Their disagreement means that GOP members of Congress will oppose what Biden wants to do with $2.25 trillion he is proposing as an “infrastructure” package he wants approved by the Fourth of July.

The GOP defines the terms in the traditional manner: roads, bridges, rail lines, airports, seaports. President Biden considers job creation and the care and well being of Americans as part of an infrastructure plan.

Hmm. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who wins the day?

I am going to go with President Biden’s world view.

He wants to pull back some of the corporate tax reduction Congress enacted in 2017. That tax would help pay for the proposal. Republicans don’t want to betray those corporations by forcing them to pay part of the freight.

We are at a stalemate.

Republicans also contend that too little of what Biden wants is going toward those traditional infrastructure needs. They want it scaled back in a big way. President Biden isn’t having any of that.

The package does contain hundreds of billions of dollars for highways, bridges, airport and seaport renovation. It also enhances Internet broadband capability. It also invests in green energy development. Along the way, it intends to put millions of Americans to work.

Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. It’s a good thing that needs to become law. First, though, we need to get past this disagreement over what constitutes “infrastructure.”

national news

POTUS ready to ‘negotiate’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden says, to borrow a phrase, that “doing nothing is not an option” with regard to improving our nation’s infrastructure.

However, he has stated his willingness to negotiate with members of Congress over the scope of the tax increases he will insist on to pay for the $2.25 trillion package.

The way I read it is that Biden isn’t casting the proposed 28 percent corporate tax rate in stone. Or, if he is, the president is willing to work with the numbers while the stone is hardening.

He said he is tired of middle Americans getting “fleeced” by a tax structure that gives rich Americans too much of a break while foisting the tax burden on the not so wealthy. He accused Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump of doing that when they approved the 2017 tax cut over the objection of Democrats in the House and Senate. Biden is prepared to play the same partisan game to get his infrastructure plan enacted.

However, he is willing to wiggle around a little on the tax burden he insists must be borne by those who can afford it.

I am OK with that. Just get something done to fix our roads, bridges, airports, seaports and Internet.

national news

Bipartisanship? It’s toast!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This pearl of wisdom came from a noted progressive commentator,  the brilliant Rachel Maddow.

She writes: Now that Mitch McConnell has made clear that no Republican will vote for the infrastructure bill, there is now no reason for Democrats to waste time trying to do the ultimately futile thing they might otherwise do of trying to make Republicans happy while compromising the bill, all in the hopes of picking up a few Republican votes.

The grown-ups can now work among themselves to craft a better bill.

Maddow is host of a show on MSNBC. She acknowledges per progressive political credentials. That all said, I am afraid she has spoken a brutal truth about President Biden’s search for unity and bipartisanship in our federal government.

Biden wants to enact a $2.25 trillion infrastructure package. He won’t get any Republican support for a project that in an earlier, more perfect, time would have transcended partisan political concerns.

This one won’t get there.

What, then, is the Democratic president to do? President Biden is left to deploy his partisan pals in both congressional chambers. They will get some version of the infrastructure package approved.

I wish them well. I want the bill to become law. We need to build things again. We need to put people back to work. If congressional Republicans don’t want to sign on to this monumental legislation, well … so be it.

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, media news, medical news, national news

Polling data: What does it say?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Public opinion polling has been vilified over the course of recent election cycles, frankly for reasons that astound me.

Major public opinion polls actually had the 2016 presidential election called correctly when they had Hillary Clinton edging Donald Trump; they didn’t foresee the so-called “inside straight” that propelled Trump into the presidency on the basis of his narrow Electoral College victory.

They also called the 2020 presidential election correctly, giving Joe Biden a victory in both the ballot count and the Electoral College.

Still, the critics keep lambasting those polls.

Here we are today. President Biden pitched a massive COVID-19 relief bill that had significant public support. He got it enacted over the objection of every single Republican member of Congress … in both chambers!

Biden is back at it. He now has an even larger package on the table, a $2.25 trillion infrastructure reform package. The public response? Even greater than it was with the COVID relief package. The congressional Republican reaction? Precisely the same as the GOP resistance to lending a hand to those suffering from the economic wreckage brought by the pandemic.

Who, again, is on the right side?

It is looking to me as though the Republican congressional leadership and rank-and-file are not listening to the individuals they represent. They are ignoring the wishes of those who put them into office. The public favors rebuilding our roads, highways, bridges, ports (sea and air) and in buttressing our Internet broadband capability.

What’s going on here? Is the GOP political class listening exclusively to a narrow portion of its constituency? I am left to wonder if congressional Republicans will pay a political price when the midterm election rolls around next year.

They damn near should pay it!

Public opinion polling isn’t a perfect barometer of the national mood. However, it is far more accurate than its critics are wiling to admit. The GOP needs to pay attention.