The verdict for this episode is: Joe Manchin is worth all 100 progressives.

Rough Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Jonathan’s Verdicts. I’m Jonathan Simeone.

The title of this episode is: Congressional Progressives are Useless.
The verdict for this episode :is Joe Manchin is worth all 100 congressional progressives.

As always, I don’t edit these podcast episodes, and I don’t have a script. They are just a chance for me to talk about whatever is on my mind.

I decided to record this episode after reading about the latest iteration of the build back agenda plan that Biden has put forth.
And the reason I want to record this is
it shows us how useless congressional progressives really are.

There are 100 or so people in the House who come to the Progressive Caucus, who say they are progressives and we know there are a few in the Senate, who also say they are progressives.
And none of these people accomplish very much.
And as a collective, they accomplish way less than Joe Manchin and Kiersten Sinema.

I want to give some examples.
When progressives first started talking about their goals for this Congress, they had a $10 trillion package.
Then it went down to 6 trillion.
Then with Biden they had a 3.5 trillion dollar package.
Now, reports are the final cost will be somewhere around $1.75 trillion.
That cost is over 10 years, and it is divided between priorities like climate change, family medical leave, health insurance, and all kinds of things that benefit most, if not all Americans.

But I want to put the cost in comparison. Recently, the Congress adopted a one year defense budget of $778 billion.
That means that since the Pentagon gets an increase basically every year Over the next 10 years we will be spending roughly $8 trillion dollars on the Pentagon.

If this bill passes,
we will be spending 1.75 trillion over 10 years on all of these things from climate change, to family medical leave, to health care, prescription drug coverage, all of these things.

And we will be spending less than a quarter on all of those things
than we will be spending on bombs, missiles, and killing people.
Less than a quarter.

So the priorities of this country are totally screwed up.

But here’s the point.
The point is we have come from 10 trillion to 3.5 trillion to 1.75 trillion, because the progressives in Congress are useless.

Biden did a town hall last night and acknowledged that the original 12 weeks of family medical leave would be cut to four.
There’s another report that says that won’t even begin until 2024.
The child tax credit the democrats gave themselves so much credit for, they were lifting half the children out of poverty and all that will be extended by one year in this bill.
According to the report, one year.
And we went, during the campaign, from
some people saying we
‘ll forgive all of your student loan debt.
Some people were saying $50,000.
Some people were saying $10,000.
Some people were saying free college. Some were saying free community college. Now, we’re getting a few more Pell Grants.

A few more Pell Grants. Why, because Manchin and Sinema don’t want to pay for these programs.

Bernie Sanders went on and on about, we’re gonna get
dental and vision coverage into Medicare.
Know they’re not

.

When Biden told us during the campaign that we couldn’t have Medicare for All, he said we’re going to have a public option.
No we’re not.

Then they talked about maybe we’re going to lower the Medicare age to 60 or 55.
No they’re not.

all of this stuff has come out of the bill entirely or has been dramatically reduced because Manchin and Sinema insist on it.

How do they insist on it? They insist on it because they say we won’t vote for the bill unless you take all of these things that help the American people out of the bill.

And what do the progressives say? The progressives say we’ll vote for anything. Just give us anything. It doesn’t even have to be close to what we started out asking for. We’ll vote for anything.

That’s the difference.
What would happen if Bernie Sanders, or AOC said, I’m not voting for this unless it has x?
What if Bernie said I’m not voting for this unless Medicare covers
hearing, vision, and dental? What would happen?
We’re probably never going to find out.

The so-called progressives don’t fight. They don’t really represent us in much more than talk.

Biden was saying last night that this bill is bigger than the Affordable Care Act. Now, who cares whether it is or it isn’t. But the point is they’re going to sell this as this amazing transformational bill.
And the bill sucks.

It’s so much less than it could have been, or should have been.
And even if this so called transformational bill passes, the things that it gives us are going to be far less than the citizens of dozens of other countries have taken for granted
for decades.
Wee got here because we have a couple of immoral, corrupt politicians, like Manchin and Sinema, who have essentially veto power over the country’s legislative process.
And because we have so-called progressives, 100 of them or more, who refuse to exercise the same strength, who refuse to say no we are not going to compromise this much. We won’t do this, people really need
hearing, dental, and vision coverage in Medicare. It’s immoral that senior citizens can’t go to the dentist.
You know what? It is. It is immoral that senior citizens can’t go to the dentist.
And it has continued, and it will continue because no one cares enough to really fight for it.

the first hearing in the Senate to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices took place in 1989–1989. Thirty-two years later, we still can’t get that done.

Why can’t we get that done? Because over the last six years, Sinema has taken $400,000 in campaign donations from the pharmaceutical industry.
And because three people in the House
are all taking huge amounts of money from the pharmaceutical industry.

Even the people who say they represent us and they fight for what we need, don’t fight.

So, unfortunately, Congressional progressives are useless.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Jonathan’s Verdicts.

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