One of the all-time great scenes in movie history is the infamous speech by a sales executive that was given to a beleaguered sales team in the film “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
In it, the sales executive, played by Alec Baldwin, unleashes a profanity-filled (and over-the-top) rant-speech that includes a slogan – A.B.C. This stands for Always Be Closing, and that’s what the Democrats need to do if/when they pass the reconciliation bill.
Many in the DC media are going to highlight what’s not in the bill and was cut, just like they didn’t really mention in the last few months what’s in the original bill and instead focused on THREE POINT FIVE TRILLION. The goal, it seems, is to portray “Democrats in Disarray” at all times. Therefore, it’s going to be a difficult lift to sell it, but Democratic politicians need to trumpet all the goodies as coming from them.
Yes, the entire original reconciliation bill would have been better, but there’s plenty of good stuff in the trimmed-down version. For families, there’s university pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, and that would expand access to 6 million children a year. In addition, the outlandish cost of child care for kids younger than 6 would be limited to no more than 7% of those earning up to 250% of state median income. There’s also the extension of the child tax credit through 2022 and it would be made permanent for the lowest-income families.
The home health care portion aims to not just improve Medicaid coverage for home care services for seniors and disabled persons, but also improve the job quality for those providing the caregiving. It also would extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced federal premium subsidies through 2025, greatly helping moderate-income Americans.
The climate change portion of the bill is substantial, with $555 billion in tax credits and investments focused on combating climate change. There is a vision of 300,000 new jobs created by a Civilian Climate Corps, a new version of the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps. This is a big win for the Sunrise Movement, which has advocated for such a program.
There’s other stuff in there around improving our immigration system, child nutrition, and affordable housing. Overall, it’s a big switch from the days of Democrats trying to out-Reagen their Republican counterparts back in the 1990s.
None of this is a done deal. Homespun Tool of the Elite Joe Manchin has been doing a great impersonation of a 1990s conservative talk show host by immediately claiming the paid leave program would result in people inventing fake babies. Look, Joe, we get it. People like yourself deeply, deeply despise people who make much less money than you do, so you invent things that aren’t true.
If we can indeed get Joe Coal and his partner in crime, Pharmaceutical Company Shill Krysten Sinema on board, this would be a transformational bill. But if it passes, Dems have to toot their own horn about it, long and loud. We’ll have to overcome mediocre elements in our media, but we can’t be shy about letting people know who brought them the good stuff. The 2022 midterms, and likely the 2024 presidential election, depend on it.
The last word goes to The Old Crow Medicine Show, who speak for all normal Americans who want The Good Stuff.