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Rick Plant:
University of Florida backs down -- and now will let professors testify against DeSantis administration



Professors at the University of Florida will now be able to testify against Gov. Ron DeSantis's administration after having been previously been blocked by their employer from doing so.

The Washington Post reports that the University of Florida backed down on Friday and "should not be barred from testifying in a voting rights lawsuit against" DeSantis's administration.

The initial decision to block the three political science professors from testifying drew an uproar from both faculty and alumni, who accused the university of bowing to political pressure and of suppressing their professors' freedom of speech.

Kenneth Nunn, a law professor at the university, welcomed the school's reversal and said that "it's great that the president saw the university's reputation was being damaged by their unfortunate decision to restrict those three faculty members from testifying in their case."

The professors will now be testifying in a lawsuit against a Florida law passed earlier this year that places new restrictions on mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes.

https://www.rawstory.com/university-of-florida-desantis/

Rick Plant:
House passes $555 billion infrastructure bill, sends legislation to Biden's desk: The 228-206 vote hands Biden a bipartisan legislative victory

The House passed a $555 billion infrastructure bill on Friday night, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden who is expected to quickly sign the measure into law.

The funding package, which passed 228 to 206 and relied on Republican votes to get across the finish line, will ramp up government spending on roads, bridges and airports, as well as funding for public transit, water and broadband.

Six Democrats voted against the measure and 13 Republicans voted in favor. The Democratic opposition was progressive members who were unhappy that the bill was being voted on before passage of a $1.75 trillion social safety net spending bill.

The vote hands Biden a victory on a major bipartisan bill, but one that took months to get through Congress and revealed deep divisions in the Democratic Party. The Senate approved the bill in August before it stalled for months as House progressives clashed with Democratic centrists on a $1.75 trillion social safety net measure that could get a vote later this month.

Earlier on Friday, Biden put new pressure on House Democrats to pass both the infrastructure package and the social policy measure, also known as the Build Back Better bill.

“I'm asking every member of the House of Representatives to vote yes on both these bills right now,” Biden said during remarks from the White House. “Send the infrastructure bill to my desk, send the Build Back Better bill to the Senate. Let's build on incredible economic progress, build on what we've already done because this will be such a boost when it occurs.”

House leadership later decided to push back the vote on the safety net bill due to several moderates insisting on first seeing a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of the legislation to ensure the bill is fully paid for. Democrats cannot afford to lose more than a handful defections given their narrow majority in the House.

Progressives, however, wanted the infrastructure package to be linked to the social spending plan out of concern that passing infrastructure first would weaken their leverage in shaping and advancing the Build Back Better bill.

Democrats are now aiming to vote on the safety net bill before Thanksgiving. House passage would send the legislation to the Senate, where it will need the support of all 50 Democrats to find its way to Biden's desk.

On the House floor, shortly before the vote, Pelosi called both bills as “historic,” saying they will create millions of jobs and help working families.

In August, the Senate voted 69 to 30 to pass the infrastructure bill, with 19 Republicans joining all Democrats.

The spending package would provide new federal spending on bridges and roads, as well as energy systems and transit programs. It would create a program aimed at building and repairing bridges in rural communities, and one to expand internet connectivity in Tribal and rural communities. The bill would further provide funding to protect water systems, particularly in low-income communities.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the legislation would add $256 billion to the federal deficit over a 10-year span.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passes-555-billion-infrastructure-bill-sends-legislation-biden-s-n1280527

Rick Plant:
Democrats are moving the country forward while Republicans once again vote against Americans. Republicans have no interest in working for the American people as their allegiance is for billionaires and corporations. There were 13 Republicans that did vote to pass this bill so they deserve all the credit for making this happen. But their party as a whole is disgraceful. 6 Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for voting against this historic bill that benefits ALL Americans.     

House passes $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that includes transport, broadband and utility funding, sends it to Biden

The House passed a more than $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature.

The legislation would put $550 billion in new funding into transportation, broadband and utilities.

The House passed a more than $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill late Friday, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk in a critical step toward enacting sprawling Democratic economic plans.

The Senate approved the revamp of transportation, utilities and broadband in August. The legislation’s passage is perhaps the unified Democratic government’s most concrete achievement since it approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package in the spring.

The measure passed in a 228-206 vote. Thirteen Republicans supported it, while six Democrats voted against it. Biden could sign the bill within days.

Washington has tried and failed for years to pass a major bill to upgrade critical transportation and utility infrastructure, which has come under more pressure from extreme weather. The White House has also contended passage of the bill can help to get goods moving as supply-chain obstacles contribute to higher prices for American consumers.

The vote Friday followed a day of wrangling over how enact the two planks of the party’s agenda. The push-and-pull exemplified party leaders’ months long struggle to get progressives and centrists — who have differing visions of the government’s role in the economy — behind the same bills.

Democrats entered the day planning to pass both the infrastructure legislation and the party’s larger $1.75 trillion social safety net and climate package. A demand from a handful of centrists to see a Congressional Budget Office estimate of the social spending plan’s budgetary effects delayed its approval. Progressives sought assurances the holdouts would support the bigger proposal if they voted for the infrastructure bill.

After hours of talks — and a Biden call into a progressive caucus meeting urging lawmakers to back the infrastructure bill — the party’s liberal wing got assurances from centrists that they would support the larger package.

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said the group reached a deal to back the infrastructure plan in exchange for a commitment to take up the safety-net bill “no later than the week of November 15.” A group of five centrists separately issued a statement saying they would back the Build Back Better legislation pending a CBO score that assuages their concerns about long-term budget deficits.

Ahead of the vote, Biden aimed to assure his party that both plans would pass.

“I am confident that during the week of November 15, the House will pass the Build Back Better Act,” he said in a statement of the social spending bill. The House is out of Washington next week, and it could take the CBO days or weeks to prepare a score of the legislation.

The bills together make up the core of Biden’s domestic agenda. Democrats see the plans as complementary pieces designed to boost the economy, jolt the job market, provide a layer of insurance to working families and curb climate change.

The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would put $550 billion in new money into transportation projects, the utility grid and broadband. The package includes $110 billion for roads, bridges and other major projects, along with $66 billion for passenger and freight rail and $39 billion for public transit.

It would put $65 billion into broadband, a priority for many lawmakers after the coronavirus pandemic highlighted inequities in internet access for households and students across the country. The legislation would also invest $55 billion into water systems, including efforts to replace lead pipes.

Before the vote, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told MSNBC that “the moment the president signs this, then it’s over to our department on the transportation pieces to get out there and deliver.” It can take years to complete major projects after Congress funds them.

The spending package includes universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds, investments in affordable housing, premium reductions under the Affordable Care Act, major investments aimed at addressing climate change and an additional year of the expanded child tax credit.

Here's a closer look at what's in the infrastructure bill that now heads to Biden's desk:

Transportation

- Roads, bridges, major projects: $110 billion

- Passenger and freight rail: $66 billion

- Public transit: $39 billion

- Airports: $25 billion

- Port infrastructure: $17 billion

- Transportation safety programs: $11 billion

- Electric vehicles: $7.5 billion

- Zero and low-emission buses and ferries: $7.5 billion

- Revitalization of communities: $1 billion

Other infrastructure

- Broadband: $65 billion[/b]

- Power infrastructure: $73 billion

- Clean drinking water: $55 billion

- Resilience and Western water storage: $50 billion

- Removal of pollution from water and soil: $21 billion

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/05/house-passes-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-sends-it-to-biden.html

Rick Plant:
So, the left wing "squad" voted against American infrastructure and to help their constituents. No surprise there but these 13 Republicans deserve a great amount of respect to help their constituents and to help move our country forward. Was just on Twitter reading far right wing MAGA extremist tweets and they are outraged this huge bill passed. How could anybody be outraged about investing in our own country and the American people so our country can be state of the art with technology and sound infrastructure? Guess they are just sour grapes that President Biden accomplished this historic feat or are just delusional in their own ignorance and conspiracy theories.

Here are the 6 Democrats who voted against the bill and the 13 Republicans that voted for it.

DEMOCRAT NO VOTES:
Bush, Bowman, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressely, Tlaib

GOP YES VOTES:
Bacon, Gonzalez, Garbarino, Fitzpatrick, Katko, Kinzinger, Malliotakis, McKinley, Reed, Chris Smith, Upton, Van Drew, Young

Rick Plant:
President Biden has cut child poverty in half. Another historic feat for his administration.

The U.S. is cutting poverty in half. Shame on us for not doing this sooner

A surge in COVID-19-inspired initiatives will reduce Americans in poverty by a whopping 20 million people. Why didn't this happen sooner?

The myth of “the welfare queen” that flourished under Ronald Reagan, powered 40 years of Republican election victories and guided government policy as America largely dismantled its social safety net, is finally dead. Or at least on life support.

Instead, the nation is finally learning that the real beneficiaries of government aid are women like New Hampshire’s Christina Darling, who is spending her monthly checks for $550 a month in the new expanded child tax credit program on things like buying more fresh produce for her two kids. Her new monetary lifeline isn’t leading to fur coats or a Cadillac — the stuff of GOP campaign trail fantasy for decades — but it is helping make payments on the modest car that the 31-year-old bought to take the children safely to day care. Darling told the Associated Press she might even occasionally hire a babysitter — to get more involved in civic life and run for her city’s council.

"The additional money does help alleviate the pressure,” another New Hampshire beneficiary of the program — 29-year-old Brianne Walker, a mother of three who quit a job to raise her two siblings after her mom died from a drug overdose and began receiving $800 a month this summer — told the AP. The news service talked to parents across the nation about the new tax credit program — part of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill signed by President Biden, which expanded the benefits and turned it from a more complicated year-end tax filing to the monthly checks — and found the payments were going to rent, paying off debt, or putting more food on the table, and giving beleaguered working-class folks a chance to breathe.

One study suggested that the new, expanded tax credits — going out to more than 35 million households with children — could reduce child poverty in America by 45%. That’s remarkable, and it’s just part of a broader trend as the shock of the global pandemic forced the government to take the economic struggles of the poor and the lower middle class more seriously than any time since Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty in the mid-1960s.

A New York Times report last week looked at the wider array of expanded safety programs that were enacted since early 2020 to respond to the economic shocks of the coronavirus outbreak — one-time government stimulus checks, expanded unemployment benefits, and increased food stamps — and the impact was staggering. Experts cited by the Times found that some 20 million Americans rose out of poverty since 2018, which would essentially cut the rate of those the government classifies as poor in half, now at the lowest level since Washington began keeping track.

"Wow — these are stunning findings,” Bob Greenstein, a veteran anti-poverty expert now with the Brookings Institution, told the newspaper. That sums up the almost giddy mood of experts who hadn’t seen such a rapid policy shift in their lifetimes. For a brief, shining moment in the 1960s, defeating poverty had seemed like the final frontier for a nation that had helped win World War II and was sending astronauts to the moon — and LBJ’s Great Society did make a significant dent for a few years before the backlash. White resentment politics that played up any reports of abuse and ignored the public good had won the day by the 1980s.

Those same forces of reaction are still out there, still lurking. The vast web of conservative think tanks created amid the anti-welfare backlash is still arguing — with little or no evidence — that these programs discourage able-bodied people from working, the great immoral panic of capitalism. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector told the Times, “You want policies that encourage work and marriage, not undermine it” — but that just seems totally bass-ackward. Affording child care or a working automobile actually helps people find jobs, and what historically has been more destructive to marriage than poverty?

That’s why it’s so critical that the public keeps hearing these success stories — like Walker and Darling or 24-year-old Jessica Moore of St. Louis, who lost her job as a banquet server with the pandemic but has used her stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits to buy a car and enroll in community college, where she’s studying to become an emergency medical technician. In other words, a job. Are you listening, Heritage Foundation?

Whoever controls this narrative between now and the 2022 midterm elections is going to control the future of America’s middle class, which has been shrinking for generations. Even progressives agree that a lot of the 2020-21 government aid was emergency relief that won’t be continued, but the last 17 months have also taught us how a real safety net can improve daily life, especially for children who need to start out life with a fair shot.

Several key decisions loom, including whether to make the expanded child tax credit permanent but also an array of pro-family programs proposed by the Biden administration that would greatly expand child care — probably the most pro-job, anti-poverty measure in the toolbox — and make community college tuition-free, and much more. Conservatives will argue that America can’t afford this, and to be sure it wasn’t cheap to so sharply reduce the poverty rate. It’s estimated that — largely because of the one-off payments made necessary by the pandemic — spending on the basic social safety net quadrupled to $1 trillion.

The costs of the proposals forward are not as great, and there’s a powerful case — given the improvement these programs have made in people’s lives, and, thus, in a civil society — that how can we afford not to do this? Remember, we’re talking about the United States of America, the nation that just spent $2.26 trillion on an almost “forever war” in Afghanistan that after its first year or two seemed to accomplish little or nothing.

Regardless of which party is in power, the White House and Congress never ask, “Can we afford it?” as they constantly expand the Pentagon budget to an astronomical $750 billion a year, or more than the next 11 biggest nations combined. Just a modest rightsizing of what still would be the world’s most powerful military would free up hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild America’s middle class. So would simply restoring tax rates on our uber-profitable corporations and the billionaires who run them back to the historically low level those rates were at in 2017 (or, heaven forbid, the 50% top marginal tax rate that existed *after* Reagan’s popular 1981 tax cut).

Given the obscene space program funding fortunes accumulated by the likes of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or Walmart’s Walton family — employers where low-wage workers often already get government benefits like food stamps to make ends meet — even a wealth tax of the kind proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren deserves a debate, in the name of restoring balance to a U.S. society that’s spent 40 years careening off the rails.

It’s impossible, frankly, not to look at America’s struggling working-class moms finally putting some greens on the dinner table or driving off to community college and wonder why this hasn’t been a top priority — as opposed to new fighter jets and propping up the U.S. yacht industry. The news that the United States is cutting poverty in half — at least for now, if the jackals can be held at bay — is, on one hand, a feel-good story, yet in another way, it’s a deeply troubling one. Because the world’s richest nation had the power and the ability to do this years ago. The fact that we didn’t should be a moment of national shame and reflection.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/child-tax-credit-us-poverty-cuts-20210801.html

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