Biden's signature bill isn't that expensive. It's a drop in the bucket.

[Diamond_Dog]

This is a good read with facts that need to be shouted out from the rooftops!

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As Democrats continue negotiations in the hopes of saving Biden legislative agenda, one thing has consumed the media and conservative Democrats in Congress: the price tag. Nearly every news item on Biden’s signature Build Back Better reconciliation bill has led with the $3.5tn cost, as if the price were in the title of the bill itself.

The West Virginia senator Joe Manchin issued a scathing critique of the supposedly profligate Biden agenda, calling the reconciliation bill “fiscal insanity” that ignores the “brutal fiscal reality our nation faces”. The Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema claims that she cannot support a bill with a price tag this high. The tone of these conservative senators and the media coverage would lead anyone to think that $3.5tn of additional spending over a decade was an enormous amount of money that would drastically increase the size of government, endanger government coffers, and even “re-engineer the social and economic fabric of this nation”.

This elides the fact that Congress routinely passes bills with fiscal implications this large or larger with virtually no media coverage, debate or public comment. The federal government spends $7.5tn a decade on the military, with little to no serious attempts to reverse this spending or even to curtail its growth. The Trump administration passed $2tn in tax cuts with little comment on the cost.

More

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/07/bidens-signature-bill-isnt-that-expensive-its-a-drop-in-the-bucket

[gab13by13]

1. It was over 10 years

which amounts to 350 billion per year, not that expensive and mostly paid for.

[Midnight Writer]

7. In addition, factor in the previous 10 in which we tried but failed to get an infrastructure bill

We are not only investing for the future, we are repairing the neglect of the past.

[Botany]

2. It was never about the expense the oppostion to the bill is about:

* Stopping Biden
* Protecting the fossil fuel industry

[lagomorph777]

3. * and protecting Pharma

[lagomorph777]

4. Somehow, we allowed them to name it the "$3.5T" bill;

should have pushed the far catchier and saleable name "Build Back Better Bill" very hard in a unified way.

[Deminpenn]

5. Exactly, 350B a year, less than 1/2 DoD budget

that no one bats an eye over increasing every year.

[McKim]

6. Always Money for War!!!!

Funny I don't remember any such debates and conflicts over spending trillions to destroy the Middle East and Afghanistan for mineral resources! Somehow there's always money for war!

[FakeNoose]

8. Robert Reich nails it

From the OP link:

So easy is it to raise money for the military, that Congress even uses the defense budget as a backdoor to necessary economic spending: like when it fights to keep open bases the military wants closed, build tanks the army doesn’t want, in order to protect US jobs. This turns defense spending into a constant stimulus package, employing people in makework jobs because it is politically easier than just making sure people have enough money. The same politicians who demand scrimping when providing for needy families are more than happy to spend extravagantly on war.

The debate around the Biden legislative agenda shows how clearly our society’s priorities are out of tune with people’s actual needs. It’s not about spending too much money, deficits, waste or fostering a “culture of dependency”. Rather, this demonstrates once again how much our power structure is aimed at protecting the status quo and the interests of the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else.