 So I want to give you another update to the Build Back Better Act. It's kind of difficult to gauge where this legislation is at with any sort of specificity because it's always changing. There's things that are on the chopping block and then taken off of the chopping block. But long story short, it's been watered down drastically and now it's like a husk of what it previously was. Let me remind you, we went from $6 trillion to $3.5 trillion and now it looks like we're landing between $1.5 trillion and $1.8 trillion. And it's not just that a lot of things were taken out of the bill, but the things that are still included have been scaled back drastically and the timeline with which these things are funded has been reduced. So I'm going to tell you what I would do if I were a progressive lawmaker as it relates to this legislation. But first, I do want to kind of look at what is and isn't out. So we'll first look at what's on the chopping block, keep in mind this is all subject to change, but NBC News reports that free community college is also on the chopping block. The plan originally would have included two years of free community college, which would have cost the government $109 billion, expanded Medicare coverage that would include dental, vision and hearing benefits, an effort that had been championed by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Clean Electricity Performance Program, which would pay electric utility companies that switch from fossil fuels to renewable or clean energy resources and find those that don't. The measure is opposed by Senator Joe Manchin, but Biden said Thursday he's still hopeful it will be included. Tax rate hikes on corporations and top income earners, which are opposed by Senator Kirsten Sinema. The White House has looked for other ways to tax businesses and the wealthy and continue to insist any deal will include some new revenues for the government. Now when it comes to the Medicaid expansion being out, that's not so straightforward because Bernie Sanders is saying very clearly, no, that's not happening. He tweeted out the expansion of Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision is one of the most popular and important provisions in the entire reconciliation bill. It's what the American people want. It's not coming out. Now what I'm assuming is that Bernie Sanders made that tweet after he saw the same political headline that we all saw, which stated that Democrats were considering ditching the Medicare expansion along with the paid family leave provision of the Build Back Better Act. So right at that point, I think that Bernie Sanders tried to send a clear message with this tweet to get ahead of the narrative before it kind of takes off and that everyone just expects that Medicaid and the Medicaid expansion was removed. Now part of me thinks that the Biden administration kind of leaked that out just to kind of do a quick temperature check to see how progressives will react and maybe assuming that that was the case as well, Bernie Sanders decided to quickly shut that down. So that's up in the air. So what's in it though? You know, we heard about all of these great things that were removed. Well, Jeff Stein of The Washington Post, he's been following this very closely and he put together a loose estimate, assuming that these are the things still in the bill, but he's expecting the last two things to be removed. So he's thinking that it's going to cost about $1.8 trillion overall, depending on if immigration makes the cut and paid family leave. It's probably going to be included, but in a very scaled back version, we'll talk about that later on. But he says it's going to include $550 billion for climate related investments. We don't know what yet universal pre-K and child care, a one year expansion of the early childhood tax credit, elder care, housing investments, the Medicaid expansion and other stuff that may or may not be on the chopping block. So just to remind you, it's not guaranteed that all of that is in the bill. This is what Jeff Stein thinks based on what he has been seeing, and he's been following this very closely out of everyone in DC. I trust Jeff Stein the most if he says that this is likely to be included, then he probably has the most up to date and accurate assessment of the bill. So I mean, you see a lot of the numbers, a lot smaller than they were. So what's in the bill? If everything's been scaled back and the timeline has been reduced, what's left? Well, NBC News breaks it down for us. So if it's the case that paid family leave remains, it will be cut from 12 weeks to four weeks, qualifying reasons for the annual benefit would include recovering from a serious illness, caring for a seriously ill family member or caring for a new child. The White House said the program will provide workers up to $4,000 a month with a minimum of two-thirds of average weekly wages replaced, rising to 80% for the lowest wage workers, universal pre-K for three and four-year-olds. That's still in. The federal government would pay for the entirety of the program for the first three years, and then some of the costs would shift to the states. Now I'm assuming that this was in lieu of them funding it fully for 10 years. So it's scaled back, but it seems, for the most part, more intact than other things. For those using Medicare, $800 vouchers to help cover annual dental costs. The original proposal would have expanded Medicare coverage to include dental care. Funding for childcare centers to offset the cost for families and reinforce the industry's workforce made up mostly of women of color. Increases Pell Grants for low-income college students. The Pell Grant program is the primary college financial aid program for students in need, helping more than 6.7 million of them last year. Their proposal would increase the current maximum of $6,495 in assistance a year by $500. So this is in lieu of just free community college, unspecified climate change funding including tax credits for green technology, a boost to the Affordable Care Act, subsidies for those using the federal system to buy insurance, making it more affordable, and a public option for individuals who can't get Medicaid in their state. Now to be clear on that last public option point there, that's not a public option for everyone. The only people who would qualify for said public option would be the ones who live in a Republican-controlled state where their governor refused to accept the Medicaid expansion, which is part of the Affordable Care Act. So if that's the case, they would now be offered a public option if this does indeed go through. Now that Medicaid provision is really tricky because Bernie Sanders is saying that's not coming out, but here it seems as if it looks like maybe there's some middle ground where there's this attempt to remove it but also simultaneously appease people like Bernie Sanders by offering a voucher, an annual voucher for dental of $800. I mean, that's basically not going to cover much other than a cleaning and maybe a minor procedure. This is really, really bad. I mean, we're looking at crumbs now. Again, this has all been scaled back drastically, less spending on each of these programs that remain in the bill at this point, but also timelines that have been reduced. Remember, we were looking at funding these things for 10 years and now it's all funded for a less amount of time and there's less spending. Now, the reason why this has been scaled back so much is pretty obvious when you listen to Joe Biden. It's because he is extremely weak and he is touting to every single demand that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are making. So here's some of his comments as stated by HuffPost reporter Igor Bobik. So Biden confirmed paid leave was scaled down, but still in the bill. He then called it a reach to assume that Medicare will be expanded, saying specifically that Manchin and Sinema oppose it and saying Joe's not a bad guy. He's a friend. So he's kind of contradicting what Bernie Sanders said and he's complimenting Joe Manchin. I think we know what he's trying to do here. This is embarrassingly pathetic. And when he commented on Sinema's opposition to corporate tax hikes, he said, I don't think we'll be able to get look in the United States Senate when you have 50 Democrats, everyone is president. I mean, imagine saying something like this as the president. Imagine being this fucking weak also. He confirmed that yes, Pell grants are going to be boosted by $500 instead of opting for just full on community college, which would be easier. That's not means tested. It's universal. So yeah, it's obvious who's running the show here. It's not Joe Biden. He is no longer the president. It's Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema. And not only is he bending over backwards to appease them, he's complimenting them as they water down his agenda. It's embarrassing. So Biden absolutely here is now the person to blame. We can point the finger at Manchin, all we want and Kirsten Sinema. But as the president, you have a lot of leverage. You have your bully pulpit. You have more bargaining power. But Biden is letting them just pick it apart as much as they want. Now, let me remind you that Manchin and Sinema already dictated the terms of Joe Biden's infrastructure proposal. And when it comes to the Build Back Better Act, now he's letting them do the same thing. So he's not forcing them to make any concessions seemingly, right? Because progressives already conceded a lot. They came down from $6 trillion to $3.5 trillion, and they're coming down even further. But now they're just saying, we want this out, we want that out, throwing their weight around, and Biden is just sitting there and taking it like the little weakling that he is. What an embarrassment. This is the guy who ran for president and said, no, no, listen, I'm such a deal maker. I don't think he used the word deal maker. But he's basically, he claimed that he'd get things done and be effective as a president because he would bring together not just both warring wings of the Democratic Party. He'd get Republicans on board. That hasn't happened. And it's because you're weak, Joe Biden. You're absolutely weak. And if I were him, I would be so embarrassed here. So the question is, what do I do now? If I'm a progressive lawmaker and I see that the president is now letting Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema water down this bill, what do I do? Well, if I'm Pramila Jayapal, I get together everyone from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And we all put out a joint statement saying, this is not acceptable. It's a non-starter. We're not going to support it. We are going to blow up everything if things continue to go down this route. Now, there's an article by Andrew Perez from the Daily Poster, and he makes a really great point about why this strategy is important and necessary because the bill is getting watered down so much in the first place because the Democratic Party leadership is expecting progressives to fold. And Andrew Perez argues, the only way to change those expectations and to actually wield power is for CBC members to pledge to vote, no one to haul it out shell, and finally make their demands clear. If they don't, they'll likely get rolled, and no barrage of tweets or press releases or email blasts will hide that avoidable outcome. So that's where we're at. If they don't hold strong now, they'll never be taken seriously. The reason why Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema get everything that they want is because Joe Biden and Democrats, they don't believe that they're bluffing. They really expect them to vote no if they don't get what they want. So if progressives build up that same expectation, then they will have more bargaining power. And if need be, they should vote it down. That's where we're at. If they cave on this, then in future negotiations, their desires, they're not going to be taken seriously because they know that at the end of the day, they'll huff and puff, but they're going to back down. Now, there's one other thing that progressives can do, right? So if you just accept this $1.8 trillion Build Back Better Act that's been gutted by Manchin and Sinema, you look weak. But there's more things that you can do, more ways to extract concessions out of Biden. So you can tell Biden, listen, right now, I'm a no vote on this. I will not support something like this. But there is one thing that you can do to get me on board. If you want me to support this embarrassingly weak $1.8 trillion Build Back Better Act that I'd be embarrassed to brag about to my constituents with, I want to see you cancel $50,000 in student loan debt first. Cancel $50,000 in student loan debt. And maybe you have my vote, maybe. But if you don't do that, if I don't get anything else, I can't support this because this is crumbs. And now Democratic Party leadership corporate Democrats are going to use this as a justification to not do more big things in the future, assuming they even retain power, which at this point, if this gets passed, it's not really going to meaningfully impact people's lives. So if they actually say, look, we've got to make a concrete difference on people's lives, cancel $50,000 in student loan debt, sign an executive order, do that unilaterally, and then we'll talk about supporting this weakened version of the Build Back Better Act. I think they might be able to get Biden to either actually cancel some of it or maybe force mansion and cinema to do a little bit more play hardball with mansion and cinema. But Biden isn't really considering what progressives want because I think as Andrew Perez said, you know, everyone's just kind of expecting them to go along with whatever. Now I do want to show you why this is so far a loss for progressives because there's an MSNBC reporter who is kind of explaining how mansion and cinema have been running the show. And he's basically giddy talking about how, yeah, they got everything that they wanted. Are you surprised that this human infrastructure bill looks nothing like what we thought it would? Other than universal pre-k, everything that was initially proposed is either cut down or cut out? Yeah, highlights the power of two senators in a 50-50 Senate staff. I mean, Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have completely controlled this process from beginning to the end. They have stayed pretty steady in their beliefs. They've not wavered. There's really no negotiating in the sense that there's no convincing them that their views are wrong, right? I mean, they are, they are where they are. And the entire Democratic Party has to come to them, which has been frustrating for progressives. I will say, though, it's amazing. We wrote this in in Pudge Bowl News this morning. But if you think about it, Democrats have been saying for years, rich people should get their taxes hiked. They should undo the Trump tax cuts. Now, we're about to go into a, about to pass a bill here in Congress. Rich people, merely rich people, not billionaires, are going to come out fine. They're not going to see a capital gains hike. They're not going to see an individual rate hike. And the corporate tax is going to stay the same. So, yes, billionaires are going to see their taxes go up. People make more than $100 million, three consecutive years. But I want to add one fine point to that. It's impossible to overstate the difficulty of writing a tax like this in one week. Ron Wyden has been working on it for years. We've still not seen legislative tax from him on this proposal. You are talking about a brand new tax on a class of earner that has never been done before. And as they're trying to do over the course of a couple of days, it's absolutely wild. Yeah. So that's basically where we're at. It's not a good look for progressives. It's certainly not a good look for Joe Biden. At this point, what I think we should all do is shift the pressure off of a mansion in cinema and on to Joe Biden because he's the president of the United States. The buck stops with him. And he's letting these other people run the show and he knows that they're running the show. And that's embarrassing. It's pathetically weak, but yet he's allowing it. So the time is now for progressives to start directing their fire at Joe Biden. I think they've been effective at taking shots at mansion and cinema. But at the end of the day, you know, it's it's Joe Biden who has the final say. So I think that progressive lawmakers need to shoot this down. If when we see it, it actually looks as hollowed out as as reports are saying. And they also need to take aim at Biden. They need to call out Biden for being the weakling that he is. I think that a progressive lawmakers actually told Biden how weak he was to his face and confronted him about his unwillingness to challenge his own party. I mean, this is someone who's pretty braggadocious. Biden is Trumpian in a lot of ways, perhaps that'll have an effect on him. Maybe he'll say, oh, I'm not weak. I'm tough. But who knows, right? At this point in time, I don't like what I'm seeing. And if I'm a leftist lawmaker, there's no way I'd support this. It's just it's not enough. So I'd thank everything if I had my say, but we'll see what progressive lawmakers do. What they do going forward is really, really important.