 dystopian time. We are currently hoping that the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package that Bernie Sanders put together, which includes a Medicare expansion of dental vision, hearing, lots of great things that progressives want. Now it's kind of in jeopardy because we have two idiots in Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin who don't like the price tag. Now, I don't know what station it was on, but Joe Manchin was talking to someone I think from West Virginia and he said, look, I understand that there's a lot of really great things in that reconciliation package. It's popular, but I mean, it's sugar. Everybody likes sugar, but the fact of the matter is that we just can't do that because if we pass this, I mean, we're going to explode our national debt. Now, I love this because a poll completely destroyed Joe Manchin. Facts don't care about his feelings. So I want to read this. This is a data for progress poll. So data for progress pollsters told the group of respondents, or before I even read it, let me just say, the poll essentially finds that Americans don't give a flying fuck about the debt or the deficit. So data for progress pollsters told the first group of respondents that the bill would cost $3.5 trillion, which is the amount that Biden and the Democratic leader support. The pollsters told the second group of respondents that it would cost $2.5 trillion and told the third group it would cost $1.5 trillion. So they're trying to determine whether or not support for this reconciliation package declines with a higher price tag. But overall, the response levels in the three groups were nearly identical. This is music to my ears. Voters support their proposal by roughly a two to one margin, regardless of whether pollsters said it would require $3.5 trillion, $2.5 trillion, or $1.5 trillion in new spending. That top line result comes with a very big, very important caveat. Voters who identify as Republicans oppose all three proposals, of course, according to the poll, but here too, the breakdown among the three options was interesting and maybe telling. On one hand, the $3.5 trillion proposal was the most unpopular among Republican voters and it wasn't especially close with 61% opposing it and just 34% supporting it. On the other hand, feelings about the $2.5 trillion and $1.5 trillion options were virtually the same and closer to an even split with about half of Republican voters oppose and more than 40% supportive, the rest said they were undecided. Opinion among self-identified independent voters also varied, although here the pattern was different still. Independent voters support the proposal at all three funding levels and do so by clear margins, but the most expensive option at $3.5 trillion and the least expensive, the $1.5 trillion proposal got more support than the middle alternative, which is interesting, of $2.5 trillion. So basically, the takeaway here is that the Democratic Party's base doesn't care. All of these things that Joe Biden and Chris Sinema is saying, all of the deficit scolds, the concern trolls, nobody cares in actuality. So to not pass that would be, you'd think political suicide given that 2022 is just around the corner. Republicans are bound to have an advantage because of gerrymandering. I love this story. So does anyone want to jump in? Because I feel like this should be thrown in the face of every single deficit hawk that has anything to say about delivering policies for the people. Yeah. So like, it's really stupid. I can't say any more nicer words. It's really dumb that you, of all things, are talking about the deficit because people don't care. Like what's said, we've spent $2.2 trillion on the lovely Afghanistan war. We spent, I don't know, $16 to $20 trillion in over 20 years to large financial institutions. We have the money. We always have the money. We always will have the money. But apparently $3.5 trillion for the working class and the middle class is too much for the elites. But like the poll just, as you said, validates the point. Like, nobody cares. It's $3.5 trillion and it's for the working and middle class, American people. And it's really absurd that the Democrats, especially the moderate Democrats, I don't call them conservative, but whatever, whatever they want to be called them. So like the moderate Democrats seem to think that people care about the national debt or whatever. But as I keep seeing from all kinds of comments and people talking to me, they care about like material improvements, like better healthcare, better livelihoods in general, they don't really care about the number, the 20 something trillion dollars up there. That really isn't the concern for most Americans as much as they don't care about shenanigans in Washington, they don't care about the deficit. What they care about are their lives. And when these moderate moderate Democrats seem to think that that's the most important thing, the top line number, 3.5 trillion already negotiated by $6 trillion dollars, I just find it absurd. And I cannot believe they believe that. But you know, I also can because, you know, they're funded by Exxon and all that. So yeah, that's true. Yeah. Christina, go ahead. I was talking to a customer today who's very conservative. And I was telling her about the reconciliation for what it had. I'm like, with Medicare, it's going to include dental and seeing and hearing, you know, and she's like, that sounds wonderful. Because in my opinion, when it comes to Medicare, why is that not part, I mean, when you get older, what happens to you? And so she was like, I like that, I like that in lowering the, you know, Medicare age or whatever. But of course, it's always about the funding. I'm like, you know, where all that, as Anthony pointed out, where all that money went to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, all that money could have been used for something like that a lot earlier on, but it never happened. Yeah. And that's a great point. I mean, one thing that irritates me is that these deficit scolds, they're never consistent. So when it comes to tax breaks for the rich, when it comes to wars, not a peep from them, we always have the money for that. And we do, to be fair, because, you know, we print our own, we have our own fiat currency, right? I subscribe to modern monetary theory. So I believe in deficit spending. But the people who are against spending for, you know, the middle class, the working class, poor Americans, they only speak up when we're about to get something, you know, a policy concession. And that to me, it's like a mask off moment that they keep doing over and over again. And I just want people to wake up and be more, you know, privy to the fact that this is, this is an absurd argument. So the national debt, this is something that isn't like our debt as individuals like government debt is not of our concern. And so we keep hearing these fear-mongering things like, oh, well, you know, your future generations are going to have to pay that back. I think that our future generations, even if that were true, which it wasn't, I think that our future generations would prefer to pay that back than see the world go to shit due to climate change. It's just, you know, there's any excuse, and I'm so sick of them, you know, squirming out of this. And Rayvon, I'm not sure if you've heard, so what they're trying to do currently is, so they passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate, and now the moderate Democrats in the House are pressuring Nancy Pelosi to put the infrastructure deal up to a vote so that way they can pass the infrastructure bill, but then screw over progressives who wanted all of these policy wins in the reconciliation package. So I think that it's impressive and shocking that Nancy Pelosi is holding strong here. It shows that, you know, having more progressives in Congress is, it matters, right? But here's my fear. I'm worried that the corporate Democrats like Nancy Pelosi might cave after a while if the moderate Democrats can get the media on their side. What are your thoughts on this? Am I being too doomer? I mean, can you be enough doomer when it comes to American politics? I don't think you could ever be doomer pilled enough, but I do think that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer see the huge political victory that the, not the bipartisan infrastructure bill, but the reconciliation infrastructure bill is specifically because, you know, our infrastructure, you know, what's in the bipartisan bill is our traditional infrastructure as they're calling it, rows and bridges, and they are crumbling, and we need to repair those. But that's not an immediate political victory the same way that, you know, expanding Medicare benefits is, expanding, you know, childcare access to people is that bill is absolutely necessary for them to, you know, at least hold their own in the midterm elections. And I do think that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi recognize that. And I think they will hold out as long as they can and as long as the progressives continue to put pressure on them, which is why it's great to see AOC, you know, sort of like shitting on Jake Tapper when he tried to like put her down and say that she's like blocking the bill but didn't love you the same sort of criticism against Joe Manchin, which by the way, really quick, I'd like to, I've said this before and I just would like to repeat this, Joe Manchin, you, me, we will a fistfight. If I win, you have to stop being a bitch. If you win, you can continue to be a bitch. I'm just saying, it's, I like that. I also just like love the idea that Joe Manchin is concerned about the deficit, like the 90s called, they want their deficit hocking back. No one gives a five deficit in 2021. And I promise you the people in rural West Virginia, who have no access to internet, who don't even, some of them don't even have access to water and electricity. They don't give a shit about the deficit they need with that infrastructure bill is going to provide them with. And if, like, if I went to West Virginia right now and I asked them, which matters more, our debt or your livelihood, they're going to say their livelihood. So it's just such a, and the idea that like, we can't afford to do it because of the taxes. And Joe Manchin is the one saying that Joe Manchin, you're the only person in West Virginia whose taxes are going to go up to pay for this plan. It's one of the poorest states in the country. No one else in that state is going to see like, one more penny taken out of their pay checks to do this. So it's just, he is a bitch and he should fight me. Just it's a consensual fight. So can't get banned from any platform for saying this. I'm down for bringing back duals. I would like to dual Joe Manchin, Joe Biden, I'll dual Kirsten Sinema. Fuck it. I'll dual. Yeah, Dan, I wanted to ask you. So when it comes to Joe Biden and you know, people like Joe Manchin, I saw this meme that I feel like is perfect that represents them. So there is a bunch of people lying down strapped to train tracks and it's running over person after person after person and they're dying and Democrats have an option. They can pull the switch, stop the train and stop it from running over anyone else, but they'll win in 2022 and 2024. That's kind of the meme. It's like they're averse to giving people good things and doing things that are objectively good that help them win. I mean, deficit spending during the Great Depression is what got us out of the Great Depression. Why are they so stupid? I mean, part of this corruption, but I think stupidity factors in too, Dan, give us your thoughts on this. I don't have like a giant big brain take on this. It just really feels like they don't, they're just, I mean, we're literally talking about Joe Manchin and having to argue with Joe Manchin about deficit spending with Democrats like these. What's the point of having Republicans and it just feels like when I was a kid, we didn't have to argue about those things. But you know, that's not necessarily true. But you know, what do you say? It's about maintaining whatever fucking power they have, and it's not about helping people out. If they wanted to help people out, they'd have shown us a long time ago.