On today's episode of "Fuck Around and Find Out"

December 21, 2021

Manchin in a box, and then guess what? Everyone gets a dick in a box for Christmas! That song’s been stuck in my head all day and hopefully now it’s in yours. The gift that keeps on giving.

Looks like the White House is done with Traitor Joe Manchin, because clock what Jen Psaki said at a press briefing:

“If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.” That statement is HUGE. No invite to the fourth of July picnic even if he does bring bitchin moonshine.

Considering that so many have bent over backwards to get Manchin’s vote due to the 50/50 split in the Senate, this is a big deal. The White House is not even bothering to avoid pissing him off. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent out a ‘dear colleague’ letter on Sunday night, aka a we-all-stay-after-school-until-someone-confesses-to-putting-vodka-in-the-fishtank letter, stating that “[The Democrats’] work For The People demands that we stay at the table to pass the Build Back Better Act… While it is disappointing that we may not have a law by the end of the year, we are hopeful that we will soon reach agreement so that this vital legislation can pass as soon as possible next year.” She very specifically did not mention Manchin, which kind of surprised me… does she honestly think anyone can work with that man? Everyone’s tiptoeing around him trying not to set him off, like that your friend’s weird cousin who gets very loud and belligerent when he’s drunk but right now he’s asleep on the couch and no one wants him to wake up. Does this mean the White House is finally going to play hardball? I mean, if Pelosi is tiptoeing around that duplicitous buffoon, you know things are bad.

Manchin offered a mewling little excuse for killing Build Back Better, after it had been gutted to try to appease him and his little power play: “Where I’m at right now, the inflation that I was concerned about, it’s not transitory, it’s real, it’s harming every West Virginian. It’s making it almost impossible for them to continue, to go to their jobs—the cost of gasoline, the cost of groceries, the cost of utility bills, all of these things are hitting in every aspect of their life. And… then you have the debt that we’re carrying, $29 trillion. You have, also, the geopolitical unrest that we have. You have the COVID—the [Omicron] variant, and that is wreaking havoc again, people are concerned. I’ve been with my family, I know everyone is concerned.”

Except your family is cashing those nice big checks from the family coal business and Exxon, so I doubt they’re really sweating things.

He keeps saying he can’t support a bill he doesn’t understand, but this is a man that apparently can’t understand a flashlight. If he’s so hung up on government debt, then why isn’t he applauding legislation that’s already paid for? He never intended to vote for this bill from day one, and no one man should have that much power over ordinary Americans. You, sir, are no Julius Caesar.

Last week, Charlamagne Tha God flat out asked Vice President Kamala Harris who was President: Joe Biden or Joe Manchin? She did not like that question, and a staff member tried to get her out of it by suddenly saying there was a technical problem and that Harris couldn’t hear Charlamagne so they had to wrap, but she had her mouth open to answer it because she did hear it, so that dog’s not gonna hunt. And she did end up answering, but not that question. Because the answer right now is obvious.

Tell you what: let’s pass this bill in tiny little increments. Just bring up the child tax credit, and then let those who vote against it explain why. Then bring up paid leave and try to pass just that. Etc. Then those who voted against the provisions can walk naked through the streets while people throw garbage and a scary nun walks in front of them saying “Shame. Shame. Shame.”

Here’s a little background so that you can speak about the BBB act if it comes up at Christmas and if so doing won’t be the family equivalent of annexing Poland.

The BBB Act was set to cap Medicare prescription drug costs at $2000 a year, and would expand Medicare to cover hearing benefits. I wear a hearing aid, having been born deaf, and neither insurance companies nor the government want me to be able to afford a hearing aid. The one I have is a bone-anchored hearing aid, and it’s awesome, but it costs $5000. But I’m not worth the effort it would take for them to aid me in becoming a contributing member of society. The deaf and hard of hearing are truly children of a lesser god. It gets old.

Speaking of insurance companies, the bill would have lowered healthcare premiums by about $600 a year for 9 million people.

It would extend Medicaid coverage to 4 million more people.

It would cut the cost and improve the quality of home care for seniors and people with disabilities.

It would provide free preschool for 3- and 4-year olds.

Insulin would cost $35 a month for 8 million diabetics.

It would cap childcare costs at 7% of a family’s annual income.

It would add more federal tuition grants to help make college more affordable.

It would offer free means to students during the school year and summer.

It would raise the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

It would guarantee workers four weeks of paid medical/family leave.

It would invest in a clean energy economy, which would reduce future energy costs.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model said, on December 17, “PWBM projects that the spending and taxes in the Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376), as written, would add up to 0.2 percentage points to inflation over the next two years and reduce inflation by similar amounts later in the decade.”

A group of 17 Nobel Prize economists said recently that “Because the [Build Back Better Act] invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote, “The legislation would spend less over 10 years than was spent on stimulus in 2021. Because that spending is offset by revenue increases and because it includes measures such as child care that will increase the economy’s capacity, Build Back Better will have only a negligible impact on inflation.”

Check out the tax plan approved by the House Ways and Means Committee this past September.

Raising the corporate tax rate, ending domestic fossil fuel tax subsides and reinstating environmental protection excise taxes generates $1,429 billion over the next ten years. Changes to income tax, such as raising the capital gains rate, closing various loopholes, and reducing the estate tax exemption to $6.2 million (individual) and $12.4 million (per couple), generates $1,464 billion.

Increasing compliance with the IRS generates $463 billion.

Do a little math, and that adds up to $3,356 billion, or 3.4 trillion if you round it up.

Voila. And I’m no Nobel Prize winner, either.

Is there pork in the bill? You bet your sweet bippy. Is there pork in the $768 trillion defense bill that was $24 billion above what POTUS had requested so that they can pay all the government contractors while servicemembers see about a 2% raise? Yep. And that $24 billion could be used for a lot of things besides lining Halliburton’s pockets, plus we, uh, aren’t at war.

However, something Manchin said gives a clue as to the real reason he killed BBB: he got his widdle feelings hurt. In true passive-aggressive style, he didn’t say what happened, but yesterday he said “I just got to the wit’s end. And they know the real reason what happened. They won’t tell you, and I’m not going to tell you. It’s not the president, it’s the staff. They drove some things and they put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable." Uhoh. Someone found Chuck Schumer’s burn book. (I may or may not have contributed to it because I’m so fetch)

But consider the first law of technology—with any big discovery, people will always overestimate the short-term consequences, and underestimate the long-term consequences.

Now that BBB is, at the very least, on paid administrative leave, does the GOP realize that now all the focus is sorely on the Insurrectile Dysfunction of January 6 and its committee? Dems are out for blood now, and it’s time for them to step up and quit playing nice. Damn the torpedoes. In Washington, being nice does not get shit done. In the real world, perhaps, but we all know Washington is a world of its own. Time to wear pink on Wednesdays.

And that’s all I have for you today, kittens.