Last Call For The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

And I see in the new year that Sen. Joe Manchin realized over the holidays that he'll be painted as the bad guy on the Build Back Better plan unless he can string Biden out for another six months minimum to say "well there's no time left now" and so he's getting a head start on 2022.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is open to reengaging on the climate and child care provisions in President Biden's Build Back Better agenda if the White House removes the enhanced child tax credit from the $1.75 trillion package — or dramatically lowers the income caps for eligible families, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Why it matters: The holdback senator's engagement on specifics indicates negotiations between him and the White House could get back on track, even after Manchin declared he was a “no” on the package on Dec. 19. 

The senator’s concerns with the size and the scope of the package remain. His belief that it could cost more than $4 trillion over 10 years extends beyond the CTC issue, and he continues to tell colleagues he’s concerned about the inflationary effects of so much government spending, Axios is told. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its next Consumer Price Index on Jan. 12. Last month's reading put inflation at 6.8% for the year — fueling Manchin's opposition.

The big picture: Manchin and top White House aides traded recriminations after their negotiations fell apart — but President Biden and the senator subsequently spoke by phone late in the evening of Dec. 19. 

They agreed to continue to talk, and Manchin stayed in touch with senior White House officials over the holidays. The week before Christmas, reports emerged about how close he and Biden were on a potential deal. 

The details included a $1.8 trillion offer from Manchin that contained money for universal preschool and green tax credits but nothing for the child tax credit, which provides families up to $3,600 per child per year.Families who make up to $400,000 had been receiving some CTC payments under the program that ended Jan. 1.

Between the lines: One possible solution to the stalemate would be to remove the CTC from the Build Back Better legislation, which the Senate plans to pass with only Democratic votes.

 

Manchin got quite the earful over the last two weeks from the folks back home since he announced he was killing the BBB, and it's brought him back to the table. 

We'll see for how long.

Spoilers: He'll have another complaint later this month...

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

In a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, nearly a third of all Americans, including 40% of Republicans, agree that it can be "justified for citizens to take violent action against the government".

Overall, 62 percent of respondents said violence was never justified, and four percent either had no opinion or answered "justified" but "said in a follow-up question that they did not think violence was justified."

Of those who said that violent actions could be merited, 22 percent said that such actions could be justified by the government violating or taking away people’s rights or freedoms, and 15 percent cited a potential military takeover or collapse of democracy.

Overall, the percentage of people who said violence against the government was at times justified has increased in recent years.

In October 2015, 23 percent of people said it was justified, compared to 16 percent in both January 2011 and April 2010 and 13 percent in April 1995, according to the researchers.

The Washington Post-University of Maryland poll also showed that 19 percent of respondents thought that the legal consequences for people who broke into the U.S. Capitol were too harsh, and 51 percent said they were not harsh enough. Another 28 percent said the punishments had been fair, and 3 percent had no opinion.

But the poll also showed a wide partisan divide over former President Trump's responsibility for the events of Jan. 6. Among Democrats, 92 percent said Trump bears a "great deal" or a "good amount" of blame for the attack, compared to 27 percent of Republicans.

 

As we come up on the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, it's important to note that the people behind it are still walking around free.

 

Until that changes, expect more attacks.

Sunday Long Read: Rage Junkies

2022 is picking up where 2021 left off, as NY Times reporter Sarah Lyall recounts in our Sunday Long Read heading into the new year, and year three of the pandemic means the Rage of the Mildly Inconvenienced has turned everyone into a ticking time bomb.

 

Nerves at the grocery store were already frayed, in the way of these things as the pandemic slouches toward its third year, when the customer arrived. He wanted Cambozola, a type of blue cheese. He had been cooped up for a long time. He scoured the dairy area; nothing. He flagged down an employee who also did not see the cheese. He demanded that she hunt in the back and look it up on the store computer. No luck.

And then he lost it, just another out-of-control member of the great chorus of American consumer outrage, 2021 style.

“Have you seen a man in his 60s have a full temper tantrum because we don’t have the expensive imported cheese he wants?” said the employee, Anna Luna, who described the mood at the store, in Minnesota, as “angry, confused and fearful.”

“You’re looking at someone and thinking, ‘I don’t think this is about the cheese.’”

It is a strange, uncertain moment, especially with Omicron tearing through the country. Things feel broken. The pandemic seems like a Möbius strip of bad news. Companies keep postponing back-to-the-office dates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps changing its rules. Political discord has calcified into political hatred. And when people have to meet each other in transactional settings — in stores, on airplanes, over the phone on customer-service calls — they are, in the words of Ms. Luna, “devolving into children.”

Perhaps you have felt it yourself, your emotions at war with your better nature. A surge of anger when you enter your local pharmacy, suffering from Covid-y symptoms, only to find that it is out of thermometers, never mind antigen tests. A burst of annoyance at the elaborate rules around vaccine cards and IDs at restaurants — rules you yourself agree with! — because you have to wait outside, and it is cold, and you left your wallet in the car.

A feeling of nearly homicidal rage at the credit card company representative who has just informed you that, having failed to correctly answer the security questions, you have been locked out of your own account. (Note to self: Adopting a tone of haughty sarcasm is not a good way to solve this problem.)

“People are just — I hate to say it because there are a lot of really nice people — but when they’re mean, they’re a heck of a lot meaner,” said Sue Miller, who works in a nonprofit trade association in Madison, Wis. “It’s like, instead of saying, ‘This really inconvenienced me,’ they say, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ It’s a different scale of mean.”

The meanness of the public has forced many public-facing industries to rethink what used to be an article of faith: that the customer is always right. If employees are now having to take on many unexpected roles — therapist, cop, conflict-resolution negotiator — then workplace managers are acting as security guards and bouncers to protect their employees.

 

First, having worked in retail, food service, and customer service, the customer is never "always right".  Some are coming to you because they expect reasonable service, and some are understanding, but a lot of people have decided that it's okay to go completely apeshit on waitstaff, bartenders, ticket agents, flight crews, hotel staff, and health care staff, along with schools, banks, and yes, your local IT folks at work. (Yes, we know it's a pain in the ass when you can't work from home correctly or efficiently because of technical issues.)

Second, the sense of entitlement, rage, and even tyranny that some Americans subject folks making minimum wage, or far less than minimum wage, to is unacceptable. We're human beings here, folks. We all have basic rights. Your missing extra pickle or out-of-stock soda is not a national emergency. Resolve in 2022 to treat people better than you treated them in 2021. That's all I ask.