Sunday School 8/7/22: Extra Credit

The Sunday School lesson came from Meet the Press, winner of the lucky classroom drawing. For today's Extra Credit, we're wandering down the hall to the CNN State of the Union classroom to catch Dana Bash and Sens. Dick Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC).  I know, I'm breaking with my new 'one classroom policy' but I thought this one was interesting.

Bash asked Blumenthal how the Inflation Reduction Act would help Americans. He spoke about cuts in drug costs, energy costs, and "greater tax fairness" because corporations with assets or earnings of more than a billion dollars "currently paying nothing will have to pay at least 15%." He said gas prices will continue going down, and "necessities" will also decline. Altogether, he said, "I think Americans will see historic results."

Graham chimed in, saying "this is not the bipartisan part of the interview," and proceeded to slam the American Rescue Plan ("it became a recession plan") and the new bill, which he said "is going to make everything worse." And even though he voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the gun bill, he's a no on this.

... If a company buys a piece of equipment, they could expense it under the 2017 tax cut in the same year they bought it. That goes away. So, CBO says it disincentivizes companies for building factories, buying equipment, which would help us get out of recession. There's a 16.4% tax on imported barrels of oil that are going to increase cost at the gas pump. Subsidies for Obamacare go to families making $304,000 a year, which I think is ill-conceived. And the bottom line, it's not going to help inflation.

Bash didn't question Graham's claim on the subsidies, nor did she ask if the Rs have an alternative for the estimated 3 million people who would lose insurance, or the 10 million who would see a sharp increase in their premiums this fall.

Graham is upset that the deficit is only being reduced by $100B, while the spending is about $750 trillion. And, about the subsidies, he said "we all know they're not going to go away. So, if they stayed in place for 10 years, it would add $280 billion to the deficit. So, it's a gimmick.... no Republican is going to vote for it."

Blumenthal said "one thing where I think we can agree... is the IRS is going to have resources it needs to go after the highest-income Americans that are cheating on their taxes right now. And that will mean more money for the government." And, he continued,

 ... the average American sitting at their kitchen table deciding whether they can buy medicine, pay their mortgage, or go to the grocery store and get the food they need, they're going to be able to get that medicine much more cheaply…Overwhelmingly, the American people want to cut the cost of prescription drugs. This measure does it through enabling Medicare to do what the VA does, what the Department of Defense does, negotiate for lower prices. And that will affect the entire course of inflation.

 Graham wasn't having it.

... They take 15 drugs, and they put a limit on what you can charge. That sounds good, until pharmaceutical companies invent less new drugs. Remember COVID? Well, it was the American pharmaceutical industry that got us the drugs that keep us out of the hospital and keep a lot of us alive. This is price-fixing. It has never worked for us. It's not going to work now. Hiring 86,000 more IRS agents, if that makes you feel better, you have missed a lot. They're coming after waitresses, Uber drivers and everybody else to collect more taxes. So, if you think growing the IRS is good for you, you're wrong.

Blumenthal thinks that's just silly. Uber drivers and "everybody else" is going to be OK, because the IRS will be targeting the "highest-income Americans." 

The idea that there's going to be this army of IRS agents defending -- descending on the average American is just preposterous. Tax fairness is what we need. And for the biggest corporations in this country to pay no taxes, for them to do stock buybacks that benefit the shareholders, but, for example, in the case of oil companies, they are making three to four times what they did just last year. What are they doing with those excess windfall profits? Lowering gasoline prices? No. They aren't doing stock buybacks. They ought to pay a tax on it. And I think there ought to be rebates to consumers from those excess profits.

Let's move to the bipartisan part of the interview, where there's agreement that:

• we should label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, that we need to provide more military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and we need more sanctions on Russia. 
• Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan wasn't a mistake; Blumenthal said "...the Chinese can't tell our legislators or any American citizens where to travel." Graham suggested her visit sends a message to Iran and Russia, not just China, adding we need Taiwan economically, and we need to provide it more economic and military support.
• we need to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, but not with a national red flag law, with incentives to states to help them to what they need to do - and due process must be a part of whatever that looks like.
• they'll both support their team's presidential candidate in '24; Graham wants Trump to be the candidate, as long as he doesn't talk about 2020, while Blumenthal wasn't definitive in whether he wanted Biden to run.

I'll leave it here

Graham: So, there are plenty of us up there (DC) who fight and work together. I just want the country to know that all is not lost in Washington.

Bash: Well, that's why we have you on... we all agree this is good for the country to see that you can disagree without being disagreeable, but also work together where you see those issues.

Blumenthal: And working together is what the American people really want. 

That's it, in a nutshell: work together, on behalf of the American people, not on furthering you party's interests.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 8/7/22

Here's your recap from the Meet the Press classroom this morning, starting with what's-his-name's conversation with Stacy Abrams, the Democrat running to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia. 

He asked her to explain her stance on abortion (below) and how she'd legislate around it.

My intention is going to be to pass legislation that says a woman has the right to an abortion, and that right continues until a physician determines the fetus is viable outside of the body, except in the case of protecting the woman's life or health.

She said you don't apply "arbitrary gestational limits."  It's a medical decision, she said.

And when we give it back to doctors, when we tell women and their doctors to make these choices, what we are saying is we respect the responsibility that women have and the obligation that doctors have...we should not be setting into law these moving targets that do not reflect the reality that women face when they're sitting in that doctor's office.

What's-his-name said someone on the right would say her position would "essentially" allow abortion throughout the pregnancy; he asked if she'd want to "put guard rails on that." Abrams explained that late-term abortion decisions are incredibly difficult, and that "there is no woman who at eight months has not cherished the notion of this pregnancy."

... to put an arbitrary date in a law devalues the pain and the tragedy of that moment. A doctor is not going to take an action that is not medically required... I understand that there are those who would feel better if we plucked a date out of the air. But we know that that is not scientifically supportable. 

She also said you can't put every exception into a law, and pointed out that in Georgia,

where we have 82 counties without an OB/GYN, 64 counties without a surgeon, 18 counties without a family doctor, and nine without a doctor at all, setting arbitrary limits that are not grounded in the reality of what women face is deeply problematic and ultimately cruel.

He next asked if she was willing to compromise with a Republican legislature. Sadly, that insulting question is relevant, given so many progressives can seem to be unwilling to take a win. 

As someone who served in the legislature for 11 years and was lauded by both parties for my ability to navigate, I will certainly get the best law we can. But we begin making decisions based on what it should be. And then yes, of course, you work towards what you can get. But we have to start with a governor who actually believes that a woman should have the right to control her body and to control her economic freedom.

Turning from domestic politics to foreign policy, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-DE), who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, was up next. He was asked if Speaker Pelosi's stop in Taiwan "was worth it, given the fallout?" Van Hollen thinks so; he said "we need to be very clear that China doesn't get to dictate" which US officials go to Taiwan, and when. He added

...what President Xi decided to do was manufacture a crisis over Pelosi's visit. He's got, as you know, this fall, the Communist Party Congress is coming up. He's seeking an unprecedented third term as leader of China. And this is saber-rattling and, you know, chest-bumping by President Xi.

And what does he want to see the US do, "...to reassure the Vietnams, the Japans, the Philippines, who are nervous about what China's doing here, they're nervous about if we're going to have Taiwan's back, do we have to send a message again that we're going to have their back?"

The senator thinks the administration "has been clear" that we'll recognize the One China Policy, but that we've also made it clear we'll "oppose any effort to reunify Taiwan by force or violence," and we've told our allies that as well. He thinks China's "putting missiles into Japan's economic zone, exclusive economic zone, is going to backfire." Japan will probably increase defense spending, and seek "even closer military engagement and cooperation" with the US. 

He also said he doesn't think China making "a run at Taiwan in the next five years" is inevitable. He said we have to "help Taiwan make that as difficult as possible."

We need to continue... to make Taiwan into the porcupine so that when, you know, China looks at Taiwan, it realizes that this is going to be a hell of a fight and not a winnable fight.

He suggested that if China looks at Putin's efforts in Ukraine, they'll see "how a determined people can thwart someone" like Vladimir Putin.

What's-his-name noted that we've long tried to not talk about the US/China relationship in "adversarial terms" and asked, "how do we look at" Xi's response to Pelosi's visit and "not say we're in a cold war with China?"

Van Hollen said he doesn't think we're in a cold war with them; he said "a lot of that depended on what China does next." Xi's escalated actions against Taiwan pre-date Pelosi's visit, and he's "been more aggressive throughout the region." 

At the same time, we have been trying to cooperate with them on these other measures, as you say. I believe they'll be back at the table on those measures. It is important that we have that military-to-military dialogue. But it is important that we also confront and check China, where it's tried to export its model of authoritarianism around the world in Africa, and the Middle East and other places.

Finally, there was a discussion with the panel on Biden's "good news" of late. What's-his-name wondered who gets the credit - Biden? Schumer? Pelosi? 

Anna Palmer (Punchbowl News) says not Biden; he wasn't involved in everything that's been accomplished. Instead, she says Schumer

... kind of been an untested leader and he has gotten a lot of things done here. Everybody would have thought that this was going to be a much smaller package when it came to this reconciliation bill. They come together with this kind of sneak attack, outwits McConnell. And they get this much larger package through, giving Democrats something to run on.

Susan Page (USA Today), said traditionally approval ratings matter a lot, especially when they're bad. 

But you have this unprecedented situation where you've got two presidents who are big factors in this midterm...maybe Donald Trump is more of a negative for Republicans, more of a positive for Democrats, than Joe Biden is for either one.

Cornell Belcher (a Dem pollster) thought that was smart thinking, but Pat McCrory (former NC gov) says Jon Stewart deserves the credit. The lesson for both sides?

...don't pick a fight with a comedian like Jon Stewart or Bill Maher or David Chappelle. They will win. They are quicker than us politicians. And I think right now the only guy on the offensive was the governor of Florida, DeSantis. And yet Trump will not let him share any spotlight.

Nope - he surely won't. 

See you around campus.