Category Archives: Democrat

Much of whats distressing the public is beyond U.S. policymakers control, even though voters tend to blame whoever is in the White House. Gasoline prices, for example, have risen because of developments on world markets, not anything happening here. The same goes for food prices. And supply-chain problems, mainly reflecting a scramble to buy durable goods at a time when people are afraid to consume in-person services, are hitting many countries.

Americas third-quarter economic slowdown, however, wasnt matched abroad. For example, over the same period euro area economies grew at an annual rate of almost 9 percent.

Theres no mystery about why we had a slowdown here that wasnt equaled in Europe. It was all about the Delta wave, which was much worse on this side of the Atlantic. That wave is now receding. As it does, early indications, including claims for unemployment benefits and surveys of purchasing managers, suggest that a renewed economic surge is already underway. And as consumers start to feel safer, they may also shift demand away from stuff to services, which would ease some of the supply-chain pressures.

So the way forward for Democrats seems fairly obvious.

First, pass something. It doesnt have to be perfect; in particular, given incredibly low borrowing costs, it doesnt matter whether the proposed sources of revenue will fully pay for the new spending. Whats crucial for the politics right now is that something significant gets passed and that Biden then goes out and sells it.

Second, control Covid. The evidence is now overwhelming that vaccine mandates work and that threats of mass resignations if workers are required to get shots are mostly empty. When confronted with the prospect of actually losing a job, a great majority of workers comply.

On Thursday the Biden administration announced that Jan. 4 would be the deadline on two major vaccination mandates for health care workers and for employees of companies with payrolls exceeding 100. It should stick to this plan and ignore the screams of protest.

Will Democrats be able to turn their fortunes around if they push forward on their agenda and hang tough on vaccines? I dont know. But theyll certainly fail if they respond to Tuesdays setbacks by curling up into a defensive ball.

Originally posted here:

Opinion | On the Spending Bill and Vaccines, Democrats Must Get Moving - The New York Times

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

A top Senate Dem slammed Lindsay Graham's argument that the Biden child tax credit will boost illegal immigration to the US.

"I just have never heard such a stupid thing," Sen. Sherrod Brown told Insider.

Republicans are stepping up their attacks on a benefit that Democrats are touting as an anti-poverty measure.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, unloaded on Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina for arguing the enhanced child tax credit would boost illegal immigration to the US.

It comes after Graham held a press conference assailing the $1.75 trillion Democratic social spending bill, which includes an expansion of childcare, healthcare, a one-year enhanced child tax credit expansion and more.

"Expanding the child tax credit in this fashion is going to incentivize more illegal immigration," Graham said at a press conference on Thursday. "Word will spread if you can get to America and get a tax ID number, your children will get a tax credit from the government. This is the wrong policy at the wrong time."

Brown adamantly disagreed with Graham's characterization of the expansion. "It's a new argument just so that they could give tax cuts to the rich and squeeze working families," Brown told Insider. "I just have never heard such a stupid thing."

Most families are eligible for up to $300 monthly advance payments per kid depending on their age. It totals $3,000 per year for kids between 6 and 17 and $3,600 for children age 5 and under.

The latest House Democratic bill scrapped the requirement for a Social Security number, meaning unauthorized immigrant children could qualify for federal assistance with only an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). The left-leaning Center on Budget Policy Priorities projected up to 675,000 children were eligible.

Republicans are stepping up their attacks on the child tax credit in recent weeks after being muted on the issue. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell derided it as a "monthly welfare deposit" late last month. Now Graham is opening a new line of criticism against the new social benefit as the GOP tries to counter-program against Democrats touting it as an anti-poverty measure.

Story continues

The South Carolina Republican later told Insider he would oppose extending the credit once it comes up for a vote next year.

Yet not every Senate Republican may share that position. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska declined to answer when asked by Insider if she would support extending the child benefit next year.

Early research indicates the first month of payments in July kept 3 million children out of poverty and helped feed 2 million kids. A recent analysis from researchers at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, Barnard College, and Bocconi University found "very small" impacts from the payments on overall employment, suggesting that the credit isn't keeping parents from going back to work.

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Top Democrat unloads on Lindsey Graham's argument that the Biden child tax credit will boost illegal immigration to the US: 'I just have never heard...

Nov 6th 2021

WASHINGTON, DC

ONE YEAR ago, Americas Democrats were celebrating: Joe Biden had just made Donald Trump a one-term president. This years (much smaller) election day left them in a considerably grimmer mood. In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to win a gubernatorial race since 2009. Democrats are on course to lose the lower chamber of the statehouse, as well as races for lieutenant-governor and attorney-general. In New Jersey, Phil Murphy, the incumbent governor, came within just a percentage point of losing despite winning by 14 points in 2017. The partys progressive wing fared even worse: voters in Minneapolis rejected a measure to replace the citys police department with a Department of Public Safety, and a socialist mayoral candidate in Buffalo, New York lost to her defeated primary opponent who was running as a write-in candidate. Partly these results simply hew to form: the party in power tends to fare poorly in off-year elections. But the size and shape of the defeat augurs ill for Democrats chances of holding their congressional majorities in next years midterm races.

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A few factors may have exacerbated the Democrats poor performance. Mr Biden had hoped to have Democratic candidates boasting about all the party has accomplished so far. But his congressional agenda has stalled amid factional party infighting, which may have depressed the base. Terry McAuliffe, whom Mr Youngkin defeated, ran a flat-footed campaign focused almost entirely on Mr Trump, who was not on the ballot. Moderate Republican voters who supported Mr Biden last year to get Mr Trump out of office may have found their way back home.

Mr Youngkin, by contrast, appeared moderate enough for moderates and Trumpy enough for farther-right voters, running up Belarusian margins in white rural counties. His campaign focused on parents rights and education; he vowed to ban critical-race theory from being taught in schools (which it is not). Mr McAuliffe called that tactic a racist dog-whistle, but failed to muster a more persuasive response or present a broader positive vision for the state. New Jerseys race followed a similar pattern. Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for governor, ran a moderate campaign focused on cutting taxes, and he avoided mentioning Mr Trump. That may have helped him win independents, while Mr Murphys low-key style (perhaps along with some complacency) may have kept Democratic turnout low.

The bigger force at play, however, is the typical backlash against the party that controls the White House. The off-year Virginia governors race has swung against a newly elected president in every contest since 1981. The average swing in vote margins against the incumbent party is about ten percentage points, though the penalty can be as high as 17 in rare cases. In comparison, the two Democrats margins in New Jersey and Virginia were 14 percentage points lower on average than Mr Bidens margin against Mr Trump there in 2020. In other words, the merits or detriments of individual candidates notwithstanding, Democrats faced predictable patterns of revolt against the ruling party.

Democracy in America is thermostatic, observed Christopher Wlezien, a political scientist, in a 1995 journal article establishing a theory of politics bearing the same name. He used data on preferences and levels of government spending to show they move in a slightly inverse relationship. As the government spends more money, people want it to spend lessand vice versa. And elections are also somewhat thermostatic. Once a party takes power, its members tend to become the target of peoples dissatisfactions about whatever grievances they have against their government, and they get voted out. The nationwide swings against Democrats on Tuesday are further evidence of this trend. Covid-19 and supply-chain woes, for instance, may not be Mr Bidens fault, but the president takes the blame.

Yet this implies Democrats are powerless to combat electoral losses, which they are not. Though results from elsewhere in the country seem to offer hints on the surface, they do not offer a clear answer to the partys dilemmas. Much has been made of the results of a referendum to replace the police department in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a Department of Public Safety that would have been focused less on punishment and traditional law-enforcement tactics and more on addressing social inequities and causes of crime. The failure of such a woke pipe-dream in a liberal city could be seen as a rebuke of the Democratic Partys most left-leaning members and their toxicity to the brand, were it not for the results of a vote in Austin, Texas, where voters rejected a proposition that would have increased the funding and staffing for their own cops. More than anything the mood among Americas voters seemed to be a reflection of the general unpopularity of the Democratic Party and its leader.

The thermostat will probably continue to get colder. Not only have voters tended to side against presidents in off-year governors races, they also tend to punish them in mid-term elections to Congress. Since 1934, the party controlling the White House has lost an average of 28 seats in the House and four seats in the Senate. A thermostatic backlash threatens the partys control of Congress for at least five years, and perhaps the next four after that.

Were Mr Biden or Kamala Harris, his vice-president, to win the presidential election in 2024 but lose in 2028 (presidents usually win two terms), thermostatic dynamics would not favour the Democrats until the first mid-term of a Republican presidency in 2030. But even in the scenario Mr Biden or some other Democrat were to lose in 2024 and Democrats regain control of Congress in 2026, that would still leave them without legislative power for two cycles after next years mid-terms. If the results on November 3rd stem largely from the typical patterns of American politics, they portend a dark decade ahead for the Democrats, notwithstanding Mr Bidens plummeting approval ratings. And this weeks shellacking suggests that the party has no sound strategy for how to combat such trends.

For more coverage of Joe Bidens presidency, visit our dedicated hub

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Physics for politics"

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Democrats suffer a thorough drubbing at the polls - The Economist

Democrats insist that unique factors will make the 2022 elections history defying. Mr. Trump, the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, the pandemic and the fate of democracy itself will share the ballot with the usual issues of economic growth and the performance of the president.

While voters see Democrats rebooting the economy and getting folks back on the job, Republicans are campaigning on junk science that is endangering peoples lives and false election claims that threaten our democracy, said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Redistricting will make the Democratic road steeper. David Wasserman, who tracks new district maps for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said so far, Democratic fears look somewhat overblown Republican state legislatures have already gerrymandered their maps so severely that they can only go so much further. Republicans appear more intent on shoring up their vulnerable incumbents than destroying Democratic seats, he said.

In contrast, Democratic legislatures, especially in New York and Illinois, may actually produce more partisan maps than their G.O.P. brethren. In all, Mr. Wasserman said, Republicans could net up to five seats from new district lines, possibly enough to win the majority but far fewer than the 10 to 15 seats some Democrats fear.

Nonetheless, the new maps are pushing Democrats toward retirement. Mr. Doyle said he expects his district, which was once dominated by the city of Pittsburgh, to expand into more Trump-friendly counties to allow some of his Democratic voters to shore up the swing district now held by Representative Conor Lamb, a Democrat who is running for the states open Senate seat.

He could still win, he said, but he would have a whole new set of constituents, staff to hire, offices to open and hands to shake. After 26 years in the House, retirement was logical.

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House Democrats Are Retiring as Party Fears Losing Majority - The New York Times

State Rep. Yvonne Davis, of Dallas, says shes disappointed with the level of politics influencing that happened under the Capitol dome versus policy itself.

DALLAS While Republicans finish the 2021 legislative cycle having accomplished just about everything they wanted, Democrats leave Austin nearly empty-handed.

And at least one says shes disappointed and disgusted with the level of politics influencing that happened under the Capitol dome versus policy itself. And state Rep. Yvonne Davis says the most vulnerable communities are the ones being attacked.

People just want to ignore the rights of minorities and their right to vote, their right for fair representation. So, its just a continuation of what can we do to the people to harm them, the Democrat from Dallas said on Inside Texas Politics. We didnt get anything.

Even though the vast majority of growth in Texas over the past decade was fueled by minority populations, making Texas the only state to gain two seats in Congress, Republicans solidified their power with their new political maps. They insist the new districts follow all federal voting rights laws and are race blind. Democrats say since 95% of that growth was because of Texans of color, the maps are discriminatory.

And to not represent that with the maps that we drew, its unconscionable, Rep. Davis said.

At least one federal lawsuit has already been filed, with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) arguing the maps weaken the strength of Hispanic voters and violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Many more lawsuits are expected to follow.

It all concerns Rep. Davis, who fears some voters may be losing confidence in the process altogether, which will lead to fewer people participating in electoral politics. But she thinks Democrats can use it to motivate their voters. And while she mentioned no specific names or offices, she says some good candidates are still considering a run for office.

The process, it always swings back. And this pendulum of conservative take all you can, while you can, when you can, will grow old for the citizens of Texas and they will want their government back in the middle, she said.

Rep. Davis says its clear the system is broken, from the states pandemic fight to battles over mask and vaccine mandates to several school districts even suing the governor. The influential Democrat says it all has her "fed up," but also "fired up."

I think that one of the challenges for folks like myself is, because we know it can be better, is to get fired up and try to make it better, fed up with the stupid stuff, and energized enough to try to get people motivated to recognize its not getting better, its deteriorating and it requires them to get engaged, said the Dallas Democrat.

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Influential Texas Democrat says she's 'fed up, but fired up' and hopes political pendulum swings back towards the middle - WFAA.com

After weeks of unfruitful intraparty infighting over their agenda, it has become clear that the Democratic Party is headed down a self-destructive path.

President BidenJoe BidenGrant Woods, longtime friend of McCain and former Arizona AG, dies at 67 Sanders on Medicare expansion in spending package: 'Its not coming out' Glasgow summit raises stakes for Biden deal MOREs bipartisan infrastructure bill is still being held hostage by progressives, who have threatened to kill the bipartisan agreement if its brought to a vote before the party finalizes their expansive social spending package, also known as the 'Build Back Better plan.

However, it seems highly unlikely that moderates namely, Sens. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinSanders on Medicare expansion in spending package: 'Its not coming out' Glasgow summit raises stakes for Biden deal Sunday shows preview: CDC signs off on 'mix and match' vaccine boosters MORE (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten SinemaKyrsten SinemaSunday shows preview: CDC signs off on 'mix and match' vaccine boosters Buttigieg aims to use Tucker Carlson flap to spotlight paternity leave Biden injects new momentum into filibuster fight MORE (D-Ariz.) will come together with progressives on a framework for the Build Back Better plan. At this point, it actually seems more likely that Manchin and Sinema will be driven from the party.

Negotiations hit a new impasse this week when Sinema made clear that she would not vote to raise taxes on high-income earners or corporations to pay for the bill.

In a CNN townhall, Biden acknowledged that talks were faltering: [Sinema] will not raise a single penny in taxes on the corporate side and/or on wealthy people, period, Biden said. And so thats where it sort of breaks down.

Enough is enough. There is simply no good reason for Democrats to continue down the ill-fated path of pushing for this so-called transformational legislation when there is no political will, support or consensus surrounding it.

Instead, Biden and Democratic leaders need to convey to members of both parties that their first priority going forward will be passing the presidents historic bipartisan infrastructure bill in order to urgently repair and modernize our nations crumbling infrastructure.

Then, rather than pushing for a $2-trillion or $3-trillion-dollar social spending bill which both progressives and moderates have problems with, and no Republicans support the party should move forward with each initiative separately.

How, given the circumstances, should Democratic party leaders move forward with a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill?

Dare progressives to vote against it. Call their bluff. And if they oppose it, attack them directly.

Even if some progressives still decide to vote no on the bipartisan agreement as a result, it is not out of the question that more Republicans will be moved to vote yes on to the bipartisan bill, given that it would no longer be tied to a massive social spending bill that every single congressional Republican opposes.

The approach I have suggested is both in line with and in part inspired by the one New York Times Bret Stephens outlined in his recent editorial, in which he called for Democrats to: disaggregate the spending bill into separate items of legislation that could be voted on la carte, according to their merits and political appeal.

Indeed, once the bipartisan bill has passed, then, Democratic leaders should move forward with each initiative in the Build Back Better plan separately. This would mean forcing a simple, separate yes or no vote on each policy or area within the larger package paid family leave, the child tax credit, prescription drug pricing and climate initiatives, to name a few.

This way, the onus is on the Republicans and the various fighting wings in the party to compromise issue-by-issue on policies that voters can understand.

Comparatively, if Democrats continue on with their current approach to the Build Back Better agenda, there are only two possible outcomes, neither of which will leave the party in a stronger position.

If by some unlikely turn of events, Democrats are able to reach an agreement on a reconciliation package, it is inevitable that neither progressives nor moderates will be completely happy with it. Further, no Republicans will vote for it. The end result will be a multi-trillion-dollar expenditure that progressives dont think went far enough, moderates feel went too far, and Republicans stood in uniform opposition to.

Or, more likely, negotiations will drag on, no deal will be reached, and President Biden will be left with very little to show for legislatively entering a midterm election year. And you can count on voters taking their frustration over the dysfunction in Washington to the ballot box in November 2022.

Of course, the approach Ive outlined could fail in part or in all when it comes to securing the passage of legislation. However, Biden whose national approval rating is underwater, especially among Independent voters and Democratic leaders will at least be perceived as being closer to the center, and as standing up for whats right in the face of obstruction from the far-right and far-left.

If nothing else, this approach will at least change the national narrative. It will no longer appear to voters as though President Biden and the entire Democratic party are ineffective and blameworthy. Rather, voters will place any blame squarely on the far-left, as well as the far-right, for impeding progress.

A final word to my fellow Democrats:

We dont need massive spending and taxation initiatives. We dont need inflation-fueling policies.

We do need a limited and focused amount of government that delivers targeted, practical economic and social policies.

It is time to rise above petty politics and deliver for the American people.

If Democrats cannot rise above the challenges of intramural party politics, they are almost certain to be brought down by their real adversaries in the form of Donald TrumpDonald TrumpGrant Woods, longtime friend of McCain and former Arizona AG, dies at 67 Super PACs release ad campaign hitting Vance over past comments on Trump Glasgow summit raises stakes for Biden deal MORE and his supporters seeking political revenge in the 2022 midterm and 2024 presidential elections.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael BloombergMichael BloombergDemocrats' combative approach to politics is doing more harm than good Battling over Biden's agenda: A tale of two Democratic parties Budget impasses mark a critical turning point in Biden's presidency MORE. He is the author of, The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat."

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What Democrats need to do to avoid self-destruction | TheHill - The Hill

Kyrsten Sinema might be on the young side for a senator less than half the age of some of her colleagues but she represents the Democratic Partys past. Think of her and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., as the dead hands reaching out of the grave, grabbing at the party as it tries to move on from them. They might have managed to claw back spending on the Build Back Better Act, but the reality that their time has passed is clear. And the way you can measure this most directly is in terms of dollars.

For Sinema in particular, her approach to the negotiations to push against social spending and tax hikes on the rich and corporations has cost her badly in the polls at home and hasnt had much of an upside when it comes to campaign cash. Her model of politics is outdated, though it has beenthe dominant form for most of her life.

In the 1980s, in response to the Reagan Revolution and the ongoing realignment that broke what Democrats thought was a permanent stranglehold on Congress, the party developed what was called at the time a PAC strategy but today is just called fundraising. Republican candidates in 1980 had heavily outspent Democrats, who believed that their name recognition and long record they implemented the New Deal, won World War II, enacted the Great Society, and so on meant that the GOP was wasting money on television. When that turned out not to be the case, Democrats realized that they needed comparable money of their own, and the fundraising idea was that since Democrats still had durable control of the House of Representatives they could cling to it for 14 years after Reagans 1980 election businessesthat had interests before Congress needed to start ponying up for access.

Raising corporate money is not actually that efficient.

Access quickly turned to alliance, and the party drifted heavily in a pro-business direction. These New Democrats argued that the party had to beat back the power of special interests and by special interests, they meant civil rights advocates, environmentalists, and labor unions. The presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson in 1988 pushed back against this hegemonic approach, but without a way to aggregate grassroots enthusiasm into the money needed for a national infrastructure, the threat was neutralized. Starting with Howard Dean in the 2004 presidential race, it finally started to look possible that a candidate funded by a large number of small, individual donations could compete with one funded by the rich and corporations. Technology was making it possible for people to quickly translate their enthusiasm not just into a honk and wave on a highway overpass, but also into actual money.

Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama showed the promise of small dollars in 2008, but he also raised an insane amount of money from Wall Street and, once in office, he abandoned the network of small donors he had built and went with the big money. In his 2016 presidential campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., nearly toppled the Clinton machine with his famous $27 contributions. In 2018, the small-donor revolution spread to normie Democrats, with anti-Trump, #Resistance liberals throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at congressional Democrats, enabling them to retake the House. In 2020, small donors did it again, and the resource-rich Democrats took both the House and Senate.

One of the people who noticed this shift was Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., once known as Wall Street Chuck. But thanks to all of these small donors, he nowserves as Senate majority leader. A lot of people have chalked up Schumers pivot toward progressives as fear of a primary challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and no doubt thats part of whats going on. Another factor is that Schumer is used to delivering for donors so that they keep the spigot flowing. And Schumers donors are now rank-and-file Democratic activists throwing in $27 at a time. In 2020, 41 percent of the money raised by Democratic Senate candidates came from donations of less than $200. What they want is to see Democrats fighting for what they ran on, so Schumer is happy to give them that fight.

Schumer also knows that raising corporate money is not actually that efficient, because each one of these lobbyists or rich people requires coddling, demands intimate access, wants internships for their kids, wants a dinner and a speech and photo, and on and on. Small donors just want you to win and then deliver what you promised. They dont expect to ever meet you unless theyre volunteering at a headquarters where you happen to stop by.

Over the summer, Sinema showed just how much work it is. For the past few months, we were treated to endless stories about Sinema skipping important events in Washington to be at this or that fundraiser and even leaving the country to go to Paris to raise money. For all that trouble, Sinema broke her fundraising record, reporting $1.1 million in fundraising in third quarter.

And its true thats her record since she became a senator.

But when she was a candidate running for Senate back in the third quarter of 2018, when Democratic voters thought she was a progressive and wanted to help her flip a Republican seat she raised almost $7 million.

Thats not a fluke. You might think that 2018 was a special year and that Democratic small donors are no longer fired up since President Donald Trump is out of office and kicked off Twitter. That argument falls apart when you start looking at individual candidates. Fellow Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is totally fine with the full $3.5 trillion proposal for the reconciliation bill, voted for a minimum wage increase, supports passing partsof the labor reform legislation called the PRO Act, and generally supports all kinds of reforms that Sinema is battling. Kelly, whos up for reelection next year, raised $8.2 millionthis past quarter, while the Republican candidate expected to win that primary raised just over half a million.

OK, youre thinking, maybe Kelly just has a ton more rich friends than Sinema. Well, the way to test that hypothesis is to look at the Federal Election Commission records for how many of the contributions were itemized, how many were unitemized, and how many were from PACs. Unitemized means that it was less than $200, and PACs are generally corporate PACS, but they could also be labor unions, and Kelly probably did well from them aftersupporting the PRO Act.

In the last three months, Kelly raised $3.4 million from small donors, according to his FEC report. In other words, he raisedthree times more than Sinema just from small donors even while Sinema was making a corporate-loving spectacle of herself and traveling the world to raise money. He made nothing from PACs. And his $3.8 million in itemized contributions shows that a Democrat in a swing state can back the Biden agenda and still raise money from big donors.

Sinema raised $914,000 from itemized contributions those are big donations and just $31,653.71 from small donors. She also raised $192,000 from PACs.

The fundraising profile that looks the most similar to Sinemas is Manchins. Like Sinema, hes up for reelection in 2024. He did better than Sinema in the third quarter, raising almost $1.6 million. But just $10,448of that was made up of donations of less than $200. Of that, $1.3 millioncame from large donations, and $250,000came from PACs.

Manchin, though, is distinguished from Sinema in that he can plausibly claim to be in a different political environment back home, a state that Trump carried in 2020 by nearly 40 points while losing in Arizona.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin is perhaps the best comparison, since she serves from Wisconsin, which Trump won in 2016, Biden won in 2020, and will be hotly contested in 2024. The last quarter, she raised $640,000, about half of which is from small donors. So if thats Sinemas game selling out the entire Democratic agenda to do slightly better than Baldwin in the fundraising race I guess congratulations are in order.

Over in Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock put Sinemas haul to shame, raising $4.7 million from small donors in the third quarter on his way to raising $9 million overall. Maggie Hassan, the New Hampshire senator up for reelection this cycle, also raised more than Sinema: $2.5 million last quarter, more than $800,000 of which was from small donors.

And how did Sinema compare to a House member without a serious challenger?

Ocasio-Cortez raised just over $1.6 million to Sinemas $1.1 million. In fact, she raised more from just small donors than Sinema raised total.

The simple fact is that Sinemas style of fundraising just isnt the best way to raise large sums of money anymore. And most politicians ultimately follow the money, which means that theyre now going to follow the people, especially if theyre in swing states that millions of people care about. So if you believe that politicians are corrupt and only do what their donors tell them to do, this is actually good news about the future of the Democratic Party. For now, however, the partys past still has a death grip on the present.

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Sinema Is the Dying Scream of the Corporate Democratic Party - The Intercept

DANBURY Heartbroken over the 2016 presidential election, Roberto Alves watched former President Obamas farewell speech with his wife.

In the speech, Obama urged people to grab a clipboard and run for office if they were disappointed in their elected officials.

That really spoke to me, said Alves, 38.

Alves, who immigrated to the United States at 5 and had his Green Card, became a U.S. citizen and ran for Danbury City Council in 2017. He lost then, but won an at-large seat in 2019.

Now, the Democrat seeks to become Danburys next mayor.

Ive always had the want and the will to help people, he said.

Alves is running against Republican Dean Esposito, the mayors chief of staff, in the first open mayoral race in Danbury in 20 years.

Alves was born in Portugal, where his dad is from, but his family then moved to Brazil, his mothers home country. He was too young to remember Portugal, but from Brazil recalls his classmates, neighborhood grandmothers house and the tragedy of his grandfathers death.

At 5, his family decided to move to Danbury, where his uncle was a business owner. They arrived in the fall, and it was so much colder than Rio, Alves said. He attended kindergarten at what was then the Roberts Avenue School.

I felt different, he said. I didnt speak the language and recognized that as a kid. It was a whole new world and it was scary.

He said he was lucky that his teacher spoke Portuguese. He has stayed in touch to this day, he said.

Danbury is diverse, after all. Friends in his class spoke Portuguese and lived in his neighborhood, and his family went to a Portuguese church.

That made it easier, Alves said.

He worked hard to learn English.

I didnt want to have an accent, Alves said. I didnt want to be picked on.

Now, he embraces his Portuguese and Brazilian heritage, while loving being an American.

I still respect my cultural heritage, Alves said. I grew up in this country. I love it here.

His family has lived the immigrant story of struggle and success that many in Danbury are familiar with from those whose Italian or Irish grandparents came here to those newly arriving in the country, Alves said.

Alves dad, Augusto, worked various jobs, including in construction and as an overnight janitor, while his mom, Isaura, worked in laundromats, as a house cleaner and other odd jobs.

Alves, meanwhile, looked after his two younger sisters. His middle sister was born in Portugal and went to Brazil as a baby. His youngest sister was born in the United States.

Eventually, his parents owned OFaia Catering in Danbury.

They instilled that hard work ethic on their son, he said.

Its just that hardscrabble, grit, determination and lifestyle that America was built on, Alves said.

His friend Farley Santos said Alves has said his parents taught the candidate to help others who are less fortunate, even if you dont have much yourself.

Thats something thats ingrained and is a part of his values, Santos said. His values are Danbury values.

Alves met his wife, Robyn, through band in middle school. Although she remembers him from kindergarten, first and second grade, he doesnt.

I joke shes been chasing me since elementary school, Alves said.

They started dating in high school and went to prom together.

They married in 2012. Rather than spending money on a large wedding, they traveled the world for several months, including living in Brazil. They bought her grandfathers house, which is next to her fathers house.

Their son, Julius, is 8, and their daughter, Catalina, is 6.

Alves first foray into local politics was in advocating for more basketball courts in Danbury, he said.

He was driven to become more active in the community once he and his wife decided to raise their family in Danbury. Alves said he saw his peers leaving the city because of negative perceptions of the local public schools.

He said they started watching school board meetings and quickly realized it wasnt the Board of Education. It was the city and its current leadership that left the schools wanting.

Addressing the schools enrollment and funding challenges have been chief aspects of his campaign.

Former President Trump and the national rhetoric after the 2016 election pushed him to become more involved politically, he said.

Thats when he met Santos, who was among the Democratic candidates in 2017.

Roberto is a natural leader, said Santos, a City Council member. That really stood out back then and in every single election or organization or nonprofits that weve been involved with. He has a natural ability to bring people together.

He said he has seen this in food and backpack drives Alves has helped organize, as well as the candidates role on the Danbury Museum Board of Trustees.

After a couple years, Alves began to take the lead on local issues, said State Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury.

As I got to know him better, I realized he was very sincere and hardworking and energetic and really hopeful about how to make this a better place to live in Danbury, she said.

She said she noticed his leadership after the police killing of George Floyd when younger people in the community looked up to him as they organized demonstrations in the city.

Kushner described Alves as a deep thinker.

He takes in a lot of information and takes advice from people, but ultimately he thinks about these things deeply and he makes decisions, she said.

Alves background as a technical sales engineer at Cartus Corporation in Danbury would be a benefit for the city, said state Rep. David Arconti, D-Danbury.

Hes been in board rooms all across the country, Arconti said. He knows what it takes to recruit a business.

Santos said Alves would be a strong advocate for families and first responders in Danbury.

He is passionate, Santos said. He loves this city. He says that over and over again, and thats because thats evident.

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Spurred to get involved by Obama, Democrat Roberto Alves says he has 'will' to help Danbury - Danbury News Times

Democrats are finalizing their health care plans for this Congress and coalescing around one particular goal: filling the gaps in Obamacare.

Lawmakers appear likely to prioritize proposed fixes to the Affordable Care Act in the forthcoming budget reconciliation bill, but some of the partys other ideas for expanding health coverage may end up getting cut out of the legislation.

When Obamacare passed in 2010, it was supposed to achieve universal insurance coverage or something close to it by patching holes in the existing health care system.

But as it turned out, the 2010 law has holes of its own waiting to be fixed. The uninsured rate has dropped significantly since the ACA was enacted: Just about 10 percent of people in the US lack health care coverage today, compared to nearly 18 percent in 2009. But that still leaves 27.4 million people without insurance.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states could choose whether to expand their Medicaid programs, and 12 states never did leaving 2 million people with no health coverage, a disproportionate share of whom are people of color living in the South. Other uninsured Americans include people who are not eligible for government assistance (either because of their immigration status or because, until recently, they made too much money to qualify) and cant afford it on their own, as well as people who are eligible but have not, for whatever reason, signed up for benefits.

Democrats newest health care measure, part of their Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill, tries to close those gaps, though they will again fall short of reaching universal coverage.

Some Democrats also have other goals: Many progressives want to expand Medicare benefits to cover dental, hearing, and vision care. But Congress may still have to scale back the health care section of the reconciliation legislation if centrist Democrats continue to balk at a plan to cap prices for prescription drugs. If those plans must be cut to get the bill passed, Congress and the White House could end up having to decide which parts of their agenda to pass now and which ones to postpone.

Should it come to that, dealing with some of the ACAs unfinished business seems likely to be Democratic leaders top priority.

When Democrats set out to reform health care in 2010, they made a choice: Rather than fundamentally changing US health care by creating a single-payer system or an aggressive public option to compete with private insurers, Democrats tried to patch up the existing system through Medicaid and the individual commercial market.

The law gave government help to middle-class people who buy private coverage; it also intended to expand Medicaid to people whose incomes were at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

That design was dictated, in part, by concerns about cost. The Obama White House promised to craft a health care proposal that would pay for itself to meet demands from more conservative members of the Democratic Party. Expanding Medicaid was projected to be cheaper than subsidizing private coverage. Cutting off subsidies for private individual insurance at 400 percent of the federal poverty level today, that equals about $51,500 for one person and around $88,000 for a family of three brought the bills cost down too.

But these choices ultimately made coverage unaffordable for millions of middle-class Americans.

Pent-up demand for medical services drove insurers expenses higher than they had anticipated. Premiums increased significantly during the years after the laws marketplace opened, though they eventually stabilized.

People getting federal assistance were protected; their own costs were fixed, while the federal government picked up the cost of premium increases. But people with incomes too high to qualify faced the full brunt of rate hikes and many of them dropped their ACA-compliant coverage as a result. Enrollment among those ineligible for assistance dropped by more than 3 million from 2016 to 2018, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

This became one of the ACAs most obvious failures. In the American Rescue Plan (ARP), Democrats expanded the laws subsidies to people earning above 400 percent of the federal poverty, and an estimated 235,500 of those who became newly eligible have enrolled in coverage this year, according to federal data.

However, the ARP authorized the new subsidies for only two years. The new reconciliation bill would make them permanent.

The other problem with Obamacare was unexpected. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Medicaid expansion was too coercive and that states needed to be able to choose to opt out.

Although the expansion was still a really good deal for states the federal government covered 100 percent of the cost for the first three years, and 90 percent in perpetuity as of 2020 a dozen states are still holding out, seven years after the expansion first took effect. Those states are concentrated in the South; Texas and Florida account for more than half of the 2.2 million people in poverty who have been left uncovered because of their states opposition to the expansion.

Closing the expansion gap was also already a priority for Democrats in the ARP. In that bill, Congress offered an additional financial incentive for the holdout states: a temporary boost in their traditional Medicaid funding. But none of them have taken that deal in the six months since it passed.

So Democrats have concocted a new plan. They would initially cover people stuck in the Medicaid expansion gap through private insurance on the ACA markets, before eventually transferring them into a newly created federal program that would replicate the coverage they would have received through Medicaid.

It sounds clumsy, but thats because Democrats have been trying to walk another legal tightrope as theyve worked on a fix for the expansion gap. They dont want to create a situation where the states that refused the expansion are getting a better deal than the states that accepted it, opening themselves to another lawsuit.

The ACA improvements would drive the number of uninsured Americans down by several million 3.9 million, according to Congressional Budget Office projections another incremental step toward universal coverage.

But the fixes in the bill alone are not sufficient to get the US caught up to the rest of the developed world, where universal health care is assured. And neither would any of the other proposals Democrats are considering.

Many Democrats now view the ACA as a political winner, having run on the law in the last two elections. The proposed improvements to Obamacare probably enjoy the most widespread support among the partys majorities in Congress.

But as in 2010, Democrats may soon have to make important decisions about which policies to push through and which ones to cut out. They have thin majorities, again, and the more conservative wing is once more putting pressure on leadership to constrain the size of the legislation.

Recent comments from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her allies, and center-left Democrats suggest that fixing the ACA would be the first priority.

Other plans to achieve universal coverage an aggressive public option or a single-payer Medicare-for-all are still divisive among Democrats, and they face stiff opposition from the insurance industry. The party isnt trying to pass them with the narrow majorities it currently has in Congress.

Progressive Democrats have other ideas about how to improve health care, short of Medicare-for-all. These include adding to and improving Medicare benefits and making more people eligible for that program, which they hope will eventually serve as a vessel for single-payer health care.

At first, it appeared Congress would try to do all of this at once. The first draft of the reconciliation bill included not only the ACA fixes but also the expansion of dental, hearing, and vision benefits for Medicares 62.7 million beneficiaries.

But Congress faces the same kind of fiscal limitations now as when it was trying to pass the ACA: Centrists want the bill to be paid for, though some are also leery of major tax increases. Congress traditionally funds health care spending through health care savings, and those constraints could dictate the policy again. (Whole proposals, like a major funding infusion for long-term care, may end up being scrapped because of centrist disinterest and their demand to lower the bills cost.)

Prescription drug savings are supposed to cover the cost of most of the bills health care provisions. But those reforms are running into trouble with some Democrats who sound receptive to the drug industrys arguments that the price controls Congress is contemplating would hamper medical innovation.

If Democrats are forced to scale back or scrap the prescription drug plan to assuage those concerns, theyll need to either find new savings to pay for their spending which may be hard, without making new industry enemies who would try to tank the bill or theyll likely start cutting some of their coverage proposals.

What would the priority be in the latter scenario? Democrats have already attempted to address these ACA issues in the American Rescue Plan. In comments last week, Democratic leaders again made the 2010 law sound like their top priority.

I feel very proprietary about the ACA, Pelosi said, according to NBC News. The No. 3 Democrat in the House, Rep. Jim Clyburn, said Medicaid expansion is his focus. A coalition of center-left Democrats is pushing House leadership to confine their health care agenda to these ACA remedies.

All of these health care proposals cost money. The ACA coverage provisions total about $550 billion in new spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office. New Medicare benefits would add as much as $350 billion over 10 years to the health sections projected cost. It may simply cost too much, in the eyes of center-left Democrats trying to trim the size of the package, to do all of it at once. Still, progressives are strongly backing the Medicare benefit expansion.

Finishing the Obamacare project may be the safest bet for the budget reconciliation legislation it has a real consensus within the party, and there are glaring problems that do need to be fixed.

But even if the Democrats patch up the ACA, theyll simply be postponing the larger debate to come. The American health care system still has serious problems, and those problems are, in some cases, only becoming more acute.

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Why Democrats Medicare and health care bill ideas are shrinking and drug prices may not - Vox.com

WASHINGTON As drug pricing talks in Congress heated up this week, Democrats negotiated in earnest to get skeptics of their drug pricing policies on board.

With crunch time approaching for talks on a major legislative package containing the cornerstone of President Bidens domestic agenda, drug pricing policy remained unresolved as lawmakers scramble to get consensus on a complicated, contentious issue.

Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) is involved with the negotiations, said sources following the talks.

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One key point of contention is whether negotiations should extend to drugs that cannot yet have generic competition because of patent protections, according to three sources. Another issue is how aggressive limits on drug price hikes should be, two sources said.

Peters and four other House lawmakers had proposed a watered-down version of Medicare drug price negotiation that would apply only to drugs administered in physicians offices that have run the course of their patent protection. New drugs usually get 12 years of exclusive rights, but pharmaceutical companies often work to extend that time frame for particularly lucrative drugs.

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Peters told reporters on Thursday that a lot of Senate offices have called him to inquire about his drug pricing bill, but he declined to name who. Peters has been a major recipient of cash from drug makers this year, particularly after he fired a warning shot in the spring opposing House Speaker Nancy Pelosis preferred drug pricing plan.

Peters office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to comment.

Advocates and progressive lawmakers are sounding the alarm that watering down proposals to the level Peters is aiming for would make the Medicare drug price negotiation policy moot.

As they are steadily eviscerated, drug pricing provisions are being effectively excluded, rendered worthless for most Americans victimized by pharmaceutical price gouging, said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), chair of the House Ways & Means health subcommittee in a written statement.

Watering down drug pricing policy also slashes the federal savings that lawmakers could use to pay for other policy priorities. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said the chance that Medicare negotiation policy could be dropped entirely is very worrisome.

The question is, what can we salvage? Until the final deal is done Im gonna keep pushing to get as much as we can, Welch told STAT in a brief interview at the Capitol on Thursday.

Patients for Affordable Drugs, a consumer advocacy group advocating for aggressive drug pricing reform, decried Peters policy late Friday. A spokesperson said the scaled-back proposal would rob Medicare negotiation legislation of its impact and would leave patients exposed to high drug prices.

Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was adamant on Thursday that Democratic leaders are still pursuing a policy that would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, even as lawmakers are working to scale down the package to win more support. The dynamics in the Senate remain thorny as well, with several pharma-friendly senators demanding concessions from the plans Democrats had originally hoped to advance.

A lot of people are saying, Ron, is anybody going to give up negotiation? No way, period, full stop. Lets have no confusion about it. We will not give up on negotiating, Wyden told reporters in the Capitol.

Nicholas Florko contributed reporting to this story.

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Drug pricing talks heat up as Democrats work to win over skeptics - STAT - STAT