Reconciliation

Money, money, everywhere and no price is too steep. I think that is the motto of our government. I have lost track of the amount of Covid relief that has been passed but I think it totals around $4.5-5T so far. Currently, there is the $1.2T infrastructure plan that is being debated, but while that one is being debated there is the Democrat $3.5T family infrastructure spending plan. That one is going through reconciliation. What is reconciliation? Reconciliation is basically a freebie when it comes to bipartisanship. I believe something like three of those can be passed in a year and what that means is it is not subject to filibuster so the majority can pass it without any fear of the other party stopping it; that is why any Democrat Senator who does not show support for the bill gets attacked by "The Squad"; they need every vote. (Side note: The Squad is being used by the whole Democrat party as social media bullies, not against the Republicans, but to keep members of their own party in line.) There are many hurdles for something to be considered reconciliation because of something called the Byrd Rule. One of the rules in the Byrd rules is that the bill cannot add to the deficit over ten years and cannot change social security, that is why you always hear them say "this bill is completely paid for through taxes on the wealthy, additional revenues, etc." The problem with that is if there are tax cuts in 4 years that all changes, and if the revenues do not show up nobody cares. The main thing is new entitlements will have been passed that will never be done away with. Never do you hear them ten years later saying, "we really screwed up on that one because every bit of that bill added to the deficit". Members of congress, on both sides of the aisle, making less than $200K/yr. have an unlimited checkbook in an account that is always overdrawn, and we are the ones who are paying overdraft fees. When you ask yourself how somebody like Joe Biden can be in government his whole life with salaries of less than $200k, way less when you look at how long he has been in there, can be worth tens of millions of dollars, all you have to do is look at the unending checkbook. Even though these people use that to buy votes they also use it to get funds back into their pockets through non-stop campaign fund solicitation, from those who benefit from their spending bills, which ends up benefitting them personally and through outright legal kickbacks because they have written laws to make them legal. It is all a shell game, there is the $1.2T infrastructure bill that is "bipartisan" but at the same time, behind the curtain, there is a $3.5T spending bill going through reconciliation and, at the end of the day, every elected person on Capitol Hill has an opportunity to benefit, no matter whether they were for it or against it. That is why all veteran politicians, on both sides of the aisle, hate it when an outsider like Trump gets elected. There is no room for somebody who is not groomed to run for President because they do not understand, nor agree, with the way the game is played.