Afghanistan, not Manchin, blocks Biden

My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars.

Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America.

And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 26, 2021

Noah Rothman wrote a fine analysis of Bipartisan Biden's inability to get his own party to agree on a spendathon.

Rothman wrote, "Without outright control of the Senate, a razor-thin majority in the House, and a president whose national popular vote margin belied the modesty of his majorities in swing states, Democrats somehow convinced themselves that they could pass the party’s entire domestic legislative agenda in one fell swoop. If that wasn’t daunting enough, the first step involved ushering in a paradigmatic revolution.

"Infrastructure, we were told, was not what you thought of when you think of the word 'infrastructure.' We weren’t just talking about roads, bridges, and airports. Infrastructure was also 'social and civic.' It was human and caregiving. As ABC News observed, the White House set out not just to pass a bill but to 'redefine the meaning of the word.'

"Any semblance of humility before the awesome might of the English language should have dissuaded Democrats from this course, and pursuing it was a costly error. Republicans managed to position themselves as supporters of hard or physical infrastructure, and Democrats eventually conceded to their terms by breaking their objectives up into two parts: one genuine infrastructure bill and another smorgasbord of progressive aspirations that we no longer even pretend to call infrastructure."

Splitting the bill was a divide-and-conquer strategy that the AOC (Already Openly Communist) Crowd now sees through like wet cheesecloth. The House won't pass the bipartisan bill until the Senate passes the partisan one.

Check and stalemate.

Yep, Rothman's is a good analysis but it is missing one word.

Afghanistan.

Manchin did not cause the spending deals to collapse. No, it is on Biden. The public is disgusted with him. Biden's surrender to the Taliban is an actual Worse Than 9/11 event because the terrorists in 2001 rallied the nation to defeat them.

Biden's surrender demoralized us. What are we going to do? Re-invade Afghanistan?

Days before his manic flee, Biden rode high in the polls and looked toward Congress giving him his bigger-than-Obama's spending spree. Whee.

On August 11, CNN reported, "President Joe Biden celebrated the Senate's passage of a historic, sweeping $1.2 trillion bipartisan package on Tuesday, a step toward fulfilling a key item in his legislative agenda that also amounts to the biggest bipartisan win of his presidency so far.

"'The death of this legislation was mildly premature,' Biden said during a speech at the White House Tuesday afternoon. 'After years and years of Infrastructure Week,' we are on the cusp of an infrastructure decade that I truly believe will transform America.'

"Biden, standing alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, said that he 'never believed' critics who have characterized his calls to implement policies in a bipartisan way 'a relic of an earlier age.'

"The President thanked senators on both sides of the aisle for working together to get the bill passed, saying, 'I know it wasn't easy for the Republicans who supported this bill.'

"'You showed a lot of courage and I want to personally thank you for that, and I've called most of you on the phone to do just that,' he said. 'Today, we proved that democracy can still work.'"

Less than 2 months later, 55% of the nation want Biden to resign over Afghanistan.

Congressmen and senators read the polls.

Weakness emboldens enemies. Hence, progressives who don't like Biden are on the attack.

The SS Biden is taking water after ramming full-throttle into the Afghanistan Iceberg. It is every politician for himself.

Biden is getting pretty desperate. Thus the nonsense about his super-spreader of deficit costing zero dollars.

As Rothman wrote, "Having spent months searing the number $3.5 trillion into American minds, however, Democrats have suddenly made a 180-degree turn to the idea that this gargantuan spending bill will actually cost nothing at all."

And he said, "This isn’t some carefully considered strategy. It’s bargaining—a last-ditch effort to see what, if anything, will stick. Like the lost messaging fight over what constitutes infrastructure, it is predicated on the idea that Democrats can bamboozle you with their rhetorical cleverness. And like that lost messaging campaign, it, too, is doomed."

Also, Afghanistan cost him his credibility. People don't believe him on Afghanistan. And that spilled over to distrust about covid.

I have cautioned readers not to misunderestimate Biden. He is 10-0 in elections against Republicans.

After making it to Labor Day, he has made it to October. 

I also caution readers that at this point in Obama's presidency, Obamacare looked DOA. Six months later, it was the law of the land.

However, Obama had a large majority in the House and 60 (later 59) seats in the Senate.

But the biggest difference between the two is Obama did not surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Which is why students will once again shout at college football stadiums across the land today, "Fuck Joe Biden."

Eventually, Congress will vote accordingly. That's how bipartisanship works.