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I don't like him much, but he's a better president than I thought he would be. He's actually moved us down a more progressive path than I expected, especially considering he's had to fight every step of the way. He just never promotes any of it for some reason. The Inflation Reduction Act was a pretty good start on rebuilding our infrastructure even if the climate change goals were torpedoed by Manchin and even though Biden couldn't go as far as he wanted with his American Rescue Plan. He's been filling the federal courts with left-wing judges. He's done a huge amount to repair our international reputation after Trump threw it in the trash (although we'll see if that's still true considering Biden's Israel stance). He allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which lowered the cost of insulin for millions of Americans. He got a ton of people's student loans forgiven, although not nearly as many as he wanted.
Do I wish we had an even better president? Absolutely. But he has been better than I expected and he has never had enough of congress on his side to get his agenda passed anywhere near the way he wanted it.
Build Back Better is the single largest investment in green infrastructure by any nation anywhere.
I want more, but I don't know that a more progressive president could have done better in this environment.
Build Back Better was killed by centrist darling Joe Manchin.
Do you mean some other piece of legislation?
it's tax incentives for things those corporations were going to do anyhow.
you can see where biden really is on climate, with his actions pertaining to oil. His presidency has seen more oil released from the national stockpile than all others combined, he took the positive action of personally authorizing the Willow Project in alaska (drilling on national lands); and he's authorized increased production elsewhere.
also "this environment" was democratic control of both houses of congress (albeit with really narrow margins)
Absolutely not. I can only really say for sure about the one aspect I'm familiar with, but I can assure you that the "Build America, Buy America (BABA)" requirement included in the funding that was approved in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, would 100% not have happened otherwise.
In fact, it's going to be a massive ~~pain in the ass~~ undertaking to get contractors to comply with it in general. There is zero chance that they would have done so otherwise.
Also, most (if not all, I'm not sure) of the money from the BIL for infrastructure projects will go into contracts that pay prevailing wage to workers. If you're not familiar with prevailing wage, it's pretty fucking high. Much higher than a contractor would ever choose to pay a (non-union) worker.
Contractor pay has nothing to do with the environmental aspects of their legislation. The environmental things are all basically subsidizing companies for things there already doing or going to.
Further, even the act itself recognizes it’s all going to corpo pockets:
Ignore the bit about “highest labor and enviro standards”, it’s bald faced bullshit. BABA is subsidizing corporations.
Yes, that translates into American job, however… do you really think these corporations are going to be paying most of this subsidy into wages?
It’s like how Teslas were 50-60k cars and subsidized with tax. Tesla to buy it, but then suddenly dropped to 40k when people couldn’t afford it anyhow. Or federal school loans directly subsidizing the high cost of tuition.
It’s all just corpo pork. Pure and simple.
Who said I was only talking about the environmental aspects? Also, you're acting like I wrote the fucking legislation, I didn't even say if I support it or not.
Prevailing wage is an entirely different thing, and sure I guess you can choose to ignore it, but it's not a bad thing.
(emphasis mine), Is the comment I was replying to- talking when I was speaking about the environmental aspects of the legislative agenda. Both my comment and the original comment were both in the context of green infrastructure.
are you saying I'm being unreasonable for assuming you were responding to me about my comment in kind? It's fine if you want to talk about your pay raise. (I presume.) But like... that's not what this conversation is about... so you're changing the subject.
Biden's record on the environment is bad. You getting better pay for a few jobs doesn't really change that record. The fact is climate change is an existential threat to humanity on a global scale, and Biden has done fuck-all to deal with it before it gets worse. On balance, he's made the situation worse; and has increased the inertia in fighting oil and transitioning to a carbon-neutral economy, which we kind of have to do in the next year or two before things get even more fucked than they already are.
If you don't support at least the parts you keep wanting to distract us with... why the fuck do you keep defending it? Actually, right now I'm assuming you're just a troll.