By The American Left led by Bernie Sanders won a big victory early this week as the U.S. House of Representatives approved the $3.5 trillion reconciliation budget plan opening the way of bringing about radical changes in the living standards of the common masses. In terms of the spread of the programmes, many experts have termed the Plan more ambitious than Roosevelt’s New Deal of 1930s.
It was a tough battle between the Democrats and the Republicans and the voting was on party line – a tense 220 for 212 against. The Republicans prodded by their corporate backers fought hard to delay the passing of this historic budget but budget committee chairman Bernie Sanders and the senior leader of the Democratic Party Nancy Pelosi took it as a big challenge and facilitated the approval with great skill. It was a personal triumph of Sanders also because many of the left wing commentators said earlier that centrist Joe Biden would somehow ensure that it was diluted. But Sanders and his left followers did not allow that.
The American labour unions were ecstatic at reconciliation and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, “The House has taken a critical step forward for working families,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said. She called both “another victory” for them. In fact the former president of AFL-CIO Richard Trumka who recently passed away played an important role in drafting the programme along with Sanders. For the first time, the immediate demands of the labour were taken care of and President Biden stuck to his pre election promises to the labour unions. Both the U.S. Communist Party and the Our Revolution group of Sanders along with the Democratic Socialists of America continued campaign in the last seven months of Biden regime and put pressure on the Democratic leadership for passing the programme in full.
The reconciliation bill puts the U.S. “one step closer to providing major new funding for good jobs and our care infrastructure—including the first-ever federal paid family and medical leave benefit, affordable health care, education and enhanced enforcement of our labour laws…With discriminatory voting laws also proliferating across the country, the passage” of the John Lewis Act “could not come at a more critical time,” new AFL-CIO president said.
The 118-page reconciliation measure, filled with numbers and goals for Congress to meet, doesn’t contain detailed measures such as the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, although it OKs comprehensive immigration reform. But its approval opens the way for lawmakers to pass those measures and others without having to run the gauntlet of a right-wing Senate Republican filibuster.
Reconciliation does, however, envision increasing the fines for labour law-breaking, as the PRO Act, the most comprehensive pro-worker labour law reform in decades, commands. The higher fines fulfill “reconciliation” requirements for including revenue-raising measures.
The reconciliation vote, which finished just after 4 p.m. Eastern Time on August 24, was the first of two key votes, all on legislation which Biden, organized labour, progressive forces, and their allies back. Technically, the vote was on a rule covering debate.
But practically, it was a vote on reconciliation and its social spending goals, because the “rule” lawmakers approved automatically passed that measure, without a separate rollcall. And the rule forced nine reluctant Democrats to go along.
The other measures on the agenda were, in order, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, HR4, and a Senate-passed bipartisan compromise $978 billion five-year “hard” infrastructure bill to rebuild and replace the nation’s rutted roads, creaky subways, diesel buses—with electric ones—pitted airport runways and decrepit bridges.
That measure would also produce millions of jobs over its lifetime, Biden says, and he declares they’d be union jobs. But it was postponed to September.
The larger $3.5 trillion measure opens the way for far more: The PRO Act, much of the Green New Deal, though not by that name, higher spending for child care centres and on child care workers’ salaries, Medicare coverage of dental, hearing and eyesight costs and permanent paid family and medical leave, for example.
And it would raise money to pay for a lot of this by increasing taxes on corporations and the rich—wiping out much of the enormous giveaway former Oval Office occupant Donald Trump and the GOP-run Congress enacted four years ago.
The AFL-CIO strongly supported reconciliation, the infrastructure bill, and the Voting Rights Advancement Act. So did the rest of organized labour. The voting rights bill would restore the federal government’s power to veto discriminatory anti-voter legislation in states, cities, and other governments. It passed at 7:30 p.m, 219-212 on a party-line vote. Then lawmakers quit for the evening.
“Senate Concurrent Resolution 14,” the reconciliation bill, “makes the largest investment in America’s working families since the New Deal, making critical investments in families, education, paid leave, clean energy jobs, and housing, AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel wrote to lawmakers before the key vote.
“It also strengthens enforcement of our labour laws, provides a long overdue path to citizenship, and expands access to affordable health care and prescription drugs,” among other goals, he added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who put together the strategy that overcomes disputes within her own party over reconciliation, passionately defended its work in a floor speech during hours of debate. “We have a president with a big bold vision for our country (and) an unprecedented opportunity to keep our promises for the people,” Pelosi declared.
“We promised for the people we would lower health care costs by lowering the cost of prescription drugs. We would increase paychecks by building the infrastructure of America, and we would have cleaner government by passing legislation for the vote. This does all three of those things and much more.”
In domestic affairs, President Joe Biden is acting as per the manifesto for his presidential elections. There are reasons for the progressives to rejoice that for the first time, the U.S. administration is taking a pro people approach as against the general policy earlier followed by the Democratic presidents of going by the wishes of the Wall Street. It is a positive development, but what about Left intervention in respect of foreign policy, especially in Latin America.
Right now, Cuba is facing serious economic crisis due to sudden covid surge and disastrous effect of US blockade of Cuban economy. US foreign policy is same regarding other countries in that region. This has to change and for that the progressives in the Congress and the Senate have to put pressure on the President. The Left is not doing enough to help Cuba as of now, it should be the primary task of the progressives. The big win in domestic economy is advancement but it has to be supplemented by desired changes in the American foreign policy also. (IPA Service)
Stop This Massive Sell-Out Of National Assets Of The Country 