Manchin and Schumer signed onto this bill assuming that the party would fall in line
behind them.
That's now not looking like a sure bet at least of course Krysten Sinema has
anything to say about it.
>> Reality is Manchin is yesterday's news.
>> Manchin is yesterday's news, that is a right-wing Republican panel on Fox,
given up on Manchin because he did negotiate a pretty watered down
bill with Chuck Schumer that does provide very modest tax hikes for
the rich and also some funding to combat climate change.
And also, of course, for Manchin, the most important part,
expansion of drilling for natural gas on federal lands.
We've talked about that in great detail.
You can check out those videos from previous shows, but
the question is, will Krysten Sinema play ball?
Will she vote in favor of this legislation which is likely,
if it passes, to be done through the reconciliation process, meaning they
can do this without the legislative filibuster obstructing the effort.
They can do it with a simple majority, but they would need every single Democrat
including Sinema, to sign onto the legislation.
So the question is, will she do it?
And if you look at her past comments about any type of tax increase that would
impact her wealthy beloved donors, she's always said that she put a stop to it.
She wouldn't support it.
She wouldn't vote in favor of it.
Now, as Common Dreams reports, as Sinema reviewed the 725-page
bill over the weekend, reports suggested she is likely to object to
a $14 billion provision taking aim at the preferential tax rates for
wealthy investors, who of course make up a large portion of her donor base.
Sinema has long objected to the closure of the carried interest loophole, which
pertains to the percentage of profits hedge fund managers keep from investments.
The profits are not taxed the way we're taxed for our income tax.
They're taxed at a rate of about 20% compared to the 37% top tax rate for
ordinary income.
And so this is not at all surprising to me.
Now there's a lot of speculation about what she's likely to do.
Manchin is trying to urge her to vote in favor of the legislation.
That, by the way, is a red flag for
me because Manchin is always looking to enrich himself through fossil fuels.
So I'm worried that any positive impact by the climate change provisions
would be mitigated by the damaging impact of the expansion of drilling for
fossil fuels on federal lands by the way.
But nonetheless, Farron, we're speculating here a little bit.
But what do you predict is gonna happen with this bill?
>> They are probably gonna have to come back and
maybe adjust what the carried interest loophole removal would pay.
Okay, instead of bumping them up to 37%, Senator Sinema,
what if we only bumped them up to 32% or 31 and a quarter percent?
It's gonna be some kind of negotiation on what that final number lands on.
And again, we're talking about a very small tax that applies
to a very small group of individuals.
But even that is apparently too much.
I mean the grand total of it, maybe 14 billion, in funds that it could raise.
And it also, by the way, changes, how long you have to hold the asset.
So you have to have it for a certain amount of time instead of just immediately
flipping a stock or an investment and dropping it down to 20%.
So they may drop that part out of it too.
But this is legislation that the Democratic Party understands.
We gotta do something 100 days out from midterms right now, 100 days.
We have to do something or we're gonna get pummeled and
it does concern me cuz I feel like they would still be willing to give away
the farm just to get enough votes to get this thing passed.
So God only knows what's gonna happen.
Who knows what Manchin is gonna say while [LAUGH] he is the delegated guy,
go talk to her and get her to go along with this.
Like you said, I don't trust that at all because these two could come back with
a completely new deal that looks nothing like what we've already seen.
>> Well, let me just say, as we've talked about on previous episodes of the show,
I think the deal as it stands today isn't nearly far.
It doesn't nearly go far enough when it comes to ensuring that the wealthiest
individuals and corporations in this country pay their fair share in taxes.
So that's number one.
When you take a look at the percentage of taxes ordinary working Americans pay from
their income versus the percentage of taxes the wealthiest people pay in this
country.
I mean, you get a sense of how skewed the system is in favor of the rich and
how punitive it is for
ordinary working Americans who are already getting screwed with low wages,
with terrible benefits, with, in some cases awful working conditions.
But you mentioned how desperate they are to get something anything passed.
And I think you're right about that.
And given the desperation here, I would speculate that they are very
likely to just do away with any tax increase provision.
And I wanna be clear, the way that it's written right now is
not an overall tax increase for carried interest.
So according to Business Insider, and this is a comment from Kimberly Clausing,
she was a tax official for the Biden administration previously.
She says, quote the bill would not entirely close the loophole.
No, no, we can't have that, but would lengthen the amount of time that
you have to hold the investment for it to qualify as a capital gain.
So it's already weak source to begin with.
I have no doubt that they'll probably cut it out
in the final bill just to get Krysten Sinema on board, and then what's left?
Yes, there is some money appropriated to combat climate change.
My fear, my worry, again, and I'm gonna repeat this over and
over again cuz it's important and it's really a perspective you're not getting
in many other outlets other than independent progressive media.
The fact that we're expanding drilling for natural gas,
which releases methane into the atmosphere and this drilling will be done by
private corporations, private fossil fuel companies on federal lands,
lands that belong to all of us is a huge problem.
And I wanna know just how much it will mitigate some of the positive impacts of
this legislation.
Now, Manchin is wanting of course,
Krysten Sinema to vote in favor of this legislation.
But it's interesting how he kinda worded his argument in the next clip that you're
about to watch.
So let's take a look at that, and I'll explain what I mean.
>> And I agree with 100%, we're not gonna raise taxes and we don't.
And on that, I think that basically when she looks at the bill and sees the whole
spectrum of what we're doing and all of the energy we're bringing and
all the reduction of prices and fighting inflation by bringing prices down
by having more energy, hopefully she will be positive about it.
But, she'll make her decision and I respect that.
>> Wait I thought you were raising taxes in this legislation.
And it's not just the carried interest tax loophole that's allegedly
being closed if the bill passes in the way that it's written today, but
there's also the 15% minimum corporate tax and
there hasn't been a lot of commentary about that yet.
But I'm gonna go ahead and
guess that Sinema isn't gonna be in favor of that either, but we'll see.
What do you think Faron?
>> No I agree with you 100%.
I don't think Sinema, based on what she's told us in the past,
that she's never okay with any of these tax increases.
I just can't see her going along with this especially
because she's not facing election in November.
And as much as we always like to think,
all of this is going to come back to bite her.
She's got a couple years to go and believe me, the public will have,
we can put it in campaign ads, we can mention it on the campaign trail, but
you can never recapture the anger that you felt at the time when those things happen.
So a lot of times when years pass, they get away with it.
That's how we end up with so
many horrible people always coming back to DC because the outrage subsides.
They may do one or two things that are decent, they ride on that.
So Sinema unfortunately and Manchin to a degree still,
they hold all the cards because they know y'all gotta do something.
You gotta pass this legislation.
It's writing on me, you got nothing without me.
So you're gonna bow down to me.
And I do think it is absolutely ridiculous that we're sitting here,
Democrats trying to say well how few people can we raise taxes on to pay for
not destroying the planet?
Meanwhile on the Republican side you got Donald Trump burying his ex wife at his
golf course so he can get tax breaks.
That's the kind of difference between here,
well maybe a couple of rich people could pay more and
Trump's like put the body over there, I don't have to pay taxes anymore.
That's the kind of callous greed we are dealing with, and
we still can't somehow when, that's just ridiculous to me.
Absolutely beyond parody at this point.
>> Yeah, great reference with Trump exploiting the death of his ex wife and
burying her in his golf course for tax benefits.
I mean the shamelessness is pretty incredible.
I mean it's amazing.
But I do wanna end on some numbers, right?
Because it's important to understand what motivates these politicians.
As I've said before and I'll say it again, it's not about whether or
not these politicians are good guys or bad guys.
You might have your own perspective on that and that's totally fine, but
everything is based on incentives and disincentives.
And when you have a system of legalized bribery, it takes an incredibly strong and
principled individual, someone like Senator Bernie Sanders,
to kind of withstand that pressure from the corporate money and
the corruption that's now a mainstay in our Congress.
For instance, cinema accounts, private equity firms among her top contributors
with the securities and investment sector, donating more than $2.2 million 2017.
And that's according to open secrets, a great resource by the way that I highly
recommend if you're trying to see exactly what kind of incentives are motivating
the actions of our politicians and by the way, if this doesn't feel like
a nail in the coffin for you, let me give you one more piece of info on this story.
Cinema has indicated that she is open to letting republicans modify the bill as
the GOP plans to attempt to kill the reconciliation package with poison pills,
further weakening a package which already mandates oil and gas leasing in Alaska and
the gulf of Mexico and severely limits the authorization of new wind or
solar energy development, angering climate campaigners.
But you know, you have people like washed up comedian house sparks or you know,
all sorts of corporate democrats telling us we should celebrate this bill.
Climate activists love this bill.
Well, I've heard from quite a few climate activists who do not love the bill as it
stands today, and it could be watered down further, thanks to the corporate
corruption among our corporate democrats, people like Kirsten Cinema.
So as we get more information as these negotiations continue,
we'll fill you in on the details.