Yes, but it's a lot more than that. We only have a bare working majority in the Senate, because Manchin was able to win a Senate seat from WV. I abhor Democratic Party circular firing squads and AOC's DINO hunting. It benefits only the Rs and will make us a minority party for a long time. Progressives are far from a majority in the United States, and purism will lead to Trumpism forever. In the case of Manchin, without his 50th vote, Biden doesn't get his judge nominees approved, has to make huge compromises with the Rs to get the budget ceiling raised and his budgets approved, likely doesn't get the pandemic aid to children. Manchin has voted with him a lot. Chase him to the R party and we lose big time. There is not better alternate who could win his seat.
Expecting Manchin to vote for rather extreme progressive measures is stupid. It's never going to happen, regardless of what you think you can hold hostage to change his vote. His political survival depends on not being forced to back down to progressive pressure. As I said above, there was a lot of truly stupid stuff in the House bill, and inflation made it unsalable. The inflation only became significant, because the House delayed so much. How can you justify an $80K deduction for local/state taxes? How big a house and how large an income does it take to hit $80K? How do you justify providing the new benefits to households earning $400K? That's not help for the poor or middle-middle class. How do you justify funding provisions for just one or only a few years? When you don't have the votes to continue them, they're gone. Obama preserved ACA by not resorting to that gimmickry to lower the advertised cost.
"You still have not pointed out Democrats (notably AOC and other liberal Dems) killing something that passed the Senate and that would not pass the House without their votes."
How can I? Your point is nonsensical. The Senate could not pass a bill first. All bills which raise revenue must be passed first by the House. Unless the final bill was to simply spend and provide upper-middle and upper class tax cuts, it needed to be passed first by the House. If it was just going to be a total budget drain, then it was going to be hyper-inflation. The original sales pitch was that it was to be paid for by tax increases on the higher income earners. (See U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 7)
"Nothing the United States does within the U.S. can't keep us below 2 degree C rise. Chinese emissions are rising that fast. So is India and SEast Asia, and the new energy is from coal -- the worst possible source. The U.S. just isn't the dominant factor in increasing emissions, and emissions are still rising, not falling. Germany switched from nuclear to coal. Britain is opening a new coal mine for electric.
So, it's immaterial what we actually do? If that's the case...there's little point in worrying about climate policy...or infrastructure...or voting rights...or the "independent state legislature" doctrine that we're likely to confront next year... or etc., because if we can do nothing about the climate crisis, it really is game over, and all the rest is just whistling through the graveyard. So enjoy baseball, and walks in the woods, and your family, while you can, because we've burned our bridges, and humanity's future is a return to something like the medieval period."
Your comment is not at all what I said. Of course there are things we could and should do, which will help. But.... as I said, our actions cannot keep the globe below 2 degrees C. The U.S. isn't in a mad rush to burn more coal, but the rest of the world is. Have you read the reports on the global warming conferences? I have. China, the world's largest emitter of global warming gases made this helpful commitment: they will continue to increase their emissions until 2030, and I'm not holding my breath on what they will do after that. The commitments from India and the rest of the third world: they will do anything which we pay for. Since projects are quite fungible, it's not at all clear that they won't build whatever dirty projects they would have anyway. Economic growth is the goal in most of the rest of the world. German greens demanded and got a shutdown of Germany's nuclear reactors. Zero global warming nuclear was replaced by coal.
I think that nations responsible for the majority of global warming emissions will do nothing, unless we pay for it or the economics say it is cheaper for them to go solar or wind than burning coal and consuming oil. Those are the hard facts. You haven't disputed any of that, just a mischaracterization that I think this means we should do nothing.
What I don't buy is the thesis that if we remove fossil fuels, that will cause the rest of the world to follow. They will just happily replace the U.S. manufacturing industry. We have history on this. We and the West led on reduction of ozone depleting substances. China pled poverty and demanded an exemption to produce for their home market, because they couldn't afford to replace workable refrigeration systems. End result: they sold CFCs on the black market , around the world including to us, in very large quantities. This really blunted the impact of the West's major expenditures.
So what should we do:
Energy efficiency measures, everywhere: increased vehicle fuel efficiency, reduced heating and cooling loads for home and commercial buildings, reduced agricultural energy consumption, continue to make industrial processes more efficient, stop flaring natural gas.
Continue research and subsidy of our own industrial base for production of solar panels, batteries, wind power generators, to lower cost and increase efficiency so they can drive fossil fuels from the market
Increase production and distribution capacity for natural gas. It is our cleanest fossil source and needs to totally remove coal-fired power plants and oil-heat for homes from the market. Lack of pipelines means that we flare way too much gas: all the global warming of the gas, with no benefit to us or our economy.
Crash development of modern, inherently safe, largely factory-built nuclear power generators. Approval of a high-level waste disposal facility. Subsidies for nuclear power.
Promote work-from-home. This has potential to reduce transportation energy use.
Not a propitious time for this, but we really need a gasoline/diesel tax increase or a general carbon tax. The proceeds should be mostly refunded to the public on a per capita basis, not based upon carbon use.
We really need to shut down the bit-coin miners who use large quantities of electricity to no good purpose.
Incentivize improvements in electric car technology in a way which speeds deployment of moderately priced vehicles, rather than the direct subsidies for expensive vehicles, which only the well-to-do can afford. Realize that, for now, apart from reducing urban traditional air pollutants, this isn't a way to reduce carbon emissions, until our electricity production is much cleaner (no coal, the requirements to charge electric cars helps the old coal-fired plants hang on). This means fund R&D rather than subsidize price of electric vehicles, other than those that sell below $30K.
Tidal power has some promise and should be supported. Far likelier to bear fruit than fusion research.
Research on geo-engineering to reduce emissions. Likely needs to be under UN auspices.
Stop airline subsidies.
We need more urban planning research and funding for urban planners to develop plans/zoning which reduces the amount of vehicle miles required for the average American's work-shop-school-play to home driving.
Not something which will reduce global warming, but it's beyond obvious that we need to spend a lot on mitigating the future impact of warming, because the world is continuing to increase emissions, with no commitments which stack up to hold the increase to even 2 degrees C, which will have major impact.
Where I would spend to assist third world nations, and this needs to be an international consortium of the rich nations, is to essentially 'rent' the preservation of critical third world forests, like the Amazon, and to fund reforestation. The results are easily monitored. We can also help these nations boost their eco-tourism revenue. Associated with this:
Swear off palm oil, put support levels and production standards for coffee, tea, cacao. This would also ease the problems at our southern border.