Some Good News! Congress's Big Stimulus Plans

hey everyone we kevin here one of the

three major hurdles in congress has just

been closed it is the smallest of the

three hurdles and it is keeping the

government funded through december via a

stop gap measure the vote in the senate

today was 65 to 35 and it is widely

expected to pass the house very quickly

and joe biden is expected to sign it

today is september 30th so we do expect

to literally avert a government shutdown

just hours before the government

shutdown would take place which would

immediately lead to thousands of

government workers being furloughed the

bill also included 28.6 billion in

emergency disaster aid and 6.3 billion

dollars to help resettle afghan evacuees

here in the united states obviously to

help them transition and get situated

and get them taken care of a lot of

these of course contractors are people

who had helped the us government while

we were in afghanistan now this was just

one out of three issues and again like i

said keeping the government funded

by our budget is the smallest of the

three issues we have a very big next

issue coming up it is the october 18th x

date it's called x date because october

18th is a little fluid it is literally

the date that we will officially

no longer be able to afford paying for

things like social security payments

payments for child tax credits payments

on our treasury bonds that is the day

the government would default on its

obligations if we do not extend the debt

ceiling obviously the debt ceiling is a

huge political hot button with

republicans saying there's no way we are

going to vote for increasing the debt

ceiling democrats can do that via budget

reconciliation which they can do however

democrats only have one punch left with

a budget reconciliation tool and they

really want to use this for the three

and a half trillion dollar

infrastructure plan now

those are the leftover two issues the

problem with this though is joe manchin

it was just discovered has a whole set

of very specific lists or demands so to

speak that was just discovered from july

28 in an apparent and potential

agreement between chuck schumer and joe

manchin joe manchin outlined what his

demands were july 28th this document was

just discovered today politico got a

leaked copy of this and joe manchin

demands that the three and a half

trillion dollar infrastructure package

actually have a top line of 1.5 trillion

dollars now remember we've got three

things here and i just want to show you

how we check these boxes okay so right

here this is gov

funded all right this is what expires on

september 30th this is pretty much all

but complete then we have the debt

ceiling

this is what i said about no social

security payments child tax care credits

uh what stimulus payments government

payments things that are important to

the functioning of our government right

this is not done yet so this is like

crisis mode because this needs to be

done by october 18th

then we have that 3.5 trillion dollar

infrastructure package and joe manchin

has been a notorious opponent of this in

fact yesterday we went through a very

long statement from joe manchin

explaining how he thinks there are

vengeful tax increases in this bill on

wealthy people to pay for handouts that

people don't particularly need so he has

he's had some pretty choice words about

this uh package and now we have a little

bit more of an interesting

uh insight into what joe manchin's

priorities are this all comes as at the

same time joe biden and jen sackey say

they will do whatever is possible to

make sure that this 3.5 trillion dollar

package gets complete because ultimately

this right here

sorry i'm highlighting the debt ceiling

this right here is one of the core

tenets of joe biden's

economic plan his buildback better plan

he doesn't get really far without the

three and a half trillion dollar package

in fact without the 3.5 trillion dollar

package he risks losing the one trillion

dollar hard infrastructure package so

here are some of the demands that joe

manchin has he says he wants to begin

talk on this particular three and a half

trillion dollar bill no earlier than

october first because he wants enough

economic data to get

to sort of make up his mind on this he

also wants funds in the legislation not

to start going into the economy until

coveted money has been spent now this is

very interesting because

this bill already will begin to tax

people day one but won't actually start

benefiting the economy probably for two

to ten years out solely because when you

have an infrastructure spending bill it

takes time for projects to actually get

approved planned and to get some money

into the economy so that might not be an

issue either way

then he wants the federal reserve to end

quantitative easing now i don't think

this is him saying like let's pressure

the fed to end uh quantitative easing

which they're doing anyway via the taper

i think this is more kind of like as a

condition or like in order for me to

even be okay with this the fed needs to

stop pumping money into the economy

because he's worried about inflation the

fed has already talked about starting

this taper process

to eliminate the money printing that

they're doing the bond buying they're

doing 120 billion dollars per month and

they expect to complete that taper by

the middle of 2022 so i expect this is

probably not something that's super high

on joe manchin's priority list because

they've already announced that they're

going to begin tapering spending

conditions he says he wants things to be

means tested and have guardrails and new

spending i expect this is probably so

that couples making two hundred thousand

dollars a year or three hundred thousand

dollars a year don't get tr like free

preschool or the child tax credit which

they might otherwise get i expect this

is kind of where his priorities lay it's

kind of like well do they do they really

need that extra money right like let's

test that and evaluate and this is the

same thing as sort of saying like hey

let's make sure with programs that we

have we have caps on where we contribute

to help people so for example this could

be rent relief like hey are we good with

where the cap is on how much money you

can have to get rent relief right

no handouts or transfer payments now

this is very interesting this is

basically a way of saying no stimulus

checks but the child tax credit could

also fall under this which is very

interesting that a child tax credit is a

form of a transfer payment and it's

possible that joe manchin could take

beef with this particularly here today

uh then we've got the inclusion of the

uh senate bill 1783 budgeting for opioid

addiction act the lifeboat act i'll

break that down as along with the seoul

enr uh this uh jurisdiction here as part

of this there's the lifeboat act this is

one of joe manchin's demands it's

basically to provide and expand access

to substance use treatment it would

establish a fee on certain prescription

pain pills so that way they can pay for

this treatment and pay for helping

babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome

as well babies affected essentially by

uh opioid addictions because perhaps

their their mother was uh addicted while

they were in the womb uh there would be

some reports required joe manchin wants

seoul enr jurisdiction so just so you

know the enr is the united states

committee on energy and natural

resources and mansion is the chairperson

for this and basically he he wants to be

the boss when it comes to these sorts of

issues in the senate he's also looking

for ccus which stands for carbon capture

and storage and wants to make sure that

coal and natural gas companies can get a

tax credit to capture some of their

carbon so basically incentivize uh

you know oil or natural gas developers

or fossil fuel burners to uh clean up

their energy by giving them an

opportunity for tax credits rather than

just punishing and and saying that's it

you guys need to you know we're shutting

down all oil and natural gas basically

he's what he's trying to create is the

opportunity for natural gas to become a

transition fuel because this is

something i've talked a lot about on the

channel too is that you can't really

expect to go from

natural gas and coal and oil immediately

to

evs like electric vehicles and

all you know everything wind and solar

without having some kind of cleaner

fossil fuel or as clean as possible

fossil fuel to transition you to get

there just like what they do in

california they're like oh yeah we're

not going to allow you to update your

natural gas fossil you know fossil fuel

burning facility because it's not 100

green well how do you expect to get to

100 green when we can't go 100 green

tomorrow but we need more energy like

what are we going to do just the

energy grid and cause more fires in

california it in in some cases and i've

spoken to the natural gas industry about

this quite at length and there are some

instances where the natural gas industry

today could make

burning natural gas eight times more

efficient today all they need is the

permit to be able to do it but the

government says nah if we authorize that

permit that means we're supporting

natural gas and we don't want to do that

it's like it means we burn less natural

gas nah it's not 100 clean like there's

some things that are so straight up dumb

in our government and i think we can all

agree on that one but anyway uh vehicle

fuel tax credits shall not be limited to

electric vehicles must include hydrogen

this is an interesting argument by joe

manchin that he's trying to include

hydrogen is i don't mind that because

hydrogen vehicles generally are battery

electric

uh they are just uh the batteries are

just regenerated with uh with hydrogen

fuel cells that you could fill up kind

of like gas and then when that hydrogen

is converted into water

uh and releases energy you charge your

battery and then you drive a battery

electric vehicle it just has a hydrogen

fuel cell built in it it's kind of cool

if tax credits are included for wind and

solar then fossil tax credits should not

be repealed this is a big issue right

here because joe biden really wants to

end

tax credits for fossil fuels that's a

big deal for him other uh conditions any

revenue exceeding 1.5 trillion shall be

used for deficit reduction so basically

if they make more money from increasing

taxes we should be paying off our debt i

think a lot of people would actually

agree with paying off the debt anyway uh

then we've got a corporate tax rate of

25

corporate domestic minimum tax of 15

uh so a minimum tax on corporations he's

actually okay with corporate tax is okay

with bumping this not to the full like

28 or 26.9 percent but 25

uh he's okay with the increase on the

top tier income tax rate to 39.6 percent

about a 1.6 bump and he's okay with

raising the capital gains tax rate to 28

all in this is less than taxing it as

ordinary income which obviously could be

as high as 40 percent here he's got some

other items in here but uh basically

says joe manchin or does not guarantee

that he will vote for the final

reconciliation legislation if it exceeds

the conditions outlined in this

agreement and uh chuck schumer here it

looks like it's signed between joe

manchin and chuck schumer what uh what

apparently it says under there is we'll

try to dissuade joe on some of these

it's uh written in kind of funny

handwriting down here but uh yeah kind

of odd that that it's signed i thought

maybe when i first saw that that that

would be some kind of like out like hey

you know sure i'll do my best but uh

maybe it's just sort of like an

agreement uh oh well i guess he's saying

an agreement to start talking right so

it's not like a contract it's just like

yeah look we agreed to start talking

around some of these parameters and and

working out uh some of these things so

it's interesting we'll see how that goes

but remember our pillars here folks okay

so government's now funded we've got the

debt ceiling the three and a half

trillion dollar bill this is what this

is about the other box is the bipartisan

infrastructure bill this one is the one

trillion dollars we kind of expect this

to get passed though it might even get

past today we'll see but this is not

such a big deal the real two big deals

are right here and right here so we'll

see how it goes if you found this

helpful get yourself life insurance in

as little as five minutes by going to

mechanic.com live and folks we will see

you in the next one thanks so much

goodbye

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