U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Every House Republican voted against a monthly insulin co-pay cap

About a century ago, Dr. Frederick Banting patented the lifesaving drug insulin. Insulin is a hormone that controls blood sugar  levels by helping one’s body use and store glucose in the bloodstream.

While insulin is naturally produced and secreted by one’s pancreas in healthy individuals, people with diabetes either cannot produce insulin, produce insufficient levels of insulin, or do not respond to the presence of insulin in the bloodstream and thus require alternative medication to control their blood sugar.

Regardless of Dr. Banting’s good will, skyrocketing insulin prices have now put the drug out of reach of many across the globe that Banting sought to help. Back in the 1920s, Banting and his colleagues sold the patent for insulin to the University of Toronto for $1 each. Imagine...

For decades, the diabetes community in America has bore the exhausting weight of heavy insulin costs —  the price of which nearly tripled between 2002 and 2013, according to an American Diabetes Association study. In fact, Americans have paid more than 10 times as much for insulin than Canadians do, according to a commentary published in the Nov. 7, 2019 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Since 2012, list prices of many modern forms of insulin have risen rapidly, with average annual increases cited at more than 15%. As a result, the United States is a global outlier on the amount of money spent on insulin products annually. The U.S. represents approximately 15% of the global insulin market, but generates nearly half of the industry’s insulin revenue.

As a result of high costs, one in four insulin-dependent Americans reported needing to ration their insulin on a monthly basis.

Without a doubt, this is absolutely despicable — and moreover, it’s just flat-out  wrong.

Believe me, if my diabetic grandmother was still here, she’d have some choice words, that’s for darn sure.

Sorry, Lucille.

I hear enough medical dispatches over the scanner on a weekly basis about insulin-related incidents. It’s about time things change. Without a doubt, this is an issue that hits close to home for many Oswego County residents.

Insulin price-gouging and associated high costs in the United States are largely a consequence of the exact opposite of the definition of a “free market,” so much so that a monopoly exists on a lifesaving drug that, if not acquired, could amount to a massive death toll, especially among the senior citizen population of this country.

U.S. laws have allowed “Big Pharma” and pharmaceutical manufacturers set their own prices and raise them without limit. Secondly, as the situation stands, a significant competitor in the U.S. insulin market has not come along to shift things up. It’s complicated to explain, for insulin is a complex compound, and there’s biological barriers that exist as well.

According to Volume 7 of the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Insulin is a biologic, which is a drug “derived from living materials, including viruses, therapeutic serums, toxins and antitoxins, vaccines, blood and blood products, and cells, tissues, and gene therapy products.” Most drugs are small molecule drugs, which are regulated under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) and approved under a New Drug Application (NDA) or associated accelerated pathway. Most biologics are approved through a Biologics License Application (BLA) under the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act). However, insulin was approved before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) created the biologics approval process and was regulated as a small molecule drug under the FDCA until March 23, 2020. Only three companies — Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Eli Lilly — provide insulin to American dependents, despite the existence of several other manufacturers globally.

If you’re confused, that’s totally fine.

What you need to know is this: with multiple barriers to entry in existence, current insulin manufacturers have esentially blocked the introduction of such products by making it virtually impossible to obtaining new patents based on inventions such as insulin delivery devices and products that focus on less invasive measures, such as discreet insulin ports, tubes, etc.

How did any right-minded politician allow this to happen?

It’s too late to ask that question, ‘cause they downright did.

Thankfully, the American Diabetes Association® (ADA) hailed a major victory  recently when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act, including the most sweeping nationwide effort to date to put a cap on out-of-pocket co-pays for insulin. The national co-pay cap, which the ADA has aggressively advocated for and promoted, would apply to Medicare beneficiaries, individuals on private insurance, and those covered by other group health plans.

ADA-led efforts around the country advocated for co-pay caps. Thankfully, legislation has been enacted in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

“These states paved the way for this week’s historic action in the House,” said Lisa Murdock, chief advocacy officer for the ADA. “We thank those members of the House of Representatives who supported a national insulin co-pay cap, building on the efforts of state leaders before them. Together, these leaders are working to ensure that millions of people with diabetes will be able to afford their insulin and will not have to skip doses or ration because they don’t have enough money to pay for this life-saving drug,” Murdock said.

Nevertheless, not a single House Republican voted for capping insulin costs in the Build Back Better Act. And you can damn well bet they know people ­— family, friends, coworkers — who are diabetic and dependent on insulin. Many of those people would benefit from a $35/mo. cap on insulin price.

http://www.oswegocountynewsnow.com/opinion/every-house-republican-voted-against-a-monthly-insulin-co-pay-cap/article_91a63ac2-4c7c-11ec-aa15-c3d111ee14aa.html

[Rick Plant]

'Unfit to serve': Columnist makes case for expelling all pro-Trump coup members from Congress



Writing for USA Today, Jill Lawrence argued that congressional Trump supporters who planned to stop the certification of the 2020 election deserve to be expelled from Congress.

Writing Monday, Lawrence recalled the recent revelation that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was among those who text messaged White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 5 on ways to overthrow the 2020 election.

A legal analysis forwarded by Jordan to Meadows argued that then-Vice President Pence should "call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all." Meanwhile, after Jan. 6, another lawmaker sent an apologetic text saying that they were "sorry nothing worked," as they attempted to stop the 2020 election results from being certified.

Meanwhile, at the Ellipse, Trump's allies were telling supporters to "fight like hell" because "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

There were 21 Republican state lawmakers who participated in Jan. 6 events, according to a DLCC report. Among those 21 lawmakers, only one has been censured by his home state and that was only after he was arrested after live-streaming himself breaking into the Capitol.
Lawrence noted that it's a stark contrast to members of the U.S. government who were expelled after betraying the United States after its founding.

"Fifteen senators have been expelled, one in 1797 for plotting to give U.S. territories to Great Britain and, more than 60 years later, 14 because of 'support for Confederate rebellion.' The House has only expelled five members – two for corruption and three for 'disloyalty to the Union; fighting for the Confederacy,'" she wrote.

"Support for a rebellion and disloyalty to the nation were hallmarks of the Jan. 6 insurrection," Lawrence continued. "As U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss put it in July when he sentenced defendant Paul Hodgkins, a Tampa, Florida crane operator who carried a Trump flag into the building: 'He was staking a claim on the floor of the United States Senate, not with the American flag, but with a flag declaring his loyalty to a single individual over a nation.'"

It is similar language that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) used when talking about whether Donald Trump "through action or inaction, corruptly sought to obstruct or impede Congress's official proceeding to count electoral votes."

Lawrence closed by arguing that all of those in control -- from President Joe Biden to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Attorney General Merrick Garland -- "must make examples of public officials who created chaos and brought America to the brink, all so Trump could stay president for life, or until he got bored. They aren't fit to lead or serve in any capacity."

Read the full column at USA Today:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/12/20/punish-trump-congress-capitol-insurrection-jim-jordan-meadows/8942436002/?gnt-cfr=1

[Rick Plant]

Why You Should Care About The Build Back Better Act

The US government may give a tremendous Christmas gift to working families across America: by Christmas, the Senate intends to vote on HR 5376, better known as the Build Back Better Act. While many of the bill’s original features, like community college for all, have been gutted, what remains is still a bill full of provisions that can help increase family income and health care outcomes, and ensure increased tax revenue is available from the wealthy and corporations to help pay for it. Wall Street is confident that it will pass, but with 50 Republican Senators opposed, and one Democrat on the fence, Senator Manchin of West Virginia, that’s not quite so clear. "We have basically 49 of us in agreement to move forward. So we have one colleague we're continuing to work with, and he's been successful at making a number of changes. And so hopefully he'll be joining us," Senator Debbie Stabenow, D-Michegan, told NBC.

Particular attention has been given to the needs of red states in Build Back Better. Most of the states struggling with deep-rooted poverty are historically conservative, and stand to benefit from what will be close to $2 trillion invested in human needs and infrastructure. Build Back Better specifically helps the working poor throughout the Deep South and Midwest. Senator Manchin’s West Virginia is next-to-last of all states by median income . Hundreds of thousands of working West Virginians living paycheck-to-paycheck could critically use these resources.

Here are just a few of the reasons why this will benefit Americans, and why the Senate and West Virginia Senator Manchin would be wise to enact this legislation.



1. Working Families Will Have More Cash

Since the American Rescue Plan expanded the Child Tax Credit in March of 2021, the families of over 65 million children have benefited. Notably the impact on child hunger has been great—according to the Center for American Progress, the US Census Bureau found that “After just one payment, food insecurity in households with children dropped by 24 percent.”This will run out in December unless Build Back Better passes, and could plunge close to 10 million children back into poverty. Build Back Better will extend the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for another year, sending $300/month per child to help ease the burden of childcare and necessities.

It will also extend the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for another year, a program that the IRS explains “helps low- to moderate-income workers and families get a tax break. If you qualify, you can use the credit to reduce the taxes you owe – and maybe increase your refund.” EITC is a critical piece of the American social safety net, with the IRS noting that they “estimate that four out of five workers claim the EITC, which means millions of taxpayers are putting EITC dollars to work for them.”

2. Comprehensive Health Coverage For New Moms

The US has long struggled to provide adequate care to new mothers, with maternal mortality on the rise, especially for poor women of color. Build Back Better would add full coverage through the Medicaid program to mothers for a year after birth.

What’s unique about this provision is that it will apply to parents in all states, not just those with broader Medicaid coverage. In most states (and DC), people who make 133% the Federal Poverty Line—about $29,000/year for a family of three—qualify for Medicaid. However there are 13 states that have kept stricter guidelines for Medicaid—in Alabama, for instance, a family of three would have to be under $3,952 in annual income to qualify in 2021. This means that many families in the Deep South, as well as Wisconsin, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Kansas have been locked out of Medicaid.

Build Back Better would extend these programs to all new mothers, regardless of the state’s Medicaid expansion status. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, for the millions of women living in these states and much of the South, the added Medicaid coverage for natal and post-natal care is essential for giving American children a healthy start in life.

3. Insulin Will Be Cheaper

Insulin has infamously been sold in the US at a remarkably high, and to many, seemingly inexplicable markup. It is not scarce. It is not expensive to produce. It is required by 10% of diabetics to survive. And yet, in the US it has become a catastrophic and tragic symbol of the failures of the American health care market. As Senator Dick Durban noted, one manufacturer historically charged close to ten times the price to US consumers as they did to Canadian consumers for the exact same vial of insulin. We could spend a lot of time unpacking how this problem began—or with the Build Back Better Act, just fix the problem.

Even “expensive” types of insulin cost just over $6 to produce, yet monthly supplies can range from $350 to over $1,000 for some people, a surcharge on life. The Build Back Better act would enforce a $35 cap for those on medicare or on private insurance. This still leaves room for a reasonable profit margin, and guarantees that people will not be literally price gouged to death.

4. The Wealthiest .01% of Americans Will Pay More Taxes

Build Back Better establishes a 5% surtax on income above $10M, and 8% for income above $25M. This increase, impacting just over .01% of Americans will help shore up many social programs, bringing back tax revenue lost from Trump-era tax cuts.

IRS enforcement would also get a huge boost with the act, something that is desperately needed. This would mostly be focused on “modernizing” the IRS to help officials close the tax gap — the difference between what the government is owed, and what the government successfully collects.

Taxes on wages are 99% compliant, but the less-visible sources of income common like capital gains are only 45% compliant. This costs American taxpayers more than $600 B each year.

A 2019 ProPublica study found IRS workers simply don’t have the resources to pursue wealthy individuals or businesses who require more complicated audits, which then contributes to the challenge of ensuring that everyone pays their fair share.

5. Corporations Will Pay A Fair Share

The current American tax system is dominated by loopholes that undermine the intentions of the tax code. Warren Buffet infamously pays a lower tax rate than his secretary (though has thoughtfully used this fact publicly to argue for tax reform, a tactic pioneered by groups like Responsible Wealth who organize wealthy individuals to advocate for higher taxes). Many corporations enjoy similarly cushy positions: in 2020, 55 of the nation’s largest corporations like Nike and FedEx paid zero federal income tax on $40B of profits.

To add insult to injury, given various federal rebates, these corporations actually had a 9% negative tax rate! The Build Back Better act should largely pay for itself in large part by ensuring minimum taxes on large companies. It will introduce a 15% domestic minimum tax on large corporations, a 15% global minimum tax for international corporations (in line with the movement to help hold megacorps responsible globally), and a 1% tax on corporate stock buys.

6.Companies That Hurt  Will Be Held Responsible

In the US’ rush to industrialize the country, industries left in their wake numerous heavily polluted sites. Between copper mining, nuclear fuel refining, oil production and much more, the US is peppered with them. Dubbed Superfund sites by the 1980 CERCLA, the EPA set up plans to invest in cleaning up and restoring communities impacted by the 1,322 most contaminated sites.

Much of this was intended to be paid for by those responsible — often petrochemical companies, refinery groups, etc. — but those taxes expired in 1995. Since then, it’s typically been on American taxpayers to foot the bill. The Build Back Better act will reinstate the original Superfund taxes, putting the onus on those who made a mess of communities to pay for their cleanup.

7.Clean Energy Investments For All

Build Back Better will dramatically expand who can claim solar tax credits, as well as offering rebates for installing new green tech like heat pumps, advanced insulation and HVAC system upgrades. Even better, they’re scaled to the effectiveness of the upgrade, instead of the cost, which was a loophole in prior plans. It would also provide an additional 20% tax credit if the installed solar facility is connected to low-income housing, or 10% if it’s located within a low-income community.

Expanding solar tax credits and extending the program for at least ten years will empower thousands of communities and millions of people to gradually help restructure the US’ grid to a decentralized, adaptable one. If people take full advantage of the programs offered, even poor homeowners and renters will be able to build property value, save on energy, and enjoy a more reliable grid — all without pumping poison into the air or risking the lives of energy workers. These provisions in particular have been celebrated by the solar industry in Joe Manchin’s West Virginia.

In summary: we have a bill providing massive benefits to low-income families in red states, despite Republican opposition. A bill that largely pays for itself and ensures the wealthy “pay their fair share,” as Senator Manchin has stated as a positive before—he even voted for the Paying a Fair Share Act back in 2012.  The Senate has a critical choice to make: they can offer Americans healthcare and income, and invest in our future, or plunge ten million children or more back into poverty. Hopefully the Senate does the right thing—so that families who chose to celebrate can ensure there is food on the Christmas table.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2021/12/16/why-you-should-care-about-the-build-back-better-act/?sh=2414f5763d21

[Rick Plant]

In less than one year in office, President Biden has:
- driven the fastest decrease in unemployment in US history
- gotten over 200M Americans fully vaccinated
- delivered more than 171M rescue checks
- delivered a once-in-a-generation infrastructure investment

Biden's Economic Performance Has Proved Unbeatable
No first-year president going back to Carter comes close to matching the current White House occupant’s No. 1 or No. 2 ranking in each of 10 key measures.

U.S. financial markets are outperforming the world by the biggest margin in the 21st century, and with good reason: America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden's first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years notwithstanding the contrary media narrative contributing to dour public opinion.

Exceptional returns from dollar-denominated assets, especially the S&P 500 Index in both absolute terms and relative to its global counterparts, can be attributed to record-low debt ratios enabling companies to reap the biggest profit margins since 1950. Corporate America is booming because the Biden administration's Covid-19 vaccination programs and $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan reduced the jobless rate to 4.2% in November from 6.2% in February, continuing an unprecedented rate of decline during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Consider that real, or inflation adjusted, gross domestic product surged at an average annual rate of 5.03% in each of the first three quarters of 2021, and is poised to expand 5.6% for the year based on the average estimate of more than 80 economists surveyed Bloomberg. If that forecast proves accurate, it would be more than 2.8 times the average between 2000 and 2019 and double the average since 1976.

All of which makes Biden's first year in the White House the standout among the seven previous presidents, based on 10 market and economic indicators given equal weight. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, no one comes close to matching Biden's combination of No. 1 and No. 2 rankings for each of the measures:

Gross domestic product (1)
Profit growth (1)
S&P 500 performance (2)
Consumer credit (1)
Non-farm payrolls (2)
Manufacturing jobs (2)
Business productivity (2)
Dollar appreciation (2)
S&P 500 relative performance (2)

Per capita disposable income, which rose 1.08% this year, is the only comparable weakness for Biden, trailing Donald Trump’s 2.17%, George W. Bush’s 2.01%, Jimmy Carter’s 1.80% and Ronald Reagan’s 1.42%.

GDP growth in every incoming administration during the past four decades never exceeded 2.74% until 2021. Biden is now positioned to surpass Carter (5.01%) as the GDP champion of presidents since 1976. Much of the credit goes to The American Rescue Plan, which poured $66 billion into 36 million households and reduced the child poverty rate by 50%, helping the U.S. recover faster from the pandemic than most other nations.

Leading the Pack
The economy is poised to expand 5.5% in Biden's first year as president

Corporate America was never healthier than under Biden in 2021. Efforts to support consumers flowed through to America’s companies, which are enjoying profit margins of around 15%, the widest since 1950, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Non-financial profit increased 39.3%, making Biden No. 1 among eight presidents with Obama a distant second at 21.6%.

Earnings Bonanza
Corporate profits have boomed in Biden's first year in office

The boom times have allowed companies to reduce net debt as a percentage of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to the lowest since data was compiled in 1990 for companies in the S&P 500. All this helps explain why the stock market under Biden is second only to George H.W. Bush of any incoming president since Carter.

Bull Market
Biden edges Obama for second-best first-year stock performance

Americans are certainly feeling good. Consumer credit surged  $196 billion through October, a record under Biden that is 27% more than the increase under No. 2 Donald Trump ($154 billion). Although some of the gains reflect a rebound from 2020 when the pandemic caused many consumers to retrench, they wouldn’t be adding debt if they weren’t feeling confident.

Feeling Flush
A surge in credit borrowing by consumers signals high economic confidence

The way the jobs market is improving, it’s not hard to see why consumers are in such a good mood. Biden is the only president over the past half century with robust increases in non-farm payrolls (4.3%) and manufacturing jobs (2.6%), approaching the gains enjoyed by Carter in general employment (4.6%) and factory workers (3.9%). Trump, who inherited the longest expansion in modern times and said in 2015 he would “be greatest jobs producer that God ever created,” is an also-ran, with non-farm and manufacturing payrolls inching up 1.4% and 1.3%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Jobs Boom
Only Carter tops Biden for best growth in payrolls in their first year in office

Companies need all the workers they can get. U.S. business output, a measure of productivity, increased 4.4%, putting Biden ahead of every predecessor except Carter, where it gained 6.25%. No wonder confidence among chief executive officers of the largest U.S. companies soared to a record this year as expectations for hiring, capital investment and sales improved. The Business Roundtable's CEO Economic Outlook index, launched in 2004, rose 10 points to 124 in the fourth quarter, the highest in 20 years.

The good times may extend into 2022. Biden's bipartisan $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act bodes well for the economy and American labor because it will rebuild the nation's deteriorating roads and bridges as well as fund climate and broadband initiatives that create jobs. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said his priority was preventing the Biden agenda, voted for the law along with 18 fellow Republicans.

See charts and graphs in link below: 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-20/president-biden-s-economic-performance-has-proved-unbeatable

[Rick Plant]

Joe Manchin and the GOP refused Build Back Better — now 9/11 health care program is in jeopardy

WASHINGTON — The death sentence Joe Manchin declared for President Biden’s massive domestic policy bill is also threatening a key priority of New York lawmakers — plugging a nearly $3 billion gap in the 9/11 health program.

New York’s powerful Democratic congressional delegation, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney in the House, had hoped to ensure the funding hole was plugged by including the money in Biden’s roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better legislation.

But Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, flatly declared in a Fox News interview on Sunday that he would not vote for the legislation, suddenly leaving the 9/11 health program in limbo.

When the health program was made permanent in 2015, some legislators had hoped for more robust funding but were unable to push more through the Republican-controlled Congress.

Since then, more people have signed up for health care related to Ground Zero exposure than anyone expected, and thousands more have gotten sick, often with costly illnesses such as cancer.

The program should have enough money on hand to avoid making cuts for another couple of years but would likely have to begin making hard decisions as soon as 2023.

In defending his decision Monday, Manchin told the West Virginia radio outlet MetroNews that he wanted the entire process restarted with new committee hearings and votes. He also said he declared his opposition over the weekend because he was furious at unspecified actions by White House staff, who he evidently believed were behind some negative stories about him.

“I just got to the wit’s end,” Manchin said.

While there are certainly many other important and larger programs now facing an uncertain future, the situation is all too familiar and painful for advocates and patients in the 9/11 program, who have dealt with congressional wavering for more than 15 years.

“9/11 responders and survivors across the country are going to be at their ‘wits end,’ when they hear that the funding for their medical care is not going to be there,” said advocate Ben Chevat, who runs the 9/11 Health Watch. “I can’t imagine that Sen. Manchin wants them not to get the medical care they need.”

Schumer’s office declined to speak directly to the fate of the 9/11 funding since the majority leader still believes he can get some version of Build Back Better passed. A letter he sent to fellow Democrats on Monday declared he would bring the bill to the floor for a vote in January, and keep pushing to get the larger measure passed.

Maloney said the BBB bill is “an essential piece of legislation that would touch the lives of so many New Yorkers,” but was especially important for 9/11 responders and survivors because of the $2.86 billion for their health care.

She also suggested if the BBB package disintegrates, she would pursue other pathways. “This critical funding is too important for those who have already sacrificed so much, and it remains a priority to get it across the finish line, whether in BBB or another package,” Maloney said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was the lead author in the Senate of the 9/11 health legislation, also hinted the massive spending bill being held up by the West Virginian isn’t the only way to prevent the 9/11 budget gap.

“Closing the funding shortfall in the World Trade Center Health Program is critical for first responders, survivors and their families who need benefits for 9/11-related health conditions,” Gillibrand said. “There is strong bipartisan support for this important provision and I remain confident that Congress will work together to uphold our promise to those suffering from 9/11-related illnesses.”

Historically, it has been difficult to pass 9/11 legislation on its own, and doing so now would require Congress to start fresh in the new year.

© New York Daily News

[Rick Plant]

'I'm not joking about this': Biden gets angry talking about parents struggling as child tax credit ends

President Joe Biden got angry when talking about the pieces of his Build Back Better plan that would help American families, particularly children. The plan was shot down by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who said that he refused to support the measure. All Republican senators have indicated that they oppose the bill.

Talking about Manchin, Biden said that he doesn't hold a grudge and he's focused on getting the bill done. He then cited an interview with Manchin who said that it wasn't Biden who misled people it, "I mislead you."

"You saw what happened yesterday," Biden continued. "All the talk about how my Build Back Better plan was going to increase inflation and cause debts and all the like. What happened? Goldman Sachs said if we don't pass Build Back Better, we're in trouble because it will grow the economy. Without it, we're not going to grow. What happened? Stock prices went way down. It took a real dip. If you take a look -- everybody thinks because I quoted 17 Nobel laureates saying this will help inflation — think about it in terms of you're a hard working person and you are making $60,000 if you are alone or a mom or dad making $90,000 like a lot of people do and you are worried about inflation. You should be worried about it. It is devastating for working-class and middle-class folks. It really hurts. Where is most of the cost now?"

He said that while costs like gasoline and food may be going up until the pandemic continues to rage, his plan would help families with other costs that are hurting them.

He cited 20 million women who would be able to reenter the workforce because childcare would be significantly reduced. It would stop the increase in costs for insulin, which has grown significantly over just the past 10 years.

"We have 200,000 kids with type 1 diabetes," Biden said. "It costs between 10 cents and $10 to come up with the formula a while ago. Do you know what it costs on average: $560 -- $640 a month. Up to $1,000 a month. What do you do if you're a mom and dad working with minimum wage busting your neck? You look at your kid and you know if you don't get that drug for them? What happened? He could go in a coma or die."

That's when Biden's voice increased and he seemed angry.

"Not only do you put the kid's life at stake, you strip away the dignity of the parent!" he exclaimed. "I'm not joking. Imagine being a parent. Looking at the child and you can't afford and you have no house to borrow against. You have no savings. It's wrong. All the things in that bill are going to reduce prices and costs for middle-class and working-class people. It will reduce their cost."

He closed by saying he intends to continue talking to Manchin, but didn't say whether he'd reach out to more moderate Republicans up for reelection in 2022.

See the video below:

[Rick Plant]

GOP congressman becomes first Republican to publicly admit he regrets voting to overturn the 2020 election



Only hours after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump seeking to overturn the 2020 election, Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) voted to back the insurrectionists by voting against certifying the vote.

Now Rice is the first Republican to go on record voicing regret for his vote, Politico reported Wednesday.

“In retrospect, I should have voted to certify,” Rice said. “Because President Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol.”

“In the wee hours of that disgraceful night, while waiting for the Capitol of our great country to be secured, I knew I should vote to certify. But because I had made a public announcement of my intent to object, I did not want to go back on my word. So yeah, I regret my vote to object," Rice explained.

Rice said Trump "did nothing to stop it" from the safety of the White House.

“There was a coward in that equation, but it wasn’t Mike Pence," he argued.

https://www.rawstory.com/republican-trump-jan-6-insurrection/

[Rick Plant]

President Biden extends moratorium on student loan repayments

The move is expected to impact the student debt of some 41 million people.

"We know that millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments," Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

"Given these considerations, today my Administration is extending the pause on federal student loan repayments for an additional 90 days — through May 1, 2022 — as we manage the ongoing pandemic and further strengthen our economic recovery," he said.

The move comes just days after hopes faded for Senate passage of Biden's massive social spending bill.

The president has been unable to muster a Senate majority for his $1.7 trillion "Build Back Better" plan that would address such issues as health care, education and climate change.

Upon taking office in January 2021, Biden directed the Department of Education to pause federal student loan repayments through September.

He later extended the pause until January 31, 2022.

© Agence France-Presse