3 million workers are missing amid the labor shortage, and 2 million of them are immigrants who never came to the US because of Trump-era policies

Jason Lalljee,Andy Kiersz
Sat, November 20, 2021

The U.S. would have about 2 million more workers if not for Trump-era policies.

Alexander W Helin/Getty Images


The US would have about 2 million more workers if not for Trump-era policies, Insider estimates.


Immigrant workers typically fuel the industries that are currently experiencing worker shortages.


The current shortage of workers is causing problems for both businesses and consumers.

American businesses are feeling the impact of the current labor shortage as they struggle to hire amid a record high wave of people quitting — and Trump-era immigration policies could be to blame.

Roughly 3 million fewer people in the US are working or looking for work than in February 2020, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics labor force participation rate. That's the labor shortage in a nutshell.

But what if we told you that problem could be cut down to just a third of its size by going back to a pre-Donald Trump legal regime?

The current dearth of workers is mirrored by the number of working-age adults who would have lived in the United States if pre-Trump immigration trends persisted, according to 2020 US Census data.

Former President Donald Trump's administration was more restrictive to immigration than any other in recent history, making good on Trump's rhetoric antagonizing immigrants of color, specifically undocumented and Latinx immigrants. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the Trump administration undertook over 400 executive actions on immigration.

We estimate that in all, about 2 million of America's missing workers are immigrants who never came to the US.

The Census Bureau estimates that about 1.07 million people immigrated on net to the US in 2016, while only about 480,000 people immigrated in 2020.

Between 2011 and 2016, the US was gaining an additional 54,000 net immigrants each year. But that began to turn around, with net international migration declining each year between 2017 and 2020. If the early-decade trend continued instead, the US would have added about 2.1 million immigrants over those four years:
Trump-era policies are responsible for the missing workers

As it turns out, industries facing labor shortages — truck drivers and construction workers, namely — would have benefited from immigrant workers had Trump-era policies not prevented them from entering the US.

Construction, transportation and warehousing, accommodation and hospitality businesses, and personal service businesses like salons and dry cleaners are the four industries currently facing the worst labor shortages, the pro-immigration think tank New American Economy found last month for a Vox investigation.

All four industries saw increases in job postings of more than 65 percent from 2019 to 2021, when comparing the period between May to July for those two years. Immigrants make up more than a fifth of the workforce in those industries.

Immigrant workers account for about a quarter of the construction workforce as well, the National Association of Home Builders reported in March. That share is even higher when it comes to construction tradesmen, and is as much as 40% in states like California and Texas. These numbers would be even higher if they accounted for construction workers hired informally.

The National Foundation for American Policy projected last year that Trump administration policies reduced legal immigration by about 49% during Trump's time in office. They also projected that average annual labor force growth would be about 59% lower as a result of the policies.

Trump issued more than 40 immigration policy changes after the onset of the pandemic, limiting legal roads to immigration and tightening rules for undocumented immigration.

He also banned asylum seekers last March, for example, re-implementing the policy and eventually extending it indefinitely throughout the year. Similarly, he indefinitely postponed hearings for immigrants returned to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols.

2021 continues to chart record numbers of workers quitting. Roughly 4 million people, about 3% of workers, voluntarily left their jobs in September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent survey. That's up from 4.3 million in August, and 4 million in July. These are the largest mass resignations the US has seen in the two decades since the government started documenting them.

This labor shortage has been affecting American consumers as well, causing supply chain issues and greater price inflation, which recently hit a 30-year high in the U.S.

"When you don't have the truck drivers and we don't have the people that are working in construction, then economics says prices are going to go up," Julie Palmer, a human resource professor at Webster University, told KSDK News on Monday.

White supremacist prison guards work with impunity in Fla.




 A pickup truck with a Confederate flag-themed decal is parked outside the Reception and Medical Center, the state's prison hospital where new inmates are processed, in Lake Butler, Fla., Friday, April 16, 2021. According to public documents and interviews with a dozen inmates and current and former employees in the nation’s tenth largest prison system, Florida prison guards openly tout associations with white supremacist groups to intimidate inmates and Black colleagues, a persistent practice that goes unpunished and is allowed to fester in prisons throughout the U.S. 

(AP Photo/David Goldman, File)More

JASON DEAREN
Thu, November 18, 2021

In June, three Florida prison guards who boasted of being white supremacists beat, pepper sprayed and used a stun gun on an inmate who screamed “I can’t breathe!” at a prison near the Alabama border, according to a fellow inmate who reported it to the state.

The next day, the officers at Jackson Correctional Institution did it again to another inmate, the report filed with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Office of Inspector General stated.

“If you notice these two incidents were people of color. They (the guards) let it be known they are white supremacist,” the inmate Jamaal Reynolds wrote. “The Black officers and white officers don’t even mingle with each other. Every day they create a hostile environment trying to provoke us so they can have a reason to put their hands on us.”

Both incidents occurred in view of surveillance cameras, he said. Reynolds' neatly printed letter included the exact times and locations and named the officers and inmates. It’s the type of specific information that would have made it easier for officials to determine if the reports were legitimate. But the inspector general’s office did not investigate, corrections spokeswoman Molly Best said. Best did not provide further explanation, and the department hasn't responded to The Associated Press’ August public records requests for the videos.

Some Florida prison guards openly tout associations with white supremacist groups to intimidate inmates and Black colleagues, a persistent practice that often goes unpunished, according to allegations in public documents and interviews with a dozen inmates and current and former employees in the nation’s third-largest prison system. Corrections officials regularly receive reports about guards’ membership in the Ku Klux Klan and criminal gangs, according to former prison inspectors, and current and former officers.

Still, few such cases are thoroughly investigated by state prison inspectors; many are downplayed by officers charged with policing their own or discarded as too complicated to pursue.

“I've visited more than 50 (prison) facilities and have seen that this is a pervasive problem that is not going away,” said Democratic Florida state Rep. Dianne Hart. “It's partly due to our political climate. But, those who work in our prisons don't seem to fear people knowing that they're white supremacists.”

The people AP talked to, who live and work inside Florida’s prison system, describe it as chronically understaffed and nearly out of control. In 2017, three current and former Florida guards who were Ku Klux Klan members were convicted after the FBI caught them planning a Black former inmate’s murder.

This summer, one guard allowed 20-30 members of a white supremacist inmate group to meet openly inside a Florida prison. A Black officer happened upon the meeting, they told The AP, and later confronted the colleague who allowed it. The officer said their incident report about the meeting went nowhere, and the guard who allowed it was not punished.

The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to discuss official prison business. They told The AP that, after the report went nowhere, they did not feel safe at work and are seeking to leave.

Officers who want to blow the whistle on colleagues are often ostracized and labeled a “snitch,” according to current and former officers.

Mark Caruso, a former sergeant with Florida corrections who was twice fired and reinstated after blowing the whistle on fellow officers, described the department as a “good old boy” network.

He said that senior officers-in-charge have the power to censor any allegations of corrupt behavior that occurs on their watch. This keeps reports inside prison walls.

Caruso worked at three prisons in central Florida and reported inmate beatings and officer misconduct multiple times. Being a whistleblower did not work out well for him. He was fired after reporting on a colleague at the first prison where he worked as a sergeant, he said.

He was reinstated after the officers’ union challenged the firing, and he moved to a new prison. There, he again reported an officer’s use of force and was later fired and reinstated after the union challenged it again.

In 2019, he reported for duty at another new post, the Central Florida Reception Center. He was soon greeted with signs on an employee bulletin board where his name had been crossed out and “SNITCH” scrawled instead, according to testimony at a union grievance hearing. Another officer spit on his car windshield, he said.

Despite the intimidation, Caruso continued reporting inmate abuse and other illegal activity by fellow officers.

“I have reported people when physically seeing them abuse inmates,” he testified in another grievance hearing earlier this year. The AP obtained video of the hearing at which multiple officers and leadership testified in detail about the system’s reporting structure and culture.

Corrections officers are required to file “incident reports” if they see a co-worker acting inappropriately. In some Florida prisons, supervisors often tell them not to email the reports, according to officers who testified at Caruso’s hearing. Instead, they’re told to tell their supervisor verbally what happened or write it longhand. A superior officer then types it up, choosing the language and framing the event.

A sergeant testified that the reason he typed up his officers’ incident reports was because most struggle with writing. Also, most do not have computer access at the prison.

Caruso said he refused to report incidents of corruption verbally because it left no record, and he worried that prison leadership would censor his reports. So he emailed them to create an electronic record, a decision that, he says, irked prison leadership.

After seeing his reports go nowhere, he finally went over his superior officers' heads. Caruso made contact with an investigator in the Office of Inspector General and emailed Florida Corrections Secretary Mark Inch directly. Inch responded to him expressing concern, Caruso said, and referred the matter to the IG’s office. That did not end well, either.

“For at least two years I reported to (the IG's office) all of the corruption I saw. He didn’t respond or follow up,” Caruso said of the inspector general’s investigator.

Caruso was eventually fired again after officials said he’d failed to report an inmate beating — one Caruso said he did not actually witness. It was a baffling charge given his active campaign of reporting others throughout his corrections career. He claimed, unsuccessfully this time, that the firing was retaliation.

If the inspector general were motivated to aggressively investigate reports of abuse by white supremacists or other gang members working as correctional officers he would face barriers, the former investigators told AP.

That’s because state law limits the use of inmates as confidential informants, they said, and guards are reluctant or afraid to snitch on their colleagues.

For an inmate to act as an informant, the FBI would have to take over the case because Florida law limits the inspector general’s office’s interactions with inmates, the former investigators said. “We don’t have the authority to do anything,” one said.

Officers, meantime, fear retaliation.

“Officers are saying their colleagues are members, but they can have me killed,” one former investigator said.

___

After the three guards in Florida were captured on FBI recordings plotting a Black inmate’s murder upon his release, Florida corrections spokeswoman Michelle Glady insisted there was no indication of a wider problem of white supremacists working in the prisons, so the state would not investigate further.

After the statement, an AP reporter in April visited the employee parking lot of one facility in the state’s rural north and photographed cars and trucks adorned with symbols and stickers that are often associated with the white supremacist movement: Confederate flags, Q-Anon and Thin Blue Line images.

Florida has grappled with this issue for decades. In the early 2000s, the corrections department was forced by a St. Petersburg Times expose to investigate a clique of racist guards who all carried rope keychains with a noose. The Times reported that the noose keychains were used to signal a racist officer who was willing to inflict pain, particularly on Black inmates.

The state investigated the keychains and complaints from Black guards of workplace discrimination. Department inspectors interviewed the white guards who were known to carry the noose keychains and eventually cleared them all.

“This is a pattern all over the country,” said Paul Wright, a former inmate who co-founded the prisoner-rights publication Prison Legal News. Wright helped expose Ku Klux Klan members working in a Washington state prison in the 1990s. He and Prison Legal News have since reported cases of Nazis and klan members working as correctional officers in California, New York, Texas, Illinois and many other states.

“There’s an institutional acceptance of this type of racism," Wright said. “What’s striking about this is that so many of them keep their jobs."

Most state prisons and police departments throughout the U.S. do very little background checking to see if new hires have extremist views, said Greg Ehrie, former chief of the FBI’s New York domestic terrorism squad, who now works with the Anti-Defamation League.

“There are 513 police agencies in New Jersey, and not one bans being part of outlaw motorcycle gangs. A prison guard who is the patched member of the Pagans, he can be out about it and tell you about it (with no punishment) because it’s not stipulated in the employment contract,” Ehrie said. The ADL lists the Pagans among biker gangs with white supremacist group affiliations.

This dynamic can lead to what the former Florida prison investigator described as “criminals watching over criminals.”

“If you have a heartbeat, a GED and no felony conviction you can get a job. That’s sad,” said Caruso, the former Florida correctional sergeant.

Florida state Rep. Hart and Caruso have called for a thorough investigation of the issue and a federal takeover of the prison system.

The FBI said it would neither confirm nor deny if such an investigation had been launched, but Ehrie said it is likely.

“I would be extremely surprised if this wasn’t an open bureau investigation,” he said of Florida's prison system. “It’s almost impossible that they’re not investigating.”

___

Meanwhile, reports of racist behavior by correctional officers continue, according to inmates and current and former Florida corrections employees.

In late September, at another Panhandle prison, a 25-year-old Black inmate reported being beaten by a white officer who said “You’re lucky I didn’t have my spray on me, cuz I would gas yo Black ass.” The inmate’s lip was split open and his face swollen.

The inmate’s family requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

His mother reported the incident to the Inspector General's office on Oct. 1 and requested a wellness check on him. The office sent an investigator to the facility to interview her son, according to emails provided by the family.

After the interview, the IG refused to investigate the officer’s conduct. The mother was told it was her son’s word versus the officer’s, and there was nothing they could do. The IG’s office referred the matter instead to the prison warden.

The officer continued working in the inmate's dorm and threatened him, the inmate said in letters home.

“All them is a click (sic), a gang. Ya feel me, they all work together,” the inmate wrote in October. For weeks, he sent desperate letters saying he was still being terrorized. He urged his mother to continue fighting.

“Don’t let up Mom. This has extremely messed up my mental. Got me shell shock, feel less of a man, violated ya feel me? But I love you.”

She eventually helped him get transferred in early November to a facility with a reputation for being even more lawless and brutal, according to the family and a current officer. He is four years into a 12-year sentence for attempted robbery with a gun or deadly weapon.

“I do look forward to seeing my son one day and I can only pray,” the mother told AP. “I’m overwhelmed, tired and doing my best to hold on for my son’s sake.”

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Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Email AP’s Global Investigations Team at investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/. See other work at https://www.apnews.com/hub/ap-investigations.

___

Follow Jason Dearen on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JHDearen

Staff Fumes, Ashley Judd Weeps as Time’s Up Pink-Slips Almost Everyone

Emily Shugerman
Fri, November 19, 2021

 Ashley Judd

The vast majority of Time’s Up’s remaining staffers were laid off Friday in what they described as a debacle that began with leaders revealing they gave the news to the Washington Post first and ended with board member Ashley Judd breaking down in tears.

The embattled organization, limping since its CEO and entire board resigned this summer, announced Friday that it would lay off the vast majority of its remaining staff. Leadership informed staff of the decision in a virtual meeting that started 15 minutes before the Post article made the pink slips national news.

“They said on the call, ‘The Washington Post is releasing a piece right now,’” said Stacey Ferguson, Time’s Up’s digital director. “Some staff members were like, ‘Oh my god, my mom is going to read about it before I can tell her.’”

“To paraphrase what a colleague shared on the call: For an organization that’s supposed to be advocating for fair and dignified workplaces, this feels like the opposite of that,” Ferguson added.

Insiders Say #MeToo Powerhouse Time’s Up Has Lost Its Way

In a statement, the board called the layoffs a “major reset” needed to right the ship after the events of the last year. Multiple outlets reported over the summer that the leaders of Time’s Up—which was created in response to the #MeToo movement—had counseled then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on how to respond to sexual harassment allegations against him and had disparaged his accuser in text messages.

Both CEO Tina Tchen and board chair Roberta Kaplan stepped down in August, naming former CFO Monifa Bandele the interim CEO and starting the process of hiring consultant Leilani Brown to conduct an independent review. Brown’s report, which was also released Friday, found a lack of discipline, loss of trust, and “outsized expectations without a stable foundation to grow on.”

In a statement announcing the layoffs and the results of the report, Board Chair Gabrielle Sulzberger called them “a needed reset, not a retreat.”

“TIME’S UP stands for accountability and systematic change in the workplace,” she said. “It is incumbent on us to learn from these findings, and focus on building an organization that powerfully serves women of all kinds and ends the impunity of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.”

Gabrielle Sulzberger

Staffers who spoke to The Daily Beast said they were confused why this “reset” required all of the on-the-ground staff to be laid off, while three of the organization’s highest-ranking members—its chief financial officer, chief development officer, and head of entertainment—would stay on in order to “rebuild.”

“Most of us weren’t in the leadership team when the Cuomo stuff happened, yet we’re the ones being punished for past actions of the organization,” said one employee, who asked to remain anonymous.

“Yet again, Time’s Up is putting the interests of the organization over its own staff members,” she added. “We’ve obviously become collateral damage in all of this.”

Staffers said they learned their fates in a 1 p.m. Zoom call led primarily by Sulzberger and fellow board member Judd. The two fielded questions about why the Washington Post had been told about the decision before staff members, and why employees would receive only two months’ severance during a global pandemic—something one staffer described to The Daily Beast as “a slap in the face.” (A Time’s Up spokesperson told The Daily Beast the severance package as “generous” for a small nonprofit.)

At one point, one staffer said, Judd began to cry, saying she was “broken-hearted” about the news.

“Mind you, she’s already put out a statement [to the Washington Post] with information that staff didn’t have access to,” the staffer said. “So keep your fucking crocodile tears.”

Revealed: Time’s Up Staffers Warned of Big Problems in Memo Long Before Implosion

The Time’s Up spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the organization decided to work with the Post because the paper had already obtained some details of the report, and they wanted to ensure the resulting article painted a full picture. He added that the layoffs were necessary to ensure that the organization’s work on behalf of survivors could continue, but declined to say when its programmatic work—which will be paused Jan. 1 when the current staffers depart—will resume.

The Daily Beast previously reported on the fractures within the organization, which launched to great fanfare in 2018. Staffers at the time described an organization that was more committed to its wealthy and powerful backers than it was to survivors, and that embraced a stifling, top-down leadership style. Employees claimed they had been forced to remove photos of Cuomo critics from their website and tweet laudatory things about his office’s work; others said they were forced to drop everything and launch a petition in support of Gayle King when the celebrity was being harassed online. One survivor whom the group had initially supported asked to remove her name from a Daily Beast article in April, after a Time’s Up executive lashed out at her for participating.

Tina Tchen resigned as CEO of Time’s Up earlier this year.

Ferguson, who has been with the organization a little over a year, said she stayed on staff despite these negative reports because she believed the organization could change. But even before the layoffs were announced, she said, she had already lost that hope.

“Imagine coming to work every day and wanting to do the right things—the good things—but you are prevented by the red tape, and the culture, and this weird, super heavy, top-down way of leading,” she said.

“The 25 people on staff are amazing, and the 12 people who resigned since I started a year ago are amazing, and that is the crying shame,” she added.

A fellow employee described Friday’s layoffs as a “failure” to the staff and the movement as a whole.

Asked what she would tell the organization’s leadership, she said: “I would make it very, very clear that they should be ashamed of themselves, that this is an embarrassment and a besmirchment of everything this movement is for. And I would love to know how they can sleep at night keeping their employees in the dark."

Embattled Time’s Up, post-Cuomo, announces a ‘major reset’

By JOCELYN NOVECK

November 19, 2021

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Confusion over purpose and mission. Lack of focus on long-term goals. Ineffective communication internally and externally. Lack of accountability for top officials, especially the CEO. Too politically partisan, and too aligned with Hollywood.

These are just some of the issues raised in a report commissioned by Time’s Up and released Friday — in the name of transparency — as the advocacy group pledged a “major reset” including the termination of most of the staff. It comes three months after a damaging scandal forced the departure of chief executive Tina Tchen over revelations that the group’s leaders advised former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration after he was first accused of sexual harassment last year.

“We’re going down to the studs,” said Ashley Judd, one of the group’s most visible members and a key early voice in the broader #MeToo movement, in an interview.

“We’re going to rebuild and reset and come back in a way that honors our mandate, incorporates the voices of our critics, learns from our findings … and holds ourselves accountable but also lives up to our potential.”

Judd and Monifa Bandele, the interim leader since September, spoke to The Associated Press ahead of the report’s release, which coincides with a major staff upheaval. Most of the staff of 25 people were informed Friday they were being laid off at the end of the year, with a skeleton crew of three remaining. Four board members will stay on, including Judd, as the organization decides its next steps and chooses leadership. Bandele is stepping down.

Both women insisted that Time’s Up remains crucially important as an advocacy group for women. Bandele, who says she made the decision herself not to seek – for now – the permanent CEO role she had wanted, noted that “Even the people who are the toughest, toughest critics said, ‘We still need Time’s Up. Time’s Up is going to play a critical role in our movement. …. I didn’t see any ‘Burn it all down.’”

And Judd offered an emotional defense of the organization, saying she feels “as energized and committed today” as she did when Time’s Up launched in the wake of allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, whom she herself had accused of sexual harassment. “The need for fair, safe, dignified workplaces for women of all kinds is still urgent.”

In explaining the group’s relevance, Judd told the anecdote of how a visiting producer on a movie she was doing came up to her and referred to a film they’d worked on years earlier. “I should have had you when I had the chance,” he declared, she said, in front of the entire crew and his wife. Judd did not identify the producer.

Judd said she knew she’d been harassed, and looked to the home page of SAG, the Screen Actors Guild, for help. “There was no help for me. And today, because of Time’s Up, on my union membership card there’s a sexual harassment hotline.”

“All of our norms have changed,” Judd added. “No more meetings in hotel rooms. No more meetings before and after standard work hours. Intimacy coordinators on set, and you can take a buddy with you to auditions for safety. Those are tremendous strides in our industry.”

Time’s Up was formed close to four years ago by a group of high-profile Hollywood women — producers, agents, movie stars — eager to build on the momentum from the Weinstein scandal and fight sexual harassment in their own industry and beyond.

The group pledged to be a voice for women from all walks of life, but it has been plagued by criticism — from outside, and also from within — that it was too aligned with Hollywood and less attentive to the needs of others. When Bandele took over interim leadership, she pledged the group would ask itself: “What are our conflicts of interests, what are our guardrails?”

The release of the report, written by independent consultant Leilani M. Brown and first reported by The Washington Post, forms the first phase of the group’s reset; the next phase, Bandele said, is strategic planning, and a final phase will be implementation. The report was compiled over a period of two months; Some 200 people, including current and former staffers and stakeholders, were contacted and 85 agreed to interviews.

“This is a needed reset, not a retreat,” said board chair Gabrielle Sulzberger, in a statement. “It is incumbent on us to learn from these findings, and focus on building an organization that powerfully serves women of all kinds and ends the impunity of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.”

Already, Bandele said, the report “has been successful in that we have really demonstrated transparency and openness in a way that’s vulnerable. And so it feels good. At the same time, it’s bittersweet.”

Among the findings:

—There was internal confusion about purpose and mission, which was “largely undefined for some time.” Partly this was because the organization developed too fast, the report said, ramping up ‘like a jet plane to a rocket ship’ overnight.“

—Leaders were seen as often chasing short-term goals rather than a longer-term strategic vision.

—Communication was “inconsistent and fragmented.” Some members were frustrated to hear of the allegations involving the Cuomo case from the media and not from Time’s Up itself. ( Tchen’s Aug. 26 resignation followed the earlier departure of the organization’s chair, Roberta Kaplan. Both women had angered Time’s Up supporters with the idea they’d offered any help to Cuomo, and that Tchen initially discouraged other Time’s Up leaders from commenting publicly on allegations by one of his accusers, Lindsey Boylan. Cuomo resigned on Aug. 10 amid a barrage of harassment allegations.)

—The group appeared politically partisan. The report cited members who felt Time’s Up was damaged by leaders’ ties to the Democratic Party (Tchen was once Michelle Obama’s chief of staff). The organization was accused by some of not supporting Tara Reade, who accused now-President Joe Biden of assaulting her in the 1990s — an allegation he has vehemently denied. And the Cuomo ties led to criticism that the group’s dealings with the governor smacked of political favoritism.

Bandele said in the interview that the Cuomo episode might have landed differently if the group’s structure were more sound. “The Cuomo crisis was key in where we are now,” Bandele said. “But if the inside structure … was stronger, if the communications and the transparency in the processes were stronger, something like what happened with Cuomo would be (less) likely to happen. Even if it did, “it wouldn’t have the same detrimental effect on how people view the organization because we’d have much greater trust within the community.”

The question now is how the group will rebuild that trust.

“All organizations make mistakes,” Bandele argued. “So we’ll make mistakes, too. But it’s not a nail in the coffin … this is not the end of us. The thing is that we have to build back stronger.”

The group did not provide a timeline for its next steps. Judd said it would be worth the wait.

“What we are going to manifest is an organization that has singleness of purpose and will be inclusive, and amplify the voices of women of all kinds,” she said. “We’re very excited to be able to share it with the world.”

As for herself, she said, “I’m still here because I know the urgency of how much society needs Time’s Up. The mandate is bigger and more important than the mistakes we made. And we will persevere and be of service.”

The OPEC of Maple Syrup Taps Its Stockpile to Make Sure Your Pancakes Are Covered



Jen Skerritt
Fri, November 19, 2021, 10:30 AM·2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Fear not, pancake lovers. The OPEC of maple syrup plans to dip into its sticky stockpile to cover a shortfall of the breakfast staple.The organization, Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, said it is draining nearly 50 million pounds of syrup from barrels in its strategic reserve, about half its stockpile and the most since 2008. The amount being released is equal to more than a third of this year’s harvest in the French-speaking Canadian province, the world’s top supplier. Output plunged 24% this year following a warmer and shorter spring harvest as overseas demand soared, according to the group.

“We need to produce more maple syrup,” spokeswoman Helene Normandin said in a phone interview. “The reserve is there to make sure that we are always able to sell and offer this product.”Quebec accounts for more than 70% of world maple syrup production and its supply is governed by a kind of government-sanctioned cartel. Quebec Maple Syrup Producers sets bulk prices, caps production and sends unsold output to a warehouse in Laurierville, Quebec, allowing the agency a level of market control rivaling the grip the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has on oil markets.

Read more: World’s Maple Syrup Market Has Quebec Cartel Calling the Shots “The pandemic helped in our case because we’re seeing people cook more at home and use more local products,’’ Normandin said. “It’s not just in Quebec the demand is increasing.’’Export sales rose to 113.5 million pounds between January and September, a 21% jump from a year earlier. Next year, the group plans to allow Quebec producers to add 7 million syrup taps in response to the rising demand. ​​​​

The time frame for maple syrup production is short and the “sugaring season” typically occurs between late February and end of April as tree sap is only able to flow when the daytime temperatures alternate between freezing and thawing. Warm temperatures across Quebec cut the harvest season short this year. The production woes come even after the agency moved to increase the number of tree taps to quell black market sales and maintain market share. Quebec farmers have expressed frustration with production limits in recent years as American producers seek to boost their ouput. U.S. maple syrup production fell 17% this year to 3.42 million gallons while the number of taps rose 2% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The reserve, which was the scene of a notorious heist uncovered in 2012, hasn’t been tapped in three years thanks to back-to-back bumper harvests.

Germany could legalise cannabis under new coalition agreement

 EMMANUEL CROSET /AFP

Marcus Parekh
Fri, November 19, 2021

Germany's future ruling coalition is expected to legalise the sale of recreational cannabis, local media reports.

Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD), along with likely partners to Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) are still working out details of their coalition deal, but any deal is expected to include rules under which the sale and use of recreational cannabis would be allowed and regulated in Europe's largest economy.

The three parties plan to "introduce the regulated sale of cannabis to adults for consumption purposes in licensed stores," according to the coalition's health group's findings.

This ensures quality control, prevents the distribution of contaminated products, and guarantees the protection of minors, it said. However, it is not yet clear whether the cultivation of cannabis within Germany will also be legalised.

The Social Democrats described the use of cannabis as a “social reality” in their election manifesto and called for an “appropriate political way of dealing with this”.

Germany could legalise cannabis under new coalition agreement - CLEMENS BILAN/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock /Shutterstock

Medicinal cannabis has been legal in Germany since 2017, but the Greens and FDP have long pushed for full legalisation, as seen in Canada.

Should an agreement be reached, it would make Germany Europe's largest cannabis market. Last month, Luxembourg became the first country in Europe to fully legalise the sale of cannabis.

Legalisation could bring Germany annual tax revenues and cost savings of about 4.7 billion euros (£3.95 billion) and create 27,000 new jobs, according to survey as politicians thrash out rules for the budding sector.

The survey by the Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at the Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf, and commissioned by the German hemp association, found that legalising cannabis could lead to additional tax revenues of about 3.4 billion euros (£2.86 billion) per year.

At the same time, it could bring cost savings in the police and judicial system of 1.3 billion euros (£1.1 billion) per year while creating tens of thousands of jobs in the cannabis economy.

Legalising cannabis in Germany would give a boost to a ballooning European market that is expected to be worth more than 3 billion euros (£2.52 billion) in annual revenue by 2025, up from about 400 million euros (£336 million) this year, according to the European Cannabis Report by research firm Prohibition Partners.

Cannabis bust on Indigenous land highlights legal divide



In this Sept. 29, 2021, photo provided by John Pettit, law enforcement officers with the Bureau of Indian Affairs inspect a cannabis garden at Picuris Pueblo, N.M. A federal raid on a household marijuana garden on tribal land in northern New Mexico at Picuris Pueblo is sowing uncertainty and some resentment about U.S. drug enforcement priorities on Native American reservations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs officers seized about nine plants at Picuris Pueblo while handcuffing registered medical marijuana patient Charles Farden. (John Pettit via AP)

MORGAN LEE
Thu, November 18, 2021

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A federal raid on a household marijuana garden on tribal land in northern New Mexico is sowing uncertainty and resentment about U.S. drug enforcement priorities on Native American reservations, as more states roll out legal marketplaces for recreational pot sales.

In late September, Bureau of Indian Affairs officers confiscated nine cannabis plants from a home garden at Picuris Pueblo that was tended by Charles Farden, a local resident since childhood who is not Native American. The 54-year-old is enrolled in the state’s medical marijuana program to ease post-traumatic stress and anxiety.

Farden said he was startled to be placed in handcuffs as federal officers seized mature plants laden with buds — an estimated yearlong personal supply.

New Mexico first approved the drug’s medical use in 2007, while Picuris Pueblo decriminalized medical pot for members in 2015. A new state law in June broadly legalized marijuana for adults and authorized up to a dozen home-grown plants per household for personal use — with no weight limit.

“I was just open with the officer, straightforward. When he asked what I was growing, I said, 'My vegetables, my medical cannabis,' ” Farden said of the Sept. 29 encounter. “And he was like, ‘That can be a problem.’ ”

The raid has cast a shadow over cannabis as an economic development opportunity for Indigenous communities, as tribal governments at Picuris Pueblo and at least one other reservation pursue agreements with New Mexico that would allow them to open marijuana businesses. The state is home to 23 federally recognized Native American communities. It's aiming to launch retail pot sales by April.

More than two-thirds of states have legalized marijuana in some form, including four that approved recreational pot in the 2020 election and four more by legislation this year. The U.S. government has avoided cracking down on them, even though the drug remains illegal under federal law to possess, use or sell.

The September raid has some scrutinizing its approach on tribal lands like Picuris Pueblo, where the Bureau of Indian Affairs provides policing to enforce federal and tribal laws in an arrangement common in Indian Country. Other tribes operate their own police forces under contract with the BIA.

In a recent letter to Picuris Pueblo tribal Gov. Craig Quanchello obtained by The Associated Press, a BIA special agent in charge said the agency won’t tell its officers to stand down in Indian Country — and that marijuana possession and growing remains a federal crime, despite changes in state and tribal law.

“Prior notification of law enforcement operations is generally not appropriate,” the letter states. “The BIA Office of Justice Services is obligated to enforce federal law and does not instruct its officers to disregard violations of federal law in Indian Country.”

Officials with the BIA and its parent agency, the Interior Department, declined to comment and did not respond to the AP’s requests for details of the raid and its implications. Farden has not been charged and does not know if there will be further consequences.

President Joe Biden this week ordered several Cabinet departments to work together to combat human trafficking and crime on Native American lands, where violent crime rates are more than double the national average.

He did not specifically address marijuana, though he has said he supports decriminalizing the drug and expunging past pot use convictions. He has not embraced federally legalizing marijuana.

Portland-based criminal defense attorney Leland Berger, who last year advised the Oglala Sioux Tribe after it passed a cannabis ordinance, notes that Justice Department priorities for marijuana in Indian Country were outlined in writing under President Barack Obama then overturned under President Donald Trump, with little written public guidance since.

“It’s remarkable for me to hear that the BIA is enforcing the federal Controlled Substances Act on tribal land where the tribe has enacted an ordinance that protects the activity,” he said.

Across the U.S., tribal enterprises have taken a variety of approaches as they straddle state and federal law and jurisdictional issues to gain a foothold in the cannabis industry.

In Washington, the Suquamish Tribe forged a pioneering role under a 2015 compact with the state to open a retail marijuana outlet across Puget Sound from Seattle on the Port Madison reservation. It sells cannabis from dozens of independent producers.

Several Nevada tribes operate their own enforcement division to help ensure compliance with state- and tribal-authorized marijuana programs, including a registry for home-grown medical marijuana. Taxes collected at tribal dispensaries stay with tribes and go toward community improvement programs.

In South Dakota, the Oglala Sioux in early 2020 became the only tribe to set up a cannabis market without similar state regulations, endorsing medical and recreational use in a referendum at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Months later, a statewide vote legalized marijuana in South Dakota, with a challenge from Republican Gov. Kristi Noem's administration now pending at the state Supreme Court.

The U.S. government recognizes an “inherent and inalienable" right to self-governance by Native American tribes. But federal law enforcement agencies still selectively intervene to enforce cannabis prohibition, Berger said.

“The tribes are sovereign nations, and they have treaties with the United States, and in some cases there is concurrent jurisdiction. ... It’s sort of this hybrid,” he said.

In late 2020, a combination of state, federal and tribal law enforcement cooperated in a raid on sprawling marijuana farms with makeshift greenhouses in northwestern New Mexico with the consent of the Navajo Nation president. Authorities seized more than 200,000 plants. At the time, New Mexico limited marijuana cultivation to 1,750 plants per licensed medical cannabis producer.

At Picuris Pueblo, Quanchello said the cannabis industry holds economic promise for tribal lands that are too remote to support a full-blown casino. Picuris operates a smoke shop out of a roadside trailer and is close to opening a gas station with a sandwich shop and mini-grocery.

“We’re farmers by nature. It’s something we can do here and be good at it,” Quanchello said. “We don’t want to miss it.”

He described the BIA raid as an affront to Picuris Pueblo, with echoes of federal enforcement in 2018 that uprooted about 35 cannabis plants grown by the tribe in a foray into medical marijuana.

State lawmakers in 2019 adopted uniform regulations for medical marijuana on tribal and nontribal land.

In legalizing recreational marijuana this year, New Mexico’s Democratic-led Legislature and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham emphasized the need to create jobs, shore up state revenue and address concerns about harm inflicted on racial and ethnic minorities by drug criminalization.

Judith Dworkin, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based attorney specializing in Native American law, said tribal cannabis enterprises confront less risk of interference from federal law enforcement where states have robust legal markets for pot.

“It's a lot easier for a tribe to take a position that they want to do something similar” to the state, she said. “It's still a risk.”

Quanchello said he sees federal enforcement of cannabis laws at Picuris Pueblo as unpredictable and discriminatory.

“We as a tribe can end up investing a million dollars into a project, thinking it’s OK. And because of a rogue officer or somebody that doesn’t believe something is right, it could be stopped,” he said.

U.S. to remove "squaw" from hundreds of federal lands place names


U.S. Interior Secretary Haaland addresses the Tribal Nations Summit at a 

White House auditorium, in Washington

Fri, November 19, 2021
By Nichola Groom

(Reuters) - The Biden administration will remove the word “squaw” from place names on federal land as part of an effort to reckon with the nation's racist past, the Department of Interior said on Friday.

The word, a term for Indigenous women that Native Americans find offensive, is used in more than 650 place names on federal lands, according to the Department.

Several states, including Maine, Minnesota and Montana, have already banned the use of the term in place names.

"Racist terms have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands," said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the nation's first Native American cabinet official.

"Our nation's lands and waters should be places to celebrate the outdoors and our shared cultural heritage - not to perpetuate the legacies of oppression."

She said her agency would also create an advisory committee to begin a review to find and replace other derogatory names of places on federal land.

The so-called Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names will be comprised of representatives from tribes, Native Hawaiians, civil rights and cultural studies experts and members of the public.

The committee's creation is aimed at accelerating the renaming of properties. Currently, there are hundreds of name changes pending before the Board on Geographic Names, and the process can take years, the Department said.

A Native American rights group applauded Haaland's action.

"It is well past time for us, as a nation, to move forward, beyond these derogatory terms, and show Native people - and all people - equal respect," John Echohawk, executive director of the Native American Rights Fund, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Feds move to strengthen protection for Indigenous sacred sites on public lands

Debra Utacia Krol, Arizona Republic
Sat, November 20, 2021

Eight federal agencies announced a new deal to coordinate efforts to protect Indigenous sacred sites, strengthening protections in an area where advocates have long said the government has fallen short.

The agencies will work to provide Native peoples more access and co-management of those sites, which include better protection for sites such as Red Butte, a Havasupai site just south of the Grand Canyon, and enhanced co-management of the Grand Canyon National Park, according to a memorandum of understanding obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Pinyon Plain Mine (formerly known as Canyon Mine), a uranium mine located 6 miles southeast of Tusayan on the Kaibab National Forest, on Oct. 5, 2018.

Bryan Newland, assistant secretary for Indian affairs, first publicly disclosed the new plan with a group of tribal leaders during the White House's Tribal Nations Summit on Tuesday.

The Biden administration is committed to protecting and preserving sacred places, said Newland, an Ojibwe and a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community. "Our new sacred sites agreement demonstrates this commitment."

“Since time immemorial, the Earth’s lands and waters have been central to the social, cultural, spiritual, mental, and physical wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. It is essential that we do everything we can to honor sites that hold historical, spiritual or ceremonial significance,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo, in a statement.

She added that the Interior Department is committed to both protecting sacred sites and collaboration with Indigenous communities on access and stewardship issues.

The new agreement expands on an earlier agreement enacted in 2012.

In addition to the Interior Department, the signatory agencies are the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Transportation and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Transportation Department, the environmental quality council and the Tennessee Valley Authority are the three new agencies. The Defense Department, which was part of the older agreement, is not included in the new partnership.

The new agreement calls for the agencies to consult with tribes much earlier while evaluating projects on federal lands. Agency heads also agreed to incorporate the use of traditional ecological knowledge, known as TEK, when crafting new best practices guidance to manage and protect sacred sites. Provisions of the 2012 agreement, such as educating the public on the importance of protecting sacred sites and building interagency cooperation in site protections on federal lands were carried over to the new partnership agreement.

Federal agencies have a duty to protect Native sacred sites, according to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

In August, The Arizona Republic published a six-part series on the legal and bureaucratic hurdles tribes encounter when seeking to protect sacred and culturally important sites on public lands. One of the biggest complaints The Republic heard from tribal leaders, cultural practitioners and experts was that consultation with tribes rarely happened in time to make any substantive changes or to develop a project plan that all parties could live with, and that would avoid damaging sacred or culturally important sites.

Arizona: Indigenous people find legal, cultural barriers to protect sacred spaces off tribal lands

“In recent years, tribal sacred sites have been under attack by a disregard for the laws meant to protect these ancient places," said Maria Dadgar, executive director of the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona. "These sites ... serve as the foundation of our existence as Indigenous People.”

Leonard Sloan, vice president of the Navajo Bodaway-Gap chapter, puts his hat on after saying a prayer at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers at the Grand Canyon.

Dadgar, an enrolled member of the Piscataway Tribe of Accokeek, Maryland, said the administration's new sacred sites memorandum will create a stronger framework around efforts to protect these sites.

"Consultation with tribes will take place much earlier in the federal decision-making process," she said, "and a stronger commitment to incorporating Indigenous knowledge to help assess the impact of federal actions on sacred sites will also lead to much improved outcomes in the effort to protect tribal sacred sites.”

One Arizona project that will impact a Native sacred site won't be subject to the new directive: Oak Flat. The proposed copper mine at one of the Apache peoples' most sacred sites about 60 miles each of Phoenix was authorized through a 2014 congressional bill.

"This is the epitome of hypocrisy," said Robin Silver, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has supported grassroots group Apache Stronghold and the San Carlos Apache Tribe in their efforts to defeat the land deal. Apache Stronghold sued to reverse the legislation, saying its First Amendment religious freedom rights were violated. The case is currently awaiting a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Justice Department has argued that even the complete destruction of Oak Flat would not pose a substantial burden on Apache religious practices and that the federal government has the right to use lands it controls as it sees fit.

"The Biden Justice Department is arguing that the loss of traditional Apaches' ability to practice their religion is not a 'burden,'" Silver said. "Their new proposal is like a Saturday Night Live skit."

Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at debra.krol@azcentral.com. Follow her on Twitter at @debkrol.

Coverage of Indigenous issues at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the Catena Foundation and the Water Funder Initiative.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: New policy seeks to protect Indigenous sacred sites on federal lands

‘Heal the past’: first Native American confirmed to oversee national parks


Hallie Golden
Sat, November 20, 2021

© Provided by PeopleBill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Charles F. Sams III

Charles “Chuck” F Sams III made history this week in becoming the first-ever Native American confirmed to lead the National Park Service.

Sams, an enrolled tribal member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, received unanimous consent by the US Senate on Thursday after being nominated by Joe Biden in August.

Sam’s confirmation comes nearly 150 years after US leaders began the practice of establishing national parks upon ancestral lands that were often violently seized from Indigenous communities.

Now, with the park service managing more than 400 areas across every state, along with the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, some Indigenous leaders see Sams’ appointment as a potential path toward healing from old but deeply rooted wounds.

“I see this as an opportunity to reconcile that past, to heal that past, and to recognize the deep knowledge and wisdom that a Native American brings to that post,” said Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians and vice-president of the Quinault Indian Nation.

In 1872, President Ulysses S Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law, creating the country’s first national park. The establishment of this site and many others in the ensuing years have been hailed as a triumph, but came at a cost.

Related: Indigenous tribes tried to block a car battery mine. But the courts stood in the way

In an interview with the Guardian, Jeanette Wolfley, a former University of New Mexico School of Law professor, explained that members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes once inhabited the area now known as Yellowstone national park. She said the park’s establishment had had a “devastating” effect on the community as members were barred from returning.

Today, some tribal reservations actually overlap with national park spaces. For example, the Canyon de Chelly national monument is located within the Navajo Nation.

Recognizing the history of these parks, Jonathan Jarvis, the last Senate-approved National Park Service director (he left the post in 2017), said over the last 20 years, there had been an effort by park service leaders to establish stronger relationships with Indigenous residents. During his tenure, for example, the agency restored the rights of traditionally affiliated nations to collect plants within a park’s boundaries.

Sams, who has over 25 years of experience working in state and Indigenous governments as well as the non-profit natural resource and conservation management fields, could expand on this work.

The Old Faithful geyser erupts at Yellowstone national park.

 Photograph: Jordi Elias Grassot/Alamy

Jarvis said Sams would be responsible for implementing Biden’s park service agenda and would probably need to address such key issues as the parks’ major maintenance backlog and infrastructure needs, the impact of the climate crisis on these spaces and the parks’ response to Covid. But he will also have the opportunity to set his own vision for the parks.

He could further boost Indigenous nations’ ability to access key swaths of traditional vegetation by encouraging park officials to reach out to them directly to help establish collection agreements, explained Jarvis. And, although the park service already allows Indigenous people to access these spaces for ceremonies, he could issue a director’s order making this process easier.

Jarvis said there was huge potential for Sams to “look where there are opportunities for true co-management, true stewardship in partnership with tribes” of these national park spaces.

Last month, Sams said in a statement as part of his nomination hearing in front of the Senate energy and natural resources committee: “If confirmed, I will bring this spirit of consultation to my service as director. I look forward to consulting with neighboring communities, stakeholders, local, state and tribal governments, and members of Congress, even when the conversations and topics are challenging.”

But for some Indigenous people, healing from historical injustice is not simply a matter of boosting consultations or access to national parks; it’s a matter of returning the lands.

Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said she would like to see national parks returned to Indigenous people. But she cautioned that returning these spaces would need to be an individualized process.

“Tribes are unique and distinct. And the national parks in some parts of the country may have tribal nations who are prepared and ready to assume management over those and others may not,” she said.

Kat Brigham, chair of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation board of trustees, said she was extremely happy at the prospect of Sams taking his new position. She said she expected him to lead from “the tribal perspective”, which she described as “taking care of the land, so the land can take care of you”.

She said she hoped to see him help to spread awareness of the true history of these sites. She gave the example of Celilo Falls in Oregon, which was once a great gathering space for Indigenous people.

“He knows, for decades, that the tribes have been trying to get the federal and state agencies to start looking at things from a tribal perspective,” she said. “I think he will be asking us a lot more questions. And they’ll be involved more.”

RIDC GOP IN DEM CLOTHING

Joe Manchin worries Biden's social spending agenda costs too much, so why did he just vote for an infrastructure law that costs more?

Ben Winck
Sat, November 20, 2021

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.Drew Angerer/Getty Images


Manchin is among the last obstacles to Build Back Better's approval, but the CBO just blew up his main talking point.


He says he wants the package to be fully paid, and the CBO says it would add $160 billion to the deficit.


Along with several Republicans, Manchin just voted for an infrastructure law that will be even bigger, adding $259 billion to the deficit.

A centrist senator says the government shouldn't spend more than $1 trillion that would add to the deficit. Another centrist senator votes for a law that's larger than $1 trillion that adds hundreds of billions to the deficit.

There's just one problem: Both of these are Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He has one stance on Joe Biden's Build Back Better agenda and another on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law this week. Both can't be true.

Even Mitch McConnell voted for the infrastructure law, a return to his voting patterns during the Trump presidency, when he repeatedly voted for laws that increased the national deficit.

Manchin has already succeeded in cutting a lot from Build Back Better, whittling down the original $3.5 trillion price tag to roughly $2 trillion. Even with this reduction, he's adamant the plan must be fully paid for by a combination of tax hikes.

The Build Back Better Act passed by the House on Friday is estimated to add $367 billion to the government deficit over the next decade, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. The estimate doesn't include revenue from improved IRS enforcement, but even after factoring that in, the package is set to add $160 billion to the deficit. That looks paltry compared to the infrastructure bill that Manchin — and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — both just voted for.

The senator has hinted he won't back a plan that adds to the deficit, but he did just that in August. Manchin voted to pass the $1 trillion infrastructure plan in early August despite it not being fully paid for. He was among the few senators to craft the bipartisan package. Not only does it boost the deficit, but the CBO estimates the infrastructure plan will cost the US about $256 billion.

In other words, Manchin has already backed a bill that adds nearly $100 billion more to the deficit than the one he's worried is too expensive.

Manchin's office did not reply to a request for comment.

Caring about the price tag in all the wrong ways

Focus on the Build Back Better plan's cost strikes at a growing divide in the Democratic party. Progressives see the moment as key to creating a more equitable economy. Centrists like Manchin are expressing concerns similar to those coming out of the Republican Party.

For one, progressives initially pushed for a much larger spending bill and aimed to cover the costs with more aggressive taxation of billionaires and corporations. Members frequently pointed to the package's popularity, and President Joe Biden repeatedly noted he wanted to "go big" with his spending plans.

Yet Manchin railed against such tax proposals. The senator said he didn't like "targeting different people" with the billionaires' tax, and that opposition all but ensured the package would be smaller than Biden's $3.5 trillion proposal.

The senator's inflation concerns also resemble those on the other side of the aisle. Republicans have knocked the Build Back Better plan as an inflationary risk, arguing it would boost price growth beyond its already fast pace. Manchin voiced similar worries earlier in November, saying in a tweet that inflation is "not 'transitory'" and that "DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day."

Concerns that Build Back Better will worsen inflation are likely overblown. The package's funds would be doled out over 10 years, meaning it wouldn't contribute to a sudden burst of spending. Ratings agencies including Moody's and Fitch confirmed to Reuters this week the plan wouldn't have a material impact on inflation.

Manchin hasn't yet indicated how the CBO score affects his support for Build Back Better. The Senate is expected to adjust the House's bill in the coming days. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Friday he hopes to strengthen taxes on the wealthy and plans for climate reform. Manchin, meanwhile, has expressed plans to cut paid leave from the package. Doing so could eliminate the bill's cost.

As Manchin demonstrated in August, he's willing to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit. He might have just decided roads and bridges matter more than paid leave.

Biden sounds like he's ready to sign whatever Manchin and Sinema decide on the social-spending bill

Ayelet Sheffey,Joseph Zeballos-Roig
Fri, November 19, 2021

Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona following a vote at the US Capitol on November 3, 2021.Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Biden told a reporter he will sign Democrats' social-spending bill, even if it excludes paid leave.

The bill passed the House on Friday, and it heads to the Senate where it faces likely challenges

Manchin and Sinema have voiced opposition to measures in the House version, like tax hikes and paid leave.

President Joe Biden's economic agenda cleared a potentially major hurdle Friday morning when his $2 trillion social-spending package passed the House.

And although it now heads to the Senate, where it will likely face additional cuts due to opposition from centrist Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the president seems ready to take whatever the evenly-split Senate produces and sign it into law.

"I'm going to sign it, period!" Biden told Nancy Cordes of CBS News when asked if he would still sign a bill without paid family and medical leave.

All 50 Senate Democrats must stick together for the plan to clear the chamber over unified GOP resistance. Manchin and Sinema both haven't explicitly backed Biden's social spending bill, and objections from either could either stall or sink the centerpiece of the Democratic agenda.

Four weeks of paid national family and medical leave, along with a $555 billion investment in the climate, made it into the Build Back Better framework that passed through the House. But as Insider reported, the framework is likely to change once it reaches the Senate — especially when on issues like paid leave, to which Manchin has repeatedly voiced opposition.

"I've been very clear where I stand on that," Manchin told reporters on Wednesday, referring to his comments last month that he didn't think the measure belonged in a party-line package, and he has also indicated he wants workers to assume part of the cost to access the benefits with a new tax on their wages.

Along with Manchin's opposition to paid leave and the overall size of the package, Sinema — the other Democratic holdout — has balked at raising tax rates on high-earning individuals and corporations.

While Manchin and Sinema may try to cut elements from the House package, though, other Democrats want to see it grow even more. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a statement on Monday that while he is glad the House passed a key element of Biden's agenda, he still wants to see it "strengthened" through lower prescription drug prices and a Medicare expansion that would cover vision, dental, and hearing aids.

The House legislation only includes an expansion of Medicare to provide hearing benefits.

Biden indicated on Friday he wants to get the bill signed into law "as soon as possible," and it seems likely the final version of the bill rests in the hands of Sinema and Manchin.

"Senator Manchin: We're looking at you," Missouri Rep. Cori Bush wrote on Twitter. "The people must win."

KEY CORPRATIST OPPORTUNIST 
Key Democrat unlikely to budge on filibuster reform - Washington Post


FILE PHOTO: Senator Kyrsten Sinema at Senate Finance Committee hearing

Sat, November 20, 2021,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a key centrist who is often a holdout on major elements of President Joe Biden's agenda, reiterated she does not support modifying or eliminating the filibuster to ease the passage of voting rights legislation, she said in an interview with the Washington Post.

Sinema, who is a co-sponsor of Democratic voting rights bills aimed at prohibiting racial discrimination and ensuring ballot access, told the newspaper that she continues to oppose efforts by fellow Democrats to eliminate the filibuster, a Senate rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority to pass most legislation.

“My opinion is that legislation that is crafted together, in a bipartisan way, is the legislation that’s most likely to pass and stand the test of time. And I would certainly encourage my colleagues to use that effort to move forward,” she told the Post.

She also brushed off the possibility of supporting an exception to the filibuster to enable passage of voting rights legislation, saying she was not sure it is a viable option.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had hinted at a change in Senate rules earlier this month to circumvent the filibuster, at least for some legislation.

"That caveat — ‘if it would even work’ — is the right question to ask,” Sinema, who rarely gives interviews, told the Post.

Senate Democrats earlier this month failed to advance voting rights legislation for the fourth time this year due to overwhelming Republican opposition, raising potential ramifications for the 2022 congressional and 2024 presidential elections.

The Senate voted 50-49 in favor of starting debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act but fell short of the 60 votes needed.

Named for the late civil rights activist and congressman, the legislation would restore state voting requirements to prohibit racial discrimination that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013.

Democrats have made election reform a priority in light of Republican state balloting restrictions passed in response to former President Donald Trump's false claims of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election.

(This story has corrected spelling of Sinema's first name to Kyrsten instead of Krysten in paragraph 1)

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; editing by Jonathan Oatis)