As Democrats approach their moment of truth as to whether what’s left of their agenda can be enacted, all eyes have turned to the black hole at the center of their uncertainty: the redoubtable Kyrsten Sinema. That’s "redoubtable" as in we’ve doubted her before and we’re doubting her
again.
One reason why those doubts can’t be dispelled is what little we know about whom Sinema is listening to as the vote on the Schumer-Manchin compromise looms. According to a story in today’s New York Times, the senator is "hearing directly from voters, activists and local businesses in her state." But when the Times provides more specifics, here’s what
we learn:
Daniel Seiden, the president and chief executive of
the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in an interview that he and several business and industry representatives spoke with Ms. Sinema about the legislation for about 20 minutes on Tuesday, after reaching out to her office. They expressed concerns with how a proposed 15 percent minimum tax on corporations was structured, he said.
No such reports of meetings have been coming from Arizona’s AFL-CIO, or from the hotel
workers of UNITE HERE, whose precinct-walking in 2018 and 2020 was the largest such undertaking in the state—undertaken, I should add, on behalf of candidate Sinema in the former election and candidate Biden in the latter. The Arizona Chamber of Commerce, need I also add, neither walked for nor supported either. And yet UNITE HERE officials have long complained of not gaining access to Sinema once she was elected, and Democratic Party activists once had to corral her in a public bathroom because she’d refused their entreaties to meet with them.
The corporations’ argument against the
minimum tax is that it will limit their investments, though that’s their argument against any tax at all. The proceeds from that tax will flow largely to a boost in funding for sustainable energy sources—presumably something that Sinema, as a onetime Green Party member, might remember is probably important. Then again, we also have no report of her meeting with climate activists as she deliberates on the fate of the Earth.
As a human black hole, Sinema herself emits no information as to whom she’s meeting with or what she’s thinking or plotting. As black holes extinguish both space
and time, we can only hope that Sinema’s blackholeness doesn’t extend to dooming the planet, tempting though the seductive voices of Wall Street and the Chamber may be.
|
