Why the GOP doesn't want you biking to work but will spend millions on a ‘heroes' sculpture garden

Yahoo

2 days ago

A version of this story appeared in the CNN Business Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
The Republican tax and spending bill is 900 pages of barely readable text full of complicated proposals that would, among many other things, slash the social safety net in America and lavish wealthy households with tax cuts. It is reviled on the left for hurting poor people and reviled on the far-right for not going far enough to cut spending.
It's a hard pill to swallow for lawmakers across the political spectrum, which is why it's loaded up with super niche provisions that reflect some of the ideological contradictions within the Trump coalition.
Like, killing the $2 billion 'qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement,' a relatively cheap incentive that, at least in theory, would align with the 'Make American Healthy Again' sect of Trump loyalists. The benefit was suspended in Trump's first term, but before then it allowed employers to offer workers a $20 a month tax-free reimbursement for biking to work. (Healthy! Good for the environment!) The GOP package in Congress would eliminate it for good.
There's also $40 million earmarked for a 'National Garden of American Heroes' — 250 life-size sculptures that Trump wants completed in the next 12 months ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary. The ambitious project is a longtime Trump vision that, according to Politico, will be almost impossible to pull off in time without the help of foundries in China.
Incidentally, the money for the sculpture garden would be directed to the National Endowment for the Humanities, a government agency that Trump has been trying to eliminate since his first term. The NEH recently laid off 2/3 of its staff, canceled more than 1,000 grants and is marshaling its remaining resources to focus on next year's anniversary.
These seemingly arbitrary small items are essentially sweeteners to win over lawmakers who might quibble with the broader thrust of the legislation.
'Now that we essentially do policy-making at a large scale, through these huge mega-bills in reconciliation… you have to stuff everything that you possibly can to try to get your entire coalition on board, particularly within the margins,' said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank.
'So that's where you see a lot of these, 'huh, where did that come from?' items.'
The clearest example of that is the litany of carve-outs for the state of Alaska and its 740,000 residents, known by some critics as the Kodiak Kickback.
(Fun fact: 'Alaska' shows up in the text of the Senate bill more than 20 times; other states, if they're mentioned at all, show up fewer than four times.)
The reason for all the Alaska love is simple: As GOP leaders drummed up support, it became clear that Sen. Lisa Murkowski would be a holdout because of the bill's expanded Medicaid work restrictions and changes to federal food assistance programs. Over the weekend, staffers scrambled to rewrite key pieces of the bill to win her support, my CNN colleagues reported.
As a result, Murkowski locked in several Alaska-specific breaks, including a tax deduction for meals served on fishing vessels, a special tax exemption for fishing villages in the western part of the state, and a five-fold expansion of a deduction for whaling boat captains.
Like the commuter cycling reimbursement that the bill would eliminate, these aren't big-ticket items. But they illustrate the haphazard and at times punitive way government spending decisions get made.
On the cycling benefit, Jacquez says it is likely just a target for Republicans who see it as a culture war issue — a 'green' activity that largely benefits people in cities who tend to vote for Democrats.
You can see that dynamic play out in other provisions, too. Republicans have tried to shield some of their rural constituencies from the worst effects of the bill, Jacquez notes. There is a rural hospital bailout fund designed to blunt the impact of Medicaid cuts, for example. But that doesn't do anything to help urban hospitals in New York City, where some 4 million residents, nearly half the population, are enrolled in Medicaid.
In the grand scheme of a $3.3 trillion spending package, $150 million for America's birthday might seem fine. 'But that's $150 million that's not going to be spent on food assistance,' Jacquez said. 'Or it's a billion dollars that's not going to be spent on Medicaid. When every cent allegedly matters, these things do add up.'