On the short side of nothing

What little tax reform there was in the Biden-Manchin Climate Drug Price Etc. deal, it's now been killed by Krysten Sinema. As I explained earlier, all there was on the tax front was (a) closing the Mitt Romney fund manager loophole, and (b) reinstating the corporate minimum tax. Now, to get Sinema's vote, they've killed (a), and watered down (b) to make the minimum tax easier to avoid.

Empress Krysten has reportedly green-lighted a new excise tax on stock buybacks, but one would think that Co-Emperor Manchin would kill that.

In charge of all this ciphering in the Senate is Ron Wyden, "D"-"Oregon," perhaps the most ineffectual Finance Committee chair in Senate history. With this anemic tax bill as the Democrats' calling card, he will likely find himself back to being the ranking minority member on the committee come January. Not that it matters – nobody listens to the guy, regardless of who holds the gavel.