Last week of summer mailbag!

Alternate Gary Hart, The Daily Show, and economic complexity

Milan is starting at Yale, my kid is starting second grade next week — it’s the end of an era.

Leora: It seems like the Dems have finally got it through their heads that, with razor thin majorities, they don’t have a mandate to transform the country and should shoot for a steady stream of sensible, modest legislation that will command majority support. Most of the Slow Boring readership could have told them that on Nov. 4 2020. What took so long? Why did they waste so much time banking on Manchin voting for bills he told them unequivocally from the beginning he would not support?

I think the actual answer here is that Manchin’s willingness to embrace the American Rescue Plan (ARP) sent expectations soaring. I have over and over again defended Manchin against his critics on the left, but it would have been much better for him to voice his objections to the expanded Child Tax Credit (for example) during the ARP debate and killed it then.

Brian T: What are your thoughts on the legacy …