The midnight oil is burning in Washington as progressives attempt to hold the line in voting on the BIF and Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion infrastructure package. There is no simple way to codify the endless back and forth negotiations that accompany legislation of this size and complexity but a good starting point is that progressives feel they must stonewall the infrastructure bill because if would pass and give moderate Democrats a big win, then Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, now merged as one under the portmanteau “Machinema” will have little to no incentive to work with the progressives and retain and much as possible of the $3.5 Trillion package on the table.
That’s the basic set up and here’s the very latest set of developments. Politico:
“The fact that the president came to the Hill and whipped against his own bill is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
That late-night observation was just one of many we heard from frustrated lawmakers and senior aides stunned by what happened in the House on Friday.
— What senior Dems thought was going to happen: President JOE BIDEN was coming to the Hill to support Speaker NANCY PELOSI’s efforts to rally the party behind his historic $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan ahead of a Friday vote.
— What ended up happening instead: Biden told them he wanted to hold off on BIF until there was a reconciliation deal — even if that means delaying the vote for several more days or even weeks.
Biden’s move put Pelosi in a tough spot. She’d promised House moderates a vote on BIF this week, but the president himself blew up that timeframe — essentially forcing Pelosi to choose between breaking her promise and defying her president.
BUT HERE’S WHERE THINGS GET REALLYINTERESTING: Some progressive Democrats suggested to their colleagues that the White House — at its most senior levels — gave them a green light to tank the BIF vote if Pelosi went ahead with it, we’re told from three congressional sources.
Don’t believe all the right-wing hype that Biden’s agenda is about to “implode” and his presidency is “doomed.” Things are simmering along just fine. Political negotiations are never black and white, they are endless permutations of grey. This is why somebody like Donald Trump has no business in politics. He lacks the intellect to grasp nuance. Things are moving along fine. Washington Post:
By refusing to help pass the infrastructure bill, progressives helped secure more space for negotiations on the reconciliation framework. The reconciliation bill is the Biden and Democratic Party agenda: It’s made up of all the climate provisions, economic infrastructure and tax reforms designed to secure our decarbonized future and rebalance our political economy after decades of upward skew.
The centrists are the ones who oppose passing this agenda. For that framework, Manchin seems to be insisting on a top line of $1.5 trillion — less than half the $3.5 trillion target Biden wants — as well as making its welfare benefits less universal via means testing and its climate change provisions more friendly to fossil fuel interests. And it’s still unclear what Sinema wants. […]
So where does this all lead?
There are two obvious ways this all comes crashing down. One would be that Manchin and Sinema only prove willing to support a reconciliation framework that is so gutted that progressives reasonably can’t support it. The brinkmanship on the infrastructure bill continues, and neither passes.
The second would be that Manchin and Sinema get behind a framework that’s well short of $3.5 trillion but isn’t all that unreasonable. Progressives might keep opposing the infrastructure bill to try to leverage them up, centrists could balk, and the whole thing could implode.
In that latter scenario, progressives will have located their power but arguably overplayed their hand. That would be a terrible outcome for everyone.
It’s also worth noting that once there’s a deal on a framework, the White House and Democratic leaders very likely will ratchet up pressure on progressives to pass the infrastructure bill. That will shift the dynamics considerably: It will be very hard for them to resist that pressure.
For now, however, what’s been confirmed is that the progressive bloc has found a constructive way to exercise their power. This moment was a long time in coming: You may recall that progressives tried to win key concessions on the Affordable Care Act but that ended in ignominious failure.
Here’s the bottom line: The idea that centrists in the party should get to dictate what’s “possible” is a more serious threat to the Biden agenda than progressives are. If progressives can successfully dispel that idea, it become more likely, rather than less, that a robust version of the Biden agenda passes. And the White House and Democratic leaders appear to know it.
Nothing is blowing up, at least not yet. Avoid the hyperbole. Avoid the limited black and white thinking. With the reins of government back in sane hands nuance is the order of the day and politics is never simple. Watch the teeter totter. Historic legislation never happens without a few ups and downs.
The goings on behind the scenes are way the hell above my understanding and even former friends who’ve turned MAGAts have during my life called me a very smart person. Sometimes a person has to accept that for all they know about a given subject or subjects being an experts on this or that doesn’t make you an expert on everything. And when it comes to the legislative process and getting an actual bill pass by both chambers of Congress and to the President’s desk even most Representatives and Senators aren’t experts either.
Here’s what I think it comes down to. I’ve had my criticisms of Speaker Pelosi in the past, particularly on her stewardship of the election/re-election efforts of people in her caucus. But when it comes to the nuts and bolts of how to put a complex bill together and get it through to a successful vote for passage she’s a true master of all aspects. What people tend to forget about President Biden is just how long he was in the Senate, and the people he had as mentors when he was a very young freshman Senator. He might not be quite at Pelosi’s level when it comes to the nuances of the mechanics of Senate process but he’s at least in the same ballpark and the two of them together know both about “horse trading” for votes and possess the ability to see connections beyond a given complex bill they are focused on to whip support to get what they want passed. Being President now gives Biden a chance to do something he wouldn’t have had before which is as you noted give Pelosi cover to break her promise on holding the vote on the small bipartisan bill by now.
Biden seems to want votes in the House on both bills together. And if a certain two Senators don’t like the delay in the House on the bipartisan bill it’s not like they can do much – the Senate already approved it! “ManchSIN” (sounds pretty bad – but pretty accurate in my book) are getting squeezed. As for what’s taking place we don’t know about as I said it’s way beyond my understanding. However I think the President and the Speaker might be cooking up something that will satisfy all but the most assholy food critics.
Manchin we know is owned by the fossil fuel lobby.
Sinema is who the heck knows what drives her.
Fossil fuels are the heaviest burden on our Mother Earth … those freight hauling ships stuck out in the ocean, on their way to unload Chinese products, have huge, engines that burn the dirtiest, lowest quality fuel oil, leaving black clouds wherever they travel, the cities where they unload finally wrote laws that they could only dock if they shut down those beastly scummy engines and use smaller, cleaner fuel generator engine because dock workers were getting sick from the crappy exhaust they spew all over the oceans …
There will be needed a taper-off process to convert/eliminate millions of small gas engines and of course, there are engineers looking at new methods to fly the airlines and military ships and jets … ALL this costs lots of money to get done and teach the kids how it works and how to keep it running … the huge problems we have will only get worse, day by day, minute by minute, those Nay Sayers to ANY large investment funding are the least informed about the true scope of the fix that can actually save our blue orb in the Universe …
Right, but they just lost some of their leverage. The truth is, Manchin, Sinema, and a lot of their “moderate” colleagues in both House and Senate, really WANT the smaller bipartisan bill, but thanks to the surprising ju-jitsu of the progressives and their many allies in the House, and of Biden and Pelosi, the ones holding up the works on that bill are now Manchin and Sinema. They now have to stop posturing and get real about the big reconciliation bill or they don’t get their pony. They thought it was going to be the other way around. That doesn’t necessarily mean Biden and the progressives will get everything they want, but they are in a better negotiating position; in fact, until now Manchin and Sinema have been bullying and pontificating, not negotiating at all.