The Good Package, Con't

It looks like Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell is about to get his next big win, and Democrats are all but done in the Biden era unless a miracle happens.

House Democratic leaders confirmed this morning that they won’t be delaying the Sept. 27 vote on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill — even though the party’s larger $3.5 trillion reconciliation package won’t likely be ready to go by then. This is a huge win for moderates in both chambers. That effectively decouples the two bills, officially spiking the so-called “two-track” process that leadership hoped would enable passage of both while keeping the party united.

“We will be putting [the BIF] on the floor on the 27th, that’s next Monday,” House Majority Leader STENY HOYER told reporters in a rather newsy pen-and-pad this morning, though he also noted that the vote could slip one day. As for the reconciliation package, the Maryland Democrat said the House will move “as soon as it’s ready” — though no one seems to know when that will be.

The obvious big follow-up question here: What will progressives do? Several high-profile members on the left are almost certainly going to vote against this thing — some, like Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.), have made their unhappiness with this new process abundantly clear. But the question is how many, and can leadership — and President JOE BIDEN — convince enough to go along with this new plan?

In a closed-door caucus meeting this morning, Democratic leaders implored their members to stick together. But that’s easier said than done — especially when House progressives view the BIF vote as their best leverage to force moderate Democrats to support the reconciliation package.

Hoyer in his pen-and-pad pushed back on that argument, saying that he hoped “every Democrat votes for both bills.” “I don't agree with the judgement of those who believe that it would somehow compel the moderate wing of the caucus to be more supportive,” he added. 

 

Well, at this point, Sinema and Manchin have all but won unless Pelosi sticks to her guns. The only question now is if The Squad will kill the bipartisan package in the House, and sink everything.

After months of grueling public hearings and frantic behind-the-scenes wrangling, House Democratic leaders insisted they are sticking with their original timeline: They said they plan to vote on a measure to improve the nations roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections in six days.

The commitment fulfills a promise that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) previously made to a small group of her party’s centrist lawmakers, a move that quelled an internal revolt that nearly brought the chamber to a standstill as it debated President Biden’s priorities last month. With the House’s adoption, the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill would then head to Biden’s desk, having already passed the Senate.

But Pelosi’s plans quickly appeared in fresh political peril, as her party’s liberal-leaning members issued their own demands. The bloc of lawmakers pledged anew they would not vote on a public-works deal unless Congress first adopted another, larger package that includes major overhauls to health, education, immigration, climate and tax laws.

That proposal, at roughly $3.5 trillion, remains an unfinished product in both the House and Senate, as liberal and moderate Democrats continue to quarrel over how much they should spend. With those fights unlikely to be resolved in the immediate future — and internal party divides only growing in the meantime — the fate of both measures entering next week remained in great doubt.

“I don’t think that the speaker is going to bring up a bill up that is going to fail,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the leader of the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said late Tuesday after she met privately for nearly two hours with Pelosi.

“At the end of the day, if we don't have the reconciliation bill done, the infrastructure bill will not pass,” Jayapal said.

The conflicting demands left Democratic leaders in a bind, staring down the sort of internal political stalemate they had labored for months to avoid given their narrow majorities in the House and Senate. Democrats simply cannot afford to lose votes as they pursue trillions of dollars in long-promised reforms.

 

One wrong move here and everything ends: the Biden presidency, the Democratic control of Congress, and American democracy itself as fascist Republicans retake control and destroy what's left of the thread the place is hanging on by.

 

All because Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and The Squad had to win at any cost.