Let's Make A Deal!
A bipartisan breakthrough on infrastructure spending could pave the way for a major legislative victory for Joe Biden and the Democrats.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If someone sent you this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
On Thursday afternoon, President Biden, flanked by 10 Senators (5 from each party) announced they had reached an agreement on a bipartisan infrastructure bill. The deal would increase infrastructure spending by close to $600 billion. The money would fix highways and bridges, spend more money on high-speed rail, broadband internet access, and electric vehicle charging stations, and prepare coastlines and waterways for the higher temperatures associated with global warming.
The new spending would be paid for through more vigorous IRS enforcement and collection of taxes and would repurpose some monies from the American Rescue Plan.
This is for President Biden a big (ahem) deal. During the campaign and in the early stages of his presidency, Biden placed a premium on working with Republicans. This allows him to achieve that goal, even if getting 10 percent of the GOP caucus along with close to 100 percent of the Democratic caucus to sign off a bill is not exactly a Kumbaya moment.
Nonetheless, this is the easy part considering what comes next.
For this bill to pass, it will need to a) overcome a possible Republican filibuster and b) get liberal Democrats who wanted much larger spending on infrastructure to jump on board.
Let me address the second part first. The fly in the ointment is that Democrats, including the president, are insisting that this bipartisan bill be passed in tandem with a much larger package, chock-full of progressive priorities on health care, child care, climate change resilience, and reversing key aspects of the Trump tax cuts to pay for it.
In other words, liberals in the House and Senate will only support this smaller bipartisan infrastructure bill if they can, at the same time, pass a much larger bill relying exclusively on Democratic votes. And they are being backed up by the president on this one. “If this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” Biden said yesterday. “It’s in tandem.”
From the perspective of Democrats, I don’t think this is a hefty lift. Moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema clearly want to strike a bipartisan deal to bolster their centrist bonafides. Liberals have leverage because they can sink an agreement that doesn’t meet their priorities. By supporting the bipartisan bill in return for getting the moderates Democrats to vote for the larger package via reconciliation, they ensure that everyone wins.
The tricky part will come in keeping Republicans on board. As it is now, five Senate Republicans support the bipartisan bill, and there is some indication that other members of the GOP caucus may vote in favor as well, or at the very least not support a filibuster (I’ll believe that when I see it). But that backing will be more challenging to maintain if it’s clear that Democrats will successfully execute their two package strategy. If Senate Republicans allow the bipartisan bill to pass - and are unable to block a larger bill passed via reconciliation - they are gifting the Democrats and Biden a substantial political victory.
With all this being said, I like Biden’s chances of success. After all, Democrats have a Plan B. If the five moderate Republicans who signed off on the bipartisan bill later walk away from it, Democrats can pass that legislation and a larger bill both through reconciliation. And they can blast Republicans for undermining a bipartisan compromise to which the president and Democrats agreed. By signaling their support for a bipartisan bill, Republicans have given Biden a huge success - even if they eventually abandon it.
So much of what we see here is political theater. Democrats are going through a longer two-part process to give Biden and moderate senators like Sinema and Manchin the optics of a political win. But the policy outcome will essentially be the same - two massive spending packages that will spend as much as $6 trillion, and it might or might not get some Republican support. If it happens, and I think it’s more likely than not, it will ensure that Biden’s presidency, after only one year, will be historical and transformative.
The Era of Stupid
Last week, Republicans filibustered a Democratic bill that would expand voting rights and reverse GOP efforts on the state level, making it harder for Americans to vote. Theoretically, Democrats could have suspended the filibuster to force a vote on the legislation, but as we know, at least two Democratic senators oppose such an effort. One of them, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, took to the opinion pages of the Washington Post to explain her position. On the issue of voting rights, she made this rather odd argument:
To those who want to eliminate the legislative filibuster to pass the For the People Act (voting-rights legislation I support and have co-sponsored), I would ask: Would it be good for our country if we did, only to see that legislation rescinded a few years from now and replaced by a nationwide voter-ID law or restrictions on voting by mail in federal elections, over the objections of the minority?
There are so many problems with this paragraph I barely know where to start. First is the seemingly most obvious point: if Republicans wanted to pass “a nationwide voter-ID law” or place “restrictions on voting by mail in federal elections,” they don’t need Democratic permission to do it. They could pass that legislation when they take office. Second, one way to prevent Republicans from being able to pass such laws is to make it easier for Democrats to win elections. If, for example, Senate Democrats made DC and Puerto Rico, which would likely give the party as many as four more seats in the Senate, it would be a very long time before Republicans would be in a position to reverse Democratic-passed legislation. Lastly, the idea that Sinema is preventing the passage of legislation she supports — and which is clearly necessary — because something bad might happen in the future is, for lack of a better term, a chicken-shit argument. Either do the right thing or don’t but living your legislative life in fear of what could happen is no way to spend your time in public life.
Finally, there is this from Sinema:
To those who want to eliminate the legislative filibuster to expand health-care access or retirement benefits: Would it be good for our country if we did, only to later see that legislation replaced by legislation dividing Medicaid into block grants, slashing earned Social Security and Medicare benefits, or defunding women’s reproductive health services?
Republicans controlled the House and Senate from 2017-2019 and didn’t do any of these things. Why? Because there was not universal support within the party for such draconian cuts and legislative changes. Republicans talk a big game on cutting spending - they rarely follow through. Does Sinema honestly believe that the GOP would take back control of Congress and the White House and slash Social Security and Medicare benefits? Please.
This is not a serious argument. It’s a recipe for dysfunction by a senator who seems to have locked herself into a losing political position and doesn’t know how to get out of it. Or, it’s the argument of a senator who is making centrist, bipartisan arguments for the political optics but doesn’t truly believe what she’s doing. Whatever the case, it’s embarrassing that Sinema is saying this and blocking vital legislation on this basis.
Me and Jeremy Down By The Zoom Yard
If you missed today’s Zoom Chat with Jeremy Rosner, you can catch it here.
There will be no bipartisan bill passed. The GOP will pull out and find some reason to blame the Democratic party.