Investment in American Infrastructure

[LFC]

Sept 24, 2021 16:49:43 GMT jackd said:

Re the Josh Marshall quote, didn't Josh, himself, report that there were perhaps 12 other Senators in the Democratic caucus agreeing with Manchin and letting him take the heat for resistance? That's not the same as just Manchin and Sinema against the rest of the party.

Yep. Right there in the part I quoted and something I covered in detail earlier. They represent no more than 5% of congressional Dems.

[jackd]

Um, that's 24% of the Democratic caucus in the Senate which seems to be where the action is.

[LFC]

Sept 24, 2021 18:10:47 GMT jackd said:

Um, that's 24% of the Democratic caucus in the Senate which seems to be where the action is.

Two Senators plus a handful of Reps equals 24% of the Democratic caucus in the Senate? Sorry but I really don't get your math.

[jackd]

Supposedly there are 12 senators lurking in the weeds.

[jackd]

Sorry, I misunderstood what Marshall was saying about numbers of senators. He did not say 12 senators. I have seen elsewhere reports of "other" senators (no number stated) agreeing with and hiding behind Manchin and Sinema. Whatever is the case, those two have votes the Democrats need and they don't have them.

[LFC]

Sept 24, 2021 19:52:33 GMT jackd said:

Sorry, I misunderstood what Marshall was saying about numbers of senators. He did not say 12 senators. I have seen elsewhere reports of "other" senators (no number stated) agreeing with and hiding behind Manchin and Sinema. Whatever is the case, those two have votes the Democrats need and they don't have them.

I think that's also where we agree. I've said several times I don't know the best way to handle the politics but it's important to understand, as Josh Marshall notes, that these few are the extreme outliers. The progressives most certainly are not the flip side of the same coin. They stand with the overwhelming majority.

[jackd]

Well.I'll just say that the fact remains that the progressives, no matter their number, have to negotiate if they want anything at all and the sheer numbers are simply debater's points. I still maintain that the ball is in the progressives' court for counter offer purposes. Biden tried to avoid that by pressing Manchin for a number he "could live with" and didn't get it. I'm sure that's because Manchin thinks it's the progressives' next move. Maybe Biden asked the progressives the same question but if so he didn't say so and he did report the request to Manchin. I hope that someone wakes up and realizes they are about to blow this entire administration.

[LFC]

Sept 24, 2021 21:07:27 GMT jackd said:

Well.I'll just say that the fact remains that the progressives, no matter their number, have to negotiate if they want anything at all and the sheer numbers are simply debater's points. I still maintain that the ball is in the progressives' court for counter offer purposes. Biden tried to avoid that by pressing Manchin for a number he "could live with" and didn't get it. I'm sure that's because Manchin thinks it's the progressives' next move. Maybe Biden asked the progressives the same question but if so he didn't say so and he did report the request to Manchin. I hope that someone wakes up and realizes they are about to blow this entire administration.

You keep putting the onus on the vast majority of Democrats (remember it's not just the progressives) to make a counter to WHAT exactly? Should they keep saying "well how about this" for very complex complex bill covering multiple topics, get another no, and then rinse, wash, and repeat? They're basically facing "Hey, just shave off 60% of whatever since we won't tell you what we want and I'm sure everything will be great!"

Interestingly as I've read a lot about this now and read your replies I'm starting to believe more and more that the evidence is strongly leaning towards S&M wanting only the bipartisan deal and nothing else. I see little seriousness about this process from Manchin and none from Sinema.

I'm sure the vast majority of the part will keep trying to crack that nut and I'll be thrilled if a decent deal comes about but I hold out little hope.

[jackd]

The situation is actually pretty straightforward. Manchin has said he doesn't think it should be more than 1.5 T. That was in response to the progressive number of 3.5T. There are additional nuances but that's the basic situation. In an ordinary negotiation, it would now be the progressive's move to offer some price less than 3.5T. If they don't want to, then they should not expect anything to pass. This is really not complicated. It's psychologically difficult but it's not going to change just because the progressive's think it's unfair. As to Sinema, I have to assume that Biden knows what he's doing by trying to work with Manchin.  He's operating on the assumption that there is some number less than 3.5T and more than 1.5T that can be agreed upon. 

[Albert]

That 3.5T is, crucially, a) Over *ten* years, and b) was already negotiated down from potentially higher progressive demands of 5-6T.

If Manchin is seriously suggesting that the most America can do is 150B/year. You folks may as well throw in the towel, abolish America and declare that the American project is over. Because 150B/year is utterly pathetic and inadequate. The Chinese government, despite having a smaller economy than the US, and far less GDP per capita, spent 8T on infrastructure investment in 2020 alone, as compared to America's 150B.

If liberal elites such as Manchin are so deluded from reality that they think a) America can't afford anymore than 150B/year, or b) should not spend any more than that even if they, then why even bother? The country is headed for irreversible progressive decline. Multiple East Asian countries, not just China, have announced multi hundred billion dollar stimulus/investment plans over a 5 year period, *solely* for their semiconductor industries. But America with its vast wealth and resources, can't even go bigger than that for the entire economy? Pretty pathetic.

Reuters: TSMC to invest $100 billion over 3 years to meet chip demand

Nikkei: South Korea plans to invest $450bn to become chip 'powerhouse'

A country that can't invest has no future.

Also, it's amazing that centrists in the Democratic party pushed hard for Sinema and she is single-handedly literally willing to tank the entire Biden presidency. it tells you something about the political acumen of people like Pelosi that this is the type of person they want in the senate. Jonathan Chait and various other commentators have pointed out that Sinema is likely going to get primaried and lose, so she's really just doing all of this to get some sort sweet gig in the private sector for one or more of the monied interests funding her. Manchin likewise, is probably not going to win again in a R+30 state. So he's probably also looking for life after politics.

Likewise, we saw the exact same scenario play out with the drug price situation. The centrists blocked AOC from a relevant committee position, instead putting Kathleen Rice in there, who is now voting against drug price negotiation, which is not only an incredibly sensible policy, but an incredibly popular one, all because of the pharmaceutical interests who have decided to bankroll her:

www.thenation.com/article/politics/aoc-kathleen-rice-drugs/

[goldenvalley]

Sinema beat Martha McSally for the Senate seat in 2018. McSally was seen as very right wing.  Sinema was a Blue Dog Democrat while she was in the House.  I doubt she left her Blue Dog thoughts behind.

[LFC]

Thanks Krysten.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) emerged from her White House meeting yesterday without telling Biden what exactly she objects to in the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill for infrastructure, only that she still objects to it, according to Politico.

• The Arizona Democrat reportedly told Biden that she’s “not there” and that “I’ve been very clear with you from the start.”
• She reportedly won’t give specifics until after the bipartisan infrastructure bill has been passed.
• Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), an outspoken progressive, put Sinema on blast Wednesday night, accusing her of “holding up the will” of “the entire Democratic Party.”
• Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) meeting with the President on Tuesday seemed to be similarly fruitless: Though he didn’t reveal much else about the discussion, Manchin told reporters that he’d made “no commitments” on the reconciliation bill.
• Biden canceled his trip to Chicago today to keep working to rescue his now-endangered agenda.

The Democrats are toast. Sure they can pass the small and brutally insufficient bipartisan bill but that won't carry them very far in 2022. History shows the party in power in the mid-term often takes a hit. S&M are making sure that happens.

And to put the size of the $1T bill in perspective we have an estimated $125M need just for bridge work. Then there are roads, dams, levees, drinking water, waste water, pipelines, the desperately archaic electrical grid, etc. And we haven't even started addressing the needs for creating a future workforce that can remain globally competitive.

[jackd]

Passing nothing at all will guarantee losing the midterm. I carry no brief for Sinema or Manchin but I've seen the problem of their opposition from the beginning of this process. The Democrats are going to have to take what they can get.

[LFC]

Sept 29, 2021 18:57:13 GMT jackd said:

Passing nothing at all will guarantee losing the midterm. I carry no brief for Sinema or Manchin but I've seen the problem of their opposition from the beginning of this process. The Democrats are going to have to take what they can get.

You're looking at this through one lens, not two. Your view is that if they pass nothing then they'll lose votes but, of course, those votes are likely independents and center-ish Dems. I don't really agree with that. I think most of those voters won't really change based upon the outcome of the bipartisan bill due to its lack of significance. But if the majority of congressional Dems give in and pass just this insufficient bill then they look to the center-left and left Dem voters as if they capitulated for very little.

Both paths seem to lead to a loss (hence my pessimism) but as we've seen elections have become more about turning out your base than to pick up a bunch of undecideds. The reconciliation bill is not the a Sanders-AOC wish list. In their view it's a big compromise but at least not a bad joke. If Democrats fold on something that is popular with the majority of Democratic voters and well to the right of what progressives are asking for I suspect they'll gut support from their base. So getting a little something could easily lead to a bigger blowout in 2022 than getting nothing but fighting tooth and nail for it. Think of the Bernie Bros sitting out because they didn't get their candidate. Now extrapolate that across not a minority subsection of the base but a strong majority.

Just to throw some numbers onto it here's the popularity of what the majority of Dems will have failed to fight for.

The massive budget reconciliation measure, which so far has drawn only Democratic votes, was supported by 9 of 10 Democrats, 1 in 5 Republicans and close to half of independents.

Optics work both ways, both towards independents and towards the core base. How many things can you fail to fight on (filibuster, infrastructure, voting rights, etc.) before even your hard-core support decides to stay home?

[jackd]

Fair enough. On the other hand, there is plenty to campaign on in the infrastructure bill plus the argument that we could have gotten all the other things you care about if we'd just had control of the Senate but we didn't have control of the Senate. It's your argument with things the country needs as well. Without the infrastructure bill, the progressives get blamed for its failure so you might lose the enthusiasm of the progressives and the independents. Control of the Senate is key to the balance of Biden's term.

The progressive caucus is important but it doesn't seem to control the party.  It tends to lose contested primaries for example.  Given gerrymandering and the structure of the allocation of House and Senate seats, the fact that progressive causes seem to be popular in the polling doesn't control the makeup of the Congress.  

[LFC]

Sept 29, 2021 19:35:52 GMT jackd said:

The progressive caucus is important but it doesn't seem to control the party.  It tends to lose contested primaries for example.  Given gerrymandering and the structure of the allocation of House and Senate seats, the fact that progressive causes seem to be popular in the polling doesn't control the makeup of the Congress.  

We agree on this but in this particular case we're not really talking about just the progressive caucus. We're talking about support by the overwhelming number of congressional Dems, the overwhelming number of registered Dems, and half of the semi-mythical independents.

It's quickly becoming time to quietly tell Manchin and Sinema that if they block the party's agenda (it's hardly just Biden's) and cause a loss of base support in 2022 then they'll be primaried and their opponents will be given full party support. It's one thing to buck the party on something. It's quite another to buck it on everything and almost single-handedly place it in legislative park.

[goldenvalley]

Let us not forget that at the time the infrastructure bills were in the drafting phase earlier last summer Biden's approval rating was higher than it is now.  In general the legislative agenda looked more doable to the Democrats.  With the surge caused by the Delta variant and the media's constant yammering about the withdrawal from Afghanistan being chaotic Biden's positives went down. Did that embolden the "moderates" to pull away from Biden because they stopped feeling that their re-election chances were better if they supported his agenda?  Now they can stand firm against over-reach and over spending wanted by the "progressives" by being moderate and selling themselves to the voters back home as being fiscally prudent.

[jackd]

I don't think that Joe Manchin is worried about being primaried. It's an overwhelmingly Trump state. Sinema is betting her constituency is really not liberal, much less progressive.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall believes the reconciliation bill is likely dead, and with it the small, inadequate bipartisan bill, because Manchin and Sinema refuse to propose ANYTHING that they would support. And from what he writes it seems that they knew all along about the two bill track but they have backed out of that deal. Manchin's supposed possible support of a smaller bill sounds like bullshit or as Marshall puts it "riffing" for the cameras. The vast majority of the Dems are begging for a deal but S&M don't want ANY deal other than get the bipartisan bill passed and absolutely nothing else.

Sen. Manchin just put out a statement, scorching in its appraisal of the proposed reconciliation bill and making me think for the first time that this entire thing – both bills – may go down in flames. It’s a lot of the same stuff: debt, inflation, mean taxations, means-testing. But the volume is turned … well, up to 11. It’s not remotely the statement of someone who is on the verge of finding common ground with the rest of the caucus. I heard someone say a bit earlier that maybe killing his bill isn’t the way to get him to yes. But that’s not what’s happening. The rest of the party is begging him to say what he will support. They’re practically begging to get an agreement below $3.5 trillion. He and Kyrsten Sinema just won’t play ball.

As I said, for the first time I’m thinking this may all go down in flames. But this also tells me it is even more important to vote to kill the BIF infrastructure bill if the offer from these two is nothing.

Through this whole saga Manchin has been riffing, saying what comes into his head on a given day. There’s no real strategy or logic to it. That’s why there’s little consistency. But the riffing, the saying what comes into your head each given day is particularly perilous at a moment like this. Because you’re navigating with emotion. You’re navigating with the consensus of establishment Washington which has been dour at best on President Biden since mid-summer.

There was a deal, an agreed upon framework. The Manchin-Sinema-Gottheimer troika got their bill. And as soon as they did they backed out of the deal. That is how we got here. We knew it would be hard to come to an agreement, a lot of tense moments and standoffs. What we’ve actually seen is rather different. They’re not having a hard time coming to an agreement. The troika is refusing to negotiate.

There’s just no way forward.

There's no negotiation because S&M have no interest in negotiating even the smallest reconciliation bill. You can't negotiate with a brick wall. I honestly believe the game for them all along was to pass the smaller bill and call it a day and no offers of any significance were ever going to be entertained. Anybody is more than welcome to provide a more logical explanation. Show your work.

[jackd]

Interesting historical statement. I've never seen any report authenticating that Manchin and Sinema were part of "the deal" that Sanders insists on. They certainly should have been for it to have any force but I don't think they were. Would appreciate any evidence to the contrary.

[LFC]

Sept 30, 2021 1:46:35 GMT jackd said:

Interesting historical statement. I've never seen any report authenticating that Manchin and Sinema were part of "the deal" that Sanders insists on. They certainly should have been for it to have any force but I don't think they were. Would appreciate any evidence to the contrary.

Well here's Manchin back in June talking about the reconciliation bill. Now he refuses to discuss details. So much for the "compromise" and "trust" he blathered on about. Bold mine.

Congressional Democratic leaders and the White House have employed a two-track strategy for passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the larger $3.5 trillion proposal, which are key pillars of Mr. Biden's domestic policy agenda. While the more narrow plan will pass with bipartisan support, Democrats are using a procedure called budget reconciliation to move the broader bill, which allows it to clear the Senate with a simple majority, and only Democratic backing.

Manchin said Sunday the success of both pieces of legislation hinges on a willingness to compromise and trust among Democrats.

"We've been working on this for six weeks and we finally come down to the last day of the last hour to get it finished. It takes compromise," he said. "You have to trust each other. You have to work. I respect my colleagues who believe something a lot different than I do. And I'm willing to listen and learn. And if we can find that compromise, we'll find it."

[jackd]

One would have to be foolish to trust Manchin. Still, those statements do not constitute an agreement on the content of the bill.

[LFC]

Sept 30, 2021 12:18:01 GMT jackd said:

One would have to be foolish to trust Manchin.

Another thing we can agree on.

Still, those statements do not constitute an agreement on the content of the bill.

No, they constitute an announcement that he intended to negotiate in good faith. Now he's refusing to negotiate at all. He broke the deal. But, as we agree, it's clearly foolish to trust him.

[LFC]

Heeeeeeere we go. From June...

Manchin said Sunday the success of both pieces of legislation hinges on a willingness to compromise and trust among Democrats.

Today.

A two-track path for bipartisan infrastructure legislation and reconciliation? Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has no earthly idea what you’re talking about.

• “I never knew about that. Never heard of that,” the senator told reporters yesterday, shaking his head. “Why do you think we’re trying to separate them? They’re different subject matters.”

Flashback to June 24:

• “The only strategy we have is two tracks. I think we’re going to do, hopefully … the bipartisan agreement…see if we can get that done and then move to the other one,” Manchin said.

As JackD and I agree it's foolish to trust Manchin. Since he's clearly untrustworthy while stating firmly how trust was crucial he has proven to a large segment of the Democratic caucus that if he gets what he wants he'll screw them on what they want.

[LFC]

[sigh] So I guess Manchin realized that the politics of pretending ignorance is going over badly within his party. I guess it's tough to face people who know and maybe say out loud that you're a liar. Anywho it sounds like after 4 months he's suddenly settled (for now) on what he really wants which isn't a bad thing. In fact I believe it's an excellent thing. That doesn't mean that he didn't just waste 4 months with his public floundering and stonewalling. Or that he won't waste another 4 months doing the same only to make a new demand or say he can't support the result.

As all of Washington hangs on his every word, Manchin said he did want to clinch a reconciliation bill even as some progressives fear he’s trying to kill the whole thing. But rather than approach the effort as the multi-trillion-dollar social spending and climate change bill envisioned by his colleagues, Manchin said Democrats needed to start with gutting the 2017 Trump tax cuts and go from there.

“I want to do a tax overhaul. One thing you understand that all Democrats agreed on, there’s not a lot of things we all agree on, is that the 2017 tax cuts are unfair and weighted toward the high end. Let’s fix that. That’s the reconciliation,” Manchin said. “I think we can get a good bill done. I really do, if we work in good faith.”

This last stunt, however, has completely burned belief in his "good faith" to the ground. Progressives may be even more committed to a two bill or nothing approach because they don't trust him at all.

The House will vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Manchin helped negotiate on Thursday, but Manchin’s remarks aren’t helping his bill succeed. Progressives are eager to sink the legislation after he said Wednesday that it's "not possible" to get an agreement on the larger spending package before the infrastructure vote.

“This is why we’re not voting for the bipartisan bill until we get a reconciliation bill,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told reporters. “After that statement we probably have even more people willing to vote no.”

Manchin and Sinema seem to really love playing politics but neither of them seem very good at it. From the outside this looks like ham-fisted amateur hour rather than savvy wheeling and dealing. Who knows, maybe they're playing Republican-lite "we really do want to negotiate" games to ensure they kill anything but the bipartisan bill. I guess all the Democrats can hope for is that they both come around to believing that success of a Biden agenda is better for them than the status quo.