Investment in American Infrastructure

[LFC]

Biden has agreed with the deal proposed by the bipartisan Senate group. That doesn't necessarily mean he has 60 votes. Pelosi will also hold his feet to the fire. This is one hell of a tightrope.

President Biden threw his support behind an infrastructure agreement reached by a bipartisan group of 20 senators on Thursday, announcing in the Rose Garden that “we have a deal.”

The announcement comes hours after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that the House would only vote on the bill once the Senate passed an additional package of infrastructure legislation through budget reconciliation.

The contours of the bipartisan package are unclear, though senators involved in the negotiation said that it will add up to around $1 trillion. It’s not clear how much of that will be new money, and how much of that will be cannibalized from pre-existing funding, though Biden lauded both sides for making “serious compromises.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said that details would be released later on Thursday.

When asked whether he trusted Republican senators to follow through, Biden replied that “They’ve given me their word.”

“Where I come from, that’s good enough for me,” he added.

It’s not clear whether the deal will be able to clear the 60 votes needed to overcome a likely Republican filibuster in the Senate.

“There’s closer to 20 votes than 60 votes for the bipartisan proposal today,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said on Thursday.

Sen. Ron Wyden (R-OR) said on a Thursday press call that “regardless of how bipartisan legislation develops, we cannot throw priorities like climate, prescription drugs and tax fairness overboard.”

The announcement throws the weight of the White House behind the deal, which would be accompanied by a reconciliation bill that Democrats hope would include priorities cut from the bipartisan package, and would need only 50 votes plus a tie-breaker cast by Vice President Kamala Harris.

[LFC]

F***ing Nancy! (That was said with admiration.) There's a reason she's Madame Speaker. Many in fact.

We seem to be moving toward a framework in which a relatively small ‘hard’ infrastructure bill is passed through the Senate with Republican support. Then most of the rest of Biden’s two part infrastructure package (The American Jobs Plan and the American Family Plan) will be passed through a reconciliation bill which will get no Republican support and pass the Senate with 50 votes. There’s a lot of downside to that – not least of which is that it allows Republicans to take credit for the most popular stuff and creating a second bill with a lot of social spending and a lot of new taxes.

The key worry is that Senate moderates like Manchin and Sinema will take the bipartisan mini-infrastructure bill and then fold on the reconciliation part of the equation. So Nancy Pelosi is making clear that she won’t move either through the House until they both pass the Senate.

In the background this linkage has been a key part of the equation. While you have a group of moderate Democrats looking for their bipartisan deal, the rest of the caucus has essentially said, “Fine, we’ll do that. But only if you’ll commit to being there on the rest of the plan as part of a reconciliation bill. Pelosi is now making clear they don’t have to make this decision in the Senate. If it’s a two part strategy, nothing passes unless both bills pass the Senate first.

[jackd]

Don't all appropriation bills have to originate in the House? If so, isn't that a problem for Nancy's plan?

[LFC]

Jun 24, 2021 20:37:21 GMT jackd said:

Don't all appropriation bills have to originate in the House? If so, isn't that a problem for Nancy's plan?

I'll go out on a pretty stout limb and predict Nancy know what she's doing.

[jackd]

I don't disagree. I'd just like to know what she's doing. Whatever procedural method she's following, if it succeeds, you know it will be challenged in the courts and they haven't seemed terribly neutral of late.

[indy]

Appropriation bills are not considered 'raising revenue' under the meaning of the Origination Clause. Those are strictly limited to bills that levy taxes for general government uses. Even bills that incidentally change revenues are not included, i.e., like taxing/fees for a specific government program. It has to be taxes for general government use. I don't believe any bill that uses money that is borrowed (adds to the debt) or re-appropriates existing revenues would count.

Even so, I think (but am not completely sure) that the House can pass a basically empty bill, wait for the senate to fill it in via amendments, and then re-entertain the bill in the house.

ETA: Even though the courts seem fairly settled on the issue, I don't suppose that precludes yet another attempt to challenge it under the belief that a more friendly SCOTUS would see things differently.

[Deleted]

Could as well have been labeled Biden.

[LFC]

Judging from the screeching and whining from the Republicans it appears that the Democrats scored a direct hit to their political plans. The faux outrage is in full bloom.

Wah! Wah! Wah!

GOP senators doth protest too loudly after Democrats managed to sidestep the giant banana peel in their path. The trap the GOP set was no secret. It would play along with a watered-down bipartisan agreement on popular infrastructure items and count on moderate Democrats to wilt when it came time to pass less popular soft infrastructure and tax reforms. In announcing that he would only sign the bipartisan bill if he had a reconciliation bill on his desk at the same time, Biden kept his shot at passing his more ambitious agenda.

- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) mustered fake outrage, accusing Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of “pulling the rug out from under their bipartisan negotiators.”

- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) cried that the Democrats’ plan was “extortion!” and that he was done with the negotiations. “The Dems are being told you can’t get your bipartisan work product passed unless you sign on to what the left wants, and I’m not playing that game,” he told Playbook.

- The WSJ editorial board is upset, too. “This is remarkable bad faith even for Washington,” it fumed.

- But Republicans hadn’t exactly been shy about their gambit. Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) literally told Politico last week that “it’ll be awful hard to get those moderate Democrats to be for” a big Democrat-only spending bill because “if you do do something bipartisan on” infrastructure, “then I think doing something partisan on reconciliation — in some ways, with certain Democrats — it gets a lot harder.”

It looks like this was the plan all along because Biden has already announced that he agrees that his is how it must be done. I can hardly wait to hear Republican Senators explain why they can't vote for bipartisan legislation they agreed to because the Democrats corralled their caucus to vote on a separate reconciliation bill.

President Biden won’t sign bipartisan infrastructure legislation until Congress has also passed a reconciliation package, he told reporters on Thursday.

“If this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” Biden said. “It’s in tandem.”

[goldenvalley]

We'll see how the electorate responds to this plan of Pelosi and Biden...I am assuming that this plan will end up going nowhere because McConnell's Senators will not vote for it. Then the Democrats run on that in 2022.

[indy]

My understanding is that Manchin insisted on a serious bipartisan attempt for the hard infrastructure deal as a prerequisite to supporting the rest via reconciliation. Now that the deal has been made, I would assume that if Republicans back out, then he would support passing the whole thing via reconciliation. So, something happens one way or another is my read.

[jackd]

I'm not pretending any expertise on the origination clause but I think it's been reported that the reconciliation bill will include changes to the corporate tax rate. I'm simply suggesting that will be an avenue of attack for the Republicans in a challenge. They're already claiming the Democrats are "sandbagging" them.

[LFC]

More on Republican whining. It really does appear to be a setup that Republicans fell into.

When someone is laying an obvious trap, there’s always an option to avoid it.

Unless, of course, you are the Democratic Party as it exists in the mind of the GOP.

Several Republican senators, columnists, and others are playing the victim this week after Democrats headed off an attempt from the Republicans to block Biden’s agenda.

They did that by yoking the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill to the passage of a reconciliation bill — in theory heading off a GOP strategy that would let a bipartisan bill through while allowing Democratic infighting to kill a second, follow-up bill that would contain Biden’s priorities.

“If he’s gonna tie them together, he can forget it!” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) complained to Politico, adding about Republicans who wish to continue: “There’s no way. You look like a fucking idiot now.”

Biden has had to jump through a few hoops in the long-running but crucial talks that will determine whether he can implement a large part of his plan to transform the country’s physical and human infrastructure.

Partly thanks to a condition set by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the White House needed a bipartisan deal on infrastructure before anything else could go through.

That gave the GOP an opening: why not cram all of the sweeteners into a bipartisan deal, and leave more politically tough items, like tax increases and health care changes, to reconciliation?

This would have allowed vulnerable GOP senators to reap the benefits of a bipartisan infrastructure package, while leaving the rest of Biden’s agenda to founder on corralling 50 Democratic senators to vote for a package containing tax increases and policies on which there is intra-party disagreement.

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) outlined that strategy to Politico last week, explaining that he believed “it’ll be awful hard to get those moderate Democrats to be for” tax increases, particularly “if you do do something bipartisan.”

“Then, I think, doing something partisan on reconciliation — in some ways, with certain Democrats — it gets a lot harder,” he added.

That was based on the idea that centrists like Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) would get cold feet. But events this week suggest that that was a miscalculation.

Manchin signaled support for tax increases and suggested he would back a second reconciliation bill as a way to do it.

On the accusation that Democrats pulled a fast one well at least one prominent Senate Republican said the obvious i.e. of course the Dems were going to try to pass their priorities in a reconciliation bill.

But others have been less whiny about the process.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) told CNBC on Friday morning that he had assumed from the start that Democrats would aim for a reconciliation package alongside the bipartisan bill.

“Democrats are going to move forward with a broad reconciliation bill with a lot of tax increases, regardless,” he said.

He also boasted that the bipartisan deal, in his view, still retained all the sweeteners and no unpopular policies like tax increases.

“None of that is in this package,” he added.

[LFC]

TPM points out that much of the funding in the bipartisan bill is bullshit. And that politically it doesn't really matter.

One piece of news that came out yesterday, though I think still unofficially, was the various ‘payfors’ that are part of the agreement. Republicans wouldn’t agree to any tax increases for this hard infrastructure agreement. So you needed to come up with ways to get the money. But the list of apparent payfors included a lot of things that sound pretty fishy. Like one payfor is “dynamic scoring”. Another is more aggressive tax enforcement. Then there’s some spectrum auctions. As one senior former Senate staffer told me, it all sounds as phony as a three dollar bill.

This worried a lot of people. But here’s the thing. At least as presented this ‘deal’ appears to appropriate the money and then the ‘payfors’ are how the government gets paid back. The point being if $500 billion in notional pay-fors turn out to recoup only $150 billion that doesn’t mean there’s only $150 billion to spend. It means that $350 billion will be financed through borrowing. So if these pay-fors seems squishy or just bogus that’s not necessarily something that should worry Democrats.

There are a few things that aren't pure bullshit but are also not very predictable.

What all this suggests is that a lot of the negotiation was a matter of helping Senate Republicans find things they could pretend were payfors whether they were or not. I don’t meant they’re all phony. One of them is more aggressive tax enforcement backed up by better funding for the IRS. That almost certainly will generate more revenue and it’s good in policy terms. Whether it will generate as much as they claim? Well, that’s another matter. On ‘dynamic scoring’, unlike with upper income tax cuts a trillion in infrastructure spending probably will generate growth which will show up in the government’s tax receipts. But how much? Who knows. And for the White House, I think the answer is who cares. It’s really no skin off their back. If the Republican Senators want to pretend, great.

[indy]

Jun 25, 2021 16:06:57 GMT jackd said:

I'm not pretending any expertise on the origination clause but I think it's been reported that the reconciliation bill will include changes to the corporate tax rate. I'm simply suggesting that will be an avenue of attack for the Republicans in a challenge. They're already claiming the Democrats are "sandbagging" them.

I'm getting a little confused. There is no reason why the reconciliation bill wouldn't start in the House. The sequence of events would be the senate passes the bipartisan bill and the house then holds onto it. The reconciliation bill would be passed in the house. Eventually it gets passed by the senate (either without modification or through the normal back and forth but the point being it does eventually get passed by both houses). Now the bipartisan bill is passed by the house and both are forwarded to Biden simultaneously.

[jackd]

The issue is the tax provision arising in the House. If they can do that with a shell bill, so be it. I'm skeptical that the courts will let them do that. I understand that the House can hold its bill until the other is passed.

[LFC]

Jun 25, 2021 17:31:37 GMT jackd said:

The issue is the tax provision arising in the House. If they can do that with a shell bill, so be it. I'm skeptical that the courts will let them do that. I understand that the House can hold its bill until the other is passed.

It's simply a timing issue.

- The bipartisan bill could be passed by the Senate (but now won't be as enough Republicans are sure to renege on the deal) but then has to be passed to the House.

- Nancy pulls a Moscow Mitch and just sits on the bill.

- House Dems then create and vote on a bill to be passed under reconciliation.

- That goes to the Senate where it passed with 50 Democratic votes.

- The House then votes on the bipartisan bill and passes it.

- Both bills are sent off to President Biden for his signature.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall wonders if the whole infrastructure tug of war got away from Moscow Mitch. Sure he'll get points with the base for whining that the Dems are big meanies but that won't move the needle any.

Here’s another key question a lot of people are trying to figure out.

If Joe Biden gets most of his infrastructure agenda passed through combination of a mini-hard infrastructure bipartisan deal and the bulk of it through a 50 vote reconciliation bill that will be a big win on policy and politically.

So why did this deal – even if it falls apart – get to the White House press event level? Why did Mitch McConnell allow that to happen?

Biden and the Democratic caucuses were crystal clear that the price of signing on to this bipartisan deal was moderate Dems being there for a reconciliation bill that had at least the bulk the rest of the proposals if nothing everything Biden originally proposed. This wasn’t a secret. It was broadcast in advance and, critically, it doesn’t involve Republicans. It’s purely an understanding among Democrats and about how Democrats will vote.

Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are clearly already trying to wriggle out of the deal claiming it’s some big double cross. And there’s a good chance they will wriggle out of it. But what will that have accomplished for them? Or to put the question squarely, why did McConnell let it go this far?

There’s no really clear answer to that question. Certainly McConnell can blow up the deal now and get Fox to message that it’s the ultimate double-cross. But Biden’s main goals here is demonstrating he can get bipartisan deals and even more importantly bringing his foot-draggers in the Senate along for his package. He got those things. If Republicans blow up the agreement now, that’s at best a wash for Republicans and it still puts Biden in a better position than he was on both those fronts.

So why did McConnell let it go this far? There’s not a really clear answer.

Maybe McConnell thinks he's still working with the Dems from a decade ago, many who really did believe there was at least some interest among Republicans to accomplish things, and who would have been tied in knots. In 20-20 hindsight we know this isn't remotely true, of course and other than Manchin and Sinema, it appears that the entire Democratic congressional caucus knows it.

[indy]

Jun 25, 2021 19:35:03 GMT LFC said:

Jun 25, 2021 17:31:37 GMT jackd said:

The issue is the tax provision arising in the House. If they can do that with a shell bill, so be it. I'm skeptical that the courts will let them do that. I understand that the House can hold its bill until the other is passed.

It's simply a timing issue.

- The bipartisan bill could be passed by the Senate (but now won't be as enough Republicans are sure to renege on the deal) but then has to be passed to the House.

- Nancy pulls a Moscow Mitch and just sits on the bill.

- House Dems then create and vote on a bill to be passed under reconciliation.

- That goes to the Senate where it passed with 50 Democratic votes.

- The House then votes on the bipartisan bill and passes it.

- Both bills are sent off to President Biden for his signature.

And, to reiterate, the bill containing the tax provisions are in the reconciliation bill, which does originate in the House.

[Traveler]

The issue is the tax provision arising in the House. If they can do that with a shell bill, so be it. I'm skeptical that the courts will let them do that. I understand that the House can hold its bill until the other is passed.

In which case it becomes a moot point, no? Great thread folks.  Still the key is Manchinnema.  Will they go along with reconciliation if the Senate won't pass the bipartisan bill?  Are they committed to be on board with reconciliation?  

[LFC]

Jun 25, 2021 19:42:42 GMT Traveler said:

Still the key is Manchinnema.

Is it just me or does that sound like some insane, uncomfortable, and overly expense product sold by Gwyneth Paltrow?

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2021 14:37:18 GMT goldenvalley said:

We'll see how the electorate responds to this plan of Pelosi and Biden...I am assuming that this plan will end up going nowhere because McConnell's Senators will not vote for it. Then the Democrats run on that in 2022.

Unfortunately, that's a losing proposition.

"Why couldn't you achieve anything?"

"McConnell stopped us!"

"Weren't you in the majority?!"

"  "

"Go away!"

[jackd]

A moot point? Perhaps not. If both get passed using the "empty shell" initiation in the House for the reconciliation bill, the Supreme Court could hold the reconciliation bill void and leave the bilateral infrastructure bill in place.

[LFC]

Once again I'm lovin' myself a big old slice of Jen Psaki. She was an inspired pick.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has a message for GOP senators who’ve been wailing about President Joe Biden dodging their trap by refusing to sign a bipartisan infrastructure bill without a reconciliation bill: Suck it up, buttercup.

During a press briefing on Friday, Psaki shrugged off Republicans’ complaints about Biden’s demand — which foiled their scheme to torpedo the president’s more progressive infrastructure proposals.

“It is up to Republicans … to decide if they are going to vote against a historic investment in infrastructure that’s going to rebuild roads and railways and bridges in their communities simply because they don’t like the mechanics of the process,” the White House official said.

“That’s a pretty absurd argument for them to make,” she added. “Good luck on the political front on that argument.”

Psaki’s remarks signaled that the Biden administration would keep playing hardball with GOP senators, who had bet that a watered-down bipartisan proposal would keep moderate Democrats from agreeing to a reconciliation bill containing much more progressive priorities.

But it turned out that the Republicans had effectively stepped on a rake when Biden announced on Thursday that he would only sign the bipartisan bill if the reconciliation bill were on his desk at the same time.

“If he’s gonna tie them together, he can forget it!” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) fumed.

They got played. The Democrats can now factually say that the Republicans pulled out of one bill because they didn't like another. Republicans are in the seat of having to tie the two together and explain why the moving parts are bad. It's always better to have the simpler message.

Democrats: "Republicans were for it before they were against it!"

Republicans: "Well you see there's this thing called reconciliation. And they want to pass one bill that way first before passing the bill. But they're really tied together. And the two bills have different vote thresholds which is why they can do this." (Of course all they need for the base is to go onto Faux News, grunt, and say "Dems bad!")

[indy]

Jun 25, 2021 20:11:38 GMT jackd said:

A moot point? Perhaps not. If both get passed using the "empty shell" initiation in the House for the reconciliation bill, the Supreme Court could hold the reconciliation bill void and leave the bilateral infrastructure bill in place.

Why is the reconciliation bill an 'empty shell'? The Dems in the House and the Dems in the Senate simply agree to what is in it, the House writes it up and sends it over to the Senate who passes it after swatting away the Republican amendments.

[indy]

Why did Dems decide to hack out the hard infrastructure into a separate bill at all? If they were going to pass a reconciliation bill, why include Republicans? The only way this process makes sense is if moderate Dems insisted on it. And, you know, now the GOP has talking points about...well, whatever they're crying about...so those moderate Dems are the ones who got played.