Apparently Joe Biden has unlearned all the lessons of ACA negotiations in which Republicans inserted reams of their favored policy bents then walked away from Obamacare when it came time to vote it into law.
Say it ain’t so, Joe. Sad to see Biden has fallen into begging Lucy to set up the football again so he can land on his back.
Yes. I think part of the delay is to fully expose to the public that the Republican plan is to protect the wealthy at the expense of average Americans who must pay regressive taxes through “user fees”. All the polling I’ve seen points in the opposite direction; that the infrastructure plan grows even more popular when combined with increased taxes on the wealthy. If Democrats play this right, they have a tremendous issue to campaign on in 2022 and beyond.
This is true, and it really is the only option he’s being left with, BUT Manchin and Sinema will NEVER get on board. EVER. We are going to watch what is set up to be…potentially…the single most impactful presidency of our lifetimes get drowned in the bathtub of Manchin’s and Sinema’s self-interest, ambition and avarice. They don’t give a FUCK whether any of this passes, and likely just don’t want them to pass at all, or they wouldn’t be pulling these stunts in the first place. We don’t have 50 GQPers who are absolutist obstructionist NO votes. We have 52, and the 2 worst are pretending to be on our team while they render the 4 years we worked so hard to gain a moot joke in the history books.
I’m even more cynical. I think Manchin and Sinema are ham-handedly trying to use their position to leverage advantages for themselves. They are bargaining with their own party to negotiate for favors that will help them get elected. They may have already named their price, and Joe just has to deal with their putrid selfishness. I still hold out hope that they can be adequately bribed.
Yes, and when Biden rejects their absurd offers, he’ll be pilloried for it naturally. He thinks that the public is paying attention to his attempts at bipartisanship. I mean, come on, man. Fox is going to screech no matter what.
They don’t have a price. The Dems have nothing to offer them because the rest of us are dependent upon them winning their seats. The only thing they are scrabbling for is “moderate” and “centrist” street cred, which will REQUIRE them to fuck everything up and prevent the Dems from getting anything they want. What I expect is that they will jump behind some worthless, skewed counterproposal from the GQP…
…which is no doubt designed to give the GQP what they can live with (and will benefit their states more than blue states) and to deny the Dems absolutely anything they promised their voters or which would help their voters. I suspect the GQP is going to put this on the table and say “that’s it, take it or leave it or we’re walking away” and that it doesn’t even have the necessary 10 GQPers to support it anyway in the first place. It’s all another game of proposing something that cannot pass while also asserting that only the GQP gets to determine what is in legislation whether they are the majority and can abuse power to get it or because they are the minority and therefore the “limiting factor” or “least common denominator.”
Manchin and Sinema will get behind it and call it a wonderful compromise, knowing that it’s anathema to their own party’s agenda and goals, but also knowing that it has absolutely no chance of being the final deal or ever passing, which makes it safe to get behind. Everything will crumble and they’ll still block filibuster reform. Then they’ll go back to their constituents and put on a big show of having “tried so hard to get a compromise bill passed, but alas, moderates like me seem to have no place in today’s DC.”
All checkboxes checked:
The republicans won’t vote for that 928B if the democrats accept it.
There’s no point.
Correct. It’s a false proposal to say they tried to compromise but the Dems “proved they are totally radicalized and controlled by the extreme left of the party.”
From where I sit the Insurrection did far more than almost end Democracy in the U.S.
It also negated the triumph of the election of Warnock and Ossoff, thus weakening a sustained feeling of Democratic momentum at that particular time.
I’m with Bernie on this.
I look at it the other way. Trump was getting more unhinged every day, and there were bigger and grander protests planned leading up to January 20th.
The failure of the coup, coupled with Trump basically being imprisoned for the last weeks of his time in office as a direct result, may have done more to save the republic than otherwise would have happened.
You’re a good man, Joe. But sometimes your better angels are wrong. This is one of those times.
The best bet is still to go with the original infrastructure proposal and reconciliation, because there will not be Republican votes in any event. When Mitch McConnell says he is 100 percent against everything Biden wants, believe him.
Even if they were to agree on a price tag that would only be the prelude to the “debate” on how to pay the tab. No additional debt, no tax increase, just which social safety net programs do we cut how deeply.
A) Because it is his nature.
B) Because it gives ammunition to the fight to ditch the filibuster
C) Because it makes him look good with the more dim-witted parts of the public.
D) Because it’s good performative politics.
Talking with the GQP and agreeing to their bullshit proposal are two entirely different things.
President Biden is not about to go all squishy and cave to their demands.
Can I give this remark 25 ‘likes’?
Christ, I hope you’re right. I am so tired of treading water.
He’s sliding the deadline. To Mitch McConnell that’s blood in the water.
Because deadlines are most-often arbitrary. If you’ve set a midnight deadline for something and you’re making progress in negotiations, you don’t just walk away from the table at midnight.
That he’s willing to negotiate in good faith, and demonstrate that, helps him if it ultimately falls apart, because then the Dems can just ram stuff through and point the finger back at the republicans blocking anything and negotiating in bad faith.