Senate Budget Committee chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is signaling impatience with the White House’s efforts to cut a deal with Republicans on President Joe Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plan, which GOP lawmakers have slammed as too broad and expensive.
Patience, Bernie, Joe is just giving the GQP enough rope to hang themselves.
Again.
The GOP is antsy too. Their entire “policy” is to obstruct, and they know that any relief that Democrats will provide for the Amercan People will be bad for their Party.
President Biden know what he’s doing. He’s proving to Senators Manchin and Sinema the GQP is “negotiating” in bad faith. Then the bill will come up for a vote and pass once all Democrats figure it out.
One of seven quintillion reasons I am happy that Joe, not Bernie, is our president. Joe needs to be seen getting GOP support, and I believe he is actually sincere in his desire for that. But he knows where his line is. It will be progressive bill.
Sanders would have just yammered on about punishing billionaires (notice how he stopped talking about punishing millionaires when he used his campaign funds to buy his book and then became a millionaire), would have said “Fuck GOP support. But they’re not racists, Nosiree, just economically anxious! And their anxiety will go away when we pass this bill!”
And then the bill would never pass because of its high purity.
Biden will give us a bill, a good, progressive bill. It won’t make everyone left of center 100% happy, but it will be really good.
NO DOUBT they are negotiating in bad faith… But though I hope you are right about this being proof to Manchin and Sinema that they need to vote with the Ds on this… I have little faith, especially in Manchin
Sigh. @maryq There must me more than 7 quintillion reasons for Joe v Bernie. If Biden were to agree with Bernie’s view of the infrastructure bill, we’d have none, because Manchin has already indicated that he won’t sign on. So, we’d have our fantasy list of needs, and 48 or 49 votes, so the bill goes into the round pile. I see the purpose of negotiation as trying to get not only a bill that Repubs will support, but at the least will be something that 50 Dems can support. This shouldn’t be that hard for Bernie to conceptualize. Perhaps he’s just remonstrating so the progressives will back off for a bit.
Joe and Bernie are playing “good cop, bad cop”?
Smart move politically. Although, media will try to make it Bernie vs Joe and Dems in Disarray!
The first question President Biden should ask the GOP negotiation party is “Do you agree with Senator McConnell and support his position that you are 100% focused on stopping my administration and in particular this infrastructure bill.”
I think the push for a deal is mostly posturing, but if they can actually get a Republican vote it would be fantastic. It’s not completely impossible to imagine giving Murkowski a big bribe in exchange for her vote. If it means we can get rid of Manchin’s bribe that would be a fantastic result, cleaving the the GOP and allowing us to not give Manchin his pork, which is what he really wants. With Manchin as the 50th vote, Democrats have no choice but to give West Virginia tons of money in exchange. If Murkowski is the 50th vote, then Democrats can refuse that money unless Manchin votes for voting rights and DC statehood, what we really need from him (even more than infrastructure).
I’m not holding my breath for that Murkowski vote, but I don’t see big harm in giving it a shot.
I take McConnell at his word. If they won’t go big, shove them to the side. We need to rebuild America. Not just roads and bridges, but our human capital as well. The people get it and will reward it. Tell the Republicans to get onboard, the future is leaving the station.
I am not sure I mind giving Manchin his pork. West Virginia is a poor state and can use all the help it can get. It is much better to have congress people competing for pork than time on cable news.
National Weather Service is predicting a severe shit-storm for Palm Beach, Florida.
This is just great…and Biden is working the American People themselves, along with Governors, to move this along.
Make the GOP Senate bastards state that they don’t want Child Care for working women.
Ugh. Seriously. Manchin is hell-bent on doing as much work for the GOP as he can get away with so he can get re-elected in a red state.
I think the only hope of shifting him is to make the people in WV realize how good this will be for them. Even the dumbest of them must realize coal ain’t coming back.
I actually think it is getting to that time where Mr Manchin, who seems to like being in the news, gets called out in the news - “Hey! You want that construction job building that bridge? Tell Joe Manchin”
“The bottom line is the American people want results,” Sanders said.
And WTF would Bernie Sanders know about results?
This. Sanders has always pulled farther to the left than Biden, but that’s a large part of what has given Biden room to go further left himself. Strategically, they’re the perfect team for this moment in time.
It’s Manchin and Sinema who clearly are the real problems, not to mention McConnell. Sanders, by pointing out what it is that the American people want (as in they didn’t care about whether the legislation that brought them their $1400 checks was bipartisan or not), is giving both wavering Democrats a very good reason to get on board.
And because the pandemic laid bare a lot areas that need fixing we need to address those now, while the harm, frustration, and results are fresh in everyone’s mind.
I believe that the opportunity to address what is in Biden’s plan won’t happen until another global crisis comes around.