For years, progressives have floated the idea of acting as a bloc and using their power to shape the Democratic agenda, a tactic levied by several of the most influential congressional caucuses.
On Thursday, they finally did: Progressives stood by a threat they issued this summer, when they promised to vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill if it was considered in the House without a concurrent vote on a much larger reconciliation bill.
....This move marks a huge shift in the way the CPC has used its power and what it has asked of its members. Prominent progressives have long argued that if even a subset of the caucus stayed united, it could influence major legislation and make ambitious policy demands — modeling themselves after methods used by groups such as the conservative Freedom Caucus and the moderate Blue Dog Coalition.
Imagine my excitement: Yet another intractable caucus more interested in playing to the Twitter crowd than actually legislating. This hasn't worked out very well for Republicans, but at least they can just shrug if they end up passing nothing. It will work out even worse for us Democrats, who will be utterly defeated if we end up passing nothing.
Now, it's frequently the case that just as the shouting reaches a peak, suddenly everyone comes to an agreement and a compromise package gets passed. Maybe that will happen this time. We can hope.
More generally, though, it kills me to see the opportunity that we're passing up. With Trumpism taking over the entire conservative movement, this is an ideal time for Democrats to present themselves as the only sane alternative and build an unbeatable coalition of centrists and progressives. But the only way to do that is to appeal to purple districts and states, and that means moving toward the center. Not a lot, but at least a little bit. Enough to seem non-scary to middle-of-the-road voters in places like Iowa and Ohio, anyway.
Instead we're doing just the opposite, insisting that these voters will love us if we adopt the Bernie agenda lock, stock, and barrel. I don't understand why even delusional progressives would believe this, but I can only assume it's because they live in a bubble and have never actually met a moderate voter from Iowa or Ohio.
But maybe I'm wrong. I sure hope so. Because if I'm right we're blowing the chance of a generation.
Uh, I don't think that's accurate, Kevin. the CPC has simply forced Cinemansion and Gottheimer to actually state their demands, and, y'know, *negotiate* to an agreement on the BBBA, and then pass both the BBBA and the BIF. B/c the BIF is the one full of pork for the GrOPers, after all.
Nobody said that Cinemansion and Gottheimer have to agree to $3.5T: they simply have to actually negotiate, and not say "oh, we don't know, pass the BIF and then we'll see what we want".
They already have. Your not paying attention.
No, Sinema has been dodging everyone and refuses to speak. Manchin says he tops out at $1.5T.l, which at least is something.
Even the $3.5T is hardly the “Bernie agenda, lock, stock, and barrel.”
We know what happens when the Democrats go small—2010.
The bipartisan bill is simply not enough to make any difference. Why do you think Republicans are in board with it? They know it won’t be transformative in any way.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/30/politics/joe-manchin-budget-bill-1-5-trillion-schumer/index.html
Given that Manchema seem perfectly happy to vote for a $0 reconciliation bill, I think you're mislaying the blame here. Progressives want to get something passed, something that does something - they want to take this chance.
It's Manchin and Sinema who want to do fuckall nothing.
Sorry, but they have nobody but themselves to blame. The reconciliation was larger than Biden wanted, with the Medicare expansion not on the agenda. It creates a bloated bill. Biden will turn on "CPA" soon enough and begin primarying them all.
Trumpism nonsense is irrelevant. It's time to move away from economic growth and bloated debt based growth. It's global supply chain narrative was just a con.
Agreed. It's possible the liberals would blow up a deal because they can only get, say, $2.4 trillion instead of $3.5 trillion, but that doesn't seem to be the way the reporting has presented it. Most of what I've read suggests Manchin/Sinema aren't negotiating in good faith, and I fear the latter might well prefer no reconciliation bill at all.
I did see a headline earlier today, though, suggesting Manchin had given a figure (less than $1.5 trillion IIRC, which is a joke, but might not be a terrible way to go if they can be prevailed upon to meet the liberals half way up) he might be amenable to. So it's a start. I'm hoping they can reach a deal quickly.
Anyway, there's a lot of evidence suggesting the enactment of legislation doesn't help a party politically in any event, so I'm not sure it's a tragedy if liberals scuttle the infrastructure deal. It's not a very big spending package on net (a lot of it is simply shifted spending). Mind you, I don't think they should scuttle if if they simply can't get the exact reconciliation bill they want (that would be counterproductive). But if the radical moderates aren't willing, in the end, to agree to any reconciliation package, I say tell 'em to pound sand and get ready for a primary challenge.
It's 1.9 trillion. Bet he would do 2.4 trillion and it's close to what Biden asked for.
Multiple outlets are reporting Manchin's bottom line is $1.5 trillion.
Nope. Look harder. Those outlets aren't reporting, just making up stuff. I have the real skinny from Democratic sources. Wait until Pelosi and Biden ram through the infrastructure bill against their wishes. They are dead. A useless electorate bloc that has been outed and is useless.
Those outlets aren't reporting, just making up stuff.
Sure. In contrast to your own Woodward-Bernstein level credible Beltway sources.
I trust my sources. The Medicare expansion is NOT the Biden agenda. Pure and simple. You people don't get it. Get rid of that, this thing moves quickly.
If the Medicare expansion is not Biden's agenda why not remove it from the bill and move on? I'll tell you why: Because neither Manchin nor Sinema care about policy. That is why they don't talk about it. It is all abut posturing. Playing to the pundits.
Meanwhile, Atrios seems of the go for all or nothing view. He's not stupid. B/c he says folks won't much appreciate what the mini bill does come election time and the GOP will blame the Dems and take credit for any good coming from the bill. If you're gonna get blamed, why not get blamed for doing the good things we need?
As I see it, if the mini bill passes, there's no chance any big bill passes even if the filibuster gets lifted, the GOP will pick up at least majority House seats in 2022, and then nothing will get done except maybe investigations of the Afghan withdrawal.
Is it time to call Manchin and Sinema's bluff?
Pick up seats is pure conjecture. The 3.5 trillion dollar bill isn't that popular compared to the infrastructure bill. Deal with that reality and move on.
Virtually every single thing in the $3.5T bill is in fact wildly popular.
What is more, Josh Marshall is with Atrios on this one.
He is not at all in fact. Do you have reading comprehension difficulties or are you a troll?
If "moving towards the center" means abandoning any meaningful action to reverse global warming and doing nothing about inequality, I don't see why anyone would bother voting for the Democratic Party in the first place. It's already made it clear it's not going to do anything to protect America's representative democracy, stop the politicisation of the courts, or bring some sanity to immigration laws.
While it's true that some is better than none it's also true that progressives have a history of rolling over to demands of moderation and centrist with very little to show for it. If one believes in progress and justice for the 99% then standing firm is the appropriate tactic this time. The measures are popular, they are paid for, and this opportunity should not be missed.
BTW Trump won Iowa and Ohio by 9 and 8 points respectively in 2020. The idea Democrats can turn that around by being just a little bit more "centrist" is delusional. On the other hand if they abandon Build Back Better, they may well struggle to hold half the states they won.
Lol, Obama won the white vote in Ohio twice.TWICE. These consumption based programs don't sell there. Got it fool??? Or do you need a couple of fingers snapped???
I'd really like a 'Block this user' function to get rid of obnoxious jerks like you, but life is full of disappointments.
Agreed. Spadesofgrey is an ass.
Your "tone" seems to change as the night progresses. Booze?
With the MSM being what it is, focused on the total price tag and Manchin's $1.5T cap, Democrats should just settle for a 4-year spending bill which will get them to the $1.5T cap but also at the burn rate of $3.5T over 10 years. It forces Rs to talk about the annual burn rate, giving Ds the space to talk about the annual burn rate of the Pentagon and how we should be able to save $ from pulling out of Afghanistan.
Yes, go for the frontloading concept. https://prospect.org/infrastructure/building-back-america/how-democrats-can-pass-entire-reconciliation-bill/
Great idea. Plus, since the reconciliation bill will help a lot of ordinary Americans, it's a good idea (politically speaking, that is to say cynically) to make its continuation an issue in 2024. Manchin saves face, Sinema has something to show her corporate donors, progressives get what they want for four years, and Dems have a good argument during the election.
So, multiple outlets now report Manchin's at $1.5 trillion. That's not great but it's better than nothing.
Biden himself needs to spend some political capital. And, while this is easier said than done (if it were easy it would be done by now) he needs to get the liberals to come down a bit. Maybe they agree to $3.1 trillion. The halfway point would be $2.3 trillion. I'd guess Manchin won't even go quite that high. But maybe he could be prevailed upon by Joe himself to agree to $1.9 trillion. That, along with the infrastructure bill, would get us to a total of about $3 trillion. That's on top of the $1.9 trillion bill this past spring, for a grand total of some $5 trillion. Far from perfect but not horrible. And all of this quite possibly positions Democrats in a reasonably favorable position over the next three years if (as seems highly likely) covid numbers fall precipitously.
Get it done!
It's 1.9 trillion with 19 Democratic Senators. This is way more than Manchin or the chick from Arizona. You people just don't get it in this board, I mean you don't.
Chick?
Great analysis.
Don’t know what to tell you. Liberals and moderate liberals have for generations made people’s lives better against their wishes. why should now be different? There will be a compromise, but i hope it won’t be 1.5 trill on one side and a pat on the head on the other side, as it often has been.
If the compromise were 1.5T for climate change and nothing else I would take it. Unfortunately it is more likely to be everything other than climate change.
Is it really the "Bernie agenda lock stock and barrel"? Earlier in the summer Bernie was talking $6 trillion, no? And now it's Biden for $3.5 and Manchin for $1.5.
Bear in mind the "$1 trillion" BIF is really only $550 billion, with the remainder being the recycling of money already appropriated by earlier bills. Calling this bill "the Bernie agenda lock stock and barrel" is the kind of shameful misrepresentation I expect from Kevin McCarthy, not Kevin Drum.
Hard disagree.
First, it's Biden's agenda, not Sanders's.
Second, the progressive caucus has been consistent. It's the "moderates" that are reneging on the size of the deal they signed onto.
Third, no one knows the outcome. Negotiations have just begun in earnest.
I'm not crazy about all the positions and messaging of the progressives, but I think it's silly to paint them as pushing something radical (they're not) or playing to the Twitter crowd (they're not; they are actually trying to get something important done). The "moment" that we are at historically can be one in which Democrats don't need to negotiate away the heart of their agenda to appease Republicans. It makes them look like the wuss party. It's time that changed.
This is overdone and unfair. We've known for months "liberals" or ""progressives" have been willing to vote for the hard-hat bill as long as the Moms and Students bill also got passed. Now that corporate and Wall Street representatives -- sorry "moderates" -- are saying, "you go first and we'll decide later" the libs are saying "sorry, a bargain's a bargain". Can't say the problem here is the libs. The problem is the corporate types, who were on the run before, feeling emboldened by Afghanistan and Covid not going as well as anyone thought they would be at this point. The libs are absolutely right to say "if you want your money for hard hats we want to know what you'll vote for on the stuff that matters for the future." Actually they're quite smart to extract everything they can now that the "moderates" have demanded more negotiating.
No, it's the choice of "centrists" to dangle a reconciliation package then try to ram through their thing. Centrists choosing a path of bad-faith, dishonestly, disrespect, and narcissism is the cause of this impasse.
Just do what you said and negotiate the reconciliation bill. Problem solved.
The 1$ trillion figure for infrastructure being for 10 years, and only half of it new spending, I doubt very much the average American is going to be impressed by the extra road and bridge repairs. Broadband expansion some will notice, and that's about it. That's not saying the BIF isn't important, just that it won't play a role in 2024. The reconciliation bill would, certainly on health care and family support. Except if it's a ten-year bill meaning voters will keep those benefits even if the GOP wins.
As Hollywood says above, frontload it. Vote bills for four years not ten and make them an issue in 2024.
Lolz, it plays a much larger role than consumption measures. Are you a retarded moron or what?? I mean, are you a retard????? Let me explain it again: consumption programs do not sell with swing voters. Got it yet fool???
No comment, except that you haven't looked at how the "consumption programs" poll with voters of all stripes. If you're took lazy, here's the gist: they're popular.
Please don't feed the troll.
Retard?
Is there not a flag on this commenting system?
No. The commenting software is atrocious. I don't blame Kevin for not upgrading. He provides his analysis for free, after all (unlike a growing number of pundits and bloggers). But yeah, the WP native commenting system leaves a great deal to be desired.
The dollar sign comes before the number in English. $1 trillion not 1$ trillion (unless you live in Quebec).
It was a mistake to turn this into a media circus.
The message of Biden’s nomination, we were told repeatedly last year, was a rejection of the progressive agenda. Then after Biden won, the attempt to implement some parts of it was blocked by manchin and the Arizona rookie. Putting the left in its place is worth it. They have no place n the Democratic Party. Now they can pass a big increase in defense spending with Republican support and rake in some big donations.
It’s fine. If lefty folks stay home next election and republicans take over, the moderates will be happy.
Nope. Very llttle "liberal" vote matters. Lefty????? They could care less. Capitalism died in 2008. Waste of a post and I can access IP's.
You can access IP’s? What does that mean?
Anyway… drum wrote the same thing. “ Instead we're doing just the opposite, insisting that these voters will love us if we adopt the Bernie agenda lock, stock, and barrel.”
The centrists want to purge liberals, leftists, progressives, and sanders fans from the party. They really have nothing in common with each other. There is no reason they should all call themselves democrats. Now the centrists can merge with never trump republicans and run the country without the extremists.
Lol, there are no leftist in the Democratic party. You still can't get the difference. Yes, I can access IP's. Are you too stupid to understand what that means??????
The IP thIng sounded like a threat…. “I know where you live” so to speak. I’m sure I want to take appropriate precautions if that’s your intent.
Anyway… if there are no leftists in the Democratic Party then perhaps you can share your analysis of the coalition. I’m an anti war dude but otherwise generally unconcerned / uninterested in the social welfare aspects of the agenda. They are all fine if Democrats can implement them, but they have no significant constituency among the public as Drum and a couple of others suggest here.
So tell us all what you believe and skip the name calling. Or not… it makes no difference to me. Have a nice day.
Once again Justin. There are no leftists. Leftists do not care about consumption based irrelevance. Anti or pro war for basic consideration have little to do with dialectic mumbling. If your too stupid to get that.....
No, you can't access IPs.
I came to the comments to protest about Kevin’s framing, but I think my views have been well-covered.
Instead, I’m hoping Kevin will implement some level of comment moderation. The vitriol shown by a particular commenter is really unacceptable.
It's a troll. It leaves its droppings to get attention. People need to stop feeding the troll.
I agree with that. I also stand by my hope for some level of moderation.
Yes, moderate you from nature. Reality is, I tell the truth.
You should be banned. Ignorance is bliss.
It's not so much vitriol as spittle-flecked incoherence. I can rarely parse his/her/its/their words. One hesitates to diagnose from afar, but, surely there's a spectrum disorder on display. Best to refrain from feeding (not a policy I always stick to myself, more's the pity).
No real "leftist" cares about consumption measures for a dead system. Most sheep only care because they are to scared what happens after. Nature is brutal. The system is broken.
The purpose of a political movement is not to win elections, it is to enact legislation that improves people's lives.
If you refuse to enact that legislation -- even the watered-down centrist version of what you believe that is contained in the reconciliation bill -- because you worry it may cost you the next election, then you are simply in the business of self-perpetuation.
You're 100% correct, of course, but the basic problem is the party's tissue paper-thin margins. By my count there are 270 Democrats in Congress. Even 269 out of 270 isn't enough, if the one defector happens to be in the upper chamber. Margins like this require ironclad unity — something seldom demonstrated by political parties.
It is demonstrated well in Mitch's; Senate GOP: for all the worst reasons.
And yet when they had a trifecta they couldn't repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The "chance of a generation" framing is completely wrong. If Manchin and Sinema are so committed to a different agenda, then it wasn't the chance of a generation after all. It may have looked like it by counting D's, but it wasn't.
This.
At the end of the day the Democrats in reality didn't take the Senate. At best they managed to boost their numbers enough to possibly get a small ball deal or two done. But they have nothing like an actual, reliable "majority" in the sense that term is usually employed. And they're likely not to have one until the 2030s.
'Imagine my excitement: Yet another intractable caucus more interested in playing to the Twitter crowd than actually legislating. '
Yeah, you are way out of line, Kevin, to compare the largest and most popular caucus (most representative of the American People) to the the dimwitted radicals of the GOP.
I celebrate Progressives throwing their weight around in the Democratic Party, and they never do so lightly. They did it to save key benefits to the public that are widely popular. So stop blaming - as every other media outlet is- the failure of passage on reasonable stances when the problem is obviously that the GOP has ZERO interest in serving the Public.
Why is that when something good happens on the Hill it's "Congress passes continuing resolution", but when it fails, its' Democrats in disarray, agenda imperiled!"?
It is Democrats that get things done, and the GOP that obstructs them from doing it.
They lied on the total amount(supposed to be 2.7 trillion) and added in "Medicare Expansion" and no, that isn't among the Biden plans. They are not blameless. There is distrust because people are lying.
I am frustrated that Democrats haven't been able to hammer an overall agreement behind the scenes, because this has played out too long (like some of the ACA fighting.)
But I do agree with the CPC that progressives shouldn't let the infrastructure bill move forward until moderates come to some agreement and make a commitment on the reconciliation bill.
Why is Kevin calling the respective positions 'progressive' and 'moderate' when they're in fact mainstream and conservative, respectively? In fact, calling the latter 'conservative' is actually letting them off lightly.
This is an honest question, BTW, and one that I have for years trying to get a coherent answer. Why are certain policy positions that enjoy wide popular support across all political parties labelled 'liberal', while others with only narrow and minority support labelled 'moderate'? Who gets to call the shots on this one, and why? I'm hardly what I would call liberal as the term was once used, for example, but because I support the notion that Medicare should be able to negotiate pharmaceutical prices I get labelled as such. Seems a might unfair, if not outright deceptive.
Mainstream???? In your dreamworld.
I think Kevin associates with Republicans more than Democrats, and wittingly or not adopts Republican framing in his analysis of politics.
Right. It's basically mainstream vs. conservative or, if you like, "radical" moderates. It's pretty clear boosting public sector spending in the US by a bit over 1% of GDP in the next decade is far from radical, and the fact that it's largely financed along mildly progressive lines will help a bit (only a bit, mind you) at addressing economic inequality.
The reconciliation bill is mainstream moderation made flesh. Unfortunately the Democrats' margins are such that they're reliant on a couple of right wingers to get bills to Biden's desk.
As usual, James Madison is the one who actually should be blamed.
I would describe it as mainstream versus reactionaries. The American "conservative" movement long ago stopped being conservative as that term is normally understood (support of the status quo and resistance to change). MAGA, for instance, is not a conservative slogan. It explicitly calls for retrograde change, which makes it a reactionary slogan. There are very few real conservatives among prominent American "conservatives".
Certainly Democrats should take what they can get, at least if they can actually get a $1.5T reconciliation bill. If the whole thing is killed because of progressives' demands they will deserve blame, but that hasn't happened yet. Remember that a) they have already backed down from much higher demands (not just "a little bit"), and b) the $3.5T bill is the bill proposed by the party leader Biden and backed by the vast majority of Democrats in both houses. What the progressives are standing up for is not "the Bernie agenda lock, stock, and barrel", it is Biden's agenda and most of the things in it are popular throughout the country. It is far cry from some crazy Marxist program that terrorizes the voters in swing states. Are progressives just supposed to let Manchin set the agenda and write the bills?
Kevin is not telling the progressive legislators or anybody else anything they don't know already. What has been going on is fairly standard politics, as least on the Democratic side - the extremes are played against each other to get a compromise. so progressives must oppose Manchin and Sinema. Although Kevin claims to dislike Fox News his attitude toward the progressives who support Biden's bill is similar to theirs.
Biden asked for 2.7 million. Try harder.
I think Kevin's assessment of what's going on couldn't be more wrong. While he's worth reading for other strengths of his, his readings on what's happening in politics is as bad as anybody who is otherwise worth reading.
Jon Chait and Josh Marshall are hardly the "Twitter crowd" or the biggest fans of the left, but they see the recent developments as very positive for Democrats and the president. I do too.
"FYI, in contrast to the dour tone of the news coverage of last night, my read is that Democrats are closer than ever to a deal to pass both bills and that the last 24 hours was positive, not negative."
--Jonathan Chait
https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/1443912399115984905?s=20
"The president’s goal throughout has been both bills. They both have to pass. The last week has appeared to be on a steady course toward decoupling the two bills, passing the BIF bill and then facing negotiations over a reconciliation bill with no leverage at all over the two Senate holdouts who seem increasingly happy to let the reconciliation bill die on the vine. This is far from over. But what really happened is that the threat to kill the BIF bill got the two holdouts or at least Joe Manchin to actually start negotiating. What the Times calls a “significant setback” and a “humiliating blow” is actually the two bills being recoupled which has been the White House’s aim literally for the entire time."
--John Marshall
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/somethings-very-wrong-with-the-times
That's because they don't agree with the tax hikes for chunks of the expanded spending. 3.5 trillion was never happening as was probably not 2.7 trillion. But the latter was much closer. It's 19 Senators who oppose the 3.5 trillion fwiw.
I Don't know Spades, the above comment added no value to the conversation. Maybe if you were more articulate, looked inside yourself to better be able to explain your thinking, you would not write something like the above because you had actually made your point.
I am thinking about what you said...consumption programs (which? All of them), don't sell with Swing Voters, (who? Where are they? Why don't they sell if the programs materially improve their lives?)
See, I've done your work for you and it's not even 8:00am!
Best Wishes, T
I don't know about you either. What else do you want to call it??? I mean, it is targeted consumption and indeed spending based around it. The infrastructure bill is production based. It is about creating something.
Well, you're certainly creating 'something'. Lots of it.
It's a troll. It leaves its droppings to get attention. Please don't feed the troll.
Like many other commenters already said, I think you got this backwards. The progressives forced Manchin at least, to start negotiating a number for the reconciliation bill, when Sineman really preferred not to vote for it at all. Sinema, I hope, doesn't have the nerve to single handedly tank the BIF and Recon bills on her own.
Furthermore, given that Manchin at least caved, it really seems like the progressives pulled Biden's nuts out of the fire.
The Li Zhou piece that Kevin quotes somewhat misleadingly is actually informative in discussing what is going on - it is not saying that progressives are blowing up the process. Also see this piece in the WaPo (paywall?) which give insight into the politics that Kevin seems to lack:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/30/manchin-sinema-reconciliation-pelosi-sausage/
Nigh. That was after the 3.5 trillion was announced. Your not putting the layers of distrust and lying together. Manchin will start calling out others in the 19 to speak, forcing Biden to ask the House to lower the amount.........back to where he wanted it in the first place.
I think another feature of the covid pandemic is the assumption by libertarian and Socialist theorists that the "global window" has created a illusion of a surging rich and inequality level that when closed, isn't what people think it is. Instead, it's a debt ponzi that has created excessive consumption in the "western" economies, also creating inefficiencies and mal deployment of labor into debt based businesses, like a Restaurant or consumption based business. Something the 2008 market correction was trying to take care off.
We are getting a peak into the future by seeing the past. It isn't making transfer payments for "poor people" overly popular.
Kevin if right on this one. Progressives are way overplaying their hand. One vote less in the Senate, and this whole issue would be moot. With the Democrat's most unlikely "majority", anything greater than zero would be a win. Why can't they take the win?
All they are doing now is risking losing every future election from now until kingdom come. Republicans are praying that Democrats continue being divided. The Republican political ads write themselves.
So in your opinion, passing only the BIF will be enough to get voters out pulling the levers for a majority of the Democrats up for election? Explain your reasoning please.
Because as it is, what you've posted so far gives me more than enough justification to rate the worth of your opinions as negligible.
No, passing only the BIF will probably be a big vote getter. But NOT passing it will probably lose a lot of votes. Republicans would be delighted to spin this.
You rating the worth of my opinions negligible is a heavy blow. I don't know how I will recover from that one. The opinion of an arrogant fool is a heavy burden on me.
Assertions are not reasons, kiddo. Which is what I asked for and whose lack was my initial complaint. Thanks for demonstrating the accuracy of my observation.
Unless the majority of Democrats just want the "moderates" to set the agenda on their own, some degree of brinkmanship is required. Many pundits recognize that this has been required even to get Manchin and Sinema to say what they actually want. Kevin apparently does not understand how this works in politics, or maybe he is just taking the occasion to express his dislike for points of view to the left of his own often neoliberal position.
And again the current unsettled situation has arisen because Democrats have a precarious majority, giving power to those few who are willing to deviate from the consensus party position, which is to pass both the bills at full funding. The progressives are on board with the consensus positions - it is the "moderates" who are not.
Well, skeptonomist, you don't sound very skeptical to me. Sure, passing both bills full tilt IS the consensus Democratic position. But having such a narrow majority, it means that serious compromise is necessary with those who don't share that position.
As you say, the present course is brinkmanship. I would go further and call it stupidity.
Whoo boy. The stupidity _and_ the ignorance of this one. This is approaching fluorine levels of toxic burn.
You have just called Nancy Pelosi stupid and arrogant. She wants the BIF bill passed. I'm with her.
By the strength of your 'reasoning' you're also with the so-called progressive wing of the party, me, etc., IOW more phatic word salad whose only reason for being is as a gesture of irritation. Well, I won't bother to weigh your words in future. But don't discount the possibility of me mocking your juvenile responses to other people as the mood takes me.