The Washington Post reports that Republicans are really and truly committed to a bipartisan infrastructure bill but have one itsy bitsy little problem still to solve: how to pay for it. What's their answer? To reduce funding by insisting that Democrats remove a provision that increases IRS auditing and forces rich people to pay all the taxes they owe. Can't have that!
Naturally, this means Republicans need more time:
Without that provision, Democrats and Republicans were left scrambling into the weekend to try to identify alternative ways to pay for their infrastructure blueprint.
....In the meantime, though, the clock continued to tick on their talks: On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning to set in motion a Wednesday procedural vote to begin debate on the infrastructure proposal. With the package still in flux, the deadline greatly troubled Republicans, some of whom blasted Democrats for rushing already fragile negotiations. “Unless Senator Schumer doesn’t want this to happen, you need a little bit more time to get it right,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) stressed during an interview on Fox News Sunday.
Just a "little bit more time." Just a little bit! After months of negotiations, Republicans just need a few more days. Honest.
And if they don't get those few more days? Then the failure is all the fault of Democrats.
ffs, does anyone actually believe this stuff?
The lucy/football thing is so overdone. However...
Lucy....
in the sky with diamonds.
What, were you expecting a football analogy?
Republicans need more time to figure out how they'll sell defunding the police -- the IRS is the police for rich people -- to Tucker et al, if, of course, they can't derail it completely.
Now, all the Repub Senators are Susan Collins. Be assured that all negotiations with them will turn out to have been in bad faith. But they're setting up their excuses!!
The Democrats insisted on their job-killing tax increases! The Democrats just stopped negotiating, for no reason!! The Democrats wanted to expand the already-bloated Washington Bureaucracy! The Democrat bill would increase The Deficit! I heard a Democrat in the hallway say something mean about Our Great President Donald J Trump!
All blather, and all will dominate the news, rather than any good stuff that's in the Big Bill that Democrats have to pass on their own.
Democrats do a poor job of selling this kind of thing. They should be prefacing everything with “we will not allow the GOP to drag ass in the name of ‘more time’ when they have no intention on negotiating in good faith” so even every idiot who doesn’t closely follow politics hears it a hundred times.
The GOP excels at this kind of thing.
A few more days of The Inflation Fears(tm) weighing down the Dow is all the GOP needs to kills this dead in its tracks.
Republicans don't even care anymore how this makes them look. I wouldn't have thought "we don't mind if the ultra-rich are tax scofflaws!" was a hill one wanted to die on, but here we are. I guess that's what happens when nearly all Congressional seats are safely gerrymandered and your voter base is also a bunch of deadeyed cultists who think the other side are Satan-worshipping communists trying to inject them with microchips and are thus impervious to your own corruption.
Bill Cassidy on Infrastructure is channeling Chuck Grassley on Affordable Care. After stalling for months Grassley's response to Obama's question "Is there any change that will make you sign on to the bill?" was "I guess not, Mr. President." Dems know that, Cassidy knows that. But the kabuki must go on.
"ffs, does anyone actually believe this stuff?"
Yep--virtually every beltway political reporter at the major fact based media organizations. Or at least they pretend to. Democrats are in eternal disarray and are always at fault for failing to work hard enough to reach a bipartisan agreement with Lucy van Pelt ... err, I mean the Republicans. I mean, there has to be a minyan of reasonable Republicans, right?
Can't say whether they believe it, but it is certain they are going to put "Biden fails!!!" in every headline & first sentence.
Not trying to impose Murc's Law, but I haven't exactly heard a chorus of Democrats screaming "Republicans want to protect rich tax cheaters while you pay your fair share!!!" Can't think of any reason this isn't the first thing every Democrat says for the next five days.
Interestedly, by making the announcement on reconciliation, Democrats give Republicans little incentive to do a bipartisan deal. Now Biden will snuggle it in reconciliation.
As usual, the racist Dems fucked it up. They actually think the Rs will sign onto a "bipartisan" plan, when the communists will follow up with a much bigger one through "reconciliation." Having had their proverbial tit caught in the proverbial wringer, they blame everyone but the liars in their mirrors. LOL
The Democrats havn't been the Party of Lester Maddox at least since 2008 (when a Black man was not only the party nominee, but won the election*).
That's why the Union Dems in Michigan & Wisconsin, & Holler Dems in West Virginia & Kentucky, broke so hard for El Jefe in 2016 & 20. They finally knew what the Concerned Citizens Council Dems had known at least since Reagan, if not Goldwater: the Democrat Party no longer stands for conserving the only right & natural order for America -- white hegemony under the watchful eye of historically powerful families like the Bushes.
*Pending audit of the election by CyberNinjas. (Honestly surprised Sarah Palin hasn't popped off about Barry Hussein's overperformance in Indiana & North Carolina, similar to Sleepy Joe's Arizona & Georgia "wins".)
Time for your medication. LOL
Why is anyone talking about it? This is a perfect example of how the media have helped ruin governance. The hour by hour reports on the status of this stupid bill are mind numbing. No one cares. I sure don’t. What is gained by endless focus on the process? Nothing.
What WordPress needs is not an "ignore" option as MoJo has, but a "stifle yourself" one for the trolls who have popped up here.
Have always enjoyed KD's writing & most commenters' input, but the only blogging that seems safe from a couple of lying loons is the cat blogging.
How do we ignore you, "progressive" racist? LOL
Cordially,
The Latinx
This troll actually thinks they are clever.
Whether anyone believes it or not is immaterial. The purpose of the exercise is to give the base another reason to criticise Biden and Congressional Democrats. "They lied about being bipartisan" will become item #5503 in their list of grievances.
Sounds about right. Moreover, only Democrats need to "be bipartisan." For some reason, Republicans are exempt. Very strange...
I remember the successful delay by Republicans in 2009 on the health care legislation. Newbie Obama, perhaps believing his own rhetoric about "No Blue America, no Red America", let that go on until is was almost too late (and when Ted Kennedy died, it was very, very, very close to not passing).
Biden witnessed that and is not going to waste time.
The handwriting that "we're not likely to see a bipartisan infrastructure bill passed" has been on the wall for a while now.
But, just in terms of sheer legislative tactics, couldn't Democrats leave out the controversial IRS measure to appease Republicans who don't want to vote for it, and then fold it into the reconciliation bill?
The parliamentarian might not agree that increased allocation of funds to IRS investigators is revenue neutral, in that the money gone out to fund it will be greater than the money that the audits recover.
It's well established that the return on investment of IRS enforcement is much greater than 1 for 1 (Treasury estimates $6 of revenue per $1 spent on enforcement).
I can't see any reason the parliamentarian would dispute that. Elizabeth MacDonough was appointed in 2012 by Harry Reid, she's not a Republican stooge.
I don't know how the parliamentarian would be qualified to make that judgement.