Biden’s Infrastructure Misstep
Mere hours after announcing that he had come to a compromise agreement with Senate Republicans on a $1.2 Trillion infrastructure package, President Biden nearly blew the whole thing up.
“If this is the only one that comes to me, I’m not signing it. It’s in tandem,” was the statement that nearly undid months of negotiations. Or, as I paraphrased it on Twitter, “I’m glad we worked out this compromise where I gave up some stuff and you gave up some stuff… I’ll be glad to sign it but only if you also give me the stuff I gave up.”
A lot of this comes down to good, old-fashion power politics. Biden wants the $1.2 Trillion package and the $6 Trillion package. If he doesn’t get the $1.2 package he can just add that into the larger package. But to get the larger package he needs to win over the moderates in his party, specifically Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Manchin has made clear he’s not willing to join the reconciliation effort unless there was a bipartisan deal worked out.
Now Biden is trying to leverage the bipartisan deal to get Manchin on board with the reconciliation deal because he knows Manchin cares more about what’s in the bipartisan package than the “human infrastructure” boondoggle. But it may well backfire. And Biden should know that.
The Democrats have a majority in the Senate (the barest possible majority, but a majority nonetheless) which means they’re entitled to try and pass their agenda. There is nothing wrong with the Democrats taking the bipartisan infrastructure bill and then trying to pass the rest of their “infrastructure” package in another bill. But when you make passage of the bipartisan compromise bill contingent on the passage of the very provisions that were removed through the negotiations it smacks of bad faith.
And there would be nothing wrong with Republicans choosing to walk away from the compromise bill when it becomes clear that the other side is acting in bad faith.
It looks like Biden’s efforts to patch the deal back together over the weekend have worked well enough to give the bill a chance. But it’s far from a done deal.
The smart money has always been on Biden making a blunder in pursuit of balancing the moderate, bi-partisan message that got him elected against the radical demands of progressives in his party. It nearly got him here. And much like the infrastructure deal, Joe Biden is far from out of the woods.