Biden infrastructure/tax increase megathread

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https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1408129053840785413?s=21
This is why Biden is the best president since LBJ.

He might not be signing any infrastructure bill at this rate, if Republicans back out of the deal and then Manchin/Sinema refuse to sign on to the reconciliation. This statement has the potential to end up like one of Obama's red lines.

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It seems the White House is seeing what I predicted in this thread, that the deal may completely collapse and nothing will pass, and is walking back its red line of vetoing the deal without a reconciliation bill.

Joe Biden said the quiet part out loud and paid a price for it.

Reveling in his bipartisan win on infrastructure Thursday, the president declared that he would not sign the deal he’d just endorsed unless a separate bill including his other domestic priorities arrived on his desk, too. Whether deliberate or not, the comment set off a cascade of events in and out of the Oval Office that had aides putting out fires the next day and raised questions about the future of their prized $1 trillion bipartisan deal.

With Republicans threatening to abandon the deal, Steve Ricchetti, one of Biden’s lead negotiators, who a day earlier had been credited by the president for his efforts shepherding the deal, scrambled to contain the fallout on Capitol Hill. Both he and Louisa Terrell, the White House top congressional liaison, told the senators involved in negotiations that Biden was enthusiastic about the deal and would soon hit the road to tout its benefits as well as the merits of bipartisanship.

According to two sources familiar with his efforts, Ricchetti told Republicans that the White House was going to clarify the comments.

A White House official disputed the notion that Ricchetti suggested Biden may have misspoke — an impression that those two sources said was left. The official said that the president’s team anticipated dustups during the early phases of the process and noted that White House press secretary Jen Psaki several times during Friday’s briefing took a softer tone than Biden did on Thursday.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/25/biden-infrastructure-bill-496412

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I've made this point before on the SALT deduction, but I'm mystified that this forum's leftist posters so strongly oppose restoring it. Combined with the lowering of the highest tax bracket, the SALT deduction limit functioned as a discriminatory measure, singling out upper middle class people in NY, NJ, IL, and CA as an undesirable minority to be punished because they turned against Trump in 2016. Now I'm not necessarily opposed to raising the highest tax bracket again, but this injustice that was imposed by Trump as a purely political punitive measure needs to be redressed.

If leftists don't care about that, perhaps they may want to understand that their gerrymanders in NY/NJ/IL/CA could easily collapse and cost them 15-20 suburban House seats if these upper middle class high propensity voters turn against them and decided to vote Republican to put a check on Biden. Do you really want that to happen when you could have kept them voting D by
 fixing the Trumpist injustice done upon them and giving them a tax break?

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This is why we don't count our chickens

Indeed, which is why you probably shouldn't be taking a victory lap now, because the most likely outcomes are still that the BIF passes on its own or nothing passes. It's a real demonstration of the Horseshoe Theory when the left is perfectly happy to act as a mirror image of the hated Freedom Caucus, make perfect an enemy of the good, and derail their party's agenda as a result.

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This is why we don't count our chickens

Indeed, which is why you probably shouldn't be taking a victory lap now, because the most likely outcomes are still that the BIF passes on its own or nothing passes. It's a real demonstration of the Horseshoe Theory when the left is perfectly happy to act as a mirror image of the hated Freedom Caucus, make perfect an enemy of the good, and derail their party's agenda as a result.

You have this completely backwards.

Moderates are the ones threatening to detail the agenda.

So said the Freedom Caucus who were sure that they were going to repeal Obamacare and that those RINOs wanted to keep parts of it around and were derailing their agenda. If they weren't so rigid on that the Republicans may have actually come up with a replacement that could have passed Congress, like they came up with a tax bill, and some laws that even got Democratic votes like the Dodd-Frank rollback and the First Step Act.

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Bernie Sanders just tweeted that he is urging dems to vote no on thurs

Total nonsense, he tweeted that no BIF should be passed without reconciliation. He didn't urge a no vote. He didn't even use the word vote.

Yes he did:

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1442929430117044224

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So let’s just remember where we are, because I think it’s helpful and certain posters are forgetting or being dishonest about it.

Biden rolled out an omnibus infrastructure package. Republicans being Republicans, immediately rallied to oppose it out reflex. The argument they came up with is ‘infrastructure is only road and bridges’, one of the all time dumbest takes I’ve seen in a sea of them. Meanwhile, Manchin and Sinema, being Manchin and Sinema, wanted to publicly be obstacles to President Biden. What they came up with they don’t think reconciliation should be used and wanted a bill through regular order. That their instance on keeping archaic procedures that have made regular order impossible is the whole reason that we need giant omnibus reconciliation packages was quietly sidestepped. What they did was went to the GOP to negotiate a package from the starting point of the GOP’s nonsensical stand that only roads count, hacking off the other 75-80% of the program. The rest of the caucus agreed to let them go forward on their compromise bill in exchange for beginning the reconciliation process, with both bills, comprising a single package, being slated for a house vote at the same time.

My main point here is that it’s not reconciliation and infrastructure, it’s a single package split out into two bills at the demand of two Senators, and calling the BIF ‘the infrastructure bill’ give an incorrect impression.
The other thing that is important to note is the sequence of events, because it’s of what comes next.

Immediately after the Sinema portion passed the Senate, Manchin and Sinema immediately balked at bringing up a reconciliation bill and began demanding that the smaller end of the package be passed before they would do anything. I’m not exaggerating when I say immediately here, literally the same day that the agreement was reached between them and the 48 Senate Dems, they began saying either that their bill wasn’t linked and insisting that it be decoupled from reconciliation. 9 (of 220) house reps then forced Pelosi to schedule a vote on the Sinema bill by threatening to kill reconciliation before it started. These same 9 (down to about four now as best I can tell) and a larger group of house Dems are refusing to approve the BIB until a reconciliation package is brought forward.

Pelosi pushed the vote back to Thursday and that’s where they are at. This isn’t about the merits of either bill, we are watching a power play from 11 congressmen attempting to drive the entire agenda.

This post ignores a simple reality; the reconciliation bill in its current form cannot pass Congress. The votes aren't there. This would still be true even if it were combined with the infrastructure bill. It's actually a work of genius to split the two bills, so that there is a chance that something got done even in the likely event that the reconciliation negotiations collapse.

Let's put it this way, if Manchin switches parties tomorrow, then the reconciliation vanishes, and what will Democrats do? They'll vote for BIF or they'll get nothing. Progressives can acknowledge this reality or they'll get nothing in the end, just like the Freedom Caucus got nothing in their quest to repeal Obamacare.

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Terry McAuliffe says $3.5T reconciliation price tag is 'too high'

National politics seeped into Tuesday night’s Virginia governor debate, with the candidates weighing in on the reconciliation price tag, the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and a potential 2024 presidential run for former President Donald Trump.

Former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe said he thought $3.5 trillion was “too high” for the Democrats‘ reconciliation bill.

“They got to stop their little chitty-chat up there, and it is time for them to pass it. Let’s get this infrastructure bill passed for America,” McAuliffe said, slamming lawmakers for this week’s chaotic back-and-forth on how to get President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package through Congress.

This is going to trigger some folks here. McAuliffe is basically the definition of an establishment Democrat. Either he believes what he is saying here, or he feels the need to say it to win a statewide election in Virginia. Neither is a good sign for the progressives.

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Addendum:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/us/politics/republicans-infrastructure-bill.html

If I were Portman, I would be trying to cut a deal wherein Manchin pledges to defer reconciliation until say next year in exchange for the Pubs delivering enough votes for infrastructure to offset the progressive defections.

This is very unlikely to happen, but it would be like winning the lottery. The BIF passes, the reconciliation vanishes, both Trump and the progressives get owned.

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Progressives can't cave. If the coporatists won't play ball, then kill their precious "bipartisan" bill. 2022 is going to be a blood bath, and if Democrats can't pass this popular, important reconciliation bill, then they deserve every bit of what's coming.

That's like a suicide bomber demanding a ransom for not blowing up everyone.

You've got your analogies backward. The BIF was created at the insistence of Sinema and Manchin, to give them a big showy win for bipartisanship in exchange for starting work on the actual BBB through reconciliation,with the understanding that both would pass at the same time.
Now they are demanding that they won't do anything until their pay-off is complete.

Pass the infrastructure bill right now.

There is literally no reason to hold it back.

If you pass 20% of the infrastructure bill now, the other 80% will be killed.

I don't see how you are not getting that.

You're just abusing the plain English meaning of words now. By no reasonable definition could you call the reconciliation bill "infrastructure".

I do understand why you're doing it, though, since if you called the reconciliation bill a welfare and wealth redistribution bill, which is what it is, it wouldn't have any hope of passing.

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At this moment, Pelosi in all likelyhood delays the vote. I'd be really surprised otherwise.

She stated in a press conference 10 minutes ago they're having a vote today.

She must have the votes from Republicans then, because all the messaging from the progressive caucus has indicated that they're a united front in voting against the bill. She wouldn't bring it for a vote if it wasn't going to pass.

Actually it's not true that Pelosi never brings up a vote that won't pass. She brought up the TARP bill in late September 2008 and the vote failed. I remember this clearly because .SPX dropped 9% as a result. The next time TARP was brought up it passed.

Maybe she's going for something similar here, let the vote fail and use the negative reaction to scare the progressives into voting for it.

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34 House Republicans just voted to fund the government, that's probably the maximum number that could vote yes on the infrastructure. It might be enough to get a majority. We'll see, report is that Pelosi is still working on it.

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Well I never declared the reconciliation bill dead, but I was very foolish to believe Gottheimer.

Not your fault. Gottheimer was trying to will it into being and news has been confusing all day.


Feels good to be wrong doesn’t it?

It does indeed, now it's time to negotiate, with leverage.

Fine, the progressives didn't fold like a tent tonight, but declaring victory is greatly premature. Manchin destroyed your talking point that he was working to kill reconciliation by releasing his counter-proposal. Clearly there was progress being made on a deal, and crucially, the negotiations were being done between Manchin, Sinema, Pelosi, Schumer, and the White House. Bernie Sanders and the House Progressive Caucus were not in the room. 

Here's a reasonable scenario for the weekend; these folks announce a deal on reconciliation, $2T with Manchin's suggested rollbacks of the Trump tax law, but with spending cut approximately in half, climate provisions mostly gutted, and some random kickback to Arizona to get Sinema to sign on. The progressives will howl to the moon that it's not enough, it was a sellout to energy companies, they were cut out of decision making, blah blah blah. But Biden will endorse it publicly, and then the leadership will present it to the House and Senate, and say it's this or nothing, and that point the progressives will mostly fall in line and vote for the infrastructure bill.

I stand by my statement that the reconciliation bill as it is now cannot pass Congress. We'll see what the final deal is but I think it will be far closer to Manchin's proposal.

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KILL THE BILL!!!

House DEMs should vote against if it comes to floor Tomorrow.

Manchin flips DEM > PUB, so be it....

Manchin is no Doug Jones....

A deal is in sight, right now for around $2T. Assuming there is one, then your choice is the reduced bill + infrastructure or nothing. You'll take nothing from that, just because you didn't get a pony? If Manchin really switches parties, then reconciliation is totally dead, and your choice is infrastructure or nothing. You'll take nothing from that? This is seriously irrational decision making and behavior of a spoiled child. Progressives really are becoming the mirror image of the Freedom Caucus.

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KILL THE BILL!!!

House DEMs should vote against if it comes to floor Tomorrow.

Manchin flips DEM > PUB, so be it....

Manchin is no Doug Jones....

A deal is in sight, right now for around $2T. Assuming there is one, then your choice is the reduced bill + infrastructure or nothing. You'll take nothing from that, just because you didn't get a pony? If Manchin really switches parties, then reconciliation is totally dead, and your choice is infrastructure or nothing. You'll take nothing from that? This is seriously irrational decision making and behavior of a spoiled child. Progressives really are becoming the mirror image of the Freedom Caucus.

Manchin is not going to the GOP. He can win never win a GOP primary, he is too liberal for that & has attack ads written all over him - From tax credits for green energy (which he said he will vote), ACA, Tax & spend many provisions & he is too conservative for the Dems.

Manchin is probably too pragmatic for this, but if he has political ambitions post-2024, he could setup a party that's between the Republicans and Democrats that operates in West Virginia only. It'd escape the national baggage that Democrats are dealing with there and could probably save any remaining Democratic officeholders outside of naturally more liberal places like Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown. The Democratic rump remaining in the state would then go further left, but electorally would be the Liberal Democrats of the UK, getting 5% of the vote. Remove Manchin and what is the West Virginia Democratic Party, Paula Jean Swearingen? (Who left the party and is now running the People's Party in the state.)

If he stays Democrat and runs again in 2024, I think he could turn away anyone in a primary, but in his primary it's going to be FDR 1938 Purge for national activists and whoever they are backing.

Already Immigration Reform, Voting rights, Min Wage (which should be easy) are off. If Reconciliations goes on, Biden becomes the worst President in history & has 0 accomplishments except some moderate hard infra (nowhere near as required) & some COVID emegerncy $. It will be a mid-term bloodbath.

Grow up.

The hostility towards Manchin by many on this forum seems to lose sight of the fact that if it weren't for him, that seat would be in Republican hands, and the Senate would possess a Republican majority. That means there would be absolutely no chance of either the reconciliation package or the bipartisan infrastructure bill passing.

The problem with many on this forum is they're damn idiots. They think that we have democratic institutions but as long as your side has the most votes, everything the party has a majority for should pass, and that any member of the party that does not back it is a traitor. No, everyone has a vote, and anything that does not get a majority of votes does not pass. That means in a very tightly held majority, nay votes from the majority matter and yea votes from the minority matter. The state of the House and Senate is that the Democratic caucus has to have unanimity (Senate) or close to it (House)  to get anything passed without Republican support. That was the election result provided by the American people last November. They don't have unanimity. So they either have to achieve unanimity or crossover and get some Republican support for what they want to pass. That is their only 2 options. If you don't/can't/won't understand that, bye, go find another forum to post on because legislative practice and governance is too difficult a subject for you to understand and grasp, and says something negatively about whatever institution you received your education at.

If you don't want Manchin and Sinema to have any power or leverage in what's going on, great, go find 2 Republican Senators to support your legislation as written!

Joe Manchin said it himself:

"I've never been a liberal in any way, shape, or form," Manchin said as a large group of reporters formed around him on Thursday. “I don't fault any of them who believe that they're much more progressive and much more liberal, God bless them. And all they need to do is, we have to elect more liberals.”

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https://mobile.twitter.com/mikedebonis/status/1444043154777251842

Before the progressives here start high-fiving again, I'll shamelessly re-use my post from last night, since it still holds. Joe didn't make any promises today on what would be in the reconciliation bill, just that there would be an agreement on it. It's still far more likely it will more closely resemble Manchin's vision than the current $3.5T; PredictIt is pricing anything above $2.75T at 1c. I could see Joe saying to Manchin behind closed doors that if they can hammer out a deal, he'll go to the House and jam it down the progressives' throats.

Fine, the progressives didn't fold like a tent tonight, but declaring victory is greatly premature. Manchin destroyed your talking point that he was working to kill reconciliation by releasing his counter-proposal. Clearly there was progress being made on a deal, and crucially, the negotiations were being done between Manchin, Sinema, Pelosi, Schumer, and the White House. Bernie Sanders and the House Progressive Caucus were not in the room. 

Here's a reasonable scenario for the weekend; these folks announce a deal on reconciliation, $2T with Manchin's suggested rollbacks of the Trump tax law, but with spending cut approximately in half, climate provisions mostly gutted, and some random kickback to Arizona to get Sinema to sign on. The progressives will howl to the moon that it's not enough, it was a sellout to energy companies, they were cut out of decision making, blah blah blah. But Biden will endorse it publicly, and then the leadership will present it to the House and Senate, and say it's this or nothing, and that point the progressives will mostly fall in line and vote for the infrastructure bill.

I stand by my statement that the reconciliation bill as it is now cannot pass Congress. We'll see what the final deal is but I think it will be far closer to Manchin's proposal.

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Since when did Biden suddenly become part off the based wing of the party?

snipped image

It's hilarious that the progressives are high-fiving over this meeting when they didn't pay attention to the details. In the same meeting he said that the reconciliation will be around $2T. It's unlikely progressives will be high-fiving once they see what that deal contains and then what will happen afterwards. Biden is already setting up for what I described; he's going to make a deal with Sinema and Manchin, cut the spending in half, probably remove most of the climate and prescription drug stuff to satisfy them. The progressives will howl to the moon about how they didn't get their pony, but this time Biden and congressional leaders will not be on their side and will force them to accept it.

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Since when did Biden suddenly become part off the based wing of the party?

snipped image

It's hilarious that the progressives are high-fiving over this meeting when they didn't pay attention to the details. In the same meeting he said that the reconciliation will be around $2T. It's unlikely progressives will be high-fiving once they see what that deal contains and then what will happen afterwards. Biden is already setting up for what I described; he's going to make a deal with Sinema and Manchin, cut the spending in half, probably remove most of the climate and prescription drug stuff to satisfy them. The progressives will howl to the moon about how they didn't get their pony, but this time Biden and congressional leaders will not be on their side and will force them to accept it.

Funny how you went from

I do understand why you're doing it, though, since if you called the reconciliation bill a welfare and wealth redistribution bill, which is what it is, it wouldn't have any hope of passing.

To celebrating owning the libs because the big scary Marxism is getting shaved down by about 30%.

I was making the point that for once, the Democrats had done a good job of messaging by abusing the English language and rebranding their welfare bill successfully as "infrastructure", which everyone agrees needs investment. If they had branded their bill accurately, it would have been tarred quickly in the public sphere with the usual criticisms of welfare and it would have had no chance of passing in any form. The $3.5T number was always dead but I never said the reconciliation was dead.

Biden is no true believer in progressive causes. Remember he was the senator from Delaware, the domestic tax haven where 70% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated. He's already said the reconciliation will be around $2T. Watch him bargain away progressive priorities like climate change, free community college, etc to get Manchin and Sinema to sign on and he can get himself a win on the board.

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Cope

LMAO, am I the one coping? When your 6T bill is down to 2T and there's a decent chance it will cut out the progressive priorities, in particular climate change? When clearly "what Joe Manchin will accept" is going to be the most important deciding factor in what goes into the bill?

Yeah, I'd rather see a $0 reconciliation bill but now I'm feeling optimistic that it won't be too disruptive. It's not an unreasonable price to pay to get Trump out of office and get a good infrastructure bill.

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Cope

LMAO, am I the one coping? When your 6T bill is down to 2T and there's a decent chance it will cut out the progressive priorities, in particular climate change? When clearly "what Joe Manchin will accept" is going to be the most important deciding factor in what goes into the bill?

Yeah, I'd rather see a $0 reconciliation bill but now I'm feeling optimistic that it won't be too disruptive. It's not an unreasonable price to pay to get Trump out of office and get a good infrastructure bill.

Seethe

No U

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Cope

LMAO, am I the one coping? When your 6T bill is down to 2T and there's a decent chance it will cut out the progressive priorities, in particular climate change? When clearly "what Joe Manchin will accept" is going to be the most important deciding factor in what goes into the bill?

Yeah, I'd rather see a $0 reconciliation bill but now I'm feeling optimistic that it won't be too disruptive. It's not an unreasonable price to pay to get Trump out of office and get a good infrastructure bill.

You are a uniquely awful person. If your priority is "Don't be disruptive", then you need to take a look at yourself.

Side note, if you're cheering the removal of climate change provisions, you're an evil person.

It's really easy to spend others' money, particularly from halfway across the world. Frankly, I would be mostly fine with the new taxes if they were put to good use, like  infrastructure, funding scientific and industrial research, or reducing the deficit. Putting it into a random collection of social programs that I have no use for, of course I'm going to oppose that.

On climate change, pushing that is a great way to get Trump re-elected as president. It might poll well, but it's only an animating issue among progressives who would vote Democratic anyway, and pushing it could cause substantial economic damage; remember the US is the world's leading oil and natural gas producer. Look at the 2020 election, Biden's gaffe in the second debate made Texas uncompetitive and PA a nail-biter, while Dems couldn't make headway in FL and NC where one might hope to gain from the climate change issue. As a policy issue I'm indifferent towards climate change, but my #1 (and #2 and #3) priority is to keep Trump out of office and climate change is such a political loser that it could seriously put that in jeopardy.

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So what happened, for anyone paying attention, is that the Biden admin saw off an intraparty challenge from a fringe group and got his party back on track.

What the media by and large is reporting is reporting it as some huge loss for the President and Democratic leadership and Democrats are collapsing. Other than some weird behavior from Pelosi, Democratic leadership has made it pretty clear that they hadn’t deviated at all from the original line of we are passing the whole package and the power play from 11 congressmen didn’t change that.

I think they are so used to hippie punching that the idea that the right (and in this case the extreme rightward fringe) being the issue just doesn’t compute.

You cherry-pick what you want to hear and ignore the rest. Yes, Biden got the infrastructure vote delayed, but he also conceded that "what Manchin and Sinema will accept" dictates what's in the reconciliation bill. This all but assures that progressive priorities will be cut down substantially if not cut out. The magic trick that Biden pulled was that somehow the progressives are claiming it as a win instead of realizing what is about to happen.

I'm going to say it again, once the final deal comes out, you won't be high-fiving any more.   So have fun pretending you've won because you won't be able to keep up the delusion for long.

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So what happened, for anyone paying attention, is that the Biden admin saw off an intraparty challenge from a fringe group and got his party back on track.

What the media by and large is reporting is reporting it as some huge loss for the President and Democratic leadership and Democrats are collapsing. Other than some weird behavior from Pelosi, Democratic leadership has made it pretty clear that they hadn’t deviated at all from the original line of we are passing the whole package and the power play from 11 congressmen didn’t change that.

I think they are so used to hippie punching that the idea that the right (and in this case the extreme rightward fringe) being the issue just doesn’t compute.

You cherry-pick what you want to hear and ignore the rest. Yes, Biden got the infrastructure vote delayed, but he also conceded that "what Manchin and Sinema will accept" dictates what's in the reconciliation bill. This all but assures that progressive priorities will be cut down substantially if not cut out. The magic trick that Biden pulled was that somehow the progressives are claiming it as a win instead of realizing what is about to happen.

I'm going to say it again, once the final deal comes out, you won't be high-fiving any more.   So have fun pretending you've won because you won't be able to keep up the delusion for long.

You completely misunderstand progressives are going for but that’s not surprising

Cope

You were the one a few days ago claiming that the $3.5T will pass; there was zero talk of cutting it down. You were the one a few days ago actively bashing the infrastructure bill. But you'll try to claim that the infrastructure bill and the watered down reconciliation bill, likely without climate provisions or prescription drug pricing, is a win for progressives? Now THAT is coping.

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So what happened, for anyone paying attention, is that the Biden admin saw off an intraparty challenge from a fringe group and got his party back on track.

What the media by and large is reporting is reporting it as some huge loss for the President and Democratic leadership and Democrats are collapsing. Other than some weird behavior from Pelosi, Democratic leadership has made it pretty clear that they hadn’t deviated at all from the original line of we are passing the whole package and the power play from 11 congressmen didn’t change that.

I think they are so used to hippie punching that the idea that the right (and in this case the extreme rightward fringe) being the issue just doesn’t compute.

You cherry-pick what you want to hear and ignore the rest. Yes, Biden got the infrastructure vote delayed, but he also conceded that "what Manchin and Sinema will accept" dictates what's in the reconciliation bill. This all but assures that progressive priorities will be cut down substantially if not cut out. The magic trick that Biden pulled was that somehow the progressives are claiming it as a win instead of realizing what is about to happen.

I'm going to say it again, once the final deal comes out, you won't be high-fiving any more.   So have fun pretending you've won because you won't be able to keep up the delusion for long.

You completely misunderstand progressives are going for but that’s not surprising

Cope

You were the one a few days ago claiming that the $3.5T will pass; there was zero talk of cutting it down. You were the one a few days ago actively bashing the infrastructure bill. But you'll try to claim that the infrastructure bill and the watered down reconciliation bill, likely without climate provisions or prescription drug pricing, is a win for progressives? Now THAT is coping.

Aside from your delusional and complete misunderstanding of where progressives stand (I mean really man, you have no idea). Please tell me where I said 3.5 trillion will pass.

Also most everything you say reeks of elitism and apathy towards common people.

As of Thursday night, progressives had the following stance, "$3.5T, not a penny less, if moderates won't agree we kill the infrastructure bill." Go back a few pages in this thread, it was all over there, you guys were spamming it. Zero talk of cutting down the bill. From that stance, the only way progressives could win is if that $3.5T actually passed; anything else is a loss. Now, if you didn't take that hardline stance, you could easily claim now that infrastructure + $2T bill is a win, but I'm going not going to let you get away with rewriting history from literally two days ago.

[compucomp]

So what happened, for anyone paying attention, is that the Biden admin saw off an intraparty challenge from a fringe group and got his party back on track.

What the media by and large is reporting is reporting it as some huge loss for the President and Democratic leadership and Democrats are collapsing. Other than some weird behavior from Pelosi, Democratic leadership has made it pretty clear that they hadn’t deviated at all from the original line of we are passing the whole package and the power play from 11 congressmen didn’t change that.

I think they are so used to hippie punching that the idea that the right (and in this case the extreme rightward fringe) being the issue just doesn’t compute.

You cherry-pick what you want to hear and ignore the rest. Yes, Biden got the infrastructure vote delayed, but he also conceded that "what Manchin and Sinema will accept" dictates what's in the reconciliation bill. This all but assures that progressive priorities will be cut down substantially if not cut out. The magic trick that Biden pulled was that somehow the progressives are claiming it as a win instead of realizing what is about to happen.

I'm going to say it again, once the final deal comes out, you won't be high-fiving any more.   So have fun pretending you've won because you won't be able to keep up the delusion for long.

You completely misunderstand progressives are going for but that’s not surprising

Cope

You were the one a few days ago claiming that the $3.5T will pass; there was zero talk of cutting it down. You were the one a few days ago actively bashing the infrastructure bill. But you'll try to claim that the infrastructure bill and the watered down reconciliation bill, likely without climate provisions or prescription drug pricing, is a win for progressives? Now THAT is coping.

Aside from your delusional and complete misunderstanding of where progressives stand (I mean really man, you have no idea). Please tell me where I said 3.5 trillion will pass.

Also most everything you say reeks of elitism and apathy towards common people.

As of Thursday night, progressives had the following stance, "$3.5T, not a penny less, if moderates won't agree we kill the infrastructure bill." Go back a few pages in this thread, it was all over there, you guys were spamming it. Zero talk of cutting down the bill. From that stance, the only way progressives could win is if that $3.5T actually passed; anything else is a loss. Now, if you didn't take that hardline stance, you could easily claim now that infrastructure + $2T bill is a win, but I'm going not going to let you get away with rewriting history from literally two days ago.

You're just making things up now    . Wowee.

No U