Joe Biden’s presidency is hanging by a thread as his entire legislative agenda sits on the knife’s edge of total failure.
As it stands now, the passage of the $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” budget bill, the party’s cherished “For the People Act” voting rights bill, and the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by the Senate earlier this summer are all going down to defeat.
The radicals already believe they have compromised enough in reducing their spending demands from an incomprehensible $6 trillion to a slightly less insane $3.5 trillion. They are refusing to back the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that has a hard deadline to be voted on of September 27 unless the $3.5 trillion budget bill is passed first.
That’s not going to happen by September 27. The budget bill just has too many moving parts, too many hands in the cookie jar for everyone to come together and get something done.
Besides that, some Democrats are apparently waking up to the fact that the American people may love all the goodies the Democrats have loaded into their bills, but are blanching in terror at the $4.7 trillion combined price tag of the budget and infrastructure bills.
“Speaker Pelosi is absolutely holding the infrastructure bill hostage… There are not just nine or 10 Democrats who are concerned about how breathtakingly large the $4.7 trillion combined package is. I mean there might be 100 Democrats that have some concerns,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., told Fox News this week. ”
“I think Nancy Pelosi did this whole process a real disservice by linking them together so strongly and she continues to do that. And that makes it very difficult to bring Republicans to the party,” Johnson, a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus (PSC), added. “It’s hard to get excited about the trillion dollar deal if in any way it makes it more likely that the three-and-a-half trillion dollar deal passes.”
The Democrats and Joe Biden could have had their $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal signed and delivered months ago. But Pelosi bowed to the wishes of the radicals who feared a double-cross by the moderates and demanded that the two bills be linked. The radicals think that once the bipartisan bill is signed by Biden, the moderates will have zero incentive to sign on to the $3.5 trillion bill.
The radicals are probably right. But that distrust goes both ways.
While some Republicans are pointing their fingers at House progressives and Pelosi – Johnson called the “Squad” “legislative terrorists” – Hogan said Biden is fundamentally responsible for the tenuous situation.
“The real blame lies with the White House and the president because, you know, he he committed to us, to Republicans and Democrats, to the problem solvers, to our group in the Senate that he was going to push this bill,” Hogan said. “And it’s one thing to say you’re for a compromise and infrastructure bill. But, you know, it’s just kind of masquerading as compromise. If you say we’re not going to bring it up unless we can jam through all the other stuff in the three and a half trillion dollars. I mean, that’s a fake compromise. It’s a dishonest compromise.”
“Legislative terrorists” is good, but “Incendiaries” is more accurate. To spite their enemies, they are prepared to burn down the house — and the Senate.
There would still be a chance to salvage the situation if Joe Biden’s popularity was on the rise, not languishing in the 40s. But why should Democratic House members in competitive races in 2022 do any favors for a president who’s likely to drag them down to defeat if they appear to be too close to him?
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