Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Deal!

[B-Man]

 

 

 

Anyway, any analysis of whether the 13 who voted yes committed a mortal or just a venial sin should start with this question:

 

Was the bipartisan infrastructure bill going to pass no matter what? To which the answer is of course it was.

 

Jazz is entirely right when he says “there was simply no way that [Democrats] were going to allow their party to march into 2022 with absolutely nothing to show for all of their efforts.” Whether it would have passed last night without Republican votes is an open question but whether it would have passed eventually — and almost certainly soon — isn’t. Which is why, as much as I share Phil Klein’s angst over more spending, there was no outcome here in which that spending doesn’t happen, with or without Republicans on board.

 

The only outcomes on the table were the bill passing exclusively with Democratic votes or the bill passing in a bipartisan way. And since it’s popular with voters, there’s a strong case politically to be made that the House GOP should have tried to take partial credit for it, whatever its flaws. That’s not to say that bad but popular bills should always earn bipartisan support when passage is inevitable. But inevitability does factor into the calculus.

 

Manchin has staked his defense of the filibuster on the idea that bipartisanship is still possible. He was vindicated on that when the roads-and-bridges bill passed the Senate with 19 Republican votes. But if it had gone down in the House due to Republicans voting no a party line, his reasoning would have taken a hit. Instead he’s vindicated again this morning, further aligning him with the GOP.

 

Donovan’s also right that the bill might have passed last night even if all Republicans had voted no. Six members of the Squad opposed it; if no Republicans had voted yes those six votes would have been enough to kill it. That’s why righties are furious with the 13 defectors this morning, because they snatched Democratic victory from the jaws of defeat — supposedly. But would the Squad have voted no if there were no Republican yes votes to bail them out? At least one member was watching the count closely before casting her “no” vote:

 

 

And meanwhile, by voting the way they did, they may have strengthened Manchin’s hand in driving a hard bargain on reconciliation. Now that the bill he really cares about has passed, he’s free to dictate his terms to progressives on Build Back Better. One Republican who voted yes made that point afterward:

 

“I weakened their [progressives’] hand. They have no leverage now,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who had shaped a GOP-friendly spin on her vote by the time she exited the chamber: “I voted against AOC and the squad tonight.”

 

Malliotakis told Axios that progressives will no longer be able to hold the bill hostage and predicted Build Back Better will be “drastically weakened” in the Senate or “die altogether” as a result of the infrastructure bill passing.

 

The left never had any leverage over Manchin. In the end the bipartisan bill would have passed one way or another and any reconciliation bill would have needed to be to his liking. But it’s possible that if progressives had kept the bipartisan bill bottled up in the House, the avalanche of bad press that followed about Democrats not being able to govern might have put pressure on him to make some concessions on Build Back Better in the hopes of getting something passed sooner rather than later.

 

Now he doesn’t have to concede anything. The roads-and-bridges bill is through; Biden and the party have their big win. Manchin can proceed with reconciliation — or not — at his leisure. To the extent that he wasn’t fully in control of the process before, he is now thanks to the 13 GOPers who voted yes. Maybe he’ll celebrate by walking over to the other chamber and tearing up a copy of the House version of BBB right in front of the Squad once it passes.

 

 

https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/11/06/did-the-13-republicans-who-voted-for-the-infrastructure-bill-help-or-hurt-democrats-n427461

 

 

 

 

 

[Irv]

Bi-partisan my ass.  What a joke.  

[B-Man]

 

 

Democrat Senator: "Everyone needs to get comfortable" that BBB will not pass in Senate

 

 

The House passed the smaller infrastructure bill that garnered bipartisan support late Friday night. The bill addresses real spending for infrastructure, not the liberal wish list of cradle to grave social program spending in the second infrastructure bill. Together, the two bills comprise Biden’s domestic agenda. With the passage of the smaller bill – $1.2T – it’s full speed ahead to now move to the second bill.

 

The social spending bill isn’t written yet, but House Democrats promised to agree on the framework of it and pass it in the House when it comes up. We’ll see if that holds true when the time comes. House progressives have tried to exert their demands to jam up Speaker Pelosi’s work to save Joe Biden from complete embarrassment with her inability to get his agenda through. It turns out that moderate Democrats had more sway in the end. If nothing else, the long and chaotic process that led to the vote late Friday night showed that Pelosi’s long-heralded skill in bill management has slipped.

 

The second bill is nowhere near ready for a vote in the Senate. The Build Back Better Act is supposed to be taken up in the House on November 15 but that assumes that moderate Democrats see the numbers from CBO that they want to see to show the bill will do what is promised, that the numbers line up. The only reason the first bill passed was because of some Republican support. There won’t be Republican support for BBB.

 

Over in the Senate, some Democrats are already preparing progressives for reality. The BBB bill coming out of the Senate will not be the same as that coming out of the House. The two power hitters with the Senate bill will be Senator Joe Manchin and the Senate parliamentarian. Senator Sinema will be Manchin’s wingman (woman), he won’t be out on a limb alone. When push comes to shove, more Democrats will join in with objections on some aspects of BBB as their constituents weigh in.

 

https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2021/11/06/democrat-senator-everyone-needs-to-get-comfortable-that-bbb-will-not-pass-in-senate-n427422

 

 

.

[BillStime]

3 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Democrat Senator: "Everyone needs to get comfortable" that BBB will not pass in Senate

 

 

The House passed the smaller infrastructure bill that garnered bipartisan support late Friday night. The bill addresses real spending for infrastructure, not the liberal wish list of cradle to grave social program spending in the second infrastructure bill. Together, the two bills comprise Biden’s domestic agenda. With the passage of the smaller bill – $1.2T – it’s full speed ahead to now move to the second bill.

 

The social spending bill isn’t written yet, but House Democrats promised to agree on the framework of it and pass it in the House when it comes up. We’ll see if that holds true when the time comes. House progressives have tried to exert their demands to jam up Speaker Pelosi’s work to save Joe Biden from complete embarrassment with her inability to get his agenda through. It turns out that moderate Democrats had more sway in the end. If nothing else, the long and chaotic process that led to the vote late Friday night showed that Pelosi’s long-heralded skill in bill management has slipped.

 

The second bill is nowhere near ready for a vote in the Senate. The Build Back Better Act is supposed to be taken up in the House on November 15 but that assumes that moderate Democrats see the numbers from CBO that they want to see to show the bill will do what is promised, that the numbers line up. The only reason the first bill passed was because of some Republican support. There won’t be Republican support for BBB.

 

Over in the Senate, some Democrats are already preparing progressives for reality. The BBB bill coming out of the Senate will not be the same as that coming out of the House. The two power hitters with the Senate bill will be Senator Joe Manchin and the Senate parliamentarian. Senator Sinema will be Manchin’s wingman (woman), he won’t be out on a limb alone. When push comes to shove, more Democrats will join in with objections on some aspects of BBB as their constituents weigh in.

 

https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2021/11/06/democrat-senator-everyone-needs-to-get-comfortable-that-bbb-will-not-pass-in-senate-n427422

 

 

.

Thank you Brandon!!!

[Tenhigh]

Good, I am glad this bill got passed. It's probably bigger than it needs to be, but we need work on our roads, bridges and airports.

[Doc]

Hopefully the money goes to true infrastructure.

[BillStime]

 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

9 hours ago, Tenhigh said:

Good, I am glad this bill got passed. It's probably bigger than it needs to be, but we need work on our roads, bridges and airports.

I hope it does too.
 

of course the squad voted it down because I suppose it didn’t outlaw cow flatulence or something.  Even worse when the press asked Joe during his victory Lao speech when we’d start seeing impact he said no one knows?!?! 
 

how the hell do you get  that kind of money without knowing when to start using it? 

[B-Man]

 

 

Here's Everything America Gets For $1.2 Trillion In Infrastructure Spending - Including The Crazy Stuff

 

 

After Friday night's 11th-hour vote in the House resulted in the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill - thanks to 13 uniparty Republicans who joined the Congressional Black Caucus in short-sheeting House Progressives - the Wall Street Journal and Forbes have published refreshers of what what America is supposedly getting out of the largest investment in infrastructure in more than a decade.From 10,000 feet, investments span refurbishing aging roads, bridges and ports, replacing lead pipes, upgrading and hardening the nation's power grid, and of course - a healthy investment in 'infrastructure' to battle the ever-looming man-made climate change disaster

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/heres-everything-america-gets-12-trillion-infrastructure-spending-including-crazy-stuff

 

 

[Chef Jim]

11 hours ago, Tenhigh said:

Good, I am glad this bill got passed. It's probably bigger than it needs to be, but we need work on our roads, bridges and airports.

 

It's likely going to be a looooooong wait.  They've been working on all the roads and overpasses here in SoCal for years.   Why were we able to build a massive military machine "overnight" in the 40's in response to WWII and the Nazis but it now takes 10 years to reconfigure an offramp?  

 

Oh and I totally forgot Jerry Brown's high speed rail rightly referred to by some as the Browndoggle.  

Edited November 7, 2021 by Chef Jim

[Doc]

2 hours ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

I hope it does too.
 

of course the squad voted it down because I suppose it didn’t outlaw cow flatulence or something.  Even worse when the press asked Joe during his victory Lao speech when we’d start seeing impact he said no one knows?!?! 
 

how the hell do you get  that kind of money without knowing when to start using it? 

 

More "shovel-ready" jobs?

[ComradeKayAdams]

21 hours ago, B-Man said:

But would the Squad have voted no if there were no Republican yes votes to bail them out?

 

https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/11/06/did-the-13-republicans-who-voted-for-the-infrastructure-bill-help-or-hurt-democrats-n427461

 

Good article, B-Man! I highlighted the question that I want to address because I suspect it’s going to be a hot topic of debate among my fellow comrades this week. I suspect the answers are going to fall into 3 approximate camps:

 

1. The Marxist-Leninist revolutionary types who insist it was all political theater and that the Squad would have bowed down to their corporate Democratic Party overlords if their 6 votes had been needed.

2. The social democrat reformer types who believe the Squad would have still held the progressive line because they are sincere political agents who want to remain accountable to their constituents.

3. The sh!tlib fauxgressives who don’t care about the question and want to blame the Squad for holding up Democratic Party progress and not helping to deliver infrastructure aid to their respective districts.

 

Let’s quickly review the situation:

 

1. Nancy Pelosi is one smart Machiavellian cookie and has a reputation for never allowing a bill proposal to be voted on without already knowing she has the required votes to pass it.

2. 218 House votes were needed to pass this bill, 215 Democrats voted in favor, 200 Republicans voted against it, 13 GOP’ers “betrayed” their party, and 6 Squad members (AOC, Omar, Pressley, Tlaib, Bush, Bowman) “betrayed” theirs.

3. 88 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus voted in line with Pelosi. This included Jayapal, Khanna, Porter, Newman, and Pocan.

4. I’m familiar with a few of the 13 GOP betrayers: Andrew Garbarino, Chris Smith, and Nicole Malliotakis. They represent districts that would not have looked favorably upon a vote against infrastructure aid. Nicole in particular is from Staten Island and is absolutely a real headache to us progressives, as the article suggests. So I think Pelosi and the Squad probably already knew how at least some of these 13 people were going to vote.

5. There’s a “rotating villain” theory in democratic politics that is worth mentioning. It suggests that corporate politicians choose scapegoats to kill populist legislation. Their choices are based on who is most likely to handle the political blowback at the time. Regarding the budget reconciliation bill, for example, Manchin and Sinema have been selected to be the Democratic Party villains du jour.

 

Commie Kay’s Conclusion: Hmmm…yes, sadly this reeks of political theater. The 6 Squad members reside in possibly the 6 most far-left districts in the country and had the most to lose from not holding the progressive line that Bernie Sanders implored. However, I’m not so sure about some of those Left Coasters like Jayapal, Khanna, and Porter. Will they get primaried from the left? Will they survive them? Perhaps they were the ones instructed to play the “rotating villain” roles that the 6 Squad members could not afford to play? Hmmm…don’t know. Don’t really care anymore, either. I’m going third-party in the generals if I don’t get my way in the Dem primaries.

 

13 hours ago, Tenhigh said:

Good, I am glad this bill got passed. It's probably bigger than it needs to be, but we need work on our roads, bridges and airports.

 

It’s actually way smaller than it should be, but the political environment in the post-Reagan era United States doesn’t allow for government to solve large-scale problems (unless it’s related to “national defense,” i.e. American imperialism). If you travel to countries in East Asia or Europe, you’ll see firsthand that government gridlock toward civil infrastructure projects isn’t globally ubiquitous. Other societies are able to collaborate like mature adults to solve problems. Most countries in the West, for example, are already way ahead of us with implementing the panoply of cutting-edge twenty-first century “green” infrastructure.

 

Speaking of “green” infrastructure, all of the major infrastructure legislation written to combat anthropogenic climate change is in the budget reconciliation bill that Manchin, Sinema, and the GOP will kill this month. Even if it were to pass, the climate provisions currently in it are a full order of magnitude in cost below our country’s responsibility to the Paris Agreement. Corporatist politicians of both parties who accept campaign donations (a.k.a. legal bribes) from fossil fuel industries moved in to whittle down the climate change components of the bill. This will be Joe Biden’s “green” legacy for future historians to detail: a repeated failure to mediate and lead.

[Governor]

I don’t have problem with the Squad voting against the bill. It’s a “privatized” infrastructure bill and even if you remove some of the non-related stuff progressives wanted in the bill, perhaps it didn’t bring home enough bacon for the people in those districts.

 

That’s government working the way it should.

 

Did Nancy know she had enough votes to provide cover for the Squad?

 

Absolutely! She’s a wizard and the best House leader in history.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Governor

[Governor]

When the extreme left and right hate something, it means it’s just exactly right.

 

Biden’s team has excelled at finding that place.

 

It’s not easy these days.

 

Commie Kay will have a few more bites at the apple.
 

Like Biden said, there’s no single piece of legislation that fixes the entire planet.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Governor

[Chef Jim]

1 hour ago, Governor said:

Absolutely! She’s a wizard and the best House leader in history.

 

Huh.  Lookie here folks.  We have an American political expert here in our midst.

 

Please Gov...regale us with your in depth knowledge and research that led you to this conclusion.  

[Governor]

9 minutes ago, Chef Jim said:

 

Huh.  Lookie here folks.  We have an American political expert here in our midst.

 

Please Gov...regale us with your in depth knowledge and research that led you to this conclusion.  

I can’t even enjoy yours tears anymore because it’s so tiresome.

[Chef Jim]

1 minute ago, Governor said:

I can’t even enjoy yours tears anymore because it’s so tiresome.

 

What tears dude?  I'm not crying.  I'm actually laughing at you by calling you out on your bull#### assertions that you never ever ever back up.  

 

Carry on BS Boy.......

 

 

[Tiberius]

Alright Joe Biden! Get ‘er done baby!!! He is a doer and is good for America 

21 hours ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Here's Everything America Gets For $1.2 Trillion In Infrastructure Spending - Including The Crazy Stuff

 

 

After Friday night's 11th-hour vote in the House resulted in the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill - thanks to 13 uniparty Republicans who joined the Congressional Black Caucus in short-sheeting House Progressives - the Wall Street Journal and Forbes have published refreshers of what what America is supposedly getting out of the largest investment in infrastructure in more than a decade.From 10,000 feet, investments span refurbishing aging roads, bridges and ports, replacing lead pipes, upgrading and hardening the nation's power grid, and of course - a healthy investment in 'infrastructure' to battle the ever-looming man-made climate change disaster

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/heres-everything-america-gets-12-trillion-infrastructure-spending-including-crazy-stuff

 

 

Cry babies gonna cry!!! 😂 😆 😝 

[SoCal Deek]

As many on here know, I’m no fan of the Biden Administration but I have no problem with the concept of an infrastructure bill. The best way to spend my tax dollars is true investment in things that’ll last…like construction! The money should stay in the US, and should provide construction jobs for Americans. And in the end we all get a road. Now…let’s see if any of that actually happens.

[Irv]

48 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

As many on here know, I’m no fan of the Biden Administration but I have no problem with the concept of an infrastructure bill. The best way to spend my tax dollars is true investment in things that’ll last…like construction! The money should stay in the US, and should provide construction jobs for Americans. And in the end we all get a road. Now…let’s see if any of that actually happens.

That money is all going to Democrat donors who will rob the American people and nothing will get built.  What a total waste.