Infrastructure Bill Negotiations Are Up Against A Monday Deadline

President Joe Biden continues his futile search for a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure with Republicans, who have no interest in negotiating in good faith with him. Their only interest is to see him fail – with an assist from Judas, er, Sen. Joe Manchin if possible.

Last week Biden offered a tax concession in infrastructure talks with key Republican and Progressives lost their minds. Relax. Biden knows that Republicans will reject whatever he offers, this is all about going through the motions to satisfy the prima donna Joe Manchin.

President Biden signaled at a private meeting on Wednesday that he would be open to significant revisions on the size of his infrastructure package and how it would be paid for in order to win Republican support, outlining a plan for about $1 trillion in new spending financed through tax changes that do not appear to raise the top corporate rate.

While Biden has not abandoned his call for these tax increases as part of his broader agenda, the moves are still a potential new concession in stalled talks over funding to improve the country’s roads, bridges, pipes and ports.

At issue is the component of Biden’s original infrastructure plan that would raise the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, unwinding the tax cuts the GOP adopted in 2017. Republicans have described this change as a political nonstarter as they seek to protect one of their accomplishments (sic) under former president Donald Trump.

In his meeting with the GOP’s top negotiator, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Biden raised the possibility he could take the proposed rate increase off the table in an attempt to broker a compromise, according to a person familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them. The president still intends to seek the tax increase, the source said, meaning the White House could pursue the policy outside of the infrastructure debate — or in the case that bipartisan negotiations ultimately collapse.

In its place, Biden shifted the focus to a different part of his infrastructure proposal, which would amount to a new minimum corporate tax of 15 percent. This change would take aim at dozens of profitable U.S. corporations that pay little to nothing to the federal government annually, the source said. The White House also proposed stepping up enforcement on corporations and wealthy earners who rely on loopholes to lessen their tax burdens, according to the person familiar with the talks.

POLITICO’s Playbook reported:

If you thought President Joe Biden’s offer to keep the corporate tax rate at 21% might yield a breakthrough on infrastructure … not so much. Biden told Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) this week he’d be open to imposing a 15% minimum tax instead. But ahead of another Biden-Capito meeting Friday (this one not in person), plenty of reporting suggests the GOP is bearish on this alternative.

The Washington Times reports that “Senate Republican negotiators are poised to reject President Biden’s proposal … They view the compromise offered by Mr. Biden as merely substituting one tax hike for another, said a congressional aide with knowledge of the negotiations. … The rejection of Mr. Biden’s compromise proposal signaled the negotiations, which were already at an impasse, are in jeopardy of collapse ahead of the administration’s self-imposed Monday deadline for a deal.”

And on Biden’s left flank, Progressives, who have generally been happier with the president than they expected, are losing patience. Or “losing their minds,” as our colleagues Laura Barrón-López, Chris Cadelago and Sam Stein put it in a story Thursday night:

Progressive activists have mostly kept their cool as President Joe Biden’s infrastructure negotiations with Republican senators stretch on longer than planned.

But with talks ongoing and new concessions being offered, leaders of liberal organizations say they’re losing patience, fearful that the White House is wasting time in pursuit of Republican votes that are unlikely to materialize.

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“We’ve seen this dynamic over and over again where Democrats are effectively negotiating with themselves, watering down their own package, not in exchange for votes but in exchange for the hope of keeping the negotiations going,” said Leah Greenberg, a co-founder of the liberal organization Indivisible. “And the inevitable result is that what passes is weaker and less popular than what would have passed if they had gotten bigger and bolder to begin with.”

“Every day that passes where we’re still sort of hopelessly pursuing a mirage of bipartisanship is a day that we’re not moving on to the priorities that Democrats were actually elected to do,” Greenberg added, pointing to voting rights, equal pay and nondiscrimination laws.

The rising anger over infrastructure talks is feeding calls in the progressive political ecosystem to ramp up the pressure on Biden to put an end to the negotiations and move ahead with efforts to pass a spending bill through a process known as budget reconciliation, which requires just 50 votes in the Senate.

[O]ver the past few weeks, sources at these meetings say, White House representatives have been repeatedly pressed on infrastructure talks, including fears that if a deal is reached, it could sap momentum for a follow-up bill that includes the rest of Biden’s jobs and family plans, like child care, community college and parental leave. In a recent meeting the administration was asked why they blew through the president’s initial Memorial Day deadline for talks to end. The response has been essentially what the administration says publicly: Biden believes that a big bipartisan bill is important, but he won’t let the pursuit of it override the need to get something done.

Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said the president is engaged in good faith talks with both parties in Congress and “has been emphatic that inaction is not an option, that progress needs to be made in the short term, and that he is open to other conversations about infrastructure.” He pointed to a June 9 House markup as a key date. “Equity is at the heart of his agenda,” Bates added.

But Progressives are done waiting. Drawn out negotiations, they say, could hurt the prospects of passing other liberal priorities — not only those included in Biden’s jobs and family plans, but campaign promises like voting rights legislation and police reform.

“There’s no deal to be had here,” said Brian Fallon, an Obama alum and executive director of the advocacy group Demand Justice, which supports liberal judicial nominees. “To the extent that it’s a political imperative for the White House to want to look like they tried to get a bipartisan deal, they’ve achieved that. So what’s clouding their judgment this time?”

You guessed it, Judas, er, Joe Manchin (D-WV) told NBC News that he doesn’t yet support Democrats trying to go-it-alone to pass an infrastructure package, even as a growing number of his colleagues are running out of patience. Said Manchin: “I don’t think, right now, basically, we need to be bipartisan.”

It still takes all 50 Democrats to be on board for a reconciliation process, and this damn fool won’t take “no” for an answer from Republicans. He is wasting everyone’s precious time.

Why is this country being held hostage by a pair of senators from the backwater of West Virginia?

“The White House on Friday rejected a new counteroffer from Senate Republicans on funding for infrastructure reform, saying the party’s latest proposal — which included an additional $50 billion in spending — marked a welcome move, but one that still falls far short of what President Biden is seeking.” White House rejects latest GOP offer on infrastructure with talks set to continue next week:

In total, Republicans now appear to have offered to spend nearly $980 billion on infrastructure. More than Only $300 billion of that amount appears to represent new federal investments, with the rest of the proposal reflecting existing or expected spending as part of regular congressional efforts to fund improvements in water and transportation.

Biden has signaled during negotiations he is open to slimming down his package, known as the American Jobs Plan, to about $1 trillion from its initial $2.3 trillion price tag. But the president has also maintained that infrastructure spending should include entirely new investments — meaning that the gap between Democrats and Republicans is more vast than it appears.

Just to be clear, Biden came down $1.3 trillion, and Republicans only came up $300 billion, from zero. I’ve been in settlement negotiations like this, it’s time to walk away.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the details of the GOP’s latest counteroffer on Friday in a statement after Biden spoke by phone with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “The president expressed his gratitude for her effort and goodwill [he has to say that; there is no good will], but also indicated that the current offer did not meet his objectives to grow the economy, tackle the climate crisis and create new jobs,” she said.

Both sides said they planned to resume talks on Monday, with Congress set to return after its latest recess. [Hopefully the last time. Monday deadline].

The key takeaways here are that the White House has a self-imposed deadline of this Monday for any bipartisan infrastructure deal (not at all likely), and there is a Wednesday, June 9 House markup scheduled. Time for Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to get on board the reconciliation train.

Time’s up, playtime is over. Joe Biden’s original proposed plan is still the correct blueprint, and after the Senate Parliamentarian’s guidance dealt a blow to reconciliation strategy this past week, Democrats have to combine the traditional infrastructure with the social infrastructure elements as originally planned:

The new guidance, issued to Senate staff on Friday, suggests that Democrats will get just one more try this year to pass a filibuster-proof legislative package to enact additional priorities ranging from infrastructure to immigration policy proposed by President Joe Biden and party leaders on Capitol Hill. If they want to use reconciliation yet again, they’d need to adopt a fiscal 2023 budget resolution next year, but would likely get only one shot then as well.

Of course, none of this would even be necessary if Democrats got rid of the Jim Crow relic Senate filibuster and restored the Senate to the majoritarian rule that the Founding Father’s intended, and followed until the first filibuster in 1837. Congress should operate like all 50 state legislatures. It only takes a simple majority vote in each chamber to pass a bill.

Lex Majoritis Partis ”literal translation being the law of the majority party or in practical terms ” the majority rules. Thomas Jefferson wrote to Alexander von Humboldt in 1817, “The first principle of republicanism is that the Lex Majoritis Partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.”

The current Senate filibuster rule empowers a tyranny of the minority to thwart the will of the Senate majority, and thus violates the fundamental principle on which this democratic Republic was founded.

How do Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema not know this? How can they justify this? This abuse of power must end now.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer intends to bring major pieces of legislation already passed by the House up for a vote in the Senate this month. S. 1, the For The People Act and H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act must be passed this month – time is of the essence – because redistricting is about to get underway in earnest in the states. And members of Congress will turn to their own self-interest in reelection campaigns after the August recess.