Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman of the Washington Post make the point that I have been making for months, Memo to centrists: Progressives aren’t your problem. Manchin and Sinema are.:
In case you doubted that House progressives would stick to their strategy in the intraparty battle over President Biden’s agenda, they just reiterated their intention to vote against the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on Thursday, to pressure the Senate to complete the much bigger social policy bill.
“We will only vote for the infrastructure bill after passing the reconciliation bill,” declared a statement from Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The reconciliation bill is the multitrillion-dollar social infrastructure bill that is meant to pass the Senate by simple majority.
The Chair of the House Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, explains to Lawrence O’Donell that it has always been the agreed upon deal that the the two budget bills move together in tandem as a package. The Progressive Caucus remains committed to passing both bills together in tandem.
It is a handful of “centrists,” more specifically prima donna divas Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are acting in bad faith by trying to renege on this agreed upon deal. They want their “precious,” the bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF) passed first, so that they can then renege on their promise to vote for the compromise $3.5 trillion American Families Plan which is the budget reconciliation bill, or use the passage of BIF as leverage to whittle down the compromise budget reconciliation resolution that Democrats unanimously voted for just weeks ago.
Reminder: Literally no one voted to make Sen. Joe Machin or Sen. Kyrsten Sinema “decider-in-chief.” Just who the hell do they think they are?
Back to The Post:
This posture is provoking frustration from moderates and centrists. Many of them appear to understand this standoff as a conflict between themselves and progressives, each side pushing and pulling to get their preferred outcome.
But while there’s some truth to this, in another sense the most serious problem facing the centrists is not the progressives. It’s their ideological counterparts in the Senate, Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
That’s because the “Terrible Two” are the main impediment to arriving at a reconciliation bill everyone can live with. It’s likely that virtually all House moderates and centrists would support a very robust reconciliation bill with ambitious provisions on climate change, child care, health care, education and many other things, provided last-minute disagreements are ironed out.
But Manchin and Sinema seem to be another matter entirely. No one knows what they’ll accept from a reconciliation bill. If they were to be very clear on what they could accept, and persuasively demonstrate that they will vote for it even if the infrastructure bill passes first, it might be easier for progressives to agree to do that.
Which points to another big irony here: If this process implodes, the Democrats who represent swing districts may well suffer most. Passing a broad, popular agenda may not stop Republicans from picking up seats in the 2022 midterms, but if Democrats don’t pass that agenda, they may well get swamped in a wave election.
Who loses in a wave election? Not the progressives who represent safe Democratic districts. It’s the ones representing swing districts, often called “frontliners.”
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) understands this well. She is both a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a frontliner in a swing Orange County district. Porter told us that vulnerable frontliners, too, have a great deal to gain substantively and politically from passing a robust reconciliation bill.
Porter noted that many provisions in the infrastructure package are long-range projects that won’t even be underway by the midterms. By contrast, many provisions in the reconciliation bill will have an immediate impact, such as expanded Medicare eligibility and home care services and assistance for child care.
“Those are things that will immediately begin to improve the lives of Americans and will begin to immediately improve our economy,” Porter told us. “Democratic members, regardless of your district’s composition, this is what voters want.”
Porter said many frontliners are adamant that “we cannot fail” and that “we need to deliver the president’s entire agenda.”
Porter also told us she will vote against the infrastructure bill Thursday “if there’s not a framework and an agreement on how we move forward.”
It’s increasingly likely that if the infrastructure bill is to pass, it will only be if the two main Senate Democratic centrists can reassure progressives in some way, by agreeing to a reconciliation framework that isn’t too whittled down and by demonstrating a durable commitment to it.
“We need Manchin and Sinema to tell us what they’re comfortable with,” Porter told us.
A lot of progressives appear to agree. A Democratic aide who was on a conference call with Congressional Progressive Caucus members on Tuesday told us that more than two dozen members voiced support for holding the line.
For the party as a whole, it’s all or nothing. If they fail, not only will their whole agenda lie in ruins, but Biden’s presidency will be wounded and it could be years before they regain majorities and govern again.
The big question now is whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), with Biden doing his part, can produce a general framework on reconciliation that everyone can live with, enabling progressives to help pass the infrastructure bill Thursday. If not, and progressives hold the line, Pelosi may have to postpone the vote.
But ultimately, here’s what we know: For a Thursday infrastructure vote to succeed, at a minimum it will require Manchin and Sinema to step up. House centrists might devote some energy to making that happen.
It’s all very touch and go. But that — plus passing a continuing resolution to keep the government open and forestalling a debt default — would allow Democrats to stick the landing on a legislative tumbling run worthy of Simone Biles.
Then they can say they did something extraordinary for the country — and kept alive their hopes of retaining their majorities.
Because they’re all in it together, it’s the only real choice they have. Nobody should understand this better than the moderates and frontliners. Now if only they could prevail on Manchin and Sinema to do their part.
Arizona’s prima donna diva Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was summoned to the White House three times on Tuesday. It is not at all clear whether she ever finally made a counter-proposal on any provision in the reconciliation bill from which negotiation can occur, or if she is still just making an amorphous objection that the top-line number of $3.5 trillion is “too high,” which tells negotiators nothing and gets us nowhere.
In between trips to the White House, prima donna diva Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was holding a fundraiser with corporate lobbyists opposed to the reconciliation bill. “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby!” As Sinema resists the budget bill, she is set to raise money from business groups that oppose it.
Under Sen. Sinema’s political logo, the influential National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and the grocers’ PAC, along with lobbyists for roofers and electrical contractors and a small business group called the S-Corp political action committee, have invited association members to an undisclosed location on Tuesday afternoon for 45 minutes to write checks for between $1,000 and $5,800, payable to Sinema for Arizona.
The planned event comes during a make-or-break week for President Biden’s agenda, when House Democrats are trying to pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that Ms. Sinema helped negotiate, and trying to nail down the details of a social policy and climate bill that could spend as much as $3.5 trillion over the next decade.
Sen. Sinema has said she cannot support a bill that large, and has privately told Senate Democratic colleagues that she is averse to the corporate and individual tax rate increases that both the House and Senate tax-writing committees had planned to use to help pay for the measure.
In both positions, she is likely to find a receptive audience at the fund-raiser.
I’ll bet. Her Open Secrets Campaign Finance Summary shows that she uses her committee assignments on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Commerce, and Governmental Affairs Veterans’ Affairs committees to rake in the bucks from interest groups affected by the work of the committees.
In a Senate that is equally divided between Republicans and members who caucus with the Democrats, a single vote can decide the fate of legislation, and Sen. Sinema has not been shy about using that power. Exactly what she will and will not accept in the final bill is not yet clear, but colleagues say she is going through its contents methodically.
Oooh, the infamous spreadsheets she carries around, like she is an accountant. (Does anyone know what interest group provided her those spreadsheets?) Sinema has not publicly stated her objections to anything on the spending side, but she certainly has stated her objections to the revenue side (the “pay fors”), parroting the views of her corporate campaign donors.
John LaBombard, a spokesman for Ms. Sinema, would not comment on the fund-raiser but said the senator “voted yes in August on the budget resolution” [and then immediately said the top-line $3.5 trillion was “too high”] that paved the way for a social policy and climate bill that cannot be filibustered by Republicans. He added that she was “working directly, in good faith, on the legislation with her colleagues and the administration.”
Saying it doesn’t make it so, LaBombard. She is not acting in “good faith.” She is looking for leverage to whittle down the compromise reconciliation bill, or to kill it, because her corporate friends are opposed to any new taxes on corporations. This is not acting in good faith. It is “pay to play” political corruption.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes points out “I may not agree with Sen. Manchin’s politics, but it does seem like he is trying to get to yes. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, on the other hand, has been spending her time basically alienating — alternating between a vineyard internship and getting checks from lobbyist groups.”
HAYES: All right, amidst all the confusion and all the stuff about procedure, I want to sort of center things a little bit. The problem for President Joe Biden and Democrats right now is pretty clear. With the narrowest possible majority in the Senate, they need all 50 Democratic senators to agree again, unanimously on legislation. And two Democrats have emerged as the face of opposition to the party`s agenda. There`s West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
Now, say what you will about Senator Manchin, but he represents the state Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2020 and he also has explicitly articulated the basis of his opposition to the current Biden agenda proposal. He thinks $3.5 trillion price tag again, over 10 years and also that`s just the spending side, not the taxes side, he thinks that`s too high.
He wants more means testing and work requirements to limit the scope of some of the benefits of the bill. [GQP talking points.] And I think he is dangerously destructively wrong about the substance and the politics. But at least those are tangible demands. To quote the Big Lebowski, at least it`s an ethos.
When it comes to Senator Sinema, we don`t know exactly what her objections are. In fact, not entirely clear she`s invested in advancing the agenda at all. And her tenure in the Senate has essentially been well, quite focused on looking out for wealthy and special interest at the expense of her constituents.
Like, during last year`s summer recess, the time when most senators spend with their families and their districts, instead Sinema attended a paid wine making internship in California at a winery that also held a fundraiser for her campaign run by a founder of one of the country`s largest private equity firms, a firm which donated $6800 to her campaign.
I mean, I guess, that would be fun but I don`t know. You really need to look no further than what Senator Sinema was doing today. She met with the White House twice on the future of the bill. I think she`s going back a third time I just saw before we got on air.
And then, while Democrats were feverishly working to put together a compromise she will support, the New York Times reports her schedule included a fundraiser with five special interest groups looking to kill the legislation ready to write checks for between $1000 and nearly $6,000 to Sinema.
Now, I may not agree with Senator Manchin`s politics, but it does seem like he`s articulating things he wants and is trying to get to yes. Senator Sinema on the other hand has been spending her time basically alienating — alternating between a vineyard internship and getting checked from lobbyist groups.
Chris Hayes later adds, “I have found Joe Manchins explicitly articulated objections in some ways reassuring because as Faiz Shakir who used to work for Harry Reid said, <em>you cant negotiate if youre not getting counters</em>. At least thats something to work with. I don`t know what is going on with Sinema.”
She has made her objectives pretty clear: it is all about the money.
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Yes, she’s quite fashionably prepared for that eventuality should it occur.
“If there is justice in this world the Good Senator would spend the rest of her days as a bag lady…”
WB, looks like she might already be stockpiling the attire in the event that should happen.
https://www.gawker.com/politics/a-comprehensive-review-of-kyrsten-sinemas-powerfully-confounding-outfits
Good for Pramila Liza! Not that Biden or Schumer are capable of this, though Pelosi probably is, but I would love to see them do the Godfather II scene with these two miscreants along with Grottheimer & his ilk. You tank Biden’s presidency & you get NOTHING! No committee chairs, no proposed laws enacted…well, you get the idea. And the progressive majorities would be happy to back the leadership up.
Even is Senator Pest were to defect to the Repukes they would still primary her. Also, reputable lobbying firms are not dumb. After dealing with her & looking at her history no reputable lobbying firm would want her on their payroll.
If there is justice in this world the Good Senator would spend the rest of her days as a bag lady living on the street. But then I”m a Pagan.
Peter Handcock: What’s a pagan?
Harry Morant : Well… it’s somebody who doesn’t believe there’s a divine being dispensing justice to mankind.
Politico dubbed them “Sinemanch” and now New York Mag dubs them “Manchema.” (I just threw up a little). Sarah Jones writes, “The Bottomless Emptiness of Manchema”, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/the-bottomless-emptiness-of-manchema.html
Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona appear to relish the power they wield over the rest of the party. They are, in effect, holding the president’s priorities hostage to their personal whims. That’s not a new story in politics. But their stubbornness in the face of contemporary challenges reveals the bottomless emptiness of their brand of centrist politics.
[T]hough it has been reported that she is against the tax hikes in the bill, Sinema, as is her wont, appears reluctant to explain her motivations to the public. In ongoing one-on-one negotiations with Biden himself, she has reportedly refused to name a price tag that is acceptable to her. If there is any genuine policy thinking at all behind her recalcitrance, it has yet to emerge.
News that she is about to raise money from business interests that oppose the budget bill has invited speculation that she is doing her donors’ bidding … Perhaps plain old corruption is at work here.
But there is more to it than that. Everyone involved in this saga, from President Biden down, is making a moral choice. The president’s budget is, like all presidential budgets, a public expression of the administration’s values. Sinema and Manchin have also expressed their values in public, even though these are cloaked in boilerplate rhetoric about inflation and taxes. Sinema’s donors are a reflection of her personal priorities. The same is true for Manchin when it comes to the profit motive. They’ve chosen their benefactors, not their voters, as their real constituency.
[It’s] obvious that Manchin and Sinema are doing what they want to do, not what their voters want. Nor are they motivated by what their voters need — a slightly different question that is nevertheless highly relevant to the fate of the Biden budget.
[If] the Democratic Party wants to guarantee a livable future for the public, it is going to have to act while it can. Through their intransigence, these two moderates haven’t just jeopardized what might be Biden’s signature policy achievement. They’ve done more than undermine their party’s electoral future (why should voters support a party that wasted the power they gave it?). They are sacrificing the future itself.
And for what? Manchin is genuinely vulnerable to a challenge from the right in a deep-red state, but Sinema is not. In fact, she has practically guaranteed herself a primary challenge that she’s poorly positioned to win. The Sinema and Manchin school of politics defies reality, and common sense along with it. It has never been more apparent that the real threat to the president is not the left — which has emerged as the strongest defender of the Biden agenda — but the centrists. They have no vision. Asked, repeatedly, by the president, their colleagues, and nearly everyone else what it would take for them to support the spending package in question, they have little to say.
That’s a telling silence. Some version of the bill may well pass, but these tortured negotiations have exposed the barrenness of their position. Sinema and Manchin have a way of doing politics that redounds to no one else’s benefit, and sometimes not even themselves. They are risking Biden’s legacy, the prospects of their party, and the well-being of the American public for reasons they can’t even articulate. If only they were capable of shame.
Joe Manchin is just as clueless and destructive. The Guardian reports, “In deep red West Virginia, Biden’s $3.5tn spending proposal is immensely popular,” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/28/west-virginia-joe-biden-spending-plan-popular
There is some evidence that the proposals contained in the spending plans – which some have likened to the 1930s New Deal – are more popular among grassroots Republicans than their political representatives. That may be especially true in West Virginia, which is a poor, largely white and working class state whose residents would stand to greatly benefit from the Biden effort.
Biden’s budget bill includes his Build Back Better plan, which would cut taxes for most Americans, raise taxes on the rich, train more workers and lower costs for healthcare, childcare, education and housing.
When the nonpartisan nonprofit WorkMoney surveyed more than 50,000 of its 2 million members nationwide, it found 81% of respondents said they supported this plan. That includes 90% of liberals who took the survey, 81% of moderates and 66% of conservatives.
Conservative backing appears even more robust in West Virginia, home of Manchin, a moderate Democrat who is one of the critical holdouts on the budget bill and whose efforts could derail the entire plan – or see large chunks of it scrapped as he balks at the budget’s price tag.
But according to the survey, 80% of more than 800 people surveyed in his home state believe he should vote to pass the bill. That includes 77% of conservatives who responded to the survey.
Did someone already post this? If so, sorry.
https://www.rawstory.com/senator-kyrsten-sinema-2655191130/
There’s a PAC starting that wants to primary this wanna’ be Evillene.
I’m starting to see some primary Sinema steam building up in the progressive twittersphere.
WB, I saw Rep. Pramila Jayapal on the TV a short time ago. She is saying that the reconciliation bill will have to be in “legislative language” and be voted on by the Senate before the progressives agree to pass the bipartisan bill. So, as of 3:00 PM EST, that’s the deal, no framework. I hope they don’t cave.
I think you’re right Liza. If the infrastructure bill passes then Senators Pestilence and Pest will renege and tank the BBBA. There’s an option where Speaker Pelosi passes the infrastructure bill and refuses to send it to President Biden for his signature while informing Senators P & P their precious “bipartisan bill is dead until they have an overdue “come to Jesus” moment. Of course success would depend on the MSM reporting the truth without mangling it in a quest for “both sides”.
I wouldn’t trust them to walk my neighbor’s dogs either. Even the ones in the neighborhood who spend their nights mindlessly barking at the moon.
“…if the infrastructure bill is to pass, it will only be if the two main Senate Democratic centrists can reassure progressives in some way, by agreeing to a reconciliation framework…”
This concerns me. Even if the two DINO Senators agree to a framework that is acceptable to the progressives, what are the chances that the DINOs will break the agreement? They don’t seem to have a problem with breaking agreements.
Once the “bipartisan” bill gets passed without reconciliation, all bets are off. Those two corrupted DINOs cannot be trusted, especially Sinema.
I wouldn’t trust either of them to walk my neighbor’s dogs.
Reuters correspondent Pete Schroeder: “I’m a broken record here, but whatever is happening on Capitol Hill right now is functionally incomprehensible to anyone whose full-time job isn’t paying attention to it.”
The Hill reports “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday said the stonewalling by Senate centrists has “completely” disrupted the Democrats’ timeline for moving President Biden’s domestic agenda, leaving open the possibility that the House will punt once again on [the bipartisan Senate] infrastructure bill scheduled for a vote on Thursday.” “Pelosi leaves room to delay infrastructure vote”, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/574469-pelosi-leaves-room-to-delay-infrastructure-vote
Pelosi said she still intends to stage the infrastructure vote on Thursday, but acknowledged her power as Speaker to delay it, if need be.
“We take it one step at a time,” Pelosi told reporters after huddling with members of her caucus in the basement of the Capitol, referring to Thursday’s vote.
She also repeated her intention to not bring legislation to the floor that does not have the votes for passage. Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus say half the group is prepared to vote against the infrastructure bill unless the larger social spending bill moves in tandem.
Pelosi noted that, while the House Budget Committee has already approved a blueprint for the larger social spending bill — the second piece of Biden’s legislative wishlist — the Senate moderates balking at the $3.5 trillion price tag have stalled progress on the broader two-pronged agenda.
“In the meantime, there was this ‘Oh my god, we can’t go to that number,'” Pelosi said, invoking the Senate holdouts. “Well that completely sets off the timetable.”
Delaying that vote would be sure to infuriate the moderate Democrats [who are causing this delay] who are fighting for immediate approval of the Senate-passed, bipartisan infrastructure bill — and won a [conditional] promise from Pelosi to do it this week.
“We’re voting Thursday,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said Tuesday.
–
Really? Who made you Speaker of the House, asshole? Pelosi controls the calendar. Go pound sand.
Why is she doing this? That’s an interesting question that isn’t going to be answered. But her actions are more revealing than words.
She collects checks from interest groups opposed to the reconciliation bill at the very moment that Democratic lawmakers are working to on how to pass it. And she’s already collected her 750K from Big Pharma to oppose a longtime goal of Democrats, lowering prescription drug costs.
All she’s got is “3.5 trillion is too high” because she can’t sit at the negotiating table and say, “I sold out to the opposition.”
But Sinema thinks she’s the smartest Girlboss in the room. The game she’s playing appears to be, “I got here first.” Her beloved bipartisan bill has already passed the Senate and the progressives haven’t passed anything. She isn’t going to blink because she believes that internal and public pressure will force the progressives to accept that “a little bit is better than nada” and pass the bipartisan bill. Or, she is willing to sacrifice her beloved bipartisan bill because of the deals she cut with her donors. And, right now Joe Manchin is giving her cover, she’s not alone.
As for the fate of the democratic agenda, the Biden presidency, the democratic majorities, and democracy itself, Sinema really doesn’t care. She has nothing but contempt for the people who voted for her.
As to why? Hell, it could be a brain lesion. Who knows? Some people are just bad.
Axios reports, “Left: Senate’s threat ‘insane'”, https://www.axios.com/progressives-sinema-manchin-infrastructure-frustration-63302344-50c6-450f-856e-d0065b7bfbbc.html
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) lambasted Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on Tuesday, saying “it’s insane” that “one senator” is blocking attempts to settle on a palatable figure for President Biden’s proposed $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package.
The figure is the linchpin to getting progressive support for the companion $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. Khanna’s statement reflects broader dissatisfaction among House progressives with Sinema and her fellow holdout, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
Khanna and fellow progressive Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) suggested to Axios that Sinema is the bigger threat to a final deal — decrying what they argue is a lack of transparency and candidness.
Khanna vented semi-publicly to participants on Yale’s semiannual conference call with its CEO Caucus. He branded Sinema’s evasiveness as “insane” and an inordinate amount of power for “one senator,” two participants told Axios’ Jonathan Swan.
Khanna reiterated his opinion later during an interview with Axios, saying progressives “absolutely” need to worry about Sinema more than Manchin.
“Manchin has always been reasonable,” he said. “At the end of the day, he’ll do what’s needed for the party, he always has.”
[T]he president met twice with Sinema and once with Manchin on Tuesday at the White House, as Democratic lawmakers seek to settle on a final, lower number for what began as a $3.5 trillion spending bill. Sinema returned to the White House a third time Tuesday night.
“What is really challenging for many of us is the mystery and the lack of transparency that prevents progress,” Escobar told Axios. “The biggest mystery for me is around Sen. Sinema. We pretty much learn things through little snippets in the media.”
Raskin said: “People are very understanding of Sen. Manchin’s situation, because Donald Trump won his state by more than 30 points, and people appreciate the fact that he is, you know, a Democrat in a tough environment.” Sinema, however, “has always been an independent-minded politician,” the congressman added.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, insisted both senators are equally problematic. “If they don’t tell us what they want to do, which was the president’s message, and if they don’t actually negotiate on the entire bill, then we’re not going to get to close,” she told Axios.
Sinema’s resistance to corporate tax increases, and her unwillingness to name a price tag, has won her fans within the business community.
What’s next: All eyes are on Thursday’s planned vote in the House on the $1.2 trillion package that already passed the Senate with bipartisan support.
While a series of progressives continue to insist they need a vote on the bigger reconciliation bill first, others, like Khanna, think a specific verbal commitment will suffice.
“I think if the White House and the Speaker get behind a detailed agreement that has most of our priorities, that we know won’t be amended, I think that is a reasonable place to get people on board,” Khanna said.
He added that he thinks such an agreement is doable by Thursday’s deadline.