Progressives Cannot Afford to Tank the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

Watching progressives attack senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for not being liberal enough is like watching a pet owner get angry at her cat for scratching the furniture. If you didn't know that's what cats do, it's your fault, not the cat's.

The latest statement by Manchin on his Twitter page that he is not going to support the $3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill being considered in the House should come as a surprise to no one. He's been telegraphing his reluctance to endorse it for months. What part of "pause" didn't they get?

I've been saying this for quite some time now, but it bears repeating. Democrats have an "arithmetic problem" in the Senate. They only have 50 seats, and at least two of them belong to senators who are about as liberal as I am tall. For the record, I'm 5' 6". As I wrote back in June, 

"The agenda progressives were looking to enact is dead on arrival. It was dead on arrival the moment Democrats failed to flip North Carolina and Maine. All winning both seats in Georgia got them was the satisfaction of knowing Republicans wouldn't spend the next two years yapping about Hunter Biden's fucking laptop in a Senate sub-committee investigation."

So it's come to this: two centrist Democrats and a progressive base at loggerheads with each other. At stake is Joe Biden's legislative agenda, the 2022 midterms and perhaps the Republic itself. Both sides have dug in their heals, but only one side has the ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a tough decision to make Thursday; perhaps the toughest one she's ever made in her entire political career. Does she risk putting the bipartisan infrastructure bill on the floor knowing that most progressives have threatened to vote against it? This bill, it should be stated, represents over a trillion dollars of badly needed funding for thousands of roads and bridges throughout the country, many of which are in dire need of repair or replacement.

Biden and his party desperately need a win here to stop the bleeding. The last six weeks have been brutal, what with the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, an uptick in Covid cases across mainly Republican areas of the country, and a debt ceiling default looming. [Yes, that again, because apparently Republicans only care about the debt when there's a Democrat in the White House.] And let's not forget about the Virginia gubernatorial election in five weeks. Terry McAuliffe is only a few percentage points ahead of Trumpist Glenn Youngkin. I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone that losing a state that is trending blue over an intra-party squabble is unacceptable and would fall under the heading of unforced error.

Progressives can scream at Manchin and Sinema until they're blue in the face; it won't change their minds. Yes, both have acted in bad faith throughout this entire process. It is axiomatic that when you're in the middle of a negotiation over the amount of funding in a bill and you don't like the number your colleagues have come up with, you at least come to the table with a number you can live with. The fact that both have refused to do so is unprofessional and unworthy of the seat they've been entrusted with.

But that's neither here nor there. It is up to progressives to salvage what they can and turn the lemons they were given into lemonade. I realize Biden campaigned on many of the things in the $3.5 trillion package, but he also campaigned on reaching across the aisle and restoring a sense of normalcy to Washington. The fact that the bipartisan infrastructure bill got 19 Republican votes is no small feat, given the political climate in the country. Passing it would be a large feather in Biden's cap, and it would allow moderate House Democrats to return to their home districts with something to run on in 2022. Tanking it would be the gift of a lifetime for Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans, and it would likely lead to a wipeout at the ballot box next year.

It's no longer an option of coupling two bills together; that ship has sailed. Progressives must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Either they bite down hard and swallow or they wind up with nothing. If they choose the latter, God help them, and us.

Breaking: Manchin has just confirmed to reporters that he told Chuck Schumer his top line on the reconciliation bill was $1.5 trillion back in July. If that is true, it begs the question why didn't Schumer tell Biden? And if he did tell him, why did Biden insist on coupling both bills when he knew how big the gap was?