Congressional Democrats and President Biden remain at an impasse over their spending agenda. A previously scheduled vote Monday on the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework” was further delayed.
Summary
Speaker Nancy Pelosi delayed a vote on part of Biden’s infrastructure spending plan after “centrist” senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema would not “agree to a public framework”.
- West Virginia Sen. Manchin made the public announcement, shortly after a memo leaked stating the same, that his “top-line limit would be $1.5 trillion”, less than half of the $3.5 trillion congressional Democrats want to push through via the budget reconciliation process.
- The delays risk a “politically devastating collapse” of Biden’s infrastructure and social spending agenda.
- The White House tried to salvage the optics of the situation with press secretary Jen Psaki claiming “a great deal of progress has been made this week” while more time is needed to hammer out details.
- Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s resistance to progressives’ charms, and now threats of a primary challenge, signals she is “prepared to walk away” while focusing solely on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework she helped broker earlier this year.
- Vox pumped up the status and power of the progressive caucus for their threats to block the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, saying they “finally” “stood by a threat” of voting it down.
- Huffington Post waved off criticism and fears over the Biden agenda’s demise, saying Democrats “still have time to figure out how to win approval for both pieces of legislation.
- The Atlantic published the same entreaties that the progressive agenda isn’t dead, but that both sides (of the Democratic Party) simply aren’t desperate enough yet.
- The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board castigated Democratic leadership for attempting to “roll” Manchin into accepting the larger $3.5 trillion amount despite “sending signals for months that his support has limits.”
- Breitbart delighted in the delayed vote, quoting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as calling the Democratic leadership’s “negotiating a multi-trillion dollar bill a few minutes before a major vote” as “absurd.”
- Newsmax interviewed GOP Rep Jim Jordan who said Speaker Pelosi “misled” her party and that there’s “nothing good in either bill.”
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
