"Highly Overrated Person"

The news aggregators, if they mentioned this story at all, put it somewhere below Dog the Bounty Hunter in yesterday's developments, but this kept me thinking all day:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats on Monday that passage of the $550 billion [sic] infrastructure bill must not wait for President Joe Biden's multitrillion-dollar safety net bill, saying the larger package is not yet ready for a vote.

. . . "I told all of you that we wouldn't go on to the [infrastructure bill until] we had the reconciliation bill passed by the Senate. We were right on schedule to do all of that, until 10 days ago, a week ago, when I heard the news that this number had to come down," Pelosi said, according to the source. "It all changed, so our approach had to change.

. . . The development indicates that the vote on the Senate-passed infrastructure bill is likely to happen in the House on Thursday, whether or not there is a deal on the separate bill by then, which progressives have demanded to win their votes for it.

But it is not clear that the infrastructure bill can pass the House, even if Pelosi calls the vote.

What struck me was less Pelosi's reversal than what she let out in the course of her statement: a week or 10 days ago, she "heard the news that this number had to come down". Well, wouldn't this be important? Apparently she kept it to herself until Monday night, which was pretty much past the last minute.

Why would she do that? I think it's fairly plain. She'd been telling the House moderates that she'd schedule a separate vote on the $1.5 trillion infrastructure package on Monday, while she'd been telling the Progressive Caucus she'd tie them together. Her solution was going to be to pull the rug out from under the moderates by "postponing" Monday's vote to Thursday, while hoping Sen Sinema might not notice, since the senator was on record saying if no vote took place Monday, she was a "no" on the bigger bill.

It sounds as though Sen Sinema did in fact notice this, and I assume important people contacted Pelosi about the problem (my money is on Sen Schumer). As a result, Pelosi made her Monday night announcement that the vote would take place on Thursday after all. Yeah, that's definitely gonna happen.

But then Bernie Sanders weighed in:

Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Tuesday urged House Democrats to block the $1.2 trillion “bipartisan” infrastructure bill, defying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) agenda of passing the legislation Thursday.

. . . “I strongly urge my House colleagues to vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill until Congress passes a strong reconciliation bill,” the Sanders pleaded.

. . . “We had to accommodate the changes that were being necessitated,” Pelosi reportedly told Democrat members about the reconciliation package. “And we cannot be ready to say until the Senate passed the bill, we can’t do BIF [bipartisan infrastructure deal].”

“[W]e’re still waiting for the number because you cannot prove the design on the legislation without the number,” Pelosi explained. “And the president is working on that piece. He’s working on that piece.”

Pelosi’s reported attempt to whip the vote in favor of passing the “bipartisan” bill has not convinced far-left House members. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) told reporters Monday the bills are linked together and warned a Thursday vote could fail.

Indeed, as Pelosi said, Biden is working on that piece.

President Joe Biden canceled his trip to Chicago this week to stay in Washington to haggle with lawmakers over the administration's two large legislative priorities, a White House official said Tuesday.

. . . The battle over the $3.5 trillion price tag centers on Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, centrist Democrats who have insisted that it be reduced. But they have not named their price, which has led to protracted negotiations.

And neither Manchin nor Sinema has yet named a top-line number, even after meeting with Biden yesterday, and their statements after the meetings have been vague bromides about "progress". It's plain that Manchin and Sinema hold the cards and see no particular urgency in reaching a solution.

At this stage, their strategy is going to be to run out the clock while letting the House Democrats kill the infrastructure bill. What's becoming clear is that neither Pelosi nor Schumer nor Biden ever gave much thought to a Plan B. Pelosi in particular relied on making conflicting promises to the progressives and the moderates within her caucus, without gaming the situation out.

Highly overrated person.