Edging Toward Disaster

One thing that puzzles me in the current state of legislative action is how little skepticism there is among journalists and commentators across the board over whether any of their do-or-die agenda items will succeed at all. I've been bringing little to my perception other than my experience of everyday people who promise to get things done but don't, and I see similar patterns at the national level that keep being confirmed. This may be because elites are simply insulated from ordinary affairs that need basic planning skills and competence in execution.

So when I saw Speaker Pelosi moving the deadline for Monday's vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill to Thursday while getting the $3.5 trillion package done as well, and getting the continuing resolution through the Senate on top of that, I pretty much knew nothing like that is going to happen. This story simply confirms what I've been seeing here and there for weeks:

The $3.5 trillion package, written by self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is not ready for a House vote, as Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) blocked a key tax provision on proscription [sic] drug makers that Sanders believes is needed.

Yesterday's developments didn't help:

Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a bill that would fund the government and suspend the U.S. debt ceiling, leaving Democrats scrambling to avoid a possible economic calamity.

. . . Lawmakers need to approve government funding before Friday to avoid a shutdown. The U.S. risks default if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling by a point that is likely to come in October, according to the Treasury Department.

Yet again, these are issues that had been known to the players for many months, but nothing was done to resolve them by the time Congress went on its summer recess. When it returned, the Democrat leadership lost itself in fantasies that everyone would "work all weekend" to get things ready. And as of now, we're in Speaker Pelosi's "week of intensity" where they'd get around to doing what they didn't do when they worked all weekend.

Meanwhile, President Biden yesterday did Speaker Pelosi one better and said the infrastructure bill, or maybe the whole $5 trillion package, up to now promised for Thursday, may not happen this week at all. Well, if the Progressive Caucus has 50 "no" votes on the $1.5 trillion unless it can vote on the $3.5 trillion package first, then likely it won't happen. But we're hearing in the link above that the $3.5 trillion package isn't ready in any case.

An op-ed piece in The Hill outlines the only possible outcome from this situation:

As Democratic infighting continues over their $3.5 trillion social spending legislation, the fate of Joe Biden’s presidency and the Democrats’ majority in Congress hang in the balance.

. . . Ultimately, President Biden must act urgently, using his influence among Democrats and moderate Republicans in the House to ensure the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure agreement, first and foremost.

Simultaneously, the president along with Democratic leaders in Congress must develop a set of principles or a framework that will convince progressives not to kill the bipartisan infrastructure plan, and then work to negotiate down the size of the $3.5 trillion bill to something that moderate Democratic Senators — namely, Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — can get on board with.

The problem is that all such analyses assume a level of engagement and competence that's harder and harder to see from either President Biden or Speaker Pelosi. As of last week, the centrist analyses like the one above were saying Biden needs to Get Involved to break the stalemate. Well, he's involved, or at least as involved as he's gonna get. Joe Biden isn't LBJ.

Like him or hate him, Lyndon Johnson often got what he wanted, Ho Chi Minh aside. I think there are basic problems of character, possibly exacerbated by age, that are thwarting both Biden and Pelosi. Handsome is as handsome does. This is a crisis of their own making, and at this late stage, neither's going to change.