Yeah, We're Gonna Work All Weekend

So now I'm seeing that the Democrats plan to finish an agreement on the BIF and the BBB by October 31. Both the House and Senate have been on recess this past week, with key figures like Speaker Pelosi and Sen Sinema in Europe. The House and Senate do return next week, but the House will be working only four day weeks until the 31st, while the Senate will at least be wrorking five day weeks.

Although I had earlier seen December 3 as a deadline, November is going to be pretty much of a loss, with both houses in holiday recess for two weeks. But a Washington insiders' newsletter says,

We’ve pointed this out before, but Democrats truly are nowhere when it comes to finishing this reconciliation package. The “serious progress” that has been made is not really evident to us, or to the lawmakers involved.

→ Democratic leaders on the Hill have been unable to reach agreement on a topline number. This is key to everything and is at the heart of their stalemate.

→ Progressives, especially in the Senate, are still demanding a massive expansion of Medicare to include vision, healing and dental programs. That’s a big, big expenditure.

→ House Democrats continue to push for Medicaid expansion and making Obamacare subsidies permanent.

→ The two chambers keep exchanging proposals -- there have been some swapped this week. But they aren’t close to a deal, our sources tell us. Which is why the White House needs to lean in.

So there's unwillingness to compromise among House leftists, while Sens Manchin and Sinema appear to be holding the line on their own demands.

A major holdup in the talks is Sinema's opposition to any tax increases for individuals and large corporations, per two Senate Democratic aides familiar with the matter. Her position threatens to deprive the package of over $700 billion in revenue to finance the bulk of President Joe Biden's agenda.

. . . Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chair of the 96-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters that progressives were open to cutting the price tag but not the overall scope of the package, favoring packing as many priorities into the legislation as possible, with shorter expiration dates.

"We're not going to pit childcare against climate change," she said. "We're not going to pit seniors against young people."

But Speaker Pelosi is sending a different message:

“In order to pass both the Build Back Better Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill on time, it is essential that difficult decisions must be made very soon,” she wrote to House Democrats, referencing the two planks of Biden’s agenda.

She continued: “Overwhelmingly, the guidance I am receiving from Members is to do fewer things well so that we can still have a transformative impact on families in the workplace and responsibly address the climate crisis: a Build Back Better agenda for jobs and the planet For The Children!”

As I've been saying, a key indicator of incompetence is an inability to plan tasks realistically and adhere to any sort of real-world schedule. It doesn't appear to me that anything has been done to resolve the problems that led to the Democrat failures last month, despite vague happy talk about "progress". We're still just gonna work all weekend to fix it.