Stuck In The 1960s

Further to yesterday's post, I'm still not seeing any willingness by congressional leftists to recognize a need to make serious reductions in their reconciliation package to get anything through, although President Biden is now making noises in that direction

President Joe Biden publicly conceded Friday that the dollar amount of the proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill was going to shrink during a speech at a child care center in Connecticut.

'We're not going to get $3.5 trillion, we'll get less than that. We're going to get it. And we're going to come back and get the rest,' he said, addressing a room partially filled with Democratic lawmakers.

But this suggests to me that there's no serious coordination taking place between the White House and congressional Democrat leaders. He went on to say,

But the question is how much of what is important will we get into the legislation. I’m of the view that it’s important to establish the principle on a whole range of issues, without guaranteeing you get the whole things here.

In other words, he seems to be endorsing the strategy that they'll fund a wide range of programs on a short-term basis and get funds to continue them later. But in yesterday's post, I noted Speaker Pelosi's position:

“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!”

So with two weeks and eight legislative days to go until their October 31 deadline, so far, they haven't focused on a single strategy. But Sen Sanders, who seems to be the leader of the leftist congressional faction, appears still to think they can get the whole package without negotiation, if only they can bully Sens Manchin and Sinema into going along:

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are ramping up their war of words as Democrats struggle to get past weeks of increasingly public infighting over their sweeping social spending plan.

Sanders, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, fired the latest salvo on Friday taking the fight over the plan to West Virginia. Sanders penned a Charleston Gazette-Mail op-ed, which will run in the newspaper Sunday, to tout the benefits that could be included under a $3.5 trillion bill, a top-line figure that Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) oppose.

. . . Sanders has downplayed that he, Manchin and Sinema need to get in a room together to try to work out their differences, recently telling a reporter who floated the idea that "this is not a movie."

. . . “The time for us to be negotiating with ourselves is over, and I think it is absolutely incumbent on the two senators ... to start telling us what they want," Sanders told reporters during the Tuesday call.

Nevertheless,

Sanders hasn't yet said what below $3.5 trillion he could support, characterizing the top-line figure as a significant compromise for progressives who wanted a $6 trillion bill.

Yet again, I don't think either the leftists or the Democrat leadership understand the basic question of time and the calendar. In the 1960s, Sanders and those in his corner had all the time in the world to make useless protests and demonstrations. The difference is that now, a clock is ticking.

But there's also the increasing likelihood that the pressure Sanders is actively and tacitly putting on Manchin and Sinema to get them not just to negotiate but to surrender will serve only to irritate them further and potentially push one or both out of the Democrat party.