House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally found a compromise the Sabotage Squad (thanks for that moniker, Greg Sargent) would agree to Tuesday afternoon when she got the conservative Democrats to give up their demand that the House vote now on the Senate's bipartisan infrastructure bill in order to secure their support on the larger Democrats-only budget resolution.
The House is punting that vote until Sept. 27 in a complicated procedural vote that the House approved Tuesday in a 220-212 vote. The House agreed to "deem," or consider as adopted, a resolution that commits the House to having that vote in the hard infrastructure bill and also deems as adopted the budget resolution that includes reconciliation instructions for President Joe Biden's Build Back Better human infrastructure bill. The rule also advanced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The rule passed Tuesday says that the House "shall consider" the infrastructure bill on Sept. 27 if it already hasn't by then.
The earlier proposal from leadership would have committed the House to a target date for considering the bill, but it was a "sense of the House" resolution and not a more binding commitment to a deadline. One of the Sabotage Squad calls it a "date certain" and is declaring it a victory, but how this all plays out remains to be seen since it's plonking the vote—and all of the work leading up to it— in the middle of working out a debt ceiling resolution as well as government funding. That's all due by Oct. 1. Does it set in concrete a Sept. 27 date for the vote? Not really, because an awful lot can happen between then and now.
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This is definitely a concession to the conservatives, giving them a date for the vote. But it doesn't take any leverage away from the progressive block or the real mainstream of Democratic members who are behind the whole of President Biden's infrastructure agenda. They will still have the option of withholding support on the Senate bill if they don't get the larger reconciliation bill they need. What is definite is that the immediate vote on the Senate bill the conservatives were trying to force didn't happen. No one has lost leverage, which keeps the process moving forward.
It does make the next weeks and months rather hellish for everyone involved. The debt ceiling will have to be lifted or suspended in October at the latest. The government will have to be funded or shut down by Oct. 1. The budget reconciliation process for the $3.5 trillion is by its very nature complex and fraught—a 50/50 Senate and a House majority then can only afford to lose four votes. It's made harder by these yahoos and Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, who both insist they just can't spend that much money but refuse to say what they would cut among its extremely popular provisions.
Among those provisions: prekindergarten for 3 and 4 year olds; two years of free community college; extending monthly tax break payments to families with children and some low-income workers; establishing paid family and sick leave; legal status to millions of undocumented individuals; and expanding home- and community-based care services for seniors and disabled people. That's just the family-friendly, making-daily-life-easier kind of stuff. It also expands Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing benefits. It includes American Rescue Plan expansion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to make health insurance more affordable and will also create a federal program to provide coverage for people in the Medicaid gap that states refusing Medicaid expansion under the ACA have created. It also includes some sort of prescription drug cost-saving mechanism, which is to be determined.
On the climate side, it puts the U.S. on track to meet President Biden’s 80% electricity and 50% economy-wide carbon reductions, with new clean energy programs and tax incentive and grants; new polluters fees; coastal resiliency programs; investments in combatting drought and wildfire; and incentives for residential weatherization and green electrification. It also includes a historic level of investment in green and sustainable public housing, housing affordability, and home construction; a Civilian Climate Corps modeled on the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps; and the largest one-time investment in Native American infrastructure projects ever.
Sinema and Manchin haven't identified what among those things they don't like and want to cut, but chances are it will be the climate stuff. After all, they have that commitment to ExxonMobil that rules their world.
So far, the Sabotage Squad—including honorary members Manchin and Sinema, who've been whipping them on—hasn't been able to derail that. It's not certain right now if putting this arbitrary deadline out there for the smaller Senate bill will force everything off the tracks. But we're still looking at two scenarios: win-win for all Democratic factions, or mutually assured destruction that tanks Biden's agenda. The problem with the latter choice is that the destruction isn't just political—it's literally global, because if this doesn't work, there's no knowing when Congress will ever try to tackle climate change.
With Congress on August recess, we need to put on pressure at the grassroots level. Click here to attend events to demand we can’t wait to pass the historic American Jobs and Families Plan.
The House is punting that vote until Sept. 27 in a complicated procedural vote that the House approved Tuesday in a 220-212 vote. The House agreed to "deem," or consider as adopted, a resolution that commits the House to having that vote in the hard infrastructure bill and also deems as adopted the budget resolution that includes reconciliation instructions for President Joe Biden's Build Back Better human infrastructure bill. The rule also advanced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The rule passed Tuesday says that the House "shall consider" the infrastructure bill on Sept. 27 if it already hasn't by then.
The earlier proposal from leadership would have committed the House to a target date for considering the bill, but it was a "sense of the House" resolution and not a more binding commitment to a deadline. One of the Sabotage Squad calls it a "date certain" and is declaring it a victory, but how this all plays out remains to be seen since it's plonking the vote—and all of the work leading up to it— in the middle of working out a debt ceiling resolution as well as government funding. That's all due by Oct. 1. Does it set in concrete a Sept. 27 date for the vote? Not really, because an awful lot can happen between then and now.
Campaign Action
This is definitely a concession to the conservatives, giving them a date for the vote. But it doesn't take any leverage away from the progressive block or the real mainstream of Democratic members who are behind the whole of President Biden's infrastructure agenda. They will still have the option of withholding support on the Senate bill if they don't get the larger reconciliation bill they need. What is definite is that the immediate vote on the Senate bill the conservatives were trying to force didn't happen. No one has lost leverage, which keeps the process moving forward.
It does make the next weeks and months rather hellish for everyone involved. The debt ceiling will have to be lifted or suspended in October at the latest. The government will have to be funded or shut down by Oct. 1. The budget reconciliation process for the $3.5 trillion is by its very nature complex and fraught—a 50/50 Senate and a House majority then can only afford to lose four votes. It's made harder by these yahoos and Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, who both insist they just can't spend that much money but refuse to say what they would cut among its extremely popular provisions.
Among those provisions: prekindergarten for 3 and 4 year olds; two years of free community college; extending monthly tax break payments to families with children and some low-income workers; establishing paid family and sick leave; legal status to millions of undocumented individuals; and expanding home- and community-based care services for seniors and disabled people. That's just the family-friendly, making-daily-life-easier kind of stuff. It also expands Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing benefits. It includes American Rescue Plan expansion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to make health insurance more affordable and will also create a federal program to provide coverage for people in the Medicaid gap that states refusing Medicaid expansion under the ACA have created. It also includes some sort of prescription drug cost-saving mechanism, which is to be determined.
On the climate side, it puts the U.S. on track to meet President Biden’s 80% electricity and 50% economy-wide carbon reductions, with new clean energy programs and tax incentive and grants; new polluters fees; coastal resiliency programs; investments in combatting drought and wildfire; and incentives for residential weatherization and green electrification. It also includes a historic level of investment in green and sustainable public housing, housing affordability, and home construction; a Civilian Climate Corps modeled on the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps; and the largest one-time investment in Native American infrastructure projects ever.
Sinema and Manchin haven't identified what among those things they don't like and want to cut, but chances are it will be the climate stuff. After all, they have that commitment to ExxonMobil that rules their world.
So far, the Sabotage Squad—including honorary members Manchin and Sinema, who've been whipping them on—hasn't been able to derail that. It's not certain right now if putting this arbitrary deadline out there for the smaller Senate bill will force everything off the tracks. But we're still looking at two scenarios: win-win for all Democratic factions, or mutually assured destruction that tanks Biden's agenda. The problem with the latter choice is that the destruction isn't just political—it's literally global, because if this doesn't work, there's no knowing when Congress will ever try to tackle climate change.
With Congress on August recess, we need to put on pressure at the grassroots level. Click here to attend events to demand we can’t wait to pass the historic American Jobs and Families Plan.