The Democratic Agenda at the Crossroads
Progressives have good reason to believe centrist Democrats will bail on child care, climate change, and lower prescription drug prices
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi informed the Democratic House caucus yesterday that she plans on going forward with a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill this week without first ensuring passage of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, which would raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for programs related to child care, elder care, education, health care, and climate change.
Earlier this summer, after the Senate had passed the infrastructure bill, Pelosi linked that bill’s advancement in the House to the reconciliation bill, essentially promising progressives that the infrastructure bill brokered by centrists would not get a vote in the House until those same centrist Democratic senators had cast their votes in favor of the reconciliation bill. The concern was that the Democratic centrists, led by senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, had carved the infrastructure portion out of the larger reconciliation bill because they did not want to get behind the provisions they left behind in the reconciliation bill.
Pelosi has now ended that gambit. It remains unclear what that means for the future of either bill. A handful of centrists in the House led by New Jersey Representative Josh Gottheimer have demanded a standalone vote on the infrastructure bill without pledging their support for the reconciliation bill. A bloc of progressives of an indeterminate size (maybe 100, maybe 60, maybe way less?) led by Pramila Jayapal of Washington have said they support the infrastructure bill but remain “nays” on it until the reconciliation bill gets approved by both chambers. (In other words, progressives support both bills but need proof centrists do, too.) Still, there may be a number of House Republicans willing to support the infrastructure bill, so it could manage to become law even if a small number of progressive Democrats defect. Republicans are less likely to help get the bill to Biden’s desk if large numbers of progressives vote no, though, since there are probably no more than 10 House Republicans who straight up support it and because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has told his caucus he wants Democrats to prove they can pass the bill on their own before Republicans glom on to the bill to bask in its popularity back home.
One other possibility that hasn’t been talked about much, however is that Pelosi may want progressives to prove they are serious about blocking the bill to force centrists to get onboard the reconciliation package. Pelosi has said she won’t bring a bill she knows is going to fail to the floor, so if she doesn’t have the math on her side, she could turn to the centrists and put the onus on them to find the votes. That may push centrists and progressives to finally hash out their differences on the reconciliation bill. It could also anger the centrists, though, who may brand the progressives hostage takers, refuse to consider the reconciliation bill at all, and let the entire Democratic agenda sink. I doubt it would come to that; if things got that bad, I think both sides would seek to salvage something for their efforts.
It’s also possible Pelosi has concluded the reconciliation package is going to take way longer to negotiate than anticipated and that the leverage gained by holding up the infrastructure package has waned since everybody knows that bill will ultimately pass regardless of what happens with the reconciliation bill. When it comes down to it, it’s hard to imagine progressives would actually doom the infrastructure bill; even if centrists say they won’t support any part of the reconciliation bill, once that fact is known, progressives will vote yes on infrastructure. Maybe the infrastructure bill isn’t even much of a hostage, just text that has the potential to motivate centrists impatient for groundbreaking ceremonies in their districts to cut a deal. The bill may even be in the way, with both sides hiding behind it waiting for the other to make a move. Why not pass it then, get Biden a victory (and hopefully some momentum) and get down to business on reconciliation.
So the question is, what’s holding up the reconciliation bill, and how do Democrats break that impasse? In the House, it appears there are at least a smattering of members who individually object to a variety of provisions in what is honestly a massive bill. (Democrats need to put all their legislative eggs in one reconciliation basket because reconciliation can pass the Senate with 50 votes, but reconciliation can only be used once per budget cycle.) Gottheimer, for instance, seems intent on repealing the cap on state and local tax deductions Republicans included four years ago in Trump’s 2017 tax bill. That’s a weird situation: Republicans in 2017 had supported what was essentially a tax hike to stick it to wealthy Democrats in high tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California. Now some Democrats in Congress from those states want it repealed, although doing so is basically a tax break for the wealthy. Progressives would prefer to keep it around. It’s likely that will somehow all get smoothed out.
Another group of Democrats that includes Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Scott Peters of California, and Kathleen Rice of New York are balking at a plan that would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices through use of its bulk purchasing power. It’s something other countries do to reduce how much they pay for prescription drugs, would save the government a decent chunk of money that could also be used to fund other needed social programs, and what do you know, Democrats have been promising to do this for years and it’s really popular since a lot of those costs (which are the highest in the world) get passed on to consumers and retirees on fixed incomes. It’s mindboggling this is a point of objection—Trump even wanted to do it!—until you realize Peters is the House’s largest recipient of cash donations from Big Pharma while Schrader’s career and personal wealth have been buoyed by the industry in some pretty big ways. (Read about all of that here.) Together, Schrader, Peters, and Rice kept the drug pricing provision from passing out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (Pelosi could still reinsert the measure through the Rules Committee) which just goes to prove how right Democrats were to put Rice on the committee instead of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez since Rice is such a better team player. 🙄
Schrader is also objecting to the overall price of the reconciliation bill. He wants something fully paid for and under $1 trillion. That could be a hard sell for a lot of Democrats, although Schrader, along with other centrists like Ed Case of Hawaii and Henry Cuellar of Texas are more flexible when it comes to deficit spending on climate change. One major concern of many centrists, however, is that whatever bill ends up passing the House will get chopped to pieces in the Senate and sent back to them in a much smaller form, meaning they will have needlessly voted for a discarded version of the bill with a higher price tag. It’s a legitimate concern (albeit one I’m not sure they need to worry a whole lot about; more on that later) but it does seem to suggest the main playground for the final drafting of the reconciliation bill will be the Senate.
Again, the two senators getting all the headlines for holding up the reconciliation bill in the Senate are Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, although it’s possible they’re taking the heat for a larger group of centrists in the shadows who don’t want to get on the wrong side of their Democratic base by publicly working to shrink the legislation. Sinema has apparently been pouring over every detail of the bill. Not only has she objected to the prescription drug pricing provisions, but she is also drawing the line on raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. It’s not clear how Democrats would pay for their plans without changing the tax code, although she’s apparently open to a carbon tax to help pay for her cherished climate change provisions. Even though it’s a potent idea, a carbon tax is regarded as a harder lift for Democrats, since it could violate Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 and because Manchin is from a state that prides itself on its carbon-based fuel production.
As for Manchin…he’s a lot harder to read. He’s floated adding work requirements to some of the programs and recently suggested hitting the “pause button” on the bill so legislators can get a better grasp on things like inflation and the pandemic. He has also insisted that the bill, originally slated as a $6 trillion package before getting reduced to $3.5 trillion, be cut to $1-1.5 trillion. What’s not clear is what Manchin would cut from the bill or how he settled upon his magic number.
What Manchin has done, however, is make the debate over the reconciliation bill about its price, which only hurts the bill’s prospects for passage and Democrats’ political standing. This is not to dismiss concerns about the utility of the programs in the bill or the bill’s cost; those issues absolutely need to be addressed. It’s just that focusing on cost puts the cart before the donkey. Democrats should instead be talking about the social and personal benefits of the reconciliation package (i.e., universal pre-K, child care benefits, tuition-free community college, paid parental/family/personal leave, an expanded child tax credit, Medicare dental coverage, lower prescription drug prices, Medicaid expansion, green energy incentives, etc.) Those are the sort of things Americans like and the kind of policies Democrats are expected to deliver. They’d also make a huge difference in the lives of Americans. Get those programs designed right, lead on that, then find the money to pay for it and scale back if it’s not there. Don’t put a dollar amount in the way right off the bat.
Manchin seems to think it’s politically beneficial for centrists to be seen reining in the spending habits of their more liberal colleagues. That’s a bad miscalculation, though. It does not matter if Democrats propose spending $6 trillion or $3.5 trillion or $1 trillion or $1 billion or $1 million or however much it costs the Secret Service for Joe Biden to spend the weekend at Joe Biden’s beach house in Delaware. Regardless the amount, and regardless how much was cut from the original proposal to get to that final amount (Pelosi has admitted the final price tag will probably come in less than $3.5 trillion) Republicans will always accuse Democrats of spending too much and wasting taxpayers’ money. Even if Democrats don’t pass the reconciliation bill, they are going to get accused of having wanted to spend that money. If Democrats are going to take that sort of heat, at least have a bill to stand on that slashes a family’s child care costs or makes a senior’s prescription drugs more affordable.
Manchin might counter by insisting he really is concerned about the strain these programs are going to put on the budget. But that’s not an argument against the programs or even for or against a specific dollar amount. If Democrats can find the money to fund these programs at $6 trillion or $3.5 trillion or $1 trillion or whatever, then Manchin should be able to get to yes. But there’s no sign Manchin is doing that sort of math; instead, he seems to just be pulling a number out of thin air. Further-more, if Manchin was concerned about cost, he would also probably be raising a fuss over the $768 billion defense authorization bill the House passed last week on bipartisan lines. You may think $768 billion is way less than $3.5 trillion, but that $3.5 trillion is spread out over ten years while the $768 billion is for one year alone. If that dollar amount gets authorized for ten years, we’re dealing with a $7.68 trillion defense expenditure for a country that isn’t even at war. For some reason, though, Democratic centrists have decided to pick apart a bill that would raise taxes on the wealthy, tackle climate change, and lower the costs of prescription drugs and child care.
Progressives are right to worry about decoupling the reconciliation bill from the infrastructure bill since Manchin and his fellow centrists have zeroed in on price as their main concern with the reconciliation bill. If they wanted to see it passed but were worried about price, they’d probably be focused on program design or arguing about priorities while at the same time touting the bill’s benefits. Their concern with “cost” though—the word is in quotation marks because centrists have been so vague about it—compels Americans to assess the merits of the bill through a conservative frame. If you want to kill a bill of this nature, that’s how you do it.
Therefore, the way forward for Democrats is to start talking again about the benefits of the bill, specifically the way it will help the average American family’s finances. Americans have heard very little about that in recent months. It’s also how someone like Manchin should be addressing his constituents. Yes, Manchin is from what was in 2020 the second-most conservative state in the union and may therefore feel he needs to talk to West Virginians in conservative terms, but West Virginia is also one of the poorest states in the union and would benefit enormously from the provisions in the package. Instead of behaving as the senator who went to Washington to stop the government, he could sell himself as the senator who went to Washington to finally make it work for West Virginia.
As for getting the wayward members of the House onboard, I suspect Pelosi may have both carrots and sticks that can get them to yes. It may require her to cut a few deals, but whatever comes out of the Senate will probably have to do for the House. (She may also be able to use redistricting to her advantage; I wouldn’t doubt it, for instance, if Schrader and Gottheimer were drawn into safer districts.) As for Sinema, my guess is that at some point someone like Patty Murray of Washington (who has been in the Senate for 28 years) or Debbie Stabenow of Michigan (20 years) or Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (14 years) will pull her aside, commend her on her diligent work, and then remind her she’s been a senator for basically two-and-a-half years and that if she wants to have a future in the chamber it’s sometimes best, in the words of former Speaker Sam Rayburn, “to go along to get along.”
As for Manchin? This is a more delicate task that will likely hinge on the persuasive skills of Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer. I imagine long conversations about whether or not Manchin plans on running for reelection in 2024 and what he thinks his prospects are in that election, what he would hope to campaign on if he did run again, and what sort of legacy he hopes to leave as a senator. Manchin may not have the sort of answers that can get him to yes.
There is one other factor Democrats need to take into account, which is that they are actually not the majority party in the Senate. Republicans have 50 senators. Democrats have 48. The support of two independents supply them with the majority: The more moderate Angus King of Maine and the democratic socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders is the architect of the Democrats’ reconciliation bill. Since Democrats took control of the Senate this past January, he’s seen provisions concerning DREAMers and a minimum wage hike stripped from legislation by the parliamentarian, a more robust infrastructure bill pared back to mollify centrist Democrats and Republicans, and legislation on voting rights stalled because some institutionalists are more invested in preserving the filibuster than they are in preserving the right to vote. Now, tax hikes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans, subsidized child care and elder care, lower drug prices, free community college, and climate change legislation have not only been scaled back but appear on the chopping block. It was always going to be difficult to legislate with the slimmest of congressional majorities, but at some point, Joe Biden and Joe Manchin have to start asking themselves if all unified Democratic control of Congress can produce for the American people is a stimulus package and an infrastructure bill, will more Democrats follow Sanders’ lead and begin to consider themselves independent. Where would that leave the two Joes standing?
Update: Here’s Sanders from earlier this afternoon on Twitter.
Thanks for reading.
Exit music: “Listen to Your Heart” by Roxette (1988, Look Sharp!)