Biggest Infrastructure Package Week Ev-Ah
The long expected “Infrastructure package” is almost ready for rollout, according to reports coming from the White House, and President Biden’s next big legislative push may have a price tag upwards of $3 trillion.
White House officials are preparing to present President Biden with a roughly $3 trillion infrastructure and jobs package that includes high-profile domestic policy priorities such as free community college and universal prekindergarten, according to three people familiar with internal discussions.
After completing the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package this month, Biden administration officials are piecing together the next major legislative priority. Although no final announcement has been made, the White House is expected to push a multitrillion-dollar jobs and infrastructure plan as the centerpiece of the president’s “Build Back Better” agenda.
That effort is expected to be broken into two parts — one focused on infrastructure, and the other focused on other domestic priorities such as growing the newly expanded child tax credit for several years. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, stressed that planning was preliminary and subject to change. Some aides said that the package’s final price tag remains unclear.
Although still in the works, the sprawling legislative package follows weeks of uncertainty about Biden’s second big legislative effort and confusion among congressional lawmakers about the administration’s top priority.
If pursued, the infrastructure and jobs bill could help define Biden’s presidency. The president has faced intense pressure, including from some Democrats, to scale back his domestic policy ambitions and work with congressional Republicans on more incremental legislation following his $1.9 trillion covid relief plan, which every Republican voted against.
Doing so, however, would require Biden to jettison many of his most consequential 2020 presidential campaign promises, while also frustrating much of his base and Democratic Party leadership. Introducing a new $3 trillion package, which is expected to include tax increases to offset spending, is sure to frustrate Republicans, setting up another acrimonious legislative fight. But it gives the president a chance to cement a domestic policy agenda beyond the emergency response to the pandemic.
“The country has not had a real infrastructure bill since Dwight Eisenhower set up the highway system. This could do more for American manufacturing and blue-collar jobs than anything else,” said former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell (D), a proponent of infrastructure spending. “It’s crucial not just for Biden’s legacy but for the legacy of the American government in the next decade. It’s a seminal moment for the country.”
Crucial decisions still have to be made about how the administration seeks to advance the measure. Congressional Republicans are unlikely to support trillions more in additional spending, or the tax increases that the White House is eyeing to fund these initiatives. Also, it’s unclear what the appetite could be, even among congressional Democrats, to use reconciliation — the budgetary procedure Democrats used to pass covid relief with just 51 votes in the Senate.
Its more then we got from Infrastructure Don, who promised us a “big package” for four years and never delivered, all the while blaming Democrats for not wanting to support infrastructure.Report
Introducing a new $3 trillion package, which is expected to include tax increases to offset spending, is sure to frustrate Republicans, setting up another acrimonious legislative fight.
Is the writer not paying attention? The fight won’t be with the Republicans, it will be within the Democrats. Either Pelosi/Schumer have the votes to put it in the budget resolution for FY22 and then handle it under reconciliation, or they don’t. If not under reconciliation, either Schumer has the votes to suspend the filibuster, or he doesn’t. For two years controlling all of the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office, Congressional Republicans introduced zero infrastructure spending. They’re not going to have a sudden change of heart.Report
And they are certainly not going to be swayed if the bill has a lot of social spending they never liked in the first place.Report
I don’t think anyone expects the GOP to do anything but scream incoherently.
It’s moved onto the clear and ongoing fight about what to do about it — specifically, about the filibuster. Now much of the actual discussion (specifically with Manchin and Sinema) is going on behind the scenes, but enough of it is being deliberately done in the press to indicate there’s a full-court press going on for change. I suspect the real discussion is how far they can push “reform” and still get Manchin onboard, but he’s already started waffling.
Biden’s clearly arm-twisting, the bulk of the Democratic Senate is onboard, and Mitch has already twisted the dial up to 11 screaming about it, and the Dems have a lot of big bills they clearly want to pass that can’t with the filibuster in place. The media and public opinion has clearly shifted enough for this to become an arguable position instead of reflexively shot down as “think of TRADITION”.
I can’t say whether they’ll be successful, but a couple of things have become clear. First, the vast majority of Democratic Senators seem onboard with the idea that the filibuster does more harm than good and that they don’t care about the shoe being on the other foot — that it’s a net benefit to end it (in fact, I suspect many believe that the GOP rather likes the filibuster — it lets them constantly run on the same issues without having to deliver results, results that might turn out to be incredibly unpopular if enacted. The equivalent of passing base-pleasing, but obviously unconstitutional, bills. When it fails, you point out you did what you promised, but they need to vote for your team even HARDER to deal with those “pesky judges” — win/win/win).
If it actually comes to a head and gets into an actual vote — my money’s on the voting rights bill being the issue. Optically, it’s a good one for Democrats against the backdrop of massive post-2020 voter suppression efforts, and it’s a critical Democratic bill.Report
Yeah, HR1 is the obvious choice. The version that came out of the House is better than what was introduced. I still think it needs some work to accommodate states that are vote by mail as the rule and in-person as the exception, and have told my (D) Senators that.Report
Agreed. If they pull the trigger on anything it obviously should be HR1.Report
My understanding is that, having already passed one spending bill via reconciliation this year, they can’t do another one until next session. Is that wrong?Report
One to three bills for each fiscal year, depending on how they want to split up the topics of revenue, spending, and the deficit/debt. Congress did not previously pass a budget resolution for FY21, so the newly unified Congress passed one and the Covid bill was done under reconciliation for the current year. The infrastructure bill would be handled under the FY22 process. (Which would also imply none of the infrastructure spending would happen before October.)
Given October, I don’t expect a huge rush on the infrastructure bill. I’m sure leadership would prefer not to have to do it under reconciliation. I think they’ll run HR1 through the Senate committee process and try to bring it to the floor to see if they can get the filibuster relaxed, and by how much.Report
Offhand, I suspect their best bet is to force a ‘speaking filibuster’ with a slight rules change to handle quorum issues when the filibuster ends. I’m not sure if those rules have already been altered, but I believe one issue back in the old days was the majority had to more or less camp out in the Senate waiting for the end — whereas the filibustering party merely had to have someone to yield the floor to when they needed a break.
The burden on a filibuster should be on the filibustering party, so if there is no one to yield the floor to it should basically ‘close’ the filibuster and gavel out for the day, debate ended and ready for the vote.
Manchin has waffled enough on that to think he’s open to persuasion, but the question is whether he’s looking for something specific from Schumer or he’s simply waiting for the right optics.
PR wise, “reforming” the filibuster to work like every non-political junkie thinks it does — that is, the filibustering party bears the burdens of it entirely — is not the most difficult sell. “Reforming the filibuster to make it work exactly the way you thought it already did” is at least straightforward.Report