With regards to the ongoing negotiations about Joe Biden’s economic agenda, is the glass half full or half empty?
It depends on who you ask.
The White House says “we feel good” and recent “progress means we can conclude negotiations soon,” according to Axios.
But Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema has bemoaned a “breach in trust” within the Democratic party, and she and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin have resisted supporting a social safety net package (in the guise of a reconciliation bill), even after its $3.5 trillion dollar price tag has been whittled down, explains CNN. President Biden has suggested a revised top line figure between $1.9 and $2.2 trillion.
Reuters reports that Sinema won’t support any version of the reconciliation package – no matter how skinny – until House Democrats pass the $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill which she negotiated with a group of bipartisan Senators. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pledged to hold a vote on that bill by the end of September. She didn’t. Progressives said they’d torpedo the vote unless it came in tandem with the reconciliation bill.
It’s all very circular, for sure. And it’s threatening to derail would-be investments in the nation’s roads, water systems, public education, healthcare, and climate resiliency – just to name a few of the policies on the line. The viability of a second Biden term is also at stake, as is the Democrats’ chances of holding the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterms.
Manchin and Sinema have outsized influence in the Congressional cat and mouse game because they’re the only Democrats resisting their party’s consensus on social safety net spending.
“In particular,” reports CNN “Manchin raised concerns over the proposed expansion of Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing coverage — something that Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, has contended is a red line for him and other progressives.”
CNN adds:
Manchin made clear he opposed new paid family and medical leave provisions that Democrats are trying to get into the bill while renewing his deep concerns over including a plan to provide tuition-free community college. As he’s done publicly, the West Virginia Democrat also called for new benefits to be means-tested — to limit the eligibility to those with lower incomes — an idea that has been resisted by many Democrats.
Manchin has also criticized the reconciliation package’s emphasis on cutting greenhouse gas emissions; he’s a Senator from coal country, after all.
POLITICO reports that the White House is considering softening the clean energy components of the reconciliation package to woo Manchin. The outlet explains:
The changes under consideration could make it easier for coal and natural gas power plants to receive billions of dollars in financial incentives for clean energy, a potential boon for fossil fuel producers in Manchin’s home state.
Sinema, a former member of the Green Party who recently said “we know that a changing climate costs Arizonans,” might be expected to balk at such a kneecapping of the reconciliation bill’s clean energy provisions. But The New York Times reports that she wants to slash “at least $100 billion from climate programs” under consideration. (A Sinema spokesman denied the report).
The rest of Sinema’s wishlist is unclear.