President Joe Biden hoped that enacting his sprawling, cradle-to-grave legislative agenda would invite comparisons to Franklin Roosevelt, but it is Democrats who are hampering his ambitions and not Republicans.
Biden’s siding with liberal House Democrats gifted far-Left members of his party with much-needed leverage as they negotiate with the White House and their centrist colleagues to spend more on social welfare, education, and climate programs. But it also revealed Biden’s weak hand, less than a year into his administration and 12 months before Democrats have to defend their congressional majorities.
The White House denies Biden lobbied against part of his agenda during what was supposed to be a private Capitol Hill meeting. But critics contend that is exactly what he did when he told House Democrats he was committed to coupling his $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal with Senate Republicans with another $3.5 trillion in social priorities.
Biden’s decision demonstrated his presidency’s weakness and the political reality of the moment after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulled a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure deal, angering centrist Democrats, according to Republican strategist Doug Heye.
For Heye, the standoff between the likes of socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and his centrist counterparts, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, was reminiscent of the 2013 federal government shutdown.
“You had an emerging Freedom Caucus and a meddlesome senator. In this case, it’s Bernie Sanders instead of Ted Cruz who is basically trying to enforce his way, both on a bill and a process, on leadership, regardless of the consequences,” he told the Washington Examiner.
And those heavy-handed tactics can be successful when a president does not have “strong backing,” Heye added.
“They would have tried this regardless. But when a president is at now 38% in the polls and is underwater on every single issue, it emboldens those to act in this way,” he said.
Only 38% of people told Quinnipiac University pollsters this month that they approve of Biden’s job performance
, his lowest approval rating since inauguration. Another 53% said they disapproved of him as president, compared to 42% who approved and 50% who disapproved three weeks earlier. Biden averages 44% approval-49% disapproval, according to poll aggregators
FiveThirtyEight
and
RealClearPolitics
.
Sanders’s opening social spending proposal was $6 trillion to pay for programs such as free community college tuition and expanded Medicare. Biden wants to ram the measure through Congress using a partisan budget parliamentary procedure called reconciliation that would not require Republican votes in the evenly divided Senate.
Sanders’s top-line number of $6 trillion was whittled down to $3.5 trillion during initial budget talks, but that is still $2 trillion higher than what Manchin is prepared to dole out. Manchin appeared to endorse up to $2.2 trillion before reverting to his $1.5 trillion position the following day.
“We only have 50 votes,” Manchin told reporters. “I guess for them to get theirs — elect more liberals.”
But as Democrats equivocate on the reconciliation package’s price and scope, they risk losing Republican support for the bipartisan infrastructure deal. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has already soured on the agreement.
Democrats could pass one more reconciliation framework next year, but that will be politically and practically fraught before the midterm elections, according to Heye. And history suggests Democrats will struggle in 2022 as the governing party.
Biden, who served 36 years as a senator and two terms as vice president, is hindered because Congress is a co-equal branch, according to fellow Republican strategist Alex Conant. But the White House can generate and maintain momentum, he said.
“It’s striking that rather than use his bully pulpit to build urgency, Biden’s instinct is to give Congress more time,” Conant added.
Democratic National Committee member Shelia Huggins dismissed criticism that Biden was “weak.” She said the president would get slammed as a partisan if he did not compromise with Democrats, let alone Republicans.
“We don’t call the Democratic Party the ‘big tent party’ for nothing,” Huggins said. “Our experiences and the very essence of who we are speak to the diversity that we bring to policymaking, and that diversity makes us stronger.”
But former California Democratic Party adviser Bob Mulholland, a longtime Biden ally, implored the president to be stronger.
“Halloween and Thanksgiving are coming up,” he said. “Biden, with razor-thin majorities in Congress, has to tell some members they will not get all the candy they want, but all will be invited to the White House for a Thanksgiving dinner.”
