President Joe Biden campaigned as a bipartisan deal-maker who had decisively beaten the socialists and police defunders in his own party — and then promptly unveiled a series of proposals more to liberals’ liking that were designed to be passed exclusively with Democratic votes.
Now, as Biden returns to a more bipartisan posture to notch a few wins that don’t require reconciliation in the Senate, it remains to be seen how much goodwill this bought him on the Left. If progressives prove to be more recalcitrant than centrist Sen. Joe Manchin, it could deny Biden additional legislative accomplishments before the summer recess.
When it came to passing another stimulus bill at the start of his presidency, Biden held perfunctory talks with Senate Republicans on a possible bipartisan compromise. But the two sides were too far apart on the amount of total spending. The negotiations were quickly scuttled, and Congress proceeded to pass the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan without a single Republican vote.
Infrastructure appeared likely to follow a similar path. The White House and Senate Republicans were far apart on total package size. When new spending was factored in, the gulf only grew larger. Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the administration would be a little more patient on this issue — then Biden signaled not much more.
“We welcome ideas. But the rest of the world isn’t waiting for us. Doing nothing is not an option,” Biden said during a joint session of Congress. “We can’t be so busy competing with each other that we forget the competition is with the rest of the world to win the 21st century.”
Much as they derided the American Rescue Plan as mainly containing spending unrelated to the pandemic, unimpressed GOP lawmakers questioned Biden’s definition of infrastructure. “Words have meaning,” tweeted Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican. “We can’t have a productive conversation if they keep redefining terms.”
But it became clear there were infrastructure projects Republicans were willing to fund and that Senate Democrats had limited bites at the reconciliation apple. The two sides kept talking, even after White House negotiations with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, failed. The end result was a $1.2 trillion plan.
“We made serious compromises on both ends,” Biden said outside the West Wing as he thanked each of the senators. “They have my word. I’ll stick with what we’ve proposed, and they’ve given me their word as well.” He later told reporters, “Mitt Romney’s never broken his word with me.”
That doesn’t mean “Infrastructure Week” has finally come to a close, however. For many liberals, Biden’s more than $2 trillion opening salvo was the compromise. Some were floating infrastructure and climate legislation totaling $10 trillion. To pass some of the liberal policy priorities that were part of their original infrastructure plans, Democrats are working on a separate bill they hope to also pass through reconciliation.
What liberals wish to avoid is the bipartisan bill passing and their preferred package getting killed in the Senate. To that end, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made a commitment. “There ain’t going to be no bipartisan bill unless we have the reconciliation bill,” the California Democrat told reporters the same day Biden announced that his talks with Republicans and centrists in his own party had been fruitful.
Now liberals will have their chance to blow up infrastructure. The same could be true for the bipartisan police reform negotiations between Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, and Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat. The pair had previously described the deadline for a compromise as “June or bust,” but qualified immunity for police officers remains a major sticking point.
The “two-step” approach Biden is taking with infrastructure mirrors the strategy of his campaign. Biden promised bipartisanship to the suburban voters who turned sharply against former President Donald Trump, which proved decisive in the battleground states that delivered him the presidency. But he also needed the supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to turn out for him at a higher rate than they did for Hillary Clinton in 2016. So Biden left the door open to working with Sanders to achieve the “most progressive” administration since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Democrats are hoping to pass as much as possible this year because attention will then turn to defending their slender majorities in the midterm elections. Whether this two-step will prove as effective a dance in governing as it was in campaigning remains to be seen.
