A handful of Republicans agreed to President Joe Biden’s sham of a bipartisan infrastructure deal knowing full well Democrats would just turn around and push the rest of their agenda through Congress anyway. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
Senate Democrats announced this week that, in addition to Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal, they will also be pursuing a separate $3.5 trillion package stuffed with leftist wish-list policies that include everything from amnesty for illegal immigrants to climate change initiatives to free child care and community college. They plan to pass this massive wish list through the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to circumvent the filibuster and leave Republicans in the dust.
Unfortunately, it is looking more and more likely that Democrats will succeed. Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the only centrist Democrats willing to oppose his party’s agenda, confirmed on Wednesday that he supports including amnesty for some illegal immigrants in the budget bill.
That leaves only two scenarios in which the budget bill might fail, as Allahpundit noted over at Hot Air. Sen. Krysten Sinema, the other rogue Democrat, could object. But she likely won’t unless Manchin does as well. So, unless the Senate parliamentarian decides to spike some of the Democrats’ more absurd provisions on procedural grounds, Democrats will move this bill forward whether Republicans like it or not.
Republicans might not be able to do much about this, but they can at least prevent Biden from adding another $600 billion in new spending by pulling their support for his bipartisan deal. Sen. Mitt Romney, one of the Republican senators involved in the negotiations over the bipartisan package, suggested this might be the necessary course of action. He called the Democrats’ reconciliation bill a “stunning, shocking, and appalling lack of understanding of what tax increases and debt will do to this country,” but would not say how the bill might affect Biden’s bipartisan deal.
Romney, Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and every other Republican who intended to support Biden’s bipartisan package need to walk away from this plan. Democrats’ reconciliation package proves they were never interested in a legitimate, good-faith compromise. Biden’s bipartisan shtick was always a charade, and Republicans should not give it even an ounce of legitimacy.
