A Misstep By Biden Nearly Derails a Hard-Won Infrastructure Compromise. So Where Are We Now?

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One of the most admirable qualities of the Biden administration is its willingness to admit and correct error. It did so quite publicly before when it announced that it was going to continue to freeze asylum admission numbers at Trump-era levels, only to walk that back and announce much higher numbers after howls from progressives. And it did so again this weekend when President Biden’s statements about the infrastructure deal nearly derailed it completely.

So what happened? First, a quick recap of where we were and how we got to this weekend. For months, Biden and the GOP, led by the McConnell-appointed negotiator Sen. Shelley Capito (R-WV) had been negotiating on the size and scope of the infrastructure deal, but those talks ended weeks ago with the parties far apart. Concurrently with these negotiations, a bipartisan group of senators had been convening regularly, and they were finally able to reach agreement on a package and how to pay for it. 

It’s important to note that the proposed compromise addresses only “hard” infrastructure such as roads, highways and bridges and does not contain much of the “soft” infrastructure that Biden and the progressive side of the Democratic caucus have called for, which includes support for families, action on climate change, and eldercare investment. The latter is part of a budget bill that the Democrats will be advancing this fall, which Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (D-VT) wants to see as high as $6 trillion while centrists like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) want to keep as low as $2 trillion. That four trillion dollar difference will occupy much time in the near future and produce a great deal of angst within the party.

Notably, like the American Rescue plan, the budget bill will not need any Republican support in order to pass because it is subject to the special “reconciliation” rules around spending and taxation in which the filibuster is not permitted. (Budget reconciliation is how the GOP passed a $2 trillion tax cut for corporations and the wealthy in 2017.) Speaker Nancy Pelosi, drawing a line in the sand for the House, said that she will not take up either the bipartisan “hard” infrastructure bill or the budget bill containing soft infrastructure until the Senate has voted to approve both bills. This dual-track approach has always been tacitly understood by the White House and by the bipartisan group that hammered out the hard infrastructure compromise.

So what happened? Within hours after the bipartisan deal received the thumbs up from the White House, President Biden gave a press conference in which he unambiguously tied the fate of both bills together, effectively turning the dual track into a single track. “I expect that in the coming months this summer, before the fiscal year is over, that we will have voted on this bill, the infrastructure bill, as well as voted on the budget resolution. But if only one comes to me, this is the only one that comes to me, I’m not signing it. It’s in tandem,” Biden told reporters at the White House. Progressives rejoiced, but the statement infuriated GOP Senators who had just agreed to the deal, with one even declaring that Biden had made him and others look like “fucking idiots.” Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is a member of the 10 Senator bipartisan group, angrily told Politico, “If he’s gonna tie them together, he can forget it! I’m not doing that. That’s extortion! I’m not going to do that. The Dems are being told you can’t get your bipartisan work product passed unless you sign on to what the left wants, and I’m not playing that game.”

The White House was forced to act quickly to quell the anger it had created. President Biden issued a contrite statement saying that his comments “created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent.” Biden went on to say, “I intend to pursue the passage of that plan, which Democrats and Republicans agreed to on Thursday, with vigor. It would be good for the economy, good for our country, good for our people. I fully stand behind it without reservation or hesitation.” To underscore the delicate tightrope the Democrats are walking with these twin bills, the White House further noted, “So to be clear, our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat my Families Plan; likewise, they should have no objections to my devoted efforts to pass that Families Plan and other proposals in tandem.”

In sum, the bipartisan group’s compromise on “hard” infrastructure has the White House’s approval but will need to gain enough Republican support to overcome any filibuster, while the larger bill that contains a bold progressive agenda for “soft” infrastructure must arrive at a compromise between Sanders’s and Manchin’s figures without losing a single progressive or centrist vote in the end in order to squeak by with 50 votes.

But the first likely test will be whether minority leader Mitch McConnell will attempt to whip the GOP into opposing even the hard infrastructure bill. Stay tuned.