It’s because they’re a worthless, intractable pear of self-centred, spotlight-whoring fucking ass-goblins who are too oblivious/primary-averse to take stock of things like, oh, maybe climate change, for starters. They - and the few other dems who might take exception to a single aspect of these infrastructiure bills - will of course be the source of the downfall of the Democrat Party, ushering in R. in '24.
Yep. Same thing with the fossil fuel industry and this bill.
The lobbyists only need to win over a few marginals to kill the provisions they don’t like.
Esp. with Sinema this isn’t a “red state democrat” thing. Arizona is a swing state and there are tons of other senators in states that are as red or redder than Arizona that aren’t pulling this crap.
Have not participated in this thread, but I think this tweet sums up my position so far:
https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1440551133198520322?s=19
I categorically declare that there is no human being currently alive on earth who would would be adequate to the job of being President of the USA in these times. And there never will be anyone adequate to the task ever again.
And even if such a human being did exist and were elected, there would still be millions who would hate them, (1) because of their own immaturity and shortsightedness and (2) because of the human tendency to blame the person in authority for things mostly (if not wholly) outside their control, i.e., everything from the threat of annihilation by nuclear war, to climate change, a pandemic, and economic catastrophe, to bedbugs and dogs getting fleas.
My evidence? Look around you.
I still believe that the best president we could have right now is Dolly Parton. Everyone loves Dolly, from the most tightly-wound fundamentalist to the most flamboyant drag queen. She could bring the country together.
Unfortunately she’s way too smart to get anywhere near that dumpster fire. And I can’t blame her.
Where is Fred Rogers when we need him?? 
Tainted by his association with Tom Hanks.
Do you mean that you deny there is “any human being”? The rest of your post reads like it to me.
And – yeah. The job’s beyond anybody; has been for quite some time. Despite which we need somebody to do it. Some people are/would be less inadequate at it than others.
Part of the problem we’re having is that finding people who are both smart and sane who are willing to apply for the job is, understandably, not easy.
Biden’s probably about as close as we’re going to get.
Question from someone who has trouble following infighting on the left: did Senators Manchin and Sinema personally rely on the progressive vote?
~Max
I don’t exactly agree with asahi’s characterization, but at least Sinema benefited a lot from progressive canvassers who got out the vote. There are certainly progressives and conservatives Democrats basically everywhere.
The big issue is that investing in the economy is going to make voters feel better about the economy and want to stick with the Democrats.
I heard on the radio that Biden is meeting (today?) with House Democrats about the infrastructure bills. They don’t want to pass the bill. What’s going on with the House?
~Max
House progressives want to hold the infrastructure bill hostage until they get the reconciliation bill passed, because its the only leverage they have. House Democratic moderates want to pass the infrastructure bill now and then spend weeks and months nitpicking and slow walking the reconciliation bill until it falls by the wayside.
And the reconciliation bill is stalling in the Senate because the parliamentarian ruled the immigration provision didn’t have anything to do with budget reconciliation, plus (as DeadTreasSecretaries mentioned) Sinema has a hold on it until the infrastructure bill passes. So what exactly is the plan here?
Presumably not enough sympathetic House Republicans to pass the infrastructure bill without the progressive caucus. I have no idea how they got Senate Republicans to vote with them on the infrastructure bill, going by the rest of this topic you’d think Hell would sooner freeze over. I doubt they can pull that trick again on the reconciliation bill, since the whole tactic of reconciliation is to exclude the minority vote.
~Max
Fyi they can’t spend months nitpicking reconciliation. The deadline to pass reconciliation is October 1 I believe (ain’t our system great?)
Hopefully what this will turn into is allnighter where some agreement is made at the last minute and both bills survive.
I think the annual reconciliation bill carries over to the next fiscal year. The concern is that the government shuts down without a budget bill, not that some parliamentary rule kicks in.
~Max
The plan?
These are Democrats.
During the campaign I was generally for the moderate position and defended Biden’s candidacy because I thought he would be a more progressive version of himself, and to his credit, he’s done a lot to live up to my expectations. I do wish he would give up on the filibuster but that’s another discussion. But I’m with progressives on reconciliation – we have to win this. We have to get this shit passed. We need to inspire progressives to keep showing up at the polls. I don’t think bridges and roads is enough to move the needle; people are angry at the system, and the system needs to be changed. We’ve got a lot of ‘pay fors’ in the bill.
Does anyone have the reconciliation bill’s reference number? Or are we not even at the point where the reconciliation bill has been assembled?
I believe the budget resolution it is supposed to be reconciled against is S.Con.Res.14.
I’ve been scouring the House Budget Committee website but am not finding it.
~Max
There’s nothing yet in the Senate. In the House, individual committees have marked up their portions of the bill, but the Budget Committee will have to assemble it into an omnibus package and the Rules Committee will further modify it before it gets to the floor. I don’t believe there’s a bill number yet.
Trying to think back to civics class… budget bills have to come from the House, so that makes sense that the Senate has nothing yet.
But if they are still putting the bill together, I can’t really pass judgement on it can I?
These statements from the progressive caucus don’t really make sense given their own man is chair of the Budget Committee. ‘The understanding was that the bills would be moved together’ but the Budget Committee hasn’t finished drafting the reconciliation bill yet.
~Max