Editors’ Blog

Yesterday a friend said maybe I was over-interpreting Joe Manchin’s comments from yesterday, the ones I mentioned below. I think he may be right. It’s entirely in character for Manchin to release a statement decrying Democrats tax and spend ways and inflation and tearing the country apart and turn around and finally make a deal. Indeed, he seems to have come back immediately from his scalding statement and said, “okay, so let’s get down to negotiating.” I feel like I failed my own test of never taking anything Joe Manchin says seriously until everything is actually totally, finally done. So who knows?

In any case, Kyrsten Sinema still seems like the biggest problem. And they’ve got 99 problems.

Sen. Manchin just put out a statement, scorching in its appraisal of the proposed reconciliation bill and making me think for the first time that this entire thing – both bills – may go down in flames. It’s a lot of the same stuff: debt, inflation, mean taxations, means-testing. But the volume is turned … well, up to 11. It’s not remotely the statement of someone who is on the verge of finding common ground with the rest of the caucus. I heard someone say a bit earlier that maybe killing his bill isn’t the way to get him to yes. But that’s not what’s happening. The rest of the party is begging him to say what he will support. They’re practically begging to get an agreement below $3.5 trillion. He and Kyrsten Sinema just won’t play ball.

It’s a bit of a bizarre calculation, but House GOP leadership is reportedly launching a relatively aggressive offensive against the bipartisan infrastructure bill ahead of the potential House vote tomorrow.

Members of Congress have begun to say explicitly in the last couple days what I think has been clear for weeks and months. Kyrsten Sinema’s multiple trips to the White House yesterday just confirm it. She’s not negotiating about any of this in good faith. Joe Manchin is a huge obstacle for Democrats pushing their agenda. But the Manchin problem is still very different from the Sinema problem.

The former president did a lot of things to maintain control of his presidency — like the whole dismantling democracy thing or the time he encouraged a mob of his most loyal to violently try to do a coup.

But, according to one account, he also underwent a surgery without anesthesia just to maintain his hold on the office.

I’ve made this point a few times. I think most Editors’ Blog readers fully get this. But it’s so important I thought I’d make the point again. People continually claim that the debt ceiling vote adds to the national debt or somehow runs up spending. That is not true. In most cases we can’t make useful analogies between macro-economics and government spending and the household and personal spending most of us are familiar with. This is the rare exception.

I think this is just too rich for the White House’s blood. But I can’t imagine the ‘moderates’ and others behind them haven’t had this thought. Let’s assume the “BIF” gets passed on Thursday. When does the President sign it? It’s not law until he signs it. And he can wait a while. I believe he has ten days excluding Sundays.

We’re seeing a lot of talk about the decoupling of the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill. Let’s start by stating the obvious: this isn’t great. But we’ve been in the land of the not great for at least a couple weeks. That said, we should remember that the joined approach isn’t simply about timing. It’s the commitment that the President’s agenda is both bills and that both have to pass. Insisting on passing them together in sequence was a way of guaranteeing that both would pass – giving each side a veto over what the other side wanted most.

We’re puzzling over Nancy Pelosi’s apparent decoupling of the bipartisan infrastructure bill from the reconciliation bill. What’s it mean? Does it matter? Where does lifting the debt ceiling fit in? We got you covered here.

We’re covering his Senate testimony live here.