This morning the news is obsessed with the 10 GOP Senators who say they are willing to vote for a COVID package worth $600 billion in new spending, basically spitting on Biden’s proposal while declaring they are the very picture of bipartisan comity:
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a member of the group, estimated the legislation would cost roughly $600 billion. Senate Republicans contend there are hundreds of billions of dollars left over from previous bills, undercutting the need for the amount proposed by Biden.
“If you want unity, you want bipartisanship, you ought to start with the group that’s willing to work together,” Cassidy said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They did not.”
That certainly sounds like a promising negotiation …
Does anyone remember any caterwauling about bipartisanship when the Senate rammed through massive tax cuts for the wealthy via Reconciliation during the Trump years? I don’t remember it even being raised. Neither was it considered a massive scandal when they also rammed through Obamacare repeal via Reconciliation (which ended up failing to even get enough GOP votes to pass.) These were the only two big legislative initiatives of the Trump years. Was there even one story about Reconciliation being a slap in the face to the millions of people who voted for Hillary Clinton?
Biden may have run on restoring the nation’s soul but I don’t think that meant he would gladly just pass the Republican agenda in the name of bipartisanship. That’s what they mean by this.
And even if Biden were to agree, losing a huge number of Democrats in the Senate in the process, the Republicans would pull the football at the last moment anyway. In fact, this measly offer actually seems pretty halfhearted, with even the so-called Rod Portman emphasizing that they don’t think there really needs to be much money put toward the pandemic crisis and Bill Cassidy saying the whole idea of making schools safe is just a sop to Teachers Unions. This hardly seems designed to result in an agreement.
I doubt Joe Biden is dumb enough to engage in a long negotiation with people who obviously have no intention of actually agreeing to anything. (At least I hope he isn’t still dumb enough …) I’m positive Ron Klain isn’t. I just hope that Schumer has enough savvy to keep his Democrats in line for Reconciliation. That’s the real game at the moment.
Update:
Life comes at Rob Portman pretty fast
GOP IN CONTROL: He told @JenniferRubin that using 50-vote threshold "would be great" and "we ought to do that"
GOP NOT IN CONTROL: He tells @DanaBashCNN that if Democrats use a 50-vote threshold they would "poison the well"
Weird, huh?
Originally tweeted by Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) on January 31, 2021.