Opinion by
James Downie
Digital opinions editor
June 27, 2021 at 5:32 p.m. CDT
It’s a basic rule of political dealmaking that the minority party takes what it can get and doesn’t try to use a deal to leverage the majority party’s broader agenda. Democrats didn’t link President Donald Trump’s NAFTA replacement with a ban on a border wall, for example. When you’re in the minority party, you acknowledge basic math.
Unless, it seems, you’re a Senate Republican.
Since President Biden introduced his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan in the spring, Republicans have insisted that they’ll only support “real” infrastructure spending — and that most of what the White House and Democrats propose has nothing to do with infrastructure.
“When Americans think of rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, they think of fixing roads, bridges, airports, ports, and waterways — not expanding the welfare state as the Democrats have proposed,” said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) back in April. As 10 Democrats and 11 Republicans agreed to a bipartisan deal this past week, leaving budget reconciliation as the only path for the rest of the White House’s proposals, Republicans maintained this strict dichotomy.
The deal “is true infrastructure,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “And so this is a bill which stands on its own.” Even Republican Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), who doesn’t support the deal, told Fox News on Sunday the compromise is “focused on real infrastructure.”
But when Biden, while embracing the deal Thursday, suggested he might veto the bipartisan package if the reconciliation package wasn’t passed as well, Republicans flipped out. “That’s extortion!” whined Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday. Biden later walked back the veto threat, but Republicans remained critical. “We were all blindsided,” complained Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Romney told CNN he believed there were enough GOP votes to avoid a filibuster, but “I don’t know exactly where everybody is after the weekend.”
It’s unclear why Republicans were surprised: As my colleague Greg Sargent noted Friday, Democrats have been very open about the “two-track” path for weeks. The most likely explanation is that Republicans assumed that moderate Democrats such as Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) opposed this approach. But while Manchin and Sinema have refused to commit to any specific reconciliation bill, they had not come out against the reconciliation process itself (unlike filibuster reform). More important, they helped pass Biden’s covid-19 relief package via reconciliation less than four months ago. It would be more surprising — and hypocritical — for them to oppose reconciliation now.
In their outrage, GOP senators are telling on themselves. If they believe the bipartisan compromise is the only “real” infrastructure bill, then they are taking the position that, as the minority party in a deal, they get to control the rest of the majority’s legislative agenda. That view would be almost unprecedented, except that it’s entirely in line with Republicans’ ever-growing embrace of minority rule.
But there is a gaping hole in Republicans’ thinking: These bills are more linked than they’ll admit. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) inadvertently but perfectly demonstrated this linkage. “My wife says that roads and bridges are a woman’s problem, if you will,” he told host Chuck Todd. “Because oftentimes, it is the woman, aside from commuting to work, who’s also taking children to school. And the more time she spends on that road, the less time she spends doing things of higher value.”
You know what else would help mothers (or any parent) balance raising kids with commuting? Expanded child care — which will be in the reconciliation bill. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told Todd on the same show, “in addition to a bridge, you need a babysitter.”
The same goes for other parts of the reconciliation bill, such as paid leave, expanding Medicare and — most important — addressing climate change. When it comes to making Americans’ lives easier and less stressful, fixing roads and repairing pipes are only part of the solution. Dealing with the climate crisis, in particular, will require massive infrastructure investments.
There’s no time like the present for this: Ocasio-Cortez was right when she told NBC, “We really need to understand that this is our one big shot, not just in terms of family, child care, Medicare, but on climate change.” The country faces a host of challenges. If Republicans want to help to face them, that’s great. If not, that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to wait. There’s too much at stake.
James Downie
Digital opinions editor
June 27, 2021 at 5:32 p.m. CDT
It’s a basic rule of political dealmaking that the minority party takes what it can get and doesn’t try to use a deal to leverage the majority party’s broader agenda. Democrats didn’t link President Donald Trump’s NAFTA replacement with a ban on a border wall, for example. When you’re in the minority party, you acknowledge basic math.
Unless, it seems, you’re a Senate Republican.
Since President Biden introduced his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan in the spring, Republicans have insisted that they’ll only support “real” infrastructure spending — and that most of what the White House and Democrats propose has nothing to do with infrastructure.
“When Americans think of rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, they think of fixing roads, bridges, airports, ports, and waterways — not expanding the welfare state as the Democrats have proposed,” said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) back in April. As 10 Democrats and 11 Republicans agreed to a bipartisan deal this past week, leaving budget reconciliation as the only path for the rest of the White House’s proposals, Republicans maintained this strict dichotomy.
The deal “is true infrastructure,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “And so this is a bill which stands on its own.” Even Republican Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), who doesn’t support the deal, told Fox News on Sunday the compromise is “focused on real infrastructure.”
But when Biden, while embracing the deal Thursday, suggested he might veto the bipartisan package if the reconciliation package wasn’t passed as well, Republicans flipped out. “That’s extortion!” whined Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday. Biden later walked back the veto threat, but Republicans remained critical. “We were all blindsided,” complained Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Romney told CNN he believed there were enough GOP votes to avoid a filibuster, but “I don’t know exactly where everybody is after the weekend.”
It’s unclear why Republicans were surprised: As my colleague Greg Sargent noted Friday, Democrats have been very open about the “two-track” path for weeks. The most likely explanation is that Republicans assumed that moderate Democrats such as Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) opposed this approach. But while Manchin and Sinema have refused to commit to any specific reconciliation bill, they had not come out against the reconciliation process itself (unlike filibuster reform). More important, they helped pass Biden’s covid-19 relief package via reconciliation less than four months ago. It would be more surprising — and hypocritical — for them to oppose reconciliation now.
In their outrage, GOP senators are telling on themselves. If they believe the bipartisan compromise is the only “real” infrastructure bill, then they are taking the position that, as the minority party in a deal, they get to control the rest of the majority’s legislative agenda. That view would be almost unprecedented, except that it’s entirely in line with Republicans’ ever-growing embrace of minority rule.
But there is a gaping hole in Republicans’ thinking: These bills are more linked than they’ll admit. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) inadvertently but perfectly demonstrated this linkage. “My wife says that roads and bridges are a woman’s problem, if you will,” he told host Chuck Todd. “Because oftentimes, it is the woman, aside from commuting to work, who’s also taking children to school. And the more time she spends on that road, the less time she spends doing things of higher value.”
You know what else would help mothers (or any parent) balance raising kids with commuting? Expanded child care — which will be in the reconciliation bill. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told Todd on the same show, “in addition to a bridge, you need a babysitter.”
The same goes for other parts of the reconciliation bill, such as paid leave, expanding Medicare and — most important — addressing climate change. When it comes to making Americans’ lives easier and less stressful, fixing roads and repairing pipes are only part of the solution. Dealing with the climate crisis, in particular, will require massive infrastructure investments.
There’s no time like the present for this: Ocasio-Cortez was right when she told NBC, “We really need to understand that this is our one big shot, not just in terms of family, child care, Medicare, but on climate change.” The country faces a host of challenges. If Republicans want to help to face them, that’s great. If not, that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to wait. There’s too much at stake.
