There’s a grudging realization among Democrats on the Hill that Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” bill will not pass either the House or Senate without substantial changes. Those changes include dramatically trimming the amount of money to be spent and curtailing the ambitious climate change agenda.
Centrist Democrats in the House want to see concrete measures on how to pay for the bill. Even Joe Biden has said he wants ideas on how to find the revenue to pay for the spending. So far, the Democrats’ proposals for increasing revenue include some form of smoke and mirrors and not much else.
The radicals have dug in their heels and are threatening to blow up not only the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill if the centrists start whittling away at it, but also the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by the Senate over the summer. That spending represents the bulk of Joe Biden’s domestic spending agenda.
The bottom line for the centrists is that the bill costs too much and is being rushed in order to satisfy an artificial deadline. But the deadline of September 27 was part of a deal reached with centrists to authorize the House to begin deliberations on the $3.5 trillion plan. Speaker Pelosi promised to bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill to a vote before then so the moderates would be assured there would be no doublecross by the radicals.
Now the radicals are worried that the moderates will refuse to support the “human infrastructure” bill if they don’t pass the bipartisan bill.
It really doesn’t matter because neither side has any idea how to pay for it.
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