Susan Walsh/AP Photo
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a news conference on Capitol Hill, May 13, 2021
Michael Kinsley may no longer be at the forefront of American political commentary, but he is well remembered for coining the phrase “Kinsley gaffe,” which refers to when a politician tells a truth that they were supposed to never say out loud. We had a doozy of a Kinsley gaffe this past week from President Joe Biden, whose name was almost synonymous with “gaffe” as a senator, but who has been disciplined as the chief executive.
Biden, responding to press questions after signing off on a bipartisan infrastructure agreement reached with ten senators, explained that it was just one half of an agenda that also included a separate public-investment bill, the American Families Plan, which included spending on education, welfare benefits, the care economy, and more. Both halves would “move through the legislative process promptly and in tandem,” Biden said. He then added that if the two bills didn’t arrive at his desk, he wouldn’t move forward with just the bipartisan measure. “If this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” he concluded.
Washington, or at least the part of Washington wired for Republicans, went berserk. It was called “extortion,” and a “double cross.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) left the bipartisan gang in a huff, and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) tried to get moderate Democrats to sabotage the reconciliation bill.
The caterwaul led the White House to walk back the statement, although careful perusal doesn’t show all that much walking back. Biden said in a statement that it was “certainly not my intent” to give the impression that he was threatening to veto the bipartisan bill absent a follow-up. But he added that he would still move forward with a second bill under budget reconciliation. “Our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat my Families Plan,” Biden said; “likewise, they should have no objections to my devoted efforts to pass that Families Plan and other proposals in tandem.”
In other words, Biden is saying yes, he will still pursue a second bill, and Republicans can go ahead and try to stop it, even though they don’t have the votes, since reconciliation bills can go forward with a bare majority in the Senate. GOP members of the bipartisan gang appeared satisfied with this take on the Sunday shows, even though it’s not all that different from what Biden said extemporaneously at the press conference.
Incidentally, Republicans were saying pretty much the same thing as recently as two weeks ago. They were confident that, if they passed something bipartisan that ripped away popular spending on roads and bridges and other physical infrastructure pieces, Democrats would not be able to get their whole caucus to reach consensus on the rest of Biden’s agenda. So they were all too happy to participate in a two-stage process, and everyone was well aware that it would happen.
What got Republicans so angry is that Democrats figured out a way to make the two-stage process successful. And it’s so confounding to them because, for the first time in anyone’s memory, the political system in Washington felt more of a need to cater to its left to win votes than to cater to its right.
Biden was merely adopting the same position that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had stated just a few hours earlier. “We will not take up a bill in the house until the Senate passes the bipartisan bill and a reconciliation bill,” Pelosi declared. When Biden was asked specifically if he supported Pelosi’s position, he said, “Yes.” But Biden didn’t link the two bills, Pelosi did, and there’s nothing that anyone in the Senate can do about it.
Pelosi had to make this promise because it was the only way for anything on infrastructure to pass. Progressives, who have enough numbers within the party to block legislation in the House, made it very clear that they didn’t trust moderates enough to follow through on a second bill without a forcing mechanism. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) floated on June 15 that the House should hold the first bill until the second bill passes the Senate, precisely what Pelosi stated would happen days later. AOC’s was just the first public iteration of a position relayed privately to Pelosi previously. Left-leaning members of the Senate unified with that strategy as well and made their stance clear.
Pelosi is pretty cold-eyed when it comes to this stuff. She will engage in whatever strategy it takes to actually get something passed. She’s stating through her actions that the threat of progressives walking away from the first bill in the absence of the second is greater than any moderate revolt on social spending and tax increases.
What got Republicans so angry is that Democrats figured out a way to make the two-stage process successful.
That’s an unusual dynamic in Congress to anyone who’s been observing it over the past few decades. Progressives are always the ones that get jammed, expected to suck it up and take incremental steps rather than the whole loaf. The Affordable Care Act played out that way, with a compromise off single-payer and then another compromise with no public option. Countless spending bills have played out that way, with progressives expected to vote for austerity or harmful riders or whatever else to keep the government funded and avoid a shutdown. The system recognizes the fact that progressives generally like to pass things and have government work, and will seek out the slightest sliver of progress to justify moving forward.
Yet that was not the case here. Progressives staked out a position, and the leadership knew that position was strong enough to sink the bill. So they had to cater to the left, and it wasn’t enough to give private assurances. They had to be loud and public.
Everyone, including Republicans, knows this is happening; even the walk-back acknowledges the process will be exactly the same. It’s just confusing to see it play out. The left doesn’t set the terms of the agenda as a general rule. That rule has been broken.
But it hasn’t been fully broken, and there’s one more bit of work for progressives. The fact sheet on the bipartisan bill still includes privatization schemes as one of the revenue-raisers. That means that old infrastructure will be sold off to pay for new infrastructure, and that private financiers will be given concessions to run common assets for decades. Wall Street is salivating over this idea, seeing it as their “big wish granted.” Trump unsuccessfully sought this, and Biden is close to succeeding. This could lead to sales of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Washington Dulles International Airport, and much more.
A leaked breakdown of the revenue side states that $100 billion would be put toward privatization, which means that the sell-offs and concessions would generate that much revenue, which private companies would make back plus profit by charging users. It’s inarguable that this violates Biden’s vow to not raise taxes on people making under $400,000 a year. Privatization merely substitutes public tax collection for private tax collection, through toll roads or increased rates on privatized water systems. The taxation is typically more burdensome, and it absolutely falls on the non-rich. Beyond that, democratic control is handed over to the private sector on the infrastructure we use every day.
If the two-stage process simply involved some pieces of Biden’s plans in the bipartisan bill and the rest in reconciliation, then the progressive linkage strategy would be sound. But accepting a significant amount of privatization in the process, to realize the Trump infrastructure agenda, should be too much to ask. The bills themselves probably won’t fulfill all of America’s infrastructure needs. Nevertheless, depending on the details, it will likely be reasonable to accept spending compromises on what will still be an abnormally large commitment to public investment relative to recent U.S. history. But if it includes selling off America in the process, Democrats on the progressive left will have to think very hard about whether that’s worth it.
