The Fight For President Joe’s Agenda, But Which Joe?
Hi Hackaroos!
Well, we hope you had a better weekend than the current track for President Biden’s domestic agenda. It continues to be the battle of the Joe’s in Washington, but only one seems to be controlling the narrative at the moment. We give our take on the ongoing saga over the White House agenda then share our memories of the late Colin Powell.
(cover photo credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images News)
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Almost Heaven, West Virginia… Not So Much
Gibbs:
So here we go again. We know it’s the same old story, but that is, like it or not, the way getting legislation through the annals of Washington works. (Remember, health care? It took until March of the next year!) So, to that end, 12 days before the October 31 deadline, Democrats seem to have made little progress in getting an agreement to move forward. I think it’s nearly impossible to get this all done in the next 12 days. It's not going to be all that easy to even getting agreement on a framework by then. However, we do know the White House and Capitol Hill are busy with lots and lots of discussions and meetings. I think there are a lot of proposals that are changing hands. We know a group of progressives and a group of moderates are going to see President Biden today.
More importantly, NBC News and Garrett Haake reported that Senator Joe Manchin and Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal met in person Monday for the first time to discuss the Build Back Better plan. But given the system we have and, more importantly, with the majorities that Democrats have in both the House and the Senate means literally everybody is either a king or a queen.
Whether it’s the Axios report on Senator Manchin wanting to severely cut back the child tax credit or a lot of reporting that had been happening over the past several days about his objections to Biden’s centerpiece clean energy program, it all just underscores that Democrats are not in danger of being close to meeting this deadline of October 31 that Speaker Pelosi set (which is when the extended Surface Transportation funding elapses, but also just happens to be the Sunday preceding the next big election… in Virginia). But one point made that is true: You’re hearing more about the policy decisions in detail because we are at that stage in this negotiation and that is a good sign.
Sure, frustration is building and nerves are frayed. But (even more) patience is needed. Remember, they compare legislative work to making sausage for a reason!
Murphy:
Deadlines, deadlines. Looks like we are on track to shatter House deadline number 3. I can argue that passing whatever version of this thing the House and Senate land on by the Sunday before Virginia is not only going to be very difficult to do. It’s a bad idea. Why tie your miracle bill victory to VA? Last thing the Biden White House needs is to finally pass this thing only to have it get swept into the media vortex if the Dems lose VA (which they very well may).
I’d pass it after that and use it for a restart. Which they may really, really need. Another landmine this week: Dems are learning that Sen. Manchin, coming from a strong red GOP state, only works mornings as a Democrat. The rest of the time he has GOP moderate style tendencies. So now, shocker, the coal state guy is not on board with a huge new climate policy spend targeting fossil fuel. Another heart break for Democratic lefties who I’m sure would like to bury Manchin in one of his own coal mines. So Democratic climate focused Members now need a plan B. The policy nerds (don’t worry I’ll be quick) are looking at carbon taxes. The good news; there is a smart market-based way to fight climate change. In fact, it would be a lot more effective than the climate spending frenzy in the original $3.5T Biden plan. (Expensive gasoline in Europe is why EU and UK citizens buy a lot more electric and hybrid cars in their markets than we do in the good ol’ US of A.). The problem is carbon taxes, while a very effective climate change fighting stick, are predictably quite unpopular so no surprise the idea of carbon taxes goes over about as a well on the Hill as a Congressional pay cut. But you’ve gotta give it to Manchin; that guy knows how to throw a big spanner wrench into the works like nobody else. Dems must be furious. Bernie even wrote a hot editorial in Manchin’s home state newspaper.
Not sure of the master strategy behind that move. Manchin – the KEY vote to get anything done – got really steamed, and under attack from Bernie I’m sure his W.V. poll numbers went up five points. That said, when the Revolution comes Manchin will have some explainin’ to do.
Gibbs:
By the way, I applaud your embrace of taxing the rich when it comes to carbon, Murphy. I feel like that in and of itself is an amazing reconciliation accomplishment!
Murphy:
Well, the point is if you make carbon cost more there, people will buy less of it. But the Dem pols prefer the political much easier route of spending a zillion Federal dollars to “fight” climate change with more politically popular, but arguably far less effective actual policies. Beyond climate fighting in his own party, the President’s other headache is that the narrative is getting worse as he looks weaker and weaker. Who’s in charge, who’s closing the deal, who runs the Democrats? It’s unclear, but it sure doesn’t look like it’s Biden. That’s kryptonite for a President. If I were Joe Biden I’d start making big flashy moves to show the country I’m in charge; including locking a dozen key Capitol Hill Democrats into a cabin at Camp David with me and announcing that nobody leaves till we have a deal. It’s risky, but Biden is to the point now that I don’t think he has much to lose.
(photo credit: public domain / Schumacher, Karl H.)
Gibbs:
I agree with you that the optics of this are not great by a longshot. And I could argue the incentivizing of power companies to use renewable energy only hastens the changes we’ve been seeing for years around coal (but I digress…). I think we are seeing a more active schedule of White House meetings with the President this week and a televised town hall of the plan on Thursday will help keep the balloon in the air and also help sell the why, not just the how much. As we've discussed too much, there's a huge messaging challenge here. The problem with wrapping this up is, it goes back to my point, if you've got one vote to spare in the Senate, one person can delay this and make everyone march to his or her timeline. And currently that person just happens to represent a state where Democrats in 2020 got slightly less than 30% of the vote. And so, I think the normal physics of Presidential political push are not nearly as effective as they might be in a different geography, coupled with Manchin repeatedly saying we should not go so fast, just makes the whole thing more complicated. It’s messy, but Biden and others know how important this really is. It’s likely the last big legislative thing that will happen in the first two years of the Biden Presidency. So if it takes a bit longer, that’s what it takes. Frankly, there aren’t a lot more options.
Murphy:
What Democrats are learning is that the highly Republican state of West Virginia has predictively elected a half Democrat and half Republican. The fact is they’re lucky to have that; the alternative is another Cruz or (best case) a Shelly Moore Capito. So Gibbsie, riddle me this: how freaked out are DC Democrats right now, and… doesn’t it make sense to hang the new, smaller $2T bill on one or two big, popular programs so the D’s can actually communicate what it is they are fighting for on a “what’s in this for you” dimension voters can actually understand? Right now it looks like another DC food fight over spending way too much money that the Dems are losing. Why not bet the big Donkey farm on, say, the child care tax credit?
Gibbs:
I think you've seen over the past couple of weeks both Speaker Pelosi and Biden have talked about the fact that this thing needs to come to its logical conclusion and getting on with the legislating. I don't think it's likely or altogether that politically helpful inside of the Democratic caucus to slim down the number of programs, mostly because I think there are a lot of people who want to make progress on not just the child tax credit, but help with child care, which we know is undoubtedly impacting economic growth or making permanent health insurance subsidies so working families can afford insurance, etc. I don't know that there's a lot that can be done to force the hand here and I think that's what has got people understandably frustrated. I think, at the end of the day, the angst around these artificial deadlines, to your earlier point, is not all that helpful because, in reality, I'm not entirely sure that getting something done by October 31 would have some huge impact on the Virginia race. And I don't think it's logical to think that they're in danger of getting it done in less than two weeks anyway. I think in the end, it's about getting it done and getting it done right and I think the challenge is that the plane can only circle the airport for so long.
Murphy:
Yeah, I'm starting to think, unfortunately for the Democrats, the “inevitable conclusion” of this is going to be a nice midterm for the Republicans, but we will see.
Remembering Colin Powell
Murphy:
Powell was a great American. And smart enough to rebuff the multiple attempts people made to get him to run for President since he understood he was better as an inside advisor and operator than as a public politician stuck in the bad dinner theater of electioneering. He also knew GOP primary politics would be a rough neighborhood for him and that running as an independent was also full of challenges.
One Powell memory. My late friend John McCain invited me to see him in the Fall of 2008 when he was the GOP nominee running against Barack Obama. It was like a spy movie; as the McCain 2000 guy I was a bit unpopular with many of the McCain 2008 senior campaign staff. (I also wasn’t shy about publicly saying I thought they were losing the campaign. So, as McCain used to say about his colleagues in the GOP Senate caucus, I was unlikely to be voted “Miss Congeniality.” Anyway, we were alone in his condo and yakking away like two grand old gals of the theater when the phone rang. It was Colin Powell, a good friend of McCain’s who had worked closely with him on NatSec and Defense issues for years. McCain listened for a while as Powell told him something that took a while to tell and then said “I totally understand Colin,” thanked the General, hung up and looked at me. “He was calling to give me a heads up that tomorrow, he’s going to endorse Obama for President.” McCain settled back into the couch and turned to me with a wry smile. “Well, it’s hard to fight history.” We had a drink.
Gibbs:
Obviously, he had a storied career as a General and a diplomat that was undoubtably blighted by his testimony at the UN, that essentially sealed the deal for the Iraq War. Something that Powell often called a blot on his career. I'm 50 and to me the rise of Colin Powell very much tracks with the rise of cable news. The masses were all introduced to Colin Powell largely through the Persian Gulf War in the early 90s, which also was the very beginning of the rise of CNN. I remember watching updates on the war on CNN while in college. If you go back and look at it, with him and Norman Schwarzkopf, it became the beginning of the real cable lionization of generals. Of course, historically you had the likes of Patton, MacArthur and Eisenhower, immense figures throughout history, but those two came to rise at a point in which news was becoming far more ubiquitous. No longer was it delivered the next day or only available on an evening broadcast. And so, I think for a lot of us, particularly for a lot of people at least my age and people who were fascinated by politics and the news, our remembrance of him is not just as a Secretary of State in the 21st century, but as a general in uniform doing briefings on CNN more than 10 years before that. But, sad and terrible news that we all woke up to on Monday, made even worse by the role COVID played for a warrior also battling cancer. RIP.
We’ll be back on Friday and we’ll see how much gets done on the Hill between now and then.
Murphy and Gibbs