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**MAY 24, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

Biden Bargaining With the GOP: Crazy Like a Fox

****

Was Biden "bargaining against himself" when he offered to reduce the
total size of his $2.25 trillion infrastructure package by $550 billion
in a bid for Republican support? In fact, Biden is crazy like a fox.

As Susan Collins of Maine, the most faux-bipartisan member of the
Republican Senate Caucus, made clear in her Sunday interview

with George Stephanopoulos, the two sides are still "pretty far apart"
because of "fundamental differences" on the right scale of spending.

That's an understatement. Another would-be Republican bridge-builder,
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, offered Biden a measly $568 billion on behalf
of Republicans, or about a trillion less than Biden's revised
proposal. The senator's press aide dismissed Biden's number

as "well above the range of what can pass Congress with bipartisan
support."

And indeed it is. By making a good-faith gesture of compromise, Biden
forces centrist Democrats like Joe Manchin to put up or shut up-either
produce the reasonable Republicans he keeps fanaticizing about-or
support the Biden bill.

One other important by-product: The revelation of the near-total absence
of bipartisan Republicans brings Manchin that much closer to filibuster
reform. That will become even clearer when the Senate votes on the
commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection
,
with only a handful of Republicans inclined to vote aye.

In an ideal world, the Democrats would have given up on bipartisanship
by now, and gone directly to a second reconciliation process and a
Democrats-only bill. But the choreography needs to play out. First it
has to be clear that no bipartisan deal is possible.

Except as a feint, that $550 billion cut is more for Manchin than for
the GOP, and it suggests the range of the eventual Democrats-only bill.
Biden has been dealt a terrible hand. Let's give him credit for
playing it well.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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