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**JUNE 4, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

How Some Lefties Misunderstand Biden's Negotiating Strategy

****

Biden is needlessly prolonging negotiations with Republicans over the
infrastructure package and giving away the store, right? And he's
gutting his own proposal to raise taxes on corporations-negotiating
with himself-right?

Wrong, actually.

But here's Leah Greenberg of Indivisible, as quoted by Politico
:

We've seen this dynamic over and over again where Democrats are
effectively negotiating with themselves, watering down their own
package, not in exchange for votes but in exchange for the hope of
keeping the negotiations going ... And the inevitable result is that
what passes is weaker and less popular than what would have passed if
they had gotten bigger and bolder to begin with.

Sorry, that's totally off.

What Biden is doing is going the last mile to prove that Republicans are
not serious about bipartisanship. Then he can revert to a Democrats-only
bill, passed via a second reconciliation.

The supposed GOP offer to spend nearly a trillion dollars on
infrastructure actually takes all but about $200 billion from the
previous relief bill. It's a complete nonstarter.

And by the way, Leah, how would Biden have gotten any more Republican
votes, or those of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (to whom this
choreography is really directed) if his plan had been even "bigger and
bolder to begin with"?

Regarding Biden's offer to drop higher corporate taxes

as part of the infrastructure package, which has been attacked as
another sellout, much of the commentary has it wrong, and Frank Clemente
of Americans for Tax Fairness has it right
:

It appears that President Biden has not abandoned his campaign pledge to
raise the corporate income tax rate to 28%-he has just removed it from
consideration as part of negotiations to achieve a bipartisan deal on
infrastructure ... If the President achieves this bipartisan deal on
infrastructure, making corporations pay their fair share by raising the
corporate tax rate to at least 28% should then become the foundation of
a reconciliation package that would fund the rest of the President's
bold jobs and families investment agenda.

Exactly so.

In short, a bipartisan infrastructure and tax deal with the Republicans
was never going to happen. It was always going to be Democrats-only, via
the next reconciliation. The only negotiation that matters is with Joe
Manchin.

I can get why some of my progressive friends are wary, since we've
seen this capitulation movie so many times before, with Clinton and
Obama. But Biden is a lot better, both on the substance and on the
tactics.

~ 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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