To twist the words of the most famous Marx Brother (Karl): The infrastructure debate in D.C. is unfolding as both tragedy and farce. What other way to describe the following: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework is supported by: - More than three in four voters
- President Biden and VP Harris
- The 58 bipartisan members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, and a bipartisan Senate group of 22
And yet, this proposal might never become law. The best chance in a generation to pass meaningful infrastructure legislation -- a bipartisan framework that would fix and upgrade roads and bridges, deliver Internet broadband access and clean water to underserved communities, and create good jobs -- may not even ever be brought to a vote. The tragedy is that that the same cast of special-interest agitators on the left and right that show up to kill every bipartisan deal are once again trying to kill this one. The farce is the behavior of the six top officials in Washington (at least, the top six not named “Manchin” or “Sinema”). Leaders are supposed to LEAD. On the table is a targeted plan with bicameral and presidential support, the exact kind of bipartisan deal the country wants -- on the very issue the public says is most deserving of unified backing. Instead, what do we have? President Biden and Vice President Harris are touting the urgency and historic nature of this bipartisan agreement while being strangely passive about how, when or if Congress debates it. The president’s press secretary says it’s up to leaders in Congress “to determine the sequencing of the legislation.” Senate Minority Leader McConnell is playing coy, suggesting “there’s a decent chance” a bipartisan deal will come together, while doing little publicly to actually make it come together. Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Schumer continue to insist on linking the bipartisan infrastructure plan with the separate partisan multi-trillion dollar reconciliation bill, with Pelosi saying, “There ain’t gonna be no bipartisan bill unless we’re going to have a reconciliation bill.” House Minority Leader McCarthy is completely MIA and showing absolutely no public interest in the substance of the infrastructure bill or its possible passage. Leaders are supposed to LEAD. This is an agreement that, to sort of quote the president in a different context, is a BFD. But he isn’t using the bully pulpit or exerting pressure to demand immediate consideration of the bill. Neither are the top congressional figures in both parties. And here’s why this is a huge problem. There is a leadership void, and partisan voices on the extreme left and the right are rising to fill it. They are doing everything they can to undermine the deal, taking every perceived flaw in the measure and blowing the defects up like they are the worst thing since moldy, unsliced bread. The majority of the 95-member House Progressive Caucus has threatened to sink infrastructure “unless a larger reconciliation package containing our progressive priorities [is] moved simultaneously.” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called the plan -- which clocks in at $1.2 trillion -- a “little bipartisan bill” and said, “Democrats, including the White House, seem to remain committed at this point that whatever they’re able to get done with some Republican support is great.” On the right, groups including Heritage Action, FreedomWorks, and Club For Growth have come out against the bill, saying it supports “left-leaning priorities and fails to properly pay for it.” This is nothing new for Heritage Action, which is often against what everyone else is for. Heritage Action was: Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said the bill would eliminate America’s suburbs, and former President Trump compared the bipartisan agreement to Britain’s appeasement of Hitler in 1938 and encouraged Republican Senators to stop working on the bipartisan infrastructure talks. If the big six leaders in Washington don’t step up to lead, the partisans and special interests will chip away at this bill all summer until momentum for it dies. No Labels National Co-Chair Governor Larry Hogan said recently that the bipartisan infrastructure framework is a chance to prove that Congress is able to “work together to deliver bipartisan, commonsense solutions.” National Co-Chair Joe Lieberman said directly that the Pelosi/Schumer approach is “wrong,” writing in the Wall Street Journal that their message to the country is essentially that “we can’t have this infrastructure plan until Congress is done debating and voting for a separate, controversial, costly bill that may or may not pass months from now.” While top leaders dither, momentum continues to gather behind the bipartisan infrastructure plan. Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen just endorsed it, becoming the 22nd senator to do so. The 58-member House Problem Solvers Caucus did as well and called in their statement for an “expeditious, standalone vote in the House.” And a broad coalition of business and labor groups, including the U.S. Chamber, BRT, National Retail Federation, AFL-CIO, Laborers International Union of North America and American Society of Civil Engineers just endorsed the plan too. So what needs to be done now? The president should tell the Democratic congressional leaders he wants them to work with their Republican counterparts to get the bill to his desk. He should ask the current House and Senate supporters of the deal to work with him to get all the major Capitol Hill leaders to back the measure -- or, at least, support an up-or down vote on it. And we should all be encouraging President Biden to do that very thing. If this attempt to influence the president fails, the extremes will win again, our leaders will have failed to lead, and we will all search -- likely in vain -- for some lesson of this all-too-familiar tale that is something besides tragedy or farce. | 
