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The Senate Deadline That Isn't One

Understanding the various contours of an imminent failed vote on the
bipartisan infrastructure bill today

 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer arrives for a news conference after
the Senate Democratic policy luncheon in the Capitol, July 20, 2021.
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

 

****

**** Today sometime after 2:30 p.m. Eastern, the Senate will move to
vote to proceed on the legislative vehicle for the bipartisan
infrastructure framework, which I've taken to calling Portman-Sinema
after its two lead negotiators. This vote will fail. Republicans have
been very explicit

that it will fail. They've said they haven't had enough time to
strike a final deal, more than a month after announcing the initial deal
and agreeing to it with the White House.

Yet they also have said that they expect to soldier on after the failure
of that vote, resolve the differences on Portman-Sinema by the weekend,
and present it to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) like
nothing ever happened. And Schumer appears resigned to indulging that
process.

Given all this, what was the point of holding this test vote, if it
answered no questions and led to no changes in the fundamental dynamic?

Seen from one angle, the Schumer gambit of calling a vote, while met
with seething anger

from Republicans, absolutely worked. Negotiations over the final pieces
of Portman-Sinema weren't going anywhere until Schumer called the
vote, and the bluff of Republican senators. Schumer had lined up all the
Democrats

in the "Gang of 10" before his announcement, presenting a united front
to complete the outstanding issues. We're now on a path where senators
are talking about wrapping up by next Monday
. That
wasn't going to happen without a deadline.

**Read all of our infrastructure coverage here**

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Schumer also needed to get clarity on Portman-Sinema before crafting the
vehicle for the reconciliation package. Right now, that package stands
at $3.5 trillion, but the expectation is that, if Portman-Sinema falls
apart, the new spending in that bill would be folded in
,
pushing the figure to $4.1 trillion. You have to make the headspace for
that in the budget resolution, which instructs the reconciliation
process with topline numbers that set the limit for spending. If the
Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution, they couldn't fold in
the outstanding money from Portman-Sinema. So its fate needs to be clear
ahead of the budget vote.

But while on process, the Schumer gambit has been a spur to advance the
Biden agenda, on substance, Portman-Sinema has gotten worse with each
passing day. First there was the inevitable Republican pullout

of the investment in IRS enforcement. A political party that has
dedicated itself to starving the IRS of revenue was highly unlikely to
green-light $40 billion

for that agency. The talk from the negotiations is that other "pay-fors"
have been found, but that $100 billion hole was significant and it's
unclear what substituted for it, since the entire tax code now is off
the table. There was some talk of reversing the Trump "rebate rule" for
pharmaceutical products

and plugging that into Portman-Sinema, but Democrats want to use that
for reconciliation, so there's a mad grab for revenue-raisers.

The good news is that this becomes another revenue piece Democrats can
use in the reconciliation package. The bad news is that the
Congressional Budget Office won't score increases in tax enforcement
as raising revenue. And while the parties could agree to a handshake
deal under regular order, Democrats have less wiggle room to do so under
reconciliation. They can add the IRS investment, but it would "score" as

**costing** $40 billion. That's a circle they're going to have to
square.

Meanwhile, transit funding
has come up as
another flash point. And this is another case of Republicans just
retrading the deal they already made. The original two-pager on
Portman-Sinema

was very clear; there was $110 billion for roads and bridges and "major
projects," $66 billion for passenger and freight rail, and $48.5 billion
for public transit. But Republicans apparently want to starve transit of
the routine spending that's been folded into Portman-Sinema, breaking
the age-old "80/20" split
between
highways and public transportation. That split was already
unconscionable, particularly if you believe this infrastructure package
needs to address our climate needs. The talks have been tight-lipped,
but that could mean less overall money in the bill now that the revenues
from IRS enforcement are out, with all of it coming out of transit.

As long as talks are allowed to continue, this trajectory is likely to
persist as well. Democratic moderates are apparently so focused on
getting a deal that they're allowing the GOP to chip away at the
substance. And even that hasn't guaranteed passage.

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The real open question is this: If Portman-Sinema does fall apart, and
its elements are folded into the reconciliation package, will Democrats
keep the most objectionable pieces that were added to gain Republican
support? For instance, dozens of progressive groups are now on the
record on killing the privatization elements

in the bill, with detailed reasoning about how private funding is more
expensive, risks deficiencies in labor and maintenance, and eliminates
democratic control. Would Democrats just port privatization over to
reconciliation, above this opposition?

There's a lot that isn't known about that reconciliation bill, and
rumors are flying. The former director of the CDC under Obama, Tom
Frieden, has suggested that funding for future pandemic preparedness has
been cut back from $30 billion to $5 billion
.
Other things are likely to be pushed back from Biden's initial plan,
given the addition of Medicare expansion and other measures that
didn't appear in there.

Meanwhile, the House is simmering

about being locked out of policymaking. Even the best-case scenario
where the Senate gets a big bill across the line would involve no input
on the part of the House; they'd have to accept whatever the Senate
can pass. That usually leads to tensions.

And finally, there's the little matter of the debt ceiling, which has
been suspended for over a year. That suspension lifts next Saturday
,
and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said his party won't
lift a finger to pass it. He suggested Democrats put it in the
reconciliation bill, but there's no way that bill will be passed and
on Biden's desk before the government runs out of borrowing room. This
unthinkable, preventable disaster of failing to meet financial
obligations already approved by Congress is something I've always seen
as the spur to finally eliminating the filibuster once and for all, but
not enough of the Senate Democratic caucus thinks like me.

 

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