Infrastructure Showdown: Pelosi Wants a Vote, Manchin Puts Down His Foot

Infrastructure Showdown: Pelosi Wants a Vote, Manchin Puts Down His Foot

***I will update this post whenever the House votes. That is if it’s before my bedtime. I’m old so I try to be in bed by 10 PM CT.

So will they or won’t they?

It’s the last day of the fiscal year. The Senate already voted to fund the government, delaying a shutdown. The House passed it as well. Biden will likely sign it.

But now we have the $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill and the crap sandwich $3.5 trillion “human” infrastructure bill.

The Senate Democrats want reconciliation. Moderate Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) want the bills separate because they don’t approve of the $3.5 trillion bill.

Let’s look at the House. The left-wing faction of the Democrats wants them combined. The others either only want the $1.5 bill or a vote on them separately.

Pelosi and the House

Pelosi is feeling the heat. She claims they are going to whip the votes, but those far-left Democrats are not caving:

Pelosi is publicly and privately indicating that she is muscling ahead with the vote despite mounting progressive threats to tank the bill without a clear path forward for the party’s separate — but politically linked — social safety net bill, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

“We’re on a path to win the votes. I don’t want to even consider any options but that,” Pelosi told a packed room of reporters Thursday morning. “Think positively.”

But later Thursday, progressive leaders emerged from a lengthy meeting in Pelosi’s office declaring that their members would hold the line against infrastructure without a vote on that broader party-line bill.

“We are in the same place,” Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said, flanked by other top liberals. Still, she wouldn’t say if Pelosi was willing to delay the vote: “There’s always a chance. … All kinds of things could happen very quickly.

I haven’t found out what time Pelosi plans on having the House vote on the bill(s).

The vote might not happen today if they cannot whip the votes.

From colleague Jason Donner. Clyburn says he hsa not whipped the infrastructure vote.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) September 30, 2021

Manchin and the Senate Democrats

I haven’t seen a lot of people tweet or talk about Sinema today. Maybe they finally realized she is not budging on her “no” vote.

The attention is on Manchin today.

It looks like Manchin will stick to his guns and oppose the $3.5 trillion bloated pet project bill.

A lot of people have complained that Manchin is just now bringing up his demand for only $1.5 trillion.

It turns out he told Schumer in July he won’t go above $1.5 trillion.

From Politico:

The West Virginia senator has been distributing the document to Democratic colleagues and leaders in recent days to underscore that he has outlined his red lines on President Joe Biden’s jobs and families plan. The one-page understanding is dated July 28, right before the Senate passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill that Manchin helped write and ahead of Senate passage of a budget setting up a spending bill as large as $3.5 trillion.

In the document, Manchin proposes raising the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, the top tax rate on income to 39.6 percent, raising the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent and says that any revenue from the bill “exceeding” $1.5 trillion will go to deficit reduction.

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