Inflation Reduction Act: 8/12/22 - $740B Bill PASSES, Biden signs it into law!

[storyteller]

They should have never been put together the way they were tbh.

BIF had already passed the senate prior to the forced coupling. They should have passed BIF, read the room on BBB initiatives and passed the pieces they could prior to going into reconciliation.

It's a failure because they went the all or nothing route and ended up with nothing.

The idea that Manchin and Sinema would be pushed along via public pressure to pass a publicly popular package failed miserably. Manchin's at home poll numbers remained sky high and Sinema once again showed she's a sociopath.

That's probably true. They shouldn't have made the promises and pairing in the first place. But they did and that miscalculation when everyone should have known Manchin and a handful of others weren't gonna play ball is a sign of strategic failure. Maybe they coulda threatened Manchin's committee seats or something to attempt hard-ball, but the combination of lofty promises and unwillingness to be aggressive with executive orders was always likely to lead to stagnation.

 

[Pressure]

That's probably true. They shouldn't have made the promises and pairing in the first place. But they did and that miscalculation when everyone should have known Manchin and a handful of others weren't gonna play ball is a sign of strategic failure. Maybe they coulda threatened Manchin's committee seats or something to attempt hard-ball, but the combination of lofty promises and unwillingness to be aggressive with executive orders was always likely to lead to stagnation.

They absolutely shouldn't be so passive in their approach and they don't look to have had much of a fall back plan.

I imagine there's more incompetence and dissary than not wanting to pass things as you said above. Not really excuse considering how much experience Biden and Harris have.

 

[mastermind]

BIF had already passed the senate prior to the forced coupling.

Untrue

Biden administration split the bills in late March.

edit: Bills were split and they were billed as a tandem plan all spring and summer.
Pelosi: House won't take up the bipartisan bill until Senate votes on reconciliation - CNNPolitics
Biden says he won't sign bipartisan bill without reconciliation bill

These people were just completely incompetent and President Manchin took advantage.

 

[Pressure]

Untrue

Biden administration split the bills in late March.

edit: Bills were split and they were billed as a tandem plan all spring and summer.
Pelosi: House won't take up the bipartisan bill until Senate votes on reconciliation - CNNPolitics
Biden says he won't sign bipartisan bill without reconciliation bill

These people were just completely incompetent and President Manchin took advantage.

Introduced in June.
The bill passed the house in July.
Then the senate in August.
Then resolved differences in November.
Signed to law in November.

All the grandstanding over blocking the bill occurred AFTER both the house and senate had put votes on record over it. AND all of that was AFTER they agreed to allow moderates come up with an INFRASTRUCTURE bill that would pass with bipartisan support.

The country is where it is and leadership needs to be laser focused on passing things they can that will improve the lives of Americans instead of continuing down year 5 of all or nothing gambles that make you look incompetent.

 

[mastermind]

Introduced in June.
The bill passed the house in July.
Then the senate in August.
Then resolved differences in November.
Signed to law in November.

All the grandstanding over blocking the bill occurred AFTER both the house and senate had put votes on record over it. AND all of that was AFTER they agreed to allow moderates come up with an INFRASTRUCTURE bill that would pass with bipartisan support.

The country is where it is and leadership needs to be laser focused on passing things they can that will improve the lives of Americans instead of continuing down year 5 of all or nothing gambles that make you look incompetent.

nah you are conflating things to change history. Biden was talking about this in Match
Biden to split massive spending plan in two, focusing first on infrastructure

There was no need to split the two, but he did and passed that down.

 

[Pressure]

nah you are conflating things to change history. Biden was talking about this in Match
Biden to split massive spending plan in two, focusing first on infrastructure

There was no need to split the two, but he did and passed that down.

There was never one massive bill. When he first announced it in March it was as a two bill process and one wasn't dependent on the other.

You're trying to rewrite history.

 

[mastermind]

There was never one massive bill.

Yeah,that is the whole issue people had from the jump. It should have been one bill. This convo was had last year when Biden announced he wanted two bills. I don't want to speak for @storyteller, but I believe that is what he means.

 

[Pressure]

Yeah,that is the whole issue people had from the jump. It should have been one bill. This convo was had last year when Biden announced he wanted two bills. I don't want to speak for @storyteller, but I believe that is what he means.

We know it wouldn't have passed if they attempted to do one massive bill.

We saw this with the initial infrastructure bill that was full of social programs.

 

[storyteller]

We know it wouldn't have passed if they attempted to do one massive bill.

We saw this with the initial infrastructure bill that was full of social programs.

The issue wasn't to pass one massive bill. They were supposed to be passed as a pair, with each bill acting as leverage point for the other. The center-leaning Dems would get their infrastructure package only by allowing the BBB to pass and vice versa.

Biden stands by 'two-track' bill process, despite Republican dismay

After House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said early on Thursday her chamber would not vote on the first infrastructure package unless the second reconciliation bill passed the Senate, Biden publicly seconded the idea.

"I expect that in the coming months this summer, before the fiscal year is over, that we will have voted on this bill, the infrastructure bill, as well as voted on the budget resolution," Biden told reporters on Thursday. "But if only one comes to me, I'm not signing it. It's in tandem."

Republicans were pissed about that. They thought they got played. But I think the interim elections made everyone panic and push to get whatever they could pass through as fast as they could. I think that's the miscalculation. The two bills would have been compromised down, but that was the initial strategy as proposed by everybody. I gotta double-back on the details but that's how I recall the order of events.

 

[Pressure]

The issue wasn't to pass one massive bill. They were supposed to be passed as a pair, with each bill acting as leverage point for the other. The center-leaning Dems would get their infrastructure package only by allowing the BBB to pass and vice versa.

The clear read is they went with a two track system because one major package was DOA.

Republicans were pissed about that. They thought they got played. But I think the interim elections made everyone panic and push to get whatever they could pass through as fast as they could. I think that's the miscalculation. The two bills would have been compromised down, but that was the initial strategy as proposed by everybody. I gotta double-back on the details but that's how I recall the order of events.

I agree, they expected two watered down bills to pass. Which was fine and the path they were on, but Manchinema happened.

I think we can all agree in hindsight they would have tanked the whole thing if it were a single bill.

 

[storyteller]

The clear read is they went with a two track system because one major package was DOA.


I agree, they expected two watered down bills to pass. Which was fine and the path they were on, but Manchinema happened.

I think we can all agree in hindsight they would have tanked the whole thing if it were a single bill.

Nah, I think there's a chance they could have gotten more. Watered down? Yes. But the rush to pass infrastructure doesn't appear necessary since they haven't exactly done a lot with the spare time and it doesn't seem like it's changing the election trajectory (I'm open to that changing as the elections get nearer though). At a minimum, I think it mighta been leverage to try and save the Child Tax Credits in some shape or form. There was time to find out just how badly Manchin wanted that infrastructure bill to pass and whether it could be leveraged for something.

 

[CrimsonTider]

Nah, I think there's a chance they could have gotten more. Watered down? Yes. But the rush to pass infrastructure doesn't appear necessary since they haven't exactly done a lot with the spare time and it doesn't seem like it's changing the election trajectory (I'm open to that changing as the elections get nearer though). At a minimum, I think it mighta been leverage to try and save the Child Tax Credits in some shape or form. There was time to find out just how badly Manchin wanted that infrastructure bill to pass and whether it could be leveraged for something.

Manchin lied bruh, every political gameplan was exercised

 

[storyteller]

Manchin lied bruh, every political gameplan was exercised

People called him out for being full of shyt in real time. My point is there was plenty of time to keep playing the game of chicken with him before passing everything he wanted without so much as a concession. The post-interim panic got the rest of the party to blink early (and I’m including the progressives here with the exception of the squad members that voted “nay” on the infrastructure bill and were maligned for being right about manchin lying).

 

[CrimsonTider]

People called him out for being full of shyt in real time. My point is there was plenty of time to keep playing the game of chicken with him before passing everything he wanted without so much as a concession. The post-interim panic got the rest of the party to blink early (and I’m including the progressives here with the exception of the squad members that voted “nay” on the infrastructure bill and were maligned for being right about manchin lying).

The squad voting no means nothing

you need Manchin’s vote. The bill went from 3 trill to 1.75 because Manchin said it needed to be smaller


All or nothing makes no sense.

 

[storyteller]

The squad voting no means nothing

you need Manchin’s vote. The bill went from 3 trill to 1.75 because Manchin said it needed to be smaller


All or nothing makes no sense.

I feel like you're missing my point. Nothing I'm saying advocated for "all or nothing," I'm saying that the reason not to pass the Infrastructure Bill prematurely was the get bits of the BBB bill or some other progressive goals passed.

I bolded and am capitalizing PREMATURELY here. There was always gonna be a point where everyone had to take what they could get and pass what's possible. My complaint is that they rushed to pass what was on the table before they had to. What that did was remove opportunities to leverage votes on the Infrastructure bill, which Manchin badly wanted to pass, for some additional progressive pieces getting through. My main example of a progressive goal is something that wasn't even necessary to keep in BBB and that's just extending the Child Care Tax Credits in some way shape or form.

So to reiterate, literally nobody is talking about "all or nothing," go back through my posts. I'm talking about holding off longer on passing the Infrastructure Bill, because there was no added benefit to passing it sooner. It just took away any opportunity to try and pass anything else once they gave Manchin everything he'd asked for and removed pressure from other centrist Dems that wanted the bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass.

Just to clarify again, I'm not saying that they never should have passed Infrastructure. I'm saying they rushed it unnecessarily and that took away any chance to negotiate more in an interim where nothing else passed anyway.