After GOP Surrender on Infrastructure, McConnell Should Hold Reconciliation Bill Hostage

E ven before the Senate wrapped up work on its $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, Democrats were releasing the specifics of another $3.5 trillion progressive goody-bag, which was crammed with an array of welfare and social expansions: a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, the largest health-care expansion since Obamacare, and many other left-wing hobbyhorses. Add the budget bill and infrastructure deal to the $1.9 trillion COVID “rescue” bill, and Democrats are looking at spending $7-plus trillion this year alone.

Democrats know they can’t muster any kind of consensus for enacting this enormous expansion of government, so they’ve decided to abuse the budgetary process to shove their agenda through with a simple majority. This is beyond unprecedented. And 18 Republican senators have, quite incomprehensibly, insured that their party will take a minority ownership stake in this agenda by signing on to the infrastructure portion of the effort.

As Philip Klein points out, despite protestations, the $1.2 trillion bill, one of the most expensive in history, isn’t fully paid for, it isn’t narrowly focused on “traditional” infrastructure projects, and, most importantly, it offers no guarantees that Democrats won’t move forward with wide-ranging reconciliation spending. As a practical matter, those two bills — if not the entire agenda — should be viewed as a single entity. That’s how most Democrats see it. Indeed, Biden initially promised he wouldn’t even sign the bipartisan bill without reconciliation, but then later walked back the threat. Nancy Pelosi has said that the House won’t even take up the bipartisan bill until Democrats have the Senate votes on reconciliation.

Handing Biden a victory on infrastructure not only helps him keep a veneer of moderation, it also brings the price tag of a $5 trillion reconciliation package down to a more sellable $3.5 trillion. Republicans received nothing in return for this gift. No cuts. No reforms. No promises. They simply signed on to another bill that strips them of any political high ground in the spending debates (as far as they even exist). Meanwhile, Democrats are creating new baselines for spending across most of the federal government in perpetuity.

Though it may be too late, the Republicans’ goal now should be to try and shrink the reconciliation bill. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell promised last week to vote against cleanly raising the debt ceiling if Democrats unilaterally cram through the proposal. For one thing, a debt limit is only a figment of our collective imagination if it is perfunctorily raised without any concurrent reforms or debate. Yet this has almost always been the case. Then again, the last time Republicans demanded something in return for lifting spending caps, John Boehner, emboldened by Republican Tea Party gains, pushed Barack Obama into the Budget Control Act of 2011. Liberal pundits called the GOP “hostage takers,” “anarchists,” “political terrorists,” and so on. But it was also the last time anyone could credibly claim to have enacted even a small reduction in spending growth.

This iteration of the reconciliation plan — authored, appropriately enough, by socialist Bernie Sanders — doesn’t lift the debt ceiling (though it can be added later). Democrats want the GOP to share culpability in the $3.5 trillion price tag. There’s no other reason they would add a fascist-y-sounding “Civilian Climate Corps” to the plan but not an actual budgetary item such as the debt ceiling. Right now, government is being financed through “extraordinary measures” likely to run out in October or November, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Liberal writers such as Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman hope the crisis created by the Dems’ budget convinces moderates such as Joe Manchin and/or Kyrsten Sinema to get rid of the filibuster, as well — destroying two norms of American governance in one shot. It seems more likely that the moderates would insist Democrats add a hike to the budget bill, or lower the price tag, rather than eliminate the filibuster, a long-standing legislative tool both have been on the record supporting on numerous occasions. In fact, we don’t even know if either of the senators supports the reconciliation bill as it stands.

Perhaps some of the 18 Republicans truly believe more infrastructure spending is necessary. It’s difficult to escape the feeling, however, that many simply signed on to prove Republicans aren’t merely obstructionists, even though there isn’t any tangible evidence that bipartisan deals are politically helpful. There has been no downside — either politically or philosophically — in hampering the sweeping agenda of presidents.

As an ideological matter, it’s one of the most conservative things a politician can do. As a political matter, it works. Republicans clogged much of Clinton’s initial leftist efforts, only working with him after winning the House and impelling him toward moderation. After working with George W. Bush on nationalizing education policy and terror-related efforts, Democrats opened numerous new fronts in obstruction. During the Obama years, the media griped incessantly about the GOP’s nihilistic obstinacy — even as they were winning hundreds of seats nationally. The press stopped worrying about “gridlock” and filibusters when Donald Trump became president, but congressional Democrats acted in the same manner as their predecessors. They also won back the presidency and both houses.

Some Republicans seem to be under the impression that the infrastructure bill makes reconciliation less likely. Perhaps. At the very least, slowing the process gives more voters the ability to process just how radical Sanders’s reconciliation is. And McConnell has one tool available to perhaps undo some of the damage the GOP has inflicted on themselves. He should use it.