Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tongue lashed a group of nine moderate House Democrats who want to slow down her $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.
Pelosi told her caucus she would press ahead with the bill, despite warnings from the nine members that they will oppose it unless the House first votes on the $1 trillion “infrastructure bill” already passed by the Senate.
Pelosi told her close deputies that “this is no time for amateur hour.” Using lofty language to justify her iron use of power, she told them that, “For the first time America’s children have leverage — I will not surrender that leverage.”
Should all nine moderates — a group that includes Representatives Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Jared Golden of Maine, and Henry Cuellar of Texas — vote against the blueprint for the reconciliation bill, it will fail, since it has zero GOP support and Pelosi only has a three-vote margin.
Pelosi knows that the nine moderates are far outvoted by the Crazy Caucus of House progressives. She needs both, but it’s easier to whip the nine moderates into line. In addition, as Political Wire reports: “One truth about politics is that moderates always cave more easily than more ideological members.”
I won’t declare the moderates defeated until I see their white flag, but for now, it appears that Republicans are not going to be able to count on them coming to the rescue.