https://spectatorworld.com/topic/republicans-infrastructure-bill-biden-democrats/
President Joe Biden, facing a crisis on the southern border, a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, and a breakdown of relations with foreign allies, desperately needs a win on his domestic agenda. It looks increasingly unlikely, however, that the ambitious spending bills he wants passed will ever make it to his desk. The usually unified Democratic party is so fractured over the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package that it appears Speaker Nancy Pelosi no longer has the votes to pass either.
Biden is primarily to blame for negotiations going this way. He said back in June that he would not sign the infrastructure bill without the reconciliation bill, describing the bills as being in ‘tandem’. This set up the perfect showdown between the two factions within the Democratic party. Progressives warned that they wouldn’t vote for the infrastructure bill unless the reconciliation bill also had enough votes to pass. Moderates responded that they wouldn’t be bullied into supporting the reconciliation bill and demanded a standalone vote on infrastructure.
Pelosi tried to call the progressives’ bluff, scheduling a vote for the infrastructure bill — known as the ‘BIF’ — on Thursday. The progressives refused to be rolled, with at least two dozen of them promising to block the legislation; without their votes, it would likely not pass. Unless, that is, dozens of Republicans made up the gap.
Senate Republicans, some of whom helped negotiate the BIF, urged their colleagues in the House to go ahead and vote for it.
‘It’s a good bill; it’s right there for the country, so I’m encouraging Republicans to support it,’ Sen. Rob Portman said. ‘There’ll be some that have told me they will, but they’re under a lot of pressure.’