Bipartisanship Watch
Chalk one up for the Republic!
By Roger Scher
Nothing earth-shattering in this post — just want to acknowledge the bipartisan deal done today, accomplished through President Biden’s leadership. We advocated strongly in this newsletter during the month of June that this deal should be done — not only to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure, but to strengthen America’s democratic institutions through negotiation.
Well done, Mr. President!
Leadership counts. When strong leaders from both parties do what they’re supposed to do — lead — many others follow. It is still a tough row to hoe, getting enough votes in both houses to pass the bill into law, as we described in previous Bipartisanship Watch posts here and here.
Politico describes what we know about the deal in this article. Stumbling blocks remain, on both sides of the aisle.
Speaker Pelosi may not lead on this, as we hope she will, given this quote attributed to her in the Politico article:
“There ain’t no infrastructure bill without the reconciliation bill,” she said, according to a person on the call.
The call refers to a Thursday morning meeting Speaker Pelosi had with her caucus, Politico reports. It could be posturing and she could ultimately step up for bipartisanship.
More to come, obviously, but the nation can heave a sigh of relief at this step forward for bipartisanship, and what the American Political Science Association (APSA) calls “deliberative negotiation,” when moderates engage in cross-party negotiations to get the nation’s business done.
Next stop, however, should be a bipartisan agreement on fiscal consolidation over the medium term, as counseled before in this newsletter. The nation must stabilize the government debt to GDP ratio, and ultimately set it on a downward path.
Congratulations to the bipartisan “Infrastructure Ten” (or to use the older term, “Gang of Ten”) in the Senate, who once again warrant naming out:
Democrats:
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
Sen. Jon Tester of Montana
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia
Republicans:
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah
(from CNN)