Solution To Infrastructure Problems Is Still Far From Done

On Thursday, President Biden held a news conference with 10 senators (5 Democrats and 5 Republicans) to announce that a bipartisan agreement has been reached on an infrastructure bill. All of them celebrated this as a major accomplishment. It's not.

The agreement only provided about $600 billion in new infrastructure spending -- far from the $2.1 trillion that President Biden had asked for. And it's not even assured that this inadequate bill could be passed in the Senate. Only 5 Republicans were at the news conference, but 10 would be needed to pass the bill in the Senate.

And progressives have said they will not vote for the bill unless a companion reconciliation bill accompanies it that will provide far more than the bipartisan bill. Currently, those progressives have their reconciliation bill up to between $5 and $6 trillion. They are throwing every dream they have into the bill. But that is unrealistic. To pass a reconciliation bill, they will need the votes of all 48 Democrats, both Independents, and the Vice-President. Some moderate Democrats (like Manchin and Sinema) are not going to vote for a $5 to $6 trillion bill. 

Speaker Pelosi has said she will not allow a vote in the House on the bipartisan bill unless it is accompanied by a reconciliation bill (and President Biden has said he would not sign it with a reconciliation bill). I think the most that could be hoped for is a reconciliation bill between $1 and $2 trillion -- a bill that would restore what was cut out of President Biden's original proposal to reach bipartisan agreement.

Even that would be very difficult to achieve. Minority Leader McConnell has said he would try to kill the bipartisan bill if it is accompanied by a reconciliation bill -- and he may have enough votes to filibuster it to death.

To be blunt, infrastructure is still a mess. And there's a long way to go to get the problem solved. We would be lucky if two bills on infrastructure could reach Biden's desk by September -- and the odds are still good that no bill will be approved!