Sinema and Manchin's plan crashes and burns after a key miscalculation
Multiple reports confirmed that the president's message was clear. The bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate in August isn't going to pass the House until there's a deal within the Democratic Party on the reconciliation bill — which includes a slew of tax increases and social program spending that progressives are demanding.
What this means in the short term is that the more conservative Democrats — including Sinema and Manchin, but also some House members such as Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey — aren't getting their way. They wanted the bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass the House and become law before the formal negotiations began on the reconciliation package.
Manchin, Sinema, and Gottheimer seemed genuinely surprised that their plan didn't work. But there's no reason for shock. The congressional progressives and the Democratic leadership made clear from the start that they viewed both bills as an inseparable pair — the "two-track process," as it was called. Everyone was aware of this — despite Manchin's later claims of ignorance. This process was the reason progressives tolerated the conservatives' efforts during the spring and summer to work extensively with Republicans to get bipartisan agreement in the Senate on the infrastructure bill.
https://www.rawstory.com/manchin-sinema/
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That included fucking Teabagger Toomey from here in PA where a bunch of counties here were declared disaster areas after the flooding and tornadoes caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida (including my own city of Philadelphia). We had an interstate highway that runs below street level and goes across the city, that filled up with 15ft of water and literally become a "canal".
Thankfully there were "only" 15 GOP idiots who voted against the C.R. with the emergency funding, and it passed anyway.
We all knew Biden and Pelosi were always absolutely committed to passing both bills. Pelosi indicated from the very beginning that the bipartisan bill would not be allowed out of the house without passage of the big one. Whatever the subsequent plays, it was always obvious that we COULD NOT pass the smaller bipartisan bill without putting the big one in grave jeopardy. Work, btw, that lifetime-progressive Pelosi described as possibly the "culmination" of her career. (What was the actual word she used? 
).
They've all apparently played out this phase of the positioning and negotiation, Manchin's indicated a "preference" for $1.5T, meaning he'll go up, senate Democrats are playing down the idea of a confrontational cliff that the media have been promoting, and everyone's working overtime on reworking details for the next go-round.
demonstrate who liberal Democrats are and what we stand for. And, even more, that they and those who do not consider themselves liberal Democrats intersect on beliefs and goals far, far more than not.
To be a liberal Democrat is to be progressive. This time I think everyone can see that.
The differences among progressives are almost always how much is desirable and at what point, or if, Dems should throw down their cards and walk away rather than compromise (at all, or further).
