digby: Have the Democrats actually outsmarted the Grim Reaper?

[babylonsister]

https://digbysblog.net/2022/07/28/have-the-democrats-actually-outsmarted-the-grim-reaper/

Have the Democrats actually outsmarted the Grim Reaper?
Published by digby on July 28, 2022
It looks like it …

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Update — Dave Dayen on this deal:

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For 364 days, Manchin went back and forth on pretty much all of these provisions, rejecting the bill outright, then crawling back to the table, going into bargaining with Schumer, leaving that bargaining, and coming back. And one year to the day later, we have a bill called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes everything in that previous paragraph and a lot more on energy and climate, plus the ACA insurance exchange subsidies and prescription drug price reforms we knew about. But overall, the bill spends $433 billion, a little over $1 trillion less than that original topline. Much of its revenue goes to deficit reduction.

There is no such thing as a genuine surprise in Washington—usually. This was a genuine surprise. I had been talking to people this week who would or should have known that talks between Manchin and Schumer, thought to be moribund, were taking place. The closest I got to foreknowledge was one source saying that they just didn’t believe it. An army of reporters, lobbyists, and hangers-on didn’t know this was happening.

The reveal was made a few hours after the Senate cleared the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill that offers semiconductor manufacturers subsidies for reshoring and boosts science programs. Mitch McConnell had threatened that bill, something highly cherished by Schumer, if Democrats persisted with a party-line bill that raised taxes and boosted clean energy. When Manchin walked away from negotiations with Schumer just two weeks ago over those two items, McConnell let his guard down and allowed a vote on CHIPS, which was popular with many of his Republican colleagues. Schumer and Manchin waited until that cleared the Senate before announcing a reconciliation deal with taxes and climate back in.

If you told me a cosmic ray hit Washington and flipped everyone’s brains, giving Schumer the Machiavellian cunning of a Republican and giving McConnell the guileless approach of a Democrat, that might be a more plausible explanation for this display than the truth. It’s a near-legendary turn of events that infuriated McConnell so much he took hostage a bill to give dying veterans exposed to toxic burn pits medical care, something Republicans passed overwhelmingly just a few weeks ago (it needed a technical fix). The combination of the revival of the Biden agenda and red-faced Republicans making terrible choices on highly popular legislation is one for the ages.

Can it be that Democrats have finally accepted the nature of their opposition and are willing to govern accordingly?

[Funtatlaguy]

1. Well he owes us two stolen SCOTUS seats, so there's that.

[Phoenix61]

2. About time. You can't negotiate with terrorists. nt

[Raven123]

3. This question is moot until the bill passes

[gratuitous]

4. True enough

But I think the Majority Leader is smart enough to know when he has the vote locked down, and not to spill the beans publicly before then.

[Miguelito Loveless]

5. Until the bill is signed,

Victory laps are unwise.

[FloridaBlues]

6. All 50 dems better be on board and vote this through.

Maybe manchin realizes when we have several more senators he will be irrelevant maybe lose committee chair or assignments?

[LudwigPastorius]

7. Sinema is already getting ready to go into full pout mode.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216979591

She's pissed that she wasn't the Democratic Senate Gatekeeper for this version of the bill.

Will she retaliate by withholding her vote? Maybe...

[SouthernDem4ever]

8. how do you outsmart a statue with the word "NO" printed on it.

just go around it. Intelligence doesn't even enter into it.