What Joe Biden’s next victory looks like

What Joe Biden’s next victory looks like

Opinion by 

Paul Waldman

Columnist

March 24, 2021 at 1:56 a.m. GMT+9

President Biden speaks to reporters outside the White House on Sunday. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

With the success of the covid relief bill behind them, President Biden and Democrats are now turning to the next phase of their plan to accomplish their core goals and reap the political benefits: not just infrastructure, but infrastructure plus a great deal more.

This one will be a little more complicated, without the sense of emergency that helped propel the American Rescue Plan to its conclusion so quickly. But now they have a template to follow, one that shows them how to handle Republican opposition and still achieve their objectives.

It all hinges on this critical truth that the ARP revealed, one that should determine the shape of the Democrats’ strategy: In the end, Republicans will not support this initiative, no matter what they say or do along the way. And that’s fine.

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This is the Democrats’ basic plan: Propose something ambitious with benefits spread throughout the public, meant to achieve ends even Republicans say they want. Invite the opposition to help, and listen to their ideas. But rather than chasing them for months, make visible but finite efforts to negotiate with them, while assuming that in the end they won’t support the bill. Do whatever is necessary to pass it, then take all the credit.

While the administration is still formulating this legislation, so far it appears to have two parts. First would be an infrastructure bill spending hundreds of billions of dollars on roads, bridges, waterways, the electric grid, schools, broadband and various climate-related initiatives, including retrofitting buildings and building electric charging stations.

Next would be people-focused priorities, including universal pre-K, free community college, health insurance affordability, and making permanent the expanded child allowance included in the ARP. Biden has referred to these priorities as the “caregiving economy.”

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At the moment, administration officials are talking about these being two separate initiatives. They’ll try to get Republican support for infrastructure, on the assumption that if they could get 10 Senate votes to overcome a GOP filibuster, that would leave the option of the one remaining reconciliation bill for later this year (which needs a simple majority). That reconciliation bill might be that second group of initiatives, or it might be the whole thing if Republicans don’t support the infrastructure half.

But the key here is that the ARP showed Biden and Democrats that they don’t have to be afraid of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). That changes everything.

For some time we’ve looked back at the experience of the Obama years and concluded that McConnell is a genius at the art of opposition who has the power to destroy any Democratic presidency. But right now it’s Republicans who are in the awkward position.

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As the infrastructure conflict begins, Biden will once again be proposing something very popular — after all, everybody says they want to shore up America’s physical plant and make the country more productive and competitive. Opposing roads, bridges and broadband doesn’t put you in a strong position politically.

And as the ARP revealed, if Biden signs an infrastructure bill that passed with no Republican votes, the public won’t punish him for it. People say they like “bipartisanship” in the abstract, but give them something they want (like big fat stimulus checks or pothole-free roads) and they don’t care how many members of each party voted for it.

Which means McConnell’s threat to withhold GOP cooperation is meaningless. Republicans could once again find themselves opposed to something the public is extremely happy about with nothing to show for their opposition.

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So Biden can invite Republican cooperation, but as long as he never thinks he needs their support, they can’t restrain him.

The key, therefore, is for Democrats to make the eventual Republican refusal to cooperate part of their strategy from the outset. Chart a path that ends with a party-line vote in both houses — as the ARP did — and you can’t be undone by the decisions Republicans make.

For instance, Republicans will say they’re waiting to see how the bill is paid for before they decide whether to support it, but that’s a ruse. If Democrats decide to do what they did with the ARP and pay for it the way Republicans pay for wars and tax cuts (by tolerating a higher deficit), Republicans will say they can’t go along with that because they’re so deeply concerned about the debt.

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On the other hand, if Democrats decide to finance it with tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, Republicans will say they can’t agree to that either, because such tax increases would be a dagger thrust into their very souls.

So Democrats can decide between those two financing options on their own merits, including how various Democratic officeholders feel about them — not on which one they think might be less offensive to Republicans.

One possible scenario — indeed, it might be the most likely — is that after some negotiation and posturing, it becomes clear that no Republicans will vote for the infrastructure package and Democrats then must make it their last reconciliation bill of the year. At that point, they can put in all the “caregiving economy” proposals as well, then pass the whole kit and caboodle.

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It’s not that maintaining those 50 Democratic votes in the Senate will be easy. It will require negotiation with the moderates, rewriting the bills many times and probably removing provisions along the way. But if Democrats hold fast to the knowledge that in the end no Republicans will vote for it — and that’s nothing to fear — they’ll be liberated. The result will be another popular law with enormous long-term benefits for the country, and a political windfall to boot.

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