The threat of a government shutdown has faded, with the Senate preparing a stand-alone bill extending funding into December and the House ready to vote on it quickly later Thursday. Everything else related to Congress is a big mess.

The House looks likely to delay the planned vote on a bipartisan infrastructure bill after Republican leadership decided to whip against it despite the 19 Republican votes it garnered in the Senate, plus days of progressive Democrats warning that they are ready to vote the bill down until it is coupled with the larger Build Back Better bill containing much of President Joe Biden’s agenda. That latter bill is intended to pass the Senate through budget reconciliation, which means Republicans can’t filibuster it. Unfortunately, the razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate also means it’s subject to the whims and egos of conservative Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

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            Thursday, Sep 30, 2021 ·  4:51:27 PM +00:00

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      Laura Clawson
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    Joe Manchin is still talking. He’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/30/manchin-proposed-15t-topline-number-to-schumer-this-summer-514803">pointing to a proposal</a> he made early in the summer for a $1.5 trillion topline number for the reconciliation bill. Both Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer signed a document outlining Manchin’s demands at that time, with Schumer writing a note on it that he was going to try to change Manchin’s mind on some aspects of it. Schumer’s spokesperson says the signature was intended as acknowledgement of Manchin’s position, not a promise to make it happen.

While attention had turned in recent days to Sinema’s refusal to even talk about what she’s demanding, Manchin released a statement Wednesday that looks like he’s trying to blow up the whole process with a display of willful ignorance, saying, “While I am hopeful that common ground can be found that would result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot—and will not—support trillions in spending or an all-or-nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces.”

If there is a “brutal fiscal reality,” it’s in large part because of the 2017 Republican tax law coupled with decades of underinvestment by the government in vital programs and policies. To Manchin’s credit, he indicated a willingness to make some changes to that tax law. But he’s been firm in refusing to do everything needed to make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. And he’s refusing to acknowledge that spending on education and health care and the ability of working-age adults to go to their jobs secure in the knowledge that their children and aging parents are being cared for is in fact an investment in the future economic well-being of the United States just as surely as spending on roads and bridges.

Delaying the vote on the infrastructure bill will anger moderate and conservative Democrats in the House, but it was the deal all along that the two bills would be brought up together. With the Build Back Better bill not ready for a vote thanks to conservative Democrats, a vote on the infrastructure bill alone was asking progressives to once again suck it up and let their priorities take a back seat.

But the shutdown, the infrastructure bill, and the Build Back Better bill aren’t the only problems Congress has to contend with. There’s also the debt ceiling, which must be raised or suspended by October 18 to prevent the U.S. from having to default on its obligations, spurring a likely recession. Senate Republicans will not only not vote to solve the issue—even though they think it needs to happen, and voted three times to suspend it during Donald Trump’s four years in the White House—they won’t get out of the way and let Democrats do so without Republican votes, except through the already contested reconciliation process. So while the House voted Wednesday to suspend the debt limit in a stand-alone measure, Republicans are determined to keep filibustering and blocking any effort to pass it through the Senate. A shutdown could be taken off the table, in other words, but that doesn’t mean Republicans have given up on manufacturing a major economic disaster.

The debt ceiling fight is not on the front burner as of Thursday, though, so the most likely congressional fireworks on this specific day will surround the reaction of House moderates if the infrastructure bill is delayed or voted down, along with negotiations over whether the U.S. will invest in education and fighting climate change or adapting to its effects, or whether Manchin and Sinema are going to tank the agenda Biden campaigned on. Fun times.