Punchbowl: Reconciliation Needed For Infra Plan To Pass Congress

Jake Sherman at Punchbowl News tweets a thread on Democrat plans to get the administration's infra package through Congress. Raises issues included in our 1037BST bullet such as: regarding the bill as a proposal that will be altered by Congress, likelihood of Dems running over Reps with reconciliation process, and Dems looking to get big legislation through pre-2022. Selected comments below:

1. "Speaker Pelosi said [...] she wants the bill through the House by July 4. That is going to be really hard. there are 92 days and just six legislative weeks between now and then. And this isnt like the American Rescue Package, for which they had a framework. This is a brand new bill, contentious policies, regionalism etc. Doable, but tricky
2. The bill that Biden proposed is a proposal. Congress isn't going to take it as is. They have their own ideas -- many of them will track closely with Biden, some of them may not....
3. Bidens bill is $2.5T over 8 [years], with taxes paying for it over 15. If the taxes are repealed, bill isn't paid for. Tricky!
4. This is going to be done by reconciliation. No way Rs are going to go for this. Why? Because they haven't gone for anything, and they want to run on Dems raising taxes. Cynical? Maybe. Realistic? probably
5. We can drop our focus on the two bills, one bill etc. The way this is going to get through is a large-scale reconciliation bill in Sept. Bill will be massive, and too big for anyone to feel good about stopping it
6. WH planning speech on part 2 of this bill week of [12/19 April].
7. Finally, there are two theories bouncing around right now. Either Dems should try to preserve the majority they have, or spend it like they'll lose it. They are clearly going for the latter."