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Liam Donovan Profile picture
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19 Sep, 5 tweets, 2 min read
The @ThePlumLineGS option
For the record this accomplishes very little except as a minor face-saving exercise, though at this point that's kind of the whole ballgame.
Once the bill passes, it's going Biden's desk, period. It's just a matter of time. There's no actual mechanism for extorting the mods. All it would do is allow progs to lay down their weapons for nominal commitment from mods to support reconciliation, which they already have.
Basically, progs have dug themselves deep into a rhetorical hole and need an offramp, because shooting the bill down doesn't lead anywhere good. And Pelosi has made personal, public commitments in conflict with their position. This could be that offramp, however convoluted.
Would add that, at least for Pelosi, it's an elaborate way out of this particular knot. Even if she "wins" (pushes the bill through as promised), she is going against what she has said all along on the sequence. I suppose icing it on back end takes out some of the optical sting.

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More from @LPDonovan

Liam Donovan Profile picture
18 Sep
Inconvenient/indisputable reality. Dems are understandably frustrated to be put in this position, but even they don't dispute that they have the ability. Might be reckless, definitely unprecedented, but not wrong, and not at all clear why Rs would back down.
Once you account for the fact that Ds can do this (whether or not they'd prefer to,) R incentives are pretty straightforward. Bringing a ton of attention to the scale of current & future debt, even as a procedural matter, helps their argument/complicates Dems' internal sales job.
Layer on the fact that for the vast majority of these guys you'd get more heat for supporting the increase/facilitating a multi-trillion dollar Dem effort than you would from opposing and it's not all that complicated. kentucky.com/news/politics-… Image
Read 7 tweets
Liam Donovan Profile picture
17 Sep
Forcing a lapse in the highway program is definitely one way to show You Mean Business. Let's see how it works out for them.
None of this is surprising of course, but really underscores why leadership was so pissed at mods. Whether they were going to quietly sneak this through or not, forcing their hand led progs to dig in to a position they may not be able to back out of. politico.com/news/magazine/… Image
Wildly counter-intuitive, but given the fundamental trust problem at play, the best thing you could do here is find a fig leaf, declare victory, and release the hostage. Chaos & infighting inherently accrue to GOP's benefit (which explains everything about their current posture.)
Read 6 tweets
Liam Donovan Profile picture
15 Sep
Indicative of Dems' approach at every waypoint so far. Delaying tough decisions and tradeoffs can help move you forward procedurally but at the end of the day you're still sitting on a huge pile of unresolved issues. In the meantime the goal is for the 3.5 to survive and advance.
Two months later, but essentially the same principle--build momentum and hope it's too big for a rump to oppose during the endgame.
Also relates to why Dems are so insistent on sticking to these arbitrary/implausible deadlines. If you take your foot off the gas or otherwise get stuck on one of these issues at the committee stage, who knows where things go, especially as this is overtaken by Sept cliff action.
Read 4 tweets
Liam Donovan Profile picture
15 Sep
The debt limit mechanism has long since lost any utility, but until it's gone I think it's worth taking McConnell at his word (and that of the 46 Rs who signed a letter to the same effect.) Appeals to consistency/decency/precedent are useless so long as Ds can do it themselves.
Part of the challenge of parsing this standoff is the various rhetorical and procedural layers. MM is right that Ds can raise the debt limit unilaterally, but they don't want to raise it, they want to suspend it. And Dem bet/hope is that R pledge not to vote for it=/= filibuster.
One thing we can absolutely rule out I think is Rs allowing a suspension to proceed. Even if they were to allow Dems to raise on their own, they'd have to put a number on it that accounts for all their spending (and spending ambitions.) And/but if they do that they don't need Rs!
Read 7 tweets
Liam Donovan Profile picture
13 Sep
Ways and Means had been calling this $2.9T that added up to $3.5T with dynamic scoring "estimate." JCT says it's $2.07T. (Most of this is no revenue effect for drug pricing, which W&M counts for $700B.) jct.gov/CMSPages/GetFi…
Tax committees' nominal charge was to come up with $1B in net deficit reduction, so finding more than $2T in offsets and proposing well short of that in goodies checks the box. Essentially raising more and spending less than they technically had to/could have.
When we think about how this might be triaged, beyond phase outs and timing gimmicks, both the tax side and the spending side are informing the topline, but spending is far less fungible. Basically 13 silos, one of which accounts for half of the gross and all of the offsets.
Read 5 tweets
Liam Donovan Profile picture
12 Sep
What's interesting about the slow motion reveal of these various committee products and titles is that, like the budget resolution, it seems primarily designed to keep the $3.5T dream alive and delay any tough choices. Some logic to that, but all the more reason to settle in.
Markup process can't tell you much if they're just marking to the instructions, which thus far seems to be the case. And unless Ways and Means gives up the game this week with a skinny offset menu, all we're doing is getting closer to these self-imposed deadlines.
(And I do not expect a skinny offset package--I expect the kitchen sink.)
Read 4 tweets

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