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| Alex Wong/Getty Images |
It’s finally dawned on President Joe Biden that he barely controls the House and the Senate.
His remarks on Tuesday taking a swipe at Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona (although not by name) were notable less for how they publicly aired an intraparty dispute, than for their utter banality.
“I hear all the folks on TV saying, 'Why doesn’t Biden get this done?'” he said, referring to himself in the third person in classic Washington fashion. “Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends.”
Of course, he’s completely right (except for the part about Manchin and Sinema voting with Republicans—they are reliable Democratic votes).
Not only is it true that Biden has narrow majorities, this is likely to be a defining feature of his presidency. Unforeseen events always take a hand, but if you had to guess now, it seems likely that one of the headlines at the end of the Biden years will be, “The president had vaulting ambitions, frustrated by razor-thin (and perhaps temporary) legislative majorities.” --->READ MORE HERE
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| Jonathan Ernst/Pool/Reuters |
The Senate parliamentarian issued a new ruling that would effectively allow Democrats to use automatic budget reconciliation just one more time this year to bypass Republicans to advance President Biden’s progressive agenda.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that a revision to the 2021 budget resolution cannot be automatically discharged from the Senate Budget Committee, according to The Hill. This means that Democrats would need at least one Republican on the 11-11 panel to vote with them if they want to use reconciliation on more than one occasion before the legislative session ends in October.
The ruling, issued on Friday, effectively means that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) will only be able to use reconciliation one more time this year to pass Biden’s sweeping policies with a simple majority instead of with 60 votes required by the Senate filibuster.
The ruling means Democrats will not be able to split the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, and the president’s proposals to expand Medicare and lower the price of prescription drugs into separate reconciliation packages. Instead, it will all have to be joined into one budget reconciliation package in order to advance with a simple majority vote. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories:
Parliamentarian guidance deals blow to reconciliation strategy
Parliamentarian: Democrats only get one more chance to sidestep GOP this year
Procedural ruling limits Senate Democrats' ability to fast-track priorities
How Much of Biden’s Agenda Can the Democrats Pass Alone?
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