“There is much to like in the framework hammered out by five senators from each party’s caucus, who were negotiating on behalf of a bipartisan cohort of 21 senators. By the White House’s estimate, the deal would provide about two-thirds of the roughly $900 billion Biden requested for such things as highways, mass transit and Amtrak, along with an assortment of infrastructure investments not usually funded by the federal government, such as broadband networks, new (lead-free) water pipes for schools and electric vehicle charging stations…

“What’s missing, though, are the major investments Biden proposed in research and innovation, particularly in hastening the development of clean-energy facilities and training people for clean-energy jobs. There are nods to the damage already caused by climate change, but we need more than small gestures at this point — we need transformative ones… Democrats intend to put many of the items dropped from the president’s initial proposal, along with elements of Biden’s $1.8-trillion American Families Plan, into a budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered… So it’s best to think of the bipartisan proposal as a first act in a longer play.”
Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times

Critics of the bipartisan proposal note that only “14 percent of the infrastructure package is being dedicated to environmentally aligned projects, with electric cars and grid modernization, though those are the least ambitious parts of the environmental program—no major expansion of public transit, no major renewable-power generation programs… Biden and the senators are choosing to pursue the one method of doing infrastructure that would make the climate crisis worse, propping up freeways and oil- and gas-powered grids rather than building new, green infrastructure. Their deal is a half-step forward and multiple steps back.”
Alexander Sammon, American Prospect

“More progressive Democrats in the House and Senate naturally fear that once the meager bipartisan package passes, moderates will refuse to pass anything else. Therefore on Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promised she will not pass the bipartisan deal unless the reconciliation bill gets out of the Senate first, and that afternoon Biden promised the same thing. That way there would be no possibility of Senate moderates backtracking at the last second…

“It is crunch time for the Democrats. Doing something big on infrastructure that tackles climate change is co-equal with voting rights protections in terms of vital priorities. This plan could theoretically work, and party leaders seem confident it can happen. But the margin for error is small — just one defection in the Senate, and the whole thing falls apart.”
Ryan Cooper, The Week

“The world order ushered in during the late 1970s and early 1980s involved the destruction of the capacity to govern; the deregulation of finance as well as a hands-off approach to corporate concentration; the crushing of organized labor; and the privatization of public assets, all of it fueling runaway wealth and income inequality, driving millions into poverty, and eroding civic and democratic norms. Upending that order requires a reassertion of the public’s role in the economy. It requires a government willing and able to govern… There is broad recognition within the party that Democrats are likely to lose one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections and that 2022 is unlikely to yield significant legislative opportunities. It’s now or never.”
Ryan Grim, The Intercept