The infrastructure bill and budget reconciliation were allowed to pass by both Republican and Democrat leadership (McConnell and pelosi as well as Biden) because it will be a series of stories that dominate the news cycle for a while as Delta variant news ramps up.

McConnell still has control of his caucus, and 19 republicans didn’t just vote for this because they were convinced by the loser moderates who came up with the infrastructure bill.

Both Republicans and democrats win here, and can avoid pressure to shut things down, extend UI, etc., and the positive press will fizzle out by the time 2022 comes around.

Edit: for the record, I think the change in CDC mask guidance was specifically rushed to overshadow negative headlines on inflation, unemployment/won’t someone think of the business owners, and Palestine.

  • duderium [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I assume they passed it because it is going to be yet another massive wealth transfer to the 1% which changes virtually nothing on the ground. These people are really not capable of thinking very far ahead.

    Honestly to me it seems ridiculous that Biden is focusing on infrastructure while half the country is either burning down or being consumed by a virus, and I can't be the only one who thinks that way.

      • duderium [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Wow, huge surprise that when you ignore the fundamental causes of the virus and just pretend that everything is perfect regardless of mountains of evidence to the contrary, shit gets real quick.

    • congressbaseballfan [she/her]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      For sure, but I think they would have drawn it out longer. Of course now the house can draw it out, but they needed a distraction

  • El_Quico [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It pushes the Biden is doing things agenda, while at the same time making all the details up for individual votes and thus each one their own news cycle, and each one the dems get to say they tried to do the right thing, but those darn republicans and moderates thwarted them and they couldn't do as much as they wanted...

  • DetroitLolcat [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I think this is a little bit of fitting data to a conclusion rather than fitting a conclusion to data.

    Like sure you might be right, but the more likely explanation is that Biden and Democrats campaigned on the things in these bills and are now trying to pass them.