Why Manchin and Sinema Don't Trust Progressives in the House and Vice Versa: Earmarks
by John Lawrence
As Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." An earmark is some piece of legislation that a senator or congressperson slips into a bill in the middle of the night and hopes it goes unnoticed by everyone concerned. The theory is that no one will notice an unagreed upon paragraph in thousands of pages of legislation. The most famous earmark was the "Bridge to Nowhere." The Gravina Island Bridge, popularly known as the "Bridge to Nowhere", has become shorthand for frivolous earmarks. In 2002, it was proposed that a for-profit prison corporation, Cornell Corrections, build a prison on an Alaskan island. To connect the island with Ketchikan, it was originally planned that the federal government spend $175 million on building a bridge to the island, and another $75 million to connect it to the power grid with an electrical intertie. The Ketchikan Borough Assembly turned the proposal down when the administration of Governor Tony Knowles also expressed its disfavor to the idea. Eventually, the corporation's prison plans led to the exposure of the wide-ranging Alaska political corruption probe, which eventually ensnared U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. The bridge idea persisted. The 2005 Highway Bill provided for $223m to build the Gravina Island Bridge between Gravina Island and nearby Ketchikan, on Revillagigedo Island. Despite the demise of the bridge proposal, Governor Sarah Palin spent $26 million in transportation funding for constructing the planned access road on the island that ultimately served little use.
This is why Manchin and Sinema won't come out and say they support the House legislation on the Build Back Better plan until they see the actual legislation and not just a "framework." They want to make sure that progressives in the House don't slip Family Leave back into the framework in the middle of the night. Likewise, House Progressives want the two bills to go to the Senate "in tandem" so that Manchin and Sinema don't tank the Build Back Better bill while passing the conventional infrastructure bill. I don't understand why the pundits haven't figured this out. It makes perfect sense. Neither side wants to be screwed. Capische? I'm sure the bills will both be passed in tandem according to the framework that Joe Biden got both sides to agree on. I don't think either Manchin or Sinema will go back on their word to Joe Biden. However, they don't want to be put in the position of agreeing to a framework publicly, and then having the Progressives slip something into the bill at the last minute that they hadn't agreed to. They want to see the actual legislation first before they agree publicly that they will vote for it. Progressives want Manchin and Sinema to agree publicly to their legislation before they will vote on the bipartisan package.
I don't see why CNN's pundits haven't figured this out. It will get done but it needs to get done according to the process that both sides originally agreed upon and no sooner. That only makes sense. Why are the pundits in such a great hurry to get it done bemnoaning Biden's falling approval ratings? From Biden's viewpoint he knows that this legislation will be transformative, and he will go down in history for having negotiated a settlement between both sides. He could care less about his approval ratings. As he said, "It doesn't matter whether it takes 6 days or 6 weeks just so long as it eventually gets done." It will be quite an accomplishment given the fact that the Democrats have the slimmest of margins in the Senate. Biden probably won't run again anyway. Americans just need to be patient.
Capische?
