The only unity that matters on Covid stimulus is the partisan kind

Why do so many people pretend otherwise?

Look, it would be wonderful if 10 Republican senators were willing to sign onto President Joe Biden’s stimulus bill. It would be even more wonderful if the Democratic bill could be tweaked a bit to redirect some or all of the $1400 checks spent somewhat indiscriminately on aid to individuals to increase instead the added weekly unemployment benefit from $400 to $600.

But that isn’t going to happen. Ten Republican senators are preparing to meet late Monday with Biden about their compromise Covid stimulus bill, which spends $618 billion rather than $1.9 trillion. That’s a difference of almost $1.2 trillion. A difference that large is not bridgeable. The Republican bill limits to low-income people access to those $1400 checks, which is probably good policy, but it further reduces the unemployment add-on from $400 to $300, which is definitely bad policy. And it strips out the Covid stimulus bill’s increase in the federal minimum wage to $15, which is actually worse politically for Republicans than it is for Democrats, as I explained in an earlier column.

We’re seeing a lot of stories relating what a terrible blow it will be to Biden, who in his inauguration speech rhapsodized about the virtues of “unity,” if the Democrats proceed on their bill without bipartisan support. “Without unity,” Biden said in the speech, “there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.” Biden pronounced the word yooniddy, and I don’t think he was promising not to pass bills without Republican votes. I think he was promising not to be a crazy angry hater and subverter of political norms like a certain predecessor he chose not to mention. In the interest of yooniddy.

These “whither yooniddy” stories create the false impression that the symbolism of bipartisanship is vital to the bill’s success. That’s wrong. The only question that matters is whether the Democratic bill has enough votes to pass. That’s the only thing that congressional Democrats and the Biden administration care about. It’s the only thing that people who are trying to get a bill through Congress ever care about.

Let me repeat that. Whether the Democrats’ Covid bill has enough votes to pass is the only question that matters to congressional Democrats and the Biden administration.

Congressional Democrats think they do have the votes to pass their stimulus bill if they proceed under “reconciliation,” a process that eliminates the possibility of a filibuster that would require the bill to receive 60 votes rather than the usual 51. Using “reconciliation” is judged a more partisan procedure, but its use is fairly routine. There’s some question whether a minimum-wage increase can be included in a reconciliation bill, a question that I’m not qualified to answer. For Democrats, it may be better politically to have a separate vote on minimum wage so they can better put the squeeze on Republicans, who don’t like to be seen voting against anything that’s as politically popular as a minimum-wage hike.

But the Democrats aren’t absolutely sure that they have the necessary 50 votes (plus a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris) to pass their Covid stimulus, because, unlike congressional Republicans, congressional Democrats don’t vote reliably as a partisan bloc. The reason for all this pantomime about bipartisan yoonidy is that eight Democrats have been negotiating on Covid with the Republicans (though they didn’t sign on the their proposal), and if even one of them gets bent out of shape about the compromise not receiving a proper hearing, he or she might not support the Democratic Covid stimulus. The loss of a single Democratic vote would kill the bill.

The weakest link in this chain is Sen. Joe Manchin (D.-W.Va.), whose state went for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Manchin voted with President Trump slightly more than half the time, i.e., more than any other Democrat. Manchin’s website actually boasts that

since 2011, no Democrat currently serving in the Senate has split with the party more often, including 80 votes in which Senator Manchin was the only Democrat to break with his party and vote with the majority of Senate Republicans.

Overall, Senator Manchin has voted with the majority of Senate Republicans on 1,172 different votes or 54 percent of the votes he has taken as a United States Senator.

All this talk about bipartisanship, then, is really a coded discussion of whether Manchin will be sufficiently partisan to support a Democrats-only Covid bill. In order to encourage Manchin to take this partisan move, it’s necessary for Biden to express sincere interest in the Republican bipartisan bill. But his intended audience isn’t Susan Collins or the other Republicans. It’s Manchin.

We’re going to be seeing a lot of this over the next couple of years, and although Manchin is the likeliest Democrat to defy party leadership it’s also possible we’ll see similar rebellions by Sen. Jon Tester of Montana or Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Biden needs yooniddy to succeed, but it isn’t bipartisan yooniddy. That’s an impossible dream. It’s partisan yooniddy with the Democrats’ Senate caucus. A 50-vote Senate majority isn’t much use without it.