How Biden Is Walking His Talk on Unity
Writer Nancy LeTourneau describes herself as “a pragmatic progressive who has been blogging about politics since 2007.” She writes at her blog, “Horizons” and also commentary on Twitter @Smartypants60. In the past, Nancy has written articles for the Washington Monthly.
“How Biden Is Walking His Talk on Unity,” Horizons, Nancy LeTourneau, January 27, 2021,
There are roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States today. According to Pew Research, two thirds of them have been in this country for more than 10 years.
Back in 2013, when Congress last considered passing comprehensive immigration reform, the CBO estimated that providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would reduce the federal deficit by $197 billion in the first 10 years and an additional $700 billion in the second decade. Additionally, the Center for American Progress calculated that such reforms would increase the earnings of all American workers by $470 billion over 10 years, increase tax revenue by $109 billion over a decade, and create on average an additional 121,000 jobs per year. Finally, over the next three and a half decades, legalized immigrants would add a net of more than $606 billion to the Social Security system.
When President Biden prioritizes immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the arguments in favor of doing so aren’t simply about allowing over 11 million people to come out of the shadows. The economic benefits of doing so would redound to all of us.
But even Republicans like Senator Marco Rubio, who once advocated for immigration reform, have already stated that they will not support Biden’s plan.
Coming out of the 2012 election, there were still some Republicans who knew that immigration reform was something their party had to embrace. That is why the bipartisan “gang of eight” produced a bill that passed the Senate by a vote of 68-32. As had become typical of these kinds of negotiations, Republicans pressed for massive spending on border security in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers. But the lunatic caucus in the House threatened to oust Rep. John Boehner as speaker if he brought the bill up for a vote. That is how Republicans killed immigration reform in 2013. Three years later, they elected a president who had based much of his campaign on demonizing immigrants.
Long before his first day in office, Biden knew that, having gone full-nativist over the last eight years, Republicans wouldn’t support comprehensive immigration reform—even given the economic benefits of doing so. That is why he took a different approach than the one utilized by President Obama.
Biden didn’t pre-negotiate with Republicans. He produced his own plan that didn’t include massive spending on border security. As Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America’s Voice, told Ron Brownstein, Biden’s approach differed in that it recognized that “Republicans demand way too much in the sausage-making and, in the end, still kill off immigration reform.” Sharry went on to say that “Biden is presenting a bill that unifies and inspires the entire Democratic coalition. In effect, he is saying, ‘Work with me in good faith, Republicans, to get to 60 votes, and if you don’t . . . we’ll find a way to get something done with our 51 votes.'”
That is a perfect example of how Biden is walking the talk when it comes to what he means by unity.
Biden says he “would prefer” his stimulus plan “to be bipartisan” but it isn’t required:
“If you pass a piece of legislation that breaks down on party lines … it doesn’t mean there wasn’t unity, it just means it wasn’t bipartisan.” pic.twitter.com/1j14ktX9lM— The Recount (@therecount) January 25, 2021
The president knows that, according polling by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, 64 percent of Americans favor providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. That indicates that there is unity on the issue—even if it is not bipartisan.
Democrats Press Ahead on Stimulus as Biden Signals Openness to Changes
NY Times – February 3
WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration barreled ahead on Wednesday with a $1.9 trillion economic rescue package, even as they signaled a limited willingness to scale back direct payments for Americans in hopes of attracting Republican support.
Voting mostly along party lines, the House adopted a budget blueprint that included President Biden’s sweeping pandemic aid plan, laying the groundwork for Democrats to push it through, if necessary, on a simple majority vote, without Republican support. On the heels of the Senate’s party-line approval of the outline on Tuesday, the action was the latest evidence that Democrats were unified around what the administration has described as a “go-big” approach — and wary of repeating the mistakes of the 2009 stimulus bill, which Democrats delayed and slimmed down in a largely fruitless attempt to bring a large group of Republicans on board. …
Biden gets carpe diem.
Carpe diem is the way, carp ad infinitum is the wrong way.
Senate Lawmakers Back Biden’s Stimulus
…but Reject Minimum Wage Increase
NY Times – February 4
Democrats agreed to limit direct checks for high earners
but rejected several Republican amendments to a budget
resolution key to passing the president’s $1.9 trillion rescue plan.
WASHINGTON — Senate lawmakers gave their support to President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package just before sunrise on Friday, clearing a major hurdle for the legislation to proceed without Republican support after an overnight voting session that stretched for about 15 hours.
Vice President Kamala Harris arrived early in the morning to the Senate dais, where she cast her first tiebreaking vote, and the Senate adopted the resolution along party lines, 51-50, at about 5:30 a.m.
In the marathon session — known as a vote-a-rama and for which more than 800 amendments were drafted — Senate Democrats maneuvered through a series of politically tricky amendments that Republicans wanted to attach to a coronavirus relief package as lawmakers pressed forward with a budget plan that includes Mr. Biden’s economic aid proposal.
The resolution will go to the House, where Democrats do not require Republican support to approve it.
Still, the proposal did not pass the Senate without setbacks for some Democrats. Lawmakers dealt a significant blow to Mr. Biden’s plan by dismissing a major tenet: a measure that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
In an impassioned speech around 5 a.m., Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, called for his colleagues to back the budget resolution “in the strongest possible terms,” even after they rejected the minimum wage proposal for which he has been the Senate’s leading proponent.
“We now come to the end of the debate that has gone on for over 14 hours, and we end this debate in a moment in which our country faces more crises, more pain, more anxiety than any time since the Great Depression,” Mr. Sanders said. “But we have the opportunity to give hope to the American people and restore faith in our government by telling them that tonight we understand the pain that they are experiencing and we are going to do something very significant about it.”
By a voice vote, senators backed an amendment from Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, to “prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic.” …