Money where your month is

Source: BY MATTHEW CHOI, Politico • Posted: Tuesday, June 29, 2021

After the will-he-won’t-he veto scare of last weekend, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t satisfied with President Joe Biden’s reiterated commitment to the bipartisan infrastructure proposal on Saturday. The Kentucky Republican also wants his Democratic counterparts, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to unlink the bipartisan deal from their ambitious legislative agenda that they plan to push via reconciliation.

“Unless Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi walk back their threats,” McConnell said, “then President Biden’s walk-back of his veto threat would be a hollow gesture.” POLITICO’s Burgess Everett has more on McConnell.

Mitch McConnell

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Pelosi has said the House wouldn’t consider a bipartisan package unless a budget bill by reconciliation also passes the Senate. Both Pelosi and Schumer have long been pushing the parallel approach to get some of their more progressive priorities across. White House press secretary Jen Psaki passed the buck to Congress on Monday, telling reporters, “It is up to them to determine the sequencing of the legislation.”

As for Biden, the president didn’t hint at any moves toward separating the bills in a Yahoo News op-ed Monday . Amid the usual talking points pushing for major “human infrastructure” investment, Biden acknowledges that the bipartisan deal “is missing some critical initiatives on climate change that I proposed — initiatives I intend to pass in the reconciliation bill.”