In a week when the White House was focused on international affairs with the President meeting NATO allies and President Putin, Congress continued to search for a path forward on infrastructure.

After the collapse of the talks between President Biden and West Virginia Senator Capito, a bipartisan group of 21 Senators started to talk and try to put together a bipartisan package. The new group includes 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats. The number of Republicans is important as it will require 10 Republican Senators to join all 50 Democrats to stop a filibuster and pass a bipartisan infrastructure package.

The bipartisan group is led by Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Senator Rob Portman. Their package is in the neighborhood of $1T, which seems to be enough to assure Democratic support but not too high for Republicans. The reason infrastructure could be the issue where bipartisanship makes its last stand is that roads are crumbling, bridges are falling down, and broadband is limited in both red and blue states.

While bipartisan talks have continued, progressive Democrats have continued to push their leadership for a broad bill that includes traditional infrastructure and the so-called human infrastructure that can include everything from Medicare for all to large scale programs to jumpstart the Green New Deal. Senator Sanders, who is a leader of the progressive wing and also Chairs the Senate Budget Committee, has shared with Senate Leader Chuck Schumer a $6 Trillion infrastructure program that would include a long progressive wish list that Sanders would like to push through using the Budget Reconciliation process.

In my view the $6T wish list bill has little chance of passage, not only would it fail to get any Republican support, but there are likely to be several moderate Democrats who could not support that large a package. While there is much talk of Democrats using the Budget Reconciliation process, it is important to remember that Reconciliation requires ALL 50 Democratic Senators to vote YEA, and I don’t believe the progressive agenda has that broad of support in the Senate Democratic caucus

Senators Sinema and Portman are reportedly going to meet with White House officials on Wednesday to measure the support of President Biden for their progress to date.

Biden/Putin

The White House was generally pleased with the trip to Europe that included the G7 meeting, NATO, and the summit with Putin. I was interviewed by CNBC after the Putin meeting and made the following points:

CNBC

“Both leaders showed measured respect for each other, and the return of ambassadors was likely a pre-arranged accomplishment that has a good optic to it,” said Tom Block, Washington policy strategist for FSInsight.

“A trip that put the U.S. on the same page as our allies all should add to Biden’s image as a seasoned politician and leader, which is likely to be calming for market participants,” he said.

Disclosures (show)

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