I admit that I’m a simple gay man who doesn’t have the years of experience negotiating legislation that I would hope those in Congress have. However, unless I am completely misremembering my Civics from high school, when a bill passes one chamber of Congress and passes to the other it can be amended and revised by the other and then sent through committee for final negotiation. This is how we’ve been doing it since the founding.
We HAD a deal with Manchin and Sinema. They don’t want to live up to it. So we stop playing by rules that don’t work for us. The House agreed to pass the BIF IF the Senate would pass the BBB. It was to be simultaneous so neither could pass a bill and leave the other without what they wanted. This isn’t working. So we do it the old fashioned way.
Take the BIF and let the House amend it with some of the BBB. It doesn’t have to be all, we can agree that it won’t be everything we want. That’s politics. But then it’s in the Senate’s court as to whether it passes or not.
We keep acting as if the House if somehow inferior to the Senate, but they are equal in terms of legislation. The House is under no obligation to pass anything the Senate passes (remember all the Bills Pelosi sent to die when McConnell was Majority Leader? Or the Bills that Boehner let die when Reid was Majority Leader?)
If Manchin and Sinema want to gripe that they already had a deal with the Republicans, the House is NOT bound by it. We should stop acting like it is.
If Manchin and Sinema don’t want to vote for cloture, that’s their prerogative. But then it’s on them and the Republicans to fight against their own legislation. If they say that it wasn’t the Bill they sent to the House, legislation doesn’t work that way. Neither the House or Senate can dictate to the other what is brought to the floor, much less passed.