I really (reallyx10) hope that I am proven wrong, but I am very worried that yesterday’s vote is the death knell for BBB.
Decoupling them makes no sense to me. What was the big hurry? So the conserva-dems (aka Corruption Caucus) need 10 days to see the numbers crunched? So, six promised of them promised to vote on it in its current form? Is that enough? Why couldn’t they just vote on it yesterday if they are committed to voting on it anyway? So, why do they need the numbers and why now? And why not just wait 10 days or two weeks and stick to coupling them and passing them both at once? What exactly was accomplished yesterday? Was passing BIF on Nov 6 instead of Nov 15th that important that leadership had to renege and decouple the two?
Getting the CBO report is only an excuse to not vote, to whittle it down, or to just vote thumbs down. Seems pretty obvious to me. And Pelosi has been pushing this decoupled vote more than once for unknown reasons. I strongly suspect that, while they would love to see BBB pass, Pelosi and Biden are pretty much okay with just the one bill. They can declare victory on that alone, and a bipartisan victory to boot.
Finally, I just came across this; Rawstory ('They have no leverage') identifies an actual rat:
Freshman Republican House member Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) admitted she was taking the long view and attempting to cripple the influence of the "Squad" -- six progressive Democrats, including Reps, Alexandria Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) among others.
"I weakened their hand. They have no leverage now," Malliotakis explained before adding, "I voted against AOC and the squad tonight."
According to Andrew Sollender of Axios, Malliotakis "told Axios that progressives will no longer be able to hold the bill hostage and predicted Build Back Better will be 'drastically weakened' in the Senate or 'die altogether' as a result of the infrastructure bill passing."