Infrastructure week drags on, presumably towards an finish to the bipartisan work group charade

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin says it has to happen before recessing for the 4th of July break. If not, “it makes it difficult” he said, adding “I think we all feel that very strongly that we have to have a deal before we leave tomorrow.” Note that the Senate is nominally scheduled to be in on Friday, but the Senate is not going to be in session on a Friday before a holiday recess unless the government is about to shut down or something. The White House is providing no deadlines, but press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We’re certainly hoping to make progress over the next couple of days.” She also made a point of reiterating where the White House was unwilling to go—pretty brilliantly, too.

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Psaki reiterates to @Phil_Mattingly that WH opposes fees on Electric Vehicles to pay for infrastructure: “We are not for a Ford-F150 tax. I’m not sure why others are”

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) June 23, 2021

If by some miracle an agreement can be reached by this group, it has absolutely no guarantee of passing, even though there are 11 Republicans in the group: There’s no iron-clad pact among them that they’ll stick with it. Fellow Republicans are putting the onus on Biden. Sen. John Thune, Mitch McConnell’s second-in-command, said, “Where there’s a will there’s a way. If the White House really wants a deal, there’s a deal to be had there.”

Another Senate Democrat has drawn her opposite line in the sand. Sen. Elizabeth Warren told reporters Wednesday that she won’t back the plan, and thinks enough time has been frittered on the process. Her concern “is how much time they are chewing up—and how much delay they keep putting into the process when they recognize that’s not the whole infrastructure package.” She joins a raft of Democrats from moderate Michael Bennett from Colorado to liberal Ed Markey from her home state of Massachusetts who won’t support a plan unless the threat of climate change is dealt with seriously.

That’s where the “whole infrastructure package” Warren references above comes in. The bulk of Biden’s plan is going to have to pass via budget reconciliation, which doesn’t require Republican votes. It’s either that or get rid of the filibuster, and at this point it looks like budget reconciliation is a better bet. That’s in part because of movement from Manchin. He’s been the biggest obstacle, saying early on that he wouldn’t agree to it unless there was bipartisan negotiation on infrastructure. He got that, and he’s seen its limits. That might be why he’s budged a bit.

“I’ve come to the knowledge, basically, that budget reconciliation is for reconciling budgets. So it’s money matters,” Manchin told NBC News. He said he now supports funding for “human infrastructure”—the investments in child care, community college, and paid leave in Biden’s plan—as well as raising tax revenues to pay for it. “Republicans have drawn a line in the sand on not changing anything, and I thought the 2017 tax bill was a very unfair bill, and weighted to a side that basically did not benefit the average American. So I voted against it,” Manchin said. “I think there are some adjustments that need to be made.”

That’s actually pretty significant movement from Manchin, and bodes well for the budget reconciliation path Schumer and Sen. Bernie Sanders have kicked off. Manchin had to be Manchin and question the $6 trillion price tag Sanders is talking about for his package, but he has moved. So if you’re looking for a ray of hope after Tuesday’s For the People Act filibuster, there’s at least one.