Biden extends hand to Republicans on infrastructure, but reminds them he has voters’ approval

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So yes, you can see how going right to the middle and landing on 28% would be an absolutely outrageous compromise for the Republicans that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin insists will be happy to find middle ground to help pass this bill. Manchin suggests a rate of maybe 25%—which isn’t the middle.

That could be part of Biden’s strategy here. On the one hand, demonstrating that he is willing to consider Republican ideas and inviting them to sit down and talk seems a fool’s errand. Because they will never agree to help him. So there’s the other hand—leading Manchin to the self-realization that he’s an idiot. It could work. Because Republicans, however nice Biden is to them, will never help pass this bill.

Meanwhile, Biden is maintaining the position that opposing this bill on the basis of that tax increase is politically very dumb for Republicans (and Manchin) because ordinary people are ‘sick and tired of being fleeced. Kerry Eleveld has all the recent (and some historical) polling there, demonstrating that for at least the past six years, more than two-thirds of the American voting public has said corporations “don’t pay their fair share” in taxes. On Biden’s specific plan, 65% say “yes, raise corporate taxes to do that.”

Biden is taking that polling, as well as all the other polls, into his Oval Office meetings with Republicans. He’s telling them flat-out that “Republican voters agree with what I’m doing.” His team sends that message every chance they get.

“If you looked up ‘bipartisan’ in the dictionary, I think it would say support from Republicans and Democrats,” senior Biden adviser Anita Dunn told reporters this weekend. “It doesn’t say the Republicans have to be in Congress.” That’s reinforcing what Biden himself said in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago when he unveiled the new infrastructure package. “Everybody said I had no bipartisan support,” on the COVID-19 relief package. “The overwhelming bipartisan support were Republican—registered Republican voters.”

Biden’s message last week is very close to Biden’s message to Republicans Monday. “Debate is welcome, compromise is inevitable, changes are certain,” Biden said last week. “I would like Republican—elected Republican—support. But what I have now is, I have electoral support from Republican voters. Republican voters agree with what I’m doing.”

So is Biden putting on a show for Manchin (and Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who decided that her flaky maverick pretense this year would be supporting the filibuster)?

He says no: “I”m not big on window dressing, as you’ve observed.” Meanwhile, he’s certainly going to make sure that Manchin knows that West Virginia got a D grade for its infrastructure. Using a combination of private and public data, the White House has graded every state, reporting on the condition of roads, bridges, power grid, health, broadband availability, and housing affordability as well as other metrics.