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| 11-dimensional chess is fun to think about, but 3-dimensional chess actually exists. Star Trek–compliant set via eBay from WorthPoint. |
Funny thing happened when I heard how the Biden administration offered a compromise infrastructure package for Republican consideration yesterday, cutting about $550 billion from the original $2.25 trillion price tag, after Republicans failed to meet a Tuesday deadline to offer their own counterproposal—or rather didn't happen: no howls of protest from those who fear Biden's appeals to "bipartisanship" are a Clintonian effort to chop down his own program. Perhaps because Republicans rejected it so swiftly most of us didn't even notice it flying by.
I'm here to tell you the administration wasn't expecting anything different. The proposal didn't give in on any principle, for one thing: it suggested reducing spending on traditional bridge-and-highway infrastructure, the stuff the GOP professes to like, and broadband access, to levels more like the ones the Republicans had suggested, and shifted some of the less traditional proposals (on R&D and manufacturing, backing "homeshoring" of industry and competition with China) to other bills making their own way through the process, but it didn't give any concession to McConnell's demands on the semantics of the word "infrastructure", and it didn't give an inch on the tax issue:
