Why Democrats' $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill is a losing game

Looking ahead to the midterms, the Democrats would benefit from approaching the social priorities in this bill — childcare, education, and clean energy investments — on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than ramming through one of the largest government expenditures in history on a simple party line vote.

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That being said, this is unlikely to happen. Currently, Democrats are operating under the assumption that the redistribution of wealth by taxing the rich is politically valuable, and will not cause any electoral backlash — even if this is done by eschewing bipartisanship. However, the viability of that approach, based on my own experience along with past history, suggests that their theory could be problematic.

And to be sure, Democrats also face a number of considerable hurdles as they move forward with the proposal. They need 50 votes in the Senate to pass this bill through budget reconciliation, and are banking on the votes of moderate Senate Democrats, including Senators Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — neither of whom has indicated that they are on board with the bill.

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