Infrastructure stupidity personified

Rob Portman and Mitt Romney should know better than to trust Joe Biden's 'clarification'. Sen. Portman and Sen. Romney said that they're convincedthat Joe Biden misspoke. Romney told CNN’s State of the Union "I think the waters have been calmed by what he said on Saturday. And, look, I called the White House, and the White House called around to, I think, each of us who had been negotiating and said, OK, look, we’re going to make clear exactly what the president means. And I do take the president at his word."

What type of idiot signs onto a bill that provides tons of political cover to Democrats to pass on a straight party-line vote a bill that doesn't have anything to do with infrastructure? This should finish Sen. Romney's political career. If he's that stupid, then he doesn't belong in the Senate. Period.

Sen. Portman ought to know better, too. He rationalized his support by saying "We were all blindsided by the comments the previous day, which were that somehow these two bills were connected, the reconciliation bill, which is a trillion dollars of social spending that’s going to be entirely partisan, the largest tax increase in American history, on the one hand, and the other hand the infrastructure bill, which is bipartisan, has no taxes, focuses on core infrastructure, and has been bipartisan from the start. And I’m glad they’ve now been de-linked and it’s very clear that we can move forward with a bipartisan bill that’s broadly popular, not just among members of Congress, but the American people. Over 87 percent of people who we’re told by one poll believe we ought to do a bipartisan infrastructure bill because it’s needed.

Sen. Portman appparently hasn't figured it out that Democrats are treating the bipartisan bill and the reconcilliation bill as attached. Biden said that they aren't attached but Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said that they're attached.

After watching the entire interview, I'm even more depressed. Sen. Portman should never negotiate another deal of any importance again. What does Sen. Portman think is happening when he hears this? Regardless of what Joe Biden said on Saturday, Pelosi and Schumer control the House and Senate schedule. At this point, Biden is a figurehead. He isn't the leader. If the bipartisan bill isn't the only game in town, Republicans should stop negotiating.