What, No Champagne? Markets ‘Remarkably Indifferent’ To $2 Trillion Biden Plan
As soon as Joe Biden finished speaking on Thursday evening (and even before he started), market participants were already fretting about the "uphill battle" his $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan" faces in Congress.
That was the narrative Friday, as folks looked longingly toward the weekend after another five days of D.C. rancor including an impeachment, Donald Trump's second in 13 months (an "impressive" feat, to be sure).
According to one FX strategist at Credit Agricole, Biden’s stimulus
It seems to me that concerns over Republican obstructionism in the Senate to Biden’s stimulus plan are overdone. I’m not trying to say Republicans won’t be obstructionists, they will. But the dual wins in Georgia have given the Democrats a majority, and this provides them with two paths forward that don’t require any Republican support.
They can either go down the budget reconciliation road, although this would expend its one use for the year, or they can eliminate the legislative filibuster. Schumer has already stated his openness to eliminating the filibuster and it is something the progressive base would like to see accomplished in its own right. It would be in line with McConnell’s move to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, and a stalling economy with a million jobless claims a week provides plenty of political cover for such an action.
My guess is that Joe Biden will publicly state his reticence to eliminating the filibuster, but Republicans unwillingness to cooperate will cause Schumer to go ahead with it anyway. I can’t see Biden vetoing legislation based on principled opposition to eliminating the filibuster, and so the bill will become law. This will also have the added advantage of making it easier for the Democrats to push through more of their legislative agenda for the remainder of the 117th Congress as well.
with a 50/50 Senate I don’t think the dems are well served with filibuster elimination talk; they needed better results from Maine and North Carolina at least.
Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, Krysten Synema, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski should be the main Senate power brokers for the next two years, and the rest will come down to what they can achieve via the reconciliation process.
I suspect Susan Collins may be motivated to repair her reputation, anyway I hope so.
It wouldn’t hurt to try to include as many Republicans in the reconstruction of the nation as are willing to cooperate and add constructive thinking.