I’M ENJOYING HER: Oh my: “I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion,” says AZ Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. “Perhaps Senate Republicans are smarter than they’ve looked in this infrastructure negotiation — or maybe they just lucked out. After the GOP’s negotiating group announced an agreement in principle on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Chuck Schumer announced that he’d move forward on both that bill and the parallel $3.5 trillion package containing everything Republicans wouldn’t support. The bigger bill would move through reconciliation, cutting out the GOP entirely as long as Schumer can hold all 50 of his caucus together. Not so fast, Kyrsten Sinema declared shortly afterward.”
Plus: “If Sinema’s getting worried about the ticket price in relation to purplish Arizona, Joe Manchin has to be getting the shakes in deep-red West Virginia. West Virginians have a long track record of being in the Bacon Party, so some of this might be mitigated by how much pork-barrel spending Manchin can direct to the Mountain State. However, with inflation burning a hole in working-class buying power and Democrats attempting an end run to get a lot of progressive wish-list items funded under the rubric of ‘infrastructure,’ it remains to be seen just how enthusiastic Manchin will be for the Pelosi-Schumer Special.”