Briahna Joy Gray, host of the “Bad Faith” podcast and former National Press Secretary for the Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) 2020 campaign, said Wednesday that Democratic lawmakers are currently engaged in a “game of chicken” over a pair of infrastructure bills.
During an appearance on Hill. TV’s “Rising” Gray said that “corporate Democrats” and progressives in Congress are currently engaged in a “game of chicken” over whether to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill or the reconciliation bill first.
“Now there’s a bit of a game of chicken where the conservatives in the Democratic Party are agitating now to say, ‘Okay I want to vote for the bipartisan bill first,’ as if that’s not a clear signal that they are looking for an excuse to get out of voting for the more progressive reconciliation package,” Gray said.
Gray questioned why efforts are still being made to bifurcate the two bills, stating that lawmakers are approaching this situation as though only one can be passed.
“I think we have a long way to go to actually seeing whether House leadership will fight, genuinely fight, and be willing to take all of this legislation that so many people are so invested in, in order to make sure that both the bipartisan and the reconciliation bill actually get through,” Gray said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called on moderate Democrats to move forward on the $3.5 trillion budget resolution in order to advance other key pieces of legislation.
“The budget resolution is the key to unlocking the 51-vote privilege of the reconciliation path for our transformative Build Back Better bill,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democratic colleagues on Tuesday.
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