Shout Out for AOC’s Prescient Quote: “I’m a no. This is bullshit.”

Any reader knows the great respect and admiration I have for AOC and her political skills.

For example, this is the best AOC quote ever:

 “I’m a no.  This is bullshit.”

AOC said this when she tried but could not convince her colleagues in the Democratic House Caucus to refuse to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill on the House floor before the Senate passed the Build Back Better (BBB) bill, that was shepparded through the Senate by Senators Sinema and Manchin.

The Infrastructure bill was the House’s only leverage over Senators Sinema and Manchin.

Once the House Dems passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, AOC’s position was, the Build Back Better plan would slowly be drained of programs and spending, and maybe actually opposed by Sinema and Manchin and it could very well die in the Senate, or, at the very least, be severely compromised by removing priorities near and dear to AOC and the other progressives.

And now, as Christmas approaches Senators Sinema and Manchin hold every BBB card in the deck, and the Democratic Senators who cannot accept the results of the Parliamentarian’s rulings on provisions of the BBB keep drawing out the process by endless iterations and appeals to get her to change her mind about all of the rulings she has already made.

This refusal to accept the ruling of the Parliamentarian then causes more delays and feeds the illusion that Manchin and Sinema call the shots (and delays also have the effect of empowering Senators Manchin and Sinema).

These other Democratic Senators’ inability to accept these rulings by the Senate Parliamentarian, or to keep trying to get what they want through new and different legislative language that results in the same policy becoming law, is the main cause of the delay in the Senate.

Then, there are the other Dems who come up with new and important priorities they want to be included in the bill, like the trillion-dollar plus Child Tax Credit.

The Dems problem is they keep saying Yes to everything and have, quite clearly, ended up with nothing, nothing at all.

Adding a trillion dollars in spending at this point in the Build Back Better process, of course, throws a spanner in the works.

Not to mention the Senate Parliamentarian has already indicated the Child Tax Credit is a non-starter in the Build Back Better bill, but there are Senators who showcase it for political reasons knowing full well it cannot get into the bill — and the net results are more delays.

If the Democratic Senators stop their endless and fruitless appeals to the Parliamentarian and just accept the call of the referee and move on, they can focus on Sinema and Manchin, and we will see if AOC’s political instincts about not voting for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill were correct or not.

AOC, to her credit, did indeed vote against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill for the simple reason that the Senate had not passed Build Back Better.

And once the Dems start accepting the Parliamentarian’s Byrd bath rulings, they can have final legislative language and the entire Democratic political superstructure can pivot to focus on securing Manchin’s and Sinema’s vote.  Then, and only then will AOC’s position on giving up the leverage of not passing the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill be truly tested.

But there will be many inside the beltway whose horseback answer on AOC’s quote cited above will be, so far, it looks like AOC was correct.

Did I mention, AOC has some skills.