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Old and busted:

New hotness, version 17B:

How odd. Wasn’t inflation Putin’s price hike/tax hike? Corporate greed? Actual growth? “Transitory”?  Non-existent? None of those messages have broken through in polling for Biden on the economy or on his overall job performance, and especially on economic stewardship. Right now his RCP aggregate on economic job approval is worse than his overall standing (33.2/62) in an election cycle that is all about the economy.

The trendlines on the right/wrong direction are even worse, as Guy Benson notes:

Yes, that’s only 13% of the American public believing we’re moving in the correct direction under Joe Biden’s single-party governance. That measure has its own ambiguities, as Democrats might be more inclined the last two weeks to consider that question in light of the Supreme Court’s final series of decisions. However, it has long been a fairly decent predictive metric for upcoming elections, and that is precisely why Biden is been desperately casting around for messaging to distract people from the reality of his rank incompetence and radical errors.

Biden’s message yesterday is as untrue as it is desperate. Biden came into office making it clear that he could steamroll the GOP to enact his entire progressive agenda, and has continued to operate with that assumption in mind. He’s had plenty of opportunities to pivot off his impossibly radical agenda to find a negotiated set of agreements to improve matters, but refuses to do so. Most of the policies that Biden complains are being obstructed were contained in his Build Back Better plan that Democrats never bothered to negotiate with the GOP in the first place. Instead, they attempted to slam it through the Senate on reconciliation, and couldn’t sell it to all 50 Democrats in the upper chamber.

And even with it slimmed down to roughly 80% less than its original $5 trillion spend, Biden still can’t quite make the sale with non-Republican Joe Manchin:

Sam Runyon, a spokesperson for Manchin, said her boss is glad that Democrats have agreed on a prescription drug proposal that they could pass with a simple-majority vote under special budget rules.

“Sen. Manchin has long advocated for proposals that would lower prescription drug costs for seniors and his support for this proposal has never been in question. He’s glad that all 50 Democrats agree,” she said.

But the Manchin aide waved off speculation that Schumer and Manchin are close to a deal on a broader reconciliation package that would include bold proposals to tackle global warming, a top priority of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and other Senate Democrats.

“Suggestions that a reconciliation deal is close are false. Senator Manchin still has serious unresolved concerns and there is a lot of work to be done before it’s conceivable that a deal can be reached he can sign onto,” she said.

The problem isn’t Republican obstructionism. It’s Biden’s policies, which are so radical that he can’t even sell them to all Democrats. Someone keeps trying to leak that Schumer’s making progress on reconciliation, but that’s been happening for months with nothing to show for it. Easter was the last-ditch deadline, then Memorial Day, and then Independence Day. Now it’s Recess Day, according to The Hill:

That means a budget reconciliation package isn’t likely to reach the Senate floor before that fourth week of the upcoming monthlong work period and Schumer may even keep his colleagues in town for the first week of the August recess, which is supposed to begin Aug. 6.

The reconciliation envelope itself expires on September 30 with the FY2022 budget under which it passed. The Senate could pass another in October for the FY2023 budget, but Democrats are not likely going to have the majority of the House or the Senate in January, which means that it will do Biden no good.

It also will expose him as a demagogic liar and buck-passer. Fortunately, it appears that Americans have largely realized that about Biden and are looking for a new direction that doesn’t include Dodgy Joe.

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