Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast.

This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is Brian Reedle. He's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He works on fiscal and

economic policy. Brian has previously worked as the chief economist to Senator Rob Portman

and as the staff director of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on fiscal responsibility and economic growth,

he writes frequently for many, many publications, National View and others, and he's, of course,

written for City Journal. So, Brian, thanks very much for joining it. Glad to be here, Brian,

thank you. You know, Congress is on recess this week, as most people know, who follow these things,

but there's a ton of news coming out of Washington. Last week, the Senate struck a temporary deal

to raise the death ceiling through December. The week before, Nancy Pelosi delayed a long

promised vote in the House on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure

bill, which already had passed the Senate and has been championed by the Democratic Party's

moderates.

The party's progressive wing, however, insisted that the infrastructure measure be linked to a separate

multi-trillion dollar social policy bill called

build back better. The moderates, above all senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema,

they say they won't vote for build back better if its price tag remains in the stratospheric

$3.5 trillion range. So that's a lot going on,

a lot to take in. You know, Brian, you follow this more closely than almost anybody I know. So perhaps

you could help make sense of it all. You know, what has gone on over the last couple of weeks?

What's the current state of

play in Congress with regard to those two major bills? And how likely is it that one or both

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